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Copyright Defeats?
Uruk asks: "Over the last few years, we've seen what looks like the victory of copyright and business interest at the expense of the consumer. There's been The DMCA, the UCITA, all of the legal wranging over DeCSS, and so on. Copyright holders can even shut your website down without doing the research about whether or not it was appropriate. Johansen did seem to be acquited of some of what was brought against him as a result of the DeCSS situation, but that was in Norway. Does anyone know of any copyright or consumer victories on the net in the last few years? Something that limits the abilities of these laws, or otherwise acts in the copyright spirit of free use? My hat is off to GNU and EFF, even Project Gutenberg. What is the status of this ongoing battle? I'm looking for the sunny side to a situation that seems littered with defeat."
Other than being offensive, what's the problem with that site? Is that photo copyrighted and being published without permission?
Victories by people without millions to lobby congress with? You've got to be joking.
the sunny side is the money side
.. for you, its sunny
.. welcome to the darkside
.. face the .. the have nots .. thats just the way it is.
you got money?
no money?
whats with all this social debate?
facts people - the haves have
have to circumvent
either that or kowtow.
I'm thinking that the MPAA is infringing on my copyrights on their web site. The MPAA itself has gone to considerable expense and trouble to relieve me of any and all responsibility for actually investigating that they have, and their ISP is in deep, deep shit if they don't treat the MPAA just like any other accused war criminal/infringer, if I were to complain. It'd be real interesting to see if their host has honored any takedown orders from the MPAA, before filing such an order against the MPAA itself.
But that'd be fighting abuse with abuse, and I'd never recommend doing that.
The fact that the case was even brought up is a bad thing, never mind that it made it all the way te the Supreme Court. It should have been thrown out at the start as frivolous.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
I am sorry to say that we're fighting a losing battle. No matter what we do, in a couple of years everything will be owned by only a handful of companies and everything you do on your computer must be approved by Microsoft or some other company. It's ashamed... Really.
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
The biggest consumer victory over the last years isn't really related to copyright. It's the whole Internet in general.
Cheap, high speed cable access. Almost everyone has an email address these days, even my mum has two.
Even taking into account the enormous amount of crap out there, viruses, script-kiddies, etc, there is still an enormous amount of fantastic and free (as in beer and speech) software for the taking, useful information, online dictionaries - you can find something for almost every subject.
The dot com bubble spoiled (or educated depending on your view) people to expect things for free, but the biggest consumer victory is the wealth of information and content available to all who seek it.
Those who are old enough, try and remember the time before you had regular internet access.
Yes, people may be clamping down on copyrights, yes there are idiotic patents out there, and Microsoft is currently pouring money into nanotechnology in an attempt to turn humanity into a "perfect" society.
On balance the "good internet" outweighs the bad (at least for now). Having that resource available beats the shit out of being able to download the latest Britney Spears mp3. (as in fact would repeatedly punching yourself in the nuts, but you get the idea)
Consumer successes against overblown claims may easily go unreported.
This may be a legal situation where an imbalance of reportage is regrettably built in.
If a copyright owner takes action and sees it through, there is an actual legal result that can easily get reported. But if a consumer resists an unjustified threat then the case may be dropped before anything appreciable has happened in legal terms and the position can easily go without report.
Maybe if there is some way to collect an informal archive about unjustified attempts to claim enforcement of copyrights, the results could be of use to consumer and public-interest organisations. It might also help when there are attempts to design sensible reform proposals to limit the imbalances in this area of law.
I think it is high time to realize how naive we were to ever think that the courts would straighten this out for us. The courts are the least democratic, most reactionary, and least progressive element of government - and while they have done good (especially in America due the fantastic foresight of the framers, which has unfortunately reached its tether now) trying to think that we can turn to them for deliverance of the Internet is insanity.
I think, however, that the widespread belief among many of the information freedom activists and supporters that the courts would work things out (in the Eldred case, the DeCSS case, the Napster case, etc) should be noted as very strong evidence to the fundamental honesty of their position. It is so clear and obvious to us that laws forbidding us from manipulating our own computers and lawsuits against networks for not controlling those that use them are an insanity and step all over our fundamental freedoms that the otherwise naive belief that the courts would side with us seemed not only logical but necessary.
So is not the case. The unconnected man, the information horder, and those who view computers with suspicion and fear simply do not see the same thing as we do when they look at these things. Fundamental shifts will occur when one group grows at the expense of the other, not sooner.
If a student copies Shakespeare, and claims it as their own original work, it is plaigerism, and by tradition, they will get a failure on whatever assignment they plagierized on. Here, the public domain appears at first glance to be open to legal plagiarism.
So then, this opens the debate: Is public plagiarism of public domain works a bad thing? If it could lead to new copyrights on old work, then it is definetly a bad thing for the public good... but if no evidence survived to show that the public domain work exists now in the public domain, is it not better that at least someone preserved the work, even if just to own it for life+x years? After all, the ownership of a work in the public domain cannot be defended in court, which makes the copyright directly on the work nearly useless.
There will likely be some interesting cases that come forth from this ruling, and what happens afterward.
Ryan Fenton
I guess "cheap" is relative, but I consider $500+ per year for a cable modem to be just this side of extortion. I'll admit I don't know what their costs are, but every time they jack my cable TV bill, they claim it's to cover the increased cost of programming. Can't use that excuse for internet access. The fact is as long as the cable and phone companies have a near-monopoly on high-speed access, we consumers are screwed.
I do agree with you about the "good internet", and Britney Spears.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
The victories are everywhere, but no matter how good it gets most folks seem to be focused on what they want. Well, if you know how to get everything you want, right now in real life then do clue us in so we can get on with the rest of it. In the meantime we've got to look at what we got and where we got it.
Example: my father is in his 80's; my 20+ aunts and uncles are nearly all dead. And all through those Nixon years and the Carter years and even the Reagan years I remember many an afternoon having to listen to them sit around and bitch about corrupt politicians and (get ready) an out of control press that had way too much freedom and power. Two decades later and this nation of sheeple elects a candidate who told us during his campaign he thought "maybe we have too much freedom."
This is the generation that forged the corporate nonsense we are living with now; this is the generation that put most of these corrupt fuckers in office, that passed most of these corrupt laws. And yet, in spite of their best efforts we now have a nearly unlimited, worldwide press, the ability to exchange copyrighted media and culture in the blink of an eye, and (believe it or not) more voice than ever - but we need to learn to use it on real shit instead of squandering it on essentially meaningless yellow press nonsense like "who gave the president a blowjob." Trent Lott was a good example of a move in the right direction - and I don't know how many of you noticed, but even CBS (er, viacom) and ABC (I mean Disney) were, in the end, forced to give some face time to chairman Mike's idiocy.
Most of these laws you all wring your hands over have become essentially meaningless for private individuals (and especially for indivduals who have an iota of technical knowledge). The victories are all around us, every day.
And speaking of which: I gotta run now; Dog Eat Dog is on...
They can't prevent people from airing Steamboat Willy, but they surely can prevent people from selling Mickey Mouse watches via trademark law. That is what I don't understand about Disney's position. The Mouse itself signifies Disney and it has as much trademark significance as the Nike Swoosh. Just as I can't go around selling t-shirts with a swoosh on it, I wouldn't be able to sell Mickey Mouse t-shirts either. (Mickey Mouse has been trademarked since 1928.)
It's called class warfare.
Welcome to capitalism.
The primary claim behind getting extensions to copyright is that if I write the Worlds Greatest Novel, get it published tomorrow, then get hit by a bus next Monday, my kids and family should be provided for.
Ok, I buy that, however I really think that once my kids reach the age of maturity, they should make their own way in life. As a result, I think that copyrights should have a lifetime of 30 years, or the lifetime of the author plus 18 years 9 months. (Which ever comes first.)
Actually, that's a terrible motive for copyright extensions.
Because it ALMOST NEVER HELPS PEOPLE.
The vast majority of copyrighted works have no economic value on day one. Of those that are left, only a minute fraction have economic value after a few years.
Your widows and orphans will be amazingly fortunate to ever be supported off of your work, because most authors are not successful authors. In fact, hardly any authors are successful. Being a successful author is about as typical as winning the lottery.
Besides which, aren't you basically saying 'fuck you' to equally unfortunate widows and orphans that have no involvement with authors at all?
If you want to support widows and orphans, some sort of life insurance and social welfare system is going to be a ZILLION times more effective.
So I suggest you find a better rationale. The one you've latched upon is almost never accomplished, is terribly unfair, and causes serious harm to the public for no real benefit.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Some people do not care to share their works with you for no compensation. Some people want the fullest possible protection applied to their creations. Why do you want everyone to play nice for you? Get over it. They created it, they can do with it what they will. Stop being a baby.
Politicians generally vote in accordance to what the public supports.
THE VOTES ARE COUNTED IN DOLLARS.
From Open Secrets
2 TV/Movies/Music $330,317
That gives Hollings 330,317 reasons to introduce and work for any bills the record / movie industries want.
Here are the number of reasons the EFF, VTW, CDT, Public Knowledge have given Hollings to be on our side, to the nearest dollar. $0
This is what Howard Berman got from the *AA organizations:
TV/Movies/Music $40,500
This gives him 40,500 reasons to work for the movie/music industries.
Here are the number of reasons the EFF, VTW, CDT, Public Knowledge have given Berman to be on our side, to the nearest dollar. $0
These organizations can NOT give money to politicians.
The contributions I mentioned don't count the larger contributions made through law firms and lawyers on behalf of various industries including movie and record companies, I don't know all the players.
The bad guys are spreading money around by the barrel. There aren't any good guy organizations worth mentioning doing this. So who are the politicians going to listen to day in and day out:?
Believe what you want to believe, but your beliefs are completely rooted in total, blissful ignorance.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Not in the least. Not even close. Build and sell your widgets, make the best widgets you can. Profit from them. Ideas are not widgets, THAT'S the basic difference here.
*Forcing* an idea to be a widget is the feudal model, it is neither capitalistic nor socialistic, except by the *forcing* of it, as it is not a natural widget in nature.
Once you go down the path of make believe that an idea is a tangible, as you can see right this second, then the complexities and exceptions and the entire artificality of the endeavor tends to become a theater of the absurd. And the main reason is-there's no end point to it. None. Zero. Finer and finer and yet finer again nuances of the ideas become tangibles. And those themselves become yet again other sub sets and divisions of tangibles.
I'll throw it right back to the ones who insist ideas are tangibles, where is your EXACT endpoint on how minute they can become before you are sated? At what point of a subtle twist or slight variation does it revert back to an idea? Extrapolate it, carry it beyond today, look back 5 years, then 10, then 20, then 100 years ago how things were. Now turn around, keeping in mind what is happening today, now what will the future, 5,10,20, 100 years from now look like? With these increasing sub divisions and minutiae of ideas being "owned"? What are many of the topics NOW we discuss, the ridiculous patents, the copyright issues? IS there an endpoint, and EXACTLY and SPECIFICALLY what is the end point on increasing the definition of what a thing is as opposed to an idea of a thing? I see nothing that supports any notion that ANYONE is really satisfied with the level we are at now on the idea owning side, they want more, and more, and more. So if it's answerable, when will you- a general collective "you"- have supped enough? When will you be sated?
Are you agreeing with perpetual copyrights and patents? What if, every time you drove or rode the bus to work, you had to pay royalties to the descendants of the caveman who invented the wheel?
Will I retire or break 10K?
You missed the point. The idea is not to support widows and orphans in general. The idea is that if your primary income is from sales of copyrighted works, that income should be able to continue for a time after you die to support *your* widow and orphans. The main reason to do this is to give authors a financial incentive to keep writing up till the day that they die. It's also worth noting that the net effect of this particular proposal would be to reduce copyright length by at least 50 years.
By your argument, we should also get rid of alimony and palimony--after all, they only go to divorcees and children where the husband/father has some sort of income (i.e. is alive and working). This discriminates against those cases where the father is dead, disabled, or otherwise not working.
The original post was not meant to say that one should altruistically support all orphans and widows, (not he/she didn't say widows, just family, so spouse might not be infered). Just the AUTHOR'S family.
I know. That's what I was talking about. And I'm saying that it will NOT WORK. The authors' family will NOT be supported in 99.44% of cases. So your proposal is already an abject failure. There's a reason why the 'starving artist' stereotype exists, you know. Most artists are not Picasso. Most artists will never make money from their art in any decent quantity. People who want to make money should be investment bankers. It's possible to do it by being an author, but it's far less likely.
But as for inheritance from their father/mother whatever, that should be purely based on what they did, and the rights to the proceeds from whatever work a parent did to support a child in life are sacrosanct, at least in my opinion.
I agree. The existing estate should go to the family. I'm not seeking to overturn estate or intestacy law.
BUT that doesn't mean the copyright should go on and on for ages.
Far better would be a fixed term of years. For example, the copyright would last 20 years from when the author first created the work. Whether they die the next day, or live for a hundred more years.
There would NOT be any extension in order to benefit his survivors. That would be an attempt to get NEW income; not to merely split up the EXISTING money.
If I wrote the World's Greatest Novel and died, I would want my orphans and family to be filthy theiving rich because I worked for it, damnit.
Good for you. I couldn't give a rat's ass what you want. It absolutely doesn't concern me.
And in fact, it is almost irrelevant in terms of copyright policy. Authors are NOT important. It seems weird, but that's the truth.
Copyright is intended to benefit the public. There are two types of public benefit possible: 1) the benefit of having works created, be they original or derivative; 2) the benefit of being able to do anything with those works, e.g. use them, copy them, distribute them, base new works upon them, not pay anything, etc.
The ideal copyright law is the one that satisfies both of those types of goals the most overall. There is a baseline that you can measure things against, and that is the state of the world with no copyright law. There, the 1st goal is partially satisfied, and the 2d goal is totally satisfied.
An ideal law then would have to satisfy the 1st goal more. And if the 2d goal couldn't be satisfied 100%, the drop in its satisfaction would have to be exceeded by a corresponding gain in the 1st goal.
As for public harm -- that's what happens when goals are not optimally met. Because the public is less well off than they ought to be. It is at its worst when the copyright law causes society to drop below the baseline; i.e. if everyone would be better off just abandoning copyright law altogether.
That's the basic policy.
It's very capitalistic, really, if that's important to you. Because it sort of boils down to having an author propose to each person in the country that that person should not copy the author's book. The people will say, "Why? It's in my best interests to copy that book and not pay you, because it's cheap for me." And authors HAVE to respond by saying that to not copy the book is in the people's best interests, since otherwise there wouldn't be a book. But it HAS to be framed in terms of self-interest. And you have to convince people!
Authors fit into this ONLY tangentally. No one really cares about authors. I used to make my living as an artist, and I don't care about artists. As you noted, people are self-interested! So authors can go fly a kite as far as everyone is concerned. What's important is the OUTPUT of the authors. Authors' WORKS satisfy the 1st goal. And since those works are available, the 2d goal is at least partially satisfied, and after a time tha
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.