Online Newshour Tackling Digital Copyright

dmabram writes "The online version of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is tackling copyright in the digital age. They are sponsoring a forum where Lawrence Lessig will square off against RIAA executive Matt Oppenheim. Anyone can submit questions, and the best questions or comments will be posted to Lessig and Oppenheim for debate and discussion. I know that the producers understand the importance of this debate, and would love insightful questions." Looks worth tuning in for.

Comments

yeay!

[TalonKarrde989]

w00t! Hurray, we get more representation!

Re:yeay!

[MMaestro]

No taxation without representation?

Yay

[B3ryllium]

Does squid violate copyright laws, if you sell access to your cache? :)

Re:Yay

[Anonymous Coward]

As a matter of fact, it would. Selling access to another person's work without their permission is illegal. Not only is it illegal; it's also wrong.

Free Advice

[s20451]

Don't post your questions here. Post them at the link.

DVR

[ArsonPanda]

Better Fire up my Tivo so I can steal this by skipping over the ads!!

Re:DVR

[hazem]

Of course, this program is on PBS, so all the ads are at the end anyway..

Re:KDE Myths

[Anonymous Coward]

Musta missed the relevance on that one. I thought the article was about squaring off against the RIAA. Didn't realise it was an anti-KDE article.

"Corporate Jim" I call him

[Gizzmonic]

Is this from the same Jim Lehrer that allowed Harry Browne and Ralph Nader to be disincluded from the 2000 Presidential debates? Who stood by and joked when Secret Service thugs carted Mr. Nader off the Michigan campus, where the 1st debate was being held?

The only reason PBS exists is so that the corporate fatcats can pretend that there is real diversity in the airwaves. This stifles any type of comprehensive public access before it can start. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting stood right along Clear Channel as they obstructed microradio rollout in the FCC.

You're not gonna get fair representation from Jim Lehrer. And you're not gonna get anything from PBS but stale British comedies and dull nature programs. If PBS were dismantled, maybe people would realize what a hoax the whole "public airwaves" thing has become.

Re:"Corporate Jim" I call him

[Anonymous Coward]

Off topic??

Very much the contrary. Any other network would be a lot fairer.

Re:"Corporate Jim" I call him

[Gizzmonic]

Obviously someone doesn't think it's important for Slashdot readers to know the context in which this discussion on copyright will be presented.

I'd like to be an optimist, but notice this is online only. It's not even gonna hit the radar of the average PBS-watching yuppie, let alone the mainstream audience.

Perhaps you should encourage Mr. Lehrer to move this copyright discussion into a broader arena. I doubt he will be convinced, but you never know.

Re:"Corporate Jim" I call him

[Guppy06]

It's almost as if you believe that the presidential debates have some sort of validity without Jim Leher. First off, consider who was paying for and hosing the debate, the very same "evil corporations" you seem to dislike. Leher's position in the debates was as a simple figurehead, asking questions both parties pre-approved as both candidates gave their rehearsed answers (what, you think Gore's little hissy fit was spontaneous?)

"Unfortunately, the US government runs its own elections, rather than a truely impartial third party."

Well, maybe if they didn't have to pander to whatever party is in control of Congress to get most of their funding...

Re:"Corporate Jim" I call him

[ahfoo]

I think PBS and NPR have done some great content and are still valuable, but I have to agree to an extent that the public airwaves stuff is crap when NPR won't let you download MP3s and PBS doesn't offer digital time shifting formats either. They have no right to call themselves public in the digital age with their restrictive polices. They're no better than any other corporate network.
In the Watergate era they were absolutely essential as an alternative media both polticially and in the society at large with PBS being the first to show nudity on American broadcast television and the Pacifica network's role in shaping obscenity law for broadcast media.
But the Net has made them somewhat irrelevant. This topic being a good case in point. They're using the net as a source and yet we won't be able to download the product. NPR in particular is very unfriendly to the net and Linux in particular. NPR only suported Linux audio by accident when Real Inc. made a Linux player. Prior to that, they took a rather cavalier attitude about if you don't use Microsoft, you're not a part of the community.

Re:"Corporate Jim" I call him

[internic]

I too have been puzzled by this, but I think part of the issue may be one of scarce resources. When I emailed them about using Ogg Vorbis at one point, the email said basically, "We'd like to but we really don't have the resources to do it."

As far as why they don't offer their broadcasts for download, there's less of an excuse for that. First, I think they make money off of selling tapes. Now you can say, "but they should be worried about distributing it, not proffitting," but they have to maintain their revenues somehow if they want to produce more in the future. Still, part of the motivation seems to be to protect their intellectual property, and that seems to be the completely wrong mindset for public radio.

Valuable questions

[NetSettler]

Anyone can submit questions, and the best questions or comments will be posted to Lessig and Oppenheim for debate and discussion.

If I ask a good question, do I get to claim the copyright on it? And how will I enforce payment?

Re:Valuable questions

[WNight]

Are their answers derivative works? After all, they don't make much sense without the context you provided. (Well, assuming they answer the question at all, as opposed to going off on a tangent.)

It's more than just the right questions.

[I'm a racist.]

Just like in a debate between political candidates, the issue isn't so much about what the good questions are. Afterall, they're each pushing an agenda, and will try to get their point across in every question.

The real problem is getting them, specifically Matt Oppenheim, to actually answer the question that is asked. Just like a politician, I assume he's going to go off on a tangent, sidestepping and dodging anything that would make the RIAA smell like shit.

Here's an idea - Give me a camera, a room with a locked door, an RIAA executive (or any politician or lawyer), and I'll show you how it's supposed to be done.

You have to keep pressing them, don't let them change the subject. If they start to go off on a tangent, you need to "violently" (physical violence is good, but just being forceful is enough) bring them back to the point. Also, watch out for doubletalk, make sure they define their terms clearly.

Re:It's more than just the right questions.

[rzbx]

My questions that I posted are hard to sidestep.
Here they are:
"Is copyright more important than plaigarism?"
"What do you think would happen if copyright law no longer existed, but plaigarism laws did?"

It would be hard to just go off in some other direction with these. Then again, they may have experience in dodging the question asked.

Re:It's more than just the right questions.

[sbwoodside]

Yup, there's all kinds of ways to dodge questions. The most effective way to fight that is to point out that they dodged the question and make them look bad.

But if you really want to see them squirm you have to ask the right question. Ask about fair use for example. As a question where every reasonable person who's listening knows what the answer should be, yes. But where you expect the person to answer no. Then you get to watch them squirm because they know what everyone wants to hear as well.

You have to be completely sincere and honest when you ask these kinds of questions. Don't let them brush you off as a joker or a crackpot.

"If you support fair use, how can you justify draconian laws like the DMCA that are headed to destroy that?"

It's a good question because there's no cracks that weasel words can get out of. He can't say "I don't support fair use" so you've eliminated his ability to weasel out by making the protection-is-more-important-we're losing money argument. You can't let him go into that area because they can gain sympathy that way. You can force him to deal with the issue that the Monopolists are ruining fair use with their overpowered laws. You also get in your own position -- that the DMCA is draconian -- which is another one that no one can argue with. He can't call the question unfair, because all the assumptions are true.

And, if he does argue that the question is unfair, he's digging his own hole. Then Lessig comes back and says, no, you've just said that fair use is wrong, or DMCA is invalid, and you're wrong. You've forced them to say something indefensible. So no matter how they answer, you win.

simon

Re:It's more than just the right questions.

[Merk]

"Friend, you raise an interesting point there. Nobody can deny the significance of plaigarism. In some ways modern technology is making it easier and easier to plaigarise. In fact, due to plaigarism concerns, a significant college admissions exam was cancelled recently. Often the same technologies that make plaigarism easy make copyright violation easy. A search engine can be used to find essays just as easily as it can be used to find copyrighted music. Now artists worked hard to produce that music, and pirates just want to have it for free. While plaigarism affects the original artist's reputation, copyright violation can affect the artist's bottom line. And if the artist can't afford to make new music, wouldn't that be a shame? Next question please!"

Re:It's more than just the right questions.

[GreyWolf3000]

The DMCA doesn't eliminate fair use, it just begins to properly define it.

How's that for a nice spin? :)

Re:It's more than just the right questions.

[drix]

"If you support fair use, how can you justify draconian laws like the DMCA that are headed to destroy that?"

It's a good question because there's no cracks that weasel words can get out of.

That's not a good question, it's a horrible question. You've loaded it in such a way that anyone who tries to respond directly must first assume your premise, which happens to be at the very center of the debate itself. I personally agree with what you've said, but there's no way in hell the producers of the show would ever choose it. I say all this as a council to other readers who are submitting questions: please drop the dogma, or the questions we want answered are never going to get aired.

Re:It's more than just the right questions.

[shdragon]

That's so dead on to what I'd expect them to say it's scary.

Last night on the News Hour they were talking about the upcoming FCC ruling on expanding monopoli^H^H^H^H^H^H ownership of tv/radio markets. You should've seen the VP of NBC stutter his way through it... Hahaha...

DVR is overkill for skipping ads on PBS.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is PBS; ads only in the begining and at the end; Tivo not needed!

Re:DVR is overkill for skipping ads on PBS.

[Anonymous Coward]

if it's during the news hour, they have a commercial break in the middle.

Re:DVR is overkill for skipping ads on PBS.

[Robber Baron]

Apparently you've never been subjected to the misery that is a PBS pledge drive.

Betty White: If you like great PBS programs like "Do Shut Up" and "Shut Your Gob" you'll want to support our pledge drive. If you watch even one second of PBS and don't contribute, you're a theif, a common theif!
PBS Guy: Okay, take it easy, Betty.
Betty: Sorry, but these theives make me so mad. You know who you are.... thieves!
Homer: You're mad, where's my show!?

They would have interviewed RMS ..

[McAddress]

but then they would have had to call it GNU/NewsHour or would that be GNUshour

Re:They would have interviewed RMS ..

[Speare]

When the Infocom newsletter, the "New Zork Times" was C&D'd for stretching the trademark, one response strategy was to fight fire with fire.

The Gnu Zork Times: motto: all the gnus' wee feet leave prints

Thank god for Jim Lehrer & PBS...

[macshune]

I know this is slightly OT, but damn, can you imagine any of the big 4 broadcasters doing a piece on this? They are all tied at the hip to conglomerates that have deep interests in the music industry.

Well, I can imagine Fox News doing a piece in 2005...

When Copyright Kills: RIAA sniper bill signed into law

Forced copyright assignment

[jc42]

One of the big issues with musicians is that for decades, the distribution channels have been held by a small groups of corporations that enforce a "standard contract" requiring that a musician assign the copyright to the corporation. This has meant only a handful of musicians can actually make any money selling recordings. This is also why so many people don't consider copying music to be stealing. After all, the music was already stolen from the musicians, and nobody who understands the issue has any sympathy for the thief, i.e., the recording industry corporations.

The Internet poses a serious threat to this. However, ISPs have been working to take control themselves. Most of them in the US now block port 80, so most musicians can't legally run a web site on their own machines. The ISPs then offer web space on their machines, but the license states that all files on such a web site belong to the ISP. The result is that, once again, musicians must give the copyright to the corporation that controls the distribution channel. The most notorious of these is msn.com, of course, but others have been doing the same thing.

If they succeed with this approach, it will mean the end of the recording industry, since the ISPs will own the copyrights to everything on the Web. But it will be just as big a financial disaster for musicians, who will still live in a world in which the local internet monopoly controls the distribution channels and can demand the copyright in exchange for making files available.

Is there any solution to this?

Re:Forced copyright assignment

[Anonymous Coward]

teach people how to set their browser to use a different port number.

And then a different name resolution service.

And then a different protocol.

But that's not what's happening. ISPs are blocking uploads. Port numbers don't mean a thing. And they're not really ISPs. ISPs have almost all been put out of business by media and telecom corporations (and Mirosoft)

Re:Forced copyright assignment

[tenordave]

You equate lawful and acceptable, and unlawful and unacceptable, as if when something becomes law, it becomse ok to do moraly, which is total b.s. That's why some laws don't stick around for long.
Just because a company acts lawfully doesn't mean it is acting moraly. If the musicians have little choice but to sign the contract to the record industry because they control all the channels of distribution due to monopoly, by the law it is not 'stealing', but it may have just as well have been.

Re:Forced copyright assignment

[jc42]

The prospect that you--and you're not alone--are really this confused terrifies and depresses me.

I don't think I'm the least bit confused, and neither are the many musicians who consider the "industry standard" contract nothing more than legalized theft. The fact that the legal system is behind it doesn't make it moral or ethical.

As Woody Guthrie pointed out -

Some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen.

Re:Forced copyright assignment

[AnyoneEB]

My (cable) ISP blocks port 80, so I run my HTTP server on port 83. Then I went to dot tk and got a free forwarding domain (it opens the page you tell it to point to in a frame). There: I have an easy to remember domain (no colon at the end) and it's running off my own server. (Link is my homepage)

Re:Forced copyright assignment

[Anonymous Coward]

That proved my point nicely. Thank you.

For those of you keeping score at home, the point is this: it's impossible to take anyone, on either side of the argument, seriously when they use hyperbole and inflamatory language to advance their agenda. Whether that agenda entrenches the status quo or overturns it, it's still incredibly lame to speak in such grossly overwrought terms.

Re:Forced copyright assignment

[Anonymous Coward]

You equate lawful and acceptable, and unlawful and unacceptable

You misunderstand. I said precisely what I mean. Some acts are both lawful and acceptable, and others are both unlawful and unacceptable. Some, unfortunately, are lawful but unacceptable, or unlawful but acceptable. But nothing that we're talking about here falls into those criss-crossed categories.

Just because a company acts lawfully doesn't mean it is acting moraly.

Who said anything about morally? We're talking about what's acceptable and what's unacceptable. That's a much lower bar to have to leap over than the question of what's moral and what's immoral.

If the musicians have little choice but to sign the contract to the record industry because they control all the channels of distribution due to monopoly

If that WERE the case, you might have a point. Since it isn't, you don't.

Re:Forced copyright assignment

[Reziac]

See last paragraph for my take on stopping RIAA theft... but meanwhile:

The last time the subject came up here and created a great public outcry -- turned out no one had actually READ what the ISP's TOS *said*. In the case I refer to, the ISP's TOS had words to the effect that "you grant us the right to *distribute* whatever copyrighted material you put in your webspace". This is precisely so you CAN'T sue your own ISP for "copyright infringement" thru "unauthorized copying" -- because technically, the web server is "publishing" your files (ie. copying them to whatever random users access your website). Frex, if you happen to upload a file that you didn't *mean* to have "distributed", but thru dumb HTML mistakes, you let users get at it, the ISP isn't liable.

Nowhere did the TOS referred to say that the ISP now *owns* the material.

I know there have been draconian TOSs in the past that said precisely that all your copyrights now belong to us, but most say no such thing -- if you actually read what it says and don't just assume.

That aside, as to RIAA members stealing from artists... it's going to continue until someone with the balls and the deep pockets takes them to court, and gets a precedent set that the typical RIAA contract is usury, thus illegal and unenforceable -- and perhaps even actionable under fair lending laws -- since at bottom the typical RIAA member contract is really a complex loan against future earnings (if any).

Re:Forced copyright assignment

[Anonymous Coward]

but the license states that all files on such a web site belong to the ISP.

ROFL. Not likely.

They probably do that to avoid the implicit copyright "infringement" in serving the files on the site. But as for taking over copyright in files uploaded to a web page? Unenforceable on its face.

Re:Forced copyright assignment

[Lysander Luddite]

The artists could buy a business account, get a static IP, serve their own website. Sure, it would cost more than a home DSL account, but it could be done.

Just because it isn't cheap, doesn't mean it couldn't be done.

Balance of Power

[NetSettler]

If I ask a good question, do I get to claim the copyright on it? And how will I enforce payment?

I decided to be a little less flippant and submitted a question quite like this one to the site.

One thing that occurred to me and that I asked in the extended question was this:

In the new world of license enforcement, every time I make a tiny use of a song I end up having to seek a license and pay for it. But here I am the little guy submitting a question to the big guys in Television Land and I have no mechanism for forcing them to pay at all for a BIG use of my words if they decide they are important enough to use on their show. Something seems unbalanced about that.

As a straw man, shouldn't they be forced to offer me royalties and trickle out money to me every time they rerun their show? In a world that's becoming increasingly peer to peer, why should an individual do all the paying and none of the receiving?

I suspect the answer is "Because we can" from the big guys. That doesn't seem very fair though.

Re:Balance of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

In the new world of license enforcement

Your very phrasing reveals your bias. This isn't a new world at all. You were ALWAYS required to seek a license for any use of a copyrighted work. It's true that we're now starting to see the deployment of technologies that enforce this requirement (largely in response to widespread abuse by those who have neither respect for the rights of creators nor for the law, it shoud be noted), but it's completely misrepresentative to call it a "new world."

But here I am the little guy submitting a question to the big guys in Television Land and I have no mechanism for forcing them to pay at all for a BIG use of my words if they decide they are important enough to use on their show. Something seems unbalanced about that.

There's nothing unbalanced about it at all. If you lack a mechanism for arriving at an agreement on use and/or for enforcing the terms of such an agreement, then you can choose not to release your work through that channel at all. The same is true of the media corporations. If they lack a way to enforce their agreement with their customers, they can choose not to release their products.

Of course, that's not their ONLY choice. They can also work to develop a mechanism for said enforcement. You could do the same thing, if it were important enough to you.

As a straw man, shouldn't they be forced to offer me royalties and trickle out money to me every time they rerun their show?

If you want to try to offer the News Hour such a deal, go right ahead. They're free to say "no thanks" and walk away, just as you're free to say "no thanks" and walk away from any offer they might make.

I suspect the answer is "Because we can" from the big guys.

Well... basically, yeah. The thing is, they have something you want. They can ask you to pay for their product, and you'll agree, because you'd rather have their product than your money. (Within reason.) If the situation were reversed and you had something they wanted, you could ask them to pay for it. But since you have nothing to offer a (say) multibillion dollar media corporation, you're not going to get a penny from them.

Oh, and by the way, that little remark about "a world that's becoming increasingly peer to peer?" It's crap. The world is no more or less "peer to peer" (ack; buzzword alert) today than it was five or ten or fifty years ago.

Re:Balance of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

From your question, it's obvious you care more to hear your question asked than answered.

Re:Balance of Power

[CaptainStormfield]

I have no mechanism for forcing them to pay at all for a BIG use of my words if they decide they are important enough to use on their show. Something seems unbalanced about that.

Its called an implied license. By submitting a question for them to ask on their show, and by doing so without any suggestion of compensation, you impliedly give them a license to use your copyrighted work on the show, for free.

Re:Balance of Power

[cpt kangarooski]

You were ALWAYS required to seek a license for any use of a copyrighted work.

Well, not for use qua use. That is, not for a use that isn't one of the enumerated rights in section 106. And not for those uses if you had a good defense or a statutory exemption.

Really, licenses in the consumer sphere are highly unusual even today, are not traditional, and really are pretty pointless given the current law.

Re:Balance of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

That is, not for a use that isn't one of the enumerated rights in section 106.

Actually, you have that backwards. The presumption is that an licensed use is prohibited if it's not expressly allowed under 107.

Really, licenses in the consumer sphere are highly unusual even today, are not traditional, and really are pretty pointless given the current law.

You get a license every single time you buy a copyrighted work. Every time, without exception.

Re:Balance of Power

[cpt kangarooski]

The presumption is that an licensed use is prohibited if it's not expressly allowed under 107.

Huh? If 106 (primarily) doesn't say that a use is exclusive to the copyright holder, then everyone can enjoy it. For example, I don't infringe on a copyright when I read a book, since reading is not exclusive to the copyright holder.

Besides which 107 doesn't expressly allow anything; it provides guidelines for a multifactor weighing test. Whether ANYTHING falls within 107 depends on the circumstances involved. No blanket statements can be made.

You get a license every single time you buy a copyrighted work. Every time, without exception.

Well, you're lying or you're stupid. 'Cos that is simply untrue. Hell -- even title 17 discusses the sale of copies of works. In 109, 117, 114 -- all over the damn place.

Re:Balance of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

If 106 (primarily) doesn't say that a use is exclusive to the copyright holder, then everyone can enjoy it.

No, sorry. There's no law that specifically says you have to have permission to take a Mt. Dew from my fridge, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to do it. Property belongs to its owner, and the owner enjoys all privileges related thereto exclusively unless specifically stated otherwise in the statutes.

Besides which 107 doesn't expressly allow anything

Read it again. It spells out very specific and narrow classes of use that are deemed by law to be non-infringing.

Well, you're lying or you're stupid. 'Cos that is simply untrue.

I'm neither lying nor stupid. You, on the other hand, are deeply confused. That's nothing to be ashamed of. The law isn't really written for the averge Joe or Jane to understand it. It's written for lawyers, by lawyers, and trying to wrap your head around it without sufficient background in studying the law is just going to lead to this very sort of confusion.

Re:Balance of Power

[cpt kangarooski]

Property belongs to its owner

Which is lovely, but there's no property that's relevant here. The discussion previously didn't appear to be about copies of works that had not yet been distributed at all; rather it was about copies that had been distributed once already.

Thus, if author Alice sells a copy of her book to Bob, he can read it, he can sell it, he can rent it, and he can loan it out -- all for other people to read. Because reading is not an exclusive right of the copyright holder. The only property involved is the tangible book owned by Bob. The work itself isn't property, and the copyright applied to the work sort of is, but doesn't extend to reading.

[ 107] spells out very specific and narrow classes of use that are deemed by law to be non-infringing.

Not really.

Statutory fair use says, in part, In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use [apply the four factor analysis.] It doesn't say 'in any OTHER case.' So Congress meant for the four factor analysis to be applied to even the examples of what could be fair use they listed. If the specific use is of an enumerated type, but fails the analysis, it's still not fair use.

For example, there was a case involving President Ford's memoirs. They were reprinted in a news publication prior to actually being published authorizedly. It was without a doubt news reporting, but it wasn't fair use -- Ford won the case.

You, on the other hand, are deeply confused. That's nothing to be ashamed of. The law isn't really written for the averge Joe or Jane to understand it. It's written for lawyers, by lawyers, and trying to wrap your head around it without sufficient background in studying the law is just going to lead to this very sort of confusion.

Well, the first statement might be true. And I definately agree with the rest.

So I guess it's a good thing for me that I'm a 3d year law student now, specializing in IP law, and that I've been reading this kind of stuff for several years because I am really passionate about it. I'd hope that by now I have a "sufficient background in studying the law."

Re:Balance of Power

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no property that's relevant here

Oh, boy. Another "anti-property" troll.

So I guess it's a good thing for me that I'm a 3d year law student now, specializing in IP law

Based on your other posts, either this assertion is a baldfaced lie, or I weep for the future. The last thing we need in this world is an attorney who rejects the idea of property.

Go crawl back under whatever neo-collectivist bridge you came out from under, troll.

Re:Balance of Power

[cpt kangarooski]

Oh, boy. Another "anti-property" troll.

No, I think that property can be, and often is, a highly useful social construct.

But that doesn't mean that copyrightable subject matter -- i.e. the work, as distinct from the copyright applied to that work, or any individual copy of that work -- is property.

If it were, boy, one would really wonder how to reconcile various current and historical aspects of copyright law, such as the limited terms, fair use, statutory exemptions, the failure of Congress to fully exercise its copyright powers, bars against noncitizens getting copyrights, etc., with something as simple as the 5th Amendment's takings clause.

A literary work isn't property. That doesn't mean that we cannot have a copyright system that works regardless. Personally I suspect that yet another person has been duped by the horribly misleading term 'intellectual property' into thinking that there really is property at stake.

But I'm no troll. You think that there's property involved here? Then don't shy away from the discussion. Convince me. And let me try to convince you. I love to have honest arguments. And yes, I really am a law student.

Big easy question of ownership

[twitter]

Let's see them answer this one or one similar:

Microsoft's new EULA demands the use of "Windows Updater" and grants Microsoft the ability to search for and remove files they consider copyright infinging. The music and film industry has demanded the same "protection" for all digital devices. Do I really own a computer that I can't write files on and that's run by someone else? What does this kind of ownership do to journalism and free press?

Re:Big easy question of ownership

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I really own a computer that I can't write files on and that's run by someone else?

Yes. Do you really own a car that can't be started without a key? Do you really own a microwave oven that won't operate with the door open? Do you really own a lawn mower with a dead-man switch that won't run unless you're physically holding on to the handle? The answer to all of these questions is "yes." Machines are often built in such a way that they either cannot be used in dangerous or unlawful ways, or that such use is very difficult. Computers are no different.

What does this kind of ownership do to journalism and free press?

Not a single thing. Why would it?

Re:Cool

[xingix]

Bonehead.

ask him yourself, silly.

[twitter]

Ask useful questions. If there's enough interest, of course they will set up an interview. Lessing, hmmm, think deep thoughts about the purpose of copyright. "US Copyright law was designed to encourage artists before the industrial revolution. How is it that the period of exclusivity has increased while publishing costs have decreased until today where they are practically zero?" and about ownership in general.

Or

[qortra]

Or, you can post them at both places and thus start a discussion at Slashdot. I'm sure some of the lamer question don't even have to be debated; I can answer them for you...

Re:Or

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, you can post them at both places and thus start a discussion at Slashdot.

Translation: there hasn't been a decent flame war around here for HOURS. Won't SOMEBODY please post SOMETHING with which I can violently and profanely disagree? PLEASE? Slashdot is so BORING when nobody is fighting.

Re:Or

[Anonymous Coward]

and there it is...

Problems with questionnaire form?

[$uperjay]

When I fill my form out, and enter it, I get a 404. What's the juice?

Re:Problems with questionnaire form?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you press the mouse button really hard?

My question to Lessig would be

[Bold Marauder]

How do you sleep at night?

Copyright infringement is a phenomenon that has:

Drained our corporate resources (bandwidth, lost productivity)

Drained BILLIONS of dollars out of our economy
(not just the profits of the copyright holders, but also the profits of the distributors and the salary of the sales people as well, and this isn't even touching on the millions of jobs lost)

Caused the spawning of underground networks that are undoubtably being used by terrorists cells as well as anti-corporate music leeching anarchists.

How is it he can sleep knowing that is who he represents?

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a moron. No doubt about it.

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, if we translate this from troll to English, I think he's got valid points.

1. The Napster phenomenon (widespread copyright infringement over the Internet) has been huge. I don't have numbers--I doubt anyone does--but I wouldn't be surprised in the least to learn that Internet copyright infringement has had approximately the same impact on ISP's and corporations as spam has: gianormous, in other words. Isn't this a bad thing?

2. The billions and millions and whatnot is a silly exaggeration, but isn't it true that widespread copyright violation has had a negative impact on the US economy?

3. Isn't is also true that the time and energy spent developing copyright infringement devices and services like Napster and its successors could and should have been better spent on more constructive pursuits?

It seems to me that there's a good case to be made for the seriously negative impacts of the Napster phenomenon.

Opinions?

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice ad hominem attack there, fag.

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[Bold Marauder]

The RIAA has numbers, but people are quick to dismiss them, just as they were too quick to dismiss my points under the heading of 'flamebait'.

Since you're reasonable, let me try to explain one of the more important points I was trying to make.

Because of illegal filesharing, decentralised technologies were developed. This was done with the theory that without a central hub (a central point of attack, if you will), the networks would be less vulnerable to being shut down.

And they're correct.

What scares me is the potential application of this. Given the open source nature of most of these projects, I can easily see al quaeda (sp?) getting ahold of this idea and having a distributed network of terror computers, all attempting to DOS the whitehouse while sharing tips and techniques on how to make bombs or realtime locations of illecit chemicals of [mass] distruction.

That is not a thought that makes *me* sleep any easier, I'll tell you that.

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[rzbx]

"Drained our corporate resources (bandwidth, lost productivity)"
So you blame the people for finding easier and cheaper ways to get music and not the recording industry. Downloading music is not stealing. Please for the sake of humanity do some reading. It is copyright infringement. Stealing does not relate to copying. It is up to companies to stop the employees from abusing the bandwidth anyway.

"Drained BILLIONS of dollars out of our economy"
Ok, you can look at it that way or you can see it in a more economical sense. Music is a resoure, an infinite one at that. Finding ways to get that music to everyone cheaper, faster, and with better quality means more. Using a rent seeking behavior like the recording industry is doing does not in any way improve our economy. People will always create music, with or without copyright. People will always get paid for music (but not as a product on a piece of plastic). Instead, musicians perform (concerts, weddings, parties, etc.), are DJ's, teach music, etc.

"Caused the spawning of underground networks that are undoubtably being used by terrorists cells as well as anti-corporate music leeching anarchists.
"

Where did you come up with this? Terrorists need music downloading networks to communicate? Anarchists? What do they have to do with music besides the fact that they will always be breaking some sort of law?

You can't stop this phenomenon, but you can stop real crime. Downloading isn't a crime. Rent seeking behavior by the RIAA should be.

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[Bold Marauder]

So you blame the people for finding easier and cheaper ways to get music and not the recording industry.
I blame the people for the waste of bandwidth, when it is a corporate resource. I blame people for the loss of jobs, when they are due to declining profits -sometimes due to low productivity, other times due directly to the theft of intellectual property.

It is up to the employees to be responsible members of a productive workplace, or to stop being a drain on much needed resources.

Music is a resoure, an infinite one at that.
Music does not get made without studio time, equipment, expertise and salaries. All of those, and the money that purchases them, are finite resources.

Just ask your wedding singer what he'd be willing to do unpaid and you'll quickly get my point.

Finding ways to get that music to everyone cheaper, faster, and with better quality means more.
More? To whom? Not to the people who have made signifigant investment in the viability of an acts' career only to see that investment go up in smoke due to peer-to-peer pirating.

Where did you come up with this? Terrorists need music downloading networks to communicate? Anarchists? What do they have to do with music besides the fact that they will always be breaking some sort of law?
Nothing to do with music; it's the technology I'm concerned with; as I outlined here

Downloading isn't a crime.
Actually, it could be said that in light of recent legislation, it is, in fact, a crime. At least with regards to illegal IP and technologies (such as the DVD decryption flap a while back).

Question everything
I question why so many intelligent people would have such a glaring blindspot just because the object being discussed is intangible.
If I opened up a store where people brought me in copyrighted works to redistribute to other people -sometimes for a fee- (ala' new napster) how long would I stay in business?

Not very, you can bet on that!

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[rzbx]

Your still viewing and treating ideas the same way as property. That, my friend, is blind. Ideas do not equal physical property. Do a search on google for "Brian Martin Information Liberation" click the link and read chapter 3. It is long, but you'll be more informed having read that.

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet is a decentralized network. What you are worried about can already be done, using websites.

I would think that terrorists would not want to use a network that is so completely open because it would be easier to catch them, track things down, etc.

Another way to look at this is we have open highways where you can travel from state to state withithout registering or showing papers at checkpoints. Somehow, our law enforcement seems to do okay. What scares me more is knee jerk reactionists taking away everybodies rights out of fear, without realizing that the damage they do outweighs the damage they are trying to prevent.

"The bad guys" may be you.

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[Anonymous Coward]

[If I opened up a store where people brought me in copyrighted works to redistribute to other people -sometimes for a fee- (ala' new napster) how long would I stay in business?]

you mean like a used cd store? last i heard those were legal. also librarys seem to do well with this... or blockbuster, as people (distributers) bring in copywrighted works (videos) to distribute to other people (rent) for a fee ($3) you could stay in buisness forever, as long as people still had tvs and vcrs to watch them.

just dont do it online ;p

-compn

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[Flower]

Whatever. You might as well outlaw crypto, VPNs, anonymous email (which would let someone inside a terrorist cell leak info to the authorities), PDFs (hey I can write an innocent environmental piece and a suicide bomber can use a template to get a coded message within), etc., etc.. Disposable cell phones? Get rid of them. Flight simulators? They gotta go!

And that's not why decentralized technologies were developed. But you go on believing that.

DoS the whitehouse isn't terrorism. As Bruce Schneier says "If I don't get my email for a day I'm not terrorized." If someone had half a brain, years ago they get instructions on how to make explosives from a forestry manual published by the US government no less. The terrorists who commited 9/11 were hooking up at a tittie bar not over AOL.

The terrorist aren't going to win because they have P2P. They're going to win because people won't be stuffing BILLIONS of dollars into strippers g-strings. Now there's a depression.

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[Anonymous Coward]

What scares me is the potential application of this.

Me, too. Especially technologies like Freenet, which has been widely discussed here on Slashdot. Look around this thread and count how many anti-establishment loons you see. Dozens at least. Of those, how many would be willing to undertake an overt act in furtherance of their mixed-up agendas? Probably not many. But there are a lot more people out there than are just posting in this thread. Sooner or later one of 'em is going to get the bright idea of packing a rental truck full of diesel and fertillizer and parking it next to a government building, and the knowledge that he got the recipe off of a Freenet node isn't going to comfort anybody.

When developing new technologies, you have to weigh their potential for good versus their potential for harm. This distinction has been lost on too many post-war suburban kids from affluent communities in the western world.

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[Xebikr]

Lessig would probably be the first to tell you that he absolutely respects copyright. From what I've read from him, he believes in copyright, but also believes that it has become unbalanced. His solution is to create creativecommons.org which artists and publishers can use to voluntarily limit the length of their copyright or set the terms by which others can duplicate their work.

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[An Onerous Coward]

I smell a troll. Nevertheless...

[snip]

Music does not get made without studio time, equipment, expertise and salaries. All of those, and the money that purchases them, are finite resources.

Compared to the costs of getting your work into major distribution channels without help from the RIAA, none of the costs you cite are a drop in the bucket. If you live in a major city, there are plenty of ways to get access to professional studios. Of course you have to pay for the privilege, but as I said, the main cost in producing a world-famous CD is access to the distribution channels.

The recording industry knows this, and that's why they're concerned about the Internet. Musicians no longer need the access to distribution channels that only the major studios were able to provide.

Just ask your wedding singer what he'd be willing to do unpaid and you'll quickly get my point.

Totally irrelevant example. We're talking about music which has been fixed to an easily reproducible medium such as a CD or MP3 file. Given that, it is possible to transmit whatever work the artist and recording studio did to everyone who desires it, with no further work on their parts.

When it comes to your wedding band's work at a specific wedding, there is no way for that work to be reproduced at little Harry's bar-mitzvah, except by paying the band to do another gig.

More? To whom? Not to the people who have made signifigant investment in the viability of an acts' career only to see that investment go up in smoke due to peer-to-peer pirating.

Funny, I don't see anybody making significant investments in "career viability" these days. What I see from the major studios is typified by "American Idol": Manufacture a "super-hot, gotta-buy-their-CDs" band using the latest in marketing glitz. Inflate everyone's expectations to the point where there's no way they can deliver, and then sit back and watch the sales roll in. Soon, all the fans are sick and tired of the act, and the "career" in question dies. But that's okay, because the studio stopped pumping them a long time ago, in favor of an even newer "super-hot, gotta-buy-their-CDs" band.

It should also be pointed out that, if a few entities didn't control major distribution channels, the investment necessary to create a "viable career" would be much lower. Lower barrier to entry should equate to more viable careers.

Nothing to do with music; it's the technology I'm concerned with; as I outlined here

I read your post, and it does nothing to cover up the trollish smell I mentioned earlier. The guy who responded to you there had some excellent points: every privacy techology, every communication channel, every encryption scheme has potential "terrorist" applications. Using this fact as an excuse to link p2p file trading to terrorism is indeed trollian, and using it as an excuse to ban p2p technology is simply braindead policy.

Actually, it could be said that in light of recent legislation, it is, in fact, a crime. At least with regards to illegal IP and technologies (such as the DVD decryption flap a while back).

Again, the point is that the Internet is just a tool, and it's the uses that people put it to that determines the legality of an action.

I question why so many intelligent people would have such a glaring blindspot just because the object being discussed is intangible.
If I opened up a store where people brought me in copyrighted works to redistribute to other people -sometimes for a fee- (ala' new napster) how long would I stay in business?

Not very, you can bet on that!

True fact, if your business model was "Copyright Infringment, Inc." But wh

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back to Geekizoid, you Vlad-fanboy!

Re:My question to Lessig would be

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice ad-hominem attack there ,fag!

my questions

[renard]

1. If I own a music CD, is it all right for me to download the digitally compressed version of the songs on that CD via a peer-to-peer file sharing service?

2. Is it all right for me to make and distribute, to my friends and non-commercially, "mix CDs" that consist of compilations of music from my collection?

   If not, please reconcile explicitly with the language of the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992.

3. Under current law, is online file-sharing both illegal and punishable?

   If not, then why is the RIAA pursuing legal action against so many individuals and their ISPs?

   If so, then why is the RIAA lobbying Congress for legislation allowing them to, for example, commit cybercrimes against suspected file-sharers?

Thanks!
renard

Re:my questions

[Anonymous Coward]

If I own a music CD, is it all right for me to download the digitally compressed version of the songs on that CD via a peer-to-peer file sharing service?

No. It's not okay for the same reason that walking out of a store with a CD is not okay. Buying one instance of a thing does not entitle you to a second instance of that thing. (Unless your agreement with the seller so stipulates, of course.)

Is it all right for me to make and distribute, to my friends and non-commercially, "mix CDs" that consist of compilations of music from my collection?

First of all, you have a misunderstanding of the term "non-commercially." It doesn't mean "not for money." Commerce is a broader notion than simply transactions in which money is one side of the equation. Commerce means trade in the broadest terms, and trade includes gifts and loans.

So basically the AHRA prohibits commercial uses of home recordings. Which means you can make a home recording and use it yourself, but you CANNOT legally transfer that recording to another person, either by sale, barter, or gift.

The answer, therefore, is no. It is lawful to make "mix" recordings, but it is not lawful to distribute them to anybody under any circumstances.

Hypothetically, if your friend brought you six CD's and asked you to make a "mix" recording for him from selections from those CD's, that would be lawful. But you wouldn't be allowed to keep a copy of the "mix" recording after you're done.

Under current law, is online file-sharing both illegal and punishable?

The details depend on the circumstances, but the answer is generally yes. The copying of copyrighted materials without express permission from the copyright holder is unlawful, and can be remedied either through civil action or (under certain circumstances) by criminal prosecution. So yes, online file-sharing (as it pertains to copyrighted works) is both illegal and punishable.

If so, then why is the RIAA lobbying Congress for legislation allowing them to, for example, commit cybercrimes against suspected file-sharers?

Because there are those in the RIAA who believe that current statutory remedies are insufficient. For example--and I'm not advocating their reasoning here; I happen to disagree with it--it is lawful for a person to act to stop a violent crime in progress. If you see somebody with a gun behaving in a threatening or intimidating manner, it's lawful for you to commit an act that would under other circumstances be considered felonious assault. There are those who believe it should be lawful for copyright holders to take action to stop acts of copyright infringement while they're in progress. The rationale is that once an act of infringement as occurred, it's often darned near impossible to put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak. Once a pirated copy of a work has made it out into one of the various computer networks whose purpose it is to facilitate such things, essentially no post hoc remedy can restore the situation to the status quo ante. Just like a murder, once committed, can't be undone by any civil or criminal action. Yes, comparing copyright infringement to violence is melodramatic and deceptive, but in a very narrow context the comparison is valid: acts of piracy can, with the advent of new technologies, be essentially irrevocable, just as acts of violence can be. So there's an argument to be made that acts of piracy should be lawfully preventable, just like acts of violence are.

Hope that clears a few things up for you, Renard.

Re:my questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't you see the difference between taking and duplicating?

That's like saying "Just because you bought a golden delicious apple doesn't give you the right to plant the seeds and grow apples for yourself."

Fuck off and die with your stupid intellectual property nonsense.

Re:my questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Ill bet that one dumb fuck who shot down all your question worked for the RIAA. dumb mother fuckers reading slashot and still dont get the messege

Re:my questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't you see the difference between taking and duplicating?

Actually, since "taking" merely means "putting into one's one possession through an overt act," there is essentially no difference between taking and duplicating. Duplicating is taking, to the extent that you end up with something that you did not have before.

But your point is that there is a difference between taking something in a way that deprives the original possessor and taking something in a way that doesn't. That's absolutely true. It's not really relevant, though, because we're talking about the effect on the receiver of the IP, not the effect on the party from which the IP was taken.

That's like saying "Just because you bought a golden delicious apple doesn't give you the right to plant the seeds and grow apples for yourself."

Uh... no, no it's not. Maybe you need to think that one through again. Or, I don't know, graduate from high school or something first. Something like that.

Re:my questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Buying one instance of a thing does not entitle you to a second instance of that thing.

Wow, you are really wet behind the ears. Haven't you ever heard of fair use? I am entitled to as many copies of a legally purchased recording as I may require for legitimate purposes such as backup, space-shifting, etc. Whether I rip the mp3s myself off of my own media, or download the equivalent from a p2p network, the result is ostensibly the same. I don't see any reason why the latter should be illegal (though the provider of the mp3 is obviously on thin ice).

Re:my questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you ever heard of fair use?

Yes. It sounds like your understanding of the notion is deeply flawed, however.

I am entitled to as many copies of a legally purchased recording as I may require for legitimate purposes such as backup, space-shifting, etc.

You are not actually entitled to anything in the context of this discussion. You are granted permission to make certain copies as long as they don't have any commercial impact on the copyright holder and as long as your purpose in making them is deemed to be fair. This does not extend to allowing you to copy somebody else's copy of a work, an act that is prima facie illegal.

Whether I rip the mp3s myself off of my own media, or download the equivalent from a p2p network, the result is ostensibly the same.

It most certainly is not. Let's say you buy a CD and then destroy it. You have lost it, have you not? You don't have it any more. It's gone. If you then sit down at your computer and download a pirated copy of somebody else's copy of that CD, you're breaking the law.

This was my question

[Milo Fungus]

Does unauthorized copying of copyrighted works fit the legal definition of theft? The UK laws define theft as "the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving that person of it (reference)." If US laws are similar, it seems that "theft" is the wrong term to be using for the act. Similar questions could be asked about other terms such as "piracy."

Thanks in advance for your answers.

I'm bothered by the abuse of language for purposes of propaganda. It is deceitful and dishonest, and therefore I despise it.

My questions...

[oaf357]

I don't expect an answer but here are the questions I asked:

If the RIAA is going to say that they won't go after people and then change directions and then sue Verizon for access to private information about its users then sue four college kids for operating Windows file sharing search engines, why would consumers continue to support the RIAA (an organization that obviously goes back on its own word) by purchasing music or other media from the organizations that support the RIAA?

Also, with the increase of recent anti-spam legislation what will the RIAA do to counteract the "destined to come" lawsuits due to its spamming of P2P networks?

This will be a wonderful display of how "ready" the RIAA is for the public.

The answer to everything.

[Anonymous Coward]

"When I fill my form out, and enter it, I get a 404. What's the juice?"

The servers borked. You should have gotten a "42".

They gotta stick...

[RightInTheNeck]

The people who are to argue against the RIAA in this debate must stick to the real relevant issues. If they start babbling on about how music should be free and downloading whatever you want is a basic human right and needs to be liberated, coming off sounding like some retarded never had a job high school smuck, they are going to look really stupid and miss an opportunity to deal with the real issues. They need to talk about how the legnth of copyright has basically turned into eternity, how the RIAA tries to kill technology that threatens them financial, how they buy legislation in Washington to automatically treat everyone as if they were naturally criminally oriented and need to be protected from everyones naturally criminal oriented impulses to steal everything in sight. How they send goons out to find the best up and coming talent, and fill thier heads with a bunch of BS and get them to sell thier souls and sign on the dotted line. Of course the young kids in the band dont realize they just signed away rights to everything they ever do including thier band name. Of course they dont know they will have to have 2 or 3 major hit albums just to pay off what they owe to the record company and recording studio just to START making money for themselves. Stick to the real topics guys.

Re:They gotta stick...

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who are to argue against the RIAA in this debate must stick to the real relevant issues.

Lawrance Lessig is arguing against the RIAA. He is on record as asking for "balanced copyrights". He is on record as opposing Realtime Blocking Lists for spam. He is a professor at Stanford University. He is not your typical Slashbot. He is not going to throw his reputation away by acting like one.

Re:They gotta stick...

[zakezuke]

Well, there is the other concept too... the concept of ownership, which has nothing to do with free music or building new a utopia.

Let me go into my closete.

I have a copy of "John Denver's Greatest Hits vol 2" on 8 track. I'm not proud of this fact, but never the less, at some point in my life I just wanted a copy of, "thank god i'm a country boy".

Now, do I own a copy of the song for personal use, or do I just own the physical cartrage and have no rights to play the song what so ever?

Until recently, I've been under the impression that the indended use of the media was to be played and heard privatly, in my home or in my car, which just so happened had only an 8track player at the time. I bought it, it's pretty much mine to do with as I please so long as I don't do it it publicly which I personaly define as situations where people pay money to listen to my copy of John Denver on 8-track. To me this is fair and reasonable.

I was also under the impression, should I choose, make a backup of this 8track on cassette. I own a copy, 8 track was an obscure standard, it seemed silly to buy another copy of John Denver Greatest Hits as I already had one that worked just fine. To me, this is reasonable, as there are a few standards of players, and not every car or home I happen to wish to play this in had an 8-track player, it being a remarkably dead standard.

But recently, based on what i've heard, the RIAA is trying to make this practice illegal. To me this seems unreasonable as I already bought a copy of John Denver's Greatest Hits, but I no longer have an 8-track player.

To me, the concept of making a copy for personal use of material I already bought isn't a criminal act nor a violation of copyrights. The store was payed it's money, took it's share, the recording company got paid, John Denver got paid. I'm not stealing because they already sold me a copy.

Let's say I bought a 8track deck specificly to copy off this and other 8-tracks I happen to have. I don't have all that many, but used the deck to record a cassette, or make a CD or MP3. Provided I still maintain ownership of the 8-track, I don't see this as being criminal in the slightest. I don't have an interest in the CD, not at $15.00 from a popular online retailer, not when it's remotly possible to get a player on an online auction site for less then $15.00, or borrow a deck from a friend for the sole purpose of cracking out a copy.

This is one right that i'd be inclined to fight for.

watching it

[Triumph The Insult C]

Looks worth tuning in for.

Ain't that an understatement.

Money says Larry makes him look like a fool inside 5 minutes.

Re:watching it

[oaf357]

Money says Larry makes him look like a fool inside 5 minutes.

I bet you're right.

PBS can be part of the problem too.

[twitter]

PBS is the voice of Big Brother and he has a big intrest in IP ownership. Copyright are created rights which require positive government action to exist. One of the reasons we have such screwy copyright and patent laws is that they feed the federal government. You realize, of course, that property that's only owned by virtue of govenment intervention belongs to the government, don't you? The more locked down IP gets the more powerful Big Brother is and the more the government can charge to fool with it. Taxes grow where money is made. Mickey Mouse is Big Brother's bitch and you should not expect impartial news from the government.

Notice that this is unAmerican. Hatred of privalige and exclusive franchises are what the American revolution were all about. Throughout history, people trap themselves with Byzantine guilds and societies where no one outside the society is allowed to practice the art. They have the mistaken notion that by extorting their neighbors with monopoly prices for their particular wares they can maximize their incomes. Typically, the govenment implements regulations and eventually price controls and everyone ends up paying monopoly prices for everything. Adam Smith and others at the time realized the folly of this and expressed it strongly. Press and speech rights were especially important things to the US founders. Today, through bogus patent and copyright laws, we are slipping back into the Byzantine mould. Governments love being in that position and ours will be that way if we don't remember what copyrights and patents are supposed to be - reasonable and temporary (less than 20 year) restraints on free speech and trade to encourage individual inventors and artists.

Witness the ownership of electronic publication, aka broadcast, by three or four large companies. This is a thing the federal government likes because it's easier to control. The government will extend this ownership to the internet, unless we stop them.

You can only get accurate news when you have many independent third party reporters. A single state run news agency, or two, is what the Soviet Union had. What we have is infinitley better, but still flawed. It is only internet reporting that is keeping the big broadcasters reasonably honest. Make noise to keep it that way.

Re:PBS can be part of the problem too.

[Anonymous Coward]

PBS is the voice of Big Brother

Oh, boy. Troll meter is hovering at about 9.5.

Copyright are created rights which require positive government action to exist.

Boom! Off the charts. Yup. This is definitely a troll.

(skim, skim, ignore, ignore)

A single state run news agency, or two, is what the Soviet Union had.

Aha. There it is. Thanks for confirming your trollish nature for us.

Re:PBS can be part of the problem too.

[LMCBoy]

Mickey Mouse is Big Brother's bitch

I think it's the other way around...

Anyway, I don't know what to make of the reest of your post. You seem to be equating PBS with a state-run news agency. It isn't.

Re:PBS can be part of the problem too.

[AceCaseOR]

I have to agree with your statement that PBS isn't state-run. Public broadcasting is depending on making money from pledge breaks anymore. That's why there's been a major increase in membership drives? If the government cut funding entirely because they were upset with some programming, Public Broadcasting could try to get more in sponsorships and go to monthly pledge drives. There are several stations here (in Oregon) that aren't part of PBS that get most of their money from pledges. No kidding.

DMCA as modern Stationer's Guild

[smiff]

The question I want answered, how do Lessig and Oppenheim feel about this argument? Forty-six professors of intellectual-property law argued that the DMCA's anti-device provision creates a modern Stationer's Guild. It allows copyright holders to control technology, much like the Stationer's Guild controlled the printing press. The court declined to address this argument and I have been itching for a good response to it.

Re:DMCA as modern Stationer's Guild

[frumiousbar]

Laws controlling devices are nothing new. There are laws about automobile safety that requires cars to meet certain standards and this allows the government to control technology. There are laws about FCC compliance and this allows the FCC to control devices. Etc. etc.

Re:DMCA as modern Stationer's Guild

[smiff]

Laws controlling devices are nothing new. There are laws about automobile safety that requires cars to meet certain standards and this allows the government to control technology. There are laws about FCC compliance and this allows the FCC to control devices. Etc. etc.

The constitution enumerates 18 powers (plus several amendments) which congress may exercise. In order for congress to do anything, they must exercise a power that the constitution grants them. With regards to cars and the FCC, that power is under the interstate commerce clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3).

The professors argue that congress can not use the interstate commerce clause if the intellectual property clause already restricts congress' behavior.

The intellectual property clause allows congress to grant patents only to inventors (not authors):

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

The distiction, for example, keeps congress from granting Random House a monopoly on the latest and greatest printing press. The constitution also requires that monopoly powers only be bestowed upon original works and only apply for limited times. Both of these requirements would preclude the DVDCCA from being the exclusive licenser of CSS. If they wanted that power, they should have applied for a patent.

Irregardless of whether or not the law is constitutional, the question still remains, does the DMCA create modern Stationer's Guilds? Suppose the RIAA creates a new alternative to MP3, complete with DRM. The technology proliferates everwhere. Next thing you know radios, TVs, and all other audio equipment use nothing but the RIAA's new encoding standard. How can anyone publish in this realm without the RIAA's permission?

Re:DMCA as modern Stationer's Guild

[Stephen VanDahm]

"Laws controlling devices are nothing new. There are laws about automobile safety that requires cars to meet certain standards and this allows the government to control technology. There are laws about FCC compliance and this allows the FCC to control devices. Etc. etc."

True, but with very few exceptions, once you buy a car there are no restrictions on what you can do with it. If you want to remove the catalytic converter or drive around without a safety belt, you can do that as long as you don't take it out on public roads. With the DMCA it is illegal to circumvent copy protection even on devices that you own so that you can watch DVDs (or whatever) that you paid for.

Furthermore, if I wanted to start VanDahm Motor Company and sell VMC automobiles to the public, I would be free to do that as long as I complied with the government regulations. If I wanted to make DVDs or DVD players, however, I have to get licenses from a consortium of private companies, who could very well deny me a license if they felt that my business interests were in conflict with their own.

When the government makes it illegal for company A to do business simply because it would interfere with company B's profits, it's widely considered to be corruption. However, that's exactly what the DMCA allows, and that's what the RIAA and MPAA are trying to do with music and movie production.

Re:DMCA as modern Stationer's Guild

[LordNimon]

That was very well written, but I want to point out that "irregardless" is not a word. You meant to say "regardless".

Re:DMCA as modern Stationer's Guild

[Anonymous Coward]

That was very well written, but I want to point out that "irregardless" is not a word. You meant to say "regardless".

I never bothered to look it up before. Irregardless really is a word. It's just that some people don't think it should be.

copyright extension

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Extending copyrights to life +70 will keep much of our literature, film, and culture out of the public domain where it belongs, creating massive distortions in our educational and cultural fabric. Kindly explain to the world (much of whom find American Copyright Law onerous and absurd) 1. how sequestering said culture in the hands of giant for profit publishing conglomerates is fair, just and reasonable and in the best interests of the free growth of human society and culture? 2. How it's not just a typical powergrab by plutocrats and their corrupt perfidious minions in the American Government?

Great!

[fizban]

Yay Public Television! Take it onto the TV as well, please!

Man, could you imagine this type of debate on Fox News? The host would be interrupting Lessig every second while letting the RIAA spokesperson speak for days...

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, you really might want to look at which party actually gets the vast majority of the loot from the entertainment industry before starting in with your knee-jerk political crapola.

The Republicans have their own set of problems, but on THIS ISSUE it's the Dems who are selling your ass down the river.

Don't believe me?

Read this.

Sure

[0x0d0a]

Won't SOMEBODY please post SOMETHING with which I can violently and profanely disagree?

George W. Bush is an erudite and effective president.

When and Where please

[joejoejoejoe]

Can someone please point me to where (on tv, or online) this will be?

And WHEN will it be on?

I looked over the linked pages briefly and cannot find it.

thank you.

Re:When and Where please

[jc42]

Nah, just post a link to the transcript (or mp3) of the program here. Then those of us who rarely watch tv will find out about it.

If it's on NPR, I might hear it, but probably not. But if there's a followup here that links to it, I and all the /. geeks will read it.

Re:When and Where please

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone please point me to where (on tv, or online) this will be? And WHEN will it be on?

They probably won't answer these questions on the show. :-)

an inflamatory question from a coward.

[twitter]

An AC invents several false analogies and asks, "Machines are often built in such a way that they either cannot be used in dangerous or unlawful ways, or that such use is very difficult. Computers are no different."

There is nothing dangerous or unlawful about my the files on my computer. For you or anyone else to search them would be unlawful as I run free software and have not granted anyone permission to bother me.

It astounds me how people who threaten others with all the force of law over file copying turn around and call those engaged in such activites violent. The felony convictions they have aranged for copyright violation include loss of livelyhood, loss of life savings and jail time. Yet proponents of these insane copyright laws refer to their victims as "dangerous", "pirates" and all that. Try as they might, copying a file against the wishes of a publisher will never be the moral equivalent of murder on the high seas or any other violent act.

The AC then states that DRM will have no effect on journalism or free press. Think about it some more AC. When DRM gets to the point that your post to any electronic network must pass a copyright violation filter that's embeded in your hardware in some mysterious way, you might understand. Yes, your silly post to Slashdot might one day be filtered by your own computer to make sure it's "safe" for public consumption and violates no copyrights. If your computer is smart enough, you won't even know your post did not make it through. If you don't control your press and someone else does, you have no free press.

Re:an inflamatory question from a coward.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing dangerous or unlawful about my the files on my computer.

Oh, bullshit. The obviously depends on what the files are. If the files are stolen, they are unlawful. Period.

For you or anyone else to search them would be unlawful as I run free software and have not granted anyone permission to bother me.

Also bullshit. If you open a port, you are granting permission to access that port.

It astounds me how people who threaten others with all the force of law over file copying turn around and call those engaged in such activites violent.

Did you read? Did you read, in particular, the part where I said that the analogy with violent crime only applies in a certain, very narrow context? I decided to go ahead and include that as a kind of idiot filter. It trapped you nicely.

Try as they might, copying a file against the wishes of a publisher will never be the moral equivalent of murder on the high seas or any other violent act.

No, it's the moral equivalent of shoplifting, and should be punished as such.

Yes, your silly post to Slashdot might one day be filtered by your own computer to make sure it's "safe" for public consumption and violates no copyrights.

Hey, neat. FUD! Haven't seen THAT around here in a while.

It astounds me the kind of bullshit that passes for insight around here.

Re:an inflamatory question from a coward.

[Reziac]

Rather like my client the journalist (a flaming liberal at that), who is busy suing his previous publishers for infringement under the DMCA, but can't see how DRM could possibly restrict his ability to quote from sources or forward email, dictate his choice of word processor, etc, etc.

Makes a person want to tear his hair out. (His, not mine. :)

Re:an inflamatory question from a coward.

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment smells of bullshit.

Rather like my client the journalist (a flaming liberal at that), who is busy suing his previous publishers for infringement under the DMCA

Wrong. The DMCA doesn't cover acts of infringement. Those are covered by other chapters of Title 17. Chapter 12 (i.e., the DMCA) only covers acts of circumvention.

I think the parent poster made some shit up.

Can I sue the RIAA back?

[blair1q]

Here's the question I submitted:

If lawyers can't even define it, technology can't possibly contain the intelligence necessary to determine the difference between fair-use and illegal copying in every case; so how can the RIAA hope to enforce copyright without violating the fair-use rights reserved to the public? Is there a market for a piece of software that files a lawsuit against the RIAA every time a person tries to make a rightful copy of a recording and is prevented from doing so?

Re:Can I sue the RIAA back?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because fair use isn't a right; it's a defense.

Re:Can I sue the RIAA back?

[blair1q]

You've contradicted yourself.

A right is a defense against superior might.

Online or On Air?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a little bit confused. Is this something that's going to be put on the pbs website, or is it actually going to be aired?

We actually get this program in Australia, so it'd be interesting to see it if it's going to be screened. If it's just online, it's too much trouble to bother with on our crappy "Broadband" internet.

I hate the RIAA but I just feel bad for.....

[8-balll]

the bands... The ones that are actually out there to make music for the love of music.. I love Metallica, I've listened to them for years, but I'd rather download there new songs and listen to them, before I spend the money I worked hard for on their CD. Before I was getting music off of the internet, I was listening to my friends tapes,CD's and records; should I have been sued when I got a friend to copy a tape for me till i had the money to buy my own??All it meant was that I would rather own the real thing instead of a copy and make sure that the group I was listening to could keep their contract with whateverthehell company, so I can hear their music. The only thing that all this BS has been doing for me and some of my friends to do is to look more for local bands and underground music(not supported by the mainstream companies) because they are looking for an airtime, so they are more willing to let their music out. If people like their music, guess what, they would buy their music... My 2 cents are out now....

Civil Disobedience

[A_Non_Moose]

Things have gotten so bad with the RIAA now, I almost fear I'll get sued for admitting this, but:

I sing along with the radio, cds I play, and sometimes...well, I don't *KNOW* the lyrics, so I'll look them up on the internet!

I can't help it! Honest! It is the Artists!! They made me do it...why, just look at Mick Jagger (ok, bad Idea)...consider Mick Jagger and the Stones in the song "Miss You" with:

what's them matter man..{something, something} with some Puerto Rican girls just diiieeng to meet-chu. We gonna bring a case of wine {long string of words...I think} like we used to!

And the woohoo-hooo-hooo is just so damn fun to sing I don't know when I'm over the line with; Copyright Infringment, Public Performance and Wreckless Endangerment and Public Indecency.

See what happens when you "Start Me Up"(c)(r)(tm) of Microsoft Corp (right?).

/where's that sarcasm tag in the HTML specs?

Sidestepping isn't necessary, in this case.

[I'm a racist's.]

Is copyright more important than plaigarism?

RIAA Executive: I feel that both principles have their uses in a free society. To not afford protection to the citizen's of this nation, from all forms of intellectual theft, would be similar to allowing terrorist cells to operate freely within our borders.

What do you think would happen if copyright law no longer existed, but plaigarism laws did?

RIAA Executive: Copyright and plaigarism cover two different things. Copyright protect's an artist's right to control the distribution of their work. Plaigarism is a precept that guards against people passing of the work of others as their own. There is a vague connection between these two ideas, but they really are at different ends of the intellectual property spectrum.

These are only some of the many possible ways to answer that, without going against the RIAA's stance. Maybe you can tear these arguments down, but in such a format (ie. this debate), I seriously doubt that will happen. In fact, copyright and plaigarism are truly different, and should be treated as such (in my opinion).

Anyway, the point of my original post is, nobody will walk through the logic with them, making sure it's valid. Nobody will question either of them (Lessig or Oppenheim) if they say something ridiculous. They'll be asked a question, give some answer, and then not have to support that answer with a logical argument and/or facts.

Someone Help Me Out

[telstar]

I know I just got back from the bars and am a bit drunk but when the hell is this episode airing? I can't seem to find a time or date listed anywhere....

My Question (Slightly Reformatted)

[Catiline]

"With online sites such as the Baen Free Library (Link: http://www.baen.com/library/) or MP3.com as well as online projects such as the Linux operating system showing that unrestricted distrobution of a work does not always diminish the monetary value and may instead increase that value, has the legal definition of copyright become outdated? If so, what would you see it redefined as and if not, what do you see as keeping copyright relevant to the digital era?"

In other words: Lessig, explain to me what you really think about copyright and Matt, don't just give me your organization's standard rhetoric, please try to find a convincing argument for once.

Re:My Question (Slightly Reformatted)

[Anonymous Coward]

... does not always diminish the monetary value and may instead increase that value ...

Isn't monetary value irrelevant, though? The primary issue of copyright being ownership and control, for whatever purpose, not just monetary gain. (Ownership and control are not implicitly bad, Slashdot dogma notwithstanding.)

Re:My Question (Slightly Reformatted)

[Catiline]

The primary issue of copyright being ownership and control, for whatever purpose

The purpose of copyright (and patents) is to "promote the progess of science and useful arts" [US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8 paragraph 8] through granting the creator (inventor) "exclusive rights" [ibid]. We know what the purpose of copyright is; that is why I did not explicitly question it.

The current method of said promotion is to monetarily reward the inventor or creator through their exclusive control. My question is *really* twofold: first, is the best method for advancing the arts control, and secondly, is copyright as we wield it today -- a purely monetary reward for that control -- advancing the arts?

I am insidious enough to understand the prejudices of the debate would prevent the "real question" from being asked; I was forced to rephrase my question so that it is more palatable to the debatees -- Lessig would not be apt to question the Constitution directly, nor would Oppenheim question a right to exclusive control. Nevertheless, to fully and honestly answer my question (the `explanatory' part), one must consider the issues raised within the subtext of the question as I submitted it; which is to say, one must consider the question of whether copyright should monetarily reward artist through exclusive control, or if there is a better, "fairer" method.

(Ownership and control are not implicitly bad

No, they aren't ... when applied in a logical manner. Ownership and control make sense for physical property, where duplication has an inherent cost. But the computers and the internet, removing the need for a permanent physical media upon which to distribute ideas, has served to prove the futility of mis-applying the laws of physical goods to abstract ones. If, as you suggest, ownership of an idea is a 'good' thing, at the very least you must agree that the application as practiced today is not 'good'; again, my question covers that area -- and your 'objection' shows how my bias was interwoven into the question I asked. It can be rephrased as: ``has traditional "physical" control of media become obsoleted when the internet and "virtual" distrobution has proven to be a potentially superior method?'' Asked that way, the obvious answer is "Yes", and the real question -- support your position -- comes to light.

Re:My Question (Slightly Reformatted)

[Erasmus Darwin]

"With online sites such as the Baen Free Library (Link: http://www.baen.com/library/) or MP3.com as well as online projects such as the Linux operating system showing that unrestricted distrobution of a work does not always diminish the monetary value and may instead increase that value,"

I think your premise here is a bit flawed. The Baen Free Library and mp3.com do not represent the unrestricted distribution of a work. In Baen's case, the work is being released in a format that's often noticeably inferior, as many people are more comfortable reading novels on paper than on screen. Furthermore, it's not unrestricted -- I'm sure, for example, that they've got restrictions prohibiting someone from redistributing the online works in paperback form.

In mp3.com's case, the stuff being given away is only a small portion of the retail work. For a CD with 12+ songs, an artist may only make 1-4 of those available. Even the most generous case means they're only giving away ~25% of what they're trying to sell. That's pretty far from the "unrestricted distribution" picture that you're attempting to paint.

As for Linux, that's a completely different case. There you have a diverse set of people working in the free-time on a collaborative effort to produce a technologically-complex product. Linux benefits from being free simply because it wouldn't have been created without its liberal licensing model. Such a system doesn't really compare to books or music -- the people downloading a random mp3 aren't likely to help produce the next album for free. Overall, I think you're attempting to overgeneralize things. Using free samples (in the Baen and mp3.com cases) to promote a product is nothing revoluntionary. In and of themselves, they don't constitute a case for changing copyright.

Re:My Question (Slightly Reformatted)

[Catiline]

I think your premise here is a bit flawed. The Baen Free Library and mp3.com do not represent the unrestricted distribution of a work.

While these works are not 100% "speech" free, they are "beer" free -- and that is the in context meaning, as I am talking finances. I will agree that while they aren't "libris" releases along the lines of the GPL or a Creative Commons license, they are not Rights Manglement crippled, and that is the minimum standard for copyright IMO.

As for Linux, that's a completely different case. ... Linux benefits from being free simply because it wouldn't have been created without its liberal licensing model.

No, they are the same issue. On the one hand, we have the MPAA, RIAA, BSA and other such organizations clamoring for ever stronger copyright while we have examples taken from all forms of media showing that such stronger copyright can do as much harm as it does to help the situation. On the other hand weh have Linux, an example where it is clear restrictive copyright would cause harm to its' development ... irrelevant to my point is the fact the author chose to "bypass" copyright to grant the end user even more rights than they normally would have. Linux shows the value that beer-free distrobution can have, and I would like to see how Lessing and especially Oppenheim approach the issue.

the people downloading a random mp3 aren't likely to help produce the next album for free.

Tell that to all the people who sampled Madonna's "What the f*!k do you think you're doing?" `track' into techno.

When does it air?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks worth tuning in for.

Ain't that an understatement.

When will it be on?

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

check the little box that says "Post Anonymously".

Voila! AC FP..... AFAICT.

HAND.

What I posted

[DaPhoenix]

This is what I posted:

With the recent Grokster ruling it is legal to operate a search engine which catalogs public INTERNET shares indiscriminant of content. That being said 'search engines' such as Phynd and Flatlan are then legal to operate since they indiscriminantly catalogs user shares without reguard to content on an INTRANET.

Mr. Lessig: Do you think that along with fair use, the definition of 'legal file sharing within an INTRANET' as opposed to the 'legal file sharing within the INTERNET' is an important definition to make legally?

If so do you see this recent lawsuit against college students as a missed opportunity to define this share space?

Continuing, Mr. Oppenheim: I might be uninformed (as I am not a lawyer) but I was under the impression that in a Federal Civil Lawsuit Plaintiffs (RIAA) can only seek damages from the defendents' Fixed Assets. If this is correct, gargantuan 97+ billion dollar civil suits are being used as scare tactics against poor in-debt college students. yield no monetary assets.Why use scare tactics such as the aforementioned to shut down what is now ruled to be 'legal filesharing'?

Do you feel action like this will improve the image of the RIAA to future consumers of the following generations?

Re:What I posted

[cpt kangarooski]

With the recent Grokster ruling it is legal to operate a search engine which catalogs public INTERNET shares indiscriminant of content.

Guess again. That's NOT what the Grokster ruling was.

First there's the fact that the Grokster ruling was the act of merely a district court and thus doesn't necessarily carry a great deal of weight.

Second, the actual ruling was this: if you create a search engine, but are totally unable to control its use (i.e. people run the software on their own computers, not your server) _THEN_ you're likely off the hook, all else being equal.

So a search engine that 3d parties can use but is running on your computer isn't shielded. At least, not by this. And that's what got those college kids, among other things.

Additionally, we don't want fair use defined. The whole point is that anything that is given its own unique circumstances fair (not necessarily what you'd think is fair) be allowed.

Music, Novels, Liberty

[Anonymous Coward]

[ I tried posting a question too, but the script is broken, so I'll just post here instead ]

Music, Novels, Liberty

Do you think there will be a large, profitable music industry five years from now? If so, how will it be different from what it was a few years ago? Will the quality of popular music be better as a result?

A number of years ago a music industry was launched and quickly generated massive financial success for those running the industry. In a statistically small number of cases, this industry also generates high profits for musicians.
It appears to me that the main reason we are facing a "problem" is this: the music industry's success was based on a great business plan some time ago, but today the world is a different one (both in terms of personal consumer technology and the increasing connected-ness of this planet's citizens) and the once great business plan is now doomed.
Why? Because innovations have been achieved that allow: 1) A sound to be recorded and re-recorded without causing loss of significant value, and 2) electronic data to be transmitted efficiently, cheaply and with some degree of anonymity.
Now let's look at print media, specifically novels. Innovation #2 above applies equally to this medium, but there is to-date no print corollary to innovation #1 above. The use of scanners together with OCR software could perhaps re-record a novel without loss of information. But the process is time-consuming and error-prone. Furthermore, while the preferred medium for music is electronic, the preferred medium for novels is paper. Why, because of the way we use the data. If we were to "read" music, audio-tapes would be a lot less tricky to "read" than a CD, though still un-reasonably difficult. We must compare "listening" to "reading": listening music works better with electronic data, while reading novels works better from a printed book. For novels to be released in electronic format, great innovation in the display of electronic text is required. When the "portable discman" for novels is available, this type of data too will be widely shared amongst the technologically-enabled members of society.
I believe the music industry can not survive as it is now; its future is one without profits from the sale of music recordings. Faced with this fact, the music industry has decided to fight back at any cost (rather than transforming itself for the inevitable future). Its protagonists seek desire laws that enable the detection and penalisation of current practices that, although possibly illegal, are exceedingly ubiquitous and common nature to many people. File-sharing is not a danger to the public (such as for instance using a cell phone while driving), it is not a danger to musicians, it does however reduce the profit margin of the music industry and its stars.
Finally, why do movie theatres exist? Everyone has a VCR these days, many have DVD players. Noone has a 1500 square foot TV. The music recording industry must change its business plan: they will need to make far less money from the repeated playing of music in private (which is why CDs sell), and perhaps increase their profits due to live shows. Perhaps create live radio broadcasts over the internet, charging a small monthly fee akin to MTV cable television. The days of the pre-recorded CD are numbered, and the existing music industry seems bent on reducing our liberty in the process.

My Question

[MacDork]

In 1790, the first US Copyright Act was created by George Washington and enacted by Congress. It gave creators ownership of their work for up to 28 years. Today, the period is the lifetime of the creator plus 90 years. Given that methods of distribution and mass marketing have only improved, it seems that time period should have been decreased if it were to be changed at all. Could you explain why copyright holders have been granted more than three times that original amount of time to allow for just compensation of their contribution to the public domain?

The RIAA might dodge the question, but if it is even posed, I will have made my point :-)

Re:My Question

[ahfoo]

And to go along with that one, what about the countries besides the US who don't belong to intellectual property treaties with the US and who have copyright laws that are still thirty or fifty years.
Since the Net is borderless, how can anybody expect to enforce American copyright overseas? And if it's not enforced overseas, how do we stop Americans from accessing overseas addresses?

Re:My Question

[Art Tatum]

And to go along with that one, what about the countries besides the US who don't belong to intellectual property treaties with the US and who have copyright laws that are still thirty or fifty years.

Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. They'll come into line once we become one big happy global family and get rid of "big, bad, nasty old nationalism" See sig.

digital copy versus material copy

[stock]

The principle of a digital copy is thats a exact copy with the same quality's as the original. in fact they are the same by the last digit. All you need is a computer and a copy or cp command. So cp msoffice1.iso msoffice2.iso can be done on any PC. It shouldn't be illegal. Next the copy command can be used to copy and burn that iso on a CDR recordable. We go ahead and do it and place it on the shelf next to the orginal. Thats not illegal. Next we buy a 2nd PC and install msoffice1.iso on the 2nd PC. Well according to that big software company, thats illegal. I say it isn't if you can just do it without more effort as just inserting the office cdrom into the 2nd PC. Now what efforts did we have to take here? Yes we paid $1500,= for the 2nd PC.

Now another scenario. We have again a 2nd PC , however its the neighbour's PC. This time he paid the $1500,= for his PC. He wants to run that msoffice too. I give him that CDR with msoffice on it. He inserts it and install/runs MS Office completely without extra efforts than inserting that CDR. Now we ask again, is this illegal??? Some say yes, some say no. It depends. lets assume that the $1500,= covers also the expenses for running msoffice, then its completely ok. If the $1500,= does not cover running msoffice then it is not ok to give your neighbour that CDR. But then again. What value does the msoffice CDR represent? The CDR itself is just a lousy $0.25 media costs. If you find it in a desert with no PC's for over 5000 miles, you can only use it as a coaster. The msoffice CDR will only be of use if you have a running PC.

Bill gates said exactly the opposite to the director of the Altair factory : "Without my software your Altair is completely useless". Well that is just not true. You can always find some other version of a office package or OS to run on your PC. There's expensive ones, cheaper ones and even free to download iso versions which you then burn and install.

What i want to make clear is that for a digital copy to work one needs some sort of a materialized copy to go along too. Staring at a directory and watching at two files : msoffice1.iso and msoffice2.iso ain't a real copy. It takes a extra CDR to burn and a 2nd PC to install/run msoffice also on that one.

Now comes the Internet. suddenly people don't need CDR's anymore to transport iso's from Joe's PC to Jack's PC. Jack anyway burn the msoffice2.iso on a CDR and installs/runs it. Jack also paid $1500,= for his PC. If that price covers running/installing msoffice its ok. If not, then Jack is the bad guy. Not for having a $0.25 CDR with msoffice2.iso on it, but for installing/running it.

Oh what a mess. In the old days making a copy was technically also easy, but media, harddisks and tapes were way more expensive. What i want to point out here, is that a digital copy technically takes no effort at all. its sometimes just 1 command on a prompt. There's no regulations i can think of that can prevent that from happening. Its a digital cyberspace thing. What matters in the end is the materialization efforts/costs which are needed to run a copy on a different street address. That would take a 2nd PC and CDR. if we want to have a sane digital copying act , let it act on the extra materalization efforts needed to run it on a different place.

Feel More Strongly about Patents

[Josh]

In my mind, both copyright and patents can be appropriate in some situations, while problems come in when the range of those situations are overextended and enforcement is overzealous or infringes on other important rights. But at core, the very notion of copyright, even digital copyright, is so much more ethically benign than the notion of patent that it's hard for me understand advocacy against the former in absence of advocacy against the latter. Even a digital copyright only applies to a specific, original form (albeit, wherever that form is instantiated), while a patent restricts a whole class of behaviors that were not even explicitly, sometimes not implicitly, imagined by the creator. Patents are *intrinsically*, at best, a pragmatically necessary, basically fascistic, evil. Copyright intrinsically seems like a buyers choice (not talking here about broken laws that restrict devices or services that might be used to violate copyright copyright).

Yah right (2nd submission)

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so I bought hundreds of records in the 80's and I confined them to the dustbin (or lost them) when CD's became mainstream. Do you really expect me to pay once for tape, again for vinyl, again for CD's, and again for your next format, and the next... ?
The same for the MPAA! I bought a DVD and it developed a crack not through my own fault of abuse. I sent it back to the 'house' that produced it and never received a response.
Oh my question: When we buy a CD or a DVD what exactly are we buying ? (rights to view/listen ? a piece of plastic ? rights to put on another medium ?)

My answer: The right to spend money so these greedy assholes can get million dollar salaries, lawyers, and not answer questions!

Re:Yah right (2nd submission)

[yerricde]

When we buy a CD or a DVD what exactly are we buying ?

??AA response: You're buying rights to view/listen or a piece of plastic, whichever dies first.

Copyright lengths

[smiff]

Now let's look at print media, specifically novels.

People do share novels. Many people read novels on their laptops and palmtops while travelling. The big difference is that people tend to share public domain novels, whereas virtually all recorded music is locked up behind copyright. Project Gutenberg has thousands of public domain novels to choose from, but there are very few public domain recordings (mostly because copyright extends back to the beginning of the record industry).

If songs from the 50's, 60's, 70's, and early 80's were already in the public domain, people would not be so sympathetic to those who distribute copyrighted works from the late 80's, 90's and 2000's.

I say sue the NewsHour

[yintercept]

PBS has a long history of reporting events that have been popularized by other media. Notice how the NewsHour had fewer reporters in the field during the Iraq war. CBS, NBC, CNN, etc. made the war popular, but PBS is the station that keeps rehashing the issue. Now that the shock and awe is over, most of the other stations have moved on to other things. Like when will gas prices get back to a dollar!!!

Anyway, /. has been busy questioning the copyright and patent laws long before PBS. I think it is time for this blatant plagiarism of material to end. Slashdot should rise up as a collective force and sue the NewsHour for copyright infringement!

With all of the thousands of post with different takes and ideas about copyrights, I think it is likely that a good datamining routine will come up with some posts that are pretty close to the NewsHour online report. Slashdot should claim copyright and sue! I say sue first and ask questions later.

Tax my blank recordable media?

[CPgrower]

If the RIAA forbids the copying of CD's, why do they receive a royalty on blank casettes and recordable CD's? Specifically, why does the RIAA assume I will be using the recordable CD specifically for recording copyrighted material. What if I were to record my *own* music? It seems like a double standard to me.

rob

Re:Tax my blank recordable media?

[cpt kangarooski]

Because copying music via casettes and (some) CDRs is legal. The fees are a part of how that works. But you're right in that it breaks down when you're the copyright holder.

Some questions

[bryan1945]

Mr. Lessig and Oppenheim,

There seems to be a disturbing trend towards more restrictive uses for legitimate users, i.e. non Redbook CDs that will not work in purchurser's CD drives. Also in this vein, "CDs" that do not follow the Redbook format but do not loudly proclaim that this is not a CD (just not putting the CD logo on the case is NOT sufficient in my opinion, but this is just my opinion).

How do you feel about the success of Apple's new online music store? Though some people are critical about certain features of this service, such as only being able to make 10 copies of a single play list (personally I think this is an argument of someone who just wants to rip free music), the majority of users love Apple's music store. Do you think that this could be a new and profitable business model?

Could you explain the payment model that an artist gets for a standard CD vs. what an artist gets from the Apple Music Store? Further, could you give us a rough idea of how much profit an artist gets from a current CD sale?

Do you think if you reduced prices on CDs that piracy would diminish? Also, when CDs were first introduced there were comments of prices lowering because CDs were cheaper to make, yet there has been no lowering of prices. Can you explain why?

I've heard quotations of how the music industry is losing x amount of money to piracy. How do you compute this amount? Specifics would be preferable because some of the formulas I have seen are rather laughable, such as the number of mp3s of some group on some (or all) p2p network(s) vs. the official number of sold albums by that group, especially considering the Penn State case where a professor was wrongly accused of sharing some music file (and the RIAA issued an apology for the wrongful accusation).

One question is, is that number (x, from above) still valid now that fake mp3s are being distibuted on p2p networks (some of those being placed by RIAA memebers) to try and curb the pirates?

What do think that the future of DRM is? Most DRM seems to hurt the most non-pirate regular users that usually just want to backup their CD, mostly because if the CD gets scratched, you (RIAA companies) WILL NOT provide a free (besides media cost) replacement. If we bought a license to the music, then you are required to provide a replacement at the cost of the media. If we bought a product, we are allowed backups. Could you please explain which of these 2 positions we consumers occupy? How does your stance compare to the concept of "fair use" according to the US Supreme Court?

There is a CD media tax for recordable CDs. This is supposed to offset the losses for piracy. If I/we are paying this "piracy tax", why can we not make one copy for personal use? A backup copy of a CD is not piracy, so if I do not copy my legally bought CD for anyone else, do I get a refund of this "piracy tax"? If not, why? I have been assumed to illegally pirating music, but if I have not, why do I not deserve a refund?

Thank you for answering my questions.

Bryan

What I wrote...

[Soko]

Good evening, gentlemen.

Firstly, I don't download music, nor do I share my CD collection on-line. Downloading content I haven't paid for, or that isn't given to me by the rightful copyright owner, in my opinion is wrong to do.

That being said, I also believe that the "technological cat is out of the bag", so to speak.

I haven't bought a CD in over 2 years, since they are outrageously priced, and there just hasn't been anything out there that I feel warrants such an expense. There have been a few songs that I wouldn't of minded getting, but I would be paying the full CD price for a song or two. I have spoken to many, many people who feel the same way - not enough quality content to justify the full price of a CD. Add to this the onerous copy protections that the Industry wants, their seeming hatred of Fair Use doctrine (I have each of my CDs backed up in MP3 format on 2 separate computers in case the origionals are damaged in some way), the well known fact that very few artists actually make money from the sales of CDs and the way the RIAA has tried to stifle technological advances, you end up with many, many people who are angry at the record companies and feel justified in acquiring thier content via P2P networks. This trend started quite a few years ago, and since the music industry did little to re-close the bag back then - by addressing what thier customers now wanted, not how to prolong the status quo - the cat left.

Sharing of content is taken as a misdemenour at best, and an inherent right when you're connected to the Internet at worst. You are no longer serving your customers, you are fighting them. This being the case, any Economics undergrad can tell you that the current business model of the Music Industry is now fataly flawed.

Seems to me that people are just voting with thier dollars. If it were easier and less expensive to acquire the content that customers of the RIAA actually wanted on a CD, rather than putting up with the hassles of downloading said content, this issue would just go away.

Regards,

Ron Sokoloski

Re:What I wrote...

[Reziac]

And yet AppleMusic.com is doing well enough that they saw fit to run a 30 second spot during the NBA game tonight (had to be mondo expensive). Goes to show the market is there, if only they'd get off this idea of "one CD, one ear, no archiving" (next they'll want us to buy a copy for each ear, or make do with mono ;)

What needs to be done!

[Cognitive Dissident]

Expose the current state of copyright law for the fraud that it is! We need to ask questions that give Lessig the chance to point out how copyright law has been perverted by corporate lobbyists.

INFORMATION IS NOT PROPERTY.

It cannot be. There would be no need for 'copyright' if it could be. Yet corporate lobbyists have hammered the word 'intellectual property' into dozens of laws over the past couple of decades and have managed to replace copyright law with a fraudulent redefiniton of the concept of 'property'.

You can ask obvious things like "Why is copyright so different from what it was 30 or 40 years ago?" and "Exactly what IS 'intellectual property' and how is it different from copyright? or you can go for something more subtle if you have a good understanding of some particular issue that will leed into this. But we must get this one issue exposed as much as possible.

The simplest question about the Constitution's job

[ShatteredDream]

How does the RIAA reconcile its support of the DMCA's provisions against the publication of documents detailing the defects in copy restriction systems with the following part of the first amendment of the US Constitution: "Congress shall pass no law abridging freedom of speech; or of the press."

Also how does the RIAA reconcile such language in copyright law with the legal fact that the 1st amendment is supposed to supercede, Article I, Section 8 which was in the original body of the Constitution amended by the Bill of Rights?

My comment copy & pasted

[Anonymous Coward]

If the copyright holders were to create alternate versions of their content by embedding advertisements, that content could be freely distributed. This would be the best solution for everyone: copyright holders get money and users get content. It would make the whole "Is downloading X stealing?" issue void as those downloading content for morally acceptable reasons (Trying before buying etc.) would have no problem with these alternatives provided the content wasn't degraded beyond recognition. If this alternate content was available then the only people left trading that content without the embedded advertisements could all without any doubt be considered pirates and would receive no sympathy from the community. No new restrictive and damaging technologies would be required either as it is already possible with open technology in common use. So my question is: Since the RIAA & MPAA are clearly aware of this and other alternatives, why have none of them been implemented even though they would be just as profitable for them, and offer the consumers the alternatives they want?

It's not Rep vs. Dem, it's public vs. conglomerate

[Anonymous Coward]

on THIS ISSUE it's the Dems who are selling your ass down the river.
...and who are they selling our asses to?
PBS? or Fox?

Fox would be just as hard of Lessig as the rest of the corporate "news" networks.

two tough questions

[rjnagle]

For Mr. Oppenheim:
1.The value that the entertainment industry has traditionally brought to the artist has been production and marketing. But costs of producing artistic works has plummetted, and many would say that "viral marketing" (through the sanctioning of alternative/free distribution channels) is cheaper and more effective anyway. Given the ever-shrinking royalty percentages and restrictive nature of entertainment contracts, why does it still make economic sense for artists to sign up with major media companies?

For Mr. Lessig:
2. Nobody ever put a gun to an artist's head to sign an unfair contract with the entertainment company. These contracts are freely entered into because both parties believe it in their respective self-interests. Why then is legislative tampering necessary? Isn't the problem self-correcting? If enough artists get screwed or perceive themselves as getting screwed by signing up, they won't sign up, or they will insist on more favorable terms. Why then should Congress hamstring the ability of artists and companies to enter into contracts? To justify legislative intervention, it seems to me that you would need to demonstrate that entertainment contracts are instrinsically predatory and exploitative.

Mod parent up please

[johannesg]

Well said. This, more than anything I've read in this discussion, strikes to the heart of the problem: what gives them the right to lock up our culture like this? A short period of profit taking is acceptable (20, 30 years, but no more), but then such works should become the basis for further development and growth.

And if I may just add one question of myself: strong copyright enforcement has the effect of criminalizing huge parts of the population. These are not wicked crooks, but normal, friendly people who do not believe they are doing something wrong. How can it be defended that these people are considered criminals? How can the law be so different from what the population believes is right?

Re:FP

[ralphclark]

Curses! Foiled again!
But, never fear...one day I will return and have my revenge!

(Oh shit I forgot to post as AC)

What Mark Twain thought of copywrites:

[budalite]

Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
- Mark Twain

They always talk handsomely about the literature of the land....And in the midst of their enthusiasm they turn around and do what they can to discourage it.
- Mark Twain Speech in Congress, 1906

I wonder if I can copywrite my own genes? or that cute thing I do...

Something we'll look back at this all and say 'WTF?'

The question I submitted.

[Alsee]

In an effort to enforce copyrights, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act has made it a crime to descramble a scrambled work (circumvention). Anything a computer can descramble can also be descrambled by a human brain. Is there any reason the Digital Millenium Copyright Act would not apply to circumvention done by a human brain? Doesn't this make it a crime to think certain thoughts? Is this law unconstitutional?

-

NPR, too -- WAS Re:"Corporate Jim" I call him

[firewort]

NPR stood up and said that we don't need Low Power FM- all the community and public radio we need should be provided by them.

My 2 cents

[Cranst0n]

I highly doubt they will answer, but here's what I submitted. This is a multi-part question. Part 1) Which is more important the draconian DCMA or Fair Rights policy? Why would you want to stop your client base from listening to what they have PAID to OWN on whatever they want to? Part 2) How can you blame only file sharing for the declinei n business? Can't yo also contribute it to a)The economic downturn we have been in the past couple of years? b) The fact that overall the studios have released 25% less of their catalogs than in previous times? You talked about how very few artists make it and you are always trying to develop talent. I have seen and work for many local bands that have more talent than the stars you Promote. Isn't it all about PR with you andnot talent? Finally The RIAA has said that it has a right to defend its work. I have two problems with this from what the RIAA has been doing. 1) Don't you feel like you have become a worse criminal by spying (or if the laws pass, hacking sending Virii to) peoples machines when you are not a deputised law enforcement agency? And finally How can you call it your work when its the work of the actual artist which make virtually no money (mmost of them make their money from Concerts and merchandising)? Thank you for your time.

A More Efficient Library

[Belteshazzar]

Libraries have always offered the public free access to copyrighted material, such as books and music. Does the RIAA support this level of free access to information?

If so, wouldn't the internet be a great medium to improve libraries ability to provide the public unrestricted access to such information?

Copyrights

[Anonymous Coward]

I submitted a question, which I tried to make as impartial as my biased opinion would allow. For better or for worse, here it is:

"From the writings of Thomas Jefferson and others, we understand that copyright in the U.S. was not designed to be about property, but about benefiting society by giving artists and scientists an incentive to create, so that eventually their works would be free for others to benefit from and build upon. This is why copyrights eventually expire. Over the years, the idea has emerged that copyright is a form of "intellectual property." This is the justification behind copyright extensions, digital rights management (AKA copy protection), and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Is society as a whole better off or worse off because of this shift in focus?"

This is my question

[Nom du Keyboard]

How does the RIAA justify their claim of billions of dollars lost due to free (i.e. no one is making money selling these files) file sharing over the Internet?

Where are they able to show that even one of these trades has resulted in a lost sale?

And how can they equate this to theft of a physical CD, which does involve cost of materials, manufacture, and transportation absent in a file download?

Irrelevant

[gidds]

The problem is that DRM makes copyright terms effectively infinite! It doesn't matter when it becomes legal for you to do something you can't physically do.

Maybe that would be the basis of a better question:

"Do any of the current or proposed methods of protecting digital rights expire when the corresponding copyright term expires? If not, don't they effectively provide an infinite copyright term? How do you square this with the spirit of the `limited terms' clause of the Copyright Act?"

(Assuming I've got the legal reference right; I'm not a USian.)