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Copyright Rumblings
dcunning writes "The Economist has a short opinion piece entitled Copyrights: A radical rethink that suggests (horror of horrors!) going so far as reverting back to the original copyright term of 14 years, renewable once. The article suggests that, in exchange for this, the 'content industries' be given 'much of the legal backing which they are seeking for copy-protection technologies.' A worthwhile and fair tradeoff?"
Why would the content industries be content with a fair compromise when they can buy enough influence to have all the legal, anti-copy methods they want, and enough influence to buy 357 year copyrights?
The record companies know that, even if they were given all copy protection they wanted (barring the banning of unlicensed microphones), people would still pirate music. It only takes one person circumventing the protection to open a work to the world.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
The proposed copy protections are extremely unfair and unreasonable. Why should we allow ourselves to be bribed to permit such a thing?
The question of whether copyright limits should be shorter (I sure think so!) should be independent.
Personally I think eventually we consumers will win all of these battles. There's no reason to even think of accepting bribes from a corrupt industry.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
if you really think copy protection will suddenly disappear after 28 years, or the copyright owners will configure it to do so, I have a bridge to sell you.
sulli
RTFJ.
Damn straight it is. You get twenty-eight years to milk something for all the millions it's worth, AND you get to crush utterly and punitively anyone who dares steal even a penny's worth from you? Sounds like a good deal to me.
-Mark
Is there any such expiration date on open source code licenses?
word.
Further, the problems related to fair use remain. I have an affirmative right to use short segments of copyrighted material in other works. For example, if I wanted to preach a sermon demonstrating how media culture affects us, I might want to use a short clip from the truman show. I have that right under fair use - but I can't do it from a DVD legally right now because of the DMCA which prevents me from legally owning the technology that would enable it. The chilling effect is a scary thing.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Why do I have the feeling that this decade is going to be known as the "Mine! Mine!" decade.
The genie is out of the bottle, and no law, technology, or ad campaign is ever going to put it back in. Copyrights have been violated since the first artist in history signed their name (or stamped their mark) on their work.
(and as a descendent of one of the artists in Altamira, I would like my cut of the souvenir profits)
Why the recording industry (and others) now feel threatened enough to start raising a fuss, is because it's just become much easier. Although, overall, I don't see how it can really hurt their bottom line. They are making many times the profit on their product than they did in the 70's, 80's, and 90's (am I the only one who's noticed how $1 and $2 paperbacks are now selling for $9 - $12. Was there a sudden paper shortage that I never heard about?). Don't even get me started on CD's, do you really expect me to believe that the bottom line cost of a CD is twice as much as a cassette tape (considering the markup).
If the industry would get smart and offer their products at a decent price, it would help to insure that the run-of-the mill consumer is not tempted to use other means to acquire the product. But if they expect that a few words in a lawbook is going to stop what has already started, they are dreaming.
Dr. Wu
PS: If the music industry is so perfect themselves, then why are they settling the lawsuits against them for illegal price fixing.
Music CD Settlement
The author makes a great case. He proposes trade-offs that would be in everyone's best interest. And that's why it will never fly.
The problem is the content industries feel they "deserve" the original copyright term, and that the digital age is simply infringing on their "rights." And, quite short-sightedly, that all they need to do is get "better" laws and the next generation of technology will put it right.
Hundreds of people proposed very reasonable, in fact still too expensive, methods to make music available online. The problem with these systems was that they were reasonable. The current system of paying $15 for CD with 3 good songs 2 mediocre, and the remainder, crap is extremely profitable. No self-centered individual would endanger such a system for one that would allow a user to pay $3 each for their two favorite songs and ignore the rest. It just won't happen.
These people will fight tooth and claw to retain total control of our culture until we wrest it from their grasping hands.
The next generation of crypto-verifying players, and per user-agreement encrypted, signed music downloads, will be a telling test. They will lower the prices enough that many people won't care. They will then usher in laws that make any tool that plays digital music a "tool of piracy." Large proprietary software corporations will step right into the meal line with their ticket in hand, and the FOSS community will be all that stands in their way. Should be exciting to watch.
Copyright extension should be halted because it drains the public domain of material. Period. We shouldn't have to bargain for that one. 75 years was plenty of time, we had settled into that time frame, and we had plenty of older literature and materials flowing into the public domain. Then along came the DMCA - reverse engineering, making compatible devices and software, using your own media (that you legally purchased) in other devices of your choosing - all these basic property rights and common law understandings of what people can do with things they own flew out the goddamned window.
I'm not willing to cut a deal with the devil, or the so-called content industry in this scenario, to bring back reduced timespans for copyrights. Cut copyrights back, abolish the DMCA (perhaps some parts are not unreasonable, but as I see it, everything in there is either not needed because it was covered by existing jurisprudence, or is flat out morally wrong), and THEN we can have an intelligent debate and discussion as a society about what kind of legislation should be in place to help protect content producers from unreasonable amounts of piracy, IF in fact existing laws don't provide them that protection already.
If in fact the problem is an economic one (people are pirating because it is economically sensible for them to do so) why not try modifying your business model to one that doesn't so strongly encourage such illegal copying? You're never going to eliminate it entirely. Sorry, but we don't want and won't take crippled devices. If the content industry hasn't figured that out yet, then fuck them. I'd rather have a crippled, less profitable, re-organized content industry with my rights intact, than have mandated, legally enforced DRM embedded in my hardware, and have Disney's profits secured so they keep pushing their schwag out on audiences. Oh yeah, and what do we get out of it? Copyright terms are only 14 years. Of course, that doesn't apply retroactively, it only applies to new content. Oh, so sorry about that. And in 14 years what happens? Copyrights get extended again, without public debate, once the sheep have gotten used to ubiquitous DRM.
Sorry, but I'll go down with guns blazing before I accept this "compromise". Right now, we are getting the strength of momentum behind us. The popular press is buying into it. Copyright term extensions are going down, though it may take a while. As for the DMCA - it's not going away just yet, but the debate in the public forum is just starting, and we'll get there eventually too. Once the content industry realizes how shaky the ground they are walking on is, perhaps we will hear a real compromise deal out of them, hrrmmm?
The big studios have the money to change the rules of the game at will. If they agree to something like this, don't be surprised to see them lobbying, 28 years from now, to change the law and extend the copyright period. Then they would have both draconian technical copyright enforcement measures, backed by the full force of law, and infinitely renewable copyrights.
Of course, some would argue that we already have both.
Call me inflamatory, but we screwed up copyright the first time (Gosh... if forever was good, forever and a day is better!). Why do we have to give the content industry a lollipop (copy-protection enforcement) to get them to accept something that's sensible and in the public good?
The only copy-protection I'll settle for will consist of a Supreme Court justice in every box that tells me that what I'm doing is or isn't fair use. Unfortunately, unless the content industry and the Raelians team up, that tends to limit sales.
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!
Not only that, but if we give them everything they want, that means literal enforcement of the DMCA. Which means its illegal to break, attempt to break, or describe possible methods to break Digital Rights Infringement technologies. Which, in turn, effectively gives them indefinite-term copyrights.
No thanks. We need to return to original terms and laws and reconsider what copyright should cover (for example, should it really cover software distributed without source?). No negotiation should be considered. These companies have made it clear that they want an eternal monopoly on our culture and our minds.
The other obvious problem with the solution is that all parties could agree now, with legally enforced use restrictions, then 14 years from now as the copyrights are about to expire, intense lobbying results in legislation to extend the term to 20 years ... then 30 years ... and so on, without repealing the restrictions.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Let us switch to 28 years but no fair use ! Full copyright belonging to holder without permission to use it (note that I don't even say author).
25 Years later. Oh let us rise the period to 37 years. Retroactive. After all the copyright holder financed the work and has to get a return !
10 years later (35 years after the 1st work has been done under this law) Ho 37 is not enough, let us rise with a new law to say, 56. This is fair isn't it ? Oh, and it is retroactive.
10 years again later... We are abck to 74/98 years of copyright. With prolongation if the holder pay a small symbolic sum. Retroactively.
I certainly would not want such law as a consummer.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I'm a bit disappointed in the old guard Economist for failing to make the strongest economic argument for revamping the copyright laws.
Copyrights are like tariffs. They distort the true value of goods and thereby make trade inefficient. The end result is that they decrease the amount of wealth in the world. Reducing copyright terms is like lowering tariffs. Even though some industries and segments of society will be injured, in the short term by such an action, overall, it results in greater wealth for the nation and for its trading partners.
That's speaking in terms that the businessmen who read The Economist can understand. They can relate to the benefit of lower prices for textiles and hardware, so they ought to be similarly receptive to lower prices for textbooks and software.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
That being said, positive copyright reform is unlikely to ever happen, as the public domain has no billionaires to bribe legislators on its behalf.
"Piracy" is a paper tiger. Home taping never killed the recording industry. The photocopier did not kill the publishing industry. The VCR did not kill Hollywood. Content providers are running scared from file trading because it is a new technology. They have done the same every time a new medium has been invented. Each new medium they claimed would be the death of them actually turned out to be a boon.
Outrageous copyright lengths should be taken away from copyright holders, but they deserve nothing in return. They have robbed the public domain far too long.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Yes, it's correct. The DMCA, while nominally a copyright act, has a lot of (hopefully) unintended consequences. Because a DRM scheme might be used on many, many works -- and because those works would pass into public domain at different times -- work on breaking any DRM scheme is prohibited. Consider: Books A, B, and C are all protected by Frobozco Magic Digital Rights Management Technology. Book A goes into public domain in, say, 2077, but B and C enter public domain in 2082. If you're allowed to crack FMDRMT in order to read Book A, you'd also possess the technology to read B and C, even though that would be infringement.
Now, you might wonder, shouldn't it be the actual infringement that is illegal, and not the mere potential to infringe? Old school, yes. But not in the brave new world of intellectual "property".
Of course, this encourages the Content Cartel to lock up everything behind the same DRM, and to continue using it for many many years. That way, even the "public domain" works cannot be legally accessed without paying a fee. That's the way we're going to get perpetual copyright. The Sony Bono Act was -- pardon the pun -- strictly Mickey Mouse in comparison.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach