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Could Eminent Domain Break The RIAA Stranglehold?
Thales_of_Miletus writes "Findlaw has an editorial today on fashioning a compulsory licensing scheme (the IP version of the real property eminent domain takings power)to allow third-party online music distribution to proceed without the RIAA's permission. Thoughtful arguments are made about the role of IP in a free society and restoring the public benefit function of copyright."
To me this is like saying the government using Eminent Domain to take people's property is a good thing.
We only need one reform: incredibly short terms for patents and copyright. Although any decision is arbitrary, I think that 3 years is more than generous enough in the case of copyright these days, and that 7-10 years is more than generous enough in the case of patent.
7-10 years for a patent is insufficient for some industries. Take pharmasudical companies for instance. It often takes 10 years to get a new drug approved for use on humans by the FDA. This 10 years is after the patenet has been acquired. 3 years for copyright sounds good, though.
As good as her ideas may be, she makes a big goof when she says that her values are based on "objective" truth. Objectivism is based first in value judgements.
Geez. You're kind testy.
The point was that 'history is lost all the time' not that the world is icky, people die, and so there's no point in living.
What the heck does 'injustice' have to do with losses in the historical record?
Do poor people starve if history books aren't published?
Or is it that you might not get your grant to write more history journal articles??
If you follow the career of Lenin, you have an even more effective solution. Annex all property to the state, ban music as "Decadent", and put all the band members, hackers, and music copiers into concentration camps or slave farms. No more pointless debates about napster anymore!
The Interstate Highway system was not built until *after* WWII. The USA fought and won WWII with rail.
The Interstate Highway system was pushed through by President Eisenhower, whose earlier training for road-based tranport in WWI deployment exercises (that's One, as in the Great War) was a disaster. Of course, the major automakers, tiremakers, etc., had something to do with it too.
There have always been holes in history. There always will be holes in history.
A photographer friend of mine a few years back told me of a drunken party he took place in back in the late 50's. A collection of original glass plates of photographs of American Indians had been found, and people were having fun by throwing them to the floor and smashing them. (this is a real story, not flamebait). Shit like that happens all the time. Beautiful buildings are torn down. Big archives of magazines or books are cleared away for recycling.
That's life. The day we decide all of everything has to be 'preserved' for historical purposes is the day history stops. They pour in the formaldehyde and we all die.
Deal with it.
This is an excellent argument for copyright in the era of printing presses and manual typesetting. Then, publishers needed to recoup the large fixed cost of typesetting, and they couldn't do it on a small number of copies. Typesetting was the biggest bottleneck, and the whole industry was organized around it.
Today, for digital distribution, setup and distribution costs aren't much of an obstacle, and people can do it all for themselves. So what makes you think the comparison is valid?
Where it's paid for, on a per-play basis. The music may be "freely" available TO YOU, but the radio station or MTV paid for the right to play it. And YOU are paying, indirectly, by being exposed to advertising.
Everything free is worth what you paid for it.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Compulsory Licensing makes a helluva lot more sense when you stop thinking of Corporations as People who deserve Constitutionally Guaranteed Freedoms.
/. ID is lower than the real Bruce Perens'.
If you're a Natural Person, then you deserve access to whatever is in the Public Domain in addition to what you pay for. If you have to break encryption, compress, expand, xor, rot13, format-shift, time-shift, or export to another country then it's your skills against theirs sans DMCA, and we all know how that one ends.
If you're a FAKE Person (a Corporation), then you deserve access to nothing unless you have explicit permission in the form of a license (which will probably cost you several bags of moolah).
If you're a Natural Person, you deserve the right to safeguard your IP for a limited time, after which it becomes public domain.
If you're a FAKE Person, you deserve the right to NOT complain about ANY of these issues because YOU DON'T EXIST. You deserve the right to go about your business in a peaceful manner until such time as We The People decide we don't like you anymore. And we will tell you so, in no uncertain terms, when we YANK YOUR CHARTER.
The catch is: If you're a FAKE Person, then you DO NOT have access to the public domain. Only the PUBLIC gets that, see?
I'm thinking this ought to apply more to Copyright than Patent. Someone else will have to write those rules. And anyway, if Corps aren't people and can't hold rights, then there's probably no need for Compulsory Licensing in the first place. Mickey Mouse was just ink on paper until we made Disney Corp a Person. Now he's a commodity that should have reverted long ago.
(All copyrights mentioned in this post are the property of their respective holders, though I think they ought to all be tarred, feathered, and run out of town.)
The real Threed's
--Threed
Wonder if your post will even get noticed this far down the thread.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
As you may have noted, most of us agree with the need for copyright. However, many people (myself included) believe that Congress has overstepped its bounds in extending copyright in both term length and scope. Seems to me that the "limited times" clause has been thrown out the window. What good is it to have a term length longer than a normal human life? Those works will not fall into the public domain and be freely available to all within the lifetime of anyone who was around when they were created. That seems to defy the purpose of limited the length of a copyright term in the first place.
Furthermore, I thought it had been plainly obvious to people that the right to reverse engineer was essential to progress and innovation. Now that right is under serious threat from the DMCA.
One of the most onerous effects of the DMCA is to allow copyright holders to dictate terms of how some bit of information may be used via contracts and enforced by the anti-circumvention clause. Whatever fair use rights we had left are basically history now when we want to use some information that is only sold in encrypted format, even if that encryption is of the most rudimentary and laughable sort. The owner must only declare that it is meant to protect the work, and it then becomes illegal to circumvent it.
While the French may have screwed up by abolishing all copyrights, we may be heading for a simlar catastrophe by giving nearly absolute rights for an effectively unlimited time to copyright holders. I hope we come to our senses and realize that copyright is nothing more than a bargain between the creators and the public, and the public has been getting the shaft for a long time now. When was the last time any copyrighted work became public domain? We need to restore balance to the bargain. Unfortunately we're up against people with A LOT of money, and they don't plan on giving up ANY of their newly bought control.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
But dammit, the world owns Mickey Mouse by now
The world will never own Mickey Mouse. Disney has DEEP pockets.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
By the middle of the 21st century, the major cost of any material item will be the 'intellectual property' charge.
It has always been the intellectual property charge for anything. It goes like this oversimplification: Bob says, "Gee, that sure is a pretty rock. I wonder if I can trade some pussy for it." And hands it to Jill. Jill says, "What a nice rock." and tosses it on the pile of other pretty rocks she's collected. And they have sex.
It is the shared idea that the rock has value that counts. Why else would people care so much for little green pieces of paper? It's because they can buy their sex, drugs, rock n' roll, cigarettes, and booze with it. And isn't that what a corporation wants guaranteed repeat business.
Tobacco is the perfect product. Customers are addicted; It takes a long time to kill them; and best of all, since they die young the government doesn't have to pay outall the social security they've collected.
It's the collective idea and its specific implementation that counts.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I always find it interesting how people quote the Founding Fathers as authority, even though in many cases they disagreed amongst each other. In other cases they were wrong and we had to Amend their decisions to correct them. Many times their comments are only valid within the timeframe that they had lived and we can see from historical perspective why that is the case. It all depends, often these same people on some other issue are quite willing to point out these deficiencies in blindly following our "gods."
One note of historical perspective... Right after the US achieved it's freedom and own form of government, the French attempted to do the same.
The French weren't quite so reasonable in their argumentation and many of the extremists took over the revolution. One aspect of this extremism was that all copyrights were revoked, and all information was totally free.
No publisher could afford to make the investment in printing something that was quickly copied by everybody else and sold for a fraction of the cost. The end result was an increase in the number of tabloid rags at the cost of real literature. Stuff so wild and ridiculous that it didn't matter if the content only lasted a day.
The French later realized that this was a bad thing.
It's important to learn from history...
Forgive the mild indescretion of self-linking, but I was speaking of this very occurance a couple months back. The title makes quite a bit more sense if you read the link :-)
l
http://www.doxpara.com/read.php/music/trinity.htm
A number of writers here have stated that Eminent Domain should never be applied to the benefit of individual corporate providers; while I'd normally be inclined to agree, I note there is a strong compulsory licensing program (administered through BMI and ASCAP) that effectively gives radio stations the freedom to play whatever music they like on the air, as long as they hold to certain restrictions(no more of a certain band in an hour, they may only play "official releases"[grr], etc.)
Mass outlets of content should be more free and open, not less free and tightly controlled. As elements of culture become progressively more productized and trademarked(even our stadiums are monetized, at the cost of the legitimacy of our homes), I do believe it's clear that, at least conceptually, there is some dispersal of rights and "ownerships" over that cultural artifact.
Now, what's interesting is the question of whether an artist has the right to prevent their work from becoming such an artifact in the first place. Far from an insignificant argument--it's one thing for "The Red Shoe Diaries" to be compulsory licensed and sold online; it's another for the average person's diary to be downloaded from their computer and sold online! One conclusion you could reach might be that, once the product was commercialized by its author, *but not before*, it was fair game for automatic distribution. Such creates a fluid and "free" market without arduous restrictions on the flow of money.
This does seem to imply that buyers of a good have rights and expectations over that good, even before sale. One could imagine access within a convenient marketplace to be among them.
*scurries off to think this through further*
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky, CISSP
http://www.doxpara.com
>You should be asking whether there is some greater public function being served by granting a longer term of copyright than a few years.
Exactly.
>... intellectual property is not a fundamental right like free speech or trial by jury
Exactly
Did Schubert, Chopin, Beethoven, Handel, etc.?
No. They didn't did they?
They created music that most definitely lasts, but yet it had NO protection whatsoever (in some cases they bemoaned that fact, but produced anyway).
Protection for production of works for money does not produce better content- nor does production solely for the sake of money. I can point to numerous bands such as the Spice Girls to illustrate that point. Do you hear much of them or any of their music? No? Yet, you WILL hear one of the oft played Rolling Stones or Aerosmith songs on a rock station- they've technically not been a band for a while now (though Aerosmith's been back for a little a while back...).
While I've no illusions about either of the "classic" bands being there for the money, they were there as much for the music and it showed. The same can't be said for over 90% of the stuff that's playing today on the radio that the record companies are shoving down our throats.
As someone wise once said- you don't go into computer science for the money, you go into it because it's in your blood. If you do that, the money will follow. I believe with all my heart that this is the case for my chosen profession as well as almost every other- including being an author, actor or a musician.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
What makes you think they're going to bother with anything that lasts these days- that doesn't make as much money. If your argument held any water whatsoever, why do we have Britney or Backstreet in the first place?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Great public need? Heh.
Eminent domain is simply the civil power of government to sieze property, provided that the original owner is justly compensated. (with the amount of money determined by mutual agreement, or set by the courts) Property may also be siezed through exercise of police powers, but that's not immediately relevant.
At any rate, the government can take anything, at any time, for any purpose. It doesn't have to be important. It's most commonly associated with road widenings since people own property that abuts the road right-of-way. But it isn't exclusive to that by any means.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Well, I'm not entirely certain how significant this would be in the case of a common law copyright. (where a work is never published and effectively does not exist)
However, in the case of published and copyrighted works, it's A-OK. Society directs the government as to the terms under which artists will recieve statutory copyrights. If this includes compulsory licensing, then it's STILL a better deal than publishing without a copyright at all. (for publishing permanently destroys common law copyright)
It's not even anything new. There are already compulsory licensing arrangements with regards to music.
As for the historical aspect, why on Earth would people bother permitting there to be grants of copyright if we weren't getting something out of it? We constitutionally require copyrights only to be granted where doing so promotes the progress of the arts, if they're to be granted at all. (they don't have to be) The granting of certain monopolistic rights by the government to a copyright holder is a quid pro quo. Since the author has no power to copyright and publish works independently of the government, it ends up being effectively one-sided. Me, I'm an artist, I think it's fine.
Another goal of any society is to improve itself. You want real freedom? Abolish copyrights altogether - they infringe on the freedom of the non-copyright holder in order to function.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I am a creative person, a professional artist, and I make ALL my money from my art. Although I think 3 years might be a little short, my proposal has been for 20 with a single 10 year extension, and a number of limitations elsewhere, that I can go into more detail on if you like. Your point is refuted.
As for the GPL, it's mostly making the best out of a bad situation. When copyrights are significantly deminished, the thinking is that the need for the GPL is likewise diminished.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
But they have waived that right. For after all, when an artist receives a copyright, they are granted it by the government, under such terms as the government will grant it under.
If the government says that your options are:
*Protect your work by not publishing at all (meaning you can really _never_ share it or profit by it)
*Protect your work through some means other than copyright (meaning it's public domain, and people are free to reuse it if they can manage, AND that the government itself has an interest in assisting in that and can bring lots of resources to bear)
-or-
*Protect your work under the terms offered by the government and be happy for the opportunity.
There is debate as to how retroactive changes in the terms can be, but hey - Congress can arbitrarily revoke copyrights if it really wants to, so I'd expect they're plenty retroactive. (despite the hassles this has caused with term extensions)
Sheryl Crow will have to take the good along with the bad, if such a system were implemented; it's not her call to make.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
No, copyright law is entirely a construct based on the US Constitution. At least, within the US. Foreign copyright laws have no power within our borders, save that that we choose to grant them, founded on our own laws, and not on the foreign ones. (e.g. the UK could decide that copyrights are permanent, but it has no weight here.)
There is no such thing as international copyright, merely agreements between nations to grant domestic copyrights reciprocally.
Heck, foreign countries have screwy ideas about artists having natural copyrights - I wouldn't exalt them as a model. The US utilitarian system is way better in theory, we just need to keep in in balance. (and the foreigners are just as capable of losing the balance themselves - WIPO is international, after all)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Nope. The Constitution demands that copyrights be assigned to the artist. There is work for hire, but that's somewhat different. (and there are those who are against that too. I'm ambivalent.)
At any rate, while artists like myself may have all kinds of different motivations that compel them to their art, Congress is empowered not to fulfill the desires of artists, but to assist society by establishing a copyright system. Where the two conflict, artists must choose between their motives and taking advantage of copyright. It is not without strings attached. An artist who does not with to further society through statutory means is free not to do so, but not free to also reap the rewards as though he had.
Where is the societal interest that must be present in permitting artists to withdraw their works after forcing us to protect them?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Okay... do you understand the difference between a positive right and a natural right?
Free speech is a natural right. How would you reconcile it with your presupposed natural copyright? Remember, the former is inclusive of saying anything, so long as we're talking about it in its natural state. Only when we establish a government and grant to it willingly the ability to prohibit full natural exercise of that right can they both coexist, but this makes copyright (which is very inaptly named) a positive right.
When seen in the light of copyright's actual status as a positive right, you'll find that there's very little incentive for people to grant you a copyright for the reason you state - it's a quid *no* quo. As the people can do perfectly fine without a copyright at all, what they get out of it as opposed to the artist is of significant concern.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I saw the same thing - plus there was another interview by some other channel (not MTV or VH1) before that, where he said that basically he does it because he's a nice guy -- satire and parody are protected, so legally, he doesn't *need* permission -- but because he's a nice guy, he goes and gets the artist's permission anyway.
I have a lot of respect for the guy -- he could just be a dick and do it without permission -- but instead he takes the high road and actually talks with the artists beforehand.
IIRC, the whole Coolio bit was a misunderstanding between Weird Al, Coolio, and Coolio's agent -- Al talked to the agent, who said that Coolio was cool with it, when in fact he wasn't. Coolio came out *after* the song was released, saying he wasn't OK with it - but by that time nothing could be done, as it was already out there. Al has publically apologized on several occasions for the mixup.
My question is, does the Tasini ruling give parties with no existing copyrights the ability to sue to get electronic copyrights? That is, would Napster (or mp3.com, etc.) simply be able to sue the RIAA for the rights, or would they have to have physical rights, too? I sincerely hope for the former, as the latter would be little improvement over the status quo.
For too long, the favor has swung toward the copyright holders. We can only hope that this signals an end to the debacle that has resulted from attempts to get music on the internet.
Yes, I'm still a junky. Are you still a bitch?
You are bending this one pretty far. These days people get quoted all the time by folks whom they do not wish to associate with. Politicians use one another's words all the time. RMS doesn't seem to like Open Source-er associating him with them. I suspect most Biblical writers would want nothing do to with many of the folks who quote them these days. For that matter, the people who wrote the US Constitution probably wouldn't be too happy with the people who quote them in these types of arguments either.
People should always be allowed to agree with you, even if you don't agree that they agree with you. It would also be difficult for people who's view oppose yours to explain how their view oppose you if the law was opposed to allowing them to present the opposing view.
It's not that I don't agree with you're
sentiment, but I would be opposed to the negative impact any law enforcing this would have.
Dan
Dan
A home movie would be private property, and you would discretion over who did or did not see it. If you held the copyright, you could be forced to liscense it out, whether you had any interest in doing so or not.
Compulsory licensing only (AFAIK) applies to already-published musical works. No one can force you to allow them to publish an unpublished musical work, or any non-musical work. So your home movie example is not a good one. Just spreading knowledge of the existence of a work doesn't count as "publishing" either -- the work itself must be presented to the public, usually defined as offered in some way to people you have no direct relationship with.
Also, I don't know if this has changed, but it used to be an inviolable principle that an artist, regardless of what rights he may have signed away, had the right to determine the first publication version of his work. Bob Dylan actually denied a physical license to his own recording company for (if I recall correctly) Mr. Tambourine Man until they got a recording he liked. Meantime the Brothers Four and the Byrds were waiting in the wings with versions of their own; even though the Brothers Four version was finished first, it was the Byrds who got copies to market fastest, making them famous.
(Or so the story goes. See The Straight Dope for the details.)
I personally dislike both compulsory licensing and eminent domain; one way of looking at your property rights is examining the extent to which others are allowed to use your property without your consent, or to forbid you to use it in certain ways.
-- Old Man Kensey
That applies to great public need, freeways, bridges, infrastructure to support society. This is just music. I love music, but in no way does napsters existence promote, or threaten societies' structure. While it would be great if the RIAA board all died of a horrible disease and some HUMANS took over the job, I'd even settle for a reasonable payment scheme for online music, provided it was not a pay per listen and the quality was CD level. Half the MP3's out there sound like crap anyways.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
no, he wasn't.
Really...
How does this make distribution costs not an issue for wheat in the Sarhara or fresh water in Southern California? What about steel in Florida or plastics in Peru?
While it might be possible to make anything anywhere you still need the requisite raw materials. Even if tech can perfect alchemical transformations which method costs less energy: transformation or transportation?
Technology can make physical things cheaper...I doubt it can ever make them free.
Herb
Herb
Again, feel free to sentence me to death if my questions annoy you. I'll come back in 5 minutes anyway. -Sythi
In theory, this doesn't happen, because it breaks "payola" laws that state that all sponsorship of particular songs must be disclosed immediately after the song is played. However, intermediaries called "indies" are paid by the record labels to get certain songs onto radio playlists. In the past, this would involve getting cash, promotions, and the traditional bribes of sex and drugs, to the program directors of radio stations. Nowadays, the indies seem to basically take their cut and pay the rest straight to the radio stations.
There's a series of articles at Salon on ever-more-transparent channels between record companies and radio stations.
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The fix to the FDA taking ten years to approve something lies in fixing the FDA, not in extending the protection.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
And when was the last time you drove a patented car?
Yes, compulsory licensing is already a fact. Interestingly enough, webcast licenses are just now coming up for negotiation. See JWZ's writeup for more good info on the issue.
Remember: it's a "Microsoft virus", not an "email virus",
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
It is up to the courts and congress to set a fair price scheme in place for any compulsory licensing. As the article says, if the two sides cannot come to agreement on a fair price then they go to arbitration. The arbitration panel then sets the price.
This is the same thing that happens when the government takes your land for public use. They must compensate you at a fair price. When the two sides cannot agree on a price they go to arbitration.
Wether this works in reality I have no idea, but that is the basic idea.
Q.
Actually there's precedent for having someone who wants to distribute a work they don't have publishing rights to be able to do so over the objections of the owner of the piece. It's called the compulsory license. Any broadcaster can play any song they want, whether the recording company likes it or not, as long as they pay the appropriate royalty for doing so. This would simply be an extension of that right.
And even the members of the RIAA are in favor of this sort of license, at least when it's them doing the broadcasting. They've already asked a court to consider their use of songs for their on-line music service to fall under the compulsory license rules so they don't have to negotiate individually with the artists for rights to use the songs.
I wonder if the NY Times has to separately license content for inclusion into their microfiche archives? If not, why should the format of the achive dictate the need for additional licensing? It looks like there is now legal standing for freelancers to seek compensation for being included in any type of repository that is not a warehouse of old newspapers.
A shopping mall in the Fort Worth Texas area wanted to expand. So they took many people's homes to do it and paid they what their tax assessment value was. Home owners somewhat further out were now inundated with traffic, but at least they got to sell at market rates to businesses doing the normal purchase offering with incentives. However the lousy living conditions if they stayed probably would have screwed them over.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You are correct. That practice also existed. In part they could succeed because the prices of CDs were around double that of vinyl, while production costs were lower. The first couple of years, "demand" was so high it outpaced production capacity and the record companies could therefore charge more on the basis of supply/demand, and got richer doing so. So yeah, that happened. Had there been a compulsory reproduction law in place, there would have been more incentive for independents to build their own production plants, and the supply would have been higher. This shows even clearer that the record companies, because they have a monopoly on the production, can manipulate supply. And one reason they hate online delivery (not just free sharing) is because it would destroy their capability to do that manipulation.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If you choose to publish, you are making your relationship with the public. Anyone in between is irrelevant. If you publish a book, I can buy some somewhere and stand on the street in just a trenchcoat swaying in the breeze and sell them, or even give them away. But you get paid per copy so quit your whining. If it's popular, you get rich. If you want to choose to NOT have a relationship with the public, then don't publish at all.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Before the CD, music was distributed on platters of (supposedly) vinyl consisting of a spiral groove of two orthogonal analog waveforms. This was the medium for most of the 1900s. The effect of the music monopoly on this medium was that only one manufacturing company, usually owned by record company itself, made the medium. Due to this monopoly, there was no incentive to produce good quality records as that did cost a few cents more per unit. The end results was bad quality, with some major record companies like RCA producing total shit (I bought several, and every one of them was horrible quality).
I believe one reason the CD rose in popularity so fast was that the quality was so much better, not just because of the vinyl hiss, but also because of all the clicks and pops from the garbage embedded in the vinyl. The CD wasn't totally immune from this damage, but it could correct a lot of it, and quietly skip a lot more, and you never noticed it.
Also, in the early days of the CD, record companies hadn't yet learned how to cut corners and reduce costs without completely destroying the product. Now days they are learning. The quality of CDs is going down and down as the record companies are trying to push the edge of what consumers will accept.
If there was competition in the media production phase of music production, with a compulsory licensing that allowed anyone to produce the medium and change whatever they wanted to consumers, and simply pay the publishing company that owns the rights to the recording (or the artists directly if they own it) the statutory or arbitrated fees, then the consumer would have a free market choice on who makes the CDs they buy.
In the day of vinyl (and even still today to some degree) a few companies were making reproductions of music on quality media. Usually the costs were very high, almost double. I soon found out that the original record company demanded a fee that was at least equal to, and in some cases more than, the retail cost of their own garbage. This would be a fee they would collect for not even producing the media at all. Compulsory and/or statutory licensing would have prevented this rip off.
There is precendent in statute now. This is already how the law works for certain kinds of reproductions (see The Harry Fox Agency and this licensing information page) and performances (see ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC), although it still does not work perfectly as reported in links found via Google.
Still, I think this would be a good step forward to have this kind of law in place not only for media reproduction, but also for digital online delivery.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I think there are enough reasonable uses for copyright longer than 3 years. A three year copyright only promotes the rapidly changing 'pop medias', but not the media in more esoteric domains such as research papers and such (where it may take longer than three years to produce a new work). And those are the people we need to support the most.
On idea I've thought about it a copyright renewal fee, particularly one that grows expotentially with each renewal. It is those kind of changes that would make Disney et al rethink the cost of renewing all of their older media, which I doubt would get a return on the investment of renewal. Such money might go the the library of congress's digitation efforts or the like.
Anm
Would someone please mod this guy's misinformation down. At least until he decides to read the freakin' article. sheesh.
Anm
I agree. So by the same token, is it okay to close up copies of GPLd code as "eminent domain"? After all, the intellectual property isn't being taken away, it is only being copied.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
That wasn't how I read the article or the summary of the court case. The NYT received private permission to privately publish a private article. The court said that they could also publish this privte article in a private online database provided that the author was compensated under eminent domain. Did I read this wrong? Is the NYT not a private company? Are not its print and online publications private as well?
I am aware of the prevalence of quasi-governmental redeveloment agencies that act as a legal front for the private use of eminent domain, but at least they have to pretend like they're a government agency. The NYT got a governmental ruling, but will any other newspaper need to get one as well, or does this ruling enter into common law for any private publisher to use for their private benefit?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Eminent Domain is a process whereby the *government* pays the property holder for forced takings. "We're building a freeway through your yard, you can't do anything about it because we own the cops, but the Constitution does require us to at least pay you for it."
The New York Times and other publishers are NOT the government. They should not get the benefit of Eminent Domain. The consequences would turn all of property law on its head.
Consider the implications if this were extended to other non-governmental organizations, or even individuals. "We want to build a hotel on your beachfront property, which has been in your family for five generations, and you must sell to us by law." "We want to take over your company, and your stockholders refuse to sell, tough shit!" "Sorry Bob, I'm going to move your fence three feet closer to your house, and you can't stop me."
Or the really scary one if you're an Open Souce fan: "We will use your kernel in our OS despite your objections, but we will pay you market price for it."
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
What reason does a licensor have to offer anything above the compulsory rate? Doesn't this create a ceiling on the amount a writer or musician can make on their work?
Wouldn't it be better to just limit the *term* of the copyright instead of 95 years of minimal royalties?
I meant to say :)
But Hammy was for a very centralized federalist government controlled by the rich
20 years for corporate copyrights? First thats kinda discriminitory, and second the copywrite would then just be held by and employee, who would be contactialy bound to give up all rights to such copywrite, while it still being in the guys name.
You seem to have forgotten the purpose of copywrite when you say it should be lifetime of the creator, our founding fathers envisioned copywrite to be a very limited monopoly, just long enough to encourage people to create artistic works, not to insure that the artist gets as much money as he can from the work. And indie artist is not less likly to create a work if the copywrite was 20 years. Actually that person is more encouraged to create more works, as he cannot assume, that he can make money off such work for eternity. The only problem I see, is a corporation being more hesitant on funding a project that would receive money slowly overtime even past the 20 years. Creative works that can easily be copied rarly make much money past 20 years, and eventually corporations will just have to get used to the idea, that they can't feed of something forever.
Well, it depends upon which framer your talking about, I believe Hamilton was pro IP, while I know Jefferson was anti IP. But Hammy a very centralised federalist government controlled by the rich, anyways. :P
I find the author's arguments compelling, and IANAL, but he is! Anyway, my somewhat cynical side can't help but think that it would be extremely unlinkely that the Government would enforce "emminant domain" over music.
For one, the Music/Media companies, have been VERY succesfull in lobbying all branches of government to seeing their side. (Executive branch: restrictive FCC regs/FBI holding Sklyrov, Courts: DeCSS/Napster rulings, Legislative: DMCA)
Secondly, I would venture to think that the extensive _private_ music collections of many people would give the courts the impression that an emminant domain is not needed. An online emminant domain might be sutible for newspapers, since most people do not recieve or archive all newspapers, but not for musics, because people personally archive their music into collections.
However, i'm also unsure as to whether music would be as quick to be proclaimed emminant domain, since i'm not sure if musics is as an essential "protected speech" as the press.
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
Go with me for just a second here.
/.:
Say record company A produces a record that becomes hugely popular. I'd like to dissect exactly how it becomes popular.
Part of that increase in popularity comes from using public airwaves to broadcast the song on radio. Part of the increase comes from me telling my friends what a great song it is. Part of it is just from the general sheep mentality of the population.
My question to
How much of the value of a popular work is derived from no effort of the publisher and should be returned to the public at large, and how long after a work becomes part of our culture (like the Happy Birthday song) must we continue to be indebted to someone?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
The problem is that the solution is incompatible with Republicans (sucking up to Big Media and Big Media Money) and Democrats (sucking up to Big Media Money and Big Media).
Big Media is even harder to fight than Big Oil. Big Oil is just money (which every politician needs). Big Media is money and influence over voters (which every politician needs more). Get AOL/Time-Warner pissed off at you and see if you can run a decent campaign.
Scared yet?
--The basis of all love is respect
Of course, the music industry won't be quick to settle for anything less than their $15 per CD fee, but the truth is, since most of the cost of that CD is in the distribution process, the actual cost of the material is rather small, and a fair arbitration panel would recognize that fact. In fact, with napster (or its users as the case may be), ALL of the distribution, packaging, marketing is taken care of by napster and its users. The unaccounted for cost is the royalties to the band.
Ok, so the record companies do pay money for marketing. So what? That should not be a factor when considering the proper fee since without that marketing they might not have ANY sales, in which case they wouldn't have to worry about these issues. In the end, we're looking at what?
I don't remember the exact amounts but from what I recall from old arguments, the artist probably gets about $1 per CD in royalties. Assuming there are 10 songs on the average CD, thats 10 cents per song that the artist recieves. And thats about what napster should be required to pay per song. That amount could ALMOST be completely covered with banner ads, although some revitalization in the banner ad business will be required to really make a go of this. However, marketers have an advantage with napster users. Direct marketing will be effective with them with regards to music. You know exactly which music they're listening to, and if you want to fire off advertising relating directly to that music, the case is likely that someone might actually pay attention to that advertising and it might be worth the cost.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
The Constitution justifies copyrights and patents only because they "promote progress." It does not recognize intellectual property as a good thing in itself.
On Constitutional grounds, you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking whether there is some greater public function being served by granting a longer term of copyright than a few years. If the answer is no, then only the shorter term of copyright is Constitutionally justified.
Remember, intellectual property is not a fundamental right like free speech or trial by jury, which exist in law because we feel we're morally entitled to them. It's a manufactured right, created because the Framers felt that granting "limited monopolies" would be useful to society. When the cost to society of IP laws exceeds their benefit, they should be changed.
I've thought that this might be an appropriate response to force life-saving drugs to market (AIDS, etc) faster than waiting for patents to expire. The same could be said for Copyright:
USGov: I'm sorry Mr. Eisner, but Mickey Mouse is too important to the culture of the USA for a single corporation to control; you're work is now public domain (for US citizens only [ed: this leads to its own problems vis-a-vis a new class of quasi-protected works]), here's x dollars.
On the surface, we (the people) get (free) access to works protected either by patents or by copyright. However, the implication of doing this is to equate a principle of Property (in the Tangible sense) Law to (so called) Patents, Trademarks and Copyright ("Intellectual Property" in the vernacular of the law). The danger, then, would be that this treatment of protected ideas the same as Property gives credence to content holders' arguments that "piracy" (however defined) is the same as stealing property thereby perpetuating the myth of "Intellectual Property".
Regards,
Slak
Good one. That's the first thing I thought when looking at the story.
Besides, you never know who's side Eminem is on. He's nutty like that. But, if anyone serves a good challenge to the industry, it's his finger-flippin psychopathic self...
(See Nik)
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
All it means to the RIAA is:
1. They must negotiate the right to publish online separately. They'll just add another clause to the existing contracts and continue as usual.
2. Older content that was not licensed under the newer contracts must be renegotiated for electronic format with the artist. That just means that older content is not likely to make it into newer distribution channels if the artist doesn't agree or can't be found.
So less music makes it into the channel. And we all lose more of our history and old favorites becuase RIAA chooses not to redistribute or can't.
Putting further restrictions on content flow is not a good thing, even if it is limiting the RIAA.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
" how does this apply to any of the music that was ever traded on napster?
It doesn't, but then that's not the point of the article. The idea here is that this ruling could force the IP holders (in this case the music labels) into allowing their material to be distributed over the net as long as the distributor pays a fair price (agreed to either by negotiation or binding arbitration).
So this does not mean FREE MUSIC NAPSTER!!!! is coming back - but it might mean you can pay a buck or two and download the music you want. Napster for pay.
Point taken though, the arbitration will be a nightmare. Consider how you'd calculate the value of any given song traded on Son of Napster. Number of trades (easy to rig)? Chart position? (easy to buy, and screws independent artists and actual real music) User feedback? (easy to rig and buy with enough MTV time).
You're making this way too complicated. Here's an example, data from Amazon:
CD: Madonna, "Music". List price: $18.97
Number of tracks: 10
Price per song: $1.90.
Alternative: divide price of CD by # of minutes of audio, that's the per-minute price for any given song on the disc.
So instead of Napster users paying the RIAA an RIAA set per-song price, they'll be paying the RIAA a court arbitrated per-song price.
No... the end user will be paying the record label (I don't know why the RIAA would be involved at all).
Stop thinking about Napster, start thinking about CD-Now (or Amazon, or B&N or whatever) where you can pay and download any given track from their libary, instead of buying a whole CD and waiting for it to land in your mailbox. This decision would (if I understand it correctly) allow CD-Now/et al to do this as long as they give a cut to the label that owns the copyright. That cut has to be negotiated, of course.
My apologies...missed it.
My bad.
Assuming this argument works - that Napster could force music labels to license their music - this would just lead to numerous other lawsuits as to how much this licensing should cost. If the RIAA determines the licensing, it could in theory set "compensation" so high that Napster still can't do anything. Also, it can easily vary how much each song is worth. It's a good idea in theory, but in practice, it's just going to cause more aggravation IMHO.
And when we decide we don't have to learn from history...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The real problem is the way copyright terms have been extended far beyond the the realm of sanity.
That's the way "holes in history" get created lately: companies are able to prevent independent collections of relatively recent information from even getting created. In the US, copyrights haven't expired for any work since shortly before Mickey Mouse was created; that's another part of the "copyright bargain" that has gotten completely corrupted.
The simple solution to this problem is compatible with both conservative ("the good old days did it right!") and liberal ("give us our civil rights!") political philosophies: restore copyright terms to sane periods, so these problems don't need to come up, ever. Let them enter the public domain just a few decades after they're copyrighted, the way they were supposed to.
Heck, there's a lot of older music I'd love to have access to. If it weren't for the way that the media (RIAA just one member) have locked it up in endless copyright, Napster (and the like) would be able to offer it for free (or for money!) without needing to worry about lawsuits. (And likely the new music coming out would be better, since it'd have to compete in terms of quality not just marketing!)
What about a person's freedom not to publish?
Still quite intact, this just limits selectivly publishing. You can still hold on to your unpublished articles all you want, but once you publish them, you shouldn't be able to prevent them from being diseminated.
The Findlaw editorial makes an interesting case. Given Judge Patel's obvious leaning toward the industry, I'm not at all sure we'll see the idea tried in the Napster case, but someone will raise the issue sometime. If the industry is smart, they'll offer something similar just to avoid having the market yanked out from under them, but then they've not shown themselves to be smart so far...
--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
This sounds like it's a measure to prevent monopoly power. If so could the government rule to put a compulsory license on the Windows APIs to force interoperability? Wine would actually work well with that.
Mal3
Non gratis rodentus anus
As I said, the periods are arbitrary decisions. There will always be some group who can (and will) argue that whatever periods are selected are not long enough in their special case.
Reducing the period of the limited monopoly will have the desired effect, because artists/creators/publishers/RIAA/whoever will have to continue to invent new things to sustain a steady income.
We only need one reform: incredibly short terms for patents and copyright. Although any decision is arbitrary, I think that 3 years is more than generous enough in the case of copyright these days, and that 7-10 years is more than generous enough in the case of patent.
A lot of people seem to be getting hung up on this point. Sure, a song isn't as important as a mass transit system, but neither is the effect on an artist whose music is required to be made available (or a record company whose music...) as serious as the effect on someone who is required to move their home/farm/whatever to make way for a mass transit system.
Note that the Constitution's purpose for authorizing congress to create IP laws was to further the arts for the benefit of society. Just as eminent domain over real property is exercized for the benefit of society, limitations on the monopoly granted on IP through copyright, such as compulory licensing, are implemented for the benefit of society, which is entirely in line with the goals for which IP rights were created in the first place.
However, i'm also unsure as to whether music would be as quick to be proclaimed emminant domain, since i'm not sure if musics is as an essential "protected speech" as the press.
I'm sure you're right that music wouldn't be considered as important to keep available to the public, but as stated in the article, compulsory license already exists for music. I quote:
The Court offered the example of a law that allows noncommercial public broadcasters the right to use music or photos, either by voluntary negotiation or -- importantly -- by compulsory license.
"My Occam's Razor was dull, so I tossed it and got a Mach III."
Convert RSS to HTML - integrate webfeeds into your website
Could you please post some links to information about these two cases? Thanks!
Here, or here, or just search on google.
This kind of crap is nothing new. The only thing new about it is how egregious governments are becoming about it. Now, they no longer need to lie and say it's to build a road, or expand a school. Now, they'll just come out and say it's so we can hand it over to a developer to build a shopping center.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
This won't happen.. An argument MIGHT be able to be made if the RIAA/member organizations weren't making efforts, but given the services out there that allow downloaded music for a buck or more per song, compulsory licensing won't happen. Even if it did, the likelihood of it being on terms palatable to the average Napster user is about zilch. Combined with the fact that some of the recording industry is working with Napster already, it's not going to happen.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
I thought it said "Eminem Domain"...What kind of power does this white boy hold???
TheGeek
http://www.geekrights.org
TheGeek
http://www.geekrights.org
Kill the monkey
The RIAA wields the power that it does because the government granted that power through insanely long copyright lengths and draconian protection of those copyrights (see DMCA). The solution to this is NOT a new law; we've already seen the damage that these laws can do. The answer is to go back and re-write the existing law, and to get it right this time!
Compulsory licensing is already implemented with regards to music broadcasting, I'm pretty sure. That's what ASCAP and BMI are for; radio stations can play any song they want, and they just pay a bit more to ASCAP or BMI (more like ASCAP _and_ BMI) for the priviledge. So that's the kind of thing we're talking about. Not "taking" the music from the labels.
Furthermore, this seems silly, because napster would still have to pay royalties. At least as much as a radio station, and probably more since it's music-on-demand. So, there would still be usage fees and/or tons and tons of advertising to support it, both of which seem to be death knells for that service.
---
I suspect that many people will take a similar route and find smaller scale file sharing systems. Many companies have (unofficial and probably illegal) mp3 servers behind their firewalls that the employees use for swapping songs. Simple unadvertised web sites and ftp servers as well as Windows filesharing (or Samba) make it easy to set us similar arrangements for other groups like college buddies. That happens now and will continue to happen no matter what the conclusion is with Napster and similar services.
A legal, public solution is still necessary. Napster was an interesting case because of the legal ambiguities involved. They tried arguments about how they weren't actually trafficing the illegal files but rather providing an infrastructure that others could use either legally or illegally. A nice argument but it didn't hold up in court.
Even if Napster had won or another decentralized service managed to thrive so the RIAA didn't have anyone to sue, we would still have a lot of _illegal_ filesharing going on. We may not like or agree with the laws, but it's pretty clear that the level of music copying going on right now is not legal according to the laws that are on the books. Even if you believe that file sharing helps album sales, you are still faced with the reality that the copyright laws prohibit that copying.
Personally, I would love to see reforms to the copyright laws and see the RIAA recognize that these services actually help them in many ways (I have spent a lot more money buying CDs than before because friends have given me mp3s to listen to and I've ended up buying the album) but even if that doesn't happen we need some way to get a legal public face to the file sharing problem. Something that imposes reasonable royalties is much better than saying that any public service is contraband. Maybe the RIAA would finally stop harassing everyone that way.
- Russ
metamod: -1, imaginary moderation
The shareholder is always right.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
"Congress shall have the power to..." promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by curing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Look at that. It is a sentence. Sentences follow rules according to the English language.
Congress has the power to
What power does Congress have?
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts
How is Congress supposed to do this?
by curing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
Congress does NOT have the right to regulate copyright, it has the right to "promote the progress of science and useful arts", and it is allowed to do that by "curing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries".
If it isn't being done to promote science and arts, Congress doesn't have the power to do it.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
That is false. Copyright exists solely for the purpose of promoting progress. Read the Constitution.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
This has already happened. Some folks in New London, CT, are getting their houses seized just so Pfizer can have bigger digs. The town government justifies the seizure as "public use" because they'll get more tax revenue out of Pfizer than Grandma. Great rationale, huh? Since they define revenue generation as a public use, it basically justifies any whoring of themselves they can come up with. I seem to recall another town in New York state doing the same for a shopping center.
This acticle brings up an interesting thought. What if rather than having copyright we just went straight to compulsory licensing. We set up a government, or pseudo-government agency (like Fannie Mae) to negotiate with producers of things that are currently copyrighted on fair compensation for their sharing of their creations with society. If no agreement can be reached through negotiation, then arbitration is used to reach a settlement. Once the creator of the work is compensated, the work goes immediately into the public domain.
This would still serve the purpose of copyrights as stated in the Constitution of promoting progress in the arts and sciences by compensating creative people. Of course the plan is not without problems. You would definately have some folks who would say, "Well I don't want my tax dollars going to fund satanist trash like Hootie and the Blowfish". Of course there are now people who say they don't want their tax dollars funding corporate wellfare, tobacco farmers, deploying armed forces in foreign countries that you didn't even know existed until the troops were deployed, sports stadiums, medical research, (insert your favorite cause here). All of those things currently get paid for with public dollars though.
The only real argument is does enough of the general public believe that this serves the greater good. I think a strong argument can be made for this model.
From the preamble to the US Constitution:
We the people, in Order to
Note that nowhere in the Constitution does the word individual even appear.
But, you do bring up an interesting point. Let us posit for a moment that you are correct that individuals should be the sole owner and controlling authority over the product of their work. This points out exactly the problem with intellectual "property". If I buy a copy machine and make fifty copies of Stephen King's
- The Green Mile
those copies are the product of my work (the work of making the copies), not his. Sure the contents of those copies are based on work that he did, but everybody's intellectual work is based on the work of others. Would Thomas Edison have been able to create a patentable lightbulb if Benjamin Franklin and others had not done the work to understand electricity? The only work product Stephen King produced was that original draft copy he made (and even that was ultimately the work of many, including editors and proofreaders).That is why I (and others) put property in quotes when discussing "intellectual" property. It is only property in as far as it is defined as such by law; a law which was intended to "promote the general welfare."
You gotta remember, the court only does what it can with the shit that it's dealt. The real solution to the problem is to bring a lot of pressure to bear on Congress. While it's true that they do get a lot of money from the big corporate interests, it is we who put them in office and we who can take them out again.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Goddammit, the USA had declared folk music illegal. Isn't that sick?
To answer your question, if something becomes so popular that it's part of the national culture- be it a catch phrase, song, picture, movie, cartoon characters, etc., then the public owns it. Sure, the author/publisher deserves a some profit for it for a little while, perhaps a single lifetime. But dammit, the world owns Mickey Mouse by now, just as much as it owns Ichabod Crane, Merlin, or Oedipus.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
I hope the courts come to a similar decision in M$ vs. everyone. Microsoft has, by virtue of it's monopoly, illegaly claimed rights over the device drivers of almost every PC hardware company in the world without paying a dime. The source code for Windows device drivers should be bought by the government with a small programming fee going out to each manufacuer, and be placed in public domain.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
You misunderstand the ruling -- Tasini can be compelled to allow the Times to republish the article in an online database.
Irrelevant, since that is not what is being argued in the article here.
There are times when content producers, especially musicians, object to being associated with other content producers.
Suppose the NRA wanted to make a video about guns and include a Sheryl Crow song as background music. I'm assuming Sheryl Crow, given her anti-gun views, would strongly object to that. But the second you talk about compulsory licensing of content you immediately step into these problems.
That's why the author of this article brings in the eminent domain argument. When they need to tear down houses to build a new sports complex for some NFL team, some homeowners would prefer not to do business with the team, but eminent domain allows the government to force the homeowners to do so on the grounds that they are creating a public good.
The author is arguing that if the RIAA doesn't bargain in good faith, that Napster should be given the right to exercise a compulsory license in music. But, as he notes, you wouldn't be able to do that just for Napster.
So what happens when the NAMBLA decides it wants to start selling MP3 downloads from its site to raise money? Or [fill in the group here]
And what happens when such a solution is inevitably applied to other forms covered under copyright laws?
Well sure, but you might as well just say Congress could declare that all music published automatically belongs to the RIAA. Congress could do anything, but I thought what was at issue here is what would be the best way to resolve the issue not what Congress or the courts could theoretically do.
Compulsory licensing assumes that the only interest copyright holders have is monetary. That is simply not the case.
But this violates my right to choose who I associate with.
For example, a few years ago an essay I wrote about rape was stolen and put on a porn site, because it did well in search engine searches on "rape."
Now even if the porn site were willing to pay me $1,000 for that short article, I would not be interested in granting them a license to publish.
But once you get into compulsory licensing, this sort of discretion goes completely out the Window, and creative types can no longer choose for themselves who they will associate with.
Suppose John lets Alice to publish his work, and John gets a reward. Then as I understand it, it is Alice who has now the rights to republish John's work and put him for an arbiter in worst case.
In that story, Alice and John had a relationship, but if now somebody called Pete drops in, does Pete *really* have the right to put Alice for an arbiter? Or does Pete need to negotiate with John? Isn't it like this: Alice has the right to republish such that John doesn't get a monopoly?
--
Bizar technology?
If you read the article, it clearly states that both sides negotiate with each other to settle on a liscencing fee, and if no agreement can be reached, both sides must accept binding arbitration by an independant panel, which will set a fair value for the property.
Deal with it? That's like saying, "Hey, Your house is on fire. You could call the fire department and they could try and put out the fire. But, you know, Houses burn down all the time. Deal with it."
I think the best way to 'deal with it' is by working to prevent it.
If anyone's noticed, TimepassTown just got screwed too. All that's left of it is the Radio. At least that can keep me alive....
It mentions that fees and royalties would be required for this to work. Which means that the RIAA doesnt get to say no, but it does get to have some of our money out if it. I dunno about the rest of you, but I'm sticking with my local trading groups and free things like audiogalaxy for now.
I am !amused.
Well, they've been on a roll lately.
--
PaxTech
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
I'm as anti-RIAA and pro-(the-way-it-used-to-be)-Napster as anyone, but I think compulsory licensing in any venue is a terrible idea. This is entirely the wrong target. The right target, of course, would be the RIAA's monopoly power over the music industry. Regulating monopolies just never seems to work -- e.g. Microsoft and its cheerful violation of previous consent decrees. The only way to deal with a monopoly is to break it up.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
That's easy to say if both the free option and the pay option are equal in functionality and usability, but what if because of the couple bucks it gets, the pay option was able to provide better features, greater selection and higher bandwidth. Are you telling me nobody would pay for it?
I think the question is how good does Napster need to be in order to get people to pay for it.
At some point, each of us has hated the US legal system and the evils it produces. Then you see something brilliant, simple, and reasonable like this and it all seems worth it. Maybe. :^)
Oh, and free speech ain't too bad either. :^)
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Here you go. But I assume he's on the side of the RIAA, not against them.
Registrant:
Goliath Artists (EMINEM2-DOM)
444 Washington Blvd., #5522
Jersey City, NJ 07310
US
Domain Name: EMINEM.COM
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
Paul D. Rosenberg, Esq (EP2695) paulbunyan@MAILEXCITE.COM
Goliath Artists
444 Washington Blvd., #5522
Jersey City , NJ 07310
(201)8760313 (FAX) (212) 935-0554
Technical Contact:
Rogas, Adam (AR1789) adam@PHUTURSOFT.COM
PhutureSoft
3013 La Mesa Dr.
Henderson, NV 89014
702-898-1234
Record last updated on 31-Oct-2000.
Record expires on 22-Nov-2002.
Record created on 22-Nov-1998.
Database last updated on 30-Jul-2001 02:05:00 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.PHUTURESOFT.COM 206.159.180.2
DNS4.REGISTER.COM 209.67.50.254
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
Well, without it we wouldn't have the highway system (no, privately owned interstates are not efficient enough to be a viable idea), which means that you'd pay a lot more to go places or for goods that have to be shipped to your area.
If you're going to complain that the government doesn't fairly value property when exercising eminent domain, that's one thing. But the concept isn't inherently a bad one.
"IP on everything" - seen on a shirt worn by Van Jacobsen - the guy who came up with the TCP compression used over PPP that helps telnet-style protocols) at a linux convention a long time ago
Sanity is a sandbox. I prefer the swings.
Only if you hold the copyright. A home movie would be private property, and you would discretion over who did or did not see it. If you held the copyright, you could be forced to liscense it out, whether you had any interest in doing so or not.
The problem here is that, while possibly helping napster and screwing the RIAA (which is what we all want, right?), it also takes certain freedoms away from the little guy. If I copyright something personal *just* for the sake of protecting it, I could, theoretically, be screwed into releasing something that I never wanted anyone to see.
Then again, IANAL and all I really know of this is what I read in the article. I could be wrong.
Finally, IP freely!
But most types of raw materials are quite widely available. So most products can be made in many places. It has already been many years since not all Ford cars were made in Detroit.
If a product is only made in one (or a few) places (because few people know how to make it, or are allowed to make it), but purchased all over the world, then distribution is the bottleneck and those who control distribution (not production) can charge whatever margin they want. This is what the DCMA is really about -- control of distribution channels.
But, if many people in many parts of the world can easily make the item, then no producer and no distributor can restrict the availability of the item. Hence there is no significant margin in production and there is no significant margin in distribution.
This is why there's such a fight for intellectual property rights. Only by controlling the knowledge of how and what to produce can power be maintained by those who value it. By the middle of the 21st century, the major cost of any material item will be the 'intellectual property' charge. With production automated, almost everyone who is employed will be working in service jobs by 2050. And then it gets more interesting.
For all the gory details, http://www.consumerrevolution.com/IPR.html
From the article: Compulsory licenses help to avoid abuse of that monopoly ? preventing, for example, a recording company from seeking to reduce competition (and competitive pricing) in the sale of its works by restricting the number of venues where its music is sold online.
If this statement is true, then using DMCA to restrict online sales to those protected by proprietary encryption should not be allowed because this would essentially require all purchases to made through the publisher directly, hence eliminating competition. This is especially true when you consider that proprietary encryption is not supported on all operating systems a potential consumer may use. For example, you cannot view e-books on Linux or BSD or MacOS X because Adobe only offers a Windows and Mac 9.x client.
However, this is only a partial solution, if at all. Copyright and patent lengths are way too long for a modern information-based economy where so much information is produced, yet very little serves the public interest. It's time to restore balance to the owner / consumer scale.
In following the various legal stories surrounding intellectual property these days (Napster, NY Times freelancers, etc), I've been concerned about the "hole in history" problem the article talks about.
The idea of "compulsory licensing" looks like an interesting solution, but I'm leery of letting the government set prices for anybody's work.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
But why treat IP differently from other "work products"? Should the government get to set the price you can charge for building somebody a bookcase? or a car?
"If you think about it, it is acknowledged by all sides that the government already "sets the prices" for people's intellectual property work."
I disagree. The creator/owner of a piece of IP certainly benefits from the "rights of exclusion," but the government isn't setting the price.
You, as the consumer, set the price. If I write a bad novel, you set the price by not buying it. If I write a great novel, you set the price by buying it. The government is not setting the price - they are simply forcing you to negotiate with the creator for the right to use the product of their work.
Too often, people forget their real recourse - if somebody wants too much money for their work, don't buy it.
Of course, I'm not an absolutist about this. Monopolies on essentials can change the equation. If I own all the food, and you need food to live, I have too much power in the negotiation. But if I own all the Madonna CDs, and I want more money for them than you're willing to pay, I don't see that you have a moral right to force me (using the government) to sell them to you for less money.
There are some real issues here, especially about fair use and the creation of "holes in history." But an awful lot of folks who have never created any intellectual property themselves seem to be real eager to tell those of us who do that we have to give it away for free.
I can choose to give away my IP (using the GPL, for example) but you shouldn't be able to force me to give it away.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
The record companies would not go under even if copyright were only 3 years. A GREAT deal of the money is made during the first 3 years. There wouldn't be less content due to lower incentives, there would be MORE content due to the need to actually work to maintain your revenue stream.
Under capitalism, you only need to give as much incentive as necessary to get the product to market - any more is waste.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Tabloid rags are still around today, so copyrights certainly didnt cure that problem. The French are a bit snooty about their "culture", so they overreacted again when they thought it was being diluted.
Basically without copyrights the printing houses couldnt afford to commision the creation of new books. But they could print whatever they wanted at the same cost.
So they print what they think people want to buy. There is no artificial scarcity of tabloids, or popular books, and no artificial abundance of books that noone wants to buy. No artificial monopolies. Whats wrong with that?
If no printer was making a book that people wanted- then the first publisher to do so would stand to make some good money.
If another printer insisted upon printing books that were not worth buying, or were overpriced, they would go out of business.
Good writers have other motivations for writing books, so content would always come around, though one might never see millionaire authors.
Yes, but that was a choice made by the artist, not an unrelated 3rd party.
Is there any evidence that the artists actually want their stuff traded for free? Or are we imprinting (that's not the word I'm looking for) our "information wants to be free" mindset on them?
We all know that the RIAA is against this, but what about the artists. There are artists that have come out against it (Metallica), and some indepentants that are for it, but I never got the sense that there was a prevailing opinion either way.
Maybe its something I missed.
Wow - I think you just summed up the GPL, FSF, Napster, and every other socialist hippys mantra in that one remark. Good job.
I suppose you think its okay to copy software as well. I suppose you feel its okay to take a copyrighted book and run copies off in the copy machine.
When you get a job in the real job come back and talk to me. Until then, stop selling crazy here we are all stocked up.
Gam
"Flame at Will"
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
The RIAA is not a cartel like Opec. OPEC controls a significant proportion of a limited resource. In contrast, the RIAA controls just some of the music artists of an ubiquitous resource. They just control signed bands; not the majority who are unsigned, don't want to be signed, play bars, etc.
Trouble is, if an artist wants to get anywhere, they pretty much have to sign a contract with a big label. Sure, it is possible to succeed using other methods, but their chances are 10000x better this way.
---
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
I was a bit disturbed that was the main basis for the court's decision. What about a person's freedom not to publish? They can be forced by way of arbitration into selling that which they don't want to? That's a little too much power for anyone to have in my opinion. I can understand it's sparing use in land property or, say, intellectual property which is applicable to a process (eg, a patent), but NOT for creative works under copyright.
There was a post in the forums for the article which I'll reproduce here cause I thought is was intelligent, if a bit right wing...
Robert Brammer - 10:10am Jul 30, 2001 (565. 972/972)
Court to property rights: Drop dead.
You claim compulsory licenses help to avoid abuse of monopoly? WRONG! The only monopoly in this case is the arbitration board, which engages in state sanctioned price fixing, by determining a price at which a copyright holder must sell under penalty of law.
As for the court's concern for "holes in history," this is simply not a concern, and I'll explain why. Suppose a freelance writer will not give permission for the NYT to publish his article online. The Court only seems to be able to think this far through this dilemma, and claims this situation results in a "hole in history." Do they forget that the freelance writer wants money from his articles, and that is, at least in part, why he writes them? Common sense dictates he will eventually sell his article for online publication at the price he desires, even if not to the NYT. So, let's say the Washington Post buys the right to publish his article online. The Court would probably claim that this is still not acceptable, because their is now a "hole in history" if you visit the NYT site, because the article in question is only on the Post site. The Justices, in their arrogance, assume that the free market could not handle this problem. It should come as no surprise that they're wrong. Sheer market demand would quickly bring about the solution to this problem in the form of a search engine for articles, independent of any newspaper, that would be setup to include links to all of the articles on all of the different newspaper sites. Now the "holes in history" concern is a dead issue. It is disturbing that the justices overlook this obvious solution and immediately render a decision which violates an individual's first amendment right to not speak, the right of a person to control the distribution of their product, and the right of an individual to negotiate the sale of their product as a free trader.
This is undoubtedly one of the worst decisions by the Court in recent years, and certainly one of the most repugnant to the goals of a free society.
free > pay. always.
More importantly, the point of the article was that the Supreme Court (remember those guys? final arbiters on the constitutionality of laws, etc.?) recently wrote an opinion that indicates that the copyright holder cannot refuse to make the material available if it might create a hole in the public record. And that is an important point...because it means that those nine people in black robes might say that the big 5 must make their music available in electronic format to a central repository of such material, and that if they are unable to negotiate a proper royalty with that organization, an arbitrator will do it for them. I don't think it's gonna' revive Napster's sorry butt, but it's a very important ruling just the same...
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
Compulsory licensing is the thing that let's radio stations broadcast records without negotiating a licensing agreement with every (a) music writer, (b) music performer, (c) music distributor or its designates. This is what the BMI and, to a lesser extent, ASCAP take care of, usually through the Harry Fox Agency.
In the case of Napster, all that compulsory licensing would mean is that the endless negotiations would not be necessary, just as they are not necessary for a radio station, or a restaurant playing recorded music. This is a key issue for webcasting as well as other methods for digital distribution.
A truly salient quote from The Music Men Are Out of Tune in Fortune is worth citing here:
Compulsory licensing has been a topic in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on music distribution for the last six months or so. Until compulsory licensing or some equivalent for digital music comes into play, the record companies will be able to tie up anyone who tries to distribute music in an endless snarl of licensing negotiations.
But the consumer is largely unaware of what's going on and can't even inquire about such deals because they're "secret".
The smart RIAA will even allow slots for a tiny tiny few indie bands to throw the sharp eyed shopper off. "See, they sell indie stuff". But they don't put up enough shelf space to support the indie bands as a whole, i.e., no one indie band can rely on a small chance lottery of seeing their stuff carried at major retailers.
So the indie artist can't reliably get into the major chain stores to sell his music unless he signs with the RIAA.
The consumer has no control here. The consumer thinks he sees a fair market. The consumer has been duped. The RIAA was always in control.
presuming that the New York Times is the definitive record of history - which in and of itself is a frightning thought
A nice analysis, until this point. Cant you resist taking a shot at what you seem to consider a "liberal rag"? You need to realize that this article was about the NYT simply because they were one of the parties directly involved in the case. The ruling affects ALL publications, even the New York Post, and National Review (no, I havent seen them in microfilm/fiche, but I have seen the Wall St Journal, and Christian Science Monitor, and many others are out there). ALL publications today make up the history of our time. True, there are political leanings in most publications of today, but not really as much as some would want you to believe. The different viewpoints of so-called objective publications is a very significant part of our present history, why it happened, what effect it has on the rest of the nation, and will undoubtetly make for some interesting historical analysis in the future.
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The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
From the article:
Uhh, I thought Napster was owned by the record industry. Didn't Bertelsmann AG buy it a while back? Or did I miss something?
Sorry to sound like such a dope, but I can't remember much with all the aluminum in my drinking water.
So actually it is the music buyers who create the monopoly by limiting their concept of music to those artists who are "successful" or by thinking of success only in terms of being famous. I can think of many ways to judge success without considering a person's fame and renown. Why are we such suckers for Star-Power?
Obviously you have been well conditioned by the forces of mass consumerism. I find 'community access' television to be far more entertaining and informative than most of what I see on 'high quality, nationally recognized, brand name' television.
And as far as your contention that people only work for financial reward: you must never have had to raise a child.
this really reinforces the argument that the largest pocket book (most expensive lawyers) will win in a court case. the little guy has no chance. napster lost to the unlimited checkbook of the RIAA, and the freelance writers ultimately lost to the New York Times.
creating a "hole in history".. please. aren't we creating a hole in history already by not allowing digital music to be freely traded online? 6 of 1, 1/2 doz. of the other.
it sounds more like - "hey, they offered me a month's vacation at their caribean resort, and you're not giving me jack, sorry pal"
I do seem to remember reading several stories about AOL not being responsible for the child pr0n that is somewhat pervasive in their service. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but a provider like AOL, Earthlink or even the phone company is not responsible for illegal activities conducted on their networks as long as they're not complicit in the commission of the activity.
Standard IANAL fine print included standard on all legalish-sounding posts.
/tma
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I think this is a great idea. If it could be applied to any patent or copyright, that would be great. Unfortunately, the argument that it is out of print doesn't really apply to digital media :-(
I guess I'm starting to ramble, but compulsary licensing is a good thing; otherwise greed is just causing waste.
science is a religion
come on... "Under the doctrine of eminent domain, the government may declare a piece of land necessary for public use and then simply take the land -- as long as it pays the landlord a reasonable price" how does this apply to any of the music that was ever traded on napster? if this is going to be argued, can't the riaa and they're group say that much of this music is freely available on the airwaves, mtv (when they play music), etc?
I kind of agree. I've been thinking more and more that law is like code. But think about this: this is sort of like garbage collection (removing copyright monopoly allocations) by a process with higher priority (The New York Times) than yours (citizen).
When you find an injustice without a higher priority process to take up the argument, you have a serious memory leak that is undetected by litigative garbage collection initiated by your weak citizen process. Which leads some of us to think it would be better to carefully manage the allocation of copyright monopolies (memory) in the first place.
Bryon
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
this really reinforces the argument that the largest pocket book (most expensive lawyers) will win in a court case. the little guy has no chance. napster lost to the unlimited checkbook of the RIAA, and the freelance writers ultimately lost to the New York Times.
Um, napster's litigation was run by David Boies, probably the highest profile litigator in the country, and Fenwick & West, a relatively big and hardhitting tech law firm. It's not like they were represented by some Joe Schmoe, Esq. For them to get Boies and Fenwick, they can't be that much of a "little guy." They had an extremely good chance against the RIAA with the likes of Boies and Fenwick.
As for the freelance writers, they WON against NYT. That's why NYT has to remove the freelance writers' work.
The RIAA, artists, the government, and everyone just needs to realize the days of charging for a track of music (or a CD-full) are over. It's not a matter of whether that's good, bad, or evil: It's a statement of reality.
Music is free. Support your favorite artists by going to see them in concert.
You're paying for the resources/bandwidth to download it, not the music itself.
If we were to wake up tomorrow, and find that all the content companies had gone bankrupt and closed shop, there would be individuals and groups of inidividuals willing to sponsor the production of new content. Thus, only the conviently encoded representation is free, not the original creative composition.
Uhm, I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.
I know music costs money to produce, but that doesn't mean it has value in the market. The market determines something's value, not the costs of production.
What I'm getting at is that the price that the public is now getting used to paying, and is willing to pay, is quickly approaching zero. I personally no longer pay for music. And I don't feel bad about it; I've listened to the artist's commercial (their music), and if I am convinced about their talent I'll buy their tickets when they come by on tour.
This may seem off-topic at first, but please read through it and you'll see what I mean.
I would like to present you with a song about George W. Bush. I didn't write it, of course, and the RIAA owns the rights to it, but I present it as an act of drawing upon the popular culture in order to make a political statement:
---------
He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to
Isn't he a bit like you and me
Nowhere man, please listen
You don't know what you're missing
Nowhere man, the world is at your command
He's as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere man can you see me at all
Nowhere man, don't worry
Take your time, don't hurry
Leave it all, 'till somebody else
Lends you a hand
Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to
Isn't he a bit like you and me
Nowhere man, please listen
You don't know what you're missing
Nowhere man, the world is at your command
He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
Making all his Nowhere Plans For Nobody.
---------
Now, what the article is saying is that the Supreme Court's ruling on the freelance publisher case could be interpreted to mean that the recording industry could be compelled to license its material to Napster by a court ruling at a price to be determined by a court. What I'd like to know is if I use RIAA material as I have just done to make a political statement would the same apply? And if so, what amount would the court set as an appropriate fee for the compulsory licence?
It sounds like the courts are saying that the right to publish a work in print does not carry along the right to publish electronically. If so, is it possible that the court's ruling in this matter will have any bearing on the Mathworld lawsuit? Maybe its a pointless question without seeing the contract betweeen CRC and Mr. Weisstein. I think the void left by Mathworld's absense is only slightly less significant than a 'hole' left in history as the editorial describes it.
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
Should an IP rights holder be allowed to limit access to media (admittedly the NYT archives is a bit more significant from a historical perspective)? Certainly the case could be (has been) made that limiting access to media could drive up demand for "sanctioned" releases. Someone might potentially have less interest in buying a Daria DVD set (if one were to be released) having seen all the episodes.
Of course what if the aforementioned DVD set is never released? Does the public have a right to that media?
Yeah, and Slashdot is owned by trolls posting as ACs. How it works more specifically.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
When Napster made it's case before congress this spring.
It would be good for consumers, but the music industry will fight it to the death. They don't want anything that might harm $25 CD sales.
That also assumes that congress gets behind such an idea. But we already know that music industry 0wn5 congress.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
It seems that the Internet has turned from a dot-com frenzy into a contest about who can sue in the most unique way. Find a loophole, create a stir publicly about the injustice and then sue.
I agree that people should be compensated fairly for what they produce but come on! There has to be some limits.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
There was an article on msnbc.com recently that discussed the history of copyright, from the 1500s to the present. There is particularly nteresting information about Jefferson and Maddison.
Historical view of Copyright
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
So let me get this straight, the solution to heavy-handed government interference in a free market via the overly-burdensome copyright laws is to create MORE government interference?
How about relaxing copyright law in the interests of the public? How about unravelling the complex mess that the RIAA/MPAA has created over the decades, taking rights away from artists and the public? How about removing the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions? How about reducing the length of copyright terms?
If society can copy works more freely, there will be no "holes in history".
Ayn Rand pretty much decimated this argument over 50 years ago. Give "Atlas Shrugged" a read sometime. For some more contemporary writings on eminent domain, try this opinion piece from the Ayn Rand Institute.
A synopsis: No one, man or government, has the right to another man's work or property. It doesn't matter how much you "need" it. And don't even think for a second that you can make the argument that the overriding social good demands that Metallica give over control of it's work to "society". Give me a break!
As Prof. Elzinga (my Econ Prof. at UVA) said (I paraphrase): "If I have title to a bottle of salad dressing, that means I can put it on my salad, use it as skin cream, water plants with it, sell it to someone else, and most importantly -- the right to simply poor it down the drain." Anything less is just a license to use the dressing according to a predetermined set of proper use regulations -- not nearly as useful as owning the thing outright.
So instead of Napster users paying the RIAA an RIAA set per-song price, they'll be paying the RIAA a court arbitrated per-song price.
Also, how does this prevent the RIAA from shutting down <insert favorite music trading post> for not being able to track 100% of the transfers?
Maskirovka
As long as this discussion focuses on trying to make copyright infringement against the major labels legal no ground will be gained and nothing will change. What we need to be talking about is using these technological advances to allow organized artists, small independent labels and enlightened consumers to circumvent the RIAA and major labels entirely. There are plenty of people already doing this. Buy their stuff if you don't like the way things are run.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
I think this argument is something of a red herring. Compulsory licensing already exists in the music industry (radio and jukebox play, as well as public performance of music composed by another--with caveats such as those that allowed Olivia Newton-John to enjoin further release of revCo's "let's get physical")--what's going to kill napster is not the musicians balking at including their stuff in the database but users balking at paying subscription fees to trade MP3s. Tasini doesn't apply because there was permission to publish in the first place. The Times was given permission to distribute the writings, just not in the form it was distributing them--that is, secondary databases. Napster does not distribute works it has the right to distribute--that is, it did not enter into agreements with either the artists or their licensed distributors to further distribute the works.
*pulls Nastard away with a giant hook*
Actually, this seems perfectly reasonable. Yes, it would slightly dilute the efficacy of the GPL (and similar licenses), but the effect would be minimal. The GPL doesn't exist to prevent unpopular companies from using GPLed software, it exists to promote the redistribution of improved/modified code. While some people would certainly take advantage of compulsory licensing to circumvent the redistribution clauses, they would be doing so at great expense. The majority of developers would still obey the GPL simply because it would be cheaper to do so. This might even be a good thing for OSS projects, as many companies would be exposed to Open Source code where they previously wouldn't have gone near it. No matter what the effects, it sounds like this would be a reasonable tradeoff if it sorted out the copyright nightmare in this country.
But god knows who you would pay if you attempted to license an Open Source project. Just determining where to send the checks could make the entire enterprise unworkable.
And bear in mind that the vast majority of music copyrights are owned by five record companies, not by individual artists. Son of Napster won't have to deal with tens of thousands of artists, just to the Big 5 plus to any independent artist who thinks it's worth their while to send them a bill (which would be a Good Thing, but try and list even ten independent artists that you've seen traded on Napster without their consent).
So if this is workable for the NYT, it's probably workable for Son of Napster.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
often asked that myself......
You use "Socialist" like it's a dirty word. Britain is socialist. Canada is socialist. Russia is socialist. So what?
So what you're saying is that if someone invented a cure for a disease that was wiping out the population, they should be able to charge whatever they want for the vaccine? I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Trying to legislate around this just causes everyone a lot of grief.
It sounds like you know a little about the ideas behind copyright, but you come to wrong conclusions. Read this: http://yarchive.net/macaulay/copyright.html
Basically, Fair Use is a balancing of free speach and the commercial incentive to creative endeavors. To say that becoming "fair game, is a counter-incentive to creative work," does nothing but restate the original argument. And the original ideal of Free Speach still stands.
From the Harry Fox Agency Website ( http://www.nmpa.org/hfa/faq_mechanical.html):
For phonorecords made and distributed after January 1, 2000, the current statutory mechanical royalty rate is 7.55 cents per use for compositions that are 5 minutes or less. For songs over 5 minutes, the rate is 1.45 cents per minute or fraction thereof of playing time, whichever is greater.
For those unfamiliar with mechanical royalties, this is the rate paid by broadcasters for use of a song. I'd imagine that if the trial court were to establish a system of compulsary liscensing for online music, it'd wind up looking a lot like this.
...would we see the ultimate concept in fascism, eminent domain, used to combat the relatively minor problem of nude Jessica Rabbit pictures being hard to obtain.
--
324006
So you're saying that you would trade the de facto regulation of a business trade group for the de jure regulation of the federal government? Forgive me if I remain suspicious.
In this case, if you download MP3s, you really would be downloading Communism.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
A special case exists here in that the content producers are freelance writers not working as either contractors or employees of the companies involved.
Justice Ginsburg makes a special note of this difference here. If the work is done by someone for hire (either an employee or through contract) then the rights associated with the work belong to the employer.
This most likely is the case with the major music lables. If the artists assign certain rights, especially the right to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission then most likely the Court's decision would have no impact.
In addition, the decision by the Court to foist remedy and future situations back to the lower courts (ultimately back to Congress) seems to indicate that the Court recognizes the crisis that current copyright law does and will face in the near future.
However, the Court's decision most decidedly affirms the rights of the content-producers, even though noting that this will possibly lead to more stringent contracts and an overall setback (see note 17, same page as above).
So IMO, the Court has given *no* indication that it favors the concept put forward by the orignal articles author. Indeed, it seems that the justices realize that would eventually mean a return to an earlier, less tolerable situation.
Thus the danger of the abrogation of the rights of property.
Nietzsche on Diku:
sn; at god ba g
:Backstab >KILLS< god.
We the People - yes. The People. Thing is, 'people' is just a word to refer to a group of individuals. In the case of the founding of America, the 'people' was a reference to the fact that the majority of individuals in the colonies had a vested interest in the goals outlined by the document containing the phrase 'We the People'.
Please note that government is only an institution of people, that it is not some uber-entity, and that it derives its right to govern and its methods of governance from the people. If the interests of the people who produce are in conflict with the interests of those who don't, the producers should win.
Also, making copies is labor, and you own the copies - but not the content. The content was the work of others. Big difference. Again, also, note that building on someone else's work is NECESSARY - it is the nature of human progress. Someone invents the wheel, someone else the car. And the fact that you seem to view 'property' as something the state allows you to hold, as if it were a privileged stewardship, shows your anti-individualist mentality.
--
think for yourself, you won't like the results if others do it for you.
Just because the government calls something a property right does not mean that it is
i completely agree. government does not GIVE rights - rights are inherent in the human condition. government is not the source of money, culture, morals, rights, or anything else - except something called 'protection from the initiation of force'. as for the imposition of copyrights being socialist in nature, i must strongly disagree. copyrights can, if handled wrong, result in too much control over the expression of a person - but on the flipside, if handled wrong, can also result in the denial of a person's rightful claim to ownership of their work. this explains why the founding fathers were so deeply divided - and troubled - on the issue of copyright. the proper balance, as we can look to the last 230+ years of american history, lies in two key concepts: 1) the content of your published work is yours alone, unless you explicitely agree to release control of a portion or the whole of it; 2) common ideas, long-standing ideas, and simple phrases cannot be copyrighted, as they are already part of the public domain.
what this means is simple: if you write a book about abraham lincoln, the specific wording and general tone (this seems rather subjective on the surface, but i'm using the honest abe example for a reason - go see plagiarism cases that made it to the u.s. circuit courts) can be, if you choose, designated as yours. but the events, places, names, etc - cannot be copyrighted, because you did not create them, they are factual, and they are long-known ideas. this provides your work a measure of protection while still allowing others the freedom of speech to write about ol' abe if they so choose. now, if you created characters that did not actually exist, those too would become yours - but of course i would be free to create my own.
point is, there must be a balance between freedom and security to write/create without having your work robbed from you by others - and freedom and security to write new material. this balance can get sticky at times, objective measurement of creativity is not possible in fine detail - but the vast majority of copyright cases are plain-as-day for someone who values individual rights.
you mentioned the idea of independence from institutions that attempt to better manage your life by taking away your options - what the hell do you think 'eminent domain' is about? it's about an institution deciding that yeah, your business or home is nice and all, but the public could use the land so much better. when it's applied to ideas, it's theft just the same. copyright is for the PROTECTION of the individual - protecting the fruits of his labor. if everything you created/wrote/built/invented were inelligable for copyright/ownership/patent, why in the world would you ever work? there would be no use in it - as soon as you were done, the public could rush in and claim it as their own. look at soviet russia - look at how little was created by the citizens, look at how little they produced outside of government work! NOTHING - they produced NOTHING - there was no reason. working for nothing is stupid, and everyone knows it.
--
think for yourself, you won't like the results if others do it for you.
Sorry if this is redundant, don't have time to skim through the other 90+ posts... but it's something important that should be said:
the idea that a person is not the sole owner of, and controlling authority regarding the product of their work is as socialist as can be. 'public interest' superceding individual rights when it comes to one's labor is common practice in places like Turkey and China - NOT the U.S. Or so it would *seem*. This country is slowly sliding down the path toward a democratic people's republic in which you are free unless/until the state has a vested interest, or as the supreme court calls it, a 'controlling interest', in making you un-free. That is exactly what China is modelled around - the supremecy of the state, state defined of course as 'the people' or 'society'. in fact, there is a specific clause in the chinese constitution stating that the freedoms of the people shall not override the interest of the state. do a google search for 'china constitution' and hit the first link it offers - you'll quickly see what i mean. 'public interest' being more important than individual rights is the primary flaw in democracy - voting is the same as the old 'my gang is bigger than yours' or the newer 'my guns are bigger than yours' way of doing things.
I do believe that 'fair use' laws, as a general concept, are good - the freedom to lend a copy of some form of communication to a friend, or even record a copy for them. but to say that because you create something and publish it, that it becomes fair game, is a counter-incentive to creative work. what's more, it's a total disrespect for the effort of the author. one of the key reasons for america's unparalleled success in most arenas is that people are rewarded for their work, they are recognized and they benefit from their effort. this encourages them to continue to produce.
free software is great, guys. but come on. just because you are willing to release your effort to the world doesn't mean everyone else has to. in fact, it's probably extremely healthy that there are both commercial and free software - it's an added dimension to competition. think about it: company X produces a graphics package which is very good - so hackers Y and Z produce a workalike with many of the popular features, and release it for free. some people will choose to pay for the commercial software in order to get extra features, support, documentation, etc - it's worth the money. but others will take the free package, because it does what they want already. now, if this free package is high quality, it poses a threat to the commercial package, which causes the commercial package to be even better next version - which in turn causes an advance in the free package, and so on. now - that said, i am highly disturbed that us geeks in general are so extremely socialist when it comes to the product of the mind - we are some of the smartest alive, we produce such wonderful useful things... then we reject, as a group and in general, the value of identity, self-determination, and productively utilized intellect. we reject the value of our biggest *value*. why?! if you wish to give away your brain, you're free to do so, and i will gladly take a heaping platter of it - this post is being created on almost entirely free code, and i love every minute of it. but don't expect others to do the same, and don't look for legal loopholes with which to force your practices on others. treat well the individuals, appreciate their effort, and respect their right to choose their own directions and for their own reasons.
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think for yourself, you won't like the results if others do it for you.
I like this quote:
We do not yet know if the recording companies are abusing their monopoly on online distribution...
The DOJ seems to be on our side so far, (after suing MS) maybe they will go after the record companies for abusing their monopoly powers. $25 for a CD? Come on!
D/\ Gooberguy
Karma: Meh (Mostly from meh.)
Existing law allows for the distribution of any musical composition via a mechanical license (without the permission of the copyright holder) if the music has already been distributed. The mechanical license requires that it be a different recording of the music (i.e. not a copy of the original). If I go in an introduce a minor corruption into the MP3 file so that the music is now different from the original, why couldn't I just pay the artist the mechanical license fee and distribute with or without his permission?
This would force those companies to allow hospitals to get a "bulk" rate and test people. It would also allow researchers to test cures for those diseases.
I'm not drunk, I just have a speech impediment. And a stomach virus. And an inner ear infection.
Of course the ruling in the Napster case can be used in the Freelance case. Meaning no more on-line news sources, someone writes the stuff and whoever writes it will want to get paid for it. What will /. be linking to?????
Gentlemen it is all about greed.
I may be a pool man, but I am f@#*&ng Jon Bon Jovi's pool man!!!
Copyrights are supposed to have a public benefit function? That's news to me... Looks like that's one function that everyone's lost the syntax of!
man public_benefit