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Dead Musicians Signing Media Rights Petitions
epeus writes "Following from the Gowers coverage and the Musicians' ad in the FT, Larry Lessig admits he was wrong about term extension: 'If you read the list, you'll see that at least some of these artists are apparently dead (e.g. Lonnie Donegan, died 4th November 2002; Freddie Garrity, died 20th May 2006). I take it the ability of these dead authors to sign a petition asking for their copyright terms to be extended can only mean that even after death, term extension continues to inspire. I'm not yet sure how. But I guess I should be a good sport about it, and just confess I was wrong. For if artists can sign petitions after they've died, then why can't they produce new recordings fifty year ago?'"
i wonder what the net worth of these 4500 "artists" are ?
then compare it with the net worth of 4500 Wallmart shop employees or 4500 Ford car plant workers who wont be getting paid either for work they did 50 years ago
perhaps the music industry needs a close audit to see where those 4500 poor, poor starving musicians are going wrong
if you have nothing to hide as they say...
I take it the ability of these dead authors to sign a petition asking for their copyright terms to be extended can only mean that even after death, term extension continues to inspire.
I don't see why Lessig is so surprised. Not only can the dead sign petitions, but they can vote, too. America has lead the way in the legal frontier of corpse-rights and suffrage, at least as far back as the 1800s.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
They're using every means possible to ensure their copyright gets extended. If copyright is not extended it will have a huge negative effect on the record companies / British Phonographic Industry (BPI), RIAA groups and content distributors, beyond that of royalties paid.
Content in the public domain waters down the argument for requiring ALL content to be 'protected'. If half of the worlds music was public domain, lobbyists would have a hard time persuading lawmakers to put restrictions on ALL devices. This has been evident with the RIAA continuously argue why DRM is required for ALL music to prevent copyright infringement. These arguments usually fail to recognize the existence of non-copyrighted music (Creative Commons, Public Domain etc), and certainly make no provision for it in their argument or 'industry drafted bills' (e.g DMCA). This results in systems like the Zune wi-fi sharing system which applies DRM when transferring songs, whether the media requires protection or not, and with total disregard for other licences such as 'copyleft' which may expressly forbid it.
We've seen from the Napster and Gokster cases in the 'war on file sharing' argued that "file sharing is always infringement of somebody's copyright", and fails to recognize the legal uses of file sharing systems. Again, if half of the worlds music was public domain, the argument agaisnt services like Bit-torrent is significantly watered down. Services like Youtube and Google Video have already been targeted, and we've seen media companies desire to shutdown the service altogether. Although Youtube and Google video are exceptional in that they've been careful to prevent copyright infringement from the start, and the result has been for the media companies attempts to re-define infringement. (i.e teenagers lip-sinking etc). Again their aim is to prove the majority of content that is free is infringing copyright and the services providing it should be shut-down.
We are seeing the music industry / BPI "pulling out all the stops" to prevent an extension of copyright. They're using artists that have done very very well out of record company who may 'win the hearts and minds of the people' (Cliff Richard), and now their padding their 'stats' with dead people. It is certain they are lobbying politicians as fast as they can.
The BPI (and RIAA) have responsibilities "in the collection, administration and distribution of music licenses and royalties" which relies on a vast library of content being under their control. Music that is currently in their control placed in the public domain erodes their breadth of responsibility and will ultimately affect their cut of the royalties.
This argument is not about the artists getting more money, it is about the BPI and RIAA retaining their value and ability to "fight the crime of music theft".
They cannot fight the "crime" if half the time it is perfectly legal to copy and share.
Of course, I'm from Chicago. The dead regularly climb out of the ground to vote up here...must be something in the water...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Thankfully many of us have spent dozens of hours practising zombie destruction in computer games like dead rising and are well-versed in their destruction. I'll go after zombie Elvis if someone else wants to get zombie Freddy Mercury.
Warhammer forums
You confuse copyright with ownership. Not a surprise that muddling these terms is exactly what the "intellectual property" mafia has been doing for yours.
The painting is yours as property and will belong to you forever, your heirs will inherit it, etc.
The copyright enters the public domain, i.e. after n years someone else can take a photo of your painting and publish it in a book without paying you for doing so. Someone else can sing your song without paying you for it.
The ethical rule fails here because copyright is not a limit on what people can do with your property, but what they can make with their own hands and work.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"if you make something, it belongs to you"
Copyright, however, isnt about the possession of the object, it's the right to prevent anyone else from possessing a copy of that object.
If you're a carpenter and make a great chair it doesnt pass into the public domain, but you cannot prevent your neighbour from making a chair just like it, nor do you have the right to prevent anyone who purchases the chair to pay another carpenter to copy it.
"It's basically judicial theft."
Except it's the other way around. Preventing the neighbour or customer from making a chair just like the original means you're depriving them of the right to do what they wish with their property.
The value of copyright does not come out of nowhere; it derives its value by depriving others of value and rights. From an ethical point of view it's just the same as other taxation methods; you're depriving one group of people to give to another. Wether that's good or bad is arguable, and mostly a question of public utility.
Remember that corporations meet almost every criteria for being psychopaths that doesn't involve age or sexuality (Jokes about getting raped at the pump notwithstanding).
Pathological lying, conning/manipulative, shameless, parasitic lifestyle, irresponsibility? I consider it extremely unlikely that they wouldn't know that a member was dead (seeing as he wouldn't be showing up for recording and all), and even then, so what? If the signatures were genuine, no dead person's name could possibly be on the list. Yet another in the media industry's endless stream of manipulative lies. Naturally, when called out, they will shamelessly deny any previous knowledge. Parasitic lifestyle? We hear every day how the Internet makes the recording industry obsolete. Irresponsible? Like forging dead people's signatures?
Corporations are psychopaths. But they aren't psychopathic because they enjoy being evil - If they don't act like this, the shareholders can sue (If you don't [obviously wrong action], it's bad for profit = lawsuit). If this nonsense is to stop while it's still possible to get corporations back under control, the law needs to change. Seeing as it's 4am, I leave it to the rest of you to propose the changes.
With a UID that low, GP is likely dead.
Oh no! The dead have risen and they're voting for copyright extension
What's wrong with that? After all, they got many advantages from the copyright system. I'd call'em the grateful dead.
*ducks*
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Then go after zombie Michael Jackson. He even claims to be still alive.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
If copyrights don't expire, you probably couldn't even make a table - there'd be copyrights on screws, on table legs and anything else you may want to make. For copyright to work for the next generation, it's important that the copyright of this generation expire. By endlessly extending copyright, you're doing a great disservice to future generations.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. - Mahatma Gandhi
Hey man, you get bit and you're screwed anyway, whats it matter? Is there a lot of stigma in the zombie community about zombies with AIDs or something?
Think Ned Flanders with a guitar.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
I think they should just charge "Property Tax" on "Intellectual Property". Then when you do your taxes, you have a choice as to how much you are going to value your "Property" at. If you value it at $100, then when you sue someone, you can only sue for $100 in damages. If you value it at $300,000,000, then you have to pay taxes on $300,000,000. Of course at any time you should be able to abdicate rights to the "Property", and then you would no longer have to pay taxes on it.