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Tech-Ed Funding to be Tied to Copyright-Ed?
feminazi writes "Ars Technica is reporting that California Assemblyman Ed Chavez has proposed legislation that would require recipients of an educational technology grant program to educate their students in copyright law as well. There are three areas of education that would be required: 'ethical behavior in regards to the use of information technology,' 'the concept, purpose, and significance of a copyright,' and 'the implications of illegal peer-to-peer network file sharing.'"
First off, let me say that I'm a strong supporter of the EFF, Creative Commons, and hold many libertarian (lower-case "l") beliefs. The thought of the government mandating the instruction of agenda-based ethics makes my skin crawl. However, in the interest of balance, here's a different viewpoint:
Like it or not, copyright violation is against the law. When you're learning about how to handle firearms, drive a car, invest in stocks, skydive--pratically anything that involves risk, the you're *always* taught how do those activities safely and in accordance with the law. Many people hate mandatory motorcycle helmet laws. However, does anyone really beleive that riders shouldn't be educated on this law and the reasons for having it? People who misuse technology are doing risky things: opening themselves (or their parents) upto identity theft by getting a trojan from a P2P app, allowing their PC to be turned into a DDoS zombie, sexual predators, and criminal and civil liablity incurred by swapping pirated music and software. Many of these risks are blown out of proportion by the press, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous. Computer users need all the education they can get. Too much technical training is focused on the nuts-and-bolts on how to do something with a PC. As pervasive as the Internet has become in our lives, perhaps we should begin to explore the larger social issues in intro-level instruction as well?
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
You mean the English literature classes aren't teaching proper usage of the copyright law? You would think that's a given considering that some students will take a book report from the internet and present it as their own.
Sure, at face value this is about getting kids under control for the benefit of the Copyright holders. But, so long as the education is accurate, can you think of a better thing than a population who understands copyright law, what a mess has been made of it, and how crippling the status quo is? Anything that serves to inform is good.
Regardless of what people's personal opinions are on p2p file sharing, the fact is that it is against copyright law. Should it be? Well, only people who understand the issue can intelligently consider that. So bring on the truth.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Will this really work? Perhaps on a few individuals. As with many such compulsory "lessons", the students and teachers would go through with it. But they'd both know to disregard it. Thus it will have no effect but to waste time, money, and other resources.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Fuck you Ed. Politicians should be required to take ethics courses...
~S
Maybe that because it is different. Depriving a retailer of a physical product is not the same as downloading a digital copy from someone! If I download a movie off the net which I would never purchase anyways is far different than stuffing one down my shorts at Walmart. Walmart paid for that DVD and by stealing it, I have stolen money from them. If I download a movie I haven't taken something away from anyone. I'm not saying its legal or moral, but it isn't stealing!
http://religiousfreaks.com/What tech-degree individuals really need is a class which teaches them how to navigate the tens of thousands of frivilous patents and copyrights in the industry.
FanFictionRecs.net
I think formal, unbiased education on copyright law would be a great thing. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll stay that way for long. The copyright industries are going to see an "in" and send their lobbyists on a feeding frenzy.
Or did they just want the standard "corporate big-wigs getting rich should have their methods and profits guaranteed?"
Just want to know which I should be teaching...
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
To tell them to go to hell.
I was nodding along, thinking "sure, why not" right up until I read the part about "the implications of illegal peer-to-peer network file sharing."
Schools are not there for those kind of shenanigans.
I find this incredibly offensive, if PSAs and advertising doesn't cut it, then that is their problem.
The curriculum should not be set by interest groups.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I could maybe get behind this idea if one of the areas covered included fair use. Why am I not surprised this area is left out, especially in California. Remember, according to Jack Valenti "fair use is not in the law".
About a decade ago I got to know some of my relatives living in places like Poland and the Ukraine. Many of them grew up under the various communist regimes. This sounds an awful lot like what they had to go through at various levels of education. At least some of them were aware that it was nothing but indoctrination, and they went along with it because they had very little choice otherwise. But in their hearts they knew it was nothing but indoctrination, if not outright brainwashing. I would hope those in California would have a similar understanding of the situation they are in.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I earned my degree through a business/technology college. The CS/BSIT/BSMT degrees are all geared for consultants and entrepreneurs. A class on copyright law, application for, and general information about would be extremely useful. And a significantly better legal requirement then the manditory Constitution Day class.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I can easily see this having the opposite effect of its intention, namely programmers understanding the limitations and loopholes of copyright better than they do now. I mean how many projects have been shutdown by C&D letters sent under the DMCA? How many of those were bogus if you actually knew the law? If they're really going to teach copyright (Including the extensions and expansions), then maybe some programmers would better understand fair use and the "protections" provided by the DMCA.
Or maybe that's just my wishful thinking.
... And so it comes to this.
No one seem to listen here... there anywhere. You're getting ripped off everytime a researcher or company lab gets a publically funded grant and then patents the end result of the research. Most of if not all was paid for by the taxpayer the taxpayers should reap to rewareds. We reap the rewards for transportation, utilities, and other pubic service service. Your taxes pay for roads that you drive on, infrastructure for utilites, water, sewer etc.. This is the only system where a company can get a grant for research then is entitled to patent the end results. So your getting ripped off. Medical, bio, chem industries all get grants for research then make BILLIONS off of the patents they aquire AFTER WE HAVE PAID FOR IT.
BULLSHIT!
This must me costing the RIAA/MPAA a fortune in lobbyiest fees.
I hope this caused some synapses to fire.
They can call it C.A.R.E.--Copyright Abuse Resistance Education. Maybe even have cops come in and show off a simulated pirated download, so the kids can identify them when they encounter them. Teach the students to avoid peer-to-peer pressure...
Copyright is a tricky area. There are many myths that education might help to dispel. Consider these myths: 1) If it doesn't have a copyright notice, it's not copyrighted. 2) If I don't charge for it, it's not a violation. 3) If it's posted to Usenet it's in the public domain. 4) My posting was just fair use! 5) If you don't defend your copyright you lose it. 6) If I make up my own stories, but base them on another work, my new work belongs to me. 7) They can't get me, defendants in court have powerful rights! 8) Oh, so copyright violation isn't a crime or anything? 9) It doesn't hurt anybody -- in fact it's free advertising. 10) They e-mailed me a copy, so I can post it. Phew, you know what? After all that, I'm taking up horseback riding.
If the students are *really* taught what copyrights are, how they were originally intended to work in the Constitution and the concepts of fair use, then the students will know when and how full of crap any 'anti-piracy' group might be. An educated group of consumers.
:)
This may end up as a blow *against* the industry lobbyists, as it could create an educated group of consumers. Any EFF volunteers want to teach a class or two?
Better for the MPAA/RIAA to leave them ignorant and terrified so they fold when the letter arrives in the mail.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
So I guess the kids are in the clear if they stick to newsgroups, filebots, and other asymmetric methods? :D
An education system depends on quality educators in order to function well. That almost goes without saying. The end result of ideas like this may result in the destruction of the system in which it is "infecting". That will hold especially true if those who would receive such funding end up avoiding California.
Much the same has reportedly been happening with Kansas. As the debate over intelligent design heats up, many talented educators (at all levels, be it university or high school) are now considering either leaving the state, or are not considering taking jobs there. That is by far one of the most harmful things which can happen to an educational system.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
the implications of illegal peer-to-peer network file sharing.
Yea. That'll have as much impact as the education about the implications involved when high-school students have sex. I'm sure that he's thinking; 'Should I have her get an HI5 (HIV) test?' and that he's not thinking; 'I gonna come!!!@#$%^&&YUHHNh'
I, for one, welcome our new Corporate Rights Propaganda overlords.
I think someone should put together a website that monitors this program, corrects any incorrect info that they try to teach and also gives useful info (like I mentioned above) that isn't taught. This could then be made known to the students who could come to class with questions that I"m sure would make the teacher pretty uncomfortable. Nothing like students armed with factual knowledge.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I preface this by saying not all kids are juvenile delinquents, but how can anyone reasonably expect to teach them copyright law? And what makes you think if you did, it would alter one thing? Schools try to teach kids civic responsibility, such as the importance of voting, but I don't see a lot of young people flocking to the polls. Kids will do what they want, and only those who respect the rights of others will get this. This is not a solution, it is a continuance of the problem.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
why?
because kids aren't stupid. they can think independently and abstractly. i want to be there when a kid first stands up and says to the teacher: "but these laws are based on technology that is obsolete, shouldn't the laws change with the new p2p technology?"
kids aren't programmed by their teachers. they are introduced to topics by their teachers and they arrive at their own conclusions. therefore, introducing copyright issues to them will mean that which would otherwise stay in the shadows unchanged (good for the riaa), will be put front and center in the minds of the next generation, and they will see how stupid existing ip laws are for the internet age (bad for the riaa... and yet funded by them, hilarious)
these kids will then grow up, and rewrite these stupid pre-internet laws to take into account what the rest of us already know about how subversive technologies CHANGE COMMON SENSE UNDERSTANDINGS OF HOW THINGS BEST WORK
riaa, mpaa: still in denial
the genie is out of the bottle dimwits
existing ip laws are broken and ineffective in an age of internet technologies
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Suppose, just suppose, that the "Copyright-Ed" course was taught by a good teacher, someone who actually got students to think about copyrights. "How long should a copyright last?" "Are copyrights really valuable to society?" "How is copyright infringement different from theft?"
Nothing ever works out this well, but imagine if it could. This could turn out really well, with a whole mass of people starting to question some of the more absurd copyright/patent 'abuses.'
________________________________________________
suwain_2
A course in ethics would be useless. Ethics are a very subjective thing. What you find unethical, a politician may find to be the most ethical thing. Of course, that is likely because his or her sense of ethics has been twisted by money and/or power.
The best thing to do is to keep people who are considered "unethical" by the general populace out of office. Now, that's far easier said than done. Many of the flawed systems of the Western world today promote those who are the most lacking when it comes to areas such as ethics and responsibility.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Now my initial thoughts on this were: No, no-one taking a tech ed course is so bone-headed as to require their teacher to beat them with a mental stick going "NO! Copyright infrignment wrong, bad file-sharer!"
It may however have a beneficial effect. Sure, why not discuss copyight law? An excellent exercise would be for student to come up with an estimate as to how much money is spent across the various levels of government paying for licences for Windows, Microsoft Office, etc. They could then work out how many schools say, or hospitals could be built with this money otherwise. The more mathematically astute could calculate the change in the teacher:pupil or doctor:patient ratio.
They could also discuss the patenting of the RSA cryptosystem, and discuss whether we should be allowing patents on mathematics. (Exercise for the reader: if Newton had patented the calculus, and the government was required to pay 1 cent for every lesson taught involving calculus, how much per year would be expended in this manner?)
They could also consider the case put forward by the music industry that it is being threatened by p2p sharing of music. (Another exercise, for the terminally bored among you: Graph sales of music against p2p activity for each year. Is there any correllation? Calculate the correlation coefficient, remembering to post off a cheque for royalties to whichever statistician invented the said coefficient.)
"Hello, My name is Ed Chavez, I'd like to begin today by saying I am a puppet of 'particular music and filmed entertainment industries'. In this speech I will use buzz words and phrases to spread FUD in order to train you, such as 'content', 'illegal file-sharing' and 'costs to taxpayers'. I'm sure you're all aware of how precious bandwidth is. Oh so precious, like oxygen, gold, puppies and smiling babies. We should bow to the industry, for they provide us with such precious content for our precious bandwidth. Like petroleum, there is only so much bandwith on this earth, and peer-to-peer is consuming it, illegally no doubt. At this illegal, costly-to-taxpayers rate, the world will soon run out of bandwidth, and it will be gone to us forever. These industries are acting selflessly to protect us. They bravely sue grandmothers and 14 year old girls to protect the content we require to sustain our daily lives. Do you not love your benefactors? A vote against this measure is a vote for communism. You are against communism, aren't you?"
i don't care
I was thinking Download Abuse Resistance Education but CARE has such as nice PR ring to it. I'm sure this program will be about as effective as DARE too.
So, the grants come with additional funding to implement these requirements, right?
If so, I don't see this as a disaster -- in fact, I would suggest the EFF develop a compliant curriculum that teachers could use. Keep it short and sweet, so you don't waste a whole week of class time, and present things with more nuance than the RIAA propaganda. For example:
"Copyrights mean that the owner (usually the creator, or someone who paid the creator) controls who can make copies of a particular copyrighted work. It's illegal to duplicate a copyrighted work if you don't have the owner's permission. Many copyright owners use this power to make money. For example, the movie industry charges admission and sells DVDs. But owners also have options to let their work be distributed more freely. For example, they can give anyone permission to reproduce their work, use it in particular ways or circumstances, or relinquish ownership altogether and put their materials in the public domain."
And they can start the day with:
I pledge allegiance to the RIAA
and to the media conglomerates for which it stands.
One nation, under DRM.
With perpetual copyright and a compliant Congress,
for those with the most lobbyists.
Many kids want to know more about copyright. One of my hobbies is programming a game-making tool which lets people make their own game with little programming knowledge. Most of my users are kids and teens. I have been asked many times to explain how copyright works. Kids are interested in knowing how copyright protects their own work, as well how to understand copyright well enough to know how and when they can incorporate other people's work into their own.
Teaching kids about copyright is not just a first-step towards fighting music piracy, it is also a first step towrds teaching them about copyright licences like GPL or Creative Commons.
(that being said, I think linking school funding to RIAA propaganda is reprehensable-- I was just trying to suggest we try to teach kids this stuff ourselves)
Apparently he "decided this legislation is needed after "after observing studies that show that the largest groups of P2P users are teens and people in their 20s".
h ronicle/archive/2003/06/30/MN275013.DTL
So campaign fund contributions had nothing to do with it and are purely co-incidental?
Please, this is the same guy who blocked the popular 'financial privacy protection bill' after receiving over $100,000 from the finance industry. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c
I wonder how much it cost the MPAA and RIAA for him to launch this bill?
And there was me thinking the USA had a democracy!
Anyone recall the educational video "Don't Coppy that floppy"?
Regardless of what people's personal opinions are on p2p file sharing, the fact is that it is against copyright law.
P2P file-sharing isn't against copyright law. Sharing copyrighted files, via a P2P file-sharing program, without the copyright owner's permission is against copyright law.
Perhaps we should take that money and invest in "re-education" camps instead. Then, when we find someone not operating their vehicle correctly, sharing copyright material on P2P networks or saying bad things about our glorious, lawyer-shooting leaders then we could send them to the camp for a little remedial education. When they demonstrate proper thinking toward copyright issues we could integrate them back into society. With a proper monitoring program, of course.
You're absolutely right, we should use education to keep the populace in line and give thanks to our glorious politikal leaders every day.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Does he really want ethics taught, or does he really mean that students should be told how to behave? You see, ethics isn't about following a set of rules (at least to those of us that aren't religious), it is about thinking and making your own decisions.
So, Ed, who is being more ethical, the man who buys a Madonna album in a shop for $20, or the man who downloads the album via P2P and then donates $20 to a charity to educate African children. Tricky isn't it?
allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment
to me, it seems that the gist of your argument is that since you haven't gotten your hands on a physical thing, you haven't stolen anything. you aren't depriving a retailer of a product or the money they could have gotten in exchange for it.
i submit that a physical object is not necessarily required for theft. if you're a gamer, does it incur your ire when someone steals from you in game? if you developed a neat idea and had it on your hard drive, would it bother you when someone copied it onto their USB drive, and distributed it or claimed it as their own? how about your digitized poetry? your art? i'm not using these as exactly analogous to downloading a movie, but the concept of a noncorporeal object of value is important.
you also speak of downloading off the internet something which you wouldn't've purchased for. to be pedantic, that is not strictly speaking, true. by downloading it, you are spending clock cycles, storage space, bandwidth, and at least some of your own time to obtain said item. now, it may be true that you wouldn't spend $15 for a dvd copy of it, but would you pay $0.01 to see it, or download it? how about $0.40? if it's worth downloading for you, either you want to just have it for the sake of having it, or you've got mild interest in seeing it. either way, there's some price point where you'd be willing to exchange something of value for it. taking even a copy of it without reimbursing the 'owner' is, in a word, a theft. moreover, you don't get to set the price that you pay for it.
moreover, stealing is (amongst other things):
to take (the property of another) without right or permission
the act of theft
to get or effect surreptitiously or artfully
not to get into a slashdot debate about intellectual property, but legally, a movie is, generally speaking, the property of Some Entity Not You. you can be sure that said Not You entity will not give you right or permission to obtain said movie without paying.
now, that being said, i'm a proponent of p2p filesharing in the general case.
i loathe the RIAA and the MPAA and their tactics. i think they've taken entirely the wrong tack. not all theft is inherently immoral, mind you, though i'm notably quiet about the morality of filesharing.
i'm not saying i do it, and i'm not saying i don't.
and i think that you're right that downloading a file is significantly different from stuffing one's outerwear at walmart, but hey--let's not kid ourselves about what we, fundamentally, are doing, alright?
I would support this as long as the EFF and similar organizations got to write the educational materials. But those groups are not who legislators are trying to help out in exchange for campaign money.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Risks of all government sponsored schools is that they use it as a tool to shove whatever agenda down your throat whether you agree with it or not.
when many teachers, while knowing that it is against the law, are forced to copy huge chunks (if not all) of texts books due to a lack of funding.
ditto videos
ditto software
ditto audio
various legislation has been extremely free with mandating the content and tools of education while refusing to finance those means.
Now by "forced" I don't mean that someone is holding a gun to their head, or threatening physical harm in any way. However, their income is. Especially as the insane among the public is moving towards "performance based salaries." Especially in environments where a topic like Health is mandated by state legislature, who funds a single class set of 20 books for a campus which has 2 teachers each with a full 7 period per day class load of 32-36 students each.
Or the fine arts, which some states have legislated as "fundamental curriculumn," and yet also legislate that campuses/districts must increase their spending on Physical Education two-fold. Where do you think they'll take the money from? Fine Arts. and yet then campuses/districts are fined for not providing "core curriculum."
American education as a whole has deteriorated past the point of salvation. We have put the child in charge, given them the legal means to weasel out of any responsibility or olbigation- they do't have to attend classes, they can scream streams of profanity at their teachers, they don't have to turn in their work, and yet some politician thinks that we can force them to learn ethics? No, all we're teaching them is yet another means to avoiding culpability, and giving them examples of the language and structure by which blame can be displaced.
is concrete objective stuff
social issues are subject to personal reinterpretation
you can't arrive at a correct answer in mathematics through the exploration of your own personal feelings about the square root of pi
teaching someone how to do calculus is a LOT different than introducing them to the subject of abortion
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
'ethical behavior in regards to the use of information technology,'
This would be the part where they teach kids that using technology to build a copyright mechanism that takes over your customer's computer, and creates security holes, such as the recent Sony-BMG scandal, is unethical. Or perhaps this would be teaching kids about the ethics of setting up a cartel wherein labels make a lot of money off record sales, and artists don't.
'the concept, purpose, and significance of a copyright,'
From this page:
"By granting the copyright holder exclusive rights over a work for a limited period of time, the system fosters the long-term dissemination of new intellectual works for society as a whole." (emphasis added). This would encourage children to discuss why the current copyright system in the United States, where the period of copyrighted works is continually extended, is fundamentally broken.
'the implications of illegal peer-to-peer network file sharing.'
And finally, children would learn that the big record labels took about 5 years too long to get into the online music distribution buisness, so that by the time they did, there were illegal free alternatives which produce superior (read: not DRMed, and therefore superior from the consumer viewpoint) products. We could teach kids that file sharing networks allow people to hear artists they wouldn't otherwise hear on pop-dominated radio stations and TV, and promote more diverse and creative music. And, we could teach them that illegal file sharing doesn't seem to have an impact on record sales.
Somehow I don't think this is what Chavez had in mind.
And I quote: "Sharing is Caring, Fuck the RIAA!"
We'll be producing students who don't have basic math, science, reading comprehension or writing skills, who know nothing about history, but hey, they'll be well versed in I.P. law. What a joke! Let's worry about producing students with a firm grasp of math and science who can read, comprehend and write at an acceptable level before we worry about teaching them anything else.
I have nothing but praise for the education I received attending a public school but I only received a good education because I chose to take college prep and A. P. courses. Most of my friends took the easiest electives possible. I had friends who graduated from high school who never took anything higher than Algebra I. I'll be sending my children to private school where excelence is expected and achievement is the rule, not the exception. The education system in this country is joke.
Corpoations ought be worried more about actually educating students than teaching them about I.P. law. Afterall, students who go on to college and get a good job turn into adults who have plenty of spare cash and are actually willing to purchase what these guys are selling at the prices they are asking.
If I was a CEO I'd rather see a nation full of well to do individuals with money to spend than a nation of idiots who are more willing to beak I. P. law due to a lack of disposable income.
From a high school student perspective they'll take this about as serious as D.A.R.E. or Sex Ed; just another hour for kids to draw ligers and unicorns.
I think that Richard Stallman would make a wonderful guest lecturer on the subject!
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
>Maybe that because it is different. Depriving a retailer of a physical product
>is not the same as downloading a digital copy from someone! If I download a
>movie off the net which I would never purchase anyways is far different than
>stuffing one down my shorts at Walmart. Walmart paid for that DVD and by stealing it,
>I have stolen money from them. If I download a movie I haven't taken something away from anyone.
>I'm not saying its legal or moral, but it isn't stealing!
You know, I've heard this arguement here on Slashdot for some time now: "Illegal Downloading is not stealing, it is copyright violation!!!"
I have decided I'm not buying it.
The bottom line is that downloading content without paying for it functionally is identical to stealing it because the end result is the same.
In both cases you are in possesion of something that you should have paid for to obtain, but you didn't.
Everyone who buys into this "physical product" definition of theft is forgetting one thing: A specific pattern of ones and zeroes IS a physical product!
Steve
P.S. Let's not get into a discussion of "you don't own it you license it".
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
i find this kind of proposed legislation amusing, particularly since i don't think the movie and record companies really understand what kind of curricula could result from a mandate like this.
clearly what hollywood wants is a class that will teach junior and senior high school students to be good little consumers who will buy movies and music from regular retailers without question. they want these kids to each buy their own deeveedees and ceedees and encourage their friends to buy the same and not share.
however, a good civics curricula on copyright will include an historical discussion of copyright - why it was created by the english parliament in the 15th and 16th centuries, what the constitution says about copyright and the legislation congress has passed over the past 200+ years. also, a list of important court cases about copyright ought to be discussed. a discussion of what is legal and what is not should be an essential discussion of copyright.
i think a class on the subject would be a good thing, especially considering how importat content and information have become in modern society.
of course, when the media industries figure out that having a public that is fully conversant with copyright law, its purposes and limitations, then the legislation in question will probably die a quick death. the media industry's arguments about copyright being a 'property right' are based on a misinterpretation of copyright law and many of the media industry's positions on copyright are built on the public not knowing what copyright is about or what it's really for.
much of what the media industry wants in copyright legislation is dependent on the public being confused about about copyright. anything that clarifies copyright for the public will work against the media industries goals.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
I think it's pretty clear who's made large contributions to Ed Chavez's campaign.
If only I were pulling this outta my ass:
"Chavez top recipient of lobbyists' campaign donations"
I guess ed's the most popular whore in Sacremento.
Will they have to watch the Don't Copy That Floppy video?
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
So how long before this implies that:
a) The school is expected to police their students and hand them over to the *AA's asa condition of their funding. Failure to adequately prevent copyright infringement would clearly indicate the school hasn't lived up to their obligations.
b) That students will be summarily dismissed from their programs if they are found to be using P2P, because, after all, they were told it was naughty. And we don't educate naughty people.
This will be a heavily one-sides presentation which glosses over the fact that you actually do have some rights like the doctrine of first sale in the case of a physical CD.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In high school, I took a course called "Information Technology in a Global Society"; it was an IB course
The gist of the course was a combination of the ramifications of technology, an overview of ethics and law with technology, and some basic instruction in important aspects of technology (web design, databases, e-mail, programming, etc). While I was never in need of the fairly trivial instruction on the how-to of the technological aspects, those were not the focus of the course--the idea being that to learn about the ramifications of something, one must first have some grasp of the nature of the beast. I found the remainder of the course, however, to be particularly intellectually stimulating, not to mention useful.
The point of my story is to agree with you, but to posit that the scope of this is far too narrow. These things are important now, and far too many people understand even one of them, let alone many of them. Tomorrow, they'll be even more important.
they just don't apply it to the subject matter you want them too. a poverty of critical thinking skills in science, for example, does not mean their brain isn't racing 100MPH on the subject of say, how to get in that chick's pants
the problem is one of interest, and sparking that interest, compelling them to understand why thinking critically on a given subject matter might be useful for them the rest of their lives... it's not that "kids these days" are suddenly brain dead as compared to past generations
and i'm not debating you either, just clarifying a frequent source of historical myopia i always encounter: that "kids these days" are somehow mutant rearrangements of basic human nature. no they're not, they're the same as any previous generation of kids, in every way
not that you don't already realize this, but somebody reading these words might not
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I love it! Have the EFF's lawyers teach the kids about copyright so they'll know when they're being screwed by the copyright cartel.
Wait, the EFF didn't donate to this guy. Probably gonna be copyright cartel propaganda.
You mean the English literature classes aren't teaching proper usage of the copyright law? You would think that's a given considering that some students will take a book report from the internet and present it as their own.
They don't teach about copyright law itself. They may mention copying someone else's work is a violation of copyright law, but generally the focus of English lit classes is that copying is plagarism and not doing your required work for the class. They aren't fighting kids taking someone's book report that was posted online for human interest and passing it off as their own, they're fighting the kids that go online and buy term papers online from websites selling them with every intention the kid turn it in as their own.
They also don't talk about P2P networks either, obviously. This is nothing more than the MPAA trying to mandate badmouthing filesharing as part of public school ciriccula.
Well, what do you expect? This kind of political intrusion into education is an inevitable consequence of a socialised education system. The moment you take something out of private hands and let the Government run it, it's going to become a poorly-funded, poorly-run political football.
The solution is to privatise education completely, and let parents, businesses and charitable trusts run schools - and, more importantly, let parents send children to the best schools they can afford, schools of their own choosing (or, alternatively, homeschool).
That reminded me I forgot to fire up aMule, running now!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The bottom line is that downloading content without paying for it functionally is identical to stealing it because the end result is the same. In both cases you are in possesion of something that you should have paid for to obtain, but you didn't.
Except whether or not someone should have something is a very subjective judgement. Now if I see you driving down the street in a mustang and think, "wow what a great car" and I aim my patented new duplicator beam at it and make myself a car just like yours... have I stolen your car?
Everyone who buys into this "physical product" definition of theft is forgetting one thing: A specific pattern of ones and zeroes IS a physical product!
Yes but people aren't stealing that pattern, they are copying it. The physical pattern still exists in the original location.
There is a significant difference between stealing and copyright violation. For example one is violating someone's basic human rights according to the constitution and one is violating an artificial government granted right imposed for a particular purpose. If, for example, by violating that government granted right you are actually more efficiently promoting that particular purpose then constitutionally, the lesser law is wrong, not you. Note, because of the wording in the constitution which calls for a value judgement, this is impossible to prove. In fact the supreme court ruled that although current laws are almost certainly violating the intent of the constitution, it is not their job to interpret the intent of lawmakers. Basically, the laws on the books aren't doing what they should, but it is not their job to say congress is a bunch of liars.
Hear Hear! A requirement like this, so long as the kids are actually taught what copyright law is all about, will likely scare them quite a bit. Copyright is a pretty extreme statute when you think about what it says. Some highlights for the syllabus: 1) Anything with a tiny spark of creativity in it is automatically copyrighted at the moment it is fixed (e.g. written down, saved, recorded, etc.) 2) Nobody needs to give notice to anybody else that a work is copyrighted. 3) If anybody makes a copy of a copyrighted work that has been registered (cost: peanuts), they can get stuck with paying the legal fees for the person suing them. 4) Fair use is only a defense if the judge in your particular case thinks it is. 5) Every time you use a photocopier, you are probably infringing on a registered copyright, and could be hit with a judgment for $150,000 for each copyrighted work you copied. Think it's fair use? You have to get a court to agree with you. 6) Copyright extends generations beyond the death of the author. 7) Copyrights are almost always taken by publishers in return for publishing works by authors, and royalties are paid according to the publisher's accounting system, which may or may not reflect reality. If kids learn this stuff, they'll be much more educated voters than the folks casting ballots now who can't tell a copyright from a trademark from a hole in the ground. Educated voters might just get this legal insanity changed.
Is there anyone else who is thinking of thid before?
I guess we're going another versions of the two-class-society:
Type A)
1) The ones that think that any object is worth exactly the amount of work invested in creating it. (no matter if you transform minerals and other resources into a machine or inspiration into software)
2) And the other ones who think you can charge whatever you want, as long as the idiot wanting it pays it (even if you force him to pay it), and that a copy that you made with no work at all still is worth some money that the other side earned with real work!!
Type B)
1) The ones who think information is free and still know the - nowadays old - 2nd life of the internet (the 1st one were the military one) of self-ruling academic and social cooperation and interaction where no laws are needed (best example from nowadays: wikipedia, or every other online community where the output of idiots gets instinctively ignored by others [including removing it from the places where they fall over it]).
2) The others who think of the internet as a business platform for crappy advetising and senseless money-making perpettum mobiles where you get money for not doing anything worth something, and where you need to have primitive stuff as laws* to force the poeple do it their antiquated and archaic offline way.
* the simple cause why laws - from their most inner core - are senseless is, that good poeple don't need laws to do the right, and that bad poeple don't care for them. The *only* rule a human community needs is: If you disagree with someone, you are not allowed to interact with him if it involves stuff related to the thing where you have different meanings, except for finding out which one did not know something the other one knows. (you know: freedom of choice is just the ability of not knowing everything. if you knwo everythign you don't have a choice anymore, because you already know how it's gonna end. )
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
This is the problem with socalism and public funding. It allows the government to force its will upon individuals. Do away with the grants and give people their tax money back. Problem solved.
Even if we accept what you say as true, it's nonsensical for educational instituions to lecture on an agenda set not by societal demands, but by lobbiest money. Its the eqivalent of holding up your driver's license until you're educated on the dangers of unprotected sex.
Or are you naive enough to believe the assemblyman was concerned with the ethics of the situation? I just wonder what big money interest got his attention with campaign contributions and constant lobbying.
Believe me, kids swapping songs is not the downfall of the republic, not even a little bit. I am offended when governments spends so much time on this issue. California's budget is such a mess that our grandchildren will be cleaning up the mess, and this guy's main concern is that Sony/BMG won't get every last dime coming to them. It's really unbelievable.
Sharing copyrighted files, via any means, without the copyright owner's permission probably against copyright law.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Excuse me? "Illegal peer-to-peer network file sharing" ??? The last time I checked, p2p was *completely* legal. It's the unauthorized sharing of copyrighted files that is illegal, not the technology for sharing them. Jeepers. They should at least mind their Ps and Qs.
geeks are cats who dig a certain kind of cool
Let me play another devil's advocate.
Everyone who buys into this "physical product" definition of theft is forgetting one thing: A specific pattern of ones and zeroes IS a physical product!
No it isn't. A medium with a physical implementation of a sequence of ones and zeros is.
Theft is naturally bad because the one who you steal from is deprived of the thing you've stolen. This is not the case with copyright infringement that deals with non-tangible things costing nothing to reproduce. The result is a possibly lost sale to you; compare that to theft. Unlike theft, which is criminalized because it's bad, copyright infringement is criminalized (and being portrayed as bad) in order for copyright to work. It's this artificial nature of copyright that makes many people oppose it.
In both cases you are in possesion of something that you should have paid for to obtain, but you didn't.
Your "should" does not explain or substantiate anything. Why should I?
Besides the fact that the current generation, in college and younger, will grow up learning more about computers than their parents and grandparents, I fail to see how this bill would teach them intro-level instruction that you posted.
/I couldn't decide which one would have come up with the idea
//does that mean RIAA A**HOLE == RIAA LAWYER
Since this particular legislator is proposing a usage parade on ethics, file-shareing, communications, and resource availability in the modern age, he nullfies his reasoning by limiting it to such.
Why has he not included learning on modern communication methods (see forums/blogs/net-comms[listserv])? Alternative software and operating system usage (see OSS/GPL)? Why does he not want to tie in people to actually LEARN how to use the internet??????????? This is backroom arm-twisting at its most obvious.
RIAA A**HOLE: Well, it seems our legal efforts aren't quite having the effect that we thought they would?
RIAA LAWYER: Perhaps we should have the kiddies learn that its very bad if they file-share.
RIAA A**HOLE: Good idea!! How bout we force state grants to learn them kids that file-sharing is bad, and is hurting our corporate profits.
RIAA LAWYER: I'll call Rep. Paidfor from our district now!!!
I also fail to see the usefullness of this proposal, when an Ed-Tech grant funds a stand-alone computer lab that has NO internet connection. Are you REALLY going to force everyone who uses those computers to sit through some bullshit lecture on ethics, file-sharing, and computer responsbility? In the case of a University, even moreso, as 'Freedom Reigns' with regard to most networks!
Sometimes the ineptitude of elected officials is enough that it makes you want to break down and file-share a song(see break the law).
The important question is, will this education be a vehicle for {RI,MP}AA propaganda, or will it actually be informative?
American citizens have proposed legislation that would require recipients of an educational policital science grant program to educate their students in political game theory as well. There are three areas of education that would be required: 'How to Have Your Lobbyists Pay for Everything, but Still Remain in Office' 'Securing a Lucrative Consulting Position with a Private Industry Company you Were in Charge of Regulating,' and 'Funneling Funds to Pork Projects while Cutting Essential Services 101.'
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
>Except whether or not someone should have something is a very subjective judgement.
/my/ car, but you have stolen the car from Ford. Why? Because the end result would be the same as if you stole it: You would be driving around in a car that you did not pay for. That car design cost millions to come up with. If they only sold one and the rest were "free copies", they would never make their money back, and consequently, they would never design another car!
/true/ original. Essentially, digital copying potentially increases the supply to infinity, which, obviously, has the potential to drive the demand, and likewise the price that can be commanded, to zero. It cost $14 million to develop the true original? Too bad.
>Now if I see you driving down the street in a mustang and think, "wow what a great car"
>and I aim my patented new duplicator beam at it and make myself a car just like yours...
>have I stolen your car?
You haven't stolen
Second of all, how is ownership of something subjective?!?! In our present world and economy, trade works by exchanging things of value for other things of value. If you obtain something of value, you should have to pay someone for it. What's subjective about that?
Hey, if the day ever comes where we have free energy and free replicators so we can all sit on our asses and eat bon-bons while materializing whatever goodies we want today out of thin air, then your arguement might hold some water. Until that day, your "materializing" of stuff comes at a cost to someone else, because if it weren't for the hard work of others you wouldn't be able to make your copy. That's why you are supposed to PAY for it.
>Yes but people aren't stealing that pattern, they are copying it.
>The physical pattern still exists in the original location.
But the END RESULT IS THE SAME AS IF YOU HAD STOLEN IT. You have, for all intensive purposes, the original pattern. And you didn't pay for it. If you get something for nothing it's either a gift, has no value, or you stole it.
I fully comprehend the difference in that, in fact, the ORIGINAL data still exists in its original location, so the original stuff has not been stolen. But the fact is irrefutable - your copy is, for all practical purposes, identical to the original. Every time the original gets copied at zero cost it increases the supply, which decreases the demand, which decreases the value of the
>There is a significant difference between stealing and copyright violation.
>For example one is violating someone's basic human rights according to the constitution a
>nd one is violating an artificial government granted right imposed for a particular purpose.
-snip-
Blah Blah Blah. Semantics. Bottom line: You got something of value that you didn't pay for. I'm tired of hearing people dress it up to make themselves feel better.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
My bad for being imprecise. I, wrongfully it seems, assumed that my meaning would be clear from the context.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Don't let a guy called Anonymous Coward interpret scripture for you.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
A specific pattern of ones and zeroes IS a physical product!
You should make that your sig.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
The primary reason I am against the current system of copyright, trademark and patent laws is due to a series of lectures my favorite econ professor gave on this subject in college. In the lectures he covered how copyright law came about and how it curently works. He then went on to explain, in a very rational way, why the whole thing was destined to fail from the beginning. Add in a bit about P2P and the Internet and his lectures would comply with the letter, if not the spirit, of the requirements listed in the bill.
Assuming a the bill doesn't come with a mandatory curriculum and lesson plan, what is to stop organizations like the EFF from creating a lesson plan like my profesor's and providing it to public school teachers? My guess is that a lot of the grant requestors probably have a technical inclination, read slashdot and would be open to an EFF approved lesson plan. In the long run this could lead to a generation of kids and college students (future voters) that actually know what IP law is all about.
My professor by the way was Ken Schoolland, who is also the author of a wonderful childrens book on the free market. I recommend checking it out if you have the time - http://jonathangullible.com/
The fact that it's taught makes it's inadequacies a matter of public discourse. Today's teens know more about sex than teens ever have in the past, and organiztions have sprung up specifically to counter the ignorance abstinence-only programs foster.
I think your example actually strengthens my angle - the reaction to teaching Copyright issues will force the issue to the fore, and even if the official program is defective, it will provoke alternative sources of information and discussion on the subject.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
But that isn't the definition of stealing, not as the dictionary puts it, not as the law says it is, not as kids are tought as... kids for one reason... it si TOO SIMPLISTIC... using your argument people can call everything under the sun stealing, which is why this simply will not do.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
...IF said education really teaches copyright laws. NOT the FUD spread by the content industry.
Not all copying is illegal! There are very valid cases in which copying is allowed and a very few selected cases where it's even legal to circumvent or outright break copy protection schemes. What should also be taught is under which circumstances copyright prevention is illegal!
IF you teach that, more power to you!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
As practised by Hollywood is somewhat on shifting sand; I'm looking forward to my free-libre DVD of Steamboat Willie, and when that arrives I will be willing to discuss it. (Personally, I think that 'freeing' some of the early Mickey Mouse cartoons would be brilliant for the Disney brand. But I accept that it is not by decision.)
It would be fascinating to see the democratic mandate for the copyright law. Which public referendum was is put to, how did the vote go, and when will it be revisited ?
2) I copy your CD. End result: You have your CD, I have a copy of your CD.
Surely you see that there is a huge difference here.
He *knew* it's illegal... he just didn't care. At least not until he thought that the danger of getting caught was real to him.
But of course, if I _DO_ report it, I'd be out of a job (one that it took me a very long time to find), because it's not like a company can't come up with a legally valid reason to fire someone if they really want to (besides which they would probably go out and buy the software right away after I was gone, making my accusation appear false)
But my point is that until the danger of being caught was real, he didn't care. And I think that's probably the way most people are with regards to piracy. They can be educated about copyright until the cows come home, but until the danger of being caught becomes *REAL* to them, people will just ignore it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I said:
"Everyone who buys into this "physical product" definition of theft is forgetting one thing: A specific pattern of ones and zeroes IS a physical product!"
>No it isn't. A medium with a physical implementation of a sequence of ones and zeros is.
This is the crux of the arguement. You would argue that it is the MEDIUM that is the product. It is not. Why not? Because a digital copy is, in effect, a perfect copy. It is, for all practical purposes, identical to _and_indistinguishable_from the original.
Don't give me the "Well, you don't get the original case or the original CD or the original artwork." Those things have no value. If it weren't for the digital data INSIDE those things you couldn't give away all of the above. The product is the data. Period.
>Theft is naturally bad because the one who you steal from is deprived of the thing you've stolen.
>This is not the case with copyright infringement that deals with non-tangible things costing
>nothing to reproduce. The result is a possibly lost sale to you; compare that to theft.
>Unlike theft, which is criminalized because it's bad, copyright infringement is
>criminalized (and being portrayed as bad) in order for copyright to work. It's this artificial
>nature of copyright that makes many people oppose it.
Theft is not naturally bad because you deprive someone of the thing you've stolen. It's bad because you have stolen the VALUE of that thing from them. Walmart isn't upset with you for stealing a shirt because they miss the shirt. They miss the VALUE of that shirt that they should have gotten for you to have that shirt.
I was waiting for the "possibly lost sale". This arguement also holds no water. It is true that many people who pirate things can't afford to buy what they pirated, and thus if they could not pirate, they would not have bought it anyway. But this is not the scenario we are talking about!
We are talking about someone who HAS aquired the good. If you HAVE aquired the good, you should have paid for it.
Further, just because the cost to reproduce something may be zero, this does not mean the cost to produce the ORIGINAL was zero. If it costs me $40 million to produce the first item, but I can produce a million more for free, Either I have to get $40 million for the first item, or I have to get $40 per item for the next million items. If you destroy the later option, which is what piracy does, then only the first option remains. And that is unsustainable.
I said:
"In both cases you are in possesion of something that you should have paid for to obtain, but you didn't."
>Your "should" does not explain or substantiate anything. Why should I?
It should be obvious. It is because if you don't pay for it them someone else is bearing the burden for you. You are enjoying the fruits of someone else's labor, for free, without their consent.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Laws are not.
If they want to teach the LAW, and not interperet it via 'ethics' then thats fine with me. But stray a tiny bit from the facts and it should be stopped.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
i was born a free and sovereign being ..
..
..
..
..
..
..
.. so often espoused these days .. is a very convenient system for controlling natural beings .. by those in a privileged position of power.. haven't you noticed how the vast majority of politicians are either lawyers .. doctors .. or accountants ..
.. forgive me .. their education makes them qualified and gives them the "right" to rule over my life ..
.. though still to limiting links:
.. is knowing that it is destined to fail miserably and most likely with a catastrophic result .. though it maybe with a whimper do to a lack of atmospheric oxygen ..
i never granted anyone authority over my life and being
i don't require anyone granting me rights and privileges
and i never agreed to play by anyone's rules
but the vast majority of people
who have gone through the state controlled education system (mass brain washing) and grown up being influenced by a corporate controlled media (propaganda machine)
are not likely to know or remember this fact..
the vast majority of beings are/have accepted a "Social" world based on competition and control VS cooperation and empowerment
the rule of law and political party based democracy (limited dictatorships)
oh!
John Taylor Gatto - Challenging the Myths of Modern Schooling
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/
The Underground History of American Education
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm
some relevant
How I Clobberd Every Bureaucratic Cash-Confiscatory Agency Known To Man- Mary Croft
http://www.wealth4freedom.com/law/Mary.htm
Natural person - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_person
Paradigm
http://www.naturalperson.com/
Natural Persons
http://naturalpersons.org/
the only comforting fact in my life
I said:
"In both cases you are in possesion of something that you should have paid for to obtain, but you didn't."
>But that isn't the definition of stealing, not as the dictionary puts it, not as the law says it is,
>not as kids are tought as... kids for one reason... it si TOO SIMPLISTIC...
The fact of the matter is, stealing has BECOME simplistic, and thus the definition has changed.
Like I have been saying, there is no fundamental difference in the end result whether you walk out of the store with a CD or if you download it off of the internet. THERE IS NO FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE IN THE END RESULT. So how can one be one thing and the other be something else?
>using your argument people can call everything under the sun stealing, which is why this simply will not do.
I'm confused. Please give me an example of something else under the sun that could be called stealing based on my definition?
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
ie - through the poorly thought out and worded DMCA laws, that, through encryption technologies, will virtually extend copyrights to infinity..
Oh - that work is encrypted - you cannot decrypt it without authorization, meaning you can NEVER *legally* view / reproduce it without the encryption.
Encryption technologies for copyrighted works should have embedded date calculations that disable the encryption once the copyright period has expired, otherwise, the product illegaly extends copyright.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
The MPAA has (rather unsuccessfully) held classes in high schools across the US (such as one they had about a year or two ago in Urbana, Illinois) ostensibly aimed at teaching the students about American copyright law. It was reported in the local paper (the News-Gazette) at the time. Their view, like yours below, was dangerously myopic and factually incorrect. The kids in Urbana saw through it and asked tough questions which the corporate representative couldn't answer.
Knowing how close representatives are to their corporate funders, I strongly suspect that any state program will be no different in California.
No, it's not blanketly "against copyright law". But it's so nice of you to dismiss the value of others opinions on the matter while asserting your own incorrect one.
In the US, distributing copies of any copyrighted work depends on the license under which the work is distributed. Under some licenses, legal distribution can occur. I can legally share copies of any Free Software program I want. I can share copies of any work not under copyright—works in the public domain. I can share copies of my own copyrighted works. And the mechanism I use to do this is immaterial (be it a "p2p" program or something else).
Digital Citizen
P2P file-sharing isn't against copyright law. Sharing copyrighted files, via a P2P file-sharing program, without the copyright owner's permission is against copyright law.
Careful yourself! Non-commercial redistribution has always been permitted under fair use. If I understand the situation, the extent to which you can redistribute copyrighted content electronically online remains as yet undefined in most countries. P2P sharing of copyrighted files without permission isn't necessarily against copyright law.
People who can't comprehend why the RIAA keeps alienating their customer base by suing them into oblivion are missing this fundamental piece which is the motivation behind the whole thing. The RIAA is essentially trying to convince the general public that this behavior is illegal when it's legality is still very much in question by repeating the same scenario of lawsuit and settlement over and over. "Why would they settle and pay big money if they did nothing wrong?" Repetition makes things sink in and by having story after story in the press about someone getting sued and settling they build de-facto legal precedent and change public opinion.
If you remember, they tried this tactic in France recently and it backfired. The judge ruled it wasn't against the law.
I think most people believe that the benefit to society of allowing online redistribution out ways the harm to companies and as power really does come from the people, eventually it will probably be legal most places, especially since it's unclear as to whether there is any harm at all and the benefits are obvious.
If we could only remove our politicians motivation to do what the RIAA wanted we'd probably be rid of this problem here in the US already.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
>1) I steal your CD. End result: I have your CD, you have no CD.
>
>2) I copy your CD. End result: You have your CD, I have a copy of your CD.
>
>Surely you see that there is a huge difference here.
Yes, I do.
Surely you can see that from YOUR perspective, however, there is NO difference here. The end result is the same. You have aquired something of value and not paid for it. Moreover, you aquired it at my cost in both cases.
But even from MY perspective, the difference is trivial. What you are overlooking, though, is that even in the second case, where I technically still have my CD, in point of fact every time someone makes a copy of it you have reduced the MONETARY VALUE of my CD. Why? Because you have increased the supply of that item, which conversely decreases the price I can demand for it. As more and more people copy it, it's value becomes less and less. Eventually, in terms of VALUE, my CD becomes WORTHLESS in terms of monetary value, in spite of the fact that I still physically possess it.
In the case of ME, I suppose you could argue that the monetary value of my CD isn't important, it's the personal, or sentimental value I attach to the music that has value, and that measure of value has not changed by other people copying it. True enough. But this is not true for the guy who MADE the CD. It cost him a lot of money to make that CD. For him, it's the ability to SELL the CD - the MONETARY value that has value. And when you GUT that ability, you have gutted his ability to pay for the process that allowed him to make the CD.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Theft is wrong because someone is deprived of their property. Not because someone gains. Gaining without causing loss to others is not, in itself, wrong. The whole concept of capitalism is based on doing just this.
But it doesn't matter. If copyright infringement is wrong, justify it on the grounds that copyright infringement is wrong. Not on the grounds that its sort of like stealing, and stealing is wrong. Otherwise I'll counter with "There's nothing wrong with stealing".
It's a thought provoking question, that's for certain. It seems to me (having taken a high school law course way back when), that any such class would have to take a partially historical perspective on it, and also keep to the letter of the law (rather than a vague "filesharing is bad" type of deal).
I mean, there are some things that keep cropping up again and again just on Slashdot that make my head spin, and if I had to teach a class I'd make certain I covered the following:
1. The history of copyright law on an international level. I'm not talking about starting with the U.S. Constitution, because that's not where it starts. I'm talking about starting with stuff like the Stationer's Log in Shakespeare's day, and how the idea of intellectual rights and their purposes developed (and there was an ongoing development - intellectual rights in the 17th century existed to protect publishers from being undercut by other publishers, sort of as a "being fair to the other guy" sort of thing, and there was NO protection for the actual authors at all).
2. The difference between American intellectual property law and international intellectual property law. Again, there are some big differences. The Berne Convention, which represents the international standard, is NOT the DMCA. And this is very important when dealing with the Internet, as it is a medium that crosses international borders (and, as an example, as a Canadian writer on a day-to-day level I honestly don't care too much about the US Constitution or US copyright law, but I am very keen on the Berne Convention).
3. The difference between copyright (including fair use), trademark, and the patent office. If you create something that you want to protect, where do you take it? And if you're a programmer who wants to do a check to make sure something isn't already covered in IP, where do you look?
4. Where the Internet fits in. What's the legal difference between uploading and downloading, and when is it legal to do either? Where do you go to check if you're not sure? If you do break the law, what are the consequences, and what are the legal considerations?
5. The difference between proper use of copyright law (such as an author protecting the world s/he created in their fantasy novel, or selling first publication rights, or putting some code under the GPL), and abuse of copyright law (such as the RIAA using the law to extort money from random people by threatening lawsuits).
6. How to protect yourself under copyright law, and how the technology fits into it. How do you protect that code you just wrote from being stolen (or, for example, the code you write in your spare time at home from being claimed by the corporation you work for as their own)? How do you protect yourself from something like a lawsuit by the RIAA? How do you keep others from using you to break the law (and, for that matter, I've often wondered just how many people got an RIAA lawsuit tossed at them when their only crime was not password protecting their wireless LAN connections)?
And I think that covers it...
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
I have decided I'm not buying it.
In which case you are stealing the income from him that he would have received had you bought it.
Theft is theft, and don't go trying to play silly word games to call it any different.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Like I have been saying, there is no fundamental difference in the end result whether you walk out of the store with a CD or if you download it off of the internet.
Except there is. In the first case the store has one less CD and in the second case it doesn't.
Please give me an example of something else under the sun that could be called stealing based on my definition?
Going to a friend's place and watching a DVD they bought.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
"perhaps we should begin to explore the larger social issues in intro-level instruction as well? "
My CS Degree requires that we take a computer ethics course. Now, for starters, it was a philosphy course. In that environment, things can be argued from many perspectives. For example, from what you said, with p2p an argument can be made that the artist is being denied compensation for their work, but another argument is that they didn't lose anything by a duplication (economically, your reserve price for their "legal" mp3 may be much higher than the artist is selling it for, just as an example of why they wouldn't get a sale anyway), but they may get extra advertising in the process (Didn't Metalica rise from the 1980s tape swapping curcuit? They may have opted into that though, which does change things).
It all depends on a person's assumptions. And all you can really do to influence those base assumptions is to challenge them.
When I think about it, ethics is the only thing that can be taught. Laws like this are not set in stone (I believe that Disney is trying to alter one of the branches of so called "Intellectual Property", but I don't know enough about IP to begin to comment on that [maybe I should have taken a course... I love hypocrisy...]). So what is the point of teaching students something that they are going to have to find out for themselves anyway, other than giving an introduction.
As for ethics, it didn't change my stance on anything. Nor did it teach me anything. And even if it did, being lawful doesn't necessarily make a person ethical, positive or negative.
Besides, most unethical things in the work place are probably caused by money-seeking people anyway. And if they are ignoring their long-term career for short-term, ill-gotten gain (however great the gain may be), they probably aren't going to be influenced by some course they were forced into taking when they were younger.
*disclaimer: I do not download and burn mp3s, but I feel I have the legal right to do so because I am Canadian and pay taxes on blank CDs which goes towards content providers... (I use blank CDs and occasionaly DVDs for burning Linux/BSD install or live CDs (I try a new distro or version at least once a month)... and I think THEY should get my paid taxes.)
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
Those courses would be as meaningful as the copyright law courses will be to the "awareness" concerning intellectual property.
Is there ANYONE out there who doesn't know that you shouldn't download the current CD of (insert overhyped whistle buoy here)? Do we care?
Politicians would probably care just as much.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why don't we start with criminal law. After all, I never received any instruction in any of my K-12 classes about the basics of criminal law.
The basics of contract law would probably be good to teach as well. After all, most people enter into contracts all the time without thinking about it.
Since tort law covers non-criminal actions that are harmful to others, I think we should give some instruction to students in tort law as well. After all, battery is a tort, and after they reach the age of majority, those students will be fully responsible for their own actions.
Now I'll take my tongue out of my cheek. Don't you find it odd that the only sort of law this guy wants to teach our students is law that most directly influences... drumroll, please... big content companies (and there are more than a few in the L.A. area, which is where his district lies).
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Teach the little rugrats what Copyrights and Patents were originally intended to do. Teach them how corporations (*cough*Disney*cough*) subverted the system so that they could reap the profits of long-dead artists for generations. Teach them why it's getting increasingly difficult to share music your band created on the Internet. Teach them why video labs are so afraid of lawsuits that they won't burn public domain programs or news stories about your family members to DVD for you. Teach them all that and maybe, just maybe, enough of them will be outraged enough about it all that the system might actually change in a couple of decades when they become voters.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Except that property rights exist apriori, and copyrights are an incentive society has decided to trade in return for improving the public domain. Having something you did not have before weakens your arguement because that is a good thing, it is the whole point of copyright law. It improves a countries cultural heritage. The reason copyright violation is wrong under cirtain circumstances is because it makes producing more works less appealing, not because the right itself is violated because the right does not exist apriori. People have the right to own property before we legislate that they do, morally. They do not have copyrights apriori. The two cases are morally and legally completely different.
Just teach copyright.
Tell them why downloading a song you havent paid for is bad.
Tell them why copying text from an article on the internet and pasting it into a school report (without permission from the creator of the article) is bad.
etc.
The copyright cartels are focusing too much on HOW copyright infringment happens (i.e. p2p etc) and not on the fact that ALL copyright infringment is illegal already and that focusing on p2p doesnt make it any more or less illegal.
>We are talking about someone who HAS acquired the good. If you HAVE acquired the good, you should have paid for it.
Earlier in thread, somebody was making the argument that because the person who acquired the good had expended time and CPU cycles they HAD paid for a good, though not paid the owner of the copyright or any authorized distributor.
I want to know why you feel that if somebody acquires the good there is some inherent SHOULD that dictates they need to have paid for it, regardless of whether or not they are actually obtaining a physical material good in the possession of another party. If I find out that you really like the sculpture of David and choose to sculpt for you a perfect replica of David, allowing you to now enjoy the presence of that artwork where you choose to place it, have I become a thief?
You no longer need to travel somewhere to view the sculpture in person and you no longer need to pay the museum who houses it for entrance to view it, but the original David is still where it was and in the possession of who possessed it at that time, what I have actually done is taken a concept originated by another, and duplicated the work they did. I have reduced the value of the original because it is now less exclusive, there is less demand as I have increased supply and you could begin allowing people to view your David instead. You might even charge for that pleasure as there is still only two of them until I finish sculpting my world set and you may not want to let just anybody come waltzing through your house to see it.
As to whether or not the original creative source would continue producing works knowing I would be able to duplicate them, if they are solely producing the work for the potential profit, no they probably won't. As long as they have some means of getting basic needs for survival met, if they actually derive personal enjoyment from the creative process then they probably would still have a desire to continue, especially if they still get full crediting for original creation and are respected for having brought a new work, but once they have produced a concept and that concept is circulated, they have no inherent right to control what other people do with knowledge of the concept.
The bottom line is that downloading content without paying for it functionally is identical to stealing it because the end result is the same. [] In both cases you are in possesion of something that you should have paid for to obtain, but you didn't.
You're ignoring the very reason why stealing is wrong: because the victim is deprived of the stolen item. If that weren't true, there'd be no reason to condemn stealing at all; there's nothing wrong with getting something for free as long as you aren't taking it away from someone else. And it isn't true of copyright infringement.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
If instead they were only rewarded once (like a painter for a great piece of work) then there'd be incentive to produce more art. Just because music is so easy to duplicate does not mean the artist should be given a percentage of that for each copy. (Although I suppose, that is already true, since the record companies are usually getting that, not the artist).
However my main reason I will not buy CD's or DVD's but just rip them off whenever I can: I donot like the fact that 95+ percent of the retail price of such an item does not actually go to the artist, but is instead wasted on distribution chains, record executives, marketing, the "music video" (that I will never see, or even want to see), and all that other crap.
The fact that I could get the "goods" easily for free makes a pretty good argument that that other 95% of the price is just one thing: overhead, or more accurately leeches trying to make a dime (and being very good at that) at the expensive of the people producing the actual art -- if you can call the musical crap being produced these days "art".
Have you hugged your penguin today?
Nothing wrong with a bit of good old indoctrination... Let's not forget to throw in some education on the stifling effect that software patents have on innovation. After students have submitted their programming course work it will be an interesting exercise for them to find out how many patents they have infringed upon.
To make it more fun, split the class in two groups and let the two groups find infringing patents in the works of the other group. All students in the group with the most infringements fail the course.
It is true that many people who pirate things can't afford to buy what they pirated, and thus if they could not pirate, they would not have bought it anyway.
Indeed, most piracy these days is in the more deprived parts of the world, Africa (esp. Somalia) for a start. Of course being too poor to afford the cargo in no way excuses taking it by force and killing or kidnapping/ransoming crews.
But this is not the scenario we are talking about!
Yeah I thought we were talking about copyright infringement too - must have been watching too much Peter Pan with my kids.
If we just had different words for different things then we'd all know what we were talking about. Oh, wait, we do:
Theft: depriving owner of item
Piracy: siezing of ship by force
Copyright infringment: copying of item without permission of copyright holder
Simple, clear, not confusing - that's why we have different words for different things, so why not use them ?
It's bad because you have stolen the VALUE of that thing from them.
Except that by definition stealing applies to property, not value. Deprivation of value is not stealing (stealing implies deprivation of value, but the converse does not follow - simple logic).
I climb in your window and take your cash (lets say $1000) from your house.
I take a key and damage your car paintwork, repairs cost you $1000.
I convince you to invest $1000 in my pyramid scheme which then collapses.
I publish an article saying that your $10 viagra pills are fake (when I know they aren't), next day 100 orders are cancelled.
I threaten to publish your previous history as a fake-viagra-seller unless you pay me $1000.
I get you to pay me $1000 to "protect" your warehouse at night because there's been a few fires lately and it only takes a kid with a petrol can and a fire would really hurt your business right now and...
I burn down your warehouse (fortunately you rented it and only had $1000 in stock)
I take your dog and return it only after you've paid $1000 ransom.
I board a ship and seize the cargo, which happends to include a $1000 tv you are shipping.
I make 2000 copies of a CD on which you get $1 royalty per sale, half the people I give those copies too would have bought the CD.
In every case I deprive you of the value of $1000, in each case illegally, but what did I _do_ ?
Theft (stealing), vandalism, fraud, libel, blackmail, extortion, arson, kidnapping, piracy, copyright infringement.
So many words for so many different ways to take $1000 from you. But the effect is the same - I've taken $1000 from you illegally - so why don't we just call all of them "stealing" ?
Answer: because they are all _different_ so we use different words.
They should, of course, include other topics about ethical behavior - like what should happen to legislators that accept funds or favors from lobbyists and then write favorable legislation for them. Of course that can't be the case here since we all know the RIAA gives all its money to the artists...
Now, not only is the teaching of religion (via Intelligent Design) discussed as a valid matter for legislation in strict violation of the separation of church and state set forth by our founders, but companies are managing to pay for legislation to promote their profits at the expense of universal advancement.
It is a sad day and Thomas Jefferson et al are rolling in their graves!
Yes, theft is theft, just like one equals one. Now what does this have to do with copyright infringement, again?
effective laws against bribery of politicians might help. but then who'd run the country?
Web Design
Entitled "Ethics in the Information Age" at University of Maryland (UMUC)
The text books for this class were
Case Studies in Information Technology Ethics (second edition) by Richard A Spinello, published by Prentice Hall.
Ethics in Information Technology by George Reynolds published by Thompson.
This class was anything but a "anti download" brainwashing session.
Most of it focussed on the kinds of issues we developers and engineers have to contend with in terms of protecting the privacy of customer data, product liability, international/cross-cultural issues, and things like that.
The course started with an overview of how to do an Ethical Analysis of a situation, then we discussed case studies for the rest of the term, and wrote opinions, etc. I think it was a very valuable experience, and I think that all IT professionals should, indeed, take this class.
Yes, we did talk about software piracy, and other forms of copyright/patent violation. By and large, the mood of the class in analyzing these issues was that yes, illegal copying is wrong, but not as wrong relative to say, stealing a car or killing someone. Mainly, I think we learned that making unauthorized copies of software in a professional capacity is especially bad (even if it's for charity) mainly because you're exposing a broader group of stakeholders (ie. your employers, their stockholders, etc) to the liability. It was really an interesting and enlightening class, and it make me think about some things I never thought about before.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
"Copyright is a loan from the public domain created by Congress, not property."
Not quite, see below.
"The sole interest of the United States and the primary object in conferring the monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors[emphasis mine]"
However "grace" or no grace. Society needs it's authors more, than the authors need society.* Also physical goods enjoy a natural protection against those who would derive benefit without compensation. Copyright and other laws bring that protection to "ethereal" goods.
*An author can go into a "safer" profession to sustain themselves. What can a society ethically[1] do to sustain themselves when faced with unwilling participants?
"Until lobbyists recently bought draconian legislation from Congress, copyright infringement was a civil offense, not a criminal offense such as stealing something that physically exists like a TV, or a CD in a store. The entertainment industry with their lawyers and lobbyists have made so-called intellectual propery even more valuable than things you can hold in your hand. This is patently absurd. Teaching students this absurdity in a classroom is as out of place as intelligent design."
Two things your side keeps forgetting. One there were no computers, or internet back when copyright was first created. Two a modern society wouldn't exist without the intellectual capital created. You act surprised that an "ethereal" good can be as valuable as a physical good, even though the evidence is all around you. As for the punishment, well I'm certain when "civil" penalties were enacted, there was no technology that could make a perfect copy, and dissiminate it worldwide in an instant. So why should the law stay static, when technology certainly isn't.
[1] There's always slavery which worked on those "unwilling" slaves, and society benefitted. But I don't think it would work on authors.
In both cases you are in possesion of something that you should have paid for to obtain, but you didn't.
But as to whether someone should pay for something or get it for free is merely a matter of opinion. If I find a block of gold on the ocean floor in unclaimed waters, who should I have paid for it? If I find a block of gold in a store, I should probably pay the store owner. Copyrighted works are somewhere in between (and a bit to one side). There is no ethical reason why I should pay copyright owners, only practical ones.
Like I have been saying, there is no fundamental difference in the end result whether you walk out of the store with a CD or if you download it off of the internet. THERE IS NO FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE IN THE END RESULT.
So If I shoot someone in the head, they are dead and I have committed murder. But if I sell someone a gun and they shoot themselves in the head I have still committed murder? After all, the end result of my actions is the same, right?
P.S. Your caps lock seems to be broken.
You cannot simply copy another person's work, and claim it as your own -- you need to rewrite things in your own words,
OK, so given say a piece of instrumental music, how would one "rewrite" that in one's own "words"?
"Original copyright law allowed fourteen years for works to be mechanically reproduced and distributed by horse and buggy. Today's copyright law allows life plus nearly a century for works to be electronically reproduced and instantaneously distributed. Where is the sense in this?"
Jesus S. Christ! Copyright ultimately is about the "creation" of "works". If there is nothing created, then there is nothing to "electronically reproduce, and instantaneously distribute." Period! The length of copyright bears only a superficial resemblance to speed of copying and distribution, and a stronger correlation with effort to create and recoup.
..complete with handcuff pictures.
..what about countries where it's legal to do that? Will they talk about countries that don't have any copyright law?
These advertisements were openly mocked when I was in school, and I can just imagine how badly they'll be laughed at. I find it interesting that they focus on peer-to-peer networks though. What about the evils of sharing music with your friends?
How about some history, or will that be re-written? Many developing countries didn't always hold foreign patent protection in the highest regard.
I actually don't have a problem with this in schools, so long as it's facts and not biased, legally processed corporate driven being presented.
..don't panic
Anybody who believes the first quote doesn't understand publishing. Anyone who believes the second quote doesn't understand economics and doesn't understand the third quote:
"everybody enjoys a greater amount of entertainment at a cheaper cost and publishers, made useless by modern advances in technology, no longer become billionaires on the backs of artists?"
"corporate big-wigs getting rich should have their methods and profits guaranteed?"
"I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Vote for Pedro
"How does a person getting paid the rest of their life for a work they created yesterday encourage them to create a new work tomorrow?"
You're arguing from four false premises. One most works aren't done "yesterday". Two having a copyrighted work (or patented for that matter) doesn't automatically mean the creator will get compensated. Three, having a copyrighted or patented work doesn't imply perpetual profits. The rules governing market forces still are in effect. Four, compensation doesn't always mean money.
What copyright, patent does create is an opportunity to be compensated, and it prevents others from infringing on that specific opportunity.
this question:
"But how many people still don't use their turn signals, run red lights and drive over the speed limit?"
EVERY SINGLE COP IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE, whatever that number currently is. That's your base number to build on for further research.
I'm still waiting for sex-ed..
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
And after most motorcycle accidents, quite often also not donors of other organs either.
(Anyone want a squashed liver? Or a flattened lung? Anyone? Come on! It's 50% off!)
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
You would argue that it is the MEDIUM that is the product.
It's not "productness" that matters, it's "physicality".
Theft is not naturally bad because you deprive someone of the thing you've stolen. It's bad because you have stolen the VALUE of that thing from them. Walmart isn't upset with you for stealing a shirt because they miss the shirt. They miss the VALUE of that shirt that they should have gotten for you to have that shirt.
Wrong. The value they miss is related only to the PHYSICAL PRESENCE of this shirt, which is a) the cost of reproducing it, and b) the missed opportunity to sell THIS SPECIFIC shirt to SOMEBODY ELSE who would be SURE TO BUY it but didn't because the shirt was absent. See all these constraints in caps? Everything beyond is just speculation - they are NOT guaranteed to sell it to a specific person or sell it at all. Which leads us to the following point.
I was waiting for the "possibly lost sale". This arguement also holds no water. It is true that many people who pirate things can't afford to buy what they pirated, and thus if they could not pirate, they would not have bought it anyway. But this is not the scenario we are talking about!
Why not? This is, IN PARTICULAR, the scenario we are talking about. There are plenty of people who cop works they wouldn't buy at all or buy at the price you ask. Therefore, if somebody of them copies your work, it does NOT mean that you're deprived of value equal to $RETAIL_PRICE_FOR_THAT_WORK. See, your assertion of being deprived does not hold for a (rather large) subset of cases, ergo it is not true in the general case. But again, people are made to believe this and given negative stimuli in the form of criminalization in order for copyright to work.
Either I have to get $40 million for the first item
Yep, this is how it should be. If you can't, then tough shit. If you invested a lot of money in something, it doesn't mean that the object of your investment has that much value or that you're entitled to get that money back.
As to your "should", you've already got enough answers (or questions) to this from other users.
I hate to tell you, but your deep linking violates copyright, and your argument is therefore nullified.
Oh well, that might be BS, but it's not like we don't know that some people would like it that way.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
If kids are going to be taught about IP, they should get the facts, not just the whitewashed mainstream corporate bipartisanized equivalent of the facts.
They should know the spectrum belongs to the people, but is given freely to the networks, diminishing public use of their own property.
They should know about the extensions of copyright that have thwarted the public domain's fruit from being free for all.
They should know about fair use.
They should know about the abuses of patents.
They should also know about the possibilities of collective commons, open source, and the like; the choice an artist or inventor has to let their creations be available to all.
They really should know the price of freedom: we can't give up privacy, freedom of speech, p2p, all in the course of trying to please (not protect) some special interest. A corporation owes its existence not to reality, but to a convention, a method of social organization that makes things easier to manage. A human owes its existence to other humans, to the planet.
Rather than teaching our kids about the conventional world that makes it easy to say to ourselves, "Oh, but the only way is to do it the way we always have," while ignoring that for a long damn time people didn't have to balance a checkbook just to live a life, we should teach them about mistakes.
We should show children that questions are the only way to get at truth, and that if they but dare ask, we might just feel silly enough about the way we do things to change.
Selah.
In the hands of a sensible instructor, that last might well include "the Statute of Anne, or the US Constitution's Progress Clause". After all, how can you understand significance without historical perspective?
Disclaimer: I may be biased from having worked for Technology Historians for the past half decade.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Sorry, that is incorrect (in the US).
Fair use covers copying for purposes of "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research" and ONLY if certain use-tests are met (source: USC 17, 1 107).
Read the 10 Big Myths about copyright explained for more info.
Yeah, right.
>Oh, but there is a difference even from my perspective. First of all, I used my own
> resources to make a copy.
The resources that you expend to make a copy are so insignificant compared to the resources expended to make the original that they are effectively nil.
>Second, by not physically taking your CD, you are still
>my friend, and you will not feel obliged to report this to the authorities.
Then why are the record companies not your friend when you do this to them? Could it be that it isn't the physical CD that has the value being taken?
>I've got legal CD's here, and the last thing I care about is the 'monetary value'
>of those CD's. In fact, if I told friends of mine they cannot copy my CD's because
>by doing so it would reduce the value of the things I paid for, they'd laugh..
>and rightly so. Not to mention they'd likely will start avoiding me for being a
>complete nutcase.
You don't care about the monetary value of your CDs because _you_don't_need_that_value_to_feed_your_family. Unlike an artist, and all of the thousands of people employed bringing an artist's music to market.
>Sorry, I see no reason why an artist that creates a hit-single has the RIGHT to demand
>payment for that single act millions of times.
Well just what, then, would you suggest? Selling only the original copy? How much do you think he would have to sell that original copy for in order to feed his family for, say, six months? $30,000? $20,000? Are you going to step up and pay that? Is anyone, when they know they can just wait and get a copy for free?
>In fact, that artist would probably never need to create a hit-single again, and could >just retire and never do anything artistic ever again -- a great loss for us all.
And yet while some artists do indeed do this, many do not. Why?
How many artists do you think would be inspired to write another song after making a million bucks on the first one? How many artists do you think would be inspired to write another song after making nothing on the first one?
>If instead they were only rewarded once (like a painter for a great piece of work)
>then there'd be incentive to produce more art. Just because music is so easy to
>duplicate does not mean the artist should be given a percentage of that for each copy.
The thing is, they won't even be rewarded once, because the price that that reward would have to be would be so astronimical that no one would pay it, especially since a perfect copy will be available for free.
The only reason the painter can get away with it is because paintings are not so easily duplicated. Each work is a one-of-a-kind, and if you want one, you will pay whatever it takes. I just looked last weekend at a painting a fellow did - a 3-panel depiction of the burning of Joan of Arc. It took him about FOUR YEARS to do. If the guy wants to make $30,000 a year, that makes that at least a $120,000 painting. He might be able to demand that for this painting, because it is the only one of its kind. But if it could be easily and instantly duplicated and distributed with no payment to him, do you think he could get $120,000 for that painting? I doubt it. So why would he ever invest another 4 years of his life in that endeavor other than for pleasure? It sure won't put food on the table.
>However my main reason I will not buy CD's or DVD's but just rip them off whenever
>I can: I donot like the fact that 95+ percent of the retail price of such an item
>does not actually go to the artist, but is instead wasted on distribution chains,
>record executives, marketing, the "music video" (that I will never see, or even
>want to see), and all that other crap.
Gosh, how noble. So instead of paying SOMETHING to the artist, you'd just rather pay nothing.
>The fact that I could get the "goods" easily for free makes a pretty good argument
>that that other 95% of t
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>Except there is. In the first case the store has one less CD and in the second case it doesn't.
/had/ walked out of the store with the CD.
No, there isn't.
In both cases, you have valuable property that you didn't pay for. From your perspective, there is no difference. You ended up with the ones and zeroes and virtually no cost to yourself, no differently than if you
Even from the store's perspective there ultimately will be no difference, either. In both cases, the monetary value of the item is driven to zero. You might as well have stolen the actual CD from the store because the store still won't be able to sell it and get the money out of it that it paid for it.
"Please give me an example of something else under the sun that could be called stealing based on my definition?"
>Going to a friend's place and watching a DVD they bought.
This does not meet my definition, because my definition of stealing has been given as you being in possesion of something that you didn't pay for.
When you go to a friend's place and watch his DVD, you are watching the DVD, and the data on it, that is in HIS possesion, not yours.
Obviously we are not talking about gifts or borrowing, because both were paied for by someone and one was willingly given to you for free and the other you have to give back. We are talking about permanent possession.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
*Whooosh*
I'm on your side. My comment was humor. Look at his "buying" line I quoted and look at how he used it and look at what it was he wasn't buying. And then look at the surreal usage of "stealing" that I ascribed to that sort of "not buying". If he doesn't "buy it" then he is "stealing" money out of someone pocket. And just to make sure this horse is throughly beaten to death, my point was to highlight the fact that things can get very surreal and logic goes out the window when you missapply words in that manner, and that maybe we should be more careful with our words.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
How about teach them on how much copyright sucks and how evil it is, all the bad things it does, and how it limits so much and how the industry is always trying to take away rights from people and enforce their copyrights.
How about teach them to stay away from propiertary software and only use free open-source software (FOSS)?
>You're wrong. The end result is not what matters, the action is. Stealing is an action,
>not an end result. If I copy a Ford car I have probably infringed on any number of
>patents and trademarks, but I have stolen nothing.
But the end result DOES matter. If anything can be freely copied with no compensation to the original owner, then no physical thing has material value.
I don't care if you burn my house down with matches or a blowtorch - the end result is I don't have a house. I don't care if you steal a CD out of my store or simply make it worthless with infinite copies - either way I'm out my investment.
Ultimately, this argument is pointless. Things will resolve themselves one way or another. Either digtal data is going to become worthless to the point that only the idle rich can afford to produce it, or DMA is going to to lock things down sufficiently that people who make digital content can be reasonbly sure that some minimum number of the people who are consuming it are paying for it.
>By your definition if someone gave >me a gift that would be stealing,
>since I did not pay for it and I still have something.
Surely you can understand that even a gift that was given to you was _paid_for_by_someone. We are not talking about gifts, and you know it.
>True, such a device would greatly change the industry and probably cause large car
>manufacturing operations to lay off thousands. The economic impact would be severe.
>But what does any of this have to do with whether or not it is ethical or legal?
Because thousands of people have put their lives into something with the expectation that they can get paid from it and you are reaping the benefits of that for FREE. You don't see an ethical problem here?
>Would you halt all progress to insure that every business that is making money
>now will continue to do so? The traditional example is the drastic decline
>carriage sales with the advent of the car industry. Plenty of laws were passed
>trying to make cars hard to own and to ensure progress was halted. Back in the
>day in many places if you were driving down the road (at the 5mph speed limit
>designed to ensure cars were no faster than horses) and you saw a horse coming
>you had to pull over and hide your car in the bushes.
Of course I'm not for protecting businesses who's products are eclipsed by a superior product. What you are talking about, though, is not destroying the value of carriages by replacing the carriage with a superior alternative, you are doing it by simply copying it.
It's one thing for a business to fail because it couldn't compete. It's another thing entirely WHEN YOU DON'T EVEN GIVE THEM A CHANCE.
>This is analogous to current copyright laws and the DMCA now. Technology has
>progressed, but the industry wishes it hadn't so they try to artificially
>restrain progress by paying off corrupt politicians.
Sure "technology" has progressed. But not like you would have us believe. Has some technology come along that obsoletes digital data? No. All that has come along is technology that makes copying existing digital data virtually free. It's not about trying to restrain progress, or stifle competition.
>First, the subjective part is where you said "something you should not have."
>Whether or not someone should have something is wholly subjective.
Oh come on. If I stole a CD out of a store, would it be subjective as to whether or not I should have it or not? If you got something, and you didn't pay for it, you should not be in possession of it, unless it is a gift or a loan.
>If I want to sing "happy birthday" that is my natural right. US law does not
>dispute this in any way. It is very clear and well established. So why can't
>I sing "happy birthday" legally?
You can sing "happy birthday" legally to your heart's content. People do it every day. What you can't do is
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>Let's assume that we can take car, and make a copy of it (although it will still
>cost you about $2000 in raw materials). Let's also assume you could make a copy
>just using the "raw bistream" (or model) without having the car physically there
>to copy it. Now let's assume EVERY car company is horrified and decides to stop
>producing cars from that day forward.
>I see golden business oppertunities now -- while the old car monopolies are still
>crying over all the lost revenue, I start a company that creates custom designed
>cars -- I could create (or buy) a nice model, then hire people to customize
>these models for customers with special needs. You want a fifth wheel? You
>want a different dashboard layout? 6 gearbox instead of 5? A 2nd steering wheel?
>Special needs for specific handicaps?
Let's say you can design a custom car model in 6 months. How are you going to pay for your design team for those 6 months? Where a modern car company can spread out the cost of development over the sale of thousands or even millions of vehicles, you are going to have to get it all out of ONE. That's going to be a DAMN expensive car. I suspect you may end up with the ocassional rich patron but most people will just copy some existing design for $2000.
>Also, you'd be amazed what people will do for free, as long as it is fun (for them)
>and challenging to do. If people could create a new car model, and then create it
>(physically) you bet your ass TONS of people would do that JUST to drive their
>self designed dream car -- and some of those will give those designs away... free.
Sure. And in this highly hypothetical world it might actually work, because if we really could make things appear at will, then people would not have to work nearly as hard to produce goods.
But back here in the real world, digital content producers, even though they might love what they are doing, still have bills to pay. They need to get paid. Very few people are wealthy enough that they can dabble in what pleases them all day long for free.
>For example, I designed my own filesystem some years ago -- it was very enjoyable,
>and a lot of fun to get it working fast and correctly, and to add new features to
> it. See http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartfilesystem [sourceforge.net] (or
>look on wikipedia) -- it's a project I spend almost 2 years on, then gave away for free.
Presumably you had another source of income on which to live for those two years.
Hey, there is nothing wrong with people who WANT to make things and give them away for free. I'm not against that at all.
I'm against people who want to benefit from the fruits of the labors of people who DON'T want to give them away for free.
A man who works to produce something deserves to be able to sell the fruits of his labor at some price to people who want those fruits. It's not fair to consume the man's fruits for free if they weren't a gift to you.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
"Tell me how the end result for you is different?"
>Civil tort vs. felony car theft.
No, as I'm sure you know, I'm not talking about what are the consequences of your actions.
I'm talking about how is it different in terms of the end product in your hands?
How is walking out of a store with a CD different, in terms of what you possess after the deed, different from downloading it for free off the internet? Answer: Except for a few pennies worth of plastic and paper, it isn't any different.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
But as to whether someone should pay for something or get it for free is merely a matter of opinion. If I find a block of gold on the ocean floor in unclaimed waters, who should I have paid for it?
I'm not very familiar with salvage law, but my understanding is if it is in unclaimed waters then it's yours and you owe no one.
Come on, guys, quit grasping at straws and burrying me in caveats. They shouldn't be necessary. This is a very plain and simple situation. We're not talking about finding a lost CD on the bottom of the ocean floor, or even on the sidewalk. We aren't talking about gifts. We aren't talking about loans. We aren't talking about going over to your buddy's house and watching his DVD.
We're talking about people who are actively going out and, through their own actions, aquiring valuable digital data for free from someone who didn't intend to give it away for free.
So If I shoot someone in the head, they are dead and I have committed murder. But if I sell someone a gun and they shoot themselves in the head I have still committed murder? After all, the end result of my actions is the same, right?
This is not a good analogy. The difference is that in my example, you are responsible for BOTH actions - you stole the CD and you downloaded the CD. In your example, you are not responsible for the later action.
P.S. Your caps lock seems to be broken.
No, I'm just too lazy to type HTML. Happy now? Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I want to know why you feel that if somebody acquires the good there is some inherent SHOULD that dictates they need to have paid for it, regardless of whether or not they are actually obtaining a physical material good in the possession of another party.
Because the good could not have been acquired except for the labor of the man who created the original. It's a free ride, and that's not fair unless the man who created the original decided to give it away for free. But you don't have the right to make that decision for him.
A man who works to produce a good deserves to be able to sell the fruits of his labor at some price to those who want those fruits.
If I find out that you really like the sculpture of David and choose to sculpt for you a perfect replica of David, allowing you to now enjoy the presence of that artwork where you choose to place it, have I become a thief?
Of course not. Because if you, by your own skill, talent, time, and effort, can produce a perfect replica of David, then you have paid for that copy with your skills, your talent, your time, your effort, and whatever it cost you to acquire a good slab of marble and the tools to work it. This is called "creating value", and that statue would be the embodiment of the costs you had to spent to create it. You would be able to sell it or give it away as you may. The fundamental difference here is that when you copy a CD, the copy cost virtually nothing to create. Your copy, on the other hand, would be quite costly.
This is why, demand issues aside, when Chevy manufactures two identical Corvettes they both have the same value, even though one is technically a "copy" of the other.
Now if you are making the case that it would OK for someone to hire a band and sound staff and rent a recording studio and have a nearly perfect copy of some song made for your personal use, hey, I have no problem with that at all. Or if you want to hire some actors and support crew, rent a movie soundstage, and hire some FX to make your own perfect copy of some movie for your own personal use, sure, that's fine with me, too.
The fundamental difference here is if you want to make a perfect copy of something by the fruits of your own labor, I don't have a problem with it. It's when you want to make a copy of something by the fruits of someone else's labor, at virtually no cost to yourself, that I think it's not right.
Steve Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
So many words for so many different ways to take $1000 from you. But the effect is the same - I've taken $1000 from you illegally - so why don't we just call all of them "stealing" ?
And in fact, I'd be half tempted to, but you do have a point.
The thing is, I would consider all of the things you listed equally bad, no matter what you call them. And that is what the point here really is. So the physical act of deprivation is different in each case. The end result is the same - you're depriving me of $1000.
Most everyone here seems to dismiss "copyright infringement" as not being equally as bad as "theft". Many are even making the case that it's OK!
I don't care what you call digital content copying. Piracy. Illegal Downloading. Copyright Infringement. Theft. Whatever. The point is, it is equivalent to theft in terms of the damage it does to the content owner.
So I'll make you a deal. I'll conceed and call digital content copying whatever you want, as long as you conceed it has the same effect on the content owner as stealing.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Theft is wrong because someone is deprived of their property. Not because someone gains. Gaining without causing loss to others is not, in itself, wrong. The whole concept of capitalism is based on doing just this.
The thing is, gains are almost never possible without some expenditure. Someone is paying to produce the gain, with the hope that the gain will be enough so that they at least break even, and usually with some expectation of making a profit. If that doesn't happen, the guy who is paying to produce the gain looses.
Thus gaining through no expenditure of effort of your own, but entirely through the effort of someone else, is wrong, unless we are talking about gifts, loans, or finding bars of gold on the bottom of the ocean as someone tried to argue.
But it doesn't matter. If copyright infringement is wrong, justify it on the grounds that copyright infringement is wrong. Not on the grounds that its sort of like stealing, and stealing is wrong. Otherwise I'll counter with "There's nothing wrong with stealing".
Make no mistake - I'm not arguing that copyright infringemetn is "sort of like" stealing, I'm arguing that it is identical to stealing, in terms of the effect it has on the content creator/owner. And if you don't think there's anything wrong with stealing, well, there's no point in having this discussion.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
>The two cases are morally and legally completely different.
And yet, to the content owner, they are functionally equivalent.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
You're ignoring the very reason why stealing is wrong: because the victim is deprived of the stolen item. If that weren't true, there'd be no reason to condemn stealing at all; there's nothing wrong with getting something for free as long as you aren't taking it away from someone else. And it isn't true of copyright infringement.
But it is!
The fallacy that you and many others are making here is that copyright infringement allows you to get something for free without taking it away from someone else. There is no free lunch, folks. Creating digital content involves a cost to the content creator. This cost is accepted by the content creator because they have some expectation of selling their content to recoup those costs. In fact, most people want to do better than just break even, they want to actually make a profit, too.
When you copy someone elses work, you are getting all the benefit of their costs with no cost to yourself. The more people who do this the fewer people there are to pay to cover those costs. If enough people copy his work without paying, he won't make a profit, or even recoup his costs. That's taking something away from him, in my book.
Further, stealing is not wrong just because I'm deprived of a physical object. It also deprives me of value. If you steal a $10 bill from me, I don't miss the piece of paper. I miss the monetary value of that piece of paper. Copyright infringement destroys the monetary value of the content being copied because it drives the monetary vale of the content to zero.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Short response, no real content, no effort to address the the valid points I made. Off the cuff remark which is on the surface blatently false. I call troll. If you want a response post a real arguement both addressing what I've said and backing up what you are saying.
Let us be glad that words in our language aren't copyrighted, you didn't think of them, they are someone else's work. I doubt even your very thought is unique, perhaps you should pay for ALL of your words and thoughts too! Think about it... ops sorry I copyrighted that thought, you can't think that or it would be stealing... and you haven't even seen my licensing terms! Oh, I love your thought that everything has to be paid for...
So what happens if I'm actually capable of sculpting a replica of David in one week? What if I do it in a single day? If it takes me let's say twenty minutes to commit to memory all the nuances of the surface of David, and from then on I can pound one out in six minutes? Rather than marble, sometimes people come to me and say you know I would be just as happy if you made me a replica out of ice?
If you are saying that the issue is dependant on "your own skill, talent, time, and effort" then does that mean if it took me a hundred days to copy a retail disk to my hard drive and transfer a 1:1 image of it to somebody else on the internet then that would be enough time and effort? Or maybe it needs to take 3 years and that's enough time? Maybe I've gotten pretty good at doing it, maybe I can break a copy protection scheme in a day or two and start transferring images, would that represent enough skill and talent?
If Michaelangelo had not produced the original David, then if not for the fruits of his labor, I would have no Sculpture of David to copy. Once that first copy of that software was produced, there was something new in the world that I could choose to copy given the right means.
Whether or not you think it is right, what is being done is not stealing, is not a theft.
Hey - it's cool with me ... as long as *all* lawyers have to take Java, C++ and Assembly language, and pass all 3.
So what happens if I'm actually capable of sculpting a replica of David in one week? What if I do it in a single day? If it takes me let's say twenty minutes to commit to memory all the nuances of the surface of David, and from then on I can pound one out in six minutes? Rather than marble, sometimes people come to me and say you know I would be just as happy if you made me a replica out of ice?
As long as it is your own skill and talent being used to create the new work based on the old one, I have no problem with it.
If you are saying that the issue is dependant on "your own skill, talent, time, and effort" then does that mean if it took me a hundred days to copy a retail disk to my hard drive and transfer a 1:1 image of it to somebody else on the internet then that would be enough time and effort? Or maybe it needs to take 3 years and that's enough time? Maybe I've gotten pretty good at doing it, maybe I can break a copy protection scheme in a day or two and start transferring images, would that represent enough skill and talent?
That is an interesting arguement.
I think the difference here is that you are not using your artistic skill, talent, time, and effort to create artwork. You are using your computer skills, talent, time, and effort to copy someone else's art. Basically in order to replicate a piece of art "by hand" you have to become as talented and invest as much effort as the original author did. As long as you are doing that, I don't have a problem with it. For one thing, if it takes you as long to copy content as it takes others to create it, and you are equally talented, odds are you would simply be creating new content. Further, if it is as costly for you to make a copy as it is for the original author to make the original work, your copies will probably not devalue his work much. But when you can push a button and in seconds replicate what may have taken months or even years to create, that devalues the sale value of the original work.
Whether or not you think it is right, what is being done is not stealing, is not a theft.
OK, it's not theft. However, it has the same effect on the person who's work you copied.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
It's a bizarre argument. If I steal, the owner has to replace the property, and find someone else to sell it to. If I infringe copyright, the owner does not have to replace the copy but still has to find someone else to sell it to.
That's exactly my point. You're right - if you infringe copyright, the owner doesn't have to replace the copy, and still has to find someone else to sell it to.
What happens when everyone infringes on his copyright? Who will he sell it to then? The answer is, of course, no one. The value of his property has been reduced to null as surely as if it has been stolen.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
But that's an argument against copyright infringement. Not that copyright infringemnt is exactly the same as theft
You agree, though, that in the end, the content owner is out his money, right? Call it whatever you want then.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
It affects them in a similar manner in certain areas, but as a whole, the effect is not the same. If you have a work you produced and I actually take the physical work as a whole from you, you can no longer as for compensation from another party in return for giving them that work because it is no longer in your possession, the actual thing you were going to part with for compensation is gone. If I see that work you have produced, or if you have three of them and I buy one, then start making my own examples of that work, you still have the concept of how to produce that work, but because you are not the only one who can produce them now, we can be in competition now.
Copyright issues aside, it is one thing if you can produce my product by going to the same level of effort that I do to create it. But if you are simply clicking a button and replicating months or years of work in a second, that is not competition. Competition means a test of skills where the person with better skills has a chance at prevailing over others. No one can prevail against digital copying of their product. You can't possibly get efficient enough to be competitive against a duplication cost that is essentially zero.
If I am willing to offer them up for less compensation than you, I am undercutting your valuation of the work. Since you expended more effort in the first place to come up with the original idea, it is even understandable that you would feel slighted by me and in some sense feel that I had stolen value from you. You have no inherent right to receive compensation equal to your valuation of a work if there is a way of acquiring that work without infringing on your rights such as the right to be secure in your person and property.
What this means, then, is that digital property is worthless. Without copyright protection, I can't imagine a scenario where you could sell it. Can you?
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Well, I want to thank you for changing my mind on this.
I think you are right. Digital property can't be stolen, because it has no inherent value. People might buy boxed linux distributions, but they are paying for the convenience of the package, not the digital content, which is freely available.
Clearly we have the right to be secure in our person and our property, but being secure in our property doesn't mean securing the monetary value of that property, only the physical posession of it. I have the right to own a piece of land, and to not have it taken away from me, but there is no right to preserve the monetary value of that land. Digital property is the same way.
Music, movies, books - none of them have monetary value in the digital realm, because they are freely available. As long as we don't deprive the owners of their own physical property, the copies have no monetary value. It's very liberating, actually.
Take care,
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.