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Supreme Court Takes Hard Look at P2P
Patrick Mannion writes "Supreme Court justices quizzed attorneys for file-swapping software companies and Hollywood studios Tuesday, in a case that will help determine the future of both the technology and entertainment industries. In their questions, the justices were critical of the entertainment industry's proposal, which would hold companies "predominantly" supported by piracy liable for copyright infringement. However, they showed little sympathy for the file-swapping companies' business model."
With the level of activism that is going on with this court this can't be good.
...finds it delicious!
What do the "business models" have to do with this? There are file sharing clients out there that are entirely free and have no company behind them to have a "business model". Not everybody's selling something.
P2P says "what are you staring at?"
Indeed, many legal observers say the high court is likely to leave the law largely as is and if it wants a different outcome, to ask Congress to change the copyright law.
http://www.busyweather.com/
RIAA: We are getting screwed.
Supreme Court: How?
RIAA: They are giving our product away.
Techie: I got a one line perl script p2p software.
RIAA: Arrest that thief.
Supreme Court: We'll just rule out that script as illegal and take it off the market.
Techie: Sure.
RIAA: WTF, he's got like 20 scripts in 20 languages.
SCOTUSblog has a more detailed look at the happenings today.
What proof? The Supremes were equally critical of both sides.
who have no buisness model at all ! not that a bad ruling would make a difference , the internet is global , the cat IS out of the bag and congress and their bribers might be suprised that their legal decisions will not affect the other 5 billion people living in countries where their wants and laws have exactly 0 influence
of course the p2p creators will just move to less opressive countries, it works for gambling and porn sites
the "free world" has moved on, unfortunatly corporate America hasn't
I'm honestly surprised that the Supreme Court Justices even know what a computer is. Then again, I suppose they have to get their porno some way, now that the Meece commission is no longer in business.
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
They could only find 18 singer-songwriters in Nashville that were desperate enough to talk / suck up to big-record-industry people that they'd go to DC? Sounds like a pretty weak group of people to me.
I don't hate musicians, or want them to starve, but I hate the slime they have to deal with now to distribute, and I want those people to starve. Twice.
I'm in favor of the entertainment industry having to undergo monstrously painful changes. From what I can see, many people are - the way it is currently designed is destructive to both society and art as a whole. What we hear and see being run by a bunch of profiteering luddites is completely unappealing to me.
Just thought I'd be one of fifty to present this argument in the next ten minutes.
My little site.
They seem to be lumping together the technology used to produce P2P software, and the businesses that use P2P to make profit
This will enable them to make a stronger case in their basic "p2p is bad" argument, when it's not the way it should be. Hopefully they will view the two things differently
Business Voyeur
It seems that p2p takes away rights out of those that create things and make them public. Be they songs or photos etc.
P2P is basically publishing. Why should you be allowed to publish my stuff, if I hold the copyright?
These rights go away with time when the copyright expires. (A really stupid long time, thanks congress)
If a creator wants to make something public domain then they can do that. If they want to paid for something they create, they should be able to do that too. (my photos are routinely hot linked as bloggers backgrounds and I don't care, so I don't sue)
Whats with the right to do what you want with whatever you want all of a sudden?
From myway
The trial court in Los Angeles and San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit based their decisions on the 1984 Supreme Court "Betamax" case. The justices ruled Sony Corp. (SNE) couldn't be sued for copyright infringement if some customers used their VCRs to make illegal copies of movies.
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
Unfortunately, the only tool really before the Court is an overturning of the Betamax doctrine, which was decided with a much more sympathetic defendent.
This is one of the few cases I can think of where the appropriate charge should have been conspiracy. It's a crappy bit of law, but it would actually fit. As it is, I'm afraid that the Defendents may have screwed us all.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
"However, they showed little sympathy for the file-swapping companies' business model." So there is a business model?
"Never trust a computer you can not throw out of a window..."
"We're here to give a face to people being hurt by illegal downloads," said Erin Enderlin, one of the songwriters. "When we don't get paid, we can't pay our rent."
Hey, I am all for supporting artists that support the free distribution of their music. You want to make money from me? Allow your fans to put your live shows up on the various torrent sites (etree, easytree, etc) and I'll take a listen and possibly buy your stuff. If you expect me to take the $10 risk and buy your stuff before getting a good chance of hearing a variety of your music on many different days I can't say I will support you.
I really can't stand the "if we don't get paid we can't pay rent thing." It always seems to me that you're trying to play the MPAA guilt trip thing. I just can't believe that you would do nothing but play music in an attempt to support yourself if you weren't 110% sure you could.
No matter what, if you use that tired rhetoric, I won't buy or listen to your stuff regardless of how it's distributed. Just keep that in mind.
That was an interesting assertion about the predominance of piracy in P2P. I seem to remember a slashdot article about how the majority of Bittorrent and other P2P services were not used primarily for piracy. Maybe Grokster and StreamCast are different? I'm sure that wont help them. They need to focus on all the little old ladys that use P2P to send pictures of their Grandkids to the world. Ossus
P2P is like the the kitchen knife: You can use it to cook or you can use it to kill people, but just because you can kill people doesn't mean we should prohibit everyone from using a knife to cook.
Likewise, you can't restrict people's ussage of P2P just because P2P it is also used for piracy, after all P2P is probably one of the most useful networking patterns in existence for all kinds of things.
If I were the enterntainment industry, I'd embrace P2P as it solves one of the biggest problems they face today: Bandwith to millions of people. This just goes on to show that the people running the enterntainment industry are dinosaurs falling behind the times.
The Supreme Court justices always ask tough questions of both sides. That's their job. Their questioning usually doesn't betray how they're going to vote.
Also, since when is Intel a 'small business'?
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
Er...yeah...and it shows that they want to reverse Roe V Wade and take away our guns too! And...and...kick our dogs!
I mean, come on. The court was being critical on both sides. Hence the part of the justices were critical of the entertainment industry's proposal, which would hold companies "predominantly" supported by piracy liable for copyright infringement.
So to you, when they say they're critical of the entertainment industry's proposals, that means they really not? Er...what you talking bout Willis?
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Yes, the fact that Supreme Court justices asked hard questions of attorneys at oral argument, as has been the standard procedure in all oral argument since the dawn of the court system, is proof that those justices "work for Business." </sarcasm>
This is what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to get at every aspect of the controversy at hand. The controversy here is that the music industry thinks that anything that can be used to infringe a copyright is inherently bad, while the other side thinks to the contrary. Howeer, when a technology is predonominantly used for infringing purposes, maybe it is inherently bad.
The reason that the justices were so hard on the respondents' counsel is that they do not want to set a precedent that will allow companies to build a business upon infringing uses just because they have the potential for non-infringing use, but they also don't want to set a precedent that will kill businesses whose services are inadvertently used for infringing uses but are primarily used in a lawful manner.
Don't tell the Supremes about it, OK?
Supreme Court: So? We're really only concerned about AMERICAN piracy here. *sighs from the RIAA, smiles from Techie*
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
Darwin, while disputed frequently, did a decent job of proving that which fails to adapt will fade into history. Unfortunately when the times show you have no recourse to stop an action, you will do more damage to yourself to try and hold back the tides.
I anticipate a ruling in favor of file sharing networks. I suspect this ruling primarily because:
Hopefully such a ruling will encourage the RIAA to redefine themselves and evolve into something better
Or at least get rid of a few of the fluff artists.
I agree that the Supreme Court will likely keep things as is and move on, but once this issue gets to Congress, watch out...
Then it becomes entirely about who is lining whose pockets. The RIAA, with the help of some of its friends, has a decent shot at buying what it wants.
Granted there are opponents w/ money, but the RIAA has proven to be very motivated.
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
It seems likely that the Supreme Court will not overturn the lower Court's decision, and that is good for artists and consumers. Good riddance to the big labels, I say.
But the question of compensating artists has not been addressed. We need to create an environment where downloaders want to support musicians they love rather than simply downloading their stuff for free.
Musicians need to start setting up tipjars and consumers need to ask rigorous question about how much of anything they purchase goes to an intermediary.
I recently went to a concert of Kristin Hersh where she sold no CD's but encouraged people to support her by buying mp3's of demos off her website. I bought $20 of mp3's off her website, of which Hersh received a significant percentage. Is that the future?
Here are some other thoughts about how to reward musicians
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
...you are making the RIAA's case for them.
Oh yeah, this too.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Last I checked the Supremes worked for Diana Ross, and they were kind of pissed about it.
Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
More proof that you, enforcer999, are working not for small business, but big business. Sigh.
as a Hollywood content provider rooting for the p2p networks.
If you look at it from the POV of the businesses, they have these huge organizations where there's massive overhead between the artist and the receiver. Much of this goes to marketing, paying for coffee, internet usage by interns, the like. But the problem is that they all are publicly listed stocks and they have fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to make sure they return value. This value of course is reflected in the stock price. These companies are on a hot plate to fix a problem which has been verily disruptive ever since it came into being. In the good ole days, sharing a CD was limited to those who were on solid lists, knew couriers or simply picked a large barrelled pistol and robbed a Tower Records. Nowadays, it's almost an expected experience that people have when they sign onto broadband.
By suing these sharing networks, the industry is trying to alleviate its "systemic" risk, allowing at least perceptions of control to come into play. Albeit this is a false sense of control, Sharman et al couldn't possibly be considered liable for what downloaders of their software do, but they're going to make a case for it regardless.
In a back room somewhere, some finance intern has calculated that by liquidating all these software developers in a successful law suit will apply the current value of those companies and bring the music industry to a break-even point which will in turn allow them to make their stock numbers. Allowing the CEO's and likewise glorified fattened calves to keep their jobs and drive their $100,000 motorcars, live in their million dollar homes, and guarantee their children into Harvard and Yale through endownment donations.
Yay Capitalism.
Given a bunch of P2P programs, infringers of a feather are going to flock together. Even wit the best intentions of providing a legitimate service, one service will end up known as the 'best place' to trade copyrighted files, and people will go there.
You can shoot the messenger, but another will rise in its place.
Note to the RIAA/MPAA: profit from P2P, instead of trying to fight it. You've just had the most powerful and potentially convenient distribution method in the world dropped in your laps, and it costs you nothing to distribute content now. If you can't find a way to increase your profits in light of that, then you deserve extinction. Someone will rise to replace you, too.
Argh! Where are my mod points!
All of the previous courts that have ruled on this case have sided with P2P. Probably because the P2P side has been making the argument that P2P is just the next version of VCRs, audio tapes, etc. Also the Constitution says that the purpose of copyright laws is to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" and the P2P side has artists saying that the tech is good for them because it helps them get their stuff out. The RIAA's argument is pretty much "we're losing money" rather than "the arts are being destroyed" so they have a harder argument to pull off. There is also the strong evidence showing that many people who use P2P do buy the music later on. While this is still technically illegal, it ends up promoting the arts so this is probably a Good Thing in the eyes of the Founders.
--
Want a free iPod?
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof
Yeah, but the Temptations are on the side of the little guy.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I do not file swap but this still makes me feel queazy.RIT bought into the RIAA distribution plan for colleges, I forget what they called it but you basicly buy music to use while at school beyond that I think you no longer have a the right. http://rit.edu TO: RIT Students The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is sending notices to RIT of its intention to subpoena the identity of specific RIT computer users. This intention is a significant ramp up of the RIAAs efforts to stop illegal file sharing. RIAA has targeted specific computer accounts used to access and transmit such files, and issued subpoenas to the service providers in order to obtain the names and contact information of those responsible for the file-sharing. The notices RIT receives are associated with students living in RIT residences or using the wireless network at RIT. Such notices are in preparation for a lawsuit against the individuals RIAA believes have violated copyright law by illegally downloading and uploading music via file-sharing programs. RIT policy is not to release the names or contact information of our computer users unless required to do so by law. Should RIAA pursue legal action, RIT may be compelled to release the identities of these individuals. To avoid legal action over inappropriate file-sharing, it is important you understand the proper use of RIT computing resources. While some file-sharing is lawful, some file-sharing is not. Some programs used to download files from the Internet often, unbeknownst to the recipient, turn the individual's computer into a file-sharing (uploading) server. Even unknowingly uploading copyrighted works may subject you to legal risk. RIT assumes that students lawfully use RIT computer and network resources. The RIT Code of Conduct for Computer and Network Use provides use guidelines: http://www.rit.edu/computerconduct If you have any questions about appropriate use of RIT computer and network resources, you may contact the ITS HelpDesk at 475-4357 or the TTY line at 475-2810, email helpdesk@rit.edu or visit the HelpDesk in the Gannett Building (7B-1113). Diane Barbour Chief Information Officer Information & Technology Services Rochester Institute of Technology 585 475 2233 Mary-Beth Cooper Vice President for Student Affairs Rochester Institute of Technology 585-475-2267
Would it be illegal to use the p2p client or write the software? In either case, WTF can the US supreme cort do? A lot of the p2p software is used and written outside the US.
Sometimes problems aren't really all that complex, if you take a step back from them and find the correct framework to place them in. Remember the Supreme Court is there to determine how the constitution applies in this case.
I'd really love it if they tacked on some strong clarification, underscoring our right to Fair Use, but they may take a simple approach that all P2P cannot be treated the same as those who use it for piracy, whereas MPAA/RIAA would like to kill all P2P, regardless what it's use is.
I believe it's called Guidance.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
More proof that you, enforcer999, are working not for small business, but big business. Sigh. . p? Big business? No, and this is off topic but while your at it...I actually sue big business. The Supremes have often ruled against big business and my point was that in this case, the Supremes asked both sides some critical questions that will be important for their final ruling on the matter of P2P, their business model and the right to have innovative technology.
Even better is reading their rulings. When you read them, it's like you're reading an eloquent novel. I've never read one of their rulings and thought "man this is stupid".
Even if you disagree with them, they do a great job of asking tough questions and addressing tough issues that guide our country as a whole. Their decisions are well laid out and it's really great to read dissenting opinions. Those are always the most fun.
What proof? The Supremes were equally critical of both sides.
If anything the questions from the bench I read tended to support the little guy.
They were especially concerned that the hypothetical garage-based inventor of the iPod would be unable to bring his product to market for the near certainty of being crushed by copyright infringement claims were the case decided in favor of MGM.
The attorney for MGM tried to argue for an active inducement requirement for such claims, but we have to assume they'd consider "Rip, Mix, Burn" such an active inducement.
I didn't see anything that would alleviate their concerns in the iPod matter and they brought up Betamax as a precedent so it looks like they'll be deciding in favor of Grokster.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
You see the dilbert where the boss wants engineers to work for tips.
Laughable..
Buying direct is a better way. I try to buy cds at shows because I feel the artist gets more.
If you can promote your artists better than the big labels you go ahead.. You'll make $.
Why no one has set up a decent music review/sample site is beyond me. with "pod casted" reviews and samples that would be neat.
For what its worth itunes sells many small label bands.
Is how there is absolutely ZERO discussion of the artists themselves. What do they want? Not even an issue. How can we help make sure they are supported and that we, the labels, can keep them as talent in our stable? Not an issue. And you'd think that second one would be; you'd think that the long term implications of keeping good talent happy and keeping consumers happy and buying would enter this thought process
The term I heard used today was "inducement." Basically, can it be argued that Grokster induces crime. I sure hope this thing is laughed out of court because, while I understand that physical world analogies fail and it's more complicated than a lot of folks will admit, the precedent that would be set if software is found to be inherently criminal would have the potential to set us into a freakin dark ages.
I mean, it's already happening.
I Want To Believe
What about any company whose business is predominantly supported by unhealthy food sales should be liable for unhealthy people that consume that food. Or web sites predominantly supported by unwanted advertising be held liable for unwanted stress by viewers or.... I know they are not the same argument, but I am sorry but P2P related software has a lot of legitimate uses and its crap that they try to shut them down because ppl use it for illegal purposes as well. Ummm guns are used a lot for illegal purposes but they aren't gonna shut down them now are they.
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
I have zero sympathy for musicians in this situation. I remember the OLD days when they had to "perform" live to earn a living. Now they complain about not being able to sell retouched recordings from the comfort of their MTV crib jacuzzi's. So pitiful. All this P2P stuff doesn't seem to have made a dent in MTV cribs.
I like the analogy, but I'd say that modern P2P is more like the broadsword--you can use it to cook or you can use it to kill people, but you can be damn sure that it was designed with a specific purpose in mind...
Yes, P2P is used for plenty of legal activity. A P2P application, in and of itself, does not violate the law. You're lying to yourself, though, if you suggest that the driving force behind P2P is anything other than illegal file sharing.
I, too, think that the court will find in favor of P2P, but honestly, there are no good guys in court today. One side is a pack of morally bankrupt, lying weasels who claim to be looking out for the little guy but are really in it for the money--but I don't care too much for the other side, either.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
And that's a bad thing because...?
I just remember that the US Constitution reserves rights to the states, not the feds, no matter what the current regime desires.
Heck, I still have copyrighted software and magazines that will have my copyright 70 years after I die - and in my family we live about 100 years on average, so I'm expecting my copyrights will expire in 2130 or so. This is just plain wrong.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
In that case, I guess the GPL doesn't matter. Right?
Barring that, your analogy doesn't even make sense. Someone buying a cabinet isn't able to make exact copies of the cabinet and distribute them to everyone in the neighborhood for free, putting the actual cabinet maker out of business. What right do you have to distribute his cabinet?
Since when did a cabinet become "intellectual property" anyway? What a stupid analogy.
Actually, if we're going to be honest, it's both.
If memory serves me correctly, Sheryl Crow is also against having to sign away ownership of her songs to record companies, too, isn't she? So, the attempt by this AC to make it look like artists like the current system is also one sided. Maybe Sheryl is against her music being stolen on P2P and by her record company...
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
That may be so, but after Diana Ross left nobody really listened to them anymore.
The recorded music business is dying, but not the concert business.
This morning, National Public Radio ran a piece on the upcoming SCOTUS arguments. To my disappointment, it was a industry-friendly puff piece that didn't even attempt to find a valid use for the file-sharing technology. It could have been written by an RIAA PR rep, especially given the number of times they used the phrase "downloading copyrighted works". The only opposing view was a short whine by someone with Grokster about their business model.
Usually, NPR excels in their reporting. But on this subject (as well as the subject of low-power FM broadcasting, another place where public radio puts its own interests above those of the public) they fall way short.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
You can't copy the cabinit and give it away for free can you.. Dumb analogy.
Your point is you should be allowed to do what you want with what you buy. I used to make tape copies of my cds/records to listen in my car. I don't think a single person was every sued for doing that.
The fact that stupid people decide to republish stuff they don't own means the industry and government will push more and more restrictive DRM uppon us, screwing those who just want to enjoy what they've bought.
In their questions, the justices were critical of the entertainment industry's proposal, which would hold companies "predominantly" supported by piracy liable for copyright infringement. However, they showed little sympathy for the file-swapping companies' business model."
IANAL, especially not one who brings cases before the supreme court, but of what little I know of judges this isn't a surprise.
I've had a few traffic tickets and I've even taken an old landlord to court. Every one of those judges, fair as they were, were highly critical, probative, and stern in their questioning of both sides. In other words, they were grumpy and downright rude. However, fortunately in my cases, they showed no favoritism to either side and ruled impartially. I expect this behavior they gave to both sides. Hell if you think your case is important enough to take to the surpreme court you damn well better take any kind of rudeness they give you and say "yes your honor may I have another?"
A big part of this is because judges are never trained to be nice. Judges especially, but laywers in general often seem to lack basic courtesies, especially in court. Another large part of it is because the US system is set up as an advesarial system so there's a lot of bad vibes in a court room that would make anyone stressed and grumpy. But the biggest part is they are simply getting down to business and trying to find the facts. Setting both sides on their heels by asking tough questions is how the supreme court works and how they come to the final answer. If you are coming to the highest court in the land you better come prepared with some pretty damn good answers.
Enough media hype of the judicial process... I want to know the answer the surpreme court comes up with!
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
"Howeer, when a technology is predonominantly used for infringing purposes, maybe it is inherently bad."
c ourt=us&vol=464&invol=417 for the Sony Vs Universal City Studios case).
And the movie industry said the same thing about VCRs (See http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?
The argument is more basic than anyone has yet said. It isn't about "predominently used for infringement" more than it is about the ability for the industry to stop technology that it sees as harmful. The same thing happens every time a new technology displaces an older one.
Another place you are seeing this kind of thing going on is in the other case the Supreme Court is hearing today involving ISPs and cabel access.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
This isn't only funny but true. Its already happened before.
Oh man you beat me to it!
BTW, I love the Supremes. But sadly, I don't work for them or their business (Motown or whatever). I do work near the Supreme Court though. I realize the Supremes are getting older, but they still look way better than Rehnquist and friends.
Sure, they'll rule in favor of P2P ... but they'll rule against business who thrive on the rampant piracy that occurs via their P2P software.
Not saying I agree or disagree with said ruling, but it's likely the way it'll pan out...
Who doesn't like free music?
So is Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" available for sale on iTunes? After all, they're meant to have squillions of songs available for legal purchase.
Um, no, it's not (at least, not from the UK iTunes).
The reason that Henley's livelihood may be at stake is because I can't even buy the damn track legitimately. Let alone without all that DRM crap.
Artists should first ensure that they're making every effort to allow customers to buy their stuff fairly before whining about distribution methods that supply what the music labels won't.
Second -- when will RIAA and MPPA go after the DVD and CD manufacturers for creating a digital medium with little-to-no effective protection against copying? After all, it seems to me that unencoded audio CD's and CSS encoded DVD's (being readily copied in both cases) are technologies which foster and encourage illegal copying.
And let's not forget television and radio broadcasters, who's offerings can be recorded and re-disseminated without any technical work on the part of the end-user (consumer?). Are they responsible for all of the (VHS,BetaMax) pirated content which they helped create? I still have the first three season's of Star Trek TNG on VHS (shredding tapes now to stave off assault by MPAA).
Now this is te absolutely most embarassing and ridiculous attempt at a first post I ever saw.
We are new to this "Intarweb"-stuff, huh?
Seriously: grow up and leave the trolling to the grown-ups, little man. What do you think the GNAA-niggers (the real ones) would do to you if they find out about you? Hmm?
Your right. I should have pointed out in my post p2p isn't a bad technology, it just is.
The way its being used it the problem. It has some great uses (linux distos on torrent is one).
-A
Well, that's your view. The view of the RIAA is that P2P is like a nuclear bomb. You can use it to remove trees (and, well, pretty much everything else) from your back yard or you can use it to blow up your local city block. But just because you can use it for creative gardening purposes doesn't mean we shouldn't prohibit everyone from using a nuclear bomb.
And that's the point of the Supreme Court looking at this case: to decide whether P2P is more like a kitchen knife (a helpful thing that can be used to harm others) or a nuclear bomb (a harmful thing that can be used to help others.. er, well, I hope you get my point).
You'll get my 10" Shun Chef's knife when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
Thank you for opening my eyes. The millions of RIAA adds painting me, my friends, and pretty much everyone I know as thieves and terrorists did not effect me. But pointing out that Don Henley doesn't want me to download his music really awakened my sense of civic duty to protect these poor artists.
/. speak:
Or in
I for one welcome our RIAA-brainwashed overlords.
That analogy only goes so far. Dynamite, for example, can be used in construction or mining, but can also be used to blow people up. In most or all countries, explosives are legal but highly regulated.
I'm not saying that your kitchen knife analogy is invalid, just that the principle you extrapolate from it is overly broad. There are many things that governments regulate tightly, or even ban entirely (uranium, for example) from private hands, not just because they can be used to kill people, but because common people don't have a plausible need for them. The density of uranium probably makes it an excellent paperweight, but that's unlikely to convince a court to make the government sell you some.
In other words, the debate should be about the potential for harm (let's not pretend that P2P isn't used for copyright infringement) and the potential good. You can consider technology to be "pure" and agenda-free if you want an intellectual discussion, but if you want to win a court case you'll probably need to come up with significant non-infringing uses for it.
While there are artists like Chuck D who like file-sharing, that's their choice. /. pirates don't want you to know about all the artists who are against their music being pirated without their permission. The reason is that pirates always try to paint their activities as some sort of revolution for the artists against the big, bad record labels. It's not the case...piracy is just people wanting to get stuff for free.
Nice; flame the Slashdot readers by calling them all pirates. A work of genius.
To be sure, piracy is just people trying to get stuff for free by illegal means. However, peer-to-peer file sharing has no more to do with pirating multimedia content than using a web browser on the internet has to do with violating copyrights.
Do you consider your use of a web browser on the internet to be nothing more than a means that allows you to violate the copyrights of others?
True enough. But filesharing is not just people wanting to get stuff for free, which is the point of this court case.
What am I getting for free by spending a big chunk of my web server's bandwidth allocation seeding a torrent of the Project Gutenberg DVD, for example? (If you're downloading that and one of your peers is sending you a couple megabits/sec of data, that's probably me. You're welcome!) If Grokster and company lose this suit, it will quite possibly become illegal for me to give out that collection of free, unquestionably legal, public-domain works. What a victory for the public good that would be!
piracy is just people wanting to get stuff for free
The sole purpose of copyright is to increase the amount of material in the public domain. Copyright exists to maximize how much free stuff we can get. When it interferes with free stuff copyright is malfunctioning. It is and needs to be fixed.
You're presuming the court will look at things like facts and precedents rather than just ruling in favour of whoever has the most money.
I am trolling
I'm sure the Dixie Chicks' livelihood has been threatened by both of the people who downloaded their tracks illegally.
The argument seems to be that P2P networks are inherently illegitimate because they are allegedly primarily used for sharing copyrighted works. Why doesn't this argument then extend to IPSs and the Internet as a whole, given the fact that the bulk of internet traffic is used for P2P applications?
US Constitution, Article I, Section 8 (the powers of Congress), Clause 8: "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;"
I'm an advocate of states' rights, but the Constitution gives this one to the feds. And it does so on purpose - you don't want to deal with 50 different copyright laws everytime you write an essay or record a song.
And your judgment that copyright law is "just plain wrong" is your own; obviously, enough others have thought differently for long enough to make it law. If you don't agree with the law, then get it changed through the political legislative process.
Keep in mind, this isn't the first time the case is being heard. This is the last gasp and they only got this far because they've got huge financial resources that enable them to go all the way and now they're at the end of what you can do with money in the court system on this particular issue.
The consensus is that they'll lose and then they'll double up on the civil lawsuits which is a great thing because as a classy dude once said:
then the harder they come, the harder they fall.
Forcing the copright holders to do their own dirt will be a wonderful thing. It's like the only thing that can finally bring them down and it's happening right now. They'll continue beating the financial shit out of innocent sharers and it will be played out all over the news and a few years of that in the headlines week after week and the accumulation of stories about the inevitable suicides and the medical bills that couldn't be met and all those great human interest stories their wrath will create will be what it takes to convince the majority of people who are high and mighty and righteous now about P2P that they were wrong. I love it.
When they start coming hard, that's when they start to fall and they're gonna come out of this loss fighting hard and they gonna take fuck themselves right up in the process.
It's not clear to me how the court can talk about some narrow "P2P" technology without realizing that the whole Internet is based on a peer-to-peer architecture, and that applying any ruling to this set of "P2P" companies really applies to the Internet at large. As long as any node on the network can talk to any other node, information will be exchanged regardless of implementations.
Hopefully cases like this will start the government thinking about what they should do with the copyright system now that near-instant and free distribution via the Internet is available. If the justices followed this reasoning, they would turn down the RIAA since legitimate uses of "P2P" really extend to any use of the Internet.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
I went to the supreme court this morning in hopes of being able to see the oral arguments for the case (I live in the DC area). Unfortunately, there was a huge line and I and many others didn't get in. I can report on what happened outside, though.
The pro-RIAA/MPAA/MGM protesters showed up first, at maybe 8:45am. They tried to go up on the steps leading to the court building, but police told them they needed to stay on the sidewalk. This group of folks then hung out for a little while with their signs (one which read "Thou shalt not steal. -God"), then some of them took out their guitars and started playing and singing.
Then at around 9am, the protesters from the Consumer Electronics Association showed up, with black shirts reading "Save Betamax" in white letters. They were met with a some cheers from some folks in the waiting lines as they left their bus and assembled on the sidewalk a little ways away from the rival protesters. They had more creative signs compared to the musician protesters. The interesting thing to note were different demographics of the two protesting groups. The musicians were mostly middle-aged white men. The electronics advocates were generally younger, and had more of a mix of genders and races.
The news media started showing up in full force at around 9:30, and took some interviews with various people, including folks from both protest groups, and random people (including a teenager from a school group). I saw cameras from NBC, ABC, Channel One and Reuters. The media seemed to be focusing a lot of attention on the musician protest group, as at least one of their members was always being interviewed. However, that might have had something to do with them having guitars and making music, which got them attention.
The crowd waiting to get in seemed to be either on the side of Grokster or ambivalent. I took some photos, which I'll put up on Flickr (tagged "Grokster" or something like that) or the dc metblog when I get home from work.
"Righteous speed demon and trust fund party darling of justice"
I saw a Fox News interview with Vince Gill where he said he'd give away his songs when software was given away. His web site uses FreeBSD and Apache. When does his giveaway begin?
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Someone's forgetting the elastic clause, which works quite nicely with the commerce clause to give the federal government authority over business practices...
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
If the manufacturers are liable... wouldn't that make the MPAA and RIAA liable for crimes comitted "Because I saw/heard it on ____________" that they happen to have copyright on? They are the company of record for such things.
Lets see... How many people have comitted a crime... lets say carjacking... how many of those that did, did so after seeing "Gone in 60 Seconds" or any number of other MPAA protected movies? How about those that have murdered because they heard a song about it? The MPAA and RIAA aren't thinking about what the ramifications are to THEM. It is just yet more proof that they don't have a clue as to what happens in the real world.
Now, I'm all for P2P. Lets support the artists. Let us 'reasonably' support the middlemen who bring us the product, but these executives who seem to have an 18th century outlook on the world amd making millions per day, they need to go.
Same news different article.
0 05 /03/29/975706.html
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/TechNews/Internet/2
But you can't reasonably expect the average Joe to buy dynamite, no? You can suffocate someone with a pillow, hit them with a book, electrocute them with a wire, throw a microwave at them, break a lightbulb on their face, bash their face with a CD spindle, or poke their eyes out with a screwdriver and yet none of these are illegal. P2P is a household application, not an expensive tool with highly specialized and specific uses.
Is there a +1 Powned rating?
Nina Totenberg's coverage is the best out there of the USC
o ry Id=4565116
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?st
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
...wait a minute, no I don't. Told you so! Yes I know, it's a tired old cliche but it holds true. A little forsight could have drastically altered the public opinion (a powerful weapon) towards the side of the RIAA.
The music industry made their mistake a long time ago when P2P applications first appeared on a user friendly scale. If the RIAA had insituted a pay-for-play download scheme or something similar at that time, the majority of the populace would be used to paying for music instead of downloading it for free. A little ingenuity could have provided a scheme that proved to be profitable for both the industry and the musicians. That would have discredited the "artists aren't really hurt by free downloads because they make so little of their recordings anyway" arguement.
Instead, the music industry ignored it (for the most part) and let it grow to the point where people balk at the idea that free downloads might disappear.
Of course, even the RIAA had gotten and early and secure foothold in the music-downloading playing field, free downloading sites would have sprung up for free. It's human nature to want something for nothing, but the RIAA would have had a much easier time establishing copyright precedents and free downloads would confined to a much smaller community than they are now. Instead the RIAA now has to play catch-up and attempt to alter the prevailing mindset of downloaders that "music should be free for everyone."
who the hell is don henley?
i seem to notice a pattern when they reference artists against p2p. "washed up"
or to simplify. "career is over"
I think the celebrities will have a tough time flying back and forth between the Micheal Jackson trial and the P2P hearing. I wonder which matters most to them.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
It was a joke, man. :) I was mocking the random conclusion of the very post you were originally addressing.
Why people seem to equate that to a need to keep keep from developing P2P applications is beyond me.
Because in general the courts have decided that the government has an interest in preventing crimes, not just punishing them.
That means that sometimes they'll make activities illegal even when they don't harm anybody. Owning an unregistered gun is usually illegal, even if you don't shoot anybody. Driving while intoxicated is illegal even if you don't hit anybody. Owning cocaine has legitimate medical purposes, but try telling the court that you have a gram to fix nosebleeds. Lockpicks and other tools often used in the commission of crimes are illegal in some places.
If they find that a bit of technology is used primarily for illegal purposes, they'll make the technology itself illegal. It's not a very libertarian attitude, and in the cases I cited there are plenty of people who would say that the court is wrong. And it certainly conflicts with your rights in a strict-constructionist sense. But the courts have often found that "insure domestic Tranquility" can include preventative measures.
So feel free to disagree with it, but their reasoning shouldn't be totally opaque.
Oh. I am a little sensitive about the subject. I am sure you could not tell. ;-)
Well, looks like my memory was wrong, but Donley has been involved in legal actions against his record company. There is some information here:
l
http://www.thesingersworkshop.com/article26.htm
Good quote:
"Typically," says attorney Danny Hayes, who negotiates for Tool, Lit and Linkin Park, "new artists have no leverage and won't see a dime of royalty money until they sell over one million albums."
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
Blatantly Copied from:
http://css.sfu.ca/update/digital-copyright.htm
Most computer professionals will tell you that bits simply cannot be protected from copying. So what can individuals or companies do to protect their digitized works? San Jose, CA information security expert Bruce Schneier says, "It's not so much about what people can do, it's more about how they think. There's nothing anyone can do; trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. The sooner people accept this, and build business models that take this into account, the sooner people will start making money again." Schneier is the author of Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World (John Wiley & Sons, 2000).
http://tf2.digitaljedi.com
http://www.corante.com/copyfight/archives/2005/03/ 28/the_revenge_of_sapirwhorf.php
Basically it sites some legitimate studies that say the effect of piracy on music and movies is nil.
This supports what I've always said about this issue: It's not the money they're (distribution industry/RIAA/MPAA) losing, it's the control.
Not only can they no longer control how people use their music (ie you have to buy multiple copies to have the same music in you car, portable player, and home stereo), but with recent innovations on the Internet their business model is becoming obselete.
What innovation am I talking about? I'm talking about the reversal of one of the prime factors in internet distribution of data: supporting high popularity means spending more money on bandwidth or declining access to the service. Well, with innovations like BitTorrent the more popular something is the better the access to it is. Ya sure it's not perfect, but IT DOES reverse the bandwidth vs popularity problem.
This type of technology enables ANYONE to distribute their content effectively. This will eliminate the need for big powerful distribution companies. Ya, I'd be freaking out too if I were them.
US Constitution, Article I, Section 8 (the powers of Congress), Clause 8: "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;"
....
So 2130 is a limited time?
Maybe in your world
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
While many P2P network defendants use the analogy that "guns don't kill people, people kill people" arguement, it is not applicable in this case. MOST P2P file swapping is of copyrighted material and inherently illegal, though it is not the P2P prorgram, per se, that is violating the copyright - it is the user. Now, going back to the gun analogy, if MOST gun were used to kill people, which they are not, then you can be sure that guns would be illegal. This is the case with P2P programs - they are mostly used for illegal activity and thus the copyright holders have no recourse than to go after the P2P makers.
Now, I am not a backer of the RIAA MPAA and use P2P programs myself - but I understand their sentiment. Think of it like a race car that is not street legal - sure, people could drive them on city streets at legal speeds, but the fact is that in the hands of MOST people they would be breaking the law by speeding - thus they have to be ruled illegal for street use.
Here's a data point for the spin on this in the mainstream media. Usually I'd consider the LA Times a mouthpiece of the Hollywood liberal establishment, but I was shocked today to read their editorial defending the Betamax decision (newspaper's editorial not guest commentary). It's a long hard road, but public opinion might be turning slowly against the studios. If there's one soundbite to take away from this is, a victory will give movie studios veto power over any technological innovation.
Perhaps you meant to say: When you download music copyrighted by the RIAA, you're making the RIAA's case for them.
In general, don't signed artists take a lump sum up front for agreeing to produce one or more albums for the label?
Then as the album sells they get a tiny tiny tiny stiped?
If they can't pay their rent then they aren't managing their finances like the rest of us do to make ends meet.
Somehow I'm reminded of that South Park episode where Lars can't buy his son a diamond encrusted shark tank and P Diddy can't buy his son an island because of downloading free music. THINK OF THE CHILDREN PEOPLE!
1.) Fix your caps lock. Please.
2.) You claim that if there were no intellectual property laws, then the GPL wouldn't be needed. Wrong. The GPL is provided to do one thing--make sure that people always provide the source code and credit original authors. If there is no intellectual property law, then the GPL can't demand that at all. The GPL is not opposed to intellectual property; it is BASED on it.
Let's put it this way. What legal basis do you have to ask me to follow the GPL? What's to stop me from using GPL code without attribution and without provide the source code to my new project? The idea of intellectual property, that's what.
How is it not a limited time? If you don't like the specific limits selected by Congress, you have a right "to petition the Government for a redress of [your] grievances," US Const. Amendment I. (If you think that the existing limits violate the "limited times" of the Constitution, you may be able to get the copyright law thrown out as unconstitutional. But it's generally considered better form, particularly on this entire thread of anti-judicial-activism discussion, to go through Congress on this one.)
My world is just fine with that limit, for numerous reasons I won't bother with here, and therefore I will not be exercising my right to petition for a redress of any such grievance. (I have others and bring them up frequently.) The point I was making was actually not about the time limit, but rather with respect to your implication that Congress has no such power in the first place.
They should put on a CONCERT at a VENUE and sale TICKETS.
0 101001010101010010101...0101010101 to me. Nothing unique, and nothing that they can reasonably protect.
The touring bands are not the ones that care about p2p. I'm going to go see Widespread Panic tonight (Free MP3's Here), and I doubt they care that their music is swapped online. They probably encourage it. It'll bring more people to the shows.
Copyright law is just silly to me. The idea that someone could spend some small amount of time making a track, and then profiting from it for the rest of their life, just doesn't seem reasonable. And I'm a software developer. I want to get paid too. But that song just looks like 0100101001010101010010100101010100101001010010101
I'm going to write a binary code generator, and create every possible string of ones and zeros that I can, and then copyright all of them. They want to copyright a song, well to bad, I created it originally. Silly.
The problem is that our modern laws focus on profitability --- on how to ensure that the copyright owners make the most money possible. This is not what the writers of the Constitution intended; copyright was meant solely as an incentive for creators to create. The modern laws also treat copyright as a propery right, something that simple logic demonstrates to be contrary to the Constitutional model. (Congress is allowed to grant copyrights; but if copyright was a property right, then Congress would have no power to either grant or deny it.)
You are a moron. Not only that, but you use the obfuscating language of the copyright industry in a lame attempt to seize the moral high ground when there is nothing there but the law and your simplistic assumption that breaking the law is immoral.
Just because you like to call copyright infringement "piracy" or "theft" doesn't make it that. Anyone with the mental capacity of five year old understands that calling a lampshade a hat is wrong at best and sinister at worst.
This idea that somehow that you have to pay a "content troll" every time a copy of something is made somewhere simply flies in the face of common sense. The fact of the matter is that we are born with an innate desire to share and that is what the copyright industry is up against. That and the fact that technology has erased any barriers to that sharing. I suppose you'll be screaming about people stealing when technology has erased the physical copying barrier as well?
And BTW, it's also a fine example of capitalism at its finest: The copyright industry's prices are too high and so a black market has arisen to correct that. You right wingers who like to scream about capitalism as if it were holy writ like to have government intervention when your holy capitalism gets to that point.
Finally, personally, I find your morals to be repugnant. It's people like you that make other people take a dim view of humanity.
Ok, how about this analogy. One (possible) reason that Prohibition failed is that alcohol was something that people **really** wanted, and it was outlawed. People made "bathtub gin", etc to get around it.
People **really** want music too, but cannot get it affordably because the music industry charges too much (making it virtually "impossible" to get what you want). So people pirate.
Ok, you can shoot holes through about every word I just wrote, but I have two points:
1. Piracy is still wrong (just as making bathtub gin was).
2. Piracy can't be stopped by legislation (or threat of lawsuits)
3. The way to stop piracy is to make it easier for individuals to get the music for a price they are willing to pay. $0.79 a track isn't too bad, and if they had a better selection, I would consider it, but much of the music I listen to isn't Top 40, so it's very difficult to find. I'd be happy to pay the artists $5 directly for a CD, but $23.99 for a CD with 2 songs I like it horse-shit.
Yes, I know that was 3 points, and I said 2. So sue me.
Also, I like the "new" Napster business model (unlimtited downloads, $15/month or so)-- of course, I'd imagine your hard drive melts if you stop paying $15/month. A non-DRMed-up-the-ass version would certainly be interesting. I think most people would pay $15/month to get all the music they want, and not have to worry about their grandmother beaten-down and sued by the RIAA.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
While I'd say there are severall applications of p2p that are used primarly for illegal activity. I'd say that 99.9% of all p2p software is 100% legit.
Look at things like printer shares, coorporate file shares, web servers, email servers, dns, etc...
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
While it's fair to assume the *AA will go back to Congress after they lose this case, such an assumption misses a key point.
Namely, if the *AA thought that Congress offered the easiest solution to their problems, the *AA would've gone there first. After all, it's widely presumed that Congress has been bought off here.
So why didn't the *AA go to Congress first? Perhaps because this approach isn't guaranteed. Going to Congress means that the *AA will be up against the Tech industry, which is bigger than the *AA. Most likely, the *AA will NOT get the results that it wants. Far more likely is a fresh set of laws which will expand upon the status quo.
So, yes, this Supreme Court decision is very significant. And the results from Congress are not guaranteed to go in the *AA's desired direction.
Thank You. Now I know what I'm going to get when my Whustoff Trident's wear out (And if my Fience doesn't stop putting them in the dish washer, I'm going to put her hair sissors in there with the forks and spoons.).
modern P2P is more like the broadsword
The problem is that "P2P" is not monolithic, and each variation requires a different analogy. Things like Grokster were certainly intended to aid (illicit) media swapping, and their associated business entities don't help to dissuade this notion. OTOH we have stuff like BitTorrent, which has literally enourmous non-infringing uses (result #3 and similar notwithstanding).
Hmm...I'm having trouble here, what kind of blade is BitTorrent? Maybe a chainsaw powered by a beowulf cluster of tandem exercise bikes?
They have to find a place between one cd or dvd given to everyone for free and the MPAA/Riaa model of you renting content for a short time and you own quipement then erasing it which they think is a good idea. Those morons should have put everything ever recorded since "Mary had a little lamb" to the present day with a dj voice giving band author and recording dates. most people would not have the time or ability to crop it. better than radio and they could see what 30's and 40's clasics should be remade. The downloader should have to acknoledge requests instead of giving away things to poeple he doesn't know or care about while he sleeps. You would not have to do this if you had a paid account with the PtoP company, but they could monitor you as per contract.
I've never read one of their rulings and thought "man this is stupid".
You must never have read a Thomas decision. Oh, and surely you missed one.
I like the analogy, but I'd say that modern P2P is more like the broadsword--you can use it to cook or you can use it to kill people, but you can be damn sure that it was designed with a specific purpose in mind
Even better:
modern P2P is more like the gun--you can use it to kill or you can use it to shoot skeet, but you can be damn sure that it was designed with a specific purpose in mind.
Both gun ownership and broadsword ownership are generally legal in the U.S.
RobertB, did you notice that your beloved Dixie Chicks were in the court today, on the side of the RIAA?
Since Grokster, kazaa, Azureus, etc. presumably close up shop and take down their websites becuase their businesses were found to be unconstitutional (which is what the Supreme Court acutally decides is the consititutional legality of an issue). No new p2p software is created commercially. Now what?
Well, constitutional protection against ex post facto (Article I, Section 9, Clause 3) means that you would still have the right to have possess p2p software that was on your computer before the Supreme Court decision. You just couldn't use it legally. But for those who are using p2p to download copyrighted content, the legality issue shouldn't be a big issue.
On a related note, programmers with the neccessary wherewithal, will continue to create and update p2p applications...illegaly but will do so none-the-less. Or p2p projects will be created and maintained outside the US. If history has shown us anything, criminalizing a behavior or thought has little effect in stopping the behavior, and tends to give it a glamourizing effect. Example #1: drug use. Example #2: Prohibition.
Or say everybody just walks away from p2p applications all together. Then what, does piracy stop? Of course not. What Microsoft calls "casual piracy" the making of physical, unauthorized copies of copyrighted material has always been a bigger share of piracy than p2p file sharing. Ignoring that issue, what would happen? Instead of downloading illegal content through your p2p client of choice, there would be a resurgence of services like usenet and IRC.
If the Supreme Court had ruled the other way in Betamax, there would have been severe implications, because building hardware is a more difficult enterprise and harder to hide what your doing. But a ruling in favor of the RIAA here wouldn't have half the effect they think it would.
That said, I think it would be historically bad precedent that would criminalize perfectly legal behavior (getting the latest Fedora distribution.
The best way to fight the government is to work with it. Write your support to newspapers. Write your congressperson, they're not all as currupt as you think. At the very least they want to get re-elected and the best way to get re-elected is to support causes popular to your constituency, and oppose causes unpopular to them. Write a detailed, sincere letter, and most of them will respond. But they won't know anything if you don't tell them. Its your job to ask the government to work for you.
Free MacMini
While piracy is indeed people wanting to get stuff for free, the RIAA is people wanting to sell a 20 cent piece of plastic for $15 and then give the artist *squat* because the label still hasn't recouped the cost of the multi-million dollar marketing campaign the artist neither requested nor wanted. I think that's worse.
On top of that, when the RIAA sees all the P2P downloaders who aren't paying the $15, they don't say "those people have our money". They turn to the artists and say "those people have YOUR money". Then they dock the artists' pay. So the artists get mad. They SHOULD be mad at an industry that treats them like crap, but instead they lash out at the people who support them.
Thus the abused become the abusers. It's not like we, the music-listening public, aren't being abused enough by the labels that charge us out the ass for everything... we must now be abused by the artists we want to support, because we did the only thing we could think of to stop the abuse.
I am not by any stretch of the imagination trying to justify piracy, but these artists need to get the hell away from the RIAA. We need to develop an artist-owned, artist-operated organisation that can actually treat musicians like human beings.
I am more than happy to pay $15 for the next Marilyn Manson CD, if *he's* going to get the money -- because he'll use it to do something cool. I just have a problem with giving another $15 to the RIAA, who will spend most of it on their own self-involved crap. I want to support the ARTIST and his ART. Not the marketing and production machine that helped him make it shiny, aluminum, plastic, and digital.
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
2) People who support the GPL generally support copyright law. Those who don't can also be in favor GPL'd software--there is no contradiction. The contradiction arises from the false dichotomy that you have invented in order to make yourself look clever instead of the clueless idiot that your are.
Look, I live in Canada. We pay for this content through taxation on blank media. The courts have decided that I have the RIGHT to download this content as it's being paid for through taxation. If the artists don't like it then go to the government for their piece of the pie.
Nuff Said.
Because they threaten the cole-mine industry.
.. well, tough, they make a few million dollars less a year perhaps for losing their elite positions that were completely dependent on the record companies and movie industries monpolistic decisions.
I think these companies who are trying to stop technology from advancing, to protect their own industry, are after their own commercial interests of course, but rationally I think they are dumbasses. I mean, while they have been whining about the fact that we can exchange digital data so easily now, other companies have done what they should've invested, and that's make billions on mp3 players and dvd players supporting divx.
I mean, either embrace the new world order, or stop being such a poor loser. They remind me of other lobbies who were once pretty powerfol, like Ku Klux Klan, but are weeded out for the beter.
Just like you should not pursue security by obscurity but search TECHNOLOGICAL, not LEGAL means to protect your interests (that's all fair game), they too should pursue any technological, not legal, means to defend their interest. That's real 'free market'.
As for authors, rockstars and moviestars,
In return, everyone can make their info available any way they want.. they can use free downloads to advertise themselves, and make money with value added features, real authographs, and most of all, concerts! Most of the money earned on records went to the record companies anyway, while most money made by music artists, is usually by giving live concerts.. if people love you enough, they will choose to support you and not screw you.
These are the new rules.. you win some, you lose some.. I see great new opportunities for alot more people.. who can see into the future and don't insist onto holding on to the past.
I can be pretty conservative when it comes to ethics, morals, values and human dignity, but when monopolistic capitalists start disliking some of the downsides that are all part of the game, and by which they once defended that system, now start changing the rules to defend their own interests in some dictatorial type of manner, I have absolutely no compassion for them..
Dumbasses, let them look for a job at an mp3 player production or marketing department.
Why, you may ask? Because the amount going back in to pay the advance is usually just enough or a bit more than the amount of interest earned. It is like all the stupid people who have credit cards and pay the monthly minimum - the principal of the loan NEVER gets paid down, or very little gets paid down. Add in all the other fees that is taken from the earnings of the artist, which weren't included in the contract (unless the artist was very smart, or the label dumb, or some combination thereof), and the amount going to pay the advance might be even *less* than the interest being tacked on. Then, compounding sets in, and maybe a second advance is tacked on because a new hit is released or something (think of it as a second mortgage without the refinancement) - and the artist finds himself in as much debt (well, respectively - the amounts are probably higher, the the percentages are probably close to the same between income and debt) as the typically American consumer with too much consumer credit debt.
Ever wonder why you don't see too many "oldsters" being signed up to the labels? Sure, it has to do with image and relevance as much as anything - but I bet a ton also has to do with an adult knowing better (unless they too are a typical consumer with debt) and negotiating the contract so they don't get screwed with advances. A younger "kid" is easier to control in this way, because all they see are the bling and the idea of "free cash" in the form of advances, that aren't really free. Teens and young adults simply don't grasp the ideas of credit, loans, APRs, and compounded interest.
Hell, most American adults can't even grasp these simple concepts...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Client/server is a fundamentally different architecture from peer-to-peer. In a client/server environment, there are many individual client applications that connect to a central server application, and the two types of applications have very different functionality from one another. In a peer-to-peer model, you have a single application that acts as both client and server; instead of users accessing a central server, they tie into existing P2P nodes. Think of the C/S model as a hub and spokes, where the hub is the server and the spokes are the clients; think of the P2P model as a fishing net, where each knot is a P2P node. Yes, there are aspects of the two that overlap, but there's still a very real technical difference between C/S apps and P2P apps.
The reason this distinction is important is that it is much more difficult to track down an infringing P2P user than it is to track down an infringing server in a C/S model. What's more, when you shut down an infringing server, you've shut down the entire infringing network--a client app won't work without first connecting to a server. With P2P, shutting down a single node has no real effect on the rest of the network; shutting down a P2P network is the computing equivalent of killing a hydra. This is what makes P2P such a hot issue.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
their business model is to profit off the natural willingness of people to index and share their ideas with others? What people do with their own ideas and data is incidental, and even inconsequential to the point of view of the people providing the clients and protocols. They want a little slice of the attention that people naturally, and inevitably, devote to orienting themselves and exploring their interests.
It doesn't matter what the Justices think, or who can buy the most congressmen. They are up against the law of the jungle. Primitive instinctual ideas of fairness, and desires to be "in the know." Given that we are the most vicsious, stealthy, and clever predators that 2 billion odd years of evolution could produce, it's better to be on the side of the many. Trying to steal from highly territorial, exceptionally violent primates has a high mortality rate.
Their replacement policy used to be great, even if you damaged them, but not anymore.
I have some basic, though probably stupid, questions regarding the legality of P2P software. There are several points I simply do not understand.
Say I set up a script that randomly scans IP addresses for FTP servers, attempts to login anonymously, and downloads a file listing. If I then put the IP address and file listing in a publicly accessible database, am I liable if that FTP server happens to have pirated materials?
If P2P file sharing is made illegal, will that make Microsoft Windows for Workgroups style file sharing illegal as well? It is after all a P2P protocol that I frequently use to move MP3 files between computers.
And finally, being a person who hates laws that only apply to computers when there are real-world equivalents, if I am an artist who finds out that my artwork is being regularly distributed via the USPO against my wishes; can I sue or bring charges against the USPO? I wonder how often the USPO is used to distribute illegal items.
I guess my confusion stems from the fact that P2P networks have been around as long as networks have existed (and I not just talking about computer networks). What technology exactly do they want to make illegal?
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
One side is a pack of morally bankrupt, lying weasels who claim to be looking out for the little guy but are really in it for the money
The funny thing is that I am not sure which side you are referring to.
So what about all the artists who do support P2P? The people who are so sick of the record labels screwing them every day of the week. The people who are now getting a name for themselvs by releasing a few songs free and putting others on websites like iTunes? There are alot of these people popping up and getting known now, maybe it's time we started to support these people rather then listening to the billionaire companies crying that someone stole 25p from the artist for every 100 songs they downloaded.
I like muppets.
In a series of court battles where the ??AA want to eliminate *all* P2P, is it really a good thing that Grokster and StreamCast are representing P2P software? What about BitTorrent, for example? While it's P2P and while it's sometimes being used to violate copyrights, it has been used and even endorsed by some entertainment businesses as a necessary part of distribution of software/patches/media. My concern isn't that Grokster or StreamCast suffer, but rather that the entire concept of P2P file transfer is criminalized by association when it actually has real, legitimate, and very important private and commercial uses.
This is not just about the music/video/software industries..
If a company ( or person ) can be held legally accountable for the improper use of his product then many industries are screwed and this could wreak havoc on the countries economy due to the litigious nature of the present day.
Everyone from car manufacturers, to gun makers could now be argued, with this precedent, that they are liable. Even a brick manufacturer could conceivably sued under this pretense.
The fall out of this case may just effect the long term viability of this country.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I suppose i'm not a good capitalist
i'm not going to even touch the particular argument about whether P2P software or activities are inherently illegal or not because i'll make my vote on my own.
what bothers me is the inherent idea of copyrighting materials. i believe as most people presumably do that it is fair to expect to make a living off the work you produce. but i don't see how it is an automatic right that anything you make muscially should sustain you for years, particularly if you never do anything again.
as an activist for freedom of speech, i will certainly allow that a song of revolution is equally valuable as a novel that shook the world. but as a consumer, i'll tell you that i think the average Britney Spears schmaltz isn't worth even listening to the ads on the radio, let alone paying money for it. and the fact that twenty years from now, they'll be selling minivans to her current fans using that song just saddens me. the fact that any person can cruise talentlessly through the music industry and then get huffy about protecting their right to live off that "work" just makes me laugh
but what makes me cry is something different. take the example of Happy Birthday. one of those universal songs, you might end up singing it every month for the rest of your life (certainly around my office you do). it is one of the cornerstones of Western culture, a part of our collective social imaginary. we as a people sing this song in celebration time and again.
unless of course you're in the movies or a commercial or television. because yes, somebody wrote it and they expect to get paid. who cares if they're ninety year old ladies at this point. or for that matter, who cares if it's the children of those 90 year old ladies. or for that matter if it's Vivendi Universal or BMG or Sony who bought the rights to the copyright off the children of those now-dead 90 year-old ladies but still stand up demanding their 18 cents everytime it's played in a commercial setting.
yes it makes sense that you should get a living out of the works you produce, but frankly with patents and copyrights being given extensions time and again, these works are money-earning products so long past any human lifespan that the idea of the creator making a living from it has been lost. give them five years. give them twenty years. i think it's fair that a generation should pass before something enters the public domain (though it still seems too long).
the fact is that copyright has become an inalienable right to be greedy about some cute catchy riff that has all the weight or importance of that pothole i ran over yesterday. it protects the rights of singularly untalented people and defies the truth that some songs have been embraced and loved by humanity.
What does this have to do with patents?
WooHoo! Score one for my constitutional right to bear arms!
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
In their questions, the justices were critical of the entertainment industry's proposal, which would hold companies "predominantly" supported by piracy liable for copyright infringement.
If they can hold software companies liable for copywrite infringement, wouldn't that set a precedent for allowing the victims' families of gun deaths to seek damages from the makers of firearms?
Wishing I was a millionaire since 1969.
Diss? WTH? I won't even go into the idiocy of the their argument, but "diss" (should be dis) from Hillary - or as she's known in her hometown Harlem - Da Big Hill C. Next up, Strom Thurmond and Snoop rappin' on da' hill givin' mad love to tha late Notorious B.I.G. and Tu Pac. Yeah. The Real World D.C. will return after these messages from Take Two Interactive : Buy Grand Thef...
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
i still don't understand how P2P companies should be held liable. Many people out there burn and pirate DVD's and music CD's and sell them on the street. By the RIAA and MPAA logic, won't they be suing the makers of CD and DVD burners next?
What about FTP software?
Software doesn't cause piracy, the hardware used causes piracy. Go after the PC makers.
No wait, if there wasn't anything to pirate there wouldn't be piracy! Would there?
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Unfortunately, p2p software isn't a right (to bear arms). P2p is screwed.
While you are somewhat right you are trying to define a logical layout to a technical issue. Even still things like email servers and DNS are all peer to peer. Printer and filer shares, not servers, are considered peer to peer. TCP/IP is a peer to peer protocol by design.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Whoops - meant to post plain text Diss? WTH? I won't even go into the idiocy of the their argument, but "diss" (should be dis) from Hillary - or as she's known in her hometown Harlem - Da Big Hill C. Next up, Strom Thurmond and Snoop rappin' on da' hill givin' mad love to tha late Notorious B.I.G. and Tu Pac. Yeah. The Real World D.C. will return after these messages from Take Two Interactive : Buy Grand Thef...
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I put up the original post.Answer to some questions.
p2p is publishing. So is putting up a web site. As such it not a bad thing to have all this publishing going on.
P2P isn't the problem, it the way its being used.
The problem is people putting stuff they shouldn't on P2P. It costs so little to do, and it seems so anonymous and harmless, but of course its not.
Oddly enough if I set up a network of "p2p" with friends and didn't let the public in, I probably wouldn't ever be called to task on it. I'm sure there are some closed networks on the internet. But that is limited compared to the public file sharing (sharing is stretching when you allow everyone to make copies)
Its the wholesale republishing of copyrighted works that is the problem. And there really is little to do to stop it.
So what you are saying is, however factual, entirely irrellevant to the issue of piracy. Let's deal with one problem at a time, okay?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
But.... that's not why racecars are illegal though, they're not street-legal because they don't meet safety and emissions laws. Tell me that a Ferarri Enzo isn't basically a street-legal racecar? Ha!
At any rate... i see the point you're trying to make, but your argument is flawed, there's no P2P equivalent for bumper saftey regulations.
May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
http://www.magnatune.com
- Excellent music of many styles!
- All music licensed under Creative Commons for non-comercial use.
- Pay what you want for CD quality downloads, suggested at $8 per CD.
- 50% of price you pay goes straight to the artist.
That's my thought.
A few companies here advertise their high-speed internet. In many of the ads I have seen lines such as "Share music!" or "Download music!" They are actively advertising to their customers to use P2P.
Couldn't the music biz interpret this too as aiding file-sharing and destroying their business model? Perhaps Shaw and Telus (2 major high-speed ISP's here) need to be shutdown?
Vip
Here is a little tip that will help you understand why judges are rude:
Judges are failed lawyers and they know it.
Whats worse is that the lawyers that appear before them in court also know it.
The icing on the cake is that the judges know that the lawyers know!
Generally speaking, successful lawyers don't become judges.
Remember who we are dealing with here.
But ... but, since our side is obviously right, even entertaining the argument is too much! :)
That's very interesting. Your argument against P2P applications is the same as the argument against handguns.
The overwhelming majority of p2p users are a very, very large percentage of the total population of the united states. Probably almost everyone between the ages of 10 and 30 has done it at least once? At least it is similar to the number of people who have broadband. When that much of our population is doing something illegal, and doesn't consider it to be wrong, my question is... why is it still it illegal?
I'd like to see them actually sue every single person who has ever pirated a song for the full damages. See how well the court system does when tens of millions of otherwise lawful citizens are suddenly declared criminals.
But they know they can't win that battle, so they pick a few people to scare away the rest. If every p2p user voted as a block I have a feeling we might actually get somewhere. But then, when has any group of people under 30 managed to keep a movement together long enough to actually manage anything useful.
You're lying to yourself, though, if you suggest that the driving force behind P2P is anything other than illegal file sharing.
You're confusing "predominent usage" with "potential and occasional usage worthy of protection."
Most people don't use swearing for productive political discourse, but the supreme court is not going to rule in favor of making swearing illegal, particularly because it CAN be used in political discourse. For example.
P2P permits material to be distributed with a high degree of anonymity regarding the original source, even in the face of personal or political persecution. This is most definitely worthy of protection, and I, for one, will strongly oppose any attempt to prohibit such technology.
Keeping in mind of course, that "disagrees with you" != "poorly reasoned"
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
frightened content owners who realize that people are lazy and don't care and will pirate anything they can get their hands on, simply because human nature is such that if you can get something without paying for it, you will.
Fundamentally I think you're wrong. While stealing music is wrong I think most people, good or bad, would pay the $1 per song. Where piracy comes in is that people don't want just ONE song. They want tens, hundreds, and possibly even thousands of songs.
Take me for example (no, I don't steal music), but my taste in music is very different, and my "music mood" changes on a daily basis. Thus I'd be downloading songs everyday just to fit what I was looking for at that moment...even though I may only want to listen to it one time and then maybe not again for weeks or even months. Thus my music library would have to be HUGE...and $1 per song would make my library very expensive.
Now if I only wanted one or two songs then a buck a pop is one of those DUH answers.
We're talking past each other, here. I agree with you; all I'm saying is that the simple fact of the matter is that the driving force behind P2P software today is illegal file sharing. I don't think P2P software should be made illegal, but I do think that the vast majority of P2P traffic has been, and continues to be, illegal.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I've been thinking about this somewhere in the back of my mind for a while now....
Has anyone ever used Kazaa-type P2P networks for anything legal? Honestly now. I know I haven't (and yeah, I've done my share of downloading illegal MP3s). P2P networks of this type would be a really poor way to distribute anything that you wanted the public to have free access to. If I was looking for something that I knew was going to be 'free', I'd look on the web for it. Right? It's easier, usually faster, and safer.
Now torrents on the other hand make a lot of sense and are starting to be used more and more to distribute legal content....and it works great!
The problem is, can the suits in the goverment distinguish between the two? Any time there is talk about banning or taxing network software it really makes my skin crawl.
Distributing copyright content without permission is already illegal. That should be enough to go on. Passing anti-P2P legislation could either hinder technology or turn into a big joke, like bongs "for tobacco use only."
But then again...programs like Kazaa are making somebody money, and are used almost exclusively to distribute content illegally. Tough call.
When I wrote what I wrote I knew someone was going to make a radical comparison with something worst than a knife, be it a broadsword or a gun.
However, I still think P2P is more like a knife. The fact that *today* most P2P bandwidth probably goes to piracy does *not* preclude its legal uses.
Take the mp3 file format as an example. Do you all remember when the entertainment industry try to sue anyone using it in the Napster days? Nowdays mp3 is driving a whole legal industry.
The same will happen to P2P; once the studios realize that they can solve their distribution problems with P2P we'll see a whole lot of legal uses and a whole new industry formed around it.
So back to my analogy, P2P is like a knife, we just need to give it sometime for its uses in network surgery to be tangible.
Would the photocopier have ever been made if the paper publishers had taken the line the RIAA and MPAA are taking now?
Would text scanners exist at all?
These both have infringing uses but they are not the subject of lobbying groups attempting to deny their very existance.
It is all about powerful lobby groups attempting to maintain their stranglehold on media creation and deny the people their voice. (Ok that is a little strong). It is about $$$$.
(Not that I have anything against pedantry, mind you.)
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Hell, you can use a car to kill people... you can also use a baseball bat to kill people. It's not that you can, it's that they have both already been used to kill many people. However, I don't see anyone jumping up and going to the Supreme Court trying to make driving to a baseball game illegal.
You're missing the point entirely. It does not matter that p2p is mostly used to commit copyright infingement (side note: I'd like to see statistics to back up your assertion rather than just your anecdotal evidence), all that matters is that p2p software is capable of significant non-infringing use. This is the doctrine that Sony Corp. vs. Universal established, and what the content industry would like to abolish.
Besides, let's say the RIAA won on some lawsuit over piracy tomorrow. A billion dollars, for the same of argument. You think those half-starved musicians would see a cent of it?
I've nothing against musicians, either, but they need to pick better allies. When your worst enemy is treating you better than your best friend, you need to make a cash advance on that reality check.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Broadsword my ass. Maybe a dagger.
P2P in itself could not possibly be construed as anything but peer-to-peer communications software.
As for businesses using P2P for enabling copyright infringement on a large scale, I have no regard for that. That's what copyright laws are for in the first place. Just because some rogue bunch of nitwits in for a quick buck do that doesn't mean the rest of the world should have to suffer.
Another analogy: If bank robbers use a civilian hummer to break through the front windows of a bank in a raid-style heist, should that have any bearing on whether those hummers are available for the general public?
Buzz words aside: P2P apps in all their forms have come to stay. I personally hope for a flourishing of individual projects, expressions and the like, once the bruhaha surrounding some forms of P2P quietens down. I can already imagine some potential things I would want to share myself, namely:
I) That no-budget ninja film I always wanted to make with some friends who share my humour.
II) Some classical and flamenco-style guitar I've wanted to record and hope to hear people enjoy.
III) Open source style collaboration using all manner of diagrams, sketches, thoughts and ideas.
Now I'm sure I'll get all these silly comments that I don't need P2P for any of these examples, but screw that: People can share stuff all they need, but somebody's gotta pay for the bandwidth.
P2P is simply that. A model for distribution. I personally believe that strangling P2P now is doing ourselves a disfavour, as those who are younger than ourselves surely will come up with creative expressions that will surprise us. Plus it gives those who are into something because they care an opportunity to be heard. WITHOUT having to think about ratings, commercial breaks, sound bites & other forms of nonsense.
Death to the media conglomerates. Music, theatre and writing existed long before them. Perhaps because some people have something to say worth listening to? And perhaps because some people care to stop and listen?
The RIAA doesn't actually own anything and is a body that represents "artists" whether the artists in question want to be represented or not. If you were to write some music, record it, and distribute it over a P2P system, the RIAA may well try to sue you, even though you had never assigned a single right to the RIAA or any member company.
Going back a moment to the paying thing, artists regularly sue managers and record labels for failing to pay out. Often, they can't until they are rich enough to sue, so we'll never know the exact level of theft, but the RIAA is hardly the innocent party in all this.
Then, when cases ARE decided by court, and there IS a proven case of piracy, the RIAA keeps 100% of the winnings. The artists, whose work is stolen, are never recompensed.
To be honest, I would actually like to see the Supreme Court rule that a "business model financed by piracy" is unlawful, for the simple reason that artists could then sue the RIAA to oblivion for operating in exactly that way.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Excellent Kohlberg reference, if I could mod you up, I would.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
You're mixing your patents and copyrights, when they serve two very different purposes.
If I create an original work of art, literature, music, whatever, I can copyright it and therefore the copyright would exist for the duration of my lifetime plus seventy years (with a few exceptions.)
The purpose of copyright is to make sure than an author is able to profit from their creation during their life and (their estate) somewhat beyond their life. The only purpose it serves is to reward and protect the creator. Once the time is up, the work becomes public domain. Copyrights don't really exist to encourage artistic development, since for most artists and authors, there isn't much money to be made anyway.
Patents are different. You can only patent a novel invention, idea, whatever. They generally expire 20 years from the date of filing. Their purpose is not so much reward as it is a means to encourage development of new ideas through that reward. They are shorter in time, because there is more public benefit to be had by restricting the monopoly on the idea to only 20 years. When a patent expires, suddenly the technology is freely available to all who might use it for profit. The company or person that made it is probably still alive, but in 20 years they had the chance to reap great profits from it.
Copyrights stifle innovation a lot less so than do patents. You can get access to millions of copyrighted materials for (free) through your local library.
Patents intentionally stifle innovation but in doing so they also encourage it by guaranteeing a 20 year monopoly on the creator.
Now, there is something to be said about the duration of copyrights, and the significant jump they made. However, it should be noted that effectively the copyright duration is (in many cases) about the same as the length of time you can have control over your assets after you die, so it is not entirely unconscionable.
The duration of patents is appropriate for some types of inventions and not for others. With prescription drugs and the amount of time it takes to go from patent filing to market, the 20 year mark is pretty appropriate. For computer related patents, 20 years is much too long.
What?
From the article: "We're here to give a face to people being hurt by illegal downloads," said Erin Enderlin, one of the songwriters. "When we don't get paid, we can't pay our rent."
When the heck has an executive said to a musician, "Sorry pal, due to illegal downloads, we don't have enough money to pay you."
Sorry, but the musicians-are-getting-screwed defense is a crock.
This sig rocks the casbah.
That's why many artists put one of the songs from their album on the radio. I never go out and throw $12 out for a music album just based on the album cover itself - but if I've heard one (or two) of the album's songs on the radio, usually a large number of times, I'll gladly go out and buy the whole album so I can support the artist and listen to the song I like whenever I want - and hopefully be pleasantly surprised by the other songs on the album.
Of course, "Hits" and "Best of" albums kick ass, too.
Irony is a woman who could probably benefit from filesharing to reach a wider audience carrying a sign that says, "Don't steal my future."
As if downloading could possibly affect the future of hippy communes.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Whatever you do, don't predict an outcome based on Scalia's questions. He'll play devil's advocate with himself just to stay awake sometimes. ;)
ah yes granted in truth i am blurring the distinctions between patent and copyright. i'm fully aware of the difference and ought to have explicitly remarked upon it.
i actually look at the process of the patent system as being relatively effective (with some caveats). and if it came down to it, i would actually much rather see any form of intellectual property be treated with the same law, from a certain perspective they come from the imagination of someone and benefit many -- whether the benefit is a product which saves lives or a fancy that makes my heart sing doesn't seem to really justify the difference.
the fact that patent encourages competition and continued improvement is a wonderful innovation. it allows for things such as generic drugs to enter the market eventually at prices which are far more reasonable. there are places where the length of a patent makes very little sense (i.e. computers) but if we look at the patent process as fostering competition, we would also really have to argue that it promotes a very specific kind of innovation. in the case of medicine, companies are successful because they anticipate precisely that twenty year profitable period and don't necessarily need to innovate any faster than that. in certain cases (maybe psychiatric medicine? someone?) they will continue with drugs that are not so effective, in part because they know they've got another decade before they have to innovate on their own
i wouldn't argue that copyright necessarily needs to be re-written specifically with the idea of fostering "competition" in the arts. but on the other hand, i don't see any particularly valid argument for extending copyright much beyond that same generational mark. whereas with patents, it's obviously useful to have new and improved products come to market (i love my microwave). i don't see any inherent usefulness in continuing to pay an artist long after they're dead, or for that matter more than twenty years after the work. it neither fosters nor stifles new art (changing trends will do that regardless of whether any money was inovled).
i guess one of the biggest concerns i have about copyright is still that after the death of the artist, i don't feel like i should be paying any cost beyond the actual plastic or paper that it takes to get that content to me. as a ridiculous example, imagine if you will that copyright had been around much longer, that the copyright had somehow been extended to cover 500 years post-mortem. that would make the Shakespeare family easily the richest family on the planet. and old Bill himself? heck, when he died, he left his wife the bed in his will. of course, by this point Sony or BMG or Michael Jackson would own the rights to the Shakespeare catalogue.
Firstly, refering to "/. pirates" is no more calling all Slashdot readers pirates than saying "Italian mafia" is calling all Italians criminals. Its not a "nice flame"... its just that you don't know how to read, or at least understand what you read.
Secondly, your web browser analogy is meaningless because the Kazaa people knew exactly what they were dealing with when they started, and they figured they could be like Napster and make a quick buck piggybacking off pirates.
i think the rule is that any Thomas decision is always the weakest argument amongst the Supremes.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You're lying to yourself, though, if you suggest that the driving force behind P2P is anything other than illegal file sharing.
/.
Don't put them all in the same basket. It never occured to me that BitTorrent was for anything but distributing Linux isos before the first articles about Suprnova etc. appeared on
Maybe I was naive, but not for the fact that I didn't know edonkey and the likes. I just thought BitTorrent is generally used for different stuff, and I still think it was designed for Linux isos.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The justices quizzed the attorneys. All except for Clarence Thomas, no doubt, who is notorious (among the informed few) for never asking questions during arguments. The Supreme Court is structured differently from lower courts, with interactive questioning by the panel of justices the central format. Except for Thomas, whose faith-based decisions are about the least judicious ever heard from the court.
--
make install -not war
i guess one of the biggest concerns i have about copyright is still that after the death of the artist, i don't feel like i should be paying any cost beyond the actual plastic or paper that it takes to get that content to me.
30 year old musician creates some work, dies the next week. Millions of copies sell, however, under you rule, his or her family will get nothing.
I think that 70 years after death is a big long; and perhaps something more appropriate would be simply time of creation + 70 years, or 35 years after death, whichever comes first. (simply a crude example).
What?
But in reality, this is more like kitchen knives being used to kill people much more than to cook with. It still has a very valuable use, but the majority of people just use it for murder.
A pirate is someone who knocks-off a CD. Anything else is is a red-herring. An MP3 is a technically inferior piece of crap. "Downloading" is morally equivalent of "request night" on a radio station. and that's legal right??? Should I pay RIAA if I hum or sing a song? What if I play it on my guitar. Maybe I should pay RIAA if I can enjoy it by playing it back in my mind. Maybe I should pay RIAA if I think of a song.
Hey, I still have the pr0n I downloaded for the sake of science when bit torrent was first announced on /.
Copyright infringement of other people's stuff, no matter how many people try to justify it, is ethically wrong.
In "infringement ... is ethically wrong", do you mean infringement under an ideal copyright system or infringement under the distorted system that the 105th U.S. Congress has created? If the latter, then why is it "ethically wrong" to make and distribute copies of a work first published over 80 years ago and whose copyright ownership has become untraceable, and why is it "ethically wrong" to watch DVD Video titles on a PC running GNU/Linux?
If guns are not illegal in this country P2P should not be! Guns are designed for one purpose only - to kill something or someone. This is much worse than getting some crappy movie for free.
So P2P is not like a broadsword by any stretch. It was not designed for any illegal activity - it was designed to exchange infromation. If it is illegal to exchange information in US then we deserve for P2P to be outlawed. We are the ones who elected these dick-heads in congress who is making sure that their corporate sponsors are happy.
P2P is very useful tool to me. I use it every day to distribute free software without having to pay for a huge pipe. So P2P is more like an axe which you can use to build a table or to chop someone's head off.
I think it's bad to use [morals] in an argument [about copyright] cuz they're relative to an often unspecified valueground (god, you, a group, human majority).
To Yartrebo, the morality of copyright depends primarily on whether or not you're a fascist, as so many other philosophies are incompatible with copyright. I agree.
Another Loss under the current implementation of copyright law: All possible legally distinct melodies eventually become taken, which means that the public Loses the ability to write new songs.
Not that I have anything against pedantry, mind you.
Good. Being willing to embrace pedantry is a good thing when discussing litigation, as the legal profession is defined as the organized practice of pedantry. Now back to the topic: what is the major legal problem with a single application, call it Mozpache if you will, that can both send and retrieve information?
Ye gads, I have to punt the mod points on this one. Where did you get this shit? Certainly not the constitution. Read it. Here's what it says in section 8:
"The Congress shall have Power (...) 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;"
Ergo, the purpose of copyright is, as written, To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. Not, as you say, for the author to earn a fast buck. That's only the means to the end. Congress could decide tomorrow (shyeah, right) that the "limited Times" be shortened to a single day and there'd be nothing the authors could do about it (aside from that pesky Berne convention). The authors' estates certainly weren't a consideration in the first copyright laws, which granted copyright for a whopping 14 years.
Hell, you even said that copyright doesn't do a good job at promoting the arts -- so by your own statement and the constitutional wording, copyright, at least in its current form, doesn't work! It's not serving its constitutional purpose! Now that I'm sure many /.'ers would get behind! :)
piracy is just people wanting to get stuff for free.
And breathing is just people wanting to get clean air* for free. Not all pirates paint activities that involve free stuff as a copyright holder endorsed crusade. Some just think there's nothing morally wrong with piracy and give little to no thought about violating copyright.
*There's all sorts of ways this is a good and bad example. Suffice to say that I rather like the idea of taxing people/companies to undo the damage they do every month/year with government-rate deductions on that tax for the clean-up one does. In that way, most people could just own healthy trees/grass to undo some/most/all the damage they do from breathing and company polluters would be motivated in making the most efficient cleaning regiment possible.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
I wonder if this will be like the court cases before the french revolution...
While I think P2P is great, I want to know seriously how many of you have ever used it for legal purposes? It just seems to me that people are shouting about P2P and 'their rights' and 'the future of technology' and 'RIAA greed', when the underlying sentiment is "Where am I going to get my MP3s, warez and pr0n?!"
Furthermore, any comparison to VCRs or tape decks is bunk. When was the last time you made a tape of a CD and instantly handed perfect duplicates, for less than a penny each, to 20,000 strangers?
Secondly, your web browser analogy is meaningless because the Kazaa people knew exactly what they were dealing with when they started, and they figured they could be like Napster and make a quick buck piggybacking off pirates.
Well, Mr. "InfiniteWisdom", while I appreciate that Kazaa may indeed have planned to facilitate piracy on a massive scale, if you had actually read the article, you might have noticed that the companies in question were Grokster and Streamcast Networks.
I'm willing to believe the "Infinite" part, but the rest... hmmm.
Chalk up another win for Apple!!
What? Oh. Nevermind.
copyright would exist for the duration of my lifetime plus seventy years (with a few exceptions.)
The original US term was 14 years, with an option for a single 14 year renewal *if* you were still alive at that point. So the original intent/expectation was that it would be quite reasonable for a copyright to expire during the author's life.
The purpose of copyright is to make sure than an author is able to profit from their creation during their life
No, the Supreme Court has explicitly and repeatedly ruled that that is an invalid purpose for copyright law. Such a law would be unconstitutional and null and void.
As the Constitution says, "The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Art". Congress does not have the power to enrich or otherwise benefit authors simply to enrich or otherwise benefit authors. Congress only has the power to promote progress, and only for the public's benefit. Congress may encourage authors to create, and encourage them to publish their creations. They may encuorage creation and publication by establishing copyright. Copyright generally operates by promoting and protecting a financial incentive to create and public, but that financial incentive is merely a mans to an end. Any profits or benefits to authors is merely a means to an end. That end *must* be the public benefit.
For computer related patents, 20 years is much too long.
I'm guessing you actually mean software patents?
In the 80's a mid-level US court decided to REVERSE and throw out well established law that software was not an invention, and it did so contrary to all globally recognized patent norms that software was not an invention, and most importantly as far as I can see they did so in direct violation of Supreme Court law that software was not an invention.
And we currently have the US patent office issuing patent paperwork on software, and we have mid and lower level US courts upholding those issues patents for the sole reason that the Supreme Court has not addressed the issue at all in over two decades and has not gotten around to smacking down the lower court for "inventing" software patents in violation of Supreme Court rulings.
Just to cite a single point, the Supreme Court said:
Whether the algorithm was in fact known or unknown at the time of the claimed invention, as one of the "basic tools of scientific and technological work," it is treated as though it were a familiar part of the prior art.
When the Supreme Court said "algorithm" they were reffering to software. For patent purposes all possible software algorithms are to be treated as familiar prior art.
A 100 digit number may certainly be "new" and never seen before, and that 100 digit number may certainly be nonobvious, and that 100 digit number may certainly be usefull, but a number is not an invention. For patent purposes a number cannot be "new" or "nonobvious". The same goes for any mathematical equation. The same goes for any mathematical algorithm. And the same goes for any mathematical algorithm with the label "software" slapped on it.
I'm a programmer. Programmers are authors. Issuing patents on math and patents on logic is fundamentally broken. Math and logic are not inventions.
People who try to argue that software patents are harmful (which they are), or who argue that software patents last too long, they are falling into the trap of implicitly assuming that software *is* an invention in the first place. The moment you assume that software is an invention then you've already lost the argument. You then wind up arguing that you want special treatment just because you don't like obeying software patents. You are arguing that software inventors are not entitled to the same rights and protections as other inventors. Those are really bad arguments. Those are losing arguments.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
If P2P is found to be illegal, then what does that mean for Microsoft? Doesn't Windows support P2P out of the box with it's netbios and workgroup networking?
> That's why many artists put one of the songs from their album on the radio.
The artists usually don't do that. It's usually the RIAA that decides what goes on the radio, unless it's a free (self-owned soul) station.
> TCP/IP is a peer to peer protocol by design.
Taking JUST windows file sharing into account, does it not "elect" a computer to act as the server (master browser) if one is not explicitly defined?