World Copyright Treaty Coming soon

ebresie writes: "According to an article in Info World, the World Intellectual Property Organization indicates that the WIPO Copyright Treaty is scheduled to go into effect in March of 2002. The treaty "is designed to protect the rights of composers, artists, writers, and others whose work is distributed over the Internet or other digital media." It also makes reference of the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty which "specifically protects the digital-media rights of producers and performers of sound recordings"." This is not a "new" treaty; rather it's the old one, which says much the same thing as the DMCA and was used to justify the passage of the DMCA. Now the same provisions will be in effect across many countries.

Comments

GPL - for other works

[eclectric]

Could the GPL be extended to, say, artistic works? That way an artist could simply copyright(copyleft) his or her works and therefore bypass these kinds of inane copyright laws. Granted, one could simply make their works public domain, but you still would need some public protections. (Like, you might want to make your stuff freely available, but you don't want others taking credit for it. Or, you just might not want anyone else to make money off of it either.)

Any thoughts?

Re:GPL - for other works

[Anonymous Coward]

GPL is good for Users. Not good for Creators.

Art, music, and literature are not the same as software. They do not improve when someone else adulterates them. Would a Picasso be better if someone decided that all the funny eyes should be made to look more realistic? Would Moby Dick have been a better book if someone else had rewritten it with a Captain Arnold instead of Ahab? How much better would Beethoven's 5th be if someone felt that a techno backdrop would make the symphony stand out?

Re:GPL - for other works

[Junks Jerzey]

Could the GPL be extended to, say, artistic works?

Why? The GPL is designed by and for computer programmers. You already get the source code for books.

Re:GPL - for other works

[Wolfger]

If you can put a copyleft on software, I don't see why it wouldn't work for other forms of copyrightable materials... Except for the obvious answer that the producers of those other materials don't have the same mindset. Imagine the possibilities, though. Stephen King writes a new novel, and puts a copyleft on it. Open source book! If I don't like it, I can change it and re-release it, giving credit where credit is due.

Re:GPL - for other works

[liquidsin]

You can check out the buskware license. It's basically shareware, but with no fixed price, and they claim it is "used broadly to include anything that can be stored in digital form, not just programs, so it makes sense to talk about releasing recorded music, text, or videos "

Re:GPL - for other works

[lynx_user_abroad]

...one could simply make their works public domain...

No, you can't! That's one of the most non-intuitive parts of the DMCA which many peope don't get.

If you create a work (you are the copyright owner) and release it CSS encrypted on a DVD, you lose a portion of your copyright-granted control over that work. Specifically, you can no longer just turn it loose to the public domain because anyone who would want to view, or copy, or derive from your work must buy a CSS license, and must agree to the terms
of that license. And you (as the copyright owner) have no control over what that license allows the purchaser to do.
The CSS license currently says (and the Law backs them up) that you can't make a copy of the work, even if you have otherwise been granted the right to do so by the copyright owner.

So who cares? It's not like a lot of people are creating a lot of copyrighted works in an encrypted format that you have to have a license to decrypt, right?

Think again. How much of your copyrighted material exists in a proprietary file format for which you must purchase a license to decode it?

Got any Word documents? or PowerPoint charts? or FrameMaker documents?

If the courts rule that a proprietary file format "effectively controls access to" the copyrighted material contained within, then programs like Star Office will be as illegal to make or posess as DeCSS is today.

Re:GPL - for other works

[Fjord]

But you don't get the right to change and/or redistribute the books.

And don't get me started on e-books, especially adobe ones.

Re:GPL - for other works

[Trepidity]

Well, the GNU Free Documentation License is probably closer to what you're looking for as a starting point.

Re:GPL - for other works

[ignatzMouse]

Check out the Design Science License. I've been using it on my sheet music site for almost a year now.

Re:GPL - for other works

[Anonymous Coward]

stephen king is a horrible example. he did that online story thing solely out of greed. what a ripoff that was. a buck a chapter, later changed to 2 dollars! how many chapters in a book? a full book would end up being a fortune. and you end up with NOTHING in return. no physical book. and he ends up with ALL the money. what a greedyass bastard.

Re:GPL - for other works

[Anonymous Coward]

A program like emacs, vim, or gcc, I might use daily. Many times. A bugfix or improvement I can make use of. And, programming logic can be proven correct (even if most isn't). You can show that a buffer will overflow under a certain condition.

A fiction book, I might read once every few years. Most only once. improvements are generally subjective, and aside from grammer and spelling issues (which can be valid anyhow), are simply a matter of opinion. And a different author (and voice) can interfere with the flow, style, and author's vision (which matters more in literature than in software).

For reference works, FREE is fine, if you trust anonymous people to be reliable. Follow the instructions in the Jolly Roger Cookbook sometime, and tell us why you've changed your mind :)

Re:GPL - for other works

[Cheetahfeathers]

All artists stand on the shoulders of other artists. Your point of view is the opposite of reality. Your point of view would stifle artists. Say goodbye to Shakespeare, first off. As for the mention of Picasso, why are you mentioning that admitted fraud as an artist. He made crap to sell to overeducated, under artistic morons to make themselves seem 'hip'. As the the Beethoven's 5th, that might make it pretty nifty. I know Laibach's symphonic industrial version of Jesus Christ Superstar is one of my favorite songs. It provides a different perspective on the same object... something you couldn't easily do with this crappy law in place.

Re:GPL - for other works

[Silver222]

Yeah, except then we'd have to listen to Stallman bitch about putting GNU in front of every creative work done under that license. GNU/Music anyone?

Re:GPL - for other works

[HiThere]

GPL is good for Users. Not good for Creators.

This is basically true. Not totally true, but basically.

Art, music, and literature are not the same as software. They do not improve when someone else adulterates them.

This is quite debatable. That procedure used to be a standard part of the creative process. It was a part of the process until quite recently, though to a diminished degree as copyrights became more enforced. When I examine older works and compare them against more recent ones I am not uniformly convinced of their improved excellence. Usually the contrary. But this is partially due to selection pressure.

Would a Picasso be better if someone decided that all the funny eyes should be made to look more realistic? Would Moby Dick have been a better book if someone else had rewritten it with a Captain Arnold instead of Ahab?

The real problem is how many would bother. This is the same problem, however, as open source faces. There are a lot of consumers and not many contributors. The same problem. And publishers are becoming so greedy / controlling / extortionistic / etc. that the same solution offers appeal. Unfortunately, it has the same drawbacks. On the plus side, most artists aren't earning much anyway, so they don't have as much to loose. On the minus side, most artists don't have as much spare capital, so they can't afford to gamble.

How much better would Beethoven's 5th be if someone felt that a techno backdrop would make the symphony stand out?

Did you consider that Beethoven has been out of copyright for centuries? Did you ever encounter an albumn titled "Switched on Bach?" The creation of modified versions does not repeal the existence of the original one.

I find your arguments quite unconvincing.

Re:GPL - for other works

[Phroggy]

The GPL is specifically written to apply only to software. You're looking for the Open Publication License (OPL).

Re:GPL - for other works

[Anonymous Coward]

Making a CSS DVD is not a requirement to producing a DVD. I have several that are not CSS encrypted. So all a copyright holder needs to do is to produce a non encrypted DVD.

If you wanted to create a 'source' available product, then you would not use the CSS anyways.

Re:GPL - for other works

[sholton]

DVD's are more of a packaging mechanism than a storage medium. The original work is stored in some other form, and it is 'derived' into an encrypted (or non-encrypted) DVD for distribution. So even if you can't place one derivative of your work (the CSS encrypted one) into the public domain, you could always release the original work (because it's stored in some other form).

But think about CSS...

People who study cryptography think of CSS as little more than an obsfucated proprietary storage format. Once you know how to interpret the bits, it's simply a matter of running the file through an interpreter (DeCSS).

Now think about Word documents.

When you first create (...fix in a tangible form...) an original work in Word, it's stored in a proprietary file format. Like CSS the .doc file format has been broken, by applications like Star Office and Word Perfect, but there's nothing preventing Microsoft from changing their file format in the future, and no guarantee that the new format could be reverse engineered (but I wouldn't bet against it.) But a single court case, or just a marketing statement, could have this proprietary file format classified as an "access control" mechanism.

There are many benefits for a company to do this. How's this for a neat marketing run-in:
"Protect your saved files, even if your laptop is stolen or your server rooted..."

But there's an even better reason....

When you create, for example, a Word document, the original (not a derivative) is stored in the saved file. If that saved file format is already considered (under law) to be an "access control mechanism", then you don't have the option (as you would with a CSS DVD) to just abandon the derivative and release the original to the public domain.

Remember, there a significant amount of intellectual property present in the original file which isn't present in a derivative, for example style sheets and tags. If you're looking to publish (or release to the public domain) these parts of your work, you'll have to release it in Word format (meaning anyone who wants to use it needs to buy a Word license) or abandon your intellectual property but for the parts Word allows you to export. (And Microsoft has no incentive to make it easy for their current customers to switch over to a competitor's product.)

This is the best reason of all: complete vendor lock in.

Using DVD's as an example, it's easy to see how a Microsoft could argue that products like K-Office or StarOffice are analgous to DeCSS -- they allow someone who doesn't have a license to bypass the author's access control mechanism and make illegal use of copyrighted works -- and therefore should be declared illegal, and employees of companies (or SourceForge project members) should be jailed (aka Dimitri) for their actions.

How many individuals and companies which currently have documents stored in proprietary file formats would be able to just write-off these assets? Not many, I'd guess.

So, I reckon there's just one court case (or M$ marketing statement) standing between where we are now and "all your works are belong to us".

Now do you remember why you started using Open Source?

Wonderful.

[Nikau]

Oh, this is just too cute.

I live in Canada, and we're currently facing our own version of the DMCA... As if that wasn't bad enough.

Does anyone think contacting our government representatives will help? Who has to sign this treaty? Is there a way to encourage our elected leaders not to? (Do we stand a chance?)

Re:Wonderful.

[nomadic]

I looked it over and I didn't see anything nearly as objectionable as the DMCA; it seems to be a fairly simple statement that an author has certain rights to his or her work. The only one that really made me wonder was this:

Compilations of data or other material, in any form, which by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual creations, are protected as such. This protection does not extend to the data or the material itself and is without prejudice to any copyright subsisting in the data or material contained in the compilation. [See the agreed statement concerning Article 5]

Seemed a little vague, though I assume the actual data entered would be protected by copyright law anyway.

The rest of it can be summarized as follows:
Let's all follow the Berne convention.

Re:Wonderful.

[FeatherBoa]

Is there a way to encourage our elected leaders not to?

Start writing letters:

Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade,

Sub-Committee on International Trade, Trade Disputes and Investment,

Committee on Industry, Science and Technology

Marie Danielle Vachon, Clerk
House of Commons
Room 637, Wellington Bldg
OTTAWA, Ontario
K1A 0A6

The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs
The Senate
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A4

The Right Hon. Joe Clark, MP
House of Commons
OTTAWA, Ontario
K1A 0A6

Mr. Stockwell Day, MP
House of Commons
OTTAWA, Ontario
K1A 0A6

The Right Hon. Jean Chrétien, MP
House of Commons
OTTAWA, Ontario
K1A 0A6

Ms. Alexa McDonough, MP
House of Commons
OTTAWA, Ontario
K1A 0A6

(Do we stand a chance?)

Like a snowball in hell.

Re:Wonderful.

[Tackhead]

> Does anyone think contacting our government representatives will help? Who has to sign this treaty? Is there a way to encourage our elected leaders not to? (Do we stand a chance?)

No, Edgar "My company comes from a long line of bootleggers" Bronfman, No, and (No), in that order.

China will not go along...

[Razzious]

We know our good allies CHina will avoid this like the plague and we will still get movies on DVD in China Town while the movie is still at theatres....

Re:China will not go along...

[ackthpt]

We know our good allies CHina will avoid this like the plague and we will still get
movies on DVD in China Town while the movie is still at theatres....

Sure, as a condition of joining the WTO China has to respect Intellectual Property and crack down on piracy *wink* *wink*

The hard fact for the masses who have, up to now, illegally copied and sold music, movies (with the backs of other peoples heads and various noises thrown in as a bonus) and software (lacking manuals, but the first rule is to toss those behind a filing cabinet, anyway, right?) will now be obligated by treaty to pay bribes to their local officials, rather than it being optional or only when their Lexus bearing a New Jersey license plate draws attention on the streets of Shanghai.

Misstatement of intent:

[Dimensio]

"is designed to protect the rights of composers, artists, writers, and others whose work is distributed over the Internet or other digital media."

I suspect that "others" refers to corporations and creators of shoddy encryption systems with enough money to throw at the politicians drafting the treaty to protect them from evil researchers who might discover that Rot-13 isn't that secure after all?

Re:Misstatement of intent:

[muhammed_ism]

WIPO Copyright Treaty in March of 2002 is good thing in general. It would discourage piracy in other countries. But we have to understand that this treaty is a double-edged sword. Companies like Microsoft already offer highly priced software and if they expect the poor nations to pay what is sometimes worth a year's salary, I don't think the treaty will be effective. It will at the very least make the offenders feel slightly guilty than before. Even though we are moving towards the copyright age, we are also closing the doors for innovation in a why by putting too much restriction on the community that they cannot follow Treaty easily.

So Sad

[FatRatBastard]

That seems to be the way folks are passing stuff that would never pass muster here in the States: Make it something that is a treaty, then argue that we need to do it because the rest of the world is.

From what I understand this has been the tactic of the like of the FBI as of late (pre 9/11). They've been lobbying foreign countries to ratify treaties so they can come back to congress and say "hey, we need to do it too (damn the constitution)"

What's Next?

[kawaichan]

Copyrighting on Moon in the year 2020. I think they are also trying to put cpoyright in place on mars on 2015. Well, we can always to go to Uranus.

Re:What's Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

stay away from my anus!

Who Are These Guys?

[ewhac]

Who are these guys? And who elected/appointed them They Who Shall Decide Intellectual Property Policy For The Rest Of Us?

Seriously, who are they? Who gets selected to be a member, and why?

Schwab

Re:Who Are These Guys?

[lysurgon]

Who gets selected to be a member, and why?

Very good question. However, I think you're rather unlikely to get a good answer. For instance, you could ask the same of the WTO. No one knows. No one's telling. Members are "appointed" through some transnational process, but that process is non-public and appears to differ from member state to member state.

This was actually part of the impetus for the (in)faimous Seattle WTO protests. I remember a couple of my west-coast dwelling friend's professors encouraging everyone to go (i.e. no bad marks for missing class) to promote openness and accountability in government.

The WTO and WIPO are (very influiential) non-governmental organizations. That's the problem at the moment: they're really accountable to no one other then their fat-cat corporate sponsors.

Of course, maybe you like corporate sponsors and think that sort of thing is how the world aughtta work. Hey, takes all kinds.

Re:Who Are These Guys?

[Eloquence]

Some background on WIPO can be found here.

Re:Who Are These Guys?

[Eccles]

Of course, maybe you like corporate sponsors and think that sort of thing is how the world aughtta work.

...which describes most of our politicians. In contrast to what most people think, I don't think our congresscritters are particularly susceptible to bribes as campaign contributions. Instead, many of the people who get the support needed for a successful campaign are people who believe that letting corporations do what they will is in the best interest of the company. So they don't need bribing to make laws that help companies, they already believe that those laws are needed. The contributions are just to make sure they stay in office.

Consider Bush, for example. He'll support Big Oil measures because he comes from Big Oil. Anwar never stood a chance. (I'm not fully decided one way or another on ANWAR drilling myself, I'm just saying there was never a question in Bush's mind.)

Re:Who Are These Guys?

[Skuld-Chan]

Well one thing you have to remember is that in most countries a treaty is useless unless the residing party approves it.

In the US congress and the president have to approve it. But then again we already did - with the DMCA. I have no doubt that this will sail through congress.

On a more positive note - as far as politics go most european countries seem far more progressive then us (although sometimes not). Maybe it will get shot down as it flies overhead.

Re:Who Are These Guys?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, it's them. Who decides what the pop trends are? Who decides who fills the seats in government? Them, that's who.

They talk about you behind your back, too.

What is the DMCA, by the way ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Defend Microsoft from Competition Act ?

Disney-Microsoft Corruption Arrangement ?

I just want to be enlightened:-)

Re:What is the DMCA, by the way ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you're going about it the wrong way then...

Re:What is the DMCA, by the way ?

[Xylantiel]

Draconian Measures which Compromise Amendment I

Re:What is the DMCA, by the way ?

[Happy Monkey]

Microsoft isn't particularily pro-DMCA. It's a whole different group of evil corporations.

Re:What is the DMCA, by the way ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could never remember whether it was the D-M-C-A or the D-C-M-A until I started using the following mnemonic devices:

Democracy-Mutilating Corporate Arsenal
Defending Megacorps from Citizens of America
Digital Monopoly Creation Act
Dominating Markets and Crushing Alternatives
Don't Mistake Corporations for Artists
Diabolical Means of Controlling Art
Digital Method of Circumventing the Ammendments
Draconian Measure, Congress-Approved
Distribution Methods Controlled Absolutely
Dominating Monopoly Consumes All

Copyright 2001, Anonymous Coward

What goes around comes around....

[ConceptJunkie]

and was used to justify the passage of the DMCA

And now the DCMA will be used to justify the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.

"is designed to protect the rights of composers, artists, writers, and others whose work is distributed over the Internet or other digital media"

Does that mean artists will now get paid decent royalties instead of the lion's share going to the suits?

Re:What goes around comes around....

[loteck]

No, because the copyright for the artists work is owned by the suits while the artists are in contract with them. You see individual people going after copyright lawsuits once the contracts on those works (songs) have expired and the copyrights have transferred back to the individual. But you don't see too many individuals going to court, as much as you see Sony or RIAA or other suits filing because they own the majority of the copyrights... _

Re:What goes around comes around....

[ConceptJunkie]

That's my point.

Since the suits are doing everything they can to maintain a monopoly of the means of distribution, the artist will be beholden to them if they don't want to languish in obscurity.

That will change with time, but it's still true for almost everyone.

Re:What goes around comes around....

[Chris Johnson]

*ROFL!* stop, stop, you're killing me!

More plausibly, B-list artists (and even some A-list artists) will now be repeatedly sued by intellectual property holders because their creations are 'like' some previous creation 'owned' by the suits.

I actually kinda like this, in a sick way, because it's another step towards making corporate art utterly impossible, and where not impossible, complete pablum with no distinguishing qualities (all distinguishing qualities worth anything are 'like' something that's been previously done).

The thing to hope for is that the mainstream becomes a creative wasteland bad enough to force bored consumers to explore, say, the Internet for their entertainment- BEFORE IP holders have any success at obliterating the distribution channels for said Internet entertainment.

It's easy to sue any one indie artist in any field, but there are so many of them- and it would be an uphill battle to successfully ban communication by unauthorized persons simply on the grounds that they _could_ violate IP laws. That would be tantamount to requiring an 'Internet License' and is so direct and blatant an assault on free speech that it'd be very hard to do. It's a lot easier to attack a specific person for actually posting a derivative song to the Internet- though even this would be a potential PR disaster- but almost impossible to spin "You may not speak/sing/create without clearing it with central authorities" in any useful way. Too obvious, and too personal.

Re:What goes around comes around....

[Glytch]

Another step? I thought we reached that point long ago.

Sigh. And now I'm all depressed because I'm remembering how much more Britney Spears CDs I sell at work than classical.

Re:What goes around comes around....

[ConceptJunkie]

That's 'cause classical music doesn't have videos involving lots of skin and thrusting pelvises.

Now, if you had some 15-year-old sex kitten with a pierced navel writhing to the strains of Mussorgsky, they'd be jumping off the shelves.

Just imagine how successful Beethoven could have been with modern marketing techniques! Da da da bomb!

Bach missed the boat with all this lame 6-part fugues and contrapuntal complexity that could only be made by someone with a 200 IQ, what he really needed was some big boobies and a nice butt, and the same 5 second refrain repeated for 3 and a half minutes. Wotta chump!

Provisions?

[Mr. Sketch]

Now the same provisions will be in effect across many countries (emphasis mine)

More like restrictions. I wouldn't really consider something that deprives us of our rights to free speech a 'provision'. I wish I could find a harsher word than 'restriction', but I guess restriction will have to do.

Small fry

[seizer]

Only 30 countries have ratified it. There are circa 200 floating around, and a hell of a lot of them, including Russia and China, don't pay any attention whatsoever to copyright at the moment. I can believe that they might, as countries, receive more income from the pirate business than they would if they forced people to only buy legitimate versions.

There'll always be data havens, never fear.

Re:Small fry

[antv]

Umm, it's not about data heavens. It's about people living in countries like US losing their freedom of speech (disclaimer: I live in US and I don't like this).
You could almost always find a way to speak (or do not follow M$ license) anonymously. However free speech without fear of retribution is your right - part of UN declaration of human rights, part of US constitution and it's analogs in many countries. You should be able to publish code like DeCSS without hiding.
Then again, there should be some force (technological solution like Freenet ?) to back up your legal rights - otherwise out lawmakers would be bribed^H^H^H^H^H^Hcamgaign-contributed to create more "laws" like DMCA.

Re:Small fry

[Anonymous Coward]

I can believe that they might, as countries, receive more income from the pirate business than they would if they forced people to only buy legitimate versions.

In the absence of copyright legislation in those countries, all copies are "legitimate".

Re:Small fry

[BitterOak]

There'll always be data havens, never fear.

People used to say there would always be banking havens, too. That was before 9/11.

Just wait till some terrorists use a pirated copy of Windows to keep their accounts. Then you'll see the "data havens" either changing their ways or being bombed out of existence.

Re:Small fry

[AbsoluteRelativity]

I can believe that they might, as countries, receive more income from the pirate business than they would if they forced people to only buy legitimate versions.

I'd imagine that if that is the case, then this must help their economies as well.

Re:Small fry

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to point out how stupid you are, but there are still banking havens. Nothing's really changed outside the US (and Afghanistan) since 9/11, and nothing will.

Re:Small fry

[Malcontent]

Don't count on it. The rich countries could bomb anybody they want anytime they want. Look how we destroyed the iraqui army and the taliban in a few days. Just drop bombs from ten thousand feet in the night and kill them like flies. Look at palestine vs israel as an example too.

They will all sign or they will die.

I can see it now.

[Renraku]

How will it be enforced? Are we soon going to hear about mass executions in because their government found some MP3s or a zip password cracker on their computers? Will the unlucky criminals be sentenced to jail in those countries, alongside the rapists and murderers?

Just read over the new treaty...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can download it, just do a search for 'World Copyright Treaty' on Kazaa...

Re:Just read over the new treaty...

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

Maybe the reds...

[Tebriel]

Maybe China will, for once, actually help stem the tide, since they have such lax laws. Now that they're a member of the WTO, maybe they can actually make a moderating stand against this, or something.

Re:Maybe the reds...

[Tackhead]

> Maybe China will, for once, actually help stem the tide, since they have such lax laws. [on copyright]

I wouldn't bank on it.

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens' What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

- p.411, Ayn Rand, ATLAS SHRUGGED, Signet Books, NY, 1957

You don't have to be a Randroid to see the wisdom in this passage.

Re:Maybe the reds...

[abe ferlman]

Unfortuanately I don't think China's standing on principle. I think they just haven't seen a satisfactory economic reason to impose the changes yet. Eventually western pressure will probably get to them.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but even though you might be able to get away with calling the Chinese government "leftist", they are certainly not progressive.

Re:Maybe the reds...

[HiThere]

She says lots of right-on things. Unfortunately, there are the others. It's like any "Holy Book". The true believers look, and see only the parts that they believe in. The scoffers look, and see only the parts that they doubt. Sometimes they see the same parts, and sometimes they don't.

But that's one of the really good ones.
.

Re:Maybe the reds...

[Tackhead]

(What you said. The comment about the Randroids was, well, to make sure that the scoffers knew I wasn't a True Believer quoting her for the sake of quoting her ;-)

Re:Maybe the reds...

[FFFish]

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them."

Mark the parent of this comment up! Up! UP! Make sure everyone reads that passage -- it has never held so true as today, when it's illegal to speak out against the government, illegal to smoke an herb, illegal to share music with friends, illegal to use encryption, illegal to decrypt!

Re:Maybe the reds...

[Glytch]

"Yes, at first I was excited to be learning how to read. It seemed exciting and magical. But then I read this -- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I read every last word of this garbage, and because of this piece of shit, I'm never reading again."

Officer Barbrady was a wise man. ;)

Only in America..

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in America will things like the DMC-

Oh, nevermind.

this isn't too new.

[psyklopz]

As it stands currently, copyright law is *almost* international.

Each nation has their own copyright laws, but almost all are either:

1) parties to the Berne Copyright Convention

or

2) Members of the World Trade Organisation

If your country belongs to either of these, it is already bound by a pseudo-international copyright law.

The only countries not parties to these two conventions probably don't care much about copyright to begin with.

So, I don't think that an international treaty will change very much at all.

Copyrights are good

[alen]

They protect the creator in profiting from the art , literature or music they create. If there wasn't any copyright protection there wouldn't be any incentive to create anything. Sure some people will do it, but not on a scale like we have today.

Some people will say that's good because 90% is pop culture and not real art. But companies that deal in intellectual property employ tens of thousands of people and create a huge amount of wealth. If there wasn't any IP protection then thousands of jobs would be lost. The idea of a starving artist or musician who creates for the love of art or music is a lie. Everyone dreams of being famous and profiting from their works.

It seems the only people who advocate getting rid of intellectual property protections are those who have never created anything and only want to use someone else's work for their own profit. Intellectual property protections are actually good because they force people to create something better than what exists today. Patents are a perfect example. There are thousands of companies researching new technology to create products that are better and cheaper than what we have today. Without patent protection we would have to rely on the government and universities for research. And since they aren't for profit we would only get things some geek thought up in a lab and would probably have no practical use in the real world.

Re:Copyrights are good

[mrcparker]

Copyright protections are NOT a bad thing in moderation - even the EFF agrees with giving a short period of time where companies or individuals can hold copyrights (14 years). Copyright has been extended so much that it might be a century before a product goes into public domain. Companies or individuals have monopilies over ideas for so long that it really kills any potential competition.

Re:Copyrights are good

[haruharaharu]

If there wasn't any copyright protection there wouldn't be any incentive to create anything.

Yeah, Mozart would never have composed The Magic Flute without copyright protection. Oh, wait...

Well, I Know Britney 'Jailbait' Spears wouldn't have done quite as well without Copyright law. Um...

Re:Copyrights are good

[lysurgon]

The idea of a starving artist or musician who creates for the love of art or music is a lie. Everyone dreams of being famous and profiting from their works.

Where do you get off? I find your sweeping generalizations to be both offensively cynical and incorrect! I mean, do you actually know any artists? Meet me, I'm an artist. I mostly subsist on ramen noodles and mac and cheese. I don't want to be famous. I don't want to be rich. Please don't tell me I don't exist: my ego might not handle it. (BTW: this is also how a lot of hacker artists lives, e.g. RMS)

It seems the only people who advocate getting rid of intellectual property protections are those who have never created anything and only want to use someone else's work for their own profit.

Ahem... "True invention is a myth. All art is theft -- without reference and past things nothing can be created." -- Malcolm Garrett (artist, designer, look it up)

The problem with the late trend in copyright/IP law is that it cuts out fair use, and makes the creative process one that is fraught with legality and opportunities to litigate. This is not a Good Thing. Litigation is one of the most wasteful, culture-destroying thigns in the world. As Shakespeare said, first thing to we do, we kill all the lawyers. Step one towards utopia, man.

Re:Copyrights are good

[stubear]

I argue that this was a "much simpler" time. Musicians woudl not think of stealing another's work or they would recieve such scorn from the musical community they would be a veritable pariah. Attitudes have changed drastically and people would nary give "borrowing" a song or artistic idea a second thought.

I would also point out to the /. Linux users that without intellectual property protecion the GPL would not be enforcable. While it takes a different stance on copyright protecion, it reauires intellectual property law to be effective. The OSS community will lose as much control over their creations as would the artistic community and I think we can all agree that would be a bad thing.

Re:Copyrights are good

[klaun]

Maybe they are and maybe they aren't but...

They protect the creator in profiting from the art , literature or music they create. If there wasn't any copyright protection there wouldn't be any incentive to create anything. Sure some people will do it, but not on a scale like we have today.

This is one argument for copyrights that's always seemed a little skewed to me. How does getting residual profit from something you've already created encourage you to create more. I mean in programming for instance, the reason most commercial code is written is because the programmer does not get residual income, but rather only gets paid while actively programming. I mean would you continue to work if your company said, 'we'll continue paying you 80k a year for this one program you've written forever." I think the scheme that will lead to people producing more is one in which they are only paid while actively creating.

The idea of a starving artist or musician who creates for the love of art or music is a lie. Everyone dreams of being famous and profiting from their works.

I'm glad you settled that issue for us. If the majority of artist create with the goal of being famous and wealthy than they labor under a serious misapprehension since the vast majority will never be either. The fact is the vast majority of art is never rewarded in any financial fashion whatsoever. So if only profitable art were created there would be far less of it.

Intellectual property protections are actually good because they force people to create something better than what exists today. Patents are a perfect example. There are thousands of companies researching new technology to create products that are better and cheaper than what we have today. Without patent protection we would have to rely on the government and universities for research. And since they aren't for profit we would only get things some geek thought up in a lab and would probably have no practical use in the real world.

Kind of sly to mix patents in with copyright since many people have very different feelings on the two things. Muddying the issue only makes your argument look weaker, especially with smearing university researchers. The problem with all your speculation is that it's of the form, if the world were exactly the same except no patents... but the world would be vastly different without a concept of intellectual property. My problem with IP is that it introduces a prior restraint upon me. If I think up a great idea without any outside influences, I can be legally restrained from using just because someone else thought of it first.

Re:Copyrights are good

[poot_rootbeer]

The idea of a starving artist or musician who creates for the love of art or music is a lie.

How do you reconcile that with the existence of thousands of artists, including musicians, who are starving, and do create for the love of their art?

It seems the only people who advocate getting rid of intellectual property protections are those
who have never created anything

False dichotomy between "people who have created something" and "people who have never created anything". EVERYONE creates stuff.

Without patent protection we would have to rely on the government and universities for research. And since they aren't for profit we would only get things some geek thought up in a lab and would probably have no practical use in the real world.

You can't discount academic and governmental research just because you have some sort of anti-Ivory Tower mentality. I can name about one million inventions that have come out of those institutions that cannot be dismissed as having "no practical use in the real world".

I agree with you -- copyrights ARE good. The problem is that copyright control is increasingly being taken away from the individuals who are actually creating anything.

Re:Copyrights are good

[lysurgon]

False dichotomy between "people who have created something" and "people who have never created anything". EVERYONE creates stuff.

Fabuous point! You're completely correct. The problem, at least in America, is that most people don't think of themselves as creating anything, so they don't put much thought behind it. Hence the abundance of human feces (everyone makes that!), garbage (the inevitable castoff of consumer products), and poorly parented children.

Until people wake up and realize that they are fully engaged in their lives and cultures whether they like it or not, this is unlikely to change course. Of course, the prevailing cultural trope is one that conditions the individual to distance themselves from any creative acts and simply consume consume consume. It's what I call the "cultural-industrial complex".

If you take a kinda zen balance view on life, we're way out of whack on the creation/consumption ying-yang. I mean, people work their asses off for what? To buy things that then they have to work more to pay off. And in the end are they satisfied? No, because they just need to buy that one extra thing to get there....

It's a sick cycle, and most people are totally unaware that it's going on.

Re:Copyrights are good

[Paolomania]

[copyrights] protect the creator in profiting from the art , literature or music they create. If there wasn't any copyright protection there wouldn't be any incentive to create anything.

Copyrights protect the owner of the art/literature/music. If the owner and creator happen to be the same person - great. But in today's work-for-hire system, artists have very little ownership over what they create. Why do artists settle for such a system? Because the distribuition channels are controlled with an iron fist by fewer and fewer media companies. Thus it is nearly impossible for an independant artist to make a buck while retaining ownership of their work. So the artists sell out in order to make a living.

Laws protecting copyright are great when they protect everyone from the small time independant to the big label. However, so long as the wide-spread distribution channels are proprietary (store shelf space, air time, a/v codecs, encryption schemes) and under the control of the few, independant artists don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting their stuff out there. The big problem with what the WIPO is pushing is, IMO, that it does more to protect big media's control over the distribution channels than it does to protect copyright holders in general.

Re:Copyrights are good

[Happy Monkey]

I would also point out to the /. Linux users that without intellectual property protecion the GPL would not be enforcable.

With reasonable IP protection, the first things put under the GPL would soon be public domain, but newer additions to the original version would still have several years of protection left.

That would be a fair price to pay.

Re:Copyrights are good

[Pussy Is Money]

Of course, actually what Shakespeare said was in reference to a desire held by those in power, i.e. "let's kill all the lawyers so we can do as we please". More like a moron philosopher, is you sir.

Re:Copyrights are good

[BarefootClown]

Actually, Mozart was quite thoroughly compensated for his work. The great musicians of the time were usually signed by a benefactor, generally a Lord/King/Noble of some sort, then kept on commission for producing works of art. I've forgotten who was Mozart's benefactor, but he most certainly did work for profit. This was true not just in music, but in many fields--Machiavelli, for example, was at one point patronized by the Medici family.

As to Britney, I don't think she has been helped so much by copyright as she has by a huge marketing arm and the mindless sheep^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H American public, most notably the teenage male market (not to pick on the guys, see also: N*SYNC, et al.).

In any event, allowing the artist the opportunity to make money from his art seems only right--he is creating something, the consuming public is availing itselvf of his work, why shouldn't he have that opportunity? If you choose to create and distribute for free, that's your choice--you're welcome to it (please don't come to me for support vis-a-vis welfare, however); if somebody else decides that they want to be paid for their work, why should they be prevented from doing so?

Re:Copyrights are good

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyrights would be good if they could not be exclusively licensed to anyone other than the creator of a work. This would not prevent the creator from licensing them to only one company if they so chose. It would instead protect them in the case of the company using their work in a detrimental way, as they could simply go and license the same work to any other company. Copyright, as it is currently implemented, does not protect the creator because to make any money off of their creations, they basically have to give all rights to their works away. That is unless they are already very successful. Companies might just have to treat the creators of works with a bit more respect then. That might suck for them.

BTW, How exactly is copyright creating an incentive for Walter Elias Disney or Jimmy Hendrix to create new works? I mean, they are dead.

Re:Copyrights are good

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually if you can prove that you created something without external influences, you get license to use it, at least in the case of patents. Of course you can't profit from it, since you weren't first, but your use isn't barred.

Re:Copyrights are good

[pyramid termite]

The idea of a starving artist or musician who creates for the love of art or music is a lie. Everyone dreams of being famous and profiting from their works.

Where do you get off? I find your sweeping generalizations to be both offensively cynical and incorrect!

Me, too. I've mentioned this before, but as Allen Ginsberg said, artists don't have to make a living from their art and they don't have to create all the time. Shakespear didn't make a living writing, he made one acting. William Carlos Williams was a doctor and a poet and was very happy with that. Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive because he realized he wasn't going to make any kind of living in literature, even though he was good. It didn't stop him from writing. Only an idiot starves in a garret somewhere; the rest of us work at what we can find, and often it enriches our art by doing so.

Re:Copyrights are good

[The Smith]

I would also point out to the /. Linux users that without intellectual property protecion the GPL would not be enforcable.

You don't get it, do you? The GPL was created to subvert copyright from the inside: it uses the current copyright laws to bring about the state of affairs many programmers would like to live in. The authors of GPL'd software would like to donate their work to the public domain, but current copyright law would allow anyone to take that work, modify it slightly, and recopyright the derivative work for another 100 years or so.

This is what so many people miss when they accuse the GPL of being over-restrictive. The only freedom it takes away is the `freedom' to take away the freedoms of others (read that sentence again, carefully, and understand that this is a freedom which nobody should have). In an ideal world with minimal copyright law, programmers could donate their work to the PD with exactly the same effects.

I live in the UK, and I fear that the restrictions our version of the DMCA will impose on me and others when it is enacted next year will greatly outweigh the `protection' it will give, mainly to a small group of rich media companies.

Re:Copyrights are good

[nidarus]

I'm quite sure that Mozart would've never composed The Magic Flute if he wasn't about to be paid a rather large sum of money that, by the way, allowed him to wage a rather exuberant lifestyle, so I seriously don't think your remark is in place (no copyright law == no money for poor Amadeus).

Actually, the myth of the struggling artist, suffering because of his love of music, that's usually applied to Mozart, is completely untrue. He certainly had good (one might even say Britney-good) income from his works. Then, of course, he tended to waste his all of this money (on clothes, gambling, etc.).

Re:Copyrights are good

[haruharaharu]

Apparently everyone missed the sarcasm. Here, I'll use these<sarcasm>&lt/sarcasm>

Re:Copyrights are good

[Chris Johnson]

Absolutely. I don't know what field lysurgon works in, but I'm a musician and sound engineer, and even as I type this I'm remastering some older works to go onto a website where they can be heard.

And I can tell you this- perhaps sometimes I'd like to be able to afford better tools, but that is toward an end- I can IMAGINE. Bits of other people's music leave flaming trails across my imagination, leave me wanting more, wanting to say, "OK, give me something like THAT- but MORE SO!" It could be a serene beautiful melody or it could be a wall of brutal overloaded guitar, bass and drums hitting like a hammer to the head- but I'll hear it and go WHOA! Did you hear THAT? Play it again!

And in my own music I'll want to not simply copy THAT, but to take it a step or two beyond, make it my own, as always unsatisfied with what seemed wonderful yesterday.

It's about having an insatiable hunger for pictures in sound (or pictures in pictures, for visual artists), being able to imagine a thing and determined that the imagined thing MUST exist. Sometimes when you create it, it's not as good as you'd hoped, but so what? On to the next thing.

Explain why I would be less hungry for the next picture in sound should there be no prospect of other people paying me to do it.

furrfu.

Re:Copyrights are good

[cpt kangarooski]

Oh, no one's saying that you shouldn't be able to ask for money for your LABOR. Rather that, having been paid once for composing some music, why should you get paid again? It's gratuitous, and is no longer compensatory. Certainly, I don't mind if people nevertheless wanted to pay twice, but I wouldn't insist upon it.

The ability to insist upon it DOESN'T derive from his having created the work. It derives from people's willingness to allow it, which is quite different, particularly when people get fed up.

Re:Copyrights are good

[cpt kangarooski]

I'm an artist. I create works at times because I personally enjoy doing so. I also used to hold down a job doing other work, and presently am in school. It's nice to get paid for doing something you love, but I'd do it anyway. And I'm for drastic dimunition of copyright, by the way.

Re:Copyrights are good

[Anonymous Coward]

Walt's not dead! They froze him, and later placed his brain into a clone of Hitler's body. Swear to God. ;)

Re:Copyrights are good

[Sloppy]

You're right, copyrights are good.

But have you looked at these news laws and treaties? They're not about copyright. We already had copyright laws. These are something new to change what people are and are not allowed to do.

Look at how the DMCA was used. What does creating a monopoly on DVD players (which is what ther eis, when every DVD lpayer maker much get a license from a single central authority) have to do with copyright? A monopoly on a specific DVD's content, I can understand -- that's what copyright is. But where do they get off leveraging monopolies into new markets?

Another atrocity: Why is Skylarov in jail when he didn't do anything even tangentially related to copyright violation? It wasn't even the dubious "contributory infringement." These fuckers are creating new crimes!

And one other thing to think about: Where's the public debate? Physical property is a natural law. (We humans aren't the only ones who have it -- lions and tigers and bears have it too. Hang out in a tiger's territory if you don't believe me.) But we (society) invented IP because it serves a purpose that we want. There is dissent, but as a whole, society said Yes Please to copyright law. But these new ones -- society didn't say anything at all, except maybe, "We're not paying attention to the changes you guys are making, so it's ok to screw us."

Re:Copyrights are good

[CrackWilding]

Thank you for that burst of common sense.

Re:Copyrights are good

[Velex]

Yeah, Mozart would never have composed The Magic Flute without copyright protection. Oh, wait...

He might have, and he might not have. If we can assume a world where copyright does not exist, then there's really no money that will get thrown around. When Mozard comes out with his new piece, all the conductors in Europe will shamelessly yoink a copy and get their orchestras to play it, taking the money for themselves. Now, that means that composing can only be done as a hobby.

But then again, copyright in Mozart's time != copyright in our time. Copyright probably only extended at most ten years for Mozard, but today it's over ninty-five! No one needs a ninty-five year copyright period! As one of my friends put it: "If you're not contributing anything new in ten years, you don't deserve to be making money."

Well, I Know Britney 'Jailbait' Spears wouldn't have done quite as well without Copyright law.

Britnet Spears is a whore who's selling point is her breast implants. <sarcasm>I wish my mom would've gotten me implants for my sixteenth birthday</sarcasm>. People see Spears because they want get a lap dance and jack off, so her income is as secure as any porn star at your local stripper's club, and it really isn't tied to her music at all.

I fail to see...

[toughguy]

I fail to see how this is a problem (and I'm not trying to troll). If someone is capable of claiming "rights" on some physical artifact that they created then why shouldn't someone be able to claim rights on some non-physical artifact that they created as well?

For example, the farmer creates carrots, let's say, and has certain rights over the carrots (they belong to him, etc.) and expects to be compensated for expending the effort necessary to create the carrots. Similarly, a musician creates jazz, let's say, and has certain rights over that jazz (it belongs to him/her, etc.) and expects to be able to be compensated for expending the effort necessary to create that jazz.

Where's the difference here? The only difference I see is that carrots have a physical manifestation which limits their ability to be easily duplicated and dispersed among a large audience. Music on the other hand, especially in our digital world, can be easily duplicated. The fact that music can be duplicated doesn't mean that the creator should give up his rights to it. If that is the case then what is the problem in passing a law which protects the creator's rights?

Re:I fail to see...

[larsu]

Most opponents of this (especially in this forum) are not against intellectual property rights. (In fact, many of us here are creators of such work). However, legislation like this can easily lead to uninformed courts incorrectly weighing other, more important rights against the rights of IP holders and reaching the wrong decisions. In the Skylarov case for example, Dimiri Skylarov is charged with violating the DMCA by designing and distributing software that circumvents Adobe E-book security. Dimitri is automatically in violation such as as this, and the DMCA, whether or not Adobe is using ROT13 encryption, and is clearly fradulent about claims of their products security.

Do not confuse laws such as this with an International Copyright Law. We already have those. What this, and the DMCA are, are simply encroachments onto fair use rights.

Re:I fail to see...

[Spinality]

Similarly, a musician creates jazz, let's say, and has certain rights over that jazz (it belongs to him/her, etc.) and expects to be able to be compensated for expending the effort necessary to create that jazz. -- toughguy

You picked an interesting example. Consider this. The essense of jazz is improvisation, of course. A cornerstone improvisation technique is quoting material from other music. Listen to any solo by a great contemporary or past improviser -- Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, Louis Armstrong, or one of today's young lions. You'll hear snatches of familiar tunes here and there, intermixed with new ideas. Great improvisors nearly always use a mix of both techniques. This type of borrowing is as old as music. "Theme and variations" is a similar cornerstone of mainstream composed music through the centuries.

Under current copyright law, as implemented through the courts, such borrowing of themes is now ILLEGAL without permission of the composer (which is frequently not available, or prohibitively expensive). Therefore, today's jazz musicians are frequently stopped during recording sessions and told to stop quoting material from other sources. "Stop playing it the way you want to and play it the way the lawyers tell you to." The Estate of Cole Porter is particularly notorious for litigation in this regard. (Note that parody is specifically permitted under the law, so although a beautiful apropos quote from "Night and Day" is illegal, a silly parody of the same song is not.)

So this is an example of how unending copyright protection over works written early in the last century has stifled a vital and beautiful art form of today. Does the composer deserve some kind of protection over the composed works? Clearly. But should this extend to what, for me, is an essential type of fair use? I don't think so.

I'm sure others will provide more substantive examples; but this is one that really pisses me off.

Re:I fail to see...

[Krow10]

If someone is capable of claiming "rights" on some physical artifact that they created then why shouldn't someone be able to claim rights on some non-physical artifact that they created as well?

If that someone charges me for access to that physical or non-physical artifact, then I should have some rights to the use of that artifact. With respect to non-physical artifacts, I have the right to, among other things, make an archival copy. The DMCA, and IIANM, this WIPO treaty proposal make the tools that would allow me to excercise my rights illegal. The DMCA and this WIPO proposal don't make it a crime to violate copyright (existing copyright law does that) but it makes exercising fair use rights illegal if the form in which the non-physical artifact is distributed puts even a nominal barrier up to fair use.

-Craig

Re:I fail to see...

[Captain_Frisk]

I agree with you. It is definetly wrong to steal music, movies, etc.

The issue is that these things get enforced improperly. Rather than punishing individual infringements (ie arrest me for having bootleg music), companies are putting protections into their works that prevent us from doing things with them that we would want to do. (I like to rip cds, make compilations, put things on my mp3 player etc)

These anti copy protections, which prevent privacy, remove value from the products, because we can't do what we want to with them.

Rather than punishing Napster for allowing users to share files, really the users should be punished, as they are the ones breaking the law, so that I can have the freedom to do legal things with my CDs. Unfortunatly, it doesn't pay to prosecute individual users, so the RIAA is going after the things that allow piracy.

Its a shame really. I think if they just busted a few guys sharing music on Napster, gnutella, etc, illegal uses of said technology would drop immediatly, and the rest of us can retain the ability to do the things we want with the product we paid for.

Instead, since corporations are in the business instead of providing value to the consumer, this just won't happen. Ever wonder why, when CDs are cheaper to produce, they cost more than cassettes?

Captain_Frisk

Re:I fail to see...

[artdodge]

The only difference I see is that carrots have a physical manifestation which limits their ability to be easily duplicated and dispersed among a large audience. Music on the other hand, especially in our digital world, can be easily duplicated.

That's exactly the difference, and it's a big one. I think it was Ben Franklin who said that an idea is set apart from a physical commodity in that you are no way impoverished when you give it away. If I give away my carrots, I have no carrots. If I give away an idea, I still have just as much access to and use of that idea as I had before it was shared. Hence the popular "Information wants to be free" meme.

I tend to be mistrustful of copyright in the vein of Jefferson; historically, copyright was implicitly joined to the idea of physical embodiments and copies, which allowed for a reasonably balanced approach. But when objects of copyright are trivially disembodied, and "to copy" is something that gets done internally 10 times over in the basic handling of a copyrighted work to begin with (server copies it off of disk into buffer cache; copies it from buffer cache to network stack; from network stack to ethernet card; copied over a series of store-and-forward routers; copied from client network stack to client application; copied and manipulated within client application to decode; copied to kernel buffer; copied from kernel buffer to audio card), we need to look for a new abstraction instead of "copying" on which to hang IP law.

Re:I fail to see...

[ChaosDiscordSimple]

I fail to see how this is a problem (and I'm not trying to troll). If someone is capable of claiming "rights" on some physical artifact that they created then why shouldn't someone be able to claim rights on some non-physical artifact that they created as well? For example, the farmer creates carrots, let's say, and has certain rights over the carrots (they belong to him, etc.) and expects to be compensated for expending the effort necessary to create the carrots.

The farmer's rights to his carrots don't derive from the effort in creating them. His rights derive from the fact that if I take his carrots, he will no longer have carrots. If I copy a jazz CD, the original artist still has his original recording.

I believe copyright is a good idea and does effectively encourage creative efforts. But it's important to understand that copyright has nothing to do with physical property. They're different sets of rules and should be treated as such.

Re:I fail to see...

[Happy Monkey]

I fail to see how this is a problem (and I'm not trying to troll). If someone is capable of claiming "rights" on some physical artifact that they created then why shouldn't someone be able to claim rights on some non-physical artifact that they created as well?

If I buy a physical artifact, I can make a copy of my own, or take some good ideas from it and make a derivitive object. I can even do this if I only see it through the window of a store, and don't buy it. Now, this doesn't apply to all objects (ie carrots), and trademark and patent laws may prevent me from selling my object, but in its creation I haven't infringed anyone's rights.

Just throwing a wrench in the analogy.

Re:I fail to see...

[toughguy]

That's exactly the difference, and it's a big one. I think it was Ben Franklin who said that an idea is set apart from a physical commodity in that you are no way impoverished when you give it away. If I give away my carrots, I have no carrots. If I give away an idea, I still have just as much access to and use of that idea as I had before it was shared. Hence the popular "Information wants to be free" meme.


This, to me, is bunk. The information itself has no wishes, wills, volitions or any other characteristics. We can certainly attribute wills and desires to things which certainly don't have them, but that doesn't magically make them so.

"An idea is set apart from a physical commodity in that you are in no way impoverished when you give it away". Let me see... Put yourself in the position of a musician hoping to make a living creating music. You write, record and produce a great album which if it weren't for the scads of people making illegal duplicates would have provided handsomely for the musician. Here we have a case in which an idea being given away will impoverish the musician. Or at least the idea is not preventing the un-impoverishment of the musician and thus not significantly different from a physical commodity.

In this case, and most others, the idea that "information wants to be free" contradicts the idea that "an idea can be given away WIHTOUT impoverishment". That being so I'd have to say that the "information wants to be free" meme is very wrong. And, any steps taken by "idea creators" to allow them to protect their ideas (music, software, etc.) is certainly justified, at least to the degree which will allow them to prevent their own impoverishment.

Note also that I'm not advocating that creators of ideas should have to protect their rights, if they want to give away their ideas, let them do so. But for those that want protection to prevent impoverishment let them get it as well.

Re:I fail to see...

[cpt kangarooski]

It's just harmless anthropomorphication. Similarly "water seeks its own level" even though as we all know, water is just this stuff that has no directing intelligence. Information is easily disseminated and difficult to redact; this, I think, is what is meant by "information wants to be free." Not that it strives to be, it just tends to become so quite easily, and tends to stay that way.

As for people being entitled to make money, you couldn't be more wrong. I'd like nothing more than to be paid for reading and posting to /. but that doesn't mean that I should be. Similarly, if people WANT to pay a musician, that's great. But if they do not; if they do not even want to pass laws that permit a musician to assert a copyright, then Mr. Musician is SOL.

He didn't EARN the right for other people to leave his stuff alone. And he's not impovershed by its dissemination, as he is still perfectly entitled to find people willing to pay him as he ever was. (as opposed to if someone took tangible objects, which he could then no longer enjoy the use of) His ability to exclusively legally control the dissemination of his work is not of his own making. It is a GIFT. It is handed to him on a silver platter.

But there are strings attached. For example, when the law says that the period is over, it's over. At one point copyrights lasted 14 years. By that standard, we'd have most of the hits of the 80's in the public domain right about now, and I'd feel fine about it. The musicians got paid enough (if their music was worth getting paid for at all) and no one ever promised them a permanent meal ticket.

Similarly, people might find that certain classes of works aren't entitled to protection. Software wasn't for some time. Nor music. (as sheet music, prior to the development of player piano rolls and phonogram recordings)

You have to remember the fundemental, overarching purpose of copyright. (at least in the US, which has the most sensible version around)

To enrich the public. Authors can go to hell, really, the point is to enrich the public. We accomplish this by dangling a carrot in front of authors to entice the creation of new works, and when they've done so to our satisfaction, making them work again for the next carrot.

When you put authors on one tray of the scale and the public and our common, shared culture on the other, authors HAVE to lose, every damn time.

Particularly since artists directly benefit from being able to reuse each other's work. Should Andy Warhol have been imprisoned for "pirating" the work of the graphic designer who created the Campbell's Soup can label art? Should Shakespeare have been called 'pirate' for rewriting "Hamlet" or "Romeo and Juliet" or virtually anything else he did? (man couldn't think of an original story to save his life) Aren't you saying that we ought to despise Walt Disney for daring to make a cartoon based on "Snow White" which he, gasp, didn't think of himself! You appear to think so; I think you're horrifically short-sighted, and not really all that up to speed on the subject. I.e., I think you're utterly wrong.

And I'm saying this as an _artist_ who finds copyright to generally interfere with and impair the development and progress of the arts, so let's please have none of the labels you'd likely otherwise try to place on your opponents.

Re:I fail to see...

[jelle]

patent laws will also prohibit you from using your object.

Re:I fail to see...

[toughguy]

To begin with, water actually does "seek its own level", but information never does anything by itself, so I fail to see how said meme is "harmless anthropomorfication". An idea housed in the mind of an individual is not itself begging to get out. The person may want to set it free, but the information isn't deciding his course of action.

You said "He didn't EARN the right for other people to leave his stuff alone". I say yes, he did earn that right, or at least the right to grant people access to it on HIS conditions. The farmer (from my first post) HAS the right grants access to his carrots to whoever he chooses. He also HAS the right to protect his carrots (with physical security) from people who would otherwise take them from the him without compensating him. A musician has similar rights, and if it takes laws and technology to do so then how is it different than the farmer's security gates, guards and dogs?

I re-read my comments and I didn't make any mention , or even implication, of despising people who borrow from the works of others. You should read more carefully. I did however say that people should have the right to choose who does and does not access their information (music, software, whatever). And if the creator of the information wants to restrict the audience of the information then why not let them, it is after all his information.

Re:I fail to see...

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, seeking is an intelligent act. Diogenes sought an honest man. Water just happens to flow downhill, 'til it can't flow no more.

Similarly while information obviously cannot bust itself out of someone's mind and spread itself, once it has been spread, it cannot be taken back. If you told me a secret, you have to trust that I won't repeat it. You cannot actually cause me not to do so, and you cannot take away that secret from me, if you think better of it.

Anyway, that's probably the best interpretation of "information wants to be free" that I can provide for you. Not that it tries to become free, but that once having been made free by an outside actor, it stays that way. Information is only exclusively yours for as long as you never ever reveal it. Show it to me, and suddenly it is ours.

On to your second point:
There is an ESSENTIAL difference you're missing. It is true -- a musician may only agree to share his music under certain conditions. However, having done so, he must be cautious. First, as made plain above, once he has shared his music, he cannot unshare it. If another equally skilled musician happened to hear it, then he could reconstruct it. And any member of the audience might remember enough of it to never again need to seek out the services of the original musician in order to enjoy it again. I can remember how plenty of songs go, and I often whistle or sing a bit at times for my own enjoyment.

But more important is the second danger the musician faces. He may find himself unable to enforce the conditions that he imposed! While the courts in the US often are quite liberal with regards to the right to contract between two parties, and let a lot of things slide by, they won't let _everything_ so slide.

Witness the very recent Softman case. Adobe alleged that they licensed distributors to distribute their software under terms set by Adobe. The distributors could only distribute to licensed resellers that were only allowed to resell under terms set by Adobe.

BUT a company or person who bought a copy of the software was under no contract whatsoever. He could resell the product in any manner he chose, even giving it out on the streets for free, in direct competiton with Adobe. (who has already been paid and doesn't really have a leg to stand on) Essentially, the judge ruled that even if dressed up as a license, if a transaction walked like a sale, and quacked like a sale, it was a sale, and NOT a contract.

Your musician may be able to sell people CDs, but unless he is invariably quite cautious about it, he may slip up and lose control.

Of course, where you're hauling in a discussion of contract rights from in a discussion about copyright is a bit beyond me. Copyright provisions are NOT EVER set by the artist. The artist may _waive_ some of his exclusive rights, but he has no ability to control what those rights are, or to whom, or how long they apply.

Copyright is established by LAW. Disney surely would like a copyright quite different from what's actually on the books. For starters, I'm sure they'd like to get rid of that pesky line in the Constitution that requires copyrights to persist only for limited times. Unfortunately, they have a lot of political clout, but they don't get to actually set terms to that extent, bypassing Congress altogether.

Of course, why do we have copyright laws? Well, the answer again lies in the Constitution: to promote the progress of the arts. NOT, I repeat NOT to fatten the wallets of artists, or to protect them in any way.

Instead, we -- the vast majority of people, who happen to generally be consumers of art and not producers -- are willing to circumscribe our own liberties to run wild with creative works once our individual Jeffersonian torches have been lit. We do this because we're self-serving and greedy. We figure that we can obtain even MORE works for our own purposes (which include using them as fodder for another generation of works) by using a carrot instead of a stick.

But we don't just hand over a boundless supply of carrots, or copyrights. We limit them, searching for the optimum point where we bribe artists to create as much as possible, without outweighing the benefits of screwing artists over and taking what we want.

For example, under the original copyright act, we felt that if an author could not recoup enough money to keep him writing after fourteen years from publication, he wasn't worth it. Copyrights had terms that short. And if you weren't writing books or making maps, you didn't deserve copyrights anyway.

Of course, this is the way it should be. I have no sympathy for artists -- and again, I _am_ one -- save that they're useful for my purposes. With property, at _least_ you can make an arguement that by depriving someone of their wheat they can no longer use it. With information, no one could stop the original creator from using it if they wanted. (save perhaps by the ancient Egyptian copyright method of killing him, but I'm not for that)

When people describe the American copyright regime as being utilitarian, they're not whistling Dixie -- it's really a system devised by and for the public, which treats artists as useful tools, deserving of no more reward than we give them of our own free will, period.

At the moment, we're basically spoiling artists. If, for example, Stephen King dropped dead today, you cannot make a single compelling argument that permitting his copyright to last for another NINETY YEARS more past his death will in any way whatsoever stimulate him into writing one more word. Trust me on this; I had hoped that death couldn't stop Vincent Price either, but it seems to have done so.

Confusing property rights and copyrights is a common mistake, and the way that the language around them goes, it's not all that surprising. Lots of people do it. But they share no similarities at all. Mostly people get hung up on this concept: a copyright is itself a piece of property, and the embodiment of a work, e.g a book or a canvas is a piece of property, but the copyrighted WORK, e.g. a story or a picture, is not property at all. Tricky, I know, but this isn't an easy subject.

Your argument that creators of a work should have some say in how it is used can also be attacked through an absurdist argument. James Daly famously is reputed to have invented the nonsense word 'quiz' in Dublin in the late 18th century. (actually he didn't, but let's assume that the story is true) Are you proposing that the heirs and creditors of Daly could, if they chose, PREVENT people from using the word? Should they be able to bill Robert Redford for his movie 'Quiz Show' as well as newspaper reviewers writing about it? Should they be allowed to charge dictionary editors royalty fees for use of it? Making the very very poor argument that authors should be able to treat ideas or works like any other piece of property leads to things like this which can be inarguably said to be quite detremental to encouraging the development of culture.

Don't hand people control over the contents of your mind -- limit copyrights to something very small, something that keeps artists eating, but hungry enough to need to keep at it, and which absolutely doesn't interfere with how you live your life in any meaningful way.

Re:I fail to see...

[Happy Monkey]

No they wouldn't.

Re:I fail to see...

[Furd]

Where's the difference here? The only difference I see is that carrots have a physical manifestation which limits their ability to be easily duplicated and dispersed among a large audience. Music on the other hand, especially in our digital world, can be easily duplicated. The fact that music can be duplicated doesn't mean that the creator should give up his rights to it. If that is the case then what is the problem in passing a law which protects the creator's rights?

The idea that carrots are "rivalrous" (i.e., the taking of the object diminishes the subsequent stock of the resource available) is discussed elsewhere in this thread, so there's not much to add. However, there is a deeper issue here, which is the fact that "copyright" is not a natural property right - rather it is a government construct erected to stimulate innovation through TWO mechanisms. One mechanism is the notion that the creator of the "intellectual property" should have certain exclusive rights allowing him/her to extract monopoly rents for a specified period of time. The second mechanism is the notion that, through open access to novel ideas, new ideas are stimulated, building upon the so-called "public domain" of ideas. And this "public domain" is maintained and enriched as the specified period of time expires, freeing up novel ideas for the use of all.

Note that this construct is very distinct from "real property" and much of the debates in this area arise from the conflation of the two ideas. Laws like these, which seem to achieve legitimacy through the application of the metaphor of "property" for intellectual creations strain that metaphor to the breaking point. After all, most of these novel ideas build upon the public domain, a common resource developed through public policies - to claim exclusive ownership in all possible applications is cheating the rest of us who are participants in the society.

That's why copyright on a jazz piece is not the same as ownership of a bunch of carrots. Intellectual property is not real property, and the contradictions emerging as the owners of IP try to turn it into real property will eventually either fail miserably or stifle innovation by closing off the public domain forever.

Re:I fail to see...

[jelle]

Then why does the USPTO tell us:

The patent only grants the right to
exclude others from making, using, offering for sale or selling or importing the invention.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general /n ature.htm

Re:I fail to see...

[artdodge]

Your example isn't compelling at all, in that you have completely redefined the word "impoverishment" to mean "deprived of enrichment"; let's say gazillions of people pirate the musician's album. Does the musician no longer "have" his album? Of course not - he still has his master copy, and as many copies as he wants to make, on whatever media he likes, according to his ability to finance said duplication. He in no way has any less in the way of measurable posessions than he did before the whole debacle began. Thus, he is not impoverished; he is merely not enriched.

The right to control ideas and embodiments of ideas once you have disclosed them, and (as a special case of that) to be enriched by them, is purely a legal fiction; the intrinsic properties of physical commodities (principally scarcity) that cause unauthorized acquision to actually impoverish the original "owner" simply do not apply.

This is why comparing selling music and selling carrots is like comparing apples and oranges (or screenplays and oranges?)

Not that I don't feel for the guy - I'm a musician too, and have done work on several professional recording projects - I'm merely making the point that "intellectual property" is beecoming more and more ephemeral and abstract, and that the legal fictions needed to protect ephemeral embodiments of IP are distrressingly close to the concept of "speech" (see the whole DeCSS mess - "source code is speech" etc), as compared with the very tangible objects of copyright law as traditionally constructed (physical duplication of books, recordings, etc).

As for your distaste for anthropomorphizing information, I was merely explaining the thought process that produced the meme, not asserting the meme as a precise statement as to the nature of reality. Metaphor and equivalence are very different types of relationships. So chill.

United Nations members

[eclectric]

In the United States, the representative to the United Nations is an ambassador, which means the President chooses him or her. I imagine they have to confirmed by the senate, but I don't think it's every much of an issue.

Re:United Nations members

[ackthpt]

I imagine they have to confirmed by the senate, but I don't think it's every much of an issue.

Customarily, they're also a donor of large sums to campaigns who feel the urge to meddle in foreign affairs. The real voice behind that throne is the state department and Senate Foreign Affairs Committee chair (until recently, the fossil known as Jesse Helms.) Ambassadors have been castrated or empowered depending to what degree those in Washington care about what the rest of the world thinks or telling the rest of the world how to think.

Did you know?

[larsu]

This particular legislation was proposed by the Appropriate Standards Subcommitee of the World Intellectual Property Organization, also know as

ASS-WIPO

Re:Oh God, I can hear it now:

[alen]

Chained to a stove? When I get married I plan to keep mine locked in a box like the gimp from pulp fiction. I'll just let her out for sex and a bath once in a while.

WIPO Copyright Treaty == US Companies Own You

[Maul]

Hate to say it, but that is basically what this is all about. Protecting artists, my ass. US Companies don't want to wait for programmers and other "DMCA Violaters" to come to the USA for conferences to throw them in jail for 25 years for providing competition to their products.

With this, they'll be able to do it no matter where you are. Sadly, the only place where these people might be safe now is Communist China, though 25 years from now that might not be so bad considering the direction we're taking in the West.

Re:WIPO Copyright Treaty == US Companies Own You

[Noxxus]

Somebody Mod this Up!

Re:WIPO Copyright Treaty == US Companies Own You

[Anonymous Coward]

whoever modded the parent down was a fucking dumbass...

Re:WIPO Copyright Treaty == US Companies Own You

[Fjord]

Note to moderators: Just because you disagree with this post, that doesn't mean it's flamebait.

Re:WIPO Copyright Treaty == US Companies Own You

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude if I had points today I'd put em on this post. This is dead on!

Re:WIPO Copyright Treaty == US Companies Own You

[Anonymous Coward]

....or a recordin/movie industry or Microsoft serf....I'm sure a few of 'em have infiltrated /. to keep tabs on us radicals

This might be good.

[booch]

If the wording in the treaty truly says "composers, artists, writers" that's actually a good thing. That would give the actual artists more power over the companies that "own" the rights to their works.

Re:This might be good.

[HiThere]

If a corporation is a person, can a corporation be a writer?

It sounds silly, but since many copyrights are already owned by corporations, the answer is probably yes.
.

Re:This might be good.

[J'raxis]

. . . and others. Who do you think those others are?

No deprivation of right to free speech...

[sterno]

You can still speek freely all you want. It's just reading, viewing, listening or installing somebody else's speech that's at issue.

Re:No deprivation of right to free speech...

[Jeffrey Baker]

Not exactly. The DMCA restricts speech that was previously unrestricted. In the DMCA USA, you can't say "The method to decrypt a DVD is to XOR with 0xcafebabe", without regard that this nugget of knowledge was obtained through independent scientific inquiry. You'll get thrown in prison and/or slapped with civil penalties. see dvdcca v everybody, universal, et al v corley, usa v sklyarov, felten v riaa.

That's the stupid thing...

[sterno]

Ultimately the rules they are putting in place now like the DMCA and now this are seeking to stop casual sharing of copies, etc. Real pirates are already dealt with by the existing laws. This treaty won't change a damn thing about how they operate, it's just going to make it legitimate for somebody to sell me a movie I can only watch on certain devices, etc.

The constitution overrides...

[sterno]

While it within congress' perogative to establish treaties, the clauses created by those treaties can still be ruled unconstitutional. So while this makes it possible to sneak in laws that otherwise might not get passed, it doesn't do a damn thing about judicial review.

Re:The constitution overrides...

[jazman_777]

The Constitution is a dead letter that is occasionally trotted out, looked at, oohed and aaahhed at nostalgically, then put away because it gets in the way of what the Global Democratic-Corporate State really wants.

This is NOT a SPAM

[ackthpt]

Act now and you could become the next millionaire!

This is NOT a SPAM! Buy shares in the worlds largest prison network! With the adoption of the WIPO Treaty there will be enormous need for prisons to keep violators in while they await speedy trials, which could take years to come about!

Sure, you're asking yourself how could I make money in this enterprise! World governments would be required to apprehend violators by the order of their masters, the likes of Adobe, Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA and Scientology International! In what will surely be the largest roundup since the Holocaust there will need to be a place to keep them! As a private industry AND and innovator, World Prison Systems would house these vermin and collect fees from these same governments! Act now, as we plan to have a copyright of our own awarded soon on this business process!

To join in send $1,000 to:
World Prison Systems, LLC
8467 Frogfenster Road
Wampley Upon Grimulet
Ponzishire AYBRB2U
UNITED KINGDOM

Re:This is NOT a SPAM

[jazman_777]

This is NOT a SPAM! Buy shares in the worlds largest prison network! With the adoption of the WIPO Treaty there will be enormous need for prisons to keep violators in while they await speedy trials, which could take years to come about!

Why bother with niceties? Just put them in front of a military tribunal, give 'em a fair trial, then shoot 'em! Comparisons with USSR 1938 Show Trials not permitted.

Re:This is NOT a SPAM

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if you just shot them, you couldn't charge taxpayers more money to house the government's cheap labor indefinitely.

"Compilations"

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

Compilations of data or other material, in any form, which by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual creations, are protected as such.

I THINK what they mean here is that if, for example, you publish a book containing 10 public-domain short-stories or articles, that if someone else comes along and publishes a book with the same 10 public-domain works, that it would be a violation of your copyright to the particular collection you've put together, though the reprinting of none of the individual original public-domain works violates any copyright law...

I think.

That has been the case for a long time

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US Constitution the federal government has a set of specified powers. It cannot, no matter how it wants to, act unless empowered by a specific grant of power. (Which has lead to some absurdities. For instance the federal laws regarding divorce are enforcable due to a grant of power covering interstate commerce. Some think this logic is a little strained, but lawyers accept it...)

One of the powers of the executive branch is the power to pass and enforce treaties if the Senate agrees. There is no limitation on what these treaties can cover. What that therefore means is that the federal government can pass laws on virtually anything so long as they can first find some other country to sign a treaty with. For more on this topic see this findlaw article which is part of their commentary about the US Constitution.

Re:That has been the case for a long time

[cpt kangarooski]

What about the concept of 'enabling legislation'?

It's grossly unconstitutional to claim that the President and 2/3rds of the Senate could ratify a treaty that established a tax, which of course is something that could only be proposed by the House.

There's a few rays of hope, IIRC, that treaties are unenforcable even if ratified, until the full Congress and the President also enact laws to empower the treaty provisions.

Chicken Little

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no. The sky is ...

CWPL - idea draft

[eclectric]

The Creative Works Public License would

1.Require representation of the document (even modifications) to clearly indicate the original author.

2. Ban anyone from making money off CWPL'd works, without the author's permission. (I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, this is needed because without it, publishers could just pick books off the net, legally publish them and not have to pay the author. On the other, it doesn't jibe with the GPL)

3. Require that any subsequent or derivitive use also be automatically under the CWPL. (This also doesn't go with the GPL, and I'm not even user if this is a good idea.)

What makes this different from public domain? Well, I still have a legal right to keep my name on things. Also, nobody else can make money on my book by splashing on a new cover. (think about L. Frank Baum and how publishers have raked in the cash without forking a single cent over to his family).

The CWPL could even have a stipulation that derivite works are exempt from the CWPL after the author's death (automatically) or at a specific date that the author specifies. This would leave the opening to make original works under any copy protection scheme we wanted, but only after the author has specified. Still, it would remain illegal for others to make money off the original work, and would require that any copy of the work carry the original author's name.

I'm trying to think of applications and cases where this would be useful and necessary.

Re:CWPL - idea draft

[eclectric]

I wish I could append this to my comments, instead of posting a new one. ug.

I'm going to work on this further. It might just be for shits and giggles, maybe not.

drop me a line at my address if you have anything else to say/suggest about this.

I'll post what I have to
http://eclectric.com/cwpl/

but it probably won't be until tuesday or wednesday, as I have big final projects all due on Monday. I'd be especially interested to hear from other artists on this.

Re:CWPL - idea draft

[colin_zr]

Ban anyone from making money off CWPL'd works, without the author's permission.

You could do this, but as you say, it doesn't really match the GPL. In fact, I think it conflicts with the open-source definition.

For my own music I made sure that it was possible for people to make money from my work without me getting any, and I did this entirely selfishly. I wanted to give people an incentive to redistribute my work and minimise the complications that would arise if I required money from it. Requiring payment would add too much overhead for my purposes.

3. Require that any subsequent or derivitive use also be automatically under the CWPL. (This also doesn't go with the GPL, and I'm not even user if this is a good idea.)

Actually this is rather close to the GPL. Any derivative works of GPLed software must also be GPLed.

Anyway, I'd really advise you not to continue until you take a look at the other licenses that are around. I'm sorry to plug my own website again, but it really is the only place I know of that has this information... I've compiled a list of free media licenses. Please take a look at these before you embark on making your own.

Re:CWPL - idea draft

[tregoweth]

What makes this different from public domain? Well, I still have a legal right to keep my name on things. Also, nobody else can make money on my book by splashing on a new cover. (think about L. Frank Baum and how publishers have raked in the cash without forking a single cent over to his family).

L. Frank Baum presumably made money on his works while he was alive and the works were copyrighted to him. While his works were copyrighted, other publishers couldn't legally publish them, and wouldn't have raked in any cash anyway.

So I have to go out of my way...

[eAndroid]

As an artist, now I have to go out of my way to say, "You can copy this however you like"? Alright, that's fine with me. I just wanna sell enough of my CDs to cover costs (or just mp3.comize them). I'll make my money doing performances - which is also much more fulfilling.

Oh yeah, and the RIAA sucks. I'm not a member of any musicians unions either - not since SOCAN had all blank media including CDRs taxed here in Canada.

Remember Shakespear?

[Convergence]

If it hadn't been for the evil hoards plagarizing his plays, they never would have been put down on paper to be read (and hated) by schoolchildren everywhere.

(Then again, Shakespear plagarized his most of the plays attributed him..)

Methinks someone is viewing history through rosy glasses.

Technically...

[eclectric]

they don't make the excercise of your rights illegal. The DMCA *changes* your rights, because it directly speaks to and ammends the Copyright Act, and the subsequent (is it Title 17?) part of the US Code. It basically removes the previously established to make a copy so you can archive the original.

On the one hand, this sucks. We've basically lost our rights because a few moronic ninnies decided to abuse it. On the ohter hand, it makes sense. in the 1970s, making a copy for archive resulted in something of inferior quality. That is no longer the case. Not that I agree with DMCA... but I see their "logic" at least (besides the obvious money-grubbing one)

Copyrights are good in theory

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't mean to suggest that your op-ed is without merit, but I'll clear a few points up.

They protect the creator in profiting from the art , literature or music they create.

Over-generalization, and in the not-too-distant future, this may be completely false. Copyrights work under authority of law. Law, however, is not absolute or omnipresent or any of those nice things we would like it to be. Over the past five years, the info-anarchists and cypherpunks have made their foot-hold, and I can only see this growing. Witness Napster and Gnutella and Morpheus and Freenet (speaking socially, not technically) and then imagine what information exchange will be like 5 or 10 or 100 or 1000 years from now. Napster wasn't popular because its tens (hundreds?) of thousands of pirating users are stupid: copyright as an institution, as it exists right now, is unpopular. And I see it remaining unpopular. Copyright laws were created when they only affected about 0.1% of the population (those who owned presses), and even that's generous I think. WIPO and even the US Congress can make all the copyright laws they like, but they are all subject to the authority of law, which is quickly decreasing. The populace will eventually have its way, and legal restrictions on information will become completely moot.

Everyone dreams of being famous and profiting from their works.

Over-generalization. Even if we change this to what you really mean "almost everyone dreams of being rich and famous", this isn't really a great point. While most people would like to be rich and famous, I doubt very many people sincerely believe that they will ever deserve to be rich and famous. Most people will probably believe something like "I would like to be able to raise a family, have a good home, with some pleasures here and there, and everything else is gravy." It's very possible for artists (and even a lot of them, maybe more than we have rigth now!) to meet that goal without copyright law existing in its current form.

I know I'm anonymous, which ruins my credibility somewhat (though I'm not sure why. Why does posting under an anonymous pseudonym somehow give me credibility?), but I'm not just some stupid whiner. I've created a few lesser software packages. Freshmeat (and my FTP logs) report that I've got a fair number of downloads on my projects (totalling about 2000 over the past couple years), some of which resulted in feedback (meaning people did actually try them out). I've sent a few patches to free software projects. I've written some music. Not record-company-contract material, but enough that a couple dozen people or so have thought it be "kind of cool".

I have the coding skills that I could easily end up as a code monkey once I get my CS degree, writing in-house (or maybe contracted) programs for an above-average salary. I'm not going to do that, though. Once I graduate, I'm going to try to get service-based work, or maybe start my own service-based business, one that doesn't depend on draconian copyright law.

WIPO is not democratic; it does hold a lot of logal power. But I think, in the end, the populace will have its say, one way or the other. Some will turn to info-anarchy (a la Napster). Some will respect, but reject, copyright law (a la the FSF and myself). Some will turn to a hybrid of the two (a la the Freenet developers). It'll all come out in the wash :)

what about Gilles?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you're own MP might be a good place to start.

Anyway, back to Gilles. Seriously, the BQ is not about Quebec separation nowadays (or not JUST about that). The BQ is, IMHO, the most logical and most credible party in Canada, as sad as that may be. Despite being a Westerner, I'd vote for the BQ in a heartbeat if they ran here.

Mail Gilles!

Re:what about Gilles?!

[Glytch]

Oh, sure. Vote the BQ in. Your province would be part of the larger half of the country in a seperation situation. Just ignore us Maritimers. Don't worry, we don't mind. We've been treated like shit so often we're used to it.

By the way, thanks for helping out with increased transfer payments to improve our dead ecomony. After all, we helped you folks out in the great depression with loads of food so you wouldn't starve.

Oh, what's that? Right! You didn't help out with increased transer payments. Well, I suppose it doesn't matter. We're used to being treated like shit. Don't worry, go back to your booming economy and good ecomony. We'll just quietly sit here and work for our minimum wage jobs seasonal jobs and hope a future federal government takes pity on us by improving transfer payments so we can cut our taxes so companies decide to start *real* jobs here.

What utter nonsense

[donutello]

For instance, you could ask the same of the WTO. No one knows. No one's telling.

Where do people come up with this crap from? The WTO and the WIPO have member states as their members. For the purpose of the meetings, individual member states appoint representatives to represent them. True, each member state uses its own mechanism to appoint the representatives - which also depends on the level of the conference. Some countries send their ministers (secretaries of state) for the relevant areas while other countries send other higher or lower ranking officials.

The WTO and WIPO are (very influiential) non-governmental organizations. That's the problem at the moment: they're really accountable to no one other then their fat-cat corporate sponsors.

Nonsense. These are international organizations just like the UN. Countries are members - they send people who represent their interests to the forums for discussion. Ultimately it is the government of the country that is responsible for the decisions they agree to and in a democracy the government is accountable to the people - in other forms of government whatever checks or balances (or lack thereof) is who the respective governments are acountable to.

I really wish some idiots would read what they are protesting before protesting it. The majority of the WTO protesters were clueless idiots like the parent poster who have no idea what the WTO was about.

Re:What utter nonsense

[lysurgon]

or the purpose of the meetings, individual member states appoint representatives to represent them. True, each member state uses its own mechanism to appoint the representatives - which also depends on the level of the conference. Some countries send their ministers (secretaries of state) for the relevant areas while other countries send other higher or lower ranking officials.


Please explain then the preponderance of US-based corporate affiliates and other representatives at these summits. Anyway, you're skirting the issue: who from the US appoints US representatives to the WTO and by what process? Where are there checks or balances? Who is accountable? I don't think you can answer because this information is not publicly available. I imagine that even if you know, you're not allowed to tell.

In the case of a UN (or any other) ambassador the protocol for appointment is laid out in our laws (i.e. anyone can see how it's done) and requires open senate hearings public has access to. This is clearly not the case with the WTO.

The majority of the WTO protesters were clueless idiots

I have to take issue again. Were you there among the "majority of WTO protesters" or did you rely on (hostile) mainstream media coverage to make your assessment?

Re:What utter nonsense

[donutello]

Anyway, you're skirting the issue: who from the US appoints US representatives to the WTO and by what process? Where are there checks or balances? Who is accountable? I don't think you can answer because this information is not publicly available. I imagine that even if you know, you're not allowed to tell.

You're right! It's a big evil conspiracy! Posting links to the US Trade Representatives websites will immediately bring the secret police to your door. Deep links to the USTR WTO website are expressly prohibited! In fact everything is so hidden that if you search for "US representative WTO" on google you get nothing at all!

You know what else is a corporate conspiracy? The CIA! There are no senate meetings or congress approval to appoint the individual agents in the CIA. It's gotto be a corporate conspiracy!

Or there is the logical conclusion that the secretary for trade is the one responsible for the decisions of who represents the US and the secretary is appointed by the president with the approval of the Senate and Congress - but that theory is so boring.

I have to take issue again. Were you there among the "majority of WTO protesters" or did you rely on (hostile) mainstream media coverage to make your assessment?

I live in Seattle. I have heard the stupid comments first hand from idiots trying to prove to me the WTO was evil and from the same morons in other forums like Slashdot. Clueless uninformed opinions. Vague hints of nebulous corporate conspiracies. You guys should really read some newspapers from other countries to get a clue what organizations like the WTO are. Too many idiots are journalists in this country.

Re:What utter nonsense

[lysurgon]

You're right! It's a big evil conspiracy! Posting links to...

You realize I wasn't saying the organization itself or our nations involvement in it was a secret. I was making the point that how someone becomes representative to this organization is not public information. Nor are its proceedings, which are all held behind closed doors.

And I really hate to hoist your by your own petard, but, it seems that some people withing the USTR agree [ustr.gov]. I might also point out that this information came to light after December 3rd 1999, which is a nice concidence, don'tcha think?

You know what else is a corporate conspiracy? The CIA!

Not quite. The director of the CIA is a presidentially appointed position that undergoes a similar ratification process as cabenet appointments and abassadors. The CIA director is in theory ultimitely responsible for all actions of the CIA.

...Clueless uninformed opinions. Vague hints of nebulous corporate conspiracies.

It fascinates me that any anti-corporate, anti-government, anti-consumption post I make is almost always taken to be a conspiracy. I don't think theres anything of the sort going on, unless you'd call a country club a conspiracy. It's just business as usual on the global scale.

Re:What utter nonsense

[donutello]

Not quite. The director of the CIA is a presidentially appointed position that undergoes a similar ratification process as cabenet appointments and abassadors. The CIA director is in theory ultimitely responsible for all actions of the CIA.

Aaaaargh! You are an utter and complete moron. I will use as many of your words as possible and you should read this slowly so you understand.

The USTR is a presidentially appointed position that undergoes a similar ratification process as cabenet(sic) appointements(sic) and ambassadors. The USTR is in theory ultimately responsible for all actions of the USTR office (including the WTO representatives).

Re:What utter nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

The majority of the WTO protesters were clueless idiots like the parent poster who have no idea what the WTO was about.

Ain't that the truth .. smash a bunch of SBUX windows, then wonder why the world thinks you're a moron.

Re:What utter nonsense

[cougio]

One of the big problem with those international organisations processes is that decisions are taken by members of the executive branch of governments, while the decisions taken are legislative in nature. For example, preliminary arrangements for the FTAA were agreed by a conference of the Minister of Economy (or equivalent) from each state, and this was a binding basis for the actual Agreement. Also, (I am from Quebec, Canada) "specialists" in the economy fields made all the negociations, and the House of Commons of each province didn't have a say in this. They still critiqued it, but were shut up by the Prime Minister of Quebec, which was appointed by the last Prime Minister and not elected (he is the old Minister of the Economy). By some strange twist in legislation, he uses the fact that he was not elected to extend his mandate in order to "prove himself" or something like that. In other words, only a small part of government gets a say in those international legislations, but all must obey it. It is centralization of power, and that is mostly never democratic, especially when decided by a very tiny percentage of the population. The local representatives that globalization take power from don't get a part in the process. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think you will have a hard time saying Bush is democratically elected and accountable, too. What about the dictators the U.S. instituted in the south? Well... too bad. And take Mexico. NAFTA ruined their economy and is very unpopular there. I really doubt the population is in favour of FTAA. In fact, I know otherwise for having talked to many Mexicans. And don't tell me we have no alternative, that's a plain lie. Take the People's Submit (I'll agree there name is pretentious, but they were much more representative of the population, and the process was open and anyone could not only attend the conferences, but also talk there) provided tons of different political and economical alternatives to capitalist liberalism.

There was no public debate and no real information for a radical change in legislation that goes against what the public wants in many issues (privatization of healthcare, of water, government control or privatization of community services to people in need (housing for women victim of conjugal violence, teens addicted to drugs that want help, support for teens that want to go back to school, ect.)

And it's quite hard to read what we are protesting about when the texts are kept secret, no? They said the week before the Summit of the Americas that the texts would be made public after the Summit, to make people think they were making the process more transparent and so there would be less protesters. They did make the test public after they Summit, but it was already signed and by then it was too late. But this is not over. We are not going to sell our health to American corporations who have interest to keep us sick so they can sell medicine to us. We are not going to sell the last resources of clean and potable water in the world to Americans because they don't know how to effectively use water for irrigation and already wasted all of theirs. We are going to keep fighting. But thanks to American pressure, we will now be called "terrorists" and get shoot. But we are still not going to let them get away with it.

I'll agree that some protesters are clueless about what WTO is and what they are protesting for, and that the medias will only interview those, but it doesn't change the fact that they are not majority. And some protest only because they are in poverty and don't see the end of it while their 'leaders' attend meetings with the world's richest and don't care about them. Taking into account that those people often do not have the chance to get a good education, that's a very good reason to protest.

Eye for an eye, and the world is blind.

Re:What utter nonsense

[SuperCrazy]

Complaints made to the WTO are usually against environmental protection, animal protection, or food safety laws. A three-member WTO panel makes its decisions in secret, and the country whose law is being challenged isn't even able to present a defense.

The first WTO ruling was against the US Clean Air Act, ruling a provision that barred the import of gasoline which released more contaminants than the average from domestic refineries as a "barrier to free trade." The government had to rewrite the Clean Air Act or face $150 million in trade sanctions each year.

About Seattle - The WTO was going to incorporate provisions from the Multilateral Agreements on Investment into its rules. The MAI would give corporations the same powers as countries to challenge laws as "barriers to free trade." Also, corporations could hold governments liable for failing to stop strikes or boycotts. Thanks to the tens of thousands of protesters - an overwhelming majority of whom were non-violent - that didn't happen.

Re:What utter nonsense

[Malcontent]

Hey what the hell you doing sprouting facts to a corporate apologist. Don't you know you are an ignorant gullable fool who has been duped by the liberal education system and the media! Shut up, sit down, and consume, god damnit before I drop bombs on your sorry ass.

Re:What utter nonsense

[benb]

> unless you'd call a country club a conspiracy

I do :-)

note to self:

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't misspell highlighted words :). rigth = right. logal = legal.

despicable

[WildBeast]

But that's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. I mean without governments, laws, senators, lawyers, patents, DMCA, RIAA, etc. who else would be able to put a little evil in a society?

We have copyrights ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So what are we argueing about? These extra law's are not about copyrights as such, they are about taking away our rights for actions which MIGHT promote copyright infringement. These laws of course wont have any other effects and will never be abused ...

Freaking OUT!

[xophos]

That's enough! First we don't get dcss in debian because of stupid US-Law. Second we don't get decent crypto in debian main because of stupid US-Law. Third we get the most stupid US-Law WORLDWIDE! Argh!

Treat music like software?

[JMZero]

While there's certainly pitfalls to treating music like software, I think there's benefits in terms of clarification of rights.

When I buy software, I get physical media (which is becoming less and less important) and a license to use the software in certain ways. Music could be released under all sorts of different licenses - maybe in several versions at once (per client/seat, free, free-but-no-internet-sharing, etc...)

Now here's the question: Is this a serious suggestion, or am I poking fun at how bad software licenses are? Will the idiot who's been marking all my posts as flamebait find me here?

mod this guy up

[Anonymous Coward]

He has a very valid point and a good grasp of what's being fed to us.....

Soylent Green is PEOPLE

Where's...

[Anonymous Coward]

the WIPO Troll when we need him?

Re:Where's...

[Anonymous Coward]

just what i was thinking!

however

[_avs_007]

Doesn't the constitution also say that it is the law of the land above all other laws. So in which case if you have a treaty that says its ok to murder, it still doesn't mean its now legal to murder. Not any more so, than if a state decided to enact its own "rogue" laws...

Re:however

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think murder is unconstitutional, unless you're counting it as a violation of the "due process" clause. Murder is generally prosecuted under state laws.

Deja vu Re:Copyrights are good

[lildogie]

Could we assign a number to this oratory to save time?

I don't know.

[de_boer_man]

I, for one, don't really know how to feel about this. It seems that the same laws designed to protect me (my company develops software that is protected by these laws) sometimes seem to stab me in the back (I wish the old Napster was back!).

I seem to find myself wishing that I could select which portion of these laws and treaties that apply to me and ignore the rest.

I doubt I am the only one that feels this way. I was angry at the RIAA and others that shut down the Napster that I knew and loved, but I was probably more angry at the people caught with millions of copies of my company's software.

So in reality, I don't know what to think about this. I see a need to protect what people create, but I also see how this is taken way too far. Unfortunately, I have little hope that reason and sanity will come from an international group of politicians.

whatever FUD

[_ph1ux_]

"protect the rights of composers, artists, writers, and others..."

how lame of them to use these terms: composers, artists, writers and OTHERS!!

the thing is that they use the terms composers, writers, artists in order to connect with peoples mental images of these types of people - honest, creative artsy souls - usually poor, and could benefit from this type of "protection"

this is very sad - as all it does is manipulate people into feeling a certain way about the treaty. In effect it is the same as "think of the children" so as to make anyone who is opposed to this a Nazi who doesnt think that the poor "un-protected" writers and artists' works should be protected.

regardless of whatever true implecations this bill will have - this type of propoganda is just getting old - and the sad thing is that it still seems to work.

it should have read "protect the rights of the agents, distributers, producers and publishers who have made an investment into composers, artists, writers, and others' works - so as to keep the revenue stream un-tapped by outside parties, who in all likelihood, would probably not be trying to truely infringe our IP anyway."

Copyright is good, but DMCA isn't a copyright law!

[BitterOak]

The problem with many discussions about the DMCA (and the original post dealt primarily with the DMCA-like aspects of the WIPO treaty) is they degenerate into a discussion on whether or not copyrights are a good thing or not.

Yes, the DMCA does help some IP owners to protect their works, and yes it is under Title 17 of the United States Code, but that doesn't make it a copyright law. It is a law which restricts the creation, use, and communication of certain technologies. The DeCSS program was never copyrighted, but the DMCA has been used to limit its distribution.

If I sit down to create a new tool to allow someone to use their computer in a useful way (a device driver for instance) then the DMCA might be used to prevent me from doing so, if said driver might as a side effect allow someone to copy or access a copyrighted work. Such a law stifles creativity, it doesn't encourage it. Just because the "artists" in this case are computer programmers, it doesn't make their work any less valid.

I, like many others, think the concept of copyright is a useful one. But I don't think the DMCA or the WIPO treaty are merely copyright laws.

Replicators, carbon faxes, etc?

[Surak_Prime]

"The only difference I see is that carrots have a physical manifestation which limits their ability to be easily duplicated and dispersed among a large audience."

Okay. Fine. But's lets look at this argument the other way around - what happens when physical objects ARE just as easy to copy as digital ones? Science is working on it - it won't be long, speaking in terms of historical timeframes.

I think the better answer is to go ahead and use this whole Intellectual Property thing as a testbed to develop ways for us to continue to have progress and further development in a world where (eventually) "financial" concerns will no longer be the driving force behind our civilization(s). Preferably, without abandoning the concept of human rights.

Are licenses applied to other works?

[Omnivorous Cowbird]

If you bought something closed source, you'd have a license to go through, it just wouldn't be the GPL. If you read a book, there is no license: there's implied things you can and can't do with it, but no license printed in the beginning of the book. The same thing goes for art, music, and most other forms of copyrighted material. I don't know if it's possible to put a license on these things or not; I haven't seen it done. Before looking for a license to use on it, you might want to make sure that it's possible to apply a license to it.

Re:Are licenses applied to other works?

[Dr. Awktagon]

If you read a book, there is no license

I think this is because book and music publishers have been around a lot longer than the software industry, and have connections to the government, so when they want to change their "license" they just get the changes passed directly into law, skipping the license stuff.

Just wait until Microsoft gets into lobbying full gear. Their multipage EULA's will probably be the default license for all software.

Re:Are licenses applied to other works?

[colin_zr]

Some thoughts on the application of licenses:

There are essentially two types of software license: those which are "shrink-wrap" or "click-wrap" licenses, and those which are a set of exceptions to standard copyright protections.

Shrink-wrap and click-wrap licenses specify a set of conditions and use an action such as opening the packaging or pressing a button as an indicator that you agree to those conditions. There is some disagreement about the legal standing of such a license, though I think they have been upheld in some courts. These licenses can specify conditions that wouldn't otherwise be available under copyright law, such as restricting what the software is used for, for example.

Most open-source licenses are not shrink- or click-wrap. Instead, they specify that by following a set of conditions, the user gains an exempion from certain provisions of copyright law. For example, under the GPL, the user may be exempted from copyright's restrictions on redistribution as long as they follow the condition of providing the source (under the GPL) to whoever they redistribute to.

(I remember reading a while ago that RMS disapproved of a license simply because it required a click-wrap mechanism to give it powers that were not available under copyright law. He was opposed to click-wrap on principle, regardless of the conditions that the license was attempting to add.)

So, to answer your question, I'm quite certain that it is just as possible to apply either type of license to non-software content as it is to software. The mechanisms by which the licenses gain their power have nothing to do with the nature of the content. Software just happens to have a tradition of licensing in addition to copyright.

I want to be a non-profit library

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading up on it,
I think I want to be a library.
helpful document for understanding it
Being a non-profit library allows you free access to all of this copy protected stuff.

Re:I want to be a non-profit library

[hughk]

Being non-profit is easy, just spend your earnings on salaries, etc. There is nothing to stop a normal for-profit company having a not-for-profit spin-off. For example, an information services division (i.e., a library).

Under these regs, the library has the access under WIPO to all that copy-protected stuff. Even if you are obliged to be a public library, you can have some very interesting opening hours!

Re:I want to be a non-profit library

[bfree]

If I am reading this right and it is true, Napster is dead thanks to greed. If they had been a not for profit library they would be untouched?

Where will Alan Cox go?

[Burdell]

Alan Cox made a number of statements about the US DMCA and the Skylarov
case. He advised others not to travel to the US and resigned his
membership on the Usenix ALS committee, citing the DMCA.

Now, if the UK passes this treaty (with the same objectionable
provisions as the DMCA), where will he go? Is Alan going to leave the
UK?

Re:Where will Alan Cox go?

[/dev/trash]

I doubt it. When push comes to shove most of these people are just bullshitters.

Why does this lead to the DMCA?

[robosmurf]

I have read the linked to treaty, and am now baffled as to why this leads to the provisions that are in the DMCA.

The only relevant Articles seem to be Article 10: "Obligations concerning Technological Measures" and Article 11: "Obligations concerning Rights Management Information".

Article 10 calls for legal remedies against "circumvention of effective technological measures", but does not say anything about facilitating such acts or discussing details of the technological measures.

Article 11 seems only to apply to "Rights Management Information", in stopping the alteration or removal of information regarding the author of the work and so on. It doesn't say anything about preventing access to the work.

Why does the DMCA need all the objectionable provisions that have lead to the DeCSS and SDMI troubles?

Re:Why does this lead to the DMCA?

[JCCyC]

You know, it really looks like a good recipe for a legal "vaccine" against DMCA-like legislation. Let's say country Y decides to conform to the treaty by establishing an upping to copyright violation penalties IF circumvention measures were used in the process of violating (e.g. a pirate DVD ring that uses DeCSS to create nonencrypted versions of CSS-protected movies). Multiply penalties, say, by 1.5. Developing, using and distributing DeCSS, per se, would still be legal.

I could live with that.

(oh, and it's articles 11 and 12, not 10 and 11.)

Then again, the language of the treaty is scaringly vague. Countries CAN get themselves to comply without DMCA-izing themselves, but WILL they?

Not a new treaty...

[taustin]

... and still not ratified by the Senate, so the US is not, in any way, a party to it at this point.

I can't help but wonder why it is that these "THE SKY IS FALLING" hysterical rants never mention that.

Please...

[sterno]

Don't trample the little shred of hope I have left :)

Re:Oh God, I can hear it now:

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats kinda disgusting, dont bathe her after having
sex with her? You filth dirty little thing!

Thats just so very disgusting.

When a problem comes around - you must WIPO.

[Anonymous Coward]

WIPO good.
I said "WIPO"!
Into shape
Get it straight
Go forward
Move ahead
Try to protect it
It's not too late,
To WIPO
WIPO good!

Copyrights are bad

[argoff]

.... If there wasn't any copyright protection there wouldn't be any incentive to create anything.

That's like saying that Ford has no incentive to create cars without protection from GM makeing them too. That belief is stupid.

... companies that deal in intellectual property employ tens of thousands of people ... thousands of jobs would be lost ... Everyone dreams of being famous and profiting from their works.

Before touting the wealth and industry it creates, I wish you would go back and take a look at the American plantation masters - they created alot of wealth and industry too! (of course, while in theory anyone could own slaves - the reality was that only a tiny pertentile actually did - sound familiar?)

It seems the only people who advocate getting rid of intellectual property protections are those who have never created anything and only want to use someone else's work for their own profit.

Hypocrite! 99.9% of everything you know was likely copied from someone else!

Intellectual property protections are actually good because they force people to create something better than what exists today.

Hey, Linux seems to be getting better every day without this force - unless you want to count the GPL ;)

Patents are a perfict example...

Yeah they are - like the AIDS patents, and the African nations that were sued in the world court for breaking them, and the 10 million Africans who are dying of AIDS who couldn't afford the royalties.

Amnesia

[SmileyBen]

Has *every* single person in the world forgotten what copyright is for?!?!?! Copyright isn't there 'to protect artists', it's there to encourage people to create stuff, and thereby expand the public domain. The point of copyright is that if people have a limited opportunity to exclusively sell their work, more people will create. It has *nothing* to do with protecting a person's 'right' (?) to monopolise and control creative output.

Re:Amnesia

[argoff]

Copyright WAS there to protect artists. It failed, and we just half to get rid of it, not fix it which will likely just pawn the problem off to the next generation, but get rid of it.

Congress is there to represent the people, it failed too. While I would like to get rid of them sometimes, I think any alternative will likely be worse. So here's what we must do, DEFY COPYRIGHTS and ATTACK the intellectual "property" of anyone who tries to impose it That we can do. We have tools like the internet, we have code like freenet and Linux. This we can do.

When we drive enough companies into bankruptcy, and enough regular people get caught up in the storm, then things will happen. Sorry, but the WIPO and DMCA are proof that we are never going to be able to do this thru the system. If we want something done right, we are just going to half to do it ourselves!

"stopped during recording sessions"

[Chris Johnson]

Got a reference on this? It sounds urbanlegendish.

If only that _were_ true! It would only really apply to major label, record industry sessions expected to produce a lot of money- it would be an interesting sideshow to the spectacle of an industry devouring itself.

People often behave as though the record industry, being a big-money cartel, is the only game in town- and to an extent that's true, but developing the habit of playing IP hardball so much is a self-destructive action. Wouldn't it be interesting if you _couldn't_ produce real serious art for the record industry because the only music you could record anymore was written by committee and run through gauntlets of lawyers before release?

Every good story has been told thousands of times, every good bit of melody echoes through history- it's HOW you tell it, HOW you play it that matters. But if every story and note is cordoned off with barbed-wire fences put up and massive lawyer onslaughts made on 'copiers', the only possible result is that the 'legal' music will just absolutely suck... because GOOD music has been done, over and over, and increasingly IP holders are gaining the ability to effectively prohibit 'copiers' from building on that foundation. Seriously, I'd love to see some reference on your claim about jazz musicians being stopped during sessions. Do you mean stopped from making derivative songs, or even more insanely, actually interrupted during soloing? Please follow up with some kind of confirmation that you're not just making this up- it is actually quite important, with huge implications for the future of the record industry. Sort of 'live by the lawyer, die by the lawyer' kind of thing. If you're correct, they'll be LEGALLY incapable of holding on to their cartel as their product quality inevitably drops to below indie-garage-musician levels. It's not that indies will get so much better- the majors will continue to get worse!

Re:"stopped during recording sessions"

[Spinality]

Got a reference on this? It sounds urbanlegendish. -- Chris Johnson

It's not a legend; it's a well-known problem. It generally is only a problem for jazz musicians, because quoting melodies and playing standards are such important parts of the idiom. (There were a lot of famous related issues related to sampling of copyrighted works in rap music, of course, which is one factor that helped make things nasty.) And of course this issue doesn't practically kick in when you're playing at Bob's Tavern; but it gets heavy when you're in a recording studio. It's a key reason that contempo recordings usually have very few standards -- artists are encouraged to use all original material. Also, the problem is most pronounced with standards that have been around long enough that the performance and other rights are in the hands of stodgy publishing companies, estates, or family trusts. In other words, once lawyers get involved the thing gets ugly.

I personally know many people who have been caught in exactly the situation I described, though I can't think of any published accounts. But any working jazz studio guy will be quite familiar with the issue and the problem.

A good friend, for example, was recording a double-CD with the music of Livingston and Evans, a tremendously prolific and successful songwriting team who wrote such tunes as Buttons and Bows, Que Sera Sera, Mona Lisa, and also lots of TV themes such as Bonanza and Mr. Ed :). The date was being supervised by a relative of one of the writers, who represented the production company. He was playing his ass off, as usual. She kept interrupting and saying "You need to stop playing these medleys of other peoples' tunes." The recording engineer was ready to walk off the job in disgust; he explained "These aren't medleys; they're quotes. That's how jazz is played." But my friend was able to limit his quotes to music that was either written by Livingston and Evans, or in the public domain. (He is such an awesome player that he could do this. That's why he gets concert gigs in Australia, South America, and Europe, I guess, and isn't stuck playing at a cheesy gin mill.)

I'll poke around to see if I can find any published descriptions of this problem, but again it's really well-known in the business.

Obviously, the extent of the problem and the enforcement varies. Plenty of recordings are made that are full of lengthy quotes. Generally, the deal is then worked out afterward: the estate or BMI or ASCAP contacts the publishers, and some licensing deal is arranged, depending on how much material was quoted, how famous the performer was, etc.

But here's a parallel situation. Suppose you wrote a mystery novel about a singer, and you wanted to quote a few bars, lines, or stanzas from various songs in each chapter. To do this, you'd need to arrange licenses with whoever holds the rights to each of those songs. You can use the title for free, because that is not protected by the copyright; but even a short phrase is often viewed as an infringement. Very short excerpts have been judged as infringements. I'll bet you couldn't get away with "that voodoo that you do so well" or "that old black magic called love."

See this, this, this, and especially this (which includes this useful statement: "The distinction between "fair use" and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission. The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: "quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported"; you'll note that this list does NOT include the type of reverential quoting that is done in jazz improvisation).

I have seen some better documented discussions and examples of this issue from time to time, but can't remember where I found 'em. I did a bunch of research about this issue not only because of the recording studio pain in the butt (I was trying to provide my Livingston & Evans friend with some legal ammunition to use, but found he was screwed), but also because I was investigating the use of quoted song phrases in a novel (I found I was screwed). The whole thing is a mess. HTH

more govt BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Help with what?

Do you think that they will do something to protect consumers or artists?

Does anyone even know where the tax on blank media went? Somehow i doubt that the overwhelming majority of artists ever got a penny.

The first thing that happened to freelance writers went newsspapers joinedt he digital age was they were given new contracts in which the media companies would not pay royalties on all future uses which werent printed...Didnt like it? Too bad. Yeah, EVERYBODY worries about the poor artists...

Only thing more hypocritical than a record exec
claiming that they are doing it all for the giid of the artists is the idiotic blathering abour terrorism in a country which is the biggest sponsor of worldwide terrorism.

People who believe either are nothing more than sheep.

>Does anyone think contacting
>government representatives will help?

to do what? you really think they are there to serve your needs? there are people who are paid to wine and dine them to make sure that corporate needs are met and ifthose needs happen to morror yours, well thats an unintentional bonus.

i must have heard govt representatives say at least 3-4 times in the past few years that the government has total confidence that the (your pick)industries main concern is the health and welfare of its clients. so reassuring to hear..
zeke

Re:more govt BS

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm from the government, I'm here to help."

About the only party that would be honest in that statement would be the NDP. A pity they have no clue *how* to help.

Mod this up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great arguments!

Looks like someone gave the answer

[eclectric]

http://opencontent.org

Good! I didn't want to write this anyway!

ALLYOURCOPYRIGHTAREBELONGTOWIPO

[flollywebfrog]

LittleGuy: "Hey man. Buy my cd. Its only 5 bucks. I recorded it myself and just burned some copies that I am trying to sell to pay for a new guitar.

Man:Cool, this looks awesome! Here is five bucks, thanks!!!

enter WIPO officer. WIPO officer grabs LittleGuy and Man buy the shirt collar

WIPO officer: Just what do you think you terrorists are doing? These cd's do not have the official mark of the global, copyright militia. Do you know that this is punishable by 10 years in prison?

LittleGuy: Really? But its my music WIPO officer. Can't you give me a break?

WIPO officer: Your music?!? Your music!!! Hah! ALLYOURMUSICAREBELONGTOWIPO.

• ________go to jail now. do not pass go, do not collect $5________

Not ideal in either case...

[Kjella]

Intellectual property protections are actually good because they force people to create something better than what exists today.

As long as there is true competition, yes. However, that is not a stable condition. With basicly no replication costs it comes down to development cost divided by income. The one with the highest number of users can provide lower price *and* more money put into development, until its product will lock people in, as with M$ formats. At that point one can charge monopoly prices over a huge customer base and spend a relatively very small amout on development. Cost-of-entry is kept extremely high by constantly changing formats to avoid reverse engineering in order to block competitors out. This is the case until (if) cheaper alternatives contain any reasonable feature and usability that the monopoly alternative has, and a sudden "rush" to the cheaper standard occurs. Of course finally the ultimate solution would be a free program doing everything, as nothing can be cheaper than free. The end-result sounds good but it presumes there's a limit as to how many features, usability and integration with other apllications, which is questionable. If this condition fails we have an endless monopoly, which is generally recognized as highly inefficent and uninventive.

The problem is, having *no* IP protection doesn't really work that well either. As everybody could copy it freely, there's no money to be made selling the product, the only development would come from a) Those willing to write a feature because they need it or b) Are willing to pay someone else to write it. However, this is basicly the *BSDs, who may get out the flamethrower, but I'm not impressed by them. Unless there exists a *very* easy way to conduct micropayments and make b) effective, I don't think it'll work, as most mass marked software would have too small amounts. Pay 0.02$ for this feature, 0.05$ for this, 0.10$ for this, it just doesn't work.

Kjella

Re:Oh God, I can hear it now:

[Sunnan]

You won't get married.
You might get to be somebody's bitch. We'll see... and you'll starve in your box.

will the US now stop ripping off Bacardi?

[Anonymous Coward]

just because you don't like the country, doesn't give you the right to rip their stuff off because you have a trade embargo against them