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High Court Agrees to Hear File-Sharing Dispute
stkpogo pastes: "The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider whether two Internet file-sharing services may be held responsible for their customers' online swapping of copyrighted songs and movies. Justices will review a lower ruling in favor of Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc., which came as a blow to recording companies and movie studios seeking to stop the illegal distribution of their works." Grokster won in the lower courts, but the studios are appealing. This case, when finally decided, will be equivalent to the Betamax case 20 years ago which ensured that VCRs were legal.
Can the same be said for file sharing? (Just a question, I'm not making a judgement here.)
True, but in the case of libraries with photocopiers there are usually copyright warnings at the entrences and on/around the machines. Maybe if a P2P network service followed something similar, it MIGHT be subjected to a little less harrassment.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Perhaps according to copyright law the owner of said book is due compensation, but using this fact in any argument for copyright would be flagrantly circular. You'd be in effect saying, "copyright should exist because copyright says owners are due compensation for each copy distributed". You'd have to prove that distributing information somehow inherently entitles someone to compensation (whether it's the owner, the person doing the distributing, or someone else) without resorting to the premise that copyright exists and should be followed. Any other argument only assumes what it wishes to prove.
You're not going to stop virus writers, spyware authors, spammers, big-time bootleggers, or even P2Pers with a law criminalizing writing software with malicious intent. You won't even curb these activities since these kinds of people already operate on the fridges of the law and are often from foreign countries.
What you will achieve is a stifling of software development, open source in particular. Already we have the DMCA on our backs preventing us from writing software for interoperatibility (that may not have been the original intent, but it has certainly been the effect). But you want a ruling that will make every piece of software one writes have the potential to put him in jail.
Because how do you distinguish between intent and unfortunate alternative use? Should we hold crypto writers responsible when terrorists use their products?
Tell you what, keep your hands off my freedoms. Spam and spyware are technical problems with technical solutions, and threatening software writers everywhere is not one of them.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The origin of copyright goes back to at least English common law, if not further.
The problem we have is that we have something that is not a physical object - I know it's an unpopular and purely approximate term, but "intellectual property". My point is that "you can't see it, touch it, feel it, etc...", but it is possible to own it. Something that a brain produces via its intellectual capacities or talents, yet there is no physical object to show for it.
That's the very same problem that the "concept" of copyright has been addressing for hundreds of years. The point is that you CAN argue "Nothing is being taken off the shelf". Everyone agrees on that point - it's obvious nothing is being taken off the shelf. It's obvious no physical object is being taken from one person unjustly and given to another. That's what the concept of intellectual property law has been trying to address for the past few hundred years (or longer).
It all revolves around making the not-real real. Pretending that something that does not exist as a physical object is a physical object. Taking something that is purely an invention of the mind and treating it as if it were the labor of one's hands. That's the whole point - it's not that no one understands this, it's that they understand it very well - miles ahead, actually... this is the very problem that copyright is supposed to address (at least in a common law, common sense sort of way). It's not just about encouraging people to create stuff. It goes deeper than that. It's about making intangible objects into tangible objects for the purpose of legislation and addressing injustices. It's always been that way, long before the U.S.A. even existed.
On the other hand, there are other significant problems - you could say, in a way, that the type of music that our society had become filled with prior to the advent of the internet lended itself to what happened to it. The structure of the entertainment conglomerates, the concept of fame and fortune, the drugs, the sex, and the rock and roll... you can't go around pretending that stuff doesn't affect you in some way (just like your parents told you).
The music changed, and evolved into something different, something that can't stand on its own merits and virtues, but needs sex and drugs and fame and fortune to prop it up, like a crutch. If you want people to not file-share, then the music itself should embody that point of view on a deeper, spiritual level. Rock bands don't accept donations from endowments. It's not "about" that. Rather than embrace society, popular music needs to rebel against it, using the fame and the fortune as a vehicle to tell anyone who might disagree to get lost. If popular music teaches you anything, it teaches you that file sharing is good, and that you should do as much of it as possible. It's the best way to empower yourself. It also happens to be the best way to expand your artistic horizons and stop listening to the crap that "they" want to feed you.
It's two things, really. One is that the selection of "legitimate" multimedia is still somewhat limited for lots of people, and it makes it difficult for people to get together in real life and discuss interesting artists, bands, and movies. Electronic "discussions" make this much easier, and trading of files kind of needs to take place for those "discussions" to mean anything. Maybe "forums" is a better word. Any P2P application is really just a way for human beings to get together and share what they think is cool. Sounds like the entertainment conglomerates want this to happen in real life, not electronically - (i.e. have a get together and listen to music and watch DVDs). But this can't happen until the selection gets diverse enough that it makes it interesting enough and worthwhile for everyone involved. And that can't happen because there's no money to be made in such endeavors. The way to make money is to have less choices, more quantity. Everyone watching the same lacking selection of canned, pre-digested bland crap.
It looks like BitTorrent may be next on the list. MPAA spokesman declines to say whether the trade group intends to sue Cohen. They'd have a harder time proving that BitTorrent is primarily used for copyright infringement though, due to the many legitimate uses.
If I have to pay for my stuff, why should you get it for free?
0 2dltr0023.html. As you can see, everyone who buys blank media pays for piracy in one way or another, regardless of whether they actually do infringe on anyone's copyrights.
You may or may not know this, but there is a "piracy tax" on blank media that you buy which could be used to make copies of copyrighted material. Check out the section labeled "Audio Home Recording Act" near the bottom of this page: http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/20
On another note, you don't have to pay for your stuff. That is simply a choice you make.
Light is filtering down from above. Would you like to use DIVE?
Well I was a librarian for a short time and all of our meetings seemed to center on copyright. True, there are disclaimers that we adhere to regarding photocopying, and the like, but the publishing industry has always attempted to put some restrictions on libraries themselves regarding how their products are sold. For example, a personal subscription to Nature costs around $70 (US) a year, while an Institutional subscription costs well over $300 (US). I'm sure a lot of copies of academic journals on library shelves were "donated" by someone with a "personal" membership.
Libraries create a muddle for copyright. Who is to say that every book ever checked out from a library isn't reproduced in some form by someone in some form? Personally, I think the example of the Library is how we should best view copyright, and I certainly hope the Supreme Court views it the same way.
--- There is a man in a smiling bag.
So basically a country can choose between having more wealth or having more innovation.
You know, choosing wealth realistically means that any increased wealth will probally go to people who are already obscenely wealthy. While having more innovation would redistribute the wealth into cheaper and more valuable devices for the average person instead.
Maybe all it would take would be for a market as big as the US' to reject the US push and expansion of intellectual property laws through the WIPO treaties into other markets. Imagine if China said screw you - smaller markets could just say ok, we've got a large enough market to replace the US and we don't have to live by as many rules while doing business there.
Shh.
You make the point that without 'ownership', there would be little incentive to create more ideas. This point is flawed for two reasons:
1) The motivation to create things doesn't come from profit motives. Look around (look around the internet even) and you'll find tens of thousands of creative works and technological innovations that did not profit (and were not intended to profit) their makers in any way. (e.g. Linux).
2) Ideas are formed on the backs of other ideas. Necessary to advanced intellectual and scientific reasoning is the act of processing, combining, accepting and rejecting thousands of other people's ideas and innovations.
We live in an increcible new world where unprecedented access to vast quantities information enables us to recombine and process faster than ever before. Controlling the rights to information prevents achievement and invention.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Hear that? It's the sound of an idiot modded insightful on slashdot.
The value of goods is based on supply and demand. If supply is in shortened supply, generally the value goes up. That's the basis of copyrights - making sure that the value of authorized works retain their value by letting the copyright holder determine the supply.
Making additional copies works somewhat like inflation - it causes the value to drop. Thus, a real loss does, in fact occur. The challenge is to represent that loss in a reasonable fashion.
They most definitely HAVE lost something - the value of their materials!
This part you got right! Copyrights are a right granted by a government. However, you can be quite certain that the issue of the validity of copyrights will NOT be heard at this Supreme Court hearing - only whether or not P2P software providers are liable for the violations of copyright committed by their users.
The copyright system is here to stay. And, for my part, I think that with the exception of the copyright extensions, the copyright system is "right". I'd want to cut the term back to around 20 years, and leave the rest alone.
Note that nothing in copyright forbids stops you from writing a work, and gifting it to the world. You are not required to do anything at all with your works. You are, however, required to offer some basic respect for the works of others, and I like that.
Remember, the almighty GPL is based on copyrights - the very force that makes Linux such a durable legal entity is the same that makes it illegal for you to swap MP3s with strangers without permissions from the copyright holder.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The natural assumption to make is that you copied the work because it was something you wanted and needed but weren't willing to pay for, else why copy it at all? It seems to me that the burden is on you to prove otherwise.
In a free market system, no business is entitled to cry "foul" just because a potential customer chooses not to deal with them.
But he has dealt with them. Your friend was not innocently playing bridge, he was reading a copy of a book he did not pay for. That, in the ordinary meaning of the word, is theft.
If the public decides it can share copies, then the publisher is not entitled to expect to be paid for each copy, and so cannot claim there is a "loss" when it is not.
There is no necessary connection between "sharing" and "not paying." But neither can the public compel a publisher to produce anything or distribute through channels to which they have access.
Your use of the word "public" feels slippery.
In the American system, copyright is based on Constitutional principles, with the details left to the discretion of the Congress and is intended to serve the interests of our people as a whole, not the adolescent wish fullfillment of the file-sharing demographic, in which the $300 million needed to produce The Lord of the Rings magically appears without the prospect of a financial return.
But forget money for a second and think about Free software. Suppose it were no longer against the law to copy people's creative work however you wanted. Why, you could download a bunch of source code and put your own name on it. Wow, the AC Compiler. AC Linux. AC UNIX. AC Office.Org. And so on.
What would the authors of those packages do? They'd quit writing Free software, that's what. Would *you* write something for someone else to claim? I wouldn't.
Okay, internet story time. I once was in an internet community for writers. I put my stories on a web site. I also posted them to a message board that kept an archive - all free of charge for all to read. Why did I do this? Because at the time I didn't think I had the clout to get published (I didn't), nor the patience to deal with it all. I just put everything I made out in the hopes that someone would enjoy it.
One day I get an email from someone I've never met, telling me that someone on another board has posted an exact copy of one of my short works, with names changed to protect the..uh..copier. Now here's where it get tricky. Though I did send the copier a letter telling them they'd been caught, this piece of piracy ended up being a good thing. It told me, 1) that my work was good enough to merit copying, and 2) my work was widely read enough for someone to notice. As long as those particular thresholds were broken, it was pointless to copy my work, since everyone would recognize it as mine. That means more credibility and popularity for me and less for my doppelganger. At this point it would be more dangerous to me if someone published something of theirs under my name.
My point is, why would developers of open source software withdraw from their creations when anyone can see through blind source copying? It only gives the original author more credibility to have others steal their code. As long as we're not talking money, the pirate always loses and the legitimate developer always wins.
A strain of paranoid prevention can be worse than the disease, whate'er the intention.
Your assumption is that the "public domain" will be better stewards than the original artists.
Speaking as an artist, I can say that this is very often the case. For example, I write plays. For a while I tried hiring actors and directing them myself, but it was just too damn much for me. I would rather be writing something else than trying to make the play into a physical rendition which is so important to the play's success. Now I give my plays over to a dedicated volunteer group who hire the actors, teach their lines, get a venue, etc. My work is not copyright-managed in any way. I don't ask for royalties, and I get paid scratch - usually a donation from the volunteers - but the plays are a big success.
Strangers walk up to me on opening night and pretend to know me. I now have clout that I didn't have when I was directing plays on my own. I have a reputation, all because my plays are run by people who are really invested in performing them. My plays are, in essence, community-supported works of art.
So why have I given my work away for next to nothing, you may ask? Because in a marketplace for talent, having had successful runs of your show is more important than having made money from them personally. Would I want a bigger cut of the profits if my play were being performed on Broadway? Hell yes I would, although I might not get it. I would worry about it more if I wasn't sure that I can continue to make products of that calibur and better for years to come. I already sold the work once for what I thought it was worth - professional credibility.
And even if no big theater puts on my play, there is still the chance that someday, those same volunteers who did it the first time will find my script (they're already keeping an archive) and remember how great they thought it was, and decide to pass it on to others or even perform it again. That's how literature becomes immortal, if not commercially successful.
A strain of paranoid prevention can be worse than the disease, whate'er the intention.
... a little at a time.
The monopoly granted by copyright has its benefits as you so eloquently note. It also has its costs. In particular, because it is a legal monopoly, it encourages 'rent seeking behavior', as existing holders will attempt to extend the range and depth of their monopoly and attempt to exploit it to obtain regular income with no work. A classic example of this is Disney or the Milne family.
Copyright must remain a balance between these two evils.
Personally, I think the current situation with both hugely inflated copyrights and peer-to-peer may be the worst of both worlds. Copyright terms are long and restrictive so that old works cannot be reused, built upon, and reinterpreted in new ways and at the same time P2P filesharing may eventually put a huge dent into copyright revenue. People don't think, socially, p2p is that wrong because they see the insane extent of copyright law.
How about this alternative?
Let the term be, say, 30 years, but with strong enforcement. That means that people who want cheap stuff have a legitimate public domain source. Infringing copyright would become less socially acceptable. Old works that have procurred virtually all of their value (at 30 years) are available to be reinterpreted and built upon.
I've actually been writing a law review article on this very topic, so in a way, I'm disappointed, because the court will make anything I say fairly irrelevant. Anyways, my hunch is that the court will most likely side with the software creator on this. As always, Posner wrote a masterful opinion in the Aimster case, deciding against Aimster. What sunk them is the fact that Aimster was way too involved in helping people download copyrighted music, regardless of any legitimate uses. The nail in the coffin was the fact that their website actually posted links to download the most popular songs. It's kind of hard to argue you aren't responsible for your users actions when you're actually helping them do it. Grokster can be distinguished from both Napster and Aimster for this reason. The connection isn't there. The others could say in good faith that they were just providing the software and could stop people from using it illegally. Grokster can. Unless the court decides to make up a new test for looking at this, I don't see how Grokster loses.