Intellectual Property Manifesto for the UK

feepcreature writes "Ars Technica is reporting that the British Library has published a Manifesto calling for a balance in Intellectual Property rights between the interests of users, creators and publishers. There are 6 key recommendations, including: DRM should not override users' statutory rights; analogue rights should apply to digital media; and copyright terms should not be extended without evidence that this would be good for society. There is also part of the debate on the UK Government's Gowers review of Intellectual Property, due to report in the Autumn."

Comments

DRM in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

So who are the DRM pushing companies in the UK?

Re:DRM in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, it's not about what companies are pushing DRM. No, see this is a library taking the fight to the copyright industry preemptively. They've seen how the movie and music industry is going after P2P services, and they know that they're next.

All this "sharing" stuff - don't you know that denying companies their deserved profit is stealing?! Think of those poor starving authors whose work you borrowed from the library instead of buying it! Thieving old gradmas, reading books for free! There should be a law I tells ya!

(Note for the humour impaired: The preceding was not serious, and should not be read if you are sarcasm deficient. Warning: Sarcasm should not be taken internally).

Re:DRM in the UK

[Antique Geekmeister]

But it was a good question: the companies are the same companies as elsewhere, both US and multi-national. Sony, Disney, Samsung, and other companies interested in DRM protecting their digital investment help prevent what folks in the US call "fair rights" use.

These desires for DRM are supported heavily by Microsoft, which wants to protect its software licenses and prevent other software from writing or even reading the private formats they use, especially for "personally encrypted" files. The whole field of DRM is about to get much worse with the "Trusted Computing" software program, led by Microsoft, which locks software and media to a specific motherboard's encryption and authentication chip, and which will als be built into the next generation of AMD and Intel CPU's. These tools are aimed squarely at preventing duplication of digital media, and create a real burden for making backup or archival copies of these media. They also specifically restrict the authorized software tools to play these media, making "fair use" sampling or even using other non-specifically licensed players very difficult.

The libraries of the world are quite right to be concerned about this.

Re:DRM in the UK

[Ngwenya]

These desires for DRM are supported heavily by Microsoft, which wants to protect its software licenses and prevent other software from writing or even reading the private formats they use, especially for "personally encrypted" files. The whole field of DRM is about to get much worse with the "Trusted Computing" software program, led by Microsoft, which locks software and media to a specific motherboard's encryption and authentication chip,

Well, hold on a sec. Microsoft has a vision for its Windows system as a home media platform - not a home computing platform. Each new version of Windows angles straight for this goal - to remove the open nature of computing, in favour of a trustworthy media consumption platform. Now, if the studios were happy to trust MS in this regard, DRM would never have happened. MS have no incentive to develop and maintain a mathematical impossibility. But the content producers will simply not produce for computer platforms unless a sufficiently robust anti copying technology is present in the system. Hence MS have no option but to invest in DRM. And since the obnoxiousness of the DMCA and EUCD came to pass, the odious nature of DRM has multiplied.

Now, as for TC related activity - there's a lot of nonsense talked about this, and I don't have time to go into it right now. TPMs are neither good nor bad. They are simply a way for the owner of the platform to measure the integrity of his/her platform, and to attest that integrity to a remote verifier. That's all it can do. The key here is the word "owner". Vista and friends are very much interested in separating the role of computer and platform owner into that of computer owner and platform licensee. As a licensee, you end up surrendering some ownership rights to MS. But fundamentally, if you control the hardware, you also control the mechanism for verifying any result. A Linux machine running with a TPM has several advantages over one which doesn't - and the TPM won't enforce one damn bit of DRM unless the platform owner wants it to.

BTW, I can't believe I inadvertently backed Microsoft in a /. post. I'll go and flay some skin from my back by way of mea culpa

--Ng

Re:DRM in the UK

[Shawn is an Asshole]

Now, as for TC related activity - there's a lot of nonsense talked about this, and I don't have time to go into it right now. TPMs are neither good nor bad. They are simply a way for the owner of the platform to measure the integrity of his/her platform, and to attest that integrity to a remote verifier.

If you're running Windows, your no longer the owner of the system.

TPM could be a good thing in the hands of, say, a Linux or *BSD developer. That would be nice on a server.

Re:DRM in the UK

[Fred_A]

No, see this is a library taking the fight to the copyright industry preemptively. They've seen how the movie and music industry is going after P2P services, and they know that they're next.

On a more serious note, should electronic books ever take off, they will likely be heavily DRM-ed, tied to a single machine, etc. Where will that leave the libraries ?

Re:DRM in the UK

[Antique Geekmeister]

Whoah indeed. There are plenty of reasons not involving Microsoft for manufacturers to want DRM, and they've done it with non-Microsoft related technologies. I don't mean to cast it all on Microsoft.

But the nature of the Trusted Computing reflects a very clear plan to use it for DRM: Microsft wants it both for protecting their own software from being used in pirate copies, and to mate Windows software to other Windows software that blocks competing products from accessing them. This is particularly true for streaming media: by locking multimedia files and media to specifically, "Trusted Computing" software that has to be authorized by the mother ship, they gain the ability to prevent Putting "Trusted Computing" software on a Linux box does no good for this. Trusted Computing's approach is much more limiting than a standard DVD player: the media can be registered to a specific copy of the media, with a specific software viewer, on a specific host, andn simply refuse to allow viewing it under any software not specifically supported by the media vendor. It may be possible to do screen capture of the output, but that's about it.

Such capabilities can also be integrated, and are clearly to be integrated, in hardware. This seems reasonable for VPN identification keys or biometrics. But it's obviusly planned as well for CD and DVD burners, to force the duplicator to use authorized software to read the files, and to permit only mothership authorized software to write with that specific burner.

It's also aimed squarely at the boot system: a Trusted Computing enabled chipset on the motherboard can prevent the booting of any kernel, or bootable device, without an appropriate vendor signature. You'd better believe Microsoft wants this to prevent "Trusted Computing" hardware from booting non-authorized operating systems. It's understandable for security reasons in a corporate environment, but it's deadly for home users or experimenters who may want to install operating systems without the capital to buy and manage Trusted Computing keys.

Re:DRM in the UK

[malsdavis]

Your ignoring all the signals that Microsoft are keen to themselves become a mainstream media content provider. They already are to some extent with MSNBC. But there are many signals that they want to expand more into the media producing content over the next decade (in a manner reminiscant of SONY), which will mean they have a direct incentive (let alone the ample indirect incentive already mentioned of wanting to appease current media companies) to place DRM over that of consumers' statutory rights.

Re:DRM in the UK

[Ngwenya]

It's also aimed squarely at the boot system: a Trusted Computing enabled chipset on the motherboard can prevent the booting of any kernel, or bootable device, without an appropriate vendor signature. You'd better believe Microsoft wants this to prevent "Trusted Computing" hardware from booting non-authorized operating systems.

I'm sure they would like such a system. But they can't have it. A BIOS which issues a TPM_Startup command is still under the control of the platform owner (which is why the TPM primitives have the operation of "Take Ownership"). I take your point about adding to complexity if the user wishes to install another OS - but the disk is still under user control. It may be that an OS which the owner does not register cannot have the chain of trust built - and therefore cannot attest that the device should be trusted. It should still boot up, however (at least under the HP and IBM BIOSes that I've looked at it will)

Another thing though - the BIOS checks the signatures generated by the TPM - not the OS vendor. In other words, it's up to me as the platform owner to certify a particular device as my approved configuration. Now, it may that various h/w and OS vendors may give out a default configuration, but that absolutely can be reset by the platform owner (it's a requirement of the TCG). In a corporate environment, the platform owner will probably be the IT department; in a home environment, it will be the purchaser of the system, in all likelihood.

Don't get me wrong. I can see all sorts of stupid abuses of the TPM system which will (in effect) stop the use of a personal computer per se. Trusted Connect is one of these things which could be abused by ISPs to ensure only Windows boxes connect to their networks, which would be disastrous. My only point is that TPM has some really solid uses for F/OSS - it's not just the tool of the Great Satan to take away our digital freedom.

--Ng

Re:DRM in the UK

[LunaticTippy]

My library already "lends" out heavily DRM'd e-books. You have to use stupid reader apps, and after 30 days you can't open it anymore. They pay a fee to the publisher every time somebody "checks out" an e-book.

Re:DRM in the UK

[Antique Geekmeister]

Keep an eye on the BIOS. The develpers for Trusted Computing are very eager to support Trusted Computing based control of the basic haardware, to prevent the use of plug-in bootable media on secured systems. They're also eager to have the BIOS, itself, be Trusted Computing signed althugh this is much more difficult in the short term. And they're eager to have CD and DVD drives tied into it for media authentication, and have less influence but still are pursuing doing so for disk drives, to reduce access to stolen disks on secure systems. This is a long-term scheme, not a short term one: simply because the BIOS's you've worked with don't have such features doesn't mean that the next generation of drives and BIOS's won't use that.

Let me reiterate: trusted Computingn can manage keys for hardware authentication. Such abilities are key to its use for security, which is the pretext for its development, as well as for the DRM which is its real purpose. And such key management is clearly designed to authenticate bootable devices, even if such tools have not yet been implemented.

There are benefits of Trusted Computing: but those benefits are overwhelmed by really unfrtunate design choices aimed at securing vendor desires to control the use of their software and hardware, not those of consumers.

Re:DRM in the UK

[Castar]

But the content producers will simply not produce for computer platforms unless a sufficiently robust anti copying technology is present in the system. Hence MS have no option but to invest in DRM.

That's the case *now*, when there are plenty of people willing to watch broadcast TV, read print books, and listen to CDs. But it's moving more and more towards all-digital-over-networks. And if the current content producers are unwilling to produce content for that platform, then new businesses will. And they'll steal business from the old ones.

I don't think you'll get a scenario where the content producers refuse to distribute digitally, on PCs. They may fight it, but they have no choice.

Re:DRM in the UK

[Mr2001]

TPMs are neither good nor bad. They are simply a way for the owner of the platform to measure the integrity of his/her platform, and to attest that integrity to a remote verifier. That's all it can do. [...] But fundamentally, if you control the hardware, you also control the mechanism for verifying any result.

Well, the thing is, the whole point of that attestation process is to prove to a third party that you're running the software they want you to be running. It doesn't help you at all, except for the fact that they might choose not to speak to you if they suspect you're running something else. But that's none of their business, is it?

What would really make TPM work for users, instead of against them, would be a "fake out" switch. That is, the ability for the owner of the PC to make his TPM chip attest to a software configuration that he isn't actually running. That way, you'd still get the advantages of TPM (hardware encryption with keys that can't be stolen), without the disadvantages (hardware-enforced DRM).

It'd essentially do for TPM what a user agent switcher does for web browsers. Today, if you go to a site and it says "Sorry, you can't get in unless you're running IE", you can turn on your UA switcher, and now the site thinks you're running IE. But tomorrow, maybe that site won't be satisfied with your User-Agent header; maybe it'll want a digital signature from your TPM chip proving that you're running IE 7.0 on Windows Vista. If you had a fake out switch, you could still access the site, even if you're running Firefox on Linux. That might upset the people who want to lock their sites to a specific software configuration, but they can go fuck themselves - this feature would be good for users, and that's what matters.

Life + 70 years

[BadAnalogyGuy]

All that is well and good. We (the communal 'we', not the 'we' as in you Limeys) should of course be allowed to retain the same rights to content and media as was available before they became digital. Digital, as they say in their very first point, is not really different fundamentally than any other publishing medium, and therefore the rights extended to non-digital content should also be extended to digital content.

The real point I was struck by was how they still hold on to the belief that copyright must last "life+70 years". That can easily last over 100 years of copyright, bestowing on heirs of the creator the benefits of his hard work. This does not incent those heirs to do any creating and only pools the money in their pockets while simultaneously making poor the common intellectual property pool.

a (age) + p (plus 70) = t (too freaking long)

What we need is an ool. Notice there's no 'p' in it.

Re:Life + 70 years

[drsmithy]

Digital, as they say in their very first point, is not really different fundamentally than any other publishing medium, and therefore the rights extended to non-digital content should also be extended to digital content.

Yes, it is, because digital reproduction is both a) instant and b) free.

IMHO, the fact that digital reproduction *is* fundamentally different, is what it has taken to demonstrate how broken the whole idea of copyright is.

Re:Life + 70 years

[bersl2]

Somebody on Ars pointed out a post here on Slashdot that is, IMO, the most clear and succinct argument against life-plus copyright that I have ever seen, saying (in part):

I think the reason people don't see infringement as immoral is because they don't understand the social contract that underlies copyright law. And that's because the social contract has been trashed so thoroughly by the media industry that it's effectively invisible. Joe Average isn't stupid, but he's not an IP lawyer and given that he has never seen any copyrights expire during his lifetime, and may never see it, the notion that copyright is a tradeoff of short-term disadvantage for long-term advantage never occurs to him, because as far as he knows it's just a permanent restriction. Ask Joe who owns the copyright to Shakespeare's works and he's likely to think it's a reasonable question.

(Emphasis mine.)

Re:Life + 70 years

[hey!]

The recommendation for life + 70 years is for unpublished works. The recommednations they make for published works is centered around the typical term in which works have commercial value -- much shorter in almost every case.

First, with respect to unpublished works. IANAL but it's my understanding that in the common law, there is no "intellectual property" for published works. As soon as you inject it into the public mind, it becomes part of the commons. But unpublished works are a person's private property. Copyrights are established by statute. The distinction is important because the common law for the most part protects rights of indivuals. While statutory law may do this, it often functions to promote the public good. We should be aware that when statues do something to promote the public good, they usually involve some measure of private harm.

The property right to unpublished works recognized in common law, it seems to me, protects the individual right of privacy. Life + 70 years is probably adequate and reasonable for this, but it is worth remembering that we may be taking something the author never wanted to share.

TFA:

Although the number of case studies on the music
industry in this area is not large, a number of US
based studies show that less than 2 percent of
works have any commercial value at all 55 - 75
years after they were created and that more
material is released by publishers when sound
recordings enter the public domain than when still
in-copyright.

This is not a sound analysis, because it also argues for the protection of the minority of works that have value after half a century or more, when in fact there is no public interest in this. Lord Macaulay's analysis is more sound:

I will take an example. Dr Johnson died fifty-six years ago. ...
Now, would the knowledge that this copyright would exist in 1841 have been a source of gratification to Johnson? Would it have stimulated his exertions? Would it have once drawn him out of his bed before noon? ...
I firmly believe not. I firmly believe that a hundred years ago, when he was writing our debates for the Gentleman's Magazine, he would very much rather have had twopence to buy a plate of shin of beef at a cook's shop underground. Considered as a reward to him, the difference between a twenty years' and sixty years' term of posthumous copyright would have been nothing or next to nothing.

In other words, we should consider only the marginal economic incentive an extended copyright term offers to authors presently writing works. The value to current copyright holders is irrelevant to discussions of the public good. They have already recouped their investment, usually over a much longer term than the expected when they bought the rights. Macaulay's point is that they wouldn't have given two cents more to the authors if they'd known the term was going to be seventy years, not seventeen.

Re:Life + 70 years

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Barring a steep inheritance tax that prevented the transfer of wealth from parent to child, Johnson would probably be very interested in the posthumous publishing rights if his work were of enough value that they could be republished often enough and profitable enough to do so.

The problem isn't that we're talking about Dr. Johnson here. We're really interested in media companies that produce their own content, not individual content creators that subsequently sell their relatively worthless works to magazines for limited circulation. Authors and musicians who are worth a damn already have their own lawyers and have their deals made with publishers that generally let them keep copyright (moreso for authors than for musicians).

It is the Disneys and Paramounts that are of the most concern. Disney indeed has an interest in holding on to all of their property. A Disney product that ceased to be a Disney product (due to copyright expiration) would be indistinguishable from Disney's continued production of that product. The only thing that really protects Disney in such a case is trademark laws that allow a much more flexible system of IP. By branding their stuff as their own, they can, in essence, extend their copyright as long as they like. Though the material may be out of copyright, the trademarked images in that material remains covered and Disney may use legal means to prevent others from distributing trademarked though uncopyrighted materials.

The landscape has changed, and when I see people complaining that copyright isn't doing what it was designed to do, I see them focusing almost solely on the wrong points. Yes, copyright is very long. However, fair use should permit enough flexibility that no single person would be hampered in their private usage of the material. Yes, copyright prevents materials from entering the public domain. However, that material is generally available, even when not in the public domain, from publishers. What is necessary, then, is more clarity surrounding abandoned works, not shorter copyrights.

Re:Life + 70 years

[mrchaotica]

I think the reason people don't see infringement as immoral is because they don't understand the social contract that underlies copyright law. And that's because the social contract has been trashed so thoroughly by the media industry that it's effectively invisible.

Heh, that's funny -- I don't see infringment as immoral because I do understand the social contract, and how it's been trashed!

Re:Life + 70 years

[cyclomedia]

Not trolling, really, but can someone explain this to me:

1. disney puts out a cartoon with a mouse in it
2. disney owns copyright (and associated mouse trademark)
3. disney sells distribution and reproduction rights for profit
4. time passes
5. suddenly everyone is now allowed to do whatever they like with it for free

just to be clear, I'm all for fair use, the archivability of content, and i understand that somewhere in there is a blurry line between watching the cartoon in a dusty basement room of a library for research purposes and genuine licensable broadcasting. But why should a person, or their family, or their estate, or a company just have their copyright rights whipped away from them?

And where does it lie? if i invent a recipe for rhubarb crumble that tastes perticularly delicious and sell it at my restaurant, sue a few people for copying the recipie in their own restaurants a little too closely but turn a blind eye to people cooking it for their kids (not for profit), 70 years after my death should my continuing restaurant empire give up the rights to their famous rhubarb crumble? Now, we're not talking burgers and salad in layers in a bun here here, we're talking a combination of unlikely ingredients mixed in a particular order and fashion.

Now I also understand that a distinction is being made between published and unpublished content, and personally if i kept diaries that may be of interest to historians it'd be much better if the death+70 years thing covered not just myself, but everyone else named in the diaries, which might be better for memoirs, as for ficional work, can anyone say "douglas adams" and "milk it dry"?

Re:Life + 70 years

[myc_lykaon]

That can easily last over 100 years of copyright, bestowing on heirs of the creator the benefits of his hard work. This does not incent those heirs to do any creating

Being a bit of devils advocate here, I presume you would support 100% inheritance tax? After all, inherited funds (savings, share certificates, bonds and property etc) are something that the children haven't worked for and lowers the amount of work they have to do to achieve a certain level of wealth. Ditto, copyrights. They are objects with earning potential (like share certificates and bonds) that are handed to the heirs.
Perhaps the creators view such 'after death' copyright span as a life assurance of the artistic classes?

Re:Life + 70 years

[BadAnalogyGuy]

No, I am in favor of fixed copyright terms. What does it matter if someone wrote the great American novel at age 25 and lived to be 100 or whether they were hit by a car the day after they wrote it? Why should the length of copyright be determinant upon the length of the creator's life? A fixed system would be more equitable for all involved, I feel.

The question of heirs really doesn't come into the picture except that life+70 typically covers heirs until late life. Such a built-in disincentive to work (as far as royalties from publishing can go, I suppose) should be discouraged in favor of equitable treatment of authors and their works.

Re:Life + 70 years

[howlingmadhowie]

i don't think i can sue someone for being rich. i can however sue them, if they quote from a book my grandfather wrote. anybody can have share certificates and bonds, you just have to buy them. this gives them an innate value (how much is the bond worth? ans: how much someone's prepared to pay for it). the value of a bond goes down if it is copied and freely distributed; a bond only has a monetary value, that's all it is. a piece of music, a book, or similar has an intrinsic value. Is beethoven's fifth symphony less worth, because i have a copy of the music? should i be allowed to withhold a piece of music i've written from other people? howie

Re:Life + 70 years

[Pofy]

>But why should a person, or their family, or their estate, or a company just have
>their copyright rights whipped away from them?

They don't. You missed a 1.5 in your list:

1.5 The public desides to give up certain rights to the created cartoon and grant a time limited copyright to the creator!

There is nothing taken away from the person, family or whatever, the limited rights they were granted have run out.

So point five should be:

5. The creator's given time limited rights by the society expires and the work is again free to be used and inspire the creation of new work to benefit the society.

By the way, you don't get copyright on recipies so not sure what that part of your reply was about. Perhaps you can seek patent for it, that is VERY different from copyright though, for one, it has a much shorter time limit on the granted rights by the society to you.

Re:Life + 70 years

[drsmithy]

No, I am in favor of fixed copyright terms.

Fixed copyright terms of arbitrary length are inherently broken because:

a) they are vulnerable to extensions of that arbitrary length
b) they assume all works have the same intrinsic value by offering them all the same level of "protection". Thus, they do not allow the market to make a value judgement.

Re:Life + 70 years

[cyclomedia]

>1.5 The public desides to give up certain rights to the created cartoon and grant a time limited copyright to the creator!

are you serious? that must be a joke. You're saying if i write a novel (with the intent to publish) it instantly becomes public property and i only have a time-limited-license to profit from my own creation?

That's like saying that if i bake a rhubarb crumble with the intention of selling it for profit but instead leave it in the freezer longer than a predetermined length of time it would suddenly become free food for anyone who fancies a slice.

Re:Life + 70 years

[Fred_A]

The Disney example is an odd one since without stuff falling in the public domain, they'd be stuck with using a mouse and a handful of ducks. All the rest of their characters, they lifted from stories and tales that have fallen in the public domain.

Maybe they should get to keep their damn mouse and give all the rest back.

Re:Life + 70 years

[BadAnalogyGuy]

To respond to your points:

a) And that's different from the current situation?
b) Are you arguing that popular works should be given longer or shorter copyright terms?

Re:Life + 70 years

[Pofy]

>are you serious? that must be a joke. You're
>saying if i write a novel (with the intent to
>publish) it instantly becomes public property
>and i only have a time-limited-license to
>profit from my own creation?

That is basically how copyright works, yes.

Re:Life + 70 years

[drsmithy]

a) And that's different from the current situation?

No, which is my point. Currently copyright law is based on fixed-length terms and is - as has been demonstrated - vulnerable to extensions of those fixed terms. Winding back the clock to 14 years (which is still too long for the vast majority of cases, but I digress) would simply result in exactly the same situation playing itself out again over the subsequent century.

b) Are you arguing that popular works should be given longer or shorter copyright terms?

Shorter. Thus "encouraging" artists who are good[0] to create more works.

[0]"Good" here being a measure of what the market says, not what artistic snobs say.

Re:Life + 70 years

[westlake]

Ask Joe who owns the copyright to Shakespeare's works and he's likely to think it's a reasonable question.

There is an old rule that says a classic must be re-translated and re-intrepreted in each generation to remain attractive and readable to a modern audience. That is why Project Gutenberg is no threat to sales of the Penguin Classics.

I think the reason people don't see infringement as immoral is because they don't understand the social contract that underlies copyright law...Joe Average isn't stupid...he has never seen any copyrights expire during his lifetime, and may never see it

Joe Average may not own a burner and he may not have any significant involvement eith the P2P nets. Joe is a convenient fiction for the Geek.

But assume, for the moment, that Joe does exist.

Joe hasn't seen any copyrights expire in his lifetime because Joe has no interest in content that hasn't been produced in his lifetime. Joe has damn little interest in content that hasn't been published in the last ten years.

He may, in retro mood, he want Elvis or The Beatles. But not homemade rips from the warped 45s and vinyl LPs to be found in his Grandma's basement. What he wants is expert restoration from the original analog masters.

Skills he does not have. Sources he does not own.

Copyright reform would have NO impact on lawsuits by the rights agencies.

You are never going to get an unrestricted license to redistribute commercially viable content over the Internet.

Not from China, not from Canada, not from Sweden, not from any country with a domestic cultural product to protect, not from any country with a significant export market in culture. There are no safe havens.

The P2P hit list is a mirror reflection of those published by weekly by Billboard and Variety. The artists are still very much alive and active, the content is always derived from contemporary commercial sources.

The Geek doesn't get sued because he uploaded his own scan of Steamboat Willie--nitrate stock, synchronized sound on disk-- the Geek gets sued because he uploaded a screener of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Re:Life + 70 years

[BadAnalogyGuy]

a) Arbitrary extensions of copyright are fundamentally at odds with fixed length terms.

b) So creators of useful/popular/money-making content should be punished? How would you even implement such a system? The instant someone shares the content online the copyright ceases to be?

Re:Life + 70 years

[drsmithy]

a) Arbitrary extensions of copyright are fundamentally at odds with fixed length terms.

If a copyright term is "fixed" at some number, then that number can be changed relatively easily, extending copyright terms (an amendment to the law). That is the problem. Is the copyright term is, instead, a dynamic value relative to the success of the work, then increasing copyright terms with specific works in mind becomes a more difficult exercise because the whole law has to be changed.

b) So creators of useful/popular/money-making content should be punished?

Well, if your idea of "punished" is "has to keep working to derive an income" then yes, I suppose they are being "punished", just like most other workers are.

Copyrights endows an extraordinary set of privileges - a government approved and enforced monopoly - on the owner of a copyrighted work. These extraordinary privileges are granted on the proviso that the creator of the work will continue to develop additional works of similar - if not greater - value. What incentive is there for a creator to continue making new works when a single successful one can allow them to spend the rest of their lives on holiday ? No other "job" has that sort of payoff.

No matter how you choose to look at copyright - be it as a simple economic incentive for creating "intellectucal property", or some pie-in-the-sky ideals about "improving society" - it only makes sense for copyright terms on popular works to be shorter than average. In the former philosophy, to encourage "great" artists to create more works. In the latter philosophy, so other artists can garner inspiration from a "great" work - making a better one - sooner, without fear of infringing.

How would you even implement such a system? The instant someone shares the content online the copyright ceases to be?

See here for some rough ideas. The basic tenets are that a) (economic) copyright protection becomes an opt-in system and b) copyright term is tied to the market success of a work.

Re:Life + 70 years

[MBGMorden]

are you serious? that must be a joke. You're saying if i write a novel (with the intent to publish) it instantly becomes public property and i only have a time-limited-license to profit from my own creation?

That is EXACTLY what copyright is my friend. Legally, morally, every way you look at it. You can't own an idea, and when you create your novel you DO NOT OWN ANYTHING. You are simply given a time limited monopoly on the reproduction rights of the text for a time, so that you have some incentive to write novels in the first place. The ownership rests with no one though, and once your time limited monopoly expires the right to copy returns to the public.

That's like saying that if i bake a rhubarb crumble with the intention of selling it for profit but instead leave it in the freezer longer than a predetermined length of time it would suddenly become free food for anyone who fancies a slice.

No, because your cake is physical property. You're under the false assumption that something non-physical can be property. It can't. Non-tangible works can only recieve copyright, not ownership.

Re:Life + 70 years

[Dhalka226]

1.5 The public desides to give up certain rights to the created cartoon and grant a time limited copyright to the creator!

Slashdot is really big on throwing the word "right" around, but it seems to me it is almost always sorely misused.

In all seriousness: would you please tell me from where you think you derive a right to take something I have created from me and, say, sell it for your own profit--even if it is by copying the work rather than stealing it? Maybe this is a "right" in a "survival of the fittest" sense, but I'd like to think we are at least a few steps above this. Hell, the entire purpose of society is to rise a few steps above that, is it not?

If I write a book for my friends and family to read, and one of my friends decides to copy it down and sell it out from under me (the bastard!), you're telling me this is his right? And that I need the law to tell me that he should not be permitted to do this?

If that is your position, tt seems like we're really stretching the term to the point of it being meaningless.

Re:Life + 70 years

[Dun Malg]

why should a person, or their family, or their estate, or a company just have their copyright rights whipped away from them?

Because the very premise of copyright is that publicly performed/released works are by their very nature in the public domain. Before copyright, the notion that the teller of a story or singer of a song in any way "owned" that story or song would have been considered ludicrous. The notion of copyright came about after duplication technology (i.e. paper) existed and widespread distribution by means other than personal memorization became possible. Copyright (in its current incarnation at least) is premised upon the notion that, by granting to the author a limited time artificial monopoly on the reproduction and public performance of his works, authors would be encouraged to produce more works, thereby enriching the public domain. When copyright terms are extended to outlandish lengths, such that much of modern culture is still under copyright, the entire point of granting those copyrights in the first place is subverted. Why should they have those rights "whipped away from them"? Because those rights only exist exist at the pleasure of the public!

if i invent a recipe for rhubarb crumble that tastes perticularly delicious and sell it at my restaurant

Your understanding of intellectual property law is abysmal. You can't claim copyright on making a recipe. You could publish the recipe and use copyright to prevent others from publishing that recipe, but you'd have no legal right to prevent others from following that recipe. The way recipes are protected is through trade secret. Not patents, or copyrights, or trademarks; no, you actually have to hide the recipe. Unfortunately, ignorance of the basic premises of copyright are all too common. You sound like those two german dudes who devised an interface cable to hook up a Commodore 64 to a PC and claim that reproducers of the cable must mention their names because they copyrighted the cable under the GPL-- yes, there are people on USENET arguing that one can copyright a particular way of soldering a 6-pin DIN connecter to a male DB-25!

Re:Life + 70 years

[Dun Malg]

If a copyright term is "fixed" at some number, then that number can be changed relatively easily, extending copyright terms (an amendment to the law). That is the problem. Is the copyright term is, instead, a dynamic value relative to the success of the work, then increasing copyright terms with specific works in mind becomes a more difficult exercise because the whole law has to be changed.

Errr.... how is it significantly easier to change the numbers in a law that says:

"...for a term of 14 years with an option to extend an additional 14 years..."

than it is to change the numbers in a law that says:

"...for a term of 5 years plus 1 year for every 10 million copies sold..."?

Re:Life + 70 years

[drsmithy]

Errr.... how is it significantly easier to change the numbers in a law that says:

It's not, because your second example suffers the same problem as your first - specifically stated, arbitrary periods of time.

Re:Life + 70 years

[cpt kangarooski]

Though the material may be out of copyright, the trademarked images in that material remains covered and Disney may use legal means to prevent others from distributing trademarked though uncopyrighted materials.

That's actually a common myth. At a minimum, when the copyright covering Mickey Mouse expires, the trademark will be lost as well, at least with regard to copies of creative works, e.g. movies, comics, etc. The Shredded Wheat case, while it dealt with a patent and a trademark, rather than a copyright and a trademark, is an excellent example of how and why this would work. The gist of it is that when the copyright runs out, the copyright holder no longer has exclusivity over the use of the character. Since it's non-exclusive, the trademark is no longer functional as a source identifier. That makes it generic, and generic marks are unprotectable.

Re:Life + 70 years

[cpt kangarooski]

are you serious? that must be a joke.

No, that's absolutely correct.

Look at it this way:

The public has an inherent right of free speech. This right encompasses the right to not only say new things, but also to repeat verbatim what others have said.

Copyright is a right to prohibit others from engaging in certain speech. It is a form of censorship, and thus is the opposite of free speech. It is not the right to engage in certain speech (that's covered under free speech). It has to be granted by government, and basically involves being a thug and censoring other people's speech. It's an infringement of a right.

This is, however, sometimes tolerable. We often forgo some of our rights in order to live together in a stable society that still preserves as many of our rights as possible. In the case of copyright, the public decides, via the government, which is the servant of the public, that it has certain goals (i.e. it wants original works created, it wants derivative works created, and it wants maximal freedom with regard to those works) and that it wants to see the greatest possible net fulfillment of those goals. The natural state of affairs is for copyright to not exist (as was the case worldwide until 1710, and in most of the world until the late 19th to mid-20th centuries), and for the net fulfillment of the goals to be n. The idea is that by trading off the immediate, but not long-term, fulfillment of the second and third goals, we can get a disproportionately larger increase in the fulfillment of the first goal, such that there is a net improvement, e.g. 2n. But by and large, the way this works out is that there is an initial spike and then, quite rapidly, a lot of diminishing returns. Eventually, as more is traded away, the net benefit starts to decline, and eventually can even be less than n.

The trading away constitutes a temporary and limited sacrifice of the inherent freedom of speech of the public. This is intolerable unless it is done willingly, done in the public interest, and actually does serve the public interest as compared to not doing it.

Since the public is only interested in getting the greatest public benefit, and since copyright originates with the public, there is nothing even particularly noteworthy about copyrights expiring after a period of time. To fail to do so would be to wholly sacrifice nearly two=thirds of the public interest in exchange for only a small increase (if any) in the first third. This is because even without copyright, some original works are created, many derivative works are created, and there is total freedom as to those works. With too much copyright, more original works are created, but not many more, particularly as established copyright holders engage in rent-seeking against newcomers, few derivatives are created, and there is little if any freedom as to the works. At that point, society would be better served without copyright than with it.

Copyright, being a temporarily monopoly granted by the public, for public purposes, is easily compared to utility monopolies. In the US, most municipalities have a cable tv monopoly. Basically, the town starts out without a cable tv infrastructure. Rather than build their own, they ask a cable provider to do it. The provider is unwilling to spend so much on it if it will face competition, so it wants a monopoly. The town may be willing to offer a monopoly, but only for a few years (so as to ultimately secure the benefit of competition), and only to the minimum extent required. No one is stupid enough to give Comcast, for example, a monopoly out of the kindness of our hearts. Rather, it's done in order to exploit the provider into doing something we want. In time, the infrastructure is built, and the town can get providers to competitively bid for providing service.

So to get back to your post:

i only have a time-limited-license to profit from my own creation?

Yes. We call that time-limited license a copyright. You may have heard of them.

Re:Life + 70 years

[cpt kangarooski]

In all seriousness: would you please tell me from where you think you derive a right to take something I have created from me and, say, sell it for your own profit--even if it is by copying the work rather than stealing it?

People have an inherent right of free speech. That's the right in question.

Remember, copyright is only a temporary limit on free speech. But copyright is only a limit; it's not a right to actually do anything, just to limit others. When the copyright runs out, the limit goes away, and free speech can be fully utilized. Since copyrights are artificial in nature, they need not even be granted at all.

Now, no one is suggesting that you should be forced to create works, or that you should be forced to publish them. Those are choices left to you. But if you do create it, and you do publish it, then you're relying on the goodwill of the public and their willingness to have a copyright system you like. They're not obligated to do anything for you. It's the overall public interest that is important, not you specifically. (Though it is worth noting that you're part of the public, and so even if you're an author, you can still benefit greatly from a lesser or no copyright system)

If I write a book for my friends and family to read, and one of my friends decides to copy it down and sell it out from under me (the bastard!), you're telling me this is his right? And that I need the law to tell me that he should not be permitted to do this?

Yes. And it's dubious as to whether the law should be on your side. After all, society as a whole receives a lot more benefit from the book being widespread than it does if you keep it to a small circle of people. And since copyright is costly to the public (it harms us to suffer restrictions on our rights), it should be reserved for situations where it is necessary. In your scenario, if you'd've written the book even if there was no copyright law, then it is inappropriate to give you a copyright, since you didn't need the extra incentive it provides.

Re:Life + 70 years

[Pofy]

>Slashdot is really big on throwing the word "right" around,
>but it seems to me it is almost always sorely misused.

Since we was discussing copyright, I used the terminology the US copyright law uses. It gives certain "rights" to the copyright holder. Hence why I used the same terminology. I have no idea about others use of the world.

>In all seriousness: would you please tell me from where you think you derive
>a right to take something I have created from me and, say, sell it for your
>own profit--even if it is by copying the work rather than stealing it?

A few missonconceptions you seem to have. First of all just because you created something, it is not "yours" in the sense that you own it. You are just the creator. Such works are intangible and can't be owned. Instead, one have set up copyright, it does NOT give you ownership either, instead it grants the creator a few exclusive rights to the work for a limited time. That is it.

Next, you seem to make up and claim I said things I did not. I have never claimed what you say here. In general, someone can not copy and sell someone elses work that is under copyright since copying and distribution and making works available to the public is EXACTLY those rights given to the copyright holder for a limited time. Obviously, after that time, the excusivness of those rights no longer belongs to the copyright holder, which is why it is possible for anyone to, for example copy and sell works created in the 18th century (quite long ago but just an example). So no, one can't do what you claim I said. On the other hand, the creator doesn't "own" the work and anything not given as a right to the copyright holder is free for anyone to do. In addition, there are exceptions to the exclusivness of those rights, so that for example some copyiong is STILL allowed by someone other than the copyright holder.

>Maybe this is a "right" in a "survival of the fittest" sense,
>but I'd like to think we are at least a few steps above this.

It it the way copyright is set up. it is a compromise, so that society benefits the most by encouraging creation of new works. Basically the general public give up certain "rights" (or whatever world you feel fits better) and those instead belongs to the creator for a limited time. The end effect is basically that it is possible for the creator to for example earn money for a while as a reward for the creation of a work.

>If I write a book for my friends and family to read, and one of
>my friends decides to copy it down and sell it out from under
>me (the bastard!), you're telling me this is his right?

Stop puting words in my mouth, were have I said that? On the contrary, I specifically, in the part you quoted, said the creator gets a few exclusive rights which thus no longer belongs to the public. Hence, it would be copyright infringement most likely in the example you just mentioned. That IS what I was talking about. The initial list forgot however that copyright is not an ownership, it is a set of rights given temoprarilly to the creator.

Re:Life + 70 years

[cyclomedia]

Thanks for that you explained it rather well, apart from the maths, which just confused me, but i get the point

hmm.

[compro01]

well, i certainly like the looks of this, except for the support for the "life +70" copyright term, which is completely excessive IMO.

Copyrighted

[dotslashdot]

Was this manifesto copyrighted?

RIAA, MPAA response:

[macadamia_harold]

There are 6 key recommendations, including: DRM should not override users' statutory rights; analogue rights should apply to digital media; and copyright terms should not be extended without evidence that this would be good for society.

The RIAA and MPAA have posted their official response: "....aaaaaaaAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

Re:RIAA, MPAA response:

[VJ42]

The RIAA and MPAA have posted their official response: "....aaaaaaaAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

Sitting here in the UK, my official reply to the RIAA & MPAA: So sue me. I remind you that despite our best efforts at being the 51st state, you still have no jurisdiction on this side of the Atlantic.

Re:RIAA, MPAA response:

[HybridJeff]

Sorry Brits, but weve allready claimed the status of 51st state here in Canada. You can be the 52nd if you want.

Agree and disagree

[Dobeln]

Agree: "The life+70 years term is ludicrous. "To believe that anything beyond lifetime copyright impacts the incentive structure of creators takes some serious suspension of disbelief.

Disagree: "Going non-digital to digital changes nothing." It does - high-grade, repeated copying becomes a lot more easy and economical with digital media, often at near zero cost. This has two effects, pushing in different directions:

1. Immense possible benefit to consumers. You can get lots of high-quality stuff for almost nothing!

2. Immense possible harm to producers. If people are just copying your content free of charge, it's going to eat into your profits in most likely scenarios. In some scenarios, you might cease production entirely, or shift towards more difficult-to-copy formats.

Depending on your preferences, it's very likely that you will be wanting to rebalance copyright, one way or the other (more lenient, more strict), due to the adoption of digital media.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

2. Immense possible harm to producers. If people are just copying your content free of charge, it's going to eat into your profits in most likely scenarios. In some scenarios, you might cease production entirely, or shift towards more difficult-to-copy formats.

Don't forget the immense possible benefit to producers: zero cost of production.

Re:Agree and disagree

[treskel]

A group of 16 organizations of writers, artists, musicians, cartoonists and publishers has issued a statement asking the Cultural Affairs Agency to extend copyright protection from 50 years after their deaths to 70 years -- just as in Europe and North America. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060930f 2.html/

Re:Agree and disagree

[servognome]

That should read: "Don't forget the immense possible benefit to producers: zero cost of reproduction."
The cost to produce the first copy will still exist.

Re:Agree and disagree

[richie2000]

Don't forget the immense possible benefit to producers: zero cost of production.

Not really, no. But drastically lowered cost of production, zero cost of distribution and near-zero cost of marketing. These can be recouped in other ways than selling physical copies of content -- in ways that are more diverse, more resilient to technology shifts and gives more money to the real creators. No wonder the distributors are scared shitless...

Re:Agree and disagree

[Tim C]

But drastically lowered cost of production

As another poster already pointed out, the initial cost of production still exists. Depending on what it is being produced, the move to a digital distribution method may have little or no impact on the cost of production (eg for a writer going from typewriter to PC isn't going to make a whole lot of difference to the amount of money they spend producing the work).

zero cost of distribution

Bandwidth is free now? Servers are free?

Cost of distribution is much lower per unit, but it most certainly is not zero.

and near-zero cost of marketing.

Why is that? Because the moment you put something on the web, google and word of mouth will do all your marketing for you? Why does going digital all-but eliminate the need to market your product?

Re:Agree and disagree

[truedfx]

Agree: "The life+70 years term is ludicrous. "To believe that anything beyond lifetime copyright impacts the incentive structure of creators takes some serious suspension of disbelief.

Hmm. Would we suddenly see all sorts of mysterious deaths of authors directly after they publish their works, if the copyright on their works would immediately end? I do agree in principle, but I think a fixed duration of copyright, regardless of how long the copyright holder lives, might be better.

Re:Agree and disagree

[shmlco]

"zero cost of production"

Let's take the iTMS move store, for example. I submit that the bandwidth needed to download a 1.2GB file has SOME cost, as does building and maintaining the infrastructure needed to ensure that thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people can do so simultaneously.

And anytime you want to talk about delivering a million copies of anything I think you'll find the costs are far from inconsequential.

As far as that goes, I'd almost be willing to bet that once those costs are taken into account, the actual costs of delivering a movie online is perhaps only a single order of magnitude away from that of delivering a piece of plastic to a store.

The actual cost of a mass-produced disc is pennies on the dollar anyway. You pay for the content.

Re:Agree and disagree

[QuantumG]

And as such is the only cost you need cover, so what gives you the right to charge $29.95 per copy?

Re:Agree and disagree

[msobkow]

Digital media has nothing to do with the excessive copyright duration, and I don't see how "rebalancing" copyrights would have an impact or be impacted by digital vs. analogue or other media formats.

An active enterprise that continues to develop new products and material based on older copyrighted material should be able to extend the copyright on the character(s) involved. For example, if Disney were still producing Mickey Mouse media, it would make sense that they could extend the copyrights and trademarks to cover the new material.

But copyright as it is currently implemented in many nations does nothing but service the greed of corporate shills and do nothing to benefit the creator or their descendents.

In particular, if there is so little profit to be made from copyrighted material that the owner ceases production, the copyright should be cut short.

Perhaps instead of looking at things in terms of "life + 70 years" we should be looking at "viable marketing and sale period plus 10-20 years." If they take it off the market, they have ten years to bring it back as a new series, media, or product to try and earn additional revenue. If the owner fails to do so, the copyright falls to the public domain.

Re:Agree and disagree

[arose]

Organizations do not die.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Antique Geekmeister]

Oh, agreed. That legislation in the US was aimed squarely at protecting the Mickey Mouse copyright: Disney is a huge sponsr of such legislation, as that darned mouse gets older and older and Disney's library of old movies grows in value. Librarians I've spoken with are amazed at the difficulties current US copyright law creates for them.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

...of writers, artists, musicians, cartoonists and publishers... asking...to extend copyright protection

And which of these will actually get any benefit from this? Not the public. None of the above either, who will be dead, except the publishers, who can milk their back catalogue without having to find new artists,

We're getting this crap in the UK for music now: the publishers claim that they won't be able to get a return on their investment if anyone can reissue 50 year old recordings and will have to stop their searching for and promoting of new artists. Those of us not versed in the intricacies of the music business naively think that if their cash cows are guaranteed to some day die, they'll have to find new ones...

Re:Agree and disagree

[Antique Geekmeister]

Oh, yes. The changes when the US eliminated the need to register copyrighted documents were quite sufficient. And given the amount and ease of creating new documents in this digital world, 20 years seems quite sufficient.

Re:Agree and disagree

[drsmithy]

Hmm. Would we suddenly see all sorts of mysterious deaths of authors directly after they publish their works, if the copyright on their works would immediately end?

No. Why would we ? Who would derive enough benefit to be willing to trade off the punishment for (and stigma of) a pre-meditated murder conviction ?

Re:Agree and disagree

[badfish99]

According to this cost breakdown, the production and marketing costs of a £12.99 CD total about £1.60. The retailer and wholesaler between them take £5.97. I couldn't find figures for a DVD but I should think they would be similar.
On a million units, that would be nearly £6 million delivery costs. I can't believe that distribution via (say) bittorrent would be only one order of magnitude cheaper then this.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Pofy]

>And as such is the only cost you need cover, so
>what gives you the right to charge $29.95 per copy?

The same right that anyone has to price what they sell at whatever price they like. As long as the information on what you sell is correct and good, you can basically ask for any price you want, there is no law forbiding you to charge more than the development cost.

Re:Agree and disagree

[mrchaotica]

Bandwidth is free now? Servers are free?

Yes!

Upload it once, and all your fans will P2P it for you. You're right that the cost isn't zero, technically, but it might as well be since you're not the one who has to pay for it!

Re:Agree and disagree

[mrchaotica]

Let's take the iTMS move store, for example. I submit that the bandwidth needed to download a 1.2GB file has SOME cost, as does building and maintaining the infrastructure needed to ensure that thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people can do so simultaneously.

And I submit that it's their own damn fault that they think they need all that, when all they really need to do is run a BitTorrent server!

Of course, that's what happens when idiots insist on retaining imperious control over a fundamentally uncontrollable thing...

Re:Agree and disagree

[bky1701]

I think he means, "What right do you have to complain you are not getting MORE then you put in".

Re:Agree and disagree

[QuantumG]

Sure, you can charge anything you want.. for services that *you* offer.. but I'm the one making the copy here. Copyright gives you the power to discourage me from making that copy, forcing people to come to you to get copies. That's the bullshit.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Haeleth]

And as such is the only cost you need cover, so what gives you the right to charge $29.95 per copy?

If the initial cost of production was $1m and you only expect to sell around 34,000 copies, how can you justify charging less than $29.95 per copy?

Re:Agree and disagree

[Pofy]

Ohh, well, true. If you feel you get to little for what you pay the answer is of course to not buy at all. Of course, in some cases there are legal alternatives were you can pay less or even nothing at all. One such example is to buy second hand.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Haeleth]

I think he means, "What right do you have to complain you are not getting MORE then you put in".

If you don't get more than you put in, you don't eat. This is not generally considered a sensible move.

He might have meant "what right do you have to complain that you are not getting a LOT more than you put in". The thing there is that these companies are putting a lot into a lot of products, and with many of those products they get out a lot LESS than they put in. So if they don't make significant profits on their popular products, they still come out losing money.

It's pretty simple. If you want commercial products, you have to make it worth people's while to produce products on a commercial basis, and that means buying things for significantly more than they cost to make.

If you don't want commercial products, there are plenty of people giving their work away for free - though the fact that they need a day job to make ends meet means that they will never have the leisure to explore their full creative potential.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Pofy]

>Sure, you can charge anything you want.. for services that *you* offer..

Yes, that was what you wrote and I replied to: "so what gives you the right to charge $29.95 per copy?".

>but I'm the one making the copy here.

Ehh, so you are now talking about a case were the buyer is the one manufacturing the actual copy himself? What does that change? Nothing, the seller can still charge whatever they want. As a buyer you factor in the price you pay plus any extra cost you might have which might include many completely unrelated things such as the cost to travell to the shop just as one example.

>Copyright gives you the power to discourage me from making that copy,
>forcing people to come to you to get copies. That's the bullshit.

Ehh, a third topic not present in the oririnal post/thread. The discussion was about the cost of development, manufacturing and so on. You are now switching to the purpose of copyright to start with and appearanlty feels it is "bullshit". Fine, most tend to believe it is good in some way or form but feel the current situation is not good.

Re:Agree and disagree

[montyzooooma]

"One such example is to buy second hand."

Except buying a lot of digital goods second hand is going to become next to impossible as they get tied to USERS rather than being tied to a physical product like a CD or DVD.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Haeleth]

And which of these will actually get any benefit from this? Not the public. None of the above either, who will be dead

Suppose you start a business. Suppose it becomes a successful business, and you become rich. Suppose now you die.

Should the state immediately confiscate your business, and distribute its value to the general public, so that your heirs don't benefit at all from your life's work?

Well, it's quite a reasonable suggestion, isn't it? I mean, it won't hurt you. You'll be dead. And why should your heirs get something they didn't work to produce? Surely having your business snatched out of their grieving hands will merely incentivise them to start their own businesses and benefit society even more?

Funnily enough, fewer people seem to think that a reasonable proposal than snatching artists' property at, or even before, their deaths.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Antique Geekmeister]

You can tie it to a host. This is one of the major purposes of Trusted Computing. It's use for encryption and reliable authentication is really secondary, its clear goal is DRM.

Re:Agree and disagree

[truedfx]

Who would derive enough benefit to be willing to trade off the punishment for (and stigma of) a pre-meditated murder conviction ?

Probably very few people, but there's no punishment if you don't get caught, and I would be very surprised if there is no person who thinks to be smart enough to get away with it.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I don't think mysterious deaths are likely to be a huge problem outside of detective stories. However, untimely death due to illness or accident is quite a concern, since any artist who was relying on income from their work to support a family would leave that family with much less if the works were immediately released to the public domain after their death.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Dave_M_26]

Suppose you start a business. Suppose it becomes a successful business, and you become rich. Suppose now you die.

Suppose the state grants you a monopoly over your product on the basis that it gives you an incentive to produce more product.

What is the point of giving your heirs the same monopoly when they cannot generate the same product?

(FWIW I don't have a problem with a short extension after death, as "providing for one's heirs" may be part of the incentive to produce more product)

Dave

Re:Agree and disagree

[mdwh2]

Funnily enough, fewer people seem to think that a reasonable proposal than snatching artists' property at, or even before, their deaths.

Who said anything about snatching property? Nothing is being removed. The state granted a monopoly of production to the original author, and this would simply mean that they don't grant that monopoly to someone else when that person dies).

If I die, my family get to keep my possessions. But they don't get to continually be paid my salary, or have any rights to my job in anyway. Why should children of artists be treated any differently? I mean, non-artists could make the same emotional argument by whining about how their family will starve if the income is no longer there, but that's tough luck. Family of non-artists have to rely on welfare or insurance for that situation, and those of artists should do to.

Perhaps making copyright a fixed-term for everyone might be a way round these issues.

Re:Agree and disagree

[mdwh2]

Would we suddenly see all sorts of mysterious deaths of authors directly after they publish their works, if the copyright on their works would immediately end?

Unlikely. Indeed, I think a next-of-kin murdering someone in order to inherit the copyright with the current system is far more likely than someone committing murder simply to make something public domain. Surely people would rather simply commit copyright infringement than murder...

I agree a fixed term would be better. Preferable a much short fixed term too (e.g., 30 years).

Re:Agree and disagree

[drsmithy]

Probably very few people, but there's no punishment if you don't get caught, and I would be very surprised if there is no person who thinks to be smart enough to get away with it.

Right. So your contention is that people who are unprepared to break *copyright law* today, would be prepared to commit *first degree murder*, just so they could download their favourite song without breaking new and improved copyright law ?

Re:Agree and disagree

[Deliveranc3]

Then all parental money should be confiscated at death as well?

There should be no inheritance?

I agree this affects us but they totally deserve it more than some business mogul.

Too bad :(

Re:Agree and disagree

[LocalH]

But you can't compare copyright to a brick-and-mortar business - as there are specific laws that govern each of those. Copyright was explicitly codified such that works would go into the public domain - copyright holders knew this going in, but managed to get it extended. Originally, at least in the US, copyright was supposed to last a maximum of 28 years - one 14-year term and one 14-year extension. This was known going in, so I see it from the other direction - copyright owners who attempt to extend this term to ludicrous lengths (such as we have today) are effectively stealing from every single person in the country.

If you want your heirs to benefit after you die, it's your place to provide for that. Why should the government have an interest in making sure your heirs benefit?

Re:Agree and disagree

[Orange Crush]

The same right that anyone has to price what they sell at whatever price they like. As long as the information on what you sell is correct and good, you can basically ask for any price you want, there is no law forbiding you to charge more than the development cost.

Unfortunately, the market is not permitted to set the price in the "big media" content industry. RIAA and MPAA are cartels (which have been and continue to be accused of price fixing), Cable companies are typically regional monopolies--if consumers are lucky enough to have a choice in companies where they live it's usually between no more than 2 providers, or they can install DirecTV--again, virtually non-existant competition and steep barriers to entry allow providers to set prices however they please.

Re:Agree and disagree

[truedfx]

I neither said first-degree murder nor anything about downloading songs, and if I have given any impression otherwise, please tell me what made you think so.

Re:Agree and disagree

[awol]

The same right that anyone has to price what they sell at whatever price they like.

Except that the only reason they have anything to "sell" in the first place is because of an artificially created regime that allows them to sue people who take copies (which do not harm the voracity or nature of the original) and so one cannot talk of the issue in terms of apparently natural rights.

Re:Agree and disagree

[drsmithy]

I neither said first-degree murder nor anything about downloading songs, and if I have given any impression otherwise, please tell me what made you think so.

In this post, you fairly unsubtly suggest that a copyright that expired on the creator's death would be a motivation to kill them to get the work into the public domain.

Now, killing a "creator" so their work is pushed into the public domain is a pretty clear example of premeditated murder - and since it would be well known that the work would be pushed into the public domain, profit could not be a motive, therefore the only possible reason would be so that the murderer could acquire the formerly-copyrighted work without breaking copyright law.

You might have been thinking something else when you wrote that first post, but I'm having trouble seeing any other interpretations.

Re:Agree and disagree

[theRiallatar]

The problem is, they want to sell it as a good AND a service. They want you to buy the media and its contents, and lock that down to a particular user/console. They consider this a license to use the media. But if you lose the media, or it's destroyed, they're extremely reluctant to offer up a replacement media for the 'license' you've already purchased. They want you to pay full price, again. What we want is a clear distinction. If I'm buying a license for the CONTENT, I should be able to use it in whatever format I choose. If I'm buying the physical MEDIA (product), I should be able to use it in whatever player I choose, or sell it secondhand if I want (right of first sale).

Re:Agree and disagree

[truedfx]

Now, killing a "creator" so their work is pushed into the public domain is a pretty clear example of premeditated murder -

Maybe I'm wrong about what "premeditated" means exactly, but I was under the impression that you actually need to plan in advance for that. What if an opportunity presents itself? (If wishing someone dead in advance qualifies, however, then I guess I did mean premeditated.)

and since it would be well known that the work would be pushed into the public domain, profit could not be a motive,

Derivative works. It may make someone else the sole copyright holder of one.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Derek Pomery]

It used to be 14 years with option to renew for 14 if you were still alive.
Basically if meddling had stopped back in 1790, we wouldn't be in this mess today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1790

Re:Agree and disagree

[Dun Malg]

Maybe I'm wrong about what "premeditated" means exactly, but I was under the impression that you actually need to plan in advance for that. What if an opportunity presents itself? (If wishing someone dead in advance qualifies, however, then I guess I did mean premeditated.)

Premeditated doesn't mean proof of "planning" is required. Essentially all that's necessary is to show that the perpetrator had enough time to think about his actions and go ahead with them anyway. Grabbing a lamp and braining your wife in the middle of an argument is second degree. Walking out to the car, getting your shotgun out of the trunk, loading it, then going back inside and shooting your wife; that starts wandering into "premeditated" territory. Making plans, telling others you intend to kill someone, and "laying in wait" are only evidence of premeditation, not requirements.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Pollardito]

it has something to do with the fact that the first customer won't pay millions of dollars for his copy

Re:Agree and disagree

[Wellington Grey]

but I think a fixed duration of copyright, regardless of how long the copyright holder lives, might be better.

I say we tie it to the average life expectancy in the country at the time the work was published.

-Grey

Re:Agree and disagree

[shmlco]

You need to concentrate on the distribution costs, as there's still going to be a "retailer", marketing costs, transaction fees, etc.,, no matter what the distribution mechanism.

Re:Agree and disagree

[cpt kangarooski]

The changes when the US eliminated the need to register copyrighted documents were quite sufficient.

I disagree. We desperately need to fully bring back several formalities for anyone seeking a US copyright: registration, deposit, and notice. If an author cares so little about his work that he isn't willing to send in a simple form, a modest payment, and some copies of his work (and deposit is going to need to be strengthened such that it's similar to patent disclosure rules), then he certainly wouldn't care about having a copyright on the work. Let him evidence his desire for a copyright, and he can get one. In this way we will greatly strengthen the public domain with works that authors don't care about, and apparently were not incentivized to create by the promise of a copyright, without having to pay the cost of granting copyrights for those works needlessly.

As for a 20 year term, that doesn't sound too bad, but it needs to be broken down into many smaller terms of a few years each, so that authors are required to renew frequently. This also will measure when their desire for a copyright ceases, letting the work enter the public domain no later than necessary to incentivize the creation of the work to begin with. E.g. if an author stops bothering to renew after eight years, then the work enters the public domain much earlier than it would if the author didn't care but didn't have to renew. Of course, the actual maximum length ought to be determined by careful studies into what best serves the public interest, rather than wild-ass guesses.

Re:Agree and disagree

[laughingcoyote]

Suppose you write a book. (Insert anything else here.) It succeeds. You make a reasonable amount of money at it. You write another one. You make another reasonable amount of money. You:

A: Blow all the money, leaving nothing for your heirs or retirement.

B: Save or wisely invest the money, leaving you prepared for retirement and your heirs provided for.

Copyright should be no longer then 5 or 10 years. Remember that copyright is not, not, not, and not for the author's benefit except incidentally and as necessary to provide a creative incentive. The absolute minimum term of copyright that will get people to create should be used. The idea is -not- to give the grandkids a monopoly on the works of a long-dead grandfather (or corporations a monopoly on the works of a long-dead man.)

Re:Agree and disagree

[Pofy]

>Except that the only reason they have anything to "sell" in the first
>place is because of an artificially created regime that allows them
>to sue people who take copies (which do not harm the voracity or nature
>of the original) and so one cannot talk of the issue in terms of apparently
>natural rights.

You are appearantly mixing up two things, copyright and ownership. They are not the same. Selling is about ownership, anyone is free to sell anything at whatever price (even if there is really no one buying, although it would not be so good business but they can still do it). That has nothing to do with copyright which you mention. Copyright is not a requirement to sell anything. Actually, most of the things in the world are sold without there being any copyright invovlved. Copyright do affect the possibility to limit who copies and create NEW copies and products which in turn can be owned and sold. Sure, the reason that the market allows for a certain price is of course in part due to copyright but the question was not why a certain price works in the market.

Re:Agree and disagree

[awol]

Nope, I ain't confused. The issue is that everything about the price in question derives from the "regime", no regime and the thing for which the price is being asked _does not exist_ and so there is nothing to transfer via price. There is nothing inherently pricewrothy about something that is copyrightable or intellectual property or whatever you want to call it.

Don't misunderstand there is value in the process, it just ain't property and hence it has no inherent ability to be priced.

Re:Agree and disagree

[Pofy]

You are discussing if the price will get people to pay or not and if one will sell. My original commment was that someone can ask whatever price they want. That doesn't mean anyone will buy it, but someone having something for sale can ask whatever price they want. If you don't like it, don't buy.

The other question, which I was not commenting on at all and which you bring up constantly is what makes it possible to ask a certain price AND have people buy it instead of buying something else or creating it themselves. You can all it prisworthyness or whatever. There is nothing preventing anyone from asking a price for what they sell that is not priceworthy. I have not touched that subject at all and have not commented on it nor will I do now.

Digital is different, you get it off the tubes!

[tehSpork]

I can see some of their point, however I think they're trying to err on the side of the content creator/publisher.

I still maintain that I should have the right to keep copies of ebooks and music I own on as many of my own digital devices as I please. I can not use it all at once (I can multitask, just not that well), and would have to lend my digital device to a friend in order to break the intent of fair-use (and how many times have you loaned a book or CD to a friend?).

I think I'll just stick with my personal DRM-Ban and leave it at that. I won't buy anything that employs any form of DRM (with the only exception being Windows, which I purchased then removed WPA and WGA). This includes eBooks, which thanks to Microsoft I have $100 worth or so of ebooks which are locked to an account that I have been locked out of (apparently upgrading one's computer or portable device a couple times each within a 6 year period is abnormal and breaks some sort of fair-use law). It also includes purchasing music downloads and CDs that contain DRM. I don't care if I can remove it, I will not give money to a company that employs those methods of "protecting their copyrights."

The only way the companies will learn is if you speak with your wallet, the Dollar (or Euro/Pound for you blokes on the other side of the pond) truely is the most basic and effective form of communication. :)

Re:Digital is different, you get it off the tubes!

[shawnmchorse]

Make sure you don't buy any DVDs either, what with region codes and encryption and such. Laserdiscs are where it's at, anyway. ;-)

Re:Digital is different, you get it off the tubes!

[tehSpork]

Make sure you don't buy any DVDs either, what with region codes and encryption and such. Laserdiscs are where it's at, anyway. ;-)

Good point, however by the time I started getting picky about it the encryption had already been cracked for quite some time and it has slipped under my radar. The fact that the companies producing the "protected" media decided to continue using the cracked encryption rather than risk disrupting the consumer market (and therefore their cash flow) by releasing a new ecryption standard has also helped a bit. I guess I should add DVDs as an exception, even though I think I can count the number of DVDs I have purchased on one hand (the rest have come as gifts). You can surmise that I do not have many DVDs. :)

Upon a little thought I have realised that I also failed to list compuer games, which represent yet another potential grey line in my personal vendetta against DRM. Starforce is evil (on my black list), yet Safedisc and whatnot are so easy to circumvent that I hardly count them as DRM. I guess it's a result of computer games requiring the CD/Floppy to play since I was a wee lad. Perhaps it is a bit hypocritical, however the alternative (an eye patch and peg-leg) is less appealing than paying for a game I have to work on a little to play. :)

Re:Digital is different, you get it off the tubes!

[arose]

Perhaps it is a bit hypocritical, however the alternative (an eye patch and peg-leg) is less appealing than paying for a game I have to work on a little to play. :)

Alternatives are plenty (read a book :-), but they aren't identical substitutes.

Re:Digital is different, you get it off the tubes!

[mrchaotica]

Good for you! But please -- stop making an exception for Windows!

Re:Digital is different, you get it off the tubes!

[tehSpork]

If you're suggesting switching to an alternate operating system, I do run Linux for my small webhosting company (http://www.offbeathosting.com) as well as on several boxes that serve various tasks at home (including my Linksys router). In my opinion Linux is far superior to Windows in the server field, and I take advantage of this as often as I can.

My college runs Windows exclusively, all the machines at my dayjob run Windows, the majority (if not all) of my webhosting customers run Windows, and so on. In addition, game support for Linux exists but is pretty weak in comparison to the support for Windows. :(

The thing with Windows is it has become the market standard for desktop operating systems, using anything else as my primary desktop OS may give me moral high-ground over those who fork over $$$ to Microsoft (or who don an eye patch, raise the Jolly Roger, and set off to sail the tubes), however in the end it would cost me a good deal of extra time. What I have found is that on Windows, things tend to either work or not work. On Linux, things tend to either work or could work, depending on how much time you spend on it. While I consider myself to have an absolutist personality (could you tell?), I have found that I need to make compromises so that I can get work done at the end of the day (or have fun at the end of the day!). For the moment, Windows is one of those compromises.

If you're suggesting the method to do with eye patches and peg legs, I don't subscribe to that train of thought. :)

Re:Digital is different, you get it off the tubes!

[mrchaotica]

Actually, I'm don't particularly have a problem with either of those ideas -- as long as it doesn't result in payment to Microsoft (which would imply support of their actions) it's fine with me.

However, there is a third possibility: go back to Windows 2000. I use Linux and Mac OS instead as much as possible, but my one remaining Win 2K box (that I use only for things like Half-Life and AutoCAD) works "just fine" (by Windows' standard). And it's not infected with WGA or even Activation!

Re:Digital is different, you get it off the tubes!

[RAMMS EIN]

``The only way the companies will learn is if you speak with your wallet, the Dollar (or Euro/Pound for you blokes on the other side of the pond) truely is the most basic and effective form of communication. :)''

The problem is that one person "speaking with their wallet" is not going to be noticed by Big Media very much. Therefore, it's important to also speak in words, and do so publicly, both to educate the blissfully ignorant, and to make it clear why Big Media is losing sales (i.e. it's because they use DRM, not because you don't like their products, or because you've obtained them through other means).

Re:Digital is different, you get it off the tubes!

[mirkob]

for a company that abor DRM you could try www.baen.com for FS e-books no drm, 7-8 various format and you could re download the books even after years.

Fair Use?

[XanC]

I would say that defending consumers' statutory rights is nice, but not sufficient. I don't believe any of the fair use rights are statutory. Fair use isn't a set of rights that we have, it is a defense against infringment.

Amazing hypocrisy

[poptones]

'it's a digital world! the rules no longer apply!"

Anyone remember hearing that? I've heard it countless times. So the old rules no longer apply when the argument suits people who trade stuff the content owners don't want traded - but wait! The old rules should apply now because.... because this new stuff makes it harder to trade stuff the content owenrs dont want traded!

An Interesting recent discussion about activation

[syousef]

http://groups.google.com.au/group/alt.games.micros oft.flight-sim/browse_frm/thread/7832a189f5627f9d/ ecacf8fc0fc5180b?lnk=arm&hl=en#ecacf8fc0fc5180b

The Primary Prerequisite to Progress

[erroneus]

Create more distance between politicians and money. After that, we will see more balance between public and private interests.

Re:The Primary Prerequisite to Progress

[walnutmon]

I think the only way to do this is to ban lobbying, which is pretty much the most obviously bad thing that happens in American government... It just happens to also be pretty much the most effective way to get things done in American government.

Is that irony? I'm not really sure, but I know it sucks.

Re:The Primary Prerequisite to Progress

[mrchaotica]

The problem is that somewhere along the way we all forgot that the government isn't supposed to get things done, but rather to do as little as possible.

Re:The Primary Prerequisite to Progress

[Deliveranc3]

Pay more taxes, so businesses pay less.

Zero distribution cost

[Dobeln]

Well, zero cost of distribution, more like. Which is nice - but only if offical distribution (Producer sales/distribution) maintains some advantage over non-official channels. Otherwise, the distribution advantage really isn't worth much.

British

[wbren]

This is destined to go nowhere! People won't take them seriously if they keep misspelling words. I mean, who's ever heard of words like "analogue" and "favourite"? Not this red-blooded American!

Re:British

[tttonyyy]

This is destined to go nowhere! People won't take them seriously if they keep misspelling words. I mean, who's ever heard of words like "analogue" and "favourite"? Not this red-blooded American!

You sir, are a cad and a bounder. Now, stand still while I whack your arse with this piece of aluminium!

Re:British

[Haeleth]

So, why do you Americans write "favorite" but not "serios", and "sulfur" but not "fosforus", and "alfa" but not "alfabet", and "aluminum" but not "americum"?

If there's one thing worse than archaic and illogical spellings, it's half-arsed spelling reform that leaves half the archaic and illogical spellings intact.

Public libraries and P2P have similarities

[Morgaine]

The British Library does take a fairly balanced view on this subject ("life+70" excepted), but there is one important area where their view is not balanced at all: they believe that libraries are somehow exceptional in their needs. Well they're not.

Libraries have many roles, but almost none of those roles are exclusive. The three most important ones are collecting, sharing, and archiving for posterity, but these roles are also performed within society as a whole (as a normal part of life and culture), and therefore libraries do not have exclusive need for protections here. We all do.

P2P is probably the most contentious sharing technology today, yet what P2P'ers do is not significantly different to what libraries do --- ie. provide access to their collections to the public. They're similar not only in function, but also in social neutrality and economic effect: sharing is available to everyone equally, no money is made or taken from the sharing, they both reduce somewhat the sales of the items in question, and they both provide free public promotion for the items as well.

The role of archiving for posterity is not exclusive to libraries either --- nobody wants to lose their collected works through media deterioration from old age, so being able to make copies and not being at the mercy of DRM is important for everyone, not just libraries. Indeed, passing down our digital collections to our descendents will undoubtedly be a common interest.

So, while I support what the British Library is saying for the most part, their preoccupation with the needs of libraries sends the wrong message --- we are all in that same boat.

Re:Public libraries and P2P have similarities

[mattpalmer1086]

I agree with most of what you say, except the very last part. It sends exactly the right message. The British Library is raising a serious point about DRM and how it interferes with our legal protections. Of course they are library focussed - that's what they do.

Do you think they would be taken seriously if they went on an anti-DRM crusade? No - and neither do they want to. They actually use DRM themselves to allow them to publish copyrighted material on the internet. Without the protection it affords (to satisfy individual requests to copyrighted works) they couldn't do that, and users would have to physically visit the library to see much of their stuff.

They are making the point that even the British Library finds the new technology dangerous to our legal rights, and we should be very careful about allowing those rights to be superceded by technologically enforced contracts. Great message, to the point and relevant. If there are other interest groups with similar messages, speak up!

Re:Public libraries and P2P have similarities

[ray-auch]

Libraries have many roles, but almost none of those roles are exclusive. The three most important ones are collecting, sharing, and archiving for posterity, but these roles are also performed within society as a whole

The british library is a national library, and also a legal deposit library (one of only six) under the 2003 Act, and its job is to perform those roles. Others may perform the roles, but it isn't their stated purpose enshrined in law to do so.

This does make them exceptional. There is a huge difference between saying "DRM is stopping me doing Y" and saying "DRM is stopping me doing Y, which I am required to do by law".

Re:Public libraries and P2P have similarities

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Although what you say is reasonable, I'm not full of sympathy for organisations like the British Library. I live in Cambridge and studied here, and I can tell you plenty of stories about the University Library behaving atrociously towards those who rely on its special status to find source material for their research. The legal deposit libraries seem to act as laws unto themselves, very proud of their special authority, yet with little accountability and often offering a poor service to the people they are supposed to help.

Different times for different things

[kyb]

IP law should respect the fact that there are many different fields of endevour, and different terms are appropriate for each of them. It's perfectly reasonable that the copyright on a novel should last a pretty long time (I think the author should receive some compensation if it gets made into a film 10 years later for example), but patents on computer related things should last a very short time - the computer industry is changing much faster than the book writing industry, and if the entire industry is held up for 10 years because of one guys patent, that is a very serious detriment to the public good.

Regardless of what is decided, it seems very obvious to me that the current lengths of these things are far outside what is reasonable. I'd be much more in favour of 20 years for literary/artistic works, and 3 years for patents, with the posibility of a single extension for 5 more years for patents, requiring a large fee (so only patents that are being used get extended).

That's what I think for IT patents, but longer terms might be more appropriate for slower moving industries.

Re:Different times for different things

[Antique Geekmeister]

Patents on software are like copyrights on individual words: they actively hinder development of new works, and add a serious burden to new software projects to guess whether or not some obscure patent will be held to be infringed by the new work.

kind of hard to do

[circletimessquare]

money attracts power and power attracts money, inexorably

money and power will steamroll all laws, morals, decency, justice, fairness, and accountability in order to be with each other, no matter what system of government you devise or imagine

money and power will find the path of least resistance to get to one another and shortcircuit all of your good intentions

look at modern china, where 50 years of hardcore communist rhetoric has created... drum roll... the most social darwinistic model of capitalism on this planet right now. with all of the social inequalities that go along with that, abject squalor sandwiched against diamond encrusted bathrooms, modern china would make the robber barons of the gilded ages of victorian times in the usa blush

money+power: i think it's one of the fundamental forces in physics... along with entropy and taxes and magnetism

you can't beat it even in glorious goody two shoes canada: look at their recent corruption scandal that recently swept the liberals out of power up there

i'm not saying it's a good thing, i'm just saying it's pretty formidable force of nature you are contending with rather lightly

Re:kind of hard to do

[mrchaotica]

you can't beat it even in glorious goody two shoes canada: look at their recent corruption scandal that recently swept the liberals out of power up there

On the contrary, that is beating it -- when corruption happens here, we fail to have a scandal and the crooks stay in power!

Re:kind of hard to do

[Dun Malg]

look at modern china, where 50 years of hardcore communist rhetoric has created... drum roll... the most social darwinistic model of capitalism on this planet right now.

Given that most of the corporate bigwigs in china are high ranking military officers and government officials, I'd say China is simply run of the mill fascism rather than sink-or-swim capitalism. You don't get that diamond encrusted bathroom unless you're tight pals with powers-that-be.

Re:kind of hard to do

[Pecisk]

Errr, no, I think that force would be will to survive. It drives power. It drives greed. But if human understand this force, that these two things looses their importance.

Problem is, most of crowd who yearns for power don't get it AND don't want to get it. Because it is just so easy follow the flow.

Lifetime plus some is an incentive

[old man moss]

"To believe that anything beyond lifetime copyright impacts the incentive structure of creators takes some serious suspension of disbelief."

I'm guessing you are quite young then? I'm over 40 and have 2 children. I write but haven't made a penny at it. Much as I enjoy writing, there is definitely an incentive to "publish" in knowing that if my work becomes popular late in my life (or just after) then my kids will benefit.

Parents want to provide for their children.

Re:Lifetime plus some is an incentive

[Dobeln]

"I'm guessing you are quite young then? I'm over 40 and have 2 children. I write but haven't made a penny at it. Much as I enjoy writing, there is definitely an incentive to "publish" in knowing that if my work becomes popular late in my life (or just after) then my kids will benefit.

Parents want to provide for their children."

Guilty as charged, and fair point. My assumption here is that the number of people who write / perform only do so for the sake of their heirs to a very limited extent. Anyone know about any empirics regarding this?

Re:Lifetime plus some is an incentive

[Pofy]

>Parents want to provide for their children.

For most people in the world, that means they have to first work to make money that the children can then get. Why should for example artists be different? Why should they not have to work and make their money first? Should my employer or whoever buy my services (or whatever you like to take an example) have to continue to pay to my children AFTER I die? If one still want such a system, a fixed time not tied to ones death would of course be much better.

Re:Lifetime plus some is an incentive

[old man moss]

"Why should for example artists be different?"

Because often an artist does not make much (or any) money from his/her work until years after it was done.

I'm not suggesting artists should be paid more than anyone else; just that they (or their children) should be paid.

Yes, I agree, a fixed term (50 years) would probably be better. But maybe that might encourage well known artists to stockpile work for their kids to publish?

Re:Lifetime plus some is an incentive

[Pofy]

I do agree with you that a fixed time would probably be much better. I don't see how the stockpiling would make any difference though, the time to get income would be the same, unless there is large taxes on money inherited as oposed to the copyright the difference would not be large since the children would instead inheret the money for non stockpiled work.

The ultimately goal for copyright though is not to provide for the well being of future children but to make sure that works are created to start with. ONe can raise the point of copyright not expiering upon death as part of it, but then one should also go for fixed time duration in my opinion.

Re:Lifetime plus some is an incentive

[cpt kangarooski]

I'm over 40 and have 2 children. I write but haven't made a penny at it. Much as I enjoy writing, there is definitely an incentive to "publish" in knowing that if my work becomes popular late in my life (or just after) then my kids will benefit.

Parents want to provide for their children.

Then you are a terribly irresponsible parent. As a copyright lawyer, let me point out to you that the odds of your work ever being even slightly valuable economically, are very very small. And then, the work typically is only worth something immediately upon publication in a given medium, with the value rapidly declining (roughly 90% of the lifetime value will be realized in under a year, sometimes in just a few weeks). The odds of creating a work with lasting value, or value long after publication, are astronomical.

Frankly, you would have better odds of getting money with which to provide for your family by buying lottery tickets.

If you want to be a good parent, you will have a job, you will carefully invest money, you will have insurance policies, and so forth. You will support government programs that would help as well, should your family hit bad times. These are ordinary, conventional methods of providing for your family that do not rely on tremendous amounts of luck. But they actually work. Better yet, they work for everyone, and not just authors.

Copyright is probably one of the worst systems imaginable for helping 'widows and orphans' since it is just so damn bad at actually doing it. If you want something that works, look elsewhere. If you want to daydream, and ignore your responsibilities to your family, then by all means, pretend that copyright will ever mean something to them.

And so long as we're dealing with rational actors, long copyrights aren't an incentive. I don't care for the idea of a copyright system that is meant to appeal to irrational people.

Re:Lifetime plus some is an incentive

[old man moss]

Thanks for not advising me. But you assume too much. I didn't say I don't have a job and life insurance. I even play the lottery from time to time...

There's plenty of time in a day to earn money and daydream too!

Yes, very long copyright is a bad thing (I think 50 years in total is easily enough) but it is not rational to dismiss an incentive which only appeals to irrational people, if you know the people you want to incentivise are irrational.

...and everyone I know is prone to being irrational.

My views

[drsmithy]

Fundamentally, I believe copyright to be a concept that is broken by design, but that it has taken the "digital age", with its inherently instantaneous, free reproduction capabilities and near-instantaneous, near-free distribution channels to make that obvious.

With that said, I recognise that copyright is here to stay.

So, my guidelines for a fair copyright regime:

* Copyright is recognised as fundamentally an economic tool for artificially assigning value to something that inherently has none (ie: none of this flowery "for the betterment of society" claptrap).
* Copyright protection for economic purposes becomes an opt-in process (eg: if you want to sell a book or song, you have to register it as a copyrighted work).
* Length of copyright is linked to a works "ECD". When a work is registered as copyrighted, it must include an "Estimated Cost of Development". Once the owner of the copyright has recorded income from selling the copyrighted work that meets or exceeds the "ECD", the work is no longer subject to protection from non-profit copyright infringement (ie: filesharing and the like). Note that for-profit reproduction (ie: someone else *selling* a copyrighted work) is still a crime (and would be harshly punished).
* Fraudulent reporting of "ECD" or copyright-related income would be *severely* punished. Upon confirmation of such fraud, the work would immediately enter the public domain and a fine would be issued to the registered copyright holder equal to the submitted "ROI" value PLUS any reported income from the work. Where possible (ie: with proof of purchase), refunds would be issued to anyone who had purchased the work.
* On the death of the copyright holder, all their copyrighted works enter the public domain.

Re:My views

[mattpalmer1086]

* On the death of the copyright holder, all their copyrighted works enter the public domain.

Great incentive to shoot your favorite artist!

Re:My views

[mrchaotica]

Wow, that's the first idea for copyright (other than reducing it back to 14 years or abolishing it entirely) I've heard that actually seems reasonable to me! Keep telling people about it -- I hope they listen.

Re:My views

[Ngwenya]

Length of copyright is linked to a works "ECD". When a work is registered as copyrighted, it must include an "Estimated Cost of Development". Once the owner of the copyright has recorded income from selling the copyrighted work that meets or exceeds the "ECD", the work is no longer subject to protection from non-profit copyright infringement (ie: filesharing and the like). Note that for-profit reproduction (ie: someone else *selling* a copyrighted work) is still a crime (and would be harshly punished).

I sympathise with the goals, but think that the practice you're trying to implement would be extremely difficult. The unintended consequence of such a regime would (I think) be the artificial inflation of ECDs (notwithstanding your next point). Noone would have the appropriate incentive to report true costs - you'd need an extremely rigorous copyright equivalent of the SEC and Sarbanes-Oxley. Hell, Hollywood inflates its costs right now so that it can avoid paying percentage of profits to authors/screenplay writers/etc. I think having an ECD as the sole determinant of copyright duration would make this obscene situation much worse.

Fraudulent reporting of "ECD" or copyright-related income would be *severely* punished. Upon confirmation of such fraud, the work would immediately enter the public domain...

The problem here is determining what is a fraudulent assessment of a works costs. If everyone has an incentive to maximise their costs, then how does the appropriate copyright authority determine that they are all out of line - and by how much? You'd need some sort of state appointed copyright regulator (something like the Office of Communications [OfCom] in the UK). Regulators are generally employed, however, where there is, in effect, no free market in goods or services. Think of it as a sort of "surrogate market". You'd have a hard time saying that copyrighted works weren't in abundant supply.

I like the tone of your idea - that copyright is there to ensure you've got a chance of getting your costs back (NOT a guarantee) plus some reasonable profit for the venture (NOT some obscenely bloated ROI which guarantees you never have to work again). I think I'd simply advocate that one has an exploitation window of 10 years for free, and then an exponentially increasing copyright cost for keeping a work out of the public domain. After 25 years, a work enters the public domain, come what may. The incidence of works which only recover their costs after 25 years of distribution is vanishingly small. I have never understood the logic which says that works will not be attempted unless monopoly distribution rights extend 70 years past the death of the author. How many new works is Elvis producing these days?

--Ng

Re:My views

[Ngwenya]

On the death of the copyright holder, all their copyrighted works enter the public domain.

Great incentive to shoot your favorite artist!

Also a great incentive to ensure that all the mind numbing crap is locked up in copyright forever. So that means we'd have to keep Paris Hilton alive by cryogenics if necessary. Can you imagine a world where her warbled excreta could be freely traded? Will no-one think of the children?

--Ng

Re:My views

[drsmithy]

Great incentive to shoot your favorite artist!

So you wouldn't violate copyright (ie: breal existing laws), but you *would* kill someone ?

Right....

Re:My views

[drsmithy]

I sympathise with the goals, but think that the practice you're trying to implement would be extremely difficult.

I should have clarified, here, that there would be two distinct sets of requirements depending on whether the body registering the copyright is an individual or a corporation.

An individual would be allowed to put forth a "reasonable estimate". This would be, in effect, the cost of raw materials + (a "reasonable wage" * time of development)[0]. Corporations, OTOH, would have these reports folded into their standard accounting and taxation procedures (ie: if they make money out of selling copyrighted works, they must report that separately on their standard accounting/taxation forms).

My reasoning here is that the scope for copyright abuse by individuals is small, therefore to encourage individual creativity, the requirements for them vis-a-vis "copyright registration" requirements, would be much more lax.

The unintended consequence of such a regime would (I think) be the artificial inflation of ECDs (notwithstanding your next point). Noone would have the appropriate incentive to report true costs - you'd need an extremely rigorous copyright equivalent of the SEC and Sarbanes-Oxley.

Given the enormous privileges endowed to copyright holders to overrule normal market forces, this does not seem to me to be an unreasoanble tradeoff. A side benefit would be - by requirement - more transparency and accountability in corporate accounting practices.

Note that the money has to be documented going somewhere, particularly in publically traded corporations.

The reason I would insist the punishments be so harsh, is to discourage any serious attempts at fraud. Things like popular movies and music, for example, that make such phenomenally large amounts of money, will go out of copyright relatively quickly (as they should), even if the development cost is dramatically overstated. Additionally, one or two successfully prosecuted cases in a field where works are expensive to create (ie: where it's actually worth trying to fudge the figures) should result in sufficiently devestating losses for that period that any further attempts will be extremely unlikely.

The problem here is determining what is a fraudulent assessment of a works costs.

Well, the objective is only to stop trully outrageous inflations, which should be relatively easy to spot.

If everyone has an incentive to maximise their costs, then how does the appropriate copyright authority determine that they are all out of line - and by how much?

Ah, ok, I see where you're going...

The objective is not to assess whether or not, say, $500 million is an appropriate cost to make Mission Impossible 15, the objective is to make sure that if the studio says it cost that much, then the rest of their legally required accounting for the stated time period says that number is a reasonable amount - ie: that their reported expenses for goods, services, wages, etc in the (reported) timeframe the movies was being made, adds up to about the right number. In other words, that they're not just making up numbers and alleged expenses are disappearing off into the creative accounting ether.

So if, say, a studio reports it makes three movies in a year for a combined cost of $250 million, then their annual taxation report should show they spent $250 million on salaries, services and depreciating assets. If it says they only spent, say, $50 million, then it's time for some questions to be asked.

As I said, this sort of information would be rolled into the legally required accounting practices, making fraud (ie: money disappearing) much more difficult.

[0] I would expect this value to be calculated as some fixed multiplier of the average wage.

Re:My views

[drsmithy]

I can tell you're not someone who intends to make a living from producing anything creative.

No, I just don't think people who do want to make a living from creative works should have the system so ridiculously stacked in their favour as it is now. It should allow them to make a living, but it should require them to continue producing works to do so.

If you write a song, or a book, or a piece of software, and people want to hear/read/use it, then you should have the right to sell it.

Which in my system, you do. Indeed, up until you die, you are the *only* person who can sell it.

The idea that once you've recovered your production costs, people can legally file-share it for free is ludicrous.

Who would buy a copy?

Same people who buy it now despite being able to download it for free.

Most people would just wait for it to go public.

If no-one buys it, it won't go public.

Intellectual Property does have value.

Indeed it does. But not in the way property does, no matter how much the term "intellectual property" is abused.

Being a musician or a writer is a trade.

Exactly. And they shouldn't be given ridiculous advantages people in other trades are not.

If you think that the creative arts will flourish under your system, think again.

Of course they would. With its requirement for continuous creation of new material to assure income and a strong preference for individual creativity over corporate-sponsored cookie-cutter entertainment, I would expect it to usher in a new age of creative diversity.

Not only that, but an effective requirement for "content" purchases to include more than just the song or the movie to be worthwhile, consumers would receive far more for their dollar than they do now.

No one will be a professional artist, they will just be well-intentioned amateurs doing stuff in their spare time.

Why ? It's not like there wouldn't still be plenty of money to be made in live performances, product sponsorship and value-adding CDs, DVDs and the like.

It certainly would turn copyrighted material more into a service than a product, but that's mainly because it's the whole point of my guidelines.

Yes, DRM is unfairly prohibitive.

I am 100% for ridiculously strict hardware-enforced DRM - but only if it comes with the complete abolishment of copyright. If that were to happen, "content" might actually start having to bend to market forces (because then it would actually behave much more like physical property).

If you cheapen artistic endeavour, you cheapen society.

Current copyright law (and the basic concepts behind it, going back to its inception) do far more to "cheapen artistic endeavour" than anything my proposals might result in. Largely because it works under the assumption that all works have the same basic value and denies the market's ability to indicate its preferences.

Yes, the record companies take too big a cut. But don't take away the artist's rights to make a living from their skill.

I wouldn't. I would, however, make continual exercising of their skill a requirement to make a living. I fail to see how that is unreasonable, or unfair. I have to go to work every day to keep the money rolling in so I can sustain my lifestyle - why shouldn't artists ?

Re:My views

[ichigo 2.0]

Great incentive to shoot your favorite artist!

Also a good way to make sure your favorite artist never releases any new material. Oops...

Re:My views

[mattpalmer1086]

I think you forgot to turn on your irony detector.

At least guns are easy to get hold of in the US, and you can share them with friends too ;)

Re:My views

[drsmithy]

I think you forgot to turn on your irony detector.

Sorry, but it's so commonly used by people as an attempt at serious argument (who obviously haven't thought it through), it's hard to tell when people are joking.

Re:My views

[Ngwenya]

Ah, ok, I see where you're going...

The objective is not to assess whether or not, say, $500 million is an appropriate cost to make Mission Impossible 15, the objective is to make sure that if the studio says it cost that much, then the rest of their legally required accounting for the stated time period says that number is a reasonable amount - ie: that their reported expenses for goods, services, wages, etc in the (reported) timeframe the movies was being made, adds up to about the right number. In other words, that they're not just making up numbers and alleged expenses are disappearing off into the creative accounting ether.

OK. Got you now. So what you're saying is that while copyright expires only after death of the author (I imagine it would be some arbitrary number - 50 years or so - for corporations since they cannot die), the exclusive right of distribution expires after cost recovery. So a work would have three phases in its life

1. Cost Recovery Mode: No one can copy it (except the author or his publishers).

2. Cost Recovered Mode: It can be freely distributed, but not sold for cost. So P2P would be OK, but AllofMP3 wouldn't. Any monies extracted at this point are profit for the author/publisher.

3. Public Domain: The author has died, so the work can be sold, copied, bent, folded, spindled or mutilated. Presumably a "moral right" still exists - ie, you cannot reassign authorship of the work.

Allowable transitions are 1->2->3 [Recover Costs; Profit; Die Rich] or 1->3 [Recover Costs; Die Poor]. Have I got this right?

--Ng

Re:My views

[QRDeNameland]

I like the general diraction of your proposals, but I would offer a few simpler ideas of my own.

1) Fixed term copyright is not a bad idea as long as no copyrights can be extended after the fact. Indeed, as I see it, it should be unconstitutional to extend a copyright term beyond what was in effect at the time of creation (i.e., if a term can be extended after the fact, it can not be guarantted to be "limited" as the Contitution provides.

2) I think the term of copyright should be much shorter; the orignal 14 years is probably adequate.

3) Instead of creating a bureaucracy to police the development costs and reported income from a work, a more efficient and market oriented solution would be to simply auction the extension of copyright terms when the current term expires. Whatever value a given work may have after its initial (let's say 14 years) term, let the market decide what the value of that work over the next 14 years would be.

The way I envision it, anyone except the current holder could bid on a work. Assuming there are actually bids, the highest bidder sets the extension value. The current holder would then have the option to either pay 50% of the high bid to the copyright office (i.e., "the people" who grant said copyright, for the purpose of financing the protection of these granted temporary "rights") and extend the copyright for another term, or the high bidder can take possession of the extended copyright at the full amount of the high bid, which is then split 50% to the original holder, and 50% to the copyright office. If no one else is interested enough to bid on the work, a flat fee is then required to extend the term, set at a value high enough to discourage holders from extending everything.

I won't pretend I have it all worked out, but I see this system as addressing many of the issues where copyright seems to be breaking down:

* Highly valuable works can have their copyrights extended as long as they are valuable, but in exchange for that extended protection some of that value must be given back.

* The vast majority of less valuable work will enter the public domain much sooner.

* It incents the original copyright owner (presumably the creator) over anyone else who would wish to purchase those rights.

* Values are determined by the free market.

Something to think about, anyway.

Re:My views

[drsmithy]

Fixed term copyright is not a bad idea as long as no copyrights can be extended after the fact. Indeed, as I see it, it should be unconstitutional to extend a copyright term beyond what was in effect at the time of creation (i.e., if a term can be extended after the fact, it can not be guarantted to be "limited" as the Contitution provides.

Well, I'm not American, so I'm not arguing this from a Constitutional perspective (and by my understanding of the US Constitution, copyright as it (conceptually) exists today would not be a requirement to meet the Constitutional definition).

IMHO, if a copyright period is enshrined in law as a specific, arbitrary period of time, then it is relatively easy to have that time period extended, ad infinitum. That's why I think any (new) form of copyright law *cannot* work from such a basis, or it is inherently vulnerable to abuse.

I think the term of copyright should be much shorter; the orignal 14 years is probably adequate.

Personally I think 14 years is way, way too long for most works. The average song or movie, for example, makes the vast bulk of its money in the first few years after release. Subsequently, it will generate a relatively small - albeit steady - stream of income, but that income is pure profit and, as such, provides little incentive for the creation of new works. Similarly, the longer a work stays under copyright, the less value it has from the perspective of providing inspiration to others.

Instead of creating a bureaucracy to police the development costs and reported income from a work, a more efficient and market oriented solution would be to simply auction the extension of copyright terms when the current term expires. Whatever value a given work may have after its initial (let's say 14 years) term, let the market decide what the value of that work over the next 14 years would be.

I like the theory, but I really do think any form of copyright law that has a specific time period stated will be vulnerable to the same kinds of abuses we have seen current copyright law suffer, with regards to continual extensions. Additionally, it seems to put valuable works at the mercy of corporations, who will effectively be unbeatable in any bidding wars with their endless financial resources and put an infinite copyright on works simply by extending the term every time it is up for renewal (I would expect the average "IP" company would look at it as a defensive strategy, keeping control of works not so much for the works themselves, but for any future derivative works).

Re:My views

[drsmithy]

OK. Got you now. So what you're saying is that while copyright expires only after death of the author (I imagine it would be some arbitrary number - 50 years or so - for corporations since they cannot die), the exclusive right of distribution expires after cost recovery.

Copyrights held by "non-people" are the fly in my ointment, I can't decide how to deal with it fairly. I really want to say that copyrights can only be held by "natural people", but I imagine that would have a massive negative economic affect on businesses that rely on copyright to be viable in the first place.

Additionally, as I've said elsewhere, I think any copyright law that has a specific, arbitrary timeframe written into it is too easy (relatively speaking) to have modified.

On the flipside, once a work has been "cost recovered", as you say, personal non-profit copying becomes legal, so as far as most people are concered it's irrelevant after that point.

I am open to suggestions on this front :).

Allowable transitions are 1->2->3 [Recover Costs; Profit; Die Rich] or 1->3 [Recover Costs; Die Poor]. Have I got this right?

Yep. I would also enshrine the "moral right" you refer to in law, such that a work could never be (legally) claimed by another to be theirs (hence criminalising both "plagiarism" and the registering of a work by someone who didn't create it). This is the only right I would confer automatically to all works from the instant of creation.

Re:My views

[QRDeNameland]

IMHO, if a copyright period is enshrined in law as a specific, arbitrary period of time, then it is relatively easy to have that time period extended, ad infinitum. That's why I think any (new) form of copyright law *cannot* work from such a basis, or it is inherently vulnerable to abuse.

You do have a good point there, and unless the actual term is enshrined constitutionally to make it next to impossible to change. And still, as you note that only works in one country.

Additionally, it seems to put valuable works at the mercy of corporations, who will effectively be unbeatable in any bidding wars with their endless financial resources and put an infinite copyright on works simply by extending the term every time it is up for renewal (I would expect the average "IP" company would look at it as a defensive strategy, keeping control of works not so much for the works themselves, but for any future derivative works).

Maybe, maybe not. First, my proposal does give an advantage to the original holder (and perhaps that should be further restricted only to the actual creator of the work), that anyone else will have to pay double for any extension. Further, the only way corporations can continually outbid others for the extended rights would be for them to habitually pay more for those rights than they are actually worth, and no one's financial resources can be endless if they are buying "property" at a loss, especially "property" that expires.

Actually, part of my concern with the the reporting of dev costs and revenues is actually similar, that if you create a complicated bureaucracy, it will be the corps that will gain the best advantage of it.

Anyway, thanks for responding and here's hoping we get it all worked out someday.

Re:My views

[BoberFett]

* Copyright is recognised as fundamentally an economic tool for artificially assigning value to something that inherently has none

If the ideas that are copyrighted have no value, then why do others want to be able to use them freely? If something truly has no value, it's because nobody wants it. As soon as somebody wants something it has value, whether you personally believe it to or not.

BL is reinforcing it's "custodian" role

[tpholland]

At the end of the day, the BL isn't going to stand up for the interests of consumers. They themselves are heavy users of DRM, and anybody who's ever read in the BL (and paid the exorbitant photocopying fees!) will know how zealously they police copyright laws.

As a legal deposit library, what's important to the BL is that they're seen as the custodians of our intellectual heritagenot the publishers. Quite right too: the points about archiving and library priviledge are meant to ensure that copies of works survive--possibly giving the BL the right to reverse-engineer DRM, as we've seen happen in numerous other National Libraries accross the world. I don't think that it means they'll stop policing fair dealing, looking over your shouler to make sure you don't copy any more than 10% of a work or one chapter (whichever is the smallest)!

As an example of the BLs DRM usage, take a look at their Secure Electronic Delivery service. Not much room for fair dealing there. My partner (a librarian) was working for a big government department that regularly requested heaps of documents from the British Library. They could have saved a bit of public money using electronic delivery, but the Adobe DRM that the British Library uses was a bitch to get working through the departement's web cache. They would have had to pursuade an intransigent IT department to support a different version of Adobe Reader--people have just carried on using good old hard-copies, delivered by van from the BL's Document Supply Centre in Boston Spa.

Copyright Infringement is not Theft!

[Anonymous Coward]

We need intelligent, reasonbale debate on the issue

That's simply not going to happen, I'll tell you why after a little background for the benefit of Johnny Foreigner.

In the UK we have this organization called "FACT", the "Federation Against Copyright Theft". These idiots put "piracy funds terrorism" type trailers are at the head of every video/DVD release and cinema screening. My favourite trailer makes the points that "you wouldn't steal a car", "you wouldn't steal a film" and then flashes "copying is stealing" accross the screen in huge letters. The purpose of these offensive little skits is to decieve the public into believing that all copyright infringement is a criminal offense comparable with theft.

How do you propose to conduct an intelligent, reasonable debate with people who will not even come to the table without lying and misrepresenting their cause?

Re:Copyright Infringement is not Theft!

[cliffski]

well it would be a good start to accept that piracy harms the companies who make the content. Or is even this not common ground that can be agreed upon?

Re:Copyright Infringement is not Theft!

[cliffski]

how has technology made the makers of photoshop redundant. "The market will stand" only works as a test if the market is not bypassed. surely thsi is obvious. the price that the market will stand for a porsche is $0, if we could all get stolen ones for free. This is no argument at all.
You cant talk about market forces in the same breath as zero-cost copying.

Re:Both sides can learn from this

[mrchaotica]

We need intelligent, reasonbale debate on the issue, where both sides can accept some basic principles... Nobody on the content side (including msyelf) listens to the 'pirate party', 'pirate bay' or their defenders, as they have blatantly supported illegal distribution withgout any attempt to compensate the content creators.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Don't you realize that the idea that "information wants to be free" is a valid "basic principle," even if you don't agree with it? Don't just blame the "pirates" when it appears that you're also failing to open yourself to reasonable debate!

Unless the anti-DRM people can frame their arguments reasonably...

I've got some that I'll be happy to tell you about... later (I don't have time right now). Check my posting history, or reply (so that I'll be reminded by seeing it in my message list) and I'll do so the first chance I get.

Re:Both sides can learn from this

[cliffski]

Well it is a 'principle' in the same way that comunism is a principle, but I dont agree that it is one that can coexist in any sane way with capitalism. If your starting point is "all information should be free" how do you expect the people who actually make that information for a living are going to meet you halfway? You layughably say im the pot calling the kettle black, then in the very next sentence draw a line in the sand where you basically refuse to pay for anything digital.
It's arguing from that point of view that has got us exactly where we are right now.
I'm well aware of the arguments that people use to justify copyright theft. They are frankly, laughable, and entirely unrelated to the topic at hand. This is about excessive DRM, and consumer rights, not some debate over the very legitimacy of the concepts of copyright or IP, which most grown up sane people realise are required for a modern, capitalist economy.

Its people like you who try to connect a sane debate over consumer rights and DRM with some hippie philosophy of abolishing intellectual property that has prevented there being any sane debate on the issue. If the campaigners against DRM also rant about how all information should be free, they will never get any sympathy, any compromise, or any attention from mainstream politicians.

To everyone campaigning against DRM (I'm against it too, and dont use it), it would be wise to distance yourself from the 'information wants to be free' crowd. They just make a mockery of the whole debate, and allow corporations to label you all as thieves.

DRM overriding statutory rights?

[Cicero382]

That's what it says in the summary; I think they're referring to the phrase "exceed the statutory exceptions for fair dealing access." in TFA. Not quite the same thing, still...

IANAL, but I thought statutory rights override *anything* that a company can put in a contract. Or, to put it another way, you can't legally contract someone to break the law.

A ridiculous example to illustrate the point:

EULA: "...and before using this software, the user agrees to sacrifice their first-born to the company."
User: "No way, AND I'm going to use the software, anyway"
Company: "We're going to sue you for breach of contract."
Courts: "Errr.. we don't think so" (except where the RIAA is involved, apparently)

I see these attempts at extortion (and that's *just* what they are) in all sorts s/w related EULAs. I just ignore them.

How on earth do they get away with this. Or (sudden horrible thought) am I missing something?

Re:DRM overriding statutory rights?

[Cicero382]

EULA: "...and before using this software, the user agrees to sacrifice their first-born to the company."

I stand corrected. I quoted this as a ridiculous and hypothetical example but apparently it's a direct quote from the Windows EULA.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Re:DRM overriding statutory rights?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Or (sudden horrible thought) am I missing something?

Seen your first-born child lately? :-/

Re:DRM overriding statutory rights?

[Cicero382]

No, but I never agreed to the EULA.. ..Oh SHIT!

Re:DRM overriding statutory rights?

[Cicero382]

I am enlightened. Thank you.

(No, not sarcasm).

Preempting Gowers?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

As an aside, in the UK, the nearest equivalent to the US "fair use" concept is "fair dealing", but it's much more limited. Basic things like format-shifting and other copying for strictly personal use are not currently included, for example.

It's an odd time for the British Library to publish this. The Gowers Review, mentioned in the Slashdot story, ran a call for evidence that closed back in April, and I imagine the BL submitted their comments to it. The official line is that the Review will publish the results in "Autumn 2006". However, I can tell you as someone who submitted a response that they wrote to me around three weeks ago, and asked me to confirm by last Friday whether I was happy for that response to be posted on the Review's web site (which is linked from the story), so it sounds like the reporting stage is imminent.

I wonder if the British Library is sneakily trying to push its own agenda ahead of the Review publishing its results in the next few days? After all, although the Review plans to make concrete recommendations to government on the future IP framework within the UK, the government still has to accept the results and implement the laws.

Re:Preempting Gowers?

[VJ42]

Basic things like format-shifting and other copying for strictly personal use are not currently included, for example.

Are you sure about that, the official guidelines don't seem to exclude them:

Fair dealing has been interpreted by the courts on a number of occasions by looking at the economic impact on the copyright owner of the use; where the economic impact is not significant, the use may count as fair dealing.

so whilst they may not be specifically included, I don't see a court prosecuting me, as I'm not exactly bancrupting the copyright holder by converting my CDs to mp3, and millions of people are doing it, and there are I havn't heard of any prosecutions.

Re:Preempting Gowers?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

IIRC, some of the media companies recently made a public statement saying they wouldn't prosecute people just for harmless format-shifting. This was probably a good move, because upsetting the entire MP3-player industry probably isn't a helpful thing to do if you rely on music sales to make money -- particularly if some of those MP3 players are made by another wing of your own parent company!

Nevertheless, while the statement you cited is true, our fair dealing statutes certainly don't describe exemptions in the kind of broad, open-ended terms that (for example) US "fair use" law does. For example, if memory serves, you have to look to some rather obscure bit of European(?) legislation that's filtered down to find cover for backing up computer software, not to the CDPA itself.

Re:Preempting Gowers?

[VJ42]

Oh, I totally understand that our legislation is not as liberal as the American fair use doctrine, I was just pointing out that our courts (and hence case law) have tended to use some "common sense"* when it comes down to copyright. For example, I work in a children's library and we regularly photocopy images downloaded from the internet of popular cartoon characters and give them to kids to colour in. I don't see a British court prosecuting us for breech of copyright, as it's all non-profit, and dosn't impact on the Disney\Nickalodeon\Warner bros. etc.'s profits. If we were selling those picture's it would be a different matter of course.

*More specifically, what the general public consider comon sense. Trying to convinse them that down\uploading via any p2p network is actually benificial to record companies, as many here often do, wouldn't wash IMO

Re:Preempting Gowers?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I think perhaps you're giving a bit too much credit to our legal system. As far as I can tell, most of the "big questions" over copyright have not (yet?) come to court.

However, since our legal system is generally "loser pays", our equivalents of the **AA groups can't employ the same scare tactics to make money. Our courts and politicians are also far less in Big Media's pockets than they appear to be in certain other places, particularly the US, and we don't have the concept of punitive damages that would lead to disproportionate rewards for suing people all over the place. Basically, our legal climate is such that going after serious offenders (the guys who mass-produce ripped DVDs and sell them at car boot sales, for example) can be and is done, but it's rarely worthwhile to go after the little guy.

As a consequence, behaviour like your photocopying example, while technically illegal (I think; IANAL), is effectively treated as "no harm, no foul" unless you do something to seriously upset the copyright holders.

Re:Preempting Gowers?

[VJ42]

You're right, of course. You've just stated much of what I was thinking more elequently that I could. As you said our system just makes it not worthwhile going after the little guy, who's harmed noone. Although the IIRC BPI did float the idea of acting like the **AA I've not seen anything come of it. And, to be blunt, the British press, loves an underdog, so if they started suing old grannies they would quickly lose credibility among the general public. I can see the Daily Mail headlines already.

Then considering the way this government reacts to headlines, perhaps we should hope the BPI tries somthing; Tony's (or maybe Gordon's) next speech would be on the terrorist evil that is copyright law.

Having said all that, I would like to see some clarification of the law (more case law?) in this area, just so we can see what exactly is allowed, and what isn't. Because there are many people (including myself) who just don't know what fair dealing allows and what it dosn't. My opinion is that my photocopying activities are inline with the government guidelines I posted eailer, but IANAL either.

PRedictable

[Andy Gardner]

and copyright terms should not be extended without evidence that this would be good for society.

Roll on the 'independant' government/content provider appointed 'expert'...

Something my copyright prof said

[deblau]

Without creators, there would be no new expression, and without distributors, no one would learn from that expression and build on it. Thus, the traditional viewpoint has been that copyright should protect both creators and distributors.

The term of the copyright doesn't upset this analysis. What does upset it is that with the advent and rapid development of the Internet, distribution is no longer a limiting factor. There is no longer a danger that one's work won't be distributed.[1] Society has solved this issue on its own, independent of copyright laws. We don't need to protect distributors with copyrights any more.

Furthermore, the economic incentive that copyrights provide to distributors simply isn't justified. While the demand for copyrighted works has increased due to population growth and increased expressiveness, the 'supply' given to the people by increasing Internet bandwidth and ubiquity has exponentially outpaced it. Without artificial regulation (i.e., copyright law), these developments would ordinarily drive profit margins to nothing. Thus the distribution monopoly power becomes Yet Another Pointless Government Subsidy, benefiting a special interest group that isn't even contributing anything particularly worthwhile. Farm subsidies are one thing, they keep the price of bread low. Subsidizing an inefficient alternative to the Internet is pure waste.

I say end copyright protection for distributors, with the trade-off of guaranteed Internet access for everyone as a new human right. Subsidize libraries and public kiosks for net access to ensure this right. Of course, this shifts the subsidy to ISPs and the 'backbones', but their worth to society is justifiable independent of copyright law.

[1] One's work may not be watched or heard, but it will always be available for the watching. That's a demand problem, not a supply problem, and it's solved by artists competing for attention in the marketplace. This, in turn, naturally drives up the quality of the art in the eyes of the public, which is a good thing.

Re:Something my copyright prof said

[Dun Malg]

Farm subsidies are one thing, they keep the price of bread low

Actually, they do the opposite. By either buying up wheat and destroying it or giving it away outside the market, or paying farmers to NOT grow wheat, they keep the supply down. Farm subsidies are designed to ensure that the farmers* that DO still sell wheat are able to get a fair** price for it.

* corporations that have bought up all the family farms, that is
** fair defined as "we like the prices wheat went for back when farming was hard, 100 years ago; now that technology allows us to grow 10x the wheat with the same effort, we think we should be making 10x the money, market be damned"

Re:Both sides can learn from this

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Information doesn't want anything. It has no opinion. As with technology, information is neutral, and it's how people use it that matters.

Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[unity100]

Yea, aristocracy was the god-chosen elite who have had the right to hold life or death jurisdiction over the "common" people, and its highest rank was "the king", who held all other as "subjects".

This was a social contract too. If people had listened to such nonsense ideas likewise your quotation points out, and thought of "long term benefits", there would be no french revolution and we would be still people subject to some "local lord" first, then the elite, then the king. Ah not to mention that all the rights and advancements that the previous 2 centuries have brought wouldnt be forthcoming.

Same goes for copyright holding. It is something that emulates a loose group of elitism in the world media, some big people who no one can expect to move into except with a very big smile from fate - same as in the days of old aristocracy.

Again i repeat - NOT all social contracts are beneficial and rightful.

Re:Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If you can't see the difference between giving an elite group special rights just because they had the correct parents, and giving special rights to people who have actually spent their time and money to produce something useful in exchange for them sharing that useful work, then I'm afraid it's time for you to leave this discussion.

Re:Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[unity100]

On the contrary, you are the one who cant see the similarity in situation. Spending 1 or 2 years for something, than using it to earn billions of dollars without having to do any further work differs very little from being born into somebody "right".

As for the general concept, "nobles' birth rights", and aristocratic society was believed to be something useful, in fact the only thing usable as a model by then, not only by the aristocracy but also by many of the public and bourgeoise. Many were proposing a model that left the nobles in place, creating a layered society that divided the people in classes, but introduced some form of nobles' assembly and people's assembly.

However there were people who could foresee how beneficial it would be to get rid of all aristocratic reminiscence. And they have succeeded, albeit only for a short duration to the fullest.

However that short duration of success have provided sufficient momentum in the world so that today you and me are not subject to some local lord, and do as we please.

i believe you are one of the people that cant see beyond the easily foreseen.

Re:Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

On the contrary, you are the one who cant see the similarity in situation. Spending 1 or 2 years for something, than using it to earn billions of dollars without having to do any further work differs very little from being born into somebody "right".

Wow, we really do disagree on this one, then. I think anyone who has created a work of such value that it makes that kind of money in that little time with today's system has probably done more for society than most people ever will in their entire lifetime. Of course, historically the number of people who have actually done that, or anything close to it, is tiny.

Are you sure you're not suffering from just a little envy here? Do you really begrudge J. K. Rowling earning a few million in a few years, even after she has brought a little extra happiness to more people than any of us will ever know? Do you begrudge the guys who founded Google their enormous wealth, even though the tools they have given us help millions of people to save time and find useful information every day?

We can quibble about the enormous sums of money involved, and whether any single piece of work can possibly be worth the disproportionate returns that these high-profile cases generate, but I think it's hard to argue that the people concerned don't deserve a big reward for what they've given to society.

Re:Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[BoberFett]

What are you babbling about? By typing the above reply, you could move into the elite group of copyright holders if you wanted. Copyright is nothing special. You can copyright anything you create. The "elite group" you refer to are the ones who have created works that other people are actually interested in acquiring copies of. Just because you're incapable of creating something worthwhile is no reason to be envious.

Copyright at it's core is a good thing. It spurs creative types to create, because they know they can make a living that way. Unfortunately the idea has been twisted into what is essentially an eternal copyright by the big money players. Disney and the other soulless corporations have tied the works to the corporations rather than the creator, and extended copyright far past the original intent. That is where the problem lies. Not in the fact that copyright exists.

Re:Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[Dun Malg]

Again i repeat - NOT all social contracts are beneficial and rightful.

So? No one said they were. Unless you're going to actually provide an argument against the specific social contract upon which copyright law is based, you're just engaging in the logical fallacy of Hasty Generalization.

Re:Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[unity100]

Theres a misjudgment in your first paragraph - it is not the VALUE for humanity that causes their creator to make millions, its today's economic system, moreso its marketing and such inner workings. If you can get to big channels, if you have the connections, you are lucky, you sell big time. If not, well, then it is just a lottery. This is especially true in the case of artists. Well, first of all i should mention that im not a materialistic person. In fact, you could label me totally the otherwise. who makes millions or not is not my concern, what do they do with their millions, or what does the environment that causes them to be able to gain such money in short notice does to overall civilization, hence our lifestyle is. as for google example, theirs is neither an intellectual proerty right case, or a "did something and made millions without working" case. they have worked and working on still. it was a bad example on your part.

Re:Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[unity100]

It appears that you have still problems understanding what i am "babbling" about, and have in fact stated what was i telling again, yourself.

Copyright holding by itself is totally meaningless. You can create a phletora of shit, and copyright them, some of them might be revolutionary, but they still might not see the light of day, because in order to sell, you need to be a big boy or have a big boy on your side.

The elite is THEM. The big boys. not the copyright holders. copyright issue, intellectual property are just some tools they use this elite class emulation just like other stuff they use to propel it.

Re:Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[unity100]

From what i remember, the problems the current social contract under observation here was already put forward RIGHT at the start of the discussion, and not only with my posts.

Re:Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[BoberFett]

You can't publish anything on the web without the consent of "the big boys?" I was not aware of that. I see nothing of substance in your posts other than wild conspiracy theories about how the man is keeping everybody down. Just because you lack the ability to create something that others want is no reason to deny others the right to control that which they create.

Re:Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[unity100]

Please elaborate me what is "publishing something on the web" without advertising budget, or a few acquintances in some big sites that can get your link included for a long time ?

Let me elaborate for you - it is 40 unique visitors a day after 6 months - it is NOTHING.

At this point, i am more than sure that you will be tempted to give success examples, like "million dollar homepage", citing that "bright ideas, what work, actually attract people".

Nay. This concept is in fact nothing but plain lottery. Its just like "hitting it big" in hollywood - if fate is going to smile on you, it does anyhow. But if it does not, youre just another small fish in the tank and nobody notices you are there.

There are billions of people who are trying to do something on the web, from publishing their own authentic music to trying setting up big-hit websites. Had the web been such an alternative to "being good with the big boys", there would be thousands of new pop-stars, youtubes, googles and so on. But there is not.

Re:Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[BoberFett]

Why is your only criteria for success being the next international sensation and making a gazillion dollars per year? There are thousands of people who make money distributing their works on their own, without any help from "the big boys." You have such a bad case of tunnel vision, it's actually giving me a headache to discuss this any further with you. You are beyond hope, because you believe the only way to be successful is to be the next boy band or pop diva on a major label.

Re:Well well, so was aristocracy a social contract

[unity100]

Yes there are not thousands, but millions of people who distribute their creations by hard work, and what they earn is pathetic compared with their contribution to society. Because, they cant cope up with the big boys.

And yes, striking it big is a success, so is making zillions of dollars, because then you can effect the way things going around the world in many aspects, with your reach, or your money.

"You are beyond hope"

what "beyond" for god's sakes ... what i have told you is the situation in the world, and even on the internet, which is the most free and supportive medium for ordinary people. if you fail to see that "selling some number of stuff" is INCOMPARABLE to releasing a single and making zillions of dollars just because you are up with one of the big boys, you yourself are beyond hope.

Look at it this way, too

[QuaintRealist]

If works immediately became public domain upon the death of the author/creator, the elderly/infirm would have a hell of a time getting published. Think about Stephen Hawking - would you, if you ran a publishing company, put up money for a book knowing that he is in fragile health?

I am not an author - don't even work in a related field. Still, creative content in some cases requires big dollar backing, and writing a book requires massive commitments of time with no payback until the very end, if ever, for the author. So having an immediate reversion to public domain upon the death of the author would help silence people like Hawking, Archbishop Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and the like by making publishing their works high risk financially. Maybe they are famous enough to make it worth the risk, but what about the less well-known?

I am also not in favor of the 70 year rule, and am not an expert. We need a better answer.

Copyright is an artificial economic tool

[Anonymous Coward]

And here is another good quote from a Slashdot post (not mine):

"Copyright is an economic tool for artificially assigning cost to something that inherently has none -- the digital copy."

Maybe the quality of Slashdot contributions is improving. :-)

Re:Copyright is an artificial economic tool

[westlake]

"Copyright is an economic tool for artificially assigning cost to something that inherently has none -- the digital copy

No deposit, no return.

You want the free digital copy you had better find a way of paying for the original. A Pixar feature represents five years of work by four hundred people and an investment of $100 million dollars.

Re:Copyright is an artificial economic tool

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

You want the free digital copy you had better find a way of paying for the original. A Pixar feature represents five years of work by four hundred people and an investment of $100 million dollars.

I see and how much money did they make selling trademarked toys based upon each movie? I bet it was more than the cost of the movie.

That is not to say that I am in favor of abolishing copyright. I'm all for reasonable copyright laws that balance the financial interests of the creators and the interests of the people. Our current implementation, however, is doing more harm than good. Pixar would still make movies if they were free to all, but Pixar could still trademark the characters and title and sell merchandise.

Fourteen years was judged enough time in the past, and that was laboriously printing with manual presses and distributing with boats and horse-drawn wagons. Now, with cheap, instant digital duplication and distribution via the internet and by plane I'd argue two years is plenty of time for copyrights to be profitable, after the initial publication. Whatever the compromise, the current system is broken so far that it would be better to have no copyright.

Copyright on reproductions of old images

[richardb]

What I'd like to see institutions like the British Library the British Museum and other public museums changing is their policy on reproductions of out-of-copyright images.
Currently, they claim copyright on reproductions of such images (ie, they claim that the act of scanning an old painting is a creative work, and that the photograph is protected by copyright, even if the original painting is long out of copyright). They use this copyright claim to place extortionate costs on publication of images of their collection.

This is somewhat suspect legally, but who has the lawyers to challenge them? Only creative works are meant to be covered by copyright. Where's the creative act in putting a painting into a reproduction system and pressing a button? The National Gallery even prides itself on how accurate a reproduction the copied images you can purchase from their website are, showing that there's no creative step here.

For example, according to http://www.bl.uk/imaging/pdf/permissionsfees20067. pdf it would cost me 102 pounds to buy a license to put a copy of a single one of their digital images on a website for 6 months, even if that website were a non-commercial website supplying, say, educational resources and lesson plan ideas for schools. The digital image they've made should not be covered by copyright, and should be able to be used without restriction. (It would be fair enough to charge a small fee to go towards the initial bandwidth cost and scanning cost, but don't forget that this is a public organisation which should be using some of its funding from the tax payers to allow British citizens who don't happen to live in London as much access to their collection as possible.) Once you have a copy of the digital image of an out-of-copyright painting, you should be able to do whatever you like with it.

While I welcome the copyright statement the British Library has made here, it should stop trying to abuse copyright in this manner before we salute it as a guardian of our rights.

Just abolish it entirely

[Digital Vomit]

In this day and age, copyrights should just be abolished entirely. It just runs so counter to this stage of the advance of human civilization. People pay for things they could otherwise get for free with little or no effort. That's a simple fact. If we got rid of copyright, then things like movies, books, and movies could be made for the love of the craft/art rather than for the love of money.

Where the profits come in is not in the creation or distribution of a intellectual "property", but in making its acquisition and use more convenient and enjoyable. For years, music and movies (and, to a lesser extent, things like books) have been effectively free with the estrablishment of the internet and P2P sharing, yet people still buy movies and music on disc. People still by water when it flows for [almost] free from their taps at home, for goodness sake! Getting rid of copyright law would open up huge, lucrative markets in the manufacture of content delivery products -- much more lucrative than the current market of digitally restricted and crippled devices.

Re:Just abolish it entirely

[cdrguru]

Right now, P2P networks generally distribute pretty inferior content. But this will change. When that happens - as it has to a large extent in China, you will see some dynamics change.

Today what drives most retail stores is promotion. Sure, they get revenue from sales, but in most cases there is a direct link between promotion and sales. At least that is how the retail folks see it and have seen it since at least 1950. Today, promotion is paid for from some pretty deep pockets of the manufacturers and content owners.

Can you have a free book? Absolutely. Will anyone ever find out about it? Maybe. According to the retail market thinking today, nobody will ever find out about it and nobody will ever read it. Same goes for music - if nobody is paying the radio stations to play it, it won't get played. If nobody pays for posters, no one will find out it is there.

OK, perhaps the retail mindset is a little extreme, but for the last 60-70 years this has been pretty firmly entrenched in how the marketplace - and to some extent society in general - works. We have music videos not because they are fun to watch but because they are a promotional tool. We have the phrase "loss leader" because a particular retail advertising trick works.

What you propose will end "promotional" spending on entertainment. Overnight. This is not a small evolutionary change but a great big revolutionary one. One that I doubt anyone has really thought through all of the consequences of. Sure, it would be nice to get everything for free. But the consequences of this has ripples that extend much further than you would imagine.

I seriously doubt that something like this will happen in the US and Western Europe without having an economic impact that is completely unforeseen. And it is big and dangerous enough that it isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Unless the pirates really do win and start distributing prime-quality content wide enough to put media companies out of business. It could happen. But I hope you don't work in a job that is supported by any sort of promotional spending. Of any sort at all.

Re:Just abolish it entirely

[Digital Vomit]

What you propose will end "promotional" spending on entertainment. Overnight. This is not a small evolutionary change but a great big revolutionary one. One that I doubt anyone has really thought through all of the consequences of.

You fail to explain why promotional spending on entertainment will end. Things will not fundamentally change overnight. Content producers/distributors still need to promote their stuff in order to raise awareness and generate sales.

Sure, it would be nice to get everything for free.

The idea of abolishing copyright is not about getting things for free. I think this might be the flawed premise that dismisses your entire argument.

I seriously doubt that something like this will happen in the US and Western Europe without having an economic impact that is completely unforeseen. And it is big and dangerous enough that it isn't going to happen anytime soon. Unless the pirates really do win and start distributing prime-quality content wide enough to put media companies out of business.

This has already been happening -- in a sense -- in the US and Western Europe for over a decade. The results, so far, have been good...unless you believe the current culture owners who claim trillions of dollars in sales have somehow magically disappeared from the economy entirely because of piracy.

Re:Just abolish it entirely

[yetanotherusername]

So if there is no copyright protection and you write a book, sign a contract with a publisher and actually start to make some money because your book is successfull what is to stop another publisher also printing and selling your work without paying you a penny, without copyright the second publishers book can even use the same cover art. In fact how would you go about getting a book published? You need to negotiate a contract before the publisher even sees a draft copy of the book, so you need a lawyer to help out with that as well, otherwise what is to stop the publishing company simply stealing your idea. Is every author to become there own distributor?, how does a single author compete with a publishing house who have a lower cost per unit to distribute his/her works and now no longer has to pay the author for their work? I agree that DRM is an appaling bad idea and most often doesn't work but copyright is also (or was) intended to protect the author of a creative work from large corperations not just to protect the corperations profits.

Re:Both sides can learn from this

[mrchaotica]

Well it is a 'principle' in the same way that comunism is a principle, but I dont agree that it is one that can coexist in any sane way with capitalism.

You're right: capitalism depends on scarcity, and information is not scarce. Therefore, it's fundamentally impossible to impose capitalistic principles on the exchange of information!

I'm sure glad you understand this; it saves me from having to prove this point (again).

If your starting point is "all information should be free" how do you expect the people who actually make that information for a living are going to meet you halfway? You layughably say im the pot calling the kettle black, then in the very next sentence draw a line in the sand where you basically refuse to pay for anything digital.

See, once again you're being narrow-minded and jumping to conclusions. I'll still pay for digital stuff if it's actually reasonable; you just have to think creatively instead of relying on the "$X per copy" business model that only works for physical property. For example, you'll notice that I'm a Slashdot subscriber. That's digital, and I paid for it. MMORPGs are digital, and I wouldn't have a problem paying the monthly membership fee for them (although having an additional fixed cost up front is ridiculous). Mac OS X is digital, and I don't have a problem with buying a Mac in order to get it (although I'm sad that I'll have to give it up to get a Tablet PC). Etc.

It's arguing from that point of view that has got us exactly where we are right now.

No, what got us to exactly where we are now is the publishing industry's lobbying and propaganda over the past 50-odd years, that's caused people to forget that the true purpose of copyright is to enrich the Public Domain, not give monopolies to artists (let alone their distributors)!

I'm well aware of the arguments that people use to justify copyright theft.

See, once again you're being inaccurate and pejorative. Calling copyright infringment "theft" will not foster "intelligent, reasonable debate;" all it can do is confuse the issue and appeal to emotion instead of logic.

Copyright infringment is not theft; it can't be because nothing was physically taken from the "owner." In fact, there wasn't really an "owner" to begin with since all a copyright holder really has is a temporary privilage granted by the state. Besides, if it were the same as theft it would never have been named something different!

This is about excessive DRM, and consumer rights, not some debate over the very legitimacy of the concepts of copyright or IP, which most grown up sane people realise are required for a modern, capitalist economy.

Once again, pejorative and appealing to emotion instead of logic. However, you're right: the debate is not about whether people "realize" something, it's whether there's anything to realize in the first place! Your argument presupposes that the idea that copyright is required for a modern capitalist society, and that being modern and capitalist is desireable. Both of these points are most certainly up for debate, and in fact are at the heart of it!

Its people like you who try to connect a sane debate over consumer rights and DRM with some hippie philosophy of abolishing intellectual property that has prevented there being any sane debate on the issue.

Pejorative and emotional yet again (sorry, I ran out of synonyms). Since hippies are obviously stupid and dirty, any similar ideas must be stupid by extension, right? Uh-huh.

Look, take a minute to review what you and I have each written up to this point, and honestly ask yourself which of us is trying to use reason and logic, and which of us is not. And remember, pointing out the flaws in your logic is not the same as an ad-homi

Yey

[argoff]

If I had 5 mod points, I'd give them all to you right now. Balance and compromise with copyrights is like balance and compromise with the maggots at a picnic. You either get rid of all of them, or get ran over with parasites. If you don't you're only going to exhaust yourself as things constantly grow out of control. Hey lookie! Copyrights are constantly growing out of controll. We're under constant attack, we're under constant pressure to expand their scope, no matter what the policy is they never let it rest. If people understoodd that feeding copyrights is like feeding maggots, they might not get all shocked when they ruin the fresh food.

Re:Yey

[Digital Vomit]

But we'd lose the GPL if there were no copyright. That is to say people could make binary only versions of this or that bit of code, and not distribute the source.

And that's different than the current situation...how? Or do you honestly think that every current closed source apps is absolutely free of code copied from GPL licensed code?

There'd be no reason to keep the GPL if there was no copyright. So someone wants to take your work and pass it off as his own? Big deal. This will reduce the code-for-profit mentality and promote code-for-the-love-of-it thinking.

And if companies want to try making money by writing and selling software, they just need to guard their code closely and have a distribution plan in place for when the product is ready. They can then establish themselves as the first provider while people who want to copy their work and sell it for themselves will have to play catch-up.

We could also implement a system of "original authorship" where a work is sent to a central office (similar to the way the patent office 'works', and I use that term loosely) where an official record can be made. The original author may then legally claim to be the original author, and no one else could. Anyone else could still copy and sell the work, but they could not claim to be the original author. This way people can still claim (and, unfortunately, fight over) 'ownership', in a sense, without hurting the public good by locking away content.

People love the idea of buying "genuine" instead of knockoffs, first editions, and such. This simple system of "original authorship" also helps the original author of a book or movie or game or whatever in that sense.

Playing on the psychological makeup of humans -- capitalizing on their natural desires rather than trying to manufacture them -- will be the name of the game in a world without copyright.

Re:Yey

[Dun Malg]

But we'd lose the GPL if there were no copyright

Helloooooo! Pretty much the entire point of the GPL is to create a sort of "anti-copyright" as a protest/foil for what is considered an unjust copyright system. If copyright goes away, the GPL is no longer necessary because we've won!

Re:Both sides can learn from this

[mrchaotica]

Man, I wrote a post responding exactly to this argument once already, but it's impossible to find it with Slashdot's crappy search (let alone Google, since it doesn't understand what a comment is). Here it is again (more or less):

When I say that "information wants to be free," I obviously don't mean it in the literal sense; it's just convenient to personify it as a simplification. What I actually mean is that information is inherently free as a physical property of the universe. If I have a rock and give it to you, it is inherently true that I don't have it anymore. In contrast, if I have an idea and give it to you, it's inherently true that we both have it and that there's no physical way for me to stop you from giving it to any number of other people in turn. In addition, information is only really valuable when it's transmitted (as I explain below), and it's not possible to pick and choose who receives the transmission. For example, if you perform any action (say, waving your hand) and you're within sight of me, I'm inherently free to see that you've done it. If I make a sound and you're within earshot, no law in the world can prevent you from hearing me.

There's also an economic argument: if I have an idea and don't share it with anyone, it's worthless (or, at most, worth $X if it can be embodied in a physical action). In contrast, if I share the idea with you, the total wealth increases to $X + $X = $2X. And if you use it to synthesize another idea, the total wealth increases to $2X + $Y. And then, finally, if you give that new idea back to me, the total wealth becomes 2($X + $Y)! Fundamentally, if you want wealth to increase you should share ideas as much as possible.

Since the default state of the universe is for information to be free, any human attempt to restrict it will naturally be difficult to accomplish and maintain. As the DRM-peddlers are finding out, it's hard to keep information bottled up, and this is because it's unnatural to do so. This is what I mean when I say information "wants" to be free.

Re:Both sides can learn from this

[cliffski]

sorry, im busy actually MAKING the content that people like you think you are entitled top. I dont have time to wade through this predictable crap. How old are you? 12?
You are EXACTLY the problem I was talking about, and ironically enough, you dont even see it.

Re:Both sides can learn from this

[mrchaotica]

Wow, a barely-coherent claim of superiority, an ad-hominem attack, and an accusatory, unsupported assertion! I didn't say something that upset you, did I?

Look, you're the one wanted "intelligent, reasonable debate" in the first place. I gave you exactly what you asked for, so don't blame me for your apparent failure to construct a well-reasoned rebuttal! Tell you what: calm down, figure out what this "problem" I exemplify you're talking about is and how to explain it to me (because you're right -- I don't see it at all), and try again.

By the way, are you sure you want to claim that I'm 12 years old (add 10 to that and you'd be more accurate, by the way)? Personally, I think that would make the embarrassment of losing the argument even worse, you know?

Oh, and one final point: I'm a computer science student, so I'll be "MAKING the content" soon enough as well. But am I worried about the reality that trying to sell information on a per-copy basis is stupid? No! And that's because there's plenty of other options out there. I suggest you learn about them, if you want to survive.

Re:Both sides can learn from this

[cliffski]

a student. thought so. when you stop living of daddies trust fund, you might grow up, and realsie stuff needs to be paid for.

Re:Both sides can learn from this

[mrchaotica]

(Sigh.) Yet another ad-hominem. When are you going to learn that you're the one acting immature here? And when are you going to finally respond to my argument, instead of trying to insult me (and failing miserably at it, I might add)?

Seriously, either live up to the rationality you demanded from your opponents (and next time, be careful what you wish for!), or admit defeat like a man! All you're doing otherwise is embarrassing yourself.

Re:Both sides can learn from this

[mrchaotica]

Ah, so I see you've labeled me as your foe. So can I take that to mean you've given up, then, but were too much of a coward to come out and tell me?

Oh, and I forgot to mention in my previous reply: I'm not "living off dadd[y's] trust fund." I'm paying my own way through school, thankyouverymuch!

Re:French revolution...

[unity100]

Lets say that there is someone who wants to overthrow the democracy and install a dictatorial system, which would include a slave system that would include all layers of the society which was considered un-elite.

Lets say that this person claims that its his/her right to preach and spread his/her views, due to human rights declaration and freedom of speech.

Lets say we imprison this persona, and even from the prison this persona continues to spread his/her "belief" through means available - internet, other means of communications and so on.

What to do at this point ?

Re:Both sides can learn from this

[mrchaotica]

If it costs $40 million to make a singl ditial print of Lord of The Rings, and 0.001c to copy it, are you REALLY that nieve to think that the product should sell for 0.001c?

Are you REALLY that naive to think that they have a choice (i.e., that they can prevent people from copying it anyway)? It doesn't matter what the "fair" price would be when it's physically impossible to force people to pay it.

I think that in the long run big-budget movies are doomed, unless they can be supported by patronage of some sort. Well, either that, or they make it worth it to see in the theater, which is entirely possible given that some movies can be profitable within their opening weekend.

Remember, laws in a democracy have to reflect the will of the people, regardless of whether they're "right" or "fair" according to a particular ideology. Just as the public clearly expressed their insistence on drinking during Prohibition, they are now expressing their insistence on copying digital media. You may think it's "bullshit," but that doesn't make your opinion any more relevant. The bottom line is that there's not a damn thing you can do about it, and you might as well get used to that fact.

How about this:

[GWBasic]

How about this: Copyrights expire after 17 years, and DRMed media must keep a non-DRMed version in escrow?

Re:French revolution...

[unity100]

What you propose is not only contradictory, but also suicidal.

There ARE definite milestones of freedom. Sheria seems free to whoever lives in it, without knowing any other form of existence, but it is not something that is free once one gets to know what else is out there. apparently you do not know much people who ran away from sheria.

The sentence that says "allowing the preaching of destruction of free speech in the sake of free speech", is contradictory even meaning-wise, grammatically.

EVEN if people are let to preach such horror without usage of guns or violence, if, out of gullibility, or some other unforeseen circumstance people believe in them and they manage to install their repression, there is NO turning back. All the fights mankind have had to give to reach the point we are today will have to be given again, all over.

It is no denying that the human rights concept and freedom of speech are newly en masse around the world, and they have many deficiencies still to be complete. One of these deficiencies is the fallacious tolerance for sources which preach utter destruction of human rights and free speech.

And NEVER ever one should fail to see that, repressive, supressive, rights-ignoring ideas and trends NEVER exist without violence and use of force. They just use ways of democracy and free speech until they have gained enough supporters and power to forcibly impede other's will. This have been always that way in the history of the world. Examples are a many, like the nazi.

It is not concept of free speech, but idiocy to give the repressive sources enough freedom to gain power to impede free speech.

Re:French revolution...

[unity100]

To install the repression they will need a revolution (or an election). If they run a revolution, we should fight them. If they win an election, it probably is a good idea to get out of there anyway since most people voted for the repression. Would you like to live under Hamas and the people that supported them? (to take a recent example)

So ? Lets wait until they are powerful enough to win an election or mount a revolution, and then "fight" them ? What is the point in this, bloodshed for everyone ? Not only for freemen, but for the ignorant, deceived masses ?

"Whatever you want" includes preaching "End free speach!".

No it does not. An entity cant allow a concept that will threaten very existence within itself, just for the sake of being, and expect to continue to exist. Concepts do not differ, it is again fallacious to let something free to cause destruction of the environment that has let it free.

Then use violence when they use violence, and to supress that violence. If not, you may have useed violence against peacefull people that you were biased against.

It is a much more bigger crime to let the violent to get to the point at which they can use violence, for the rest of the society who want nothing to do with this. And about the thought "you MAY have used violence against peaceful people" - such a thought does not exist. there is no "may" in realizing how violent a preached thought is when the thought contains "demeaning of all who do not join us, or slaughtering of all who oppose us" - they are not peaceful.

And who gets to decide who are repressive and should be repressed?

We, "the people" do. And we are doing it at an increasing rate with every passing decade. However, there are problems hampering it, like your understanding of free speech that it should allow "anything" until they became too dangerous.

Re:Both sides can learn from this

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I do appreciate that you were writing figuratively. In effect, so was I.

In any case, I challenge your view of the "inherent" state of the world. Many things that are natural in a primitive, unconstrained world are considered inappropriate in a modern society that establishes rules and conventions for the collective good. An example I often give in these discussions is that if you have a rock, the natural state of things is that if I am bigger and stronger than you, then I can take it and it is now "my" rock. There is no natural concept of property of any kind, physical, intellectual or otherwise. Property is merely a convention, codified in law.

Similarly, the natural state of things is that people with valuable information will want to keep it as securely as they can. DRM, hardware-secured "trusted" platforms and the like are the natural recourse when faced with quick, cheap mass distribution technologies. Do we really want an "arms race"?

I also find your economic argument flawed, for reasons I've discussed elsewhere. Essentially, your single-trading model is not equivalent to today's copyright-enabled mass distribution with low costs for any individual recipient. Look at it this way: if your $x is not enough benefit to justify my spending time producing a work, then no-one gets any benefit. On the other hand, perhaps $y (which may be less than $x) from each of N people, producing N*$y (which would be greater than $x), would be enough, and then N people could benefit from it, not just you.