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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.
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.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
- 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?
- 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?
- Under current law, is online file-sharing both illegal and punishable?
Thanks!If not, please reconcile explicitly with the language of the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992.
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?
renard
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?
"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.
Do you like Japanese imports?
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!
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 :-)
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?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.