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Congress Must Make Clear Copyright Laws
WSJdpatton writes "WSJ's Walt Mossberg takes a look at what's wrong with the DMCA and DRM given the recent lawsuit brought against Google's YouTube by media giant Viacom — 'Under fair use, as most nonlawyers have understood it, you could quote this sentence in another publication without permission, though you'd need the permission of the newspaper to reprint the entire column or a large part of it. A two-minute portion of a 30-minute TV show seems like the same thing to me. But why should I have to guess about that? What consumers need is real clarity on the whole issue of what is or isn't permissible use of the digital content they have legally obtained. And that can come only from Congress. Congress is the real villain here, for having failed to pass a modern copyright law that protects average consumers, not just big content companies.'"
I think recent (the last decade) legislation has shown that Congress is hardly qualified to make that kind of determination.
/. readers would probably say that there should be no copyright laws (mostly those who have no IP worth exploiting), and others would say that ultimately copyright should be left up to individual license, but honestly, how much does the government really need to intervene with this?
Copyright lawyers seem to be on one side or the other of the "bribed by content creators" fence.
The EFF is hardly a nonpartisan source of opinion.
So that leaves the question, who is qualified to make these sort of determinations as to what form copyright laws should take?
A good number of
Honestly I think there should be a collection of strong prohibitions which indicate what IP holders are NOT allowed to prohibit, and then let individual licenses go on from there.
The land shall stone them with the bread of his son.
Those are good points you make. Also, a judge may look at the commercial interests of the alleged infringer. A non-profit or educational institution will likely be given far more leeway in the raw amount of material copied. A student taking a 2-minute clip for an in-class commentary is different than a movie studio producing $200M blockbuster using the same clip.
Dara
Left 404: Why the RIGHT is WRONG
It's the same for videos. Taking a 2 minute clip and copying it verbatim is pretty much copyright infringement
But what if you put it up with the idea of collecting comments about it? Or for use in a wholly different webpage to reference?
The concept of "larger work" is a but fuzzy where you put something up anticipating the larger work that may come later.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How frigging naive can you be? The Congress that passed the DMCA without opposition, that passed the "No Electronic Theft Act", the Congress which has been extending the scope and duration of copyright for decades, the Congress which is fully in the pocket of the xxAAs, THAT Congress is going to pass a new copyright law which protects the little guy?
No, Walt, that just ain't going to happen. When the other side suggests that the answer is just to follow the law and if you don't like it, get the law changed, I know that's just gloating over the power they have. When someone who opposes the status quo says it, and it's not credible that they are really that naive, I have to wonder what is going on. Are they so afraid to believe the system is broken that they cling to ineffective measures? At what point, Walt, will you say "To hell with it, the system's broke, raise the Jolly Roger and copy away"? Never? Then you may as well throw your lot in with the xxAAs.
There's FOUR solutions:
1) Suffer loudly. Follow the restrictions and complain about them. Unless you're a major public figure, nobody gives a shit about your complaints, so if you do this, the xxAAs win.
2) Suffer in silence. Follow the restrictions and don't complain about them. This is the xxAAs favorite solution. Equivalent to 1 if you aren't somebody big.
3) Pirate loudly. Violate the restrictions openly and notoriously. Best case, you get what you want but otherwise nothing changes. Worst case, you lose your freedom and your life savings, and your name becomes a word to scare other would-be pirates with -- the xxAAs win with that. And no one who hears about it who matters supports your case -- civil disobedience does not work when the issue is esoteric, and even less so when your opponents are the media.
4) Pirate in silence. Violate the restrictions and try not to get caught. Same outcomes as 3) above, only the worst case is less likely.
The outcome where the copyright laws are changed for the better and those irritating digital restrictions go away? Sorry, that outcome is simply not available. No matter how many times Don Quixtote tilts at the windmill, the windmill still stands. The only way to get rid of the restrictions is self-help, and that means violating the law.
And as for "steal the stuff"? Just because they bought a law doesn't make it "stealing". I'll give them the term "piracy", because everyone knows the difference between piracy on the high seas and copyright violation. But calling it "stealing" isn't intended as metaphor; it's intended to actually blur the distinction.
That's exactly what happened in the '40s when someone made a "compilation piece" out of a lot of songs.
The original artists wanted to pull the plug.
He wanted a free ride.
The courts split the baby.
They ruled that copyright law could not be used to stop him from creating or airing this original work, but he had to pay royalties on the pieces he used.
I'm not sure if the courts imposed a royalty agreement, left it up to the parties to negotiate, or told Congress to settle the matter.
I do remember this was one of the reasons we have mandatory music licensing today.
Anyone know what case I'm talking about?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
... give you a monopoly on anything in the first place?
it has nothing to do with your intrinsic rights. it's about net worth to society. in theory, you're more likely to create since you're more likely to author something original.
in reality - if congress limited copyright protection to 5 years - producers would still profit enough to keep producing. and more importantly - those ideas could get reused faster. ie, higher networth to society.
you as an individual don't mean jack.
Is it possible this is symptomatic of a larger issue with our legal system? Specifically, when laws get so bloated, so numerous, and so detailed that it requires a specialized degree to understand, how is the average citizen supposed to comply with the law?
The summary asks "Why should I have to guess about that?" But this is hardly the only area where statutes on the books are virtually incomprehensible, if they can even be easily accessed, by a nonlawyer.
A quick offtopic example is when my driver's license was suspended, and the judge said it would be suspended for 90 days. Fine. To me, that meant that on day 91, it was no longer suspended, and I could drive. Long story short, I got caught driving on day 92 and arrested for driving on a suspended license -- because I hadn't paid a "reinstatement fee". Now, how was I supposed to know about that? When I posed this question to the court I was told only that "it's the law".
I realize there will always be certain circumstances or specific areas where laws need to get detailed and intense, but for the majority of things the average citizen is going to do, there is a problem if that average citizen cannot comply with the law because he cannot access it or cannot understand it.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
Take the NFL's copyrighted copyright statement before their games. "This broadcast blahblahblah may not be reproduced without our permission".
There's currently a fiasco regarding whether or not a Ms Wendy Seltzer could put that video up on YouTube. A lot of people say that she it is a fair use to do so, since she is doing it for the educational purposes.
But, I wonder, what about everyone ELSE who views the video, outside the educational context?
The greater implication is that, given your statement about creating a larger work, when I create the larger work and I use YouTube as the platform for a piece of this work, what happens to everyone else who can look at YouTube...minus the larger work?
:(){
"Making quality content is expensive, it can costs tens of thousands of dollars to get a few snippets of a reporter out in the field."
Let us examine this more closely. The "reporter out in the field" has been paid. The program has been paid for. By the advertising placed on the original broadcast of the material.
Since there is little value on old newscasts (do you really want to watch last years news?) EXCEPT to people doing critical analysis (or, in some cases nostalgia), the money MUST have come "up front".
Which means that it DOESN'T matter what the cost WAS. If it couldn't be covered, it wouldn't (or shouldn't) have been aired. Anything else will lead to rapid bankruptcy.
Most other broadcast material is in the same boat. Of what value is last years "American Idol"?
Just saying -- the "it must be protected because it is valuable because it costs a lot" is a red herring.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
My content, my rules.
Nonsense! Your ONLY rightful, natural, irrefutable, undeniable, perpetual claim is that of authorship. All else is off the table. My copy is MY copy, to do with as I please. In other words, My copy, MY rules! And your other tired old stuff is just that. It's been rehashed thousands of times already. If you don't want to accept those rules, then keep your damn "content" to yourself! We won't miss it. It's not like you're the only one out there. Man! It's like marrying a pretty girl and then wondering how the hell I put up with that voice.
Oh, and I'll be perfectly happy to pay you to reproduce your(or anybody else's) content in a live performance, at a concert for instance, if I happen to like what I hear on my copy. A recording of me eating a steak doesn't fill my stomach. Why should a reproduction of your work fill your wallet? What makes you so special?
What?