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RIAA President Decries Fair Use
triskaidekaphile writes, "Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, has an editorial on CNet responding to the Consumer Electronics Association's support of the Digital Freedom campaign for fair use. Sherman proclaims, 'The fair use doctrine is in danger of losing its meaning and value.' Like a true spinner, he indicates that fair use is indeed important, then states 'Let's be clear. The CEA's primary concern is not consumers, but technology companies — often large, multinational corporations which, like us, strive to make a profit... But to seize the mantra of "consumer rights" to advance that business interest is simply disingenuous.' Slashdotters, trollers, and pollsters one and all, what say you? Disingenuous or dissembling?"
What part of it don't you agree with? He really doesn't say anything inflammatory at all. In fact, he goes on and on about a balance and different interests working together.
In truth, I think he only does that because we pushed his group's unreasonable stance so hard that they have no choice but to come closer to the center. We should not let up. But what he is actually saying makes sense.
Point one: We must balance interests. Yep, I like it.
Point two: Downloading songs without paying for them is bad. I agree with that as well.
Point three: There are fair use provisions in the copyright act that must be respected. How could I disagree?
Point four: The group championing consumer rights is self serving and wrong. This one I don't know about. I'm honestly not very familiar with this particular org. I won't defend this.
3 outa 4 aint bad. Do you care to elaborate further on the reasons for your stance?
TW
(emphasis added by poster.)
You know the Democrats are in power when the RIAA line is that fair use has to be eliminated due to "large, multinational corporations", instead of "freeloaders" and "free riders".
I'll give Cary this much. He's smart enough to adjust the spin vector to best conform to the prejudices of whichever group of thugs happens to be in ascendance on the Hill. But then, that's what he's paid for.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
The bottom line for fair use is this:
I should be able to make a copy, for personal use, of any content that I can receive, whether it is broadcast for free or (especially) if paid for.
This is what Fair Use has always been understood to mean, in addition to being able to use small excerpts for review or educational purposes.
It was about us popping a tape in our VCR or radio and making a recording.
Now that the recordings are equal quality to the original, the RIAA and company want to renig on the deal. It's as simple as that.
If you've paid to receive the content, or it is freely given away, you should be able to make a copy for personal use. Period.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
"Reading the whole article, I think his point was to mislead"
He did lie about a couple of situations being theft, when in fact no theft was ever involved.
"For me, fair use is being able to backup my cds onto my harddrive and encode them in any format I please for my mp3 player."
That about does it for me, too. Add to this DVD/video content (including anything I download or view online) and being able to view such content on my DVD player.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Copyright is a social contract. The government agrees to protect a monopoly for a limited time in exchange for an idea being released into the Public Domain. The Fair Use clause is a reminder that the materials copyrighted will become Public Domain and is an exclusion to benefit everyone for the limited time where the monopoly is in place. Of course they don't want Fair Use. For one, it is an excuse for users to be able to access the idea they bought in a convenient manner. The content providers want you to re-buy for you DVD/TV, DVD/computer, DVD/PSP, car, iPod, etc. Fair Use explicitly states that you do not need to buy multiple copies of the same thing. Additionally, Fair Use is a reminder of the contract. The Limited Time portion has already been forgotten by Congress. The more the content middlemen can get people to think that their ownership of copyright is a right, the more they can separate themselves and their tactics from the intention of copyright.
I ask myself one question. Do the laws surrounding copyright encourage innovation? My answer is "no, they do not." With that answer, it means that I must necessarily think that the laws regarding copyright are unconstitutional. Innovation is not when Velcro's replacement is held back from public consumption until after the patent on Velcro has expired. Innovation would be releasing it when it is discovered. Many companies hold back the next generation of products until the previous generation patents have or soon will expire. Companies use patents to prevent competitors from making obvious enhancements to their own products. Copyright law is being used to prevent Fair Use and extending the copyright every time it get close to expiring indicates that it is not a limited time. Author's life + 10 or 25 years, whichever is shorter would be more than sufficient for protecting the creator for profit to encourage creation of new content.
Oh, and "Science and useful Arts" does not include business processes.
Learn to love Alaska
Let's be clear. The CEA's primary concern is not consumers, but technology companies--often large, multinational corporations which, like us, strive to make a profit.
Sometimes, all of these entities are the same company. Look at Sony for example. They own a record label, produce consumer electronics, and sell blank media.
Slashdotters, trollers, and pollsters one and all, what say you? Disingenuous or dissembling?
All of the above. I have the right to use my media as I see fit. What, is he next going to claim that ripping my own CDs is illegal? Pesky "Fair Use", it's holding back commerce and hurting the economy. Hey, we have record executives to feed! They have children to put through ivy league schools! And Hummers to buy! The rabble is getting just too damn uppity, I say. Do you honestly think that's disingenuous?
Sheesh!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go download last nights Frisky Dingo episode.
How about, from this article:
Fair use is an undeniably important plank of copyright law. Critics like CEA sometimes lose sight of the fact that record labels and other copyright owners are as dependent on fair use as consumers. A healthy and robust fair use doctrine is critical to us, since so much of what we create is built on the art that came before.
The question is what each side considers "fair". They're hitting CEA for being on the side of free file sharing (by backing Grokster), which does not sound even vaguely like the intent of fair use to me.
The middle ground here is hard to find. The only ways I know of to prevent file sharing also prevent things that are certainly fair use (backing things up, playing on other media, making compilations, etc.)
So we've got a scenario pitting two sets of rights against each other, and two entities arguing that the compromise should be entirely in their favor. Unsurprisingly, it happens to be the way that makes each side thinks makes them the most money (the CEA selling more players, the RIAA selling more music).
If it wasn't for fair use rap wouldn't be legal.
"Fair use" does not define a certain limited amount of copying that you have permission to do. It defines copying that you do *not have to ask permission for. You can try to prevent "fair use" technologically, but there is nothing in copyright law that prevents my circumventing that technical measure. Now I defer to a smarter man:
(Moglen on the DMCA): "You never read a case, because there never was a case, in which under the copyright law, somebody was charged with a federal legal offence of any kind for writing a book about how photocopiers work or for distributing blue prints of photocopiers or for manufacturing and selling photocopiers. When you see a legal regime that is engaged in trying to charge people for doing those things, you can be pretty sure it's not the copyright law, it's something else. The fact that they put the word copyright in the title doesn't make it a copyright law folks"
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
"Haven't we paid to upgrade from record to 8-track to cassette to cd to [for some] mp3?"
There are many products that we buy and replace because they wear out (record, 8T), or because newer products offer better quality (CD) or convenience (mp3). If you made most of those conversions, it's because you had a good reason and obtained a clear benefit from doing so. You could have, for example, bought some equipment and recorded all of those 8-tracks to CDR, but the quality would have sucked, and you didn't really want to take the time to do it anyway (convenience). Again, things we often pay for.
This is what makes the transition from DVD to BR/HD interesting, because in one way you may be paying for the "same" movie yet again... but on the other side, it's not the same movie, but a much higher definition, clearer, sharper version.
Worth paying for? Your choice.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
"He says we should have some, but not unlimited fair use. Yes and yes." Well actually I would argue yes and no. We should have unlimited fair use. We should not have unlimited use. That is the point of fair use. If they limited our fair use it would not be fair now would it?
nothing
For example, "fair use" means you can quote a few words from a textbook, but cannot repeat the whole book. "Fair use" also means you can play a few seconds of a song, or a few seconds of a movie without permission or penalty.
You are mistakenly conflating two forms in the statutory basis for fair use: borrowing for purposes of quotation or criticism and limits on commercial exploitation.
It is perfectly legal to spend an afternoon photocopying a complete book in your public library and lugging the reams of 8.5X11 home with you, if your purposes are scholarly or educational and you have no intention of commercial redistribution. Mr. Sherman is pleased by your confusion in this regard and your mistaken guidance to the hoi polloi. In fact, they are relying not upon the deterrent effect of a handful of lawsuits, but the great murk that this tactic generates around these questions in the public discourse.
It is perfectly legal to make complete copies of any copyrighted work provided there is no commercial intent and no restraint of commerce (read: giving them out for free and destroying the market) and anyone who will tell you otherwise is mistaken or lying. Grokster died not because copies existed on its servers or servers it indexed, but because it had no way of guaranteeing that those copies were not commercially exploited or that restraint of trade was not occurring. It purposefully marketed this anonymity of purpose as a value-add.
illegitimii non ingravare
This digital music IP issue reminds me of those machines in sci-fi movies that can synthesize stuff out of any raw materials. Imagine if those existed and they were affordable. Imagine trying to have a capitalist economy coexist with such machines... You could stick a dog turd in and get back diamonds. Except - why bother? Diamonds would be of no more value, just less smelly. Turn it into something useful like dog food.
As technology gets good enough, it starts undermining capitalism. You can't charge $18 for a music CD when the raw materials and medium costs basically nothing when it's digitalized. No package, no shelf space, no retail store, no salespeople.
Next will be movies (already starting - digital rental/purchase downloads will kill rental stores and DVD sales), then books and magazines. When the technology arrives to replace paper medium, someone is going to come along and iPod/iTunes the book/magazine industry. I'd give it 20 years maximum.
At some point robots can start taking over service jobs in some industries (slave labor, no food, no health care, etc). They've already replaced people in parts of the manufacturing industry. Eventually, if we make good enough use of technology, there just won't be enough work for people to do and we'd have to switch to some kind of communist system.
I mean, we're talking about our distant generations of offspring here, so f*ck em, but still...
"Musicians, artists, filmmakers and others won't produce rich, diverse content if they don't believe their creations will be adequately protected from IP theft and other unfair, illegal uses."
...Promise?
BULLSHIT.
PLENTY of artists continue to create and release works under Creative Commons and other open license on a daily basis. Only artists and commercial publishers like the RIAA's clientele won't produce content without restrictive "protections". If they went away, the commons would only grow.
"Threatening" us with the bankruptcy of proprietary artists does NOT serve you well as a useful argument. It makes me want to call your bluff. No more Britney or NSYNC?
Of course, we both know you're not going away. So quit bullshitting.
When I studied Copyright Law as part of my engineering degree, it was emphasised that you cannot copy the whole material regardless of whether it was for educational or non-commercial use.
If you want to read more, you can do so at the US Copyright Office website:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
From that site:
Note that nowhere in those examples does it say wholesale copying of a document.
Eventually, if we make good enough use of technology, there just won't be enough work for people to do and we'd have to switch to some kind of communist system.
Not so. At least, we wouldn't have to switch to some sort of "communist system" in the sense that all extent and historical so-called "communist" states have used - forced equal distribution of resources.
If by some technological means we arrive in a situation where capital and labor both are so plentiful as to be free (via robots and Star Trek-style replicators as you described), we won't have just outgrown capitalism, we'll have outgrown the need for any system of economics. Economics systems are just means of trying to "fairly" (for some value of "fair") distribute the limited resources available to us. The reason why we don't have any economic interest in buying and selling (or communally producing and distributing) something like air is because it's an effectively unlimited resource - there is no real scarcity of it, at least not here on Earth. (Though if we had lunar colonies, you can damn well bet that there would be a monthly air bill like your water, gas, or electricity bills you pay on Earth today).
No scarcity, no need for any economic system. You need some of something, just take it, and nobody will care because there's plenty of it left. Like air. If for some reason we ever did run into a scarcity of air and needed more of it, you can damn well bet that people would pony up to pay for air production - and as air is a physical thing that can't be freely duplicated, there could then be valid complaints of "theft of air" and such. But then, with your Star Trek style replicators... if you've got a sample of good-quality air, just replicate some of your own, and let others do the same, and voila, no more air scarcity. Information is now at that stage of effectively free reproduction and thus absence of scarcity. So the distribution of *copies* of information no longer has need for any sort of economic regulation at all - people will do it for free, just to share with their friends, since it costs them virtually nothing.
Now, the *original production* of information (including artistic works like music) is still a scarce resource, and so it would make sense to pay for that. There's any number of ways to do so. Work for hire (get paid to produce a creative work by someone who personally wants such a work) is one way, and how it was done in ancient times - kings would pay great artists to create beautiful paintings and compositions for them. Ransoms are another way (effectively a group version of the above, where a large number of people pool their resources and pay an artist to produce something for them all). Concerts could be a form of ransom - acts could work with concert promoters to find a venue that will likely sell enough to be worth it, and then sell CDs at the concert (or include the CDs in the ticket price).
One way or another, once the information is out there, if someone wants to replicate it and give it away, there's nothing you can ethically do to stop them - they're not stealing from anyone. If it wasn't worth it to you (the music producer) to produce and release the music in the first place, you shouldn't have done so. But then, great artists will produce art for it's own sake, if only the can afford to do so - and if the can't afford it, they should probably be focusing on getting their livelihood together before they worry about their art. And if our society is such that most people don't have enough leisure time so that the artists among them can create art for it's own sake, then there's something wrong with our society. Either we're not as prosperous as we think we are - in which case we should probably be doing other, more important work before we start worrying about having enough new music - or we are prosperous, but a lot of people are getting ripped off and a few bastards are reaping the profits of the masses' labor.
This post is full of enough analogies as it is, but one more: with
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
"Can it be agreed upon that theft is when you take something away, without permission, from someone else so that they no longer possess it, or as much of it, as they had before the theft? Then copyright infringement _IS_ in fact, a type of theft."
No, since the taking away part you describe as necessary is not present in copyright infringement.
"Therefore fair use copying isn't stealing, since the copyright holder has implicitly given permission to copy for such purposes. "
Actually, it isn't stealing, since no form of copying is stealing (whether it is unfair use or fair use)
"But make no mistake.... copyright infringement is most definitely stealing."
BR Ermmm. yeah. Despite the fact that it does not meet the definition. Chalk this up to the weak argument: "copyright infringement is theft because I SAY it is, no explanation necessary."
Where were you when the voynix came?