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CD Copying Kiosks Endorsed in Australia
Iron Sun writes: "While the story is somewhat misleading in stating that the plan legalises piracy, CD copying kiosks have been given the go ahead here in Australia. It will be interesting to see what the Australian Recording Industry Association says about this. Supposedly the plan involves royalty payments to ARIA, but where artists stand is not discussed."
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
In the article, we have this comment,
Michael Speck, of ARIA's anti-piracy investigations unit, said: "Any request or application that is made of the industry is not just point-blank rejected. This is very much a case of watch this space.
"There are many legitimate uses for CD burners. However, experience has shown illegitimate uses as well."
So, when music sales are down, it's because of those damn pirates, but when we can get somebody to pay us, regardless of our principles, then it's a legitimate use.
Yeah, riiight...
wtf ever happened to integrity, or better yet just proper use of the english language? it's called 'copying' because i get a COPY, i don't go into this thing and walk out holding a pirate...
If ``music piracy'' is defined as something similar to ``the illegal copying of music'', then how can the sentence ``plan that legalises music piracy'' be parsed? Once its legal, its no longer piracy.
and book a flight
... CDs burnt in an Australian kiosk won't work back home, they spin the other way.
Don't waste your time and money
Mmmmmmm
Yet another case of taxing everyone for the deeds of the few. Unfortunately, Australia has no laws about fair use (ok, they do have exemptions in their version of the DMCA, but only if the material wasn't copy-protected in the first place) so I guess it's better than expected.
Since we're paying royalties, does this mean we're entitled to copy and give these copied CDs away? After all, the artist is being compensated so it's not stealing, is it?
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
Hey, if I were flogging these kiosks I'd have one outside every music store in the country.
:-)
Customer walks in to music store, looks for suitably copy-protected CD, pays his money, leaves the store, turns left at the doorway, pays his $5 walks back into the store with original CD in one hand, the dupicate in his left, steps up to the counter and says "I want my money back, it won't play in my CD player."
Money changes hands, customer walks out with his new $5 CD.
Six months later the RIAA can't understand why the guy who operates these kiosks now has a bigger house, faster car and larger boat than any of the recording company bosses
Rioters News: Foobaria supports piracy!
:))
After a hot debate, the Government of Foobaria decided to legalize self-serve photo-copying kiosks. Famous book authors are shocked.
CD burner, photocopier, what's the difference? Why does a CD- burner automagically become a piracy tool and at the same time a photocopier is considered just a necessity ?? Is it because the journalists just know how to operate the other one?
Ok, first of all, let's lay down some of the theory and history behind copyright. According to the constitution, copyright is supposed to be for limited times, and only as long as it is furthering progress in the arts (and sciences).
Now, the consitution didn't actually have any copyright law in it; it was just an enumerated power of Congress, since congress, at least in theory, can only use the powers given to them in the Constitution.
So the first copyright act basically made copyright 14 years. Not 70. Not 30. Just 14. This was because, people at the time understood that copyright was designed to enrich the public domain. You use the word "freeloading" and I will not contest that accusation. This is the purpose of copyright. To eventually enrich the public domain so there is free art available for everyone.
Until now, however, if you went into any bookstore, there was hardly any difference between a copyrighted and a public domain book. Maybe a copyrighted book costed a little more, but for the most part, no one was hurt by having copyright extended. There was no such thing as getting a book "for free" or a movie "for free". There were printing costs.
But, now we have this extraordinary ability: we have the ability to copy and distribute any form of art for virtually no cost. The reason why libraries have traditionally only "lent" stuff was because it costed money, a significant amount of money, to make a copy of anything, so since there were a limited number of copies, they had to be shared among the community, and therefore people could only "borrow" it.
So here's the meat of the question: how much will artists lose if copyright is reduced to 12 years?
Well what if I told you that any given piece of art only makes 10% of it's revenue after 12 years. That means if some book was going to bring in 500,000 dollars revenue in 150 years, on average, it would bring in 450,000 in 12 years. So basically we are locking up all forms of art for 138 more years, just to squeeze out an extra 10% revenue. That doesn't really make any sense, and it goes against the spirit of the first copyright act, and against the spirit of a truly open society.
In the year 1930 over 10,000 books were published. Of those 10,000+ books, only 175 are still in print. Don't you find that tragic? 9,825 books are locked up forever to protect those 175 books, books that probably don't sell that well anyway, and books that would've been written even if copyright were only 12 years.
Copyright is not a natural right. It's something that we, as a society, offer to maximize the art produced.
I don't care what you hear, but copyright is not intended as "incentive". People's passion for their art is the incentive, copyright is just designed to let people devote their life to their art and still have money to live. The money itself is not the incentive.
But that is really inconsequential. Even if people are just making art just to get rich, they'd still get nearly as rich with just a 12 year copyright.
In 1790 copyright lasted 14 years. Since 1790 the following things have happened
1) The cost of printing has decreased
2) The time to market, time for people to learn/hear about your product has decreased
3) The available audience has increased, therefore a greater potential sales.
All these things indicate a need for *less* copyright. Yet all this things have increased since then. Why?
Just like shakespeare is free, I believe art of our own time should be free, at least while it's still relevant. It's not about being too "cheap". It's just incredibly wasteful to lock up art that no one is buying anymore, but that many many people will watch/read/listen to if it were available for free.
If you read the dialogue between the founding fathers about copyright, they were suprisingly prescient about where things were going, and the discussion is very relevant today. They were very clear about it, and at the time they decided on 14 years. The fact that it became longer was because it didn't really affect anyone negatively before it was too late.
This I can assure you: If this technology was around before copyright was extended, it would never have been extended. And the world would be a richer place for it.