Slashdot Mirror
Norway Liberal Party Wants Legal File Sharing
dot-magnon writes "The Liberal Party of Norway (Venstre) passed a unanimous resolution that advocates legal file sharing. The party wants to legalise sharing of any copyrighted material for non-commercial use. It also proposes a ban on DRM technology, free sampling of other artists' material, and shortening the life span of copyright. The Liberal Party is the first Norwegian political party, and the first European mainstream political party, to advocate file sharing. The Liberal Party's youth wing proposed the resolution."
It also proposes a ban on DRM technology
The article only mentions music - what about software? Would Apple and Microsoft have to provide DRM-free versions of their operating systems?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
The political process working for the people?
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
Interestingly enough, this is an almost word-for-word translation of the Swedish Pirate Party's declaration of principles.
:-)
The Swedish Pirate Party didn't explicitly permit this copying, except for declaring their pages to be "No Copyright". I guess Venstre practice what they preach, and the Swedish Pirate Party has also come out with a statement saying that they welcome this act of copying.
More information about this (in Swedish) from Piratpartiet can be found here.
WTO complaint in 3..
2..
-- lol pwned
This will prove an interesting test case, and demonstrate once and for all the results of unrestricted file sharing.
...but is it art?
A similar argument should be made that IP rights to pharmeceuticals should be overturned, so that any company should be allowed to produce knock offs of drugs.
That would certainly bring down prices for consumers quite a bit... for existing drugs. However, it would disincent pharmeceutical companies to make the mammouth R&D investments needed to discover new ones.
At first I thought it said they wanted to ban:
DRM technology
free sampling of other artists' material
shortening the life span of copyright
Couldn't quite grok that..
Anyone in their right mind can see the horse clearly inside its stall within the barn, lazily chomping out of its nose-bag. If you can't see it, your vision must be impaired - get to your nearest RIAA office and book in for the next available seminar.
I'm sure there must have been a lot of ferry operators put out when the Channel Tunnel opened up to connect road traffic between the UK and France. But in that case, the ferry operators didn't have any significant pull with government, so the tunnel went ahead.
To borrow Russel Crowe's line from Master and Commander, we have to choose the 'lesser of two weevils':
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Kenya! Kenya, Kenya, Kenya....
"The party wants to legalise sharing of any copyrighted material for non-commercial use."
And just how much of that copyrighted content originated from Norway?
From the wikipedia article (assuming it hasn't been to horrible vandalized by my fellow slashdotters yet) I'm not sure if I would describe this as a MAJOR political party with maybe one twentieth of the norwegian vote. Still a bigger organization that the Swedish Pirate Party, perhaps this is a positive sign of things to come. Makes me wish we had political parties somewhere between the the wacko fringe (Green, Reform, etc) that no one takes seriously and the big two which both seem to owe too much to the **AA to ever consider taking a position like this one.
Anyone remember the Vikings? Here comes da Judge! Only, no one will care because, well, because they are from Norway. hahahahaha
what Norway's immigration policy is. I am retiring and living on a catamaran in about 10 years and I was thinking about leaving the USA anyway if it does not stop becoming so politically and religiously insane over here.
It's only paranoia if your wrong...
Damn kids with their non-commercial file sharing and anti-DRM legislation.
There are business models that can allow for the production of books without DRM or copyright, but they're different than the systems we're used to. You can write and publish serials, rather than books, and use the free publicity that copying gives you to your advantage: tell your audience that if you don't get paid x, the next installment won't be released. There are a few authors (notably, Steven King) who have experimented with approaches like this (although his was slightly different). Writing in such an environment is less of a solitary activity, where the writer closets him or herself away and returns after some time with a book to hawk, than an interactive one, where the writer needs to constantly maintain the relationship with his benefactors.
In truth, there probably wouldn't be as many books written, but I'm not sure that's necessarily bad per se; I think our current system encourages the overproduction of many forms of "art" basically on speculation, far more than the market really demands and is willing to pay for, which is why there are so many out-of-work artists of various stripes, e.g. authors who have written books that nobody wants to buy. An approach that resulted in nothing being written without a market for it would result in less pages produced annually, but it would lead to only the stuff that people were actually willing to pay for getting written.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
In Europe the word liberal roughly translates to capitalist. In other words Venstre is a right wing party.
Seriously, we need this party in Sweden like... Now! :-)
We have the Pirate Party, but it would be awesome for a party to stand behind a clear language like this.
Wow, even shortened copyright times from the currently ridiculous ones? And pay to use samples commercially?
One's mind boggles!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Yeah, but the subtle details that differ is where I like the Norwegian suggestion more. I still believe copyrights are important, and using samples commercially should of course make one have to pay for it IMO. Personally, I feel the Swedish PP is a bit too radical even for me, although on a philosophical level, maybe they do know better. *shrug* It's really hard to tell for me, because the society they suggest is so radically different.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I had heard that scandinavian countries were generally on the edge of liberal & humanist & progressive thoughts and policies, but, doh, this just hit the jackpot. Its like some dream becoming real.
Read radical news here
I can's answer for the USA but in Europe, we have had Youth Sections of major political parties coming out with sensible ideas for years.
Then the old farts in the "grown up" sections deny that they would ever do such a wicked thing.
For example, we have all heard for years that banning certain recreational drugs should be dropped. Everybody knows that this would be a good thing. Then the 50something year old hypocrites put down their cigars and whisky and prevent it!
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
My translation, done quickly just now, so errors are possible:
The Norwegian Liberal Party, equivalent to the Swedish Liberal Peoples Party, today took the program of the Pirate party and made it their own.
At the ongoing national convention a pronouncement was adopted unanimously, which excepting that it has fewer details is a direct translation of the essentials of the program of the Pirate Party with regard to cultural ecology, with further wording from the subheadings of the program. Intention to "encourage all non-commercial collecting, enjoyment, processing and dissemination of culture" - also the Pirate policy. The only part of the Pirate policy the Norwegian Liberals are not adopting is the repeal of the cassette tax.
The Norwegian Liberal Party sits in the opposition in Norway with 5.9% of the 2005 vote.
The Pirate Party welcomes the copying.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
The Society the Swedish Pirate Party is proposing is hardly radical nor different. We just want laws to match the current information society that is already developing.
:-) Not to mention all the derivative works...
The society where these singing muppets on Youtube is technically illegal because the copyright owner has most probably not explicitly permitted Youtube to share that particular piece of video.
But does the presence of this clip and hundreds like it diminish our society? No! It improves it! I feel the world is a much better place now I know that singing muppets are only a few clicks away.
Well, the liberal party in Norway is the smallest of the mainstream parties. In the latest election (2005) they got 5.9% of the votes.
c tion_results.2C_parliamentary_elections_1906-2005
The next party down the line is the Workers Communist Party =)
Election results from 1906 and onwards can (of course) be found on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venstre_(Norway)#Ele
How long before Norway is declared a terrorist state?
Meanwhile, Canada's Bush-Lite government about to adopt US DMCA laws :'(. I'm ashamed to be Canadian today.
Please note that this is a suggestion from "Unge Venstre".
"Unge / Ung [partyname]" Is a name for a party's younger support members, an organization whose task it is to recruit (young) new members, and give them a taste of politics.
Its pretty popular in Northern Europe for political parties to have support groups like that, where political discussions are made in a lighter tone and focused on youth problems.
Also, the "young-party"-ies are not as serious as the "main" parties, and you can often hear of them suggesting leagialization of marihuana, prostitution, higher speed limits and so on, without any of that being taken seriously.
And also, the party Venstre got 6.0% of the votes in the last election. But hardy anything spectacular, im affraid.
Does this mean that software bought to run on a Windows PC should also run on a Mac, Linux PC, whatever?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Lasse Gjertsen!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzqumbhfxRo
"If you want to download the audio from this video, go to
http://www11.nrk.no/urort/user/?id=36781
It's a norwegian page where I uploaded some of my music. (Lytt = Listen to, Last ned = Download)"
That's the guy who doesn't exactly know how to play any instrument, but uses mix editing like the old amiga samplers used to do. The funny part is he does a lot of it from his camcorder, so watching the jerky images on top of surprisingly clean soundtracks is funny.
P.s. All the corporations fake their "location" anyway, so we'll just borrow their trick and funnel things through a Norwegian distribution center. (Think about it - is an American Singer managed by a German label American or German content?)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Doing just simple preliminary research on the party shows that the Norwegian Left have received only 5.9% of the vote in the Norwegian parliamentary election of 2005, which amounts to just 10 seats of a 169 seat parliament.
Fun idea, but keep dreaming...
"Progress comes from the intelligent use of experience."
If this comes to pass, companies can distribute closed source products based on GPL software - as long as they are free as in beer. Imagine the possibilities. This idea is solving the wrong problem. The root problem is not copyright law, it is the monopoly old style record labels still hold over music distribution - and all the artists that have signed their life away in the (perhaps justified) belief that it was the only way they would ever be able "do" music.
From the article (emphasis added):
The Liberal Party seems to be suggesting two things here. The first is a quid-pro-quo arrangement with artist and copyright holder; you let us share your works in an unrestricted manner, and we will come up with some alternative scheme for compensating you. The problem is, the Liberal Party offers no such scheme in their declaration. The most apparent scheme would be some form of government subsidization, but that would have two potentially damaging effects on content creation, (1) it would put the government directly in charge of "creating culture"; and (2) it would move the cost in creation from those who want the creative content (i.e., consumers) to the cost of society as a whole. The first is alarming for obvious reasons, it effectively gives the government a giant platform from which to advocate its own views (i.e., massive viewpoint discrimination). The problem with second, is that if all of society is sharing in the cost of content creation, the content created will come to reflect the majority viewpoint in society. Niche forms of expression would receive little public support (and thus little public funding), and the end result would be a monolithic culture.
The second is that while the Liberal Party advocates regulations and limitations on use and distributions in a commercial for-profit context, such protection would not extend to digital distribution of content, such as iTunes and other online stores, which file sharing (in the context they are promoting it) would make inviable. This leaves only physical distribution of content as the one form of protected, for-profit, commercial distribution. This protection is illusory at best, since physical distributions such as CDs and DVD's are easily convertible into a digital format, which can then be shared without protection or consequence.
This basically leaves the Liberal Party in the position of advocating for the abolishment of content creation as a method of business, since the only way one can make money off of content creation is by restricting access to that content. Live performances, bieng the exception, this would be impossible in a world where legal file sharing would essentially give content a supply of infinity (and thus creating a demand price of zero).
Then again, this might not be a problem for Norway, as their culture only culturally profitable exports are the works Henrik Ibsen and "Lovefool" (and I think the Cardigans might actually be Swedish.) J/K
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
To reserve the cultural of our creation, all contents should be archived by some appointed institute, or institutes which register for that purpose. All publishers should submit un-encrypted content for archival purpose.
The current law in Norway is pretty reasonable:
1. Download all you want legally
2. Break any copy protection on your own stuff (DVD-Jon won in supreme court)
3. Share what you own with your friends.
Just dont sell copies for money.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
I for one applaud them.
So Asian countries cannot fight the millions of pirated software/video/music sellers on the street are considered irresponsible and damned, even though their laws recognize the intellectual properties of these copyrighted materials.
but European political parties are salvaging humanity and culture by promoting the legalization of piracy in the name of sharing?
Maybe China and other Asian countries should adopt this Nowagian political party's law to quiet down all the international complains.
using samples commercially should of course make one have to pay for it IMO
I think it depends. For example, if someone makes a collage, which is the visual arts equivalent of sampling, they are often protected by the fair use and de minimis doctrines, even if they are acting commercially (e.g. they make a bunch of copies of the collage and sell them). I don't think that anyone has serious problems with this. So why then should musicians face such difficulty merely because they're working in a different medium?
If the sampling is excessive, and non-transformative, then requiring licensing seems alright, but moderate transformative sampling should be permitted freely. And frankly, I think that sampling is an area where the fourth factor in fair use really falls down: there's only a market for samples because the courts haven't been favorable to samplers, but the samples themselves don't act as market substitutes for the whole works from which they originate. I don't think that this sort of catch 22 (i.e. if it interferes with a market, it weighs against fairness, but there's only a market because it's not fair) is appropriate.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Let's destroy a huge portion of the world's ability to feed their families so some kids don't have to pay for music and software anymore. Yeah, I don't see anything wrong with that. I NEED MY ENTERTAINMENT, DAMMIT!
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
These anti-IP arguments essentially break down to the same knee jerk pro-communism arguments that were very prominent 50 years ago. Socializing goods/services for the purposes of making them "free" to the people who want them has rarely demonstrated anything but disaster for those goods/services. Forcing companies to relinquish ownership of goods (even if technology has made them intangible) will have side effects that go far beyond sticking it to the very rich and getting stuff for free.
I disagree fundamentally. There is no pro-"subsidization" at all. In fact, quite the opposite. The entire concept of intellectual "property" requires that a society enforce certain totally artificial rules in order to encourage people to do things that they would, presumably, otherwise not do. They are demanding that everyone pay money to the government, in the form of taxes, for enforcing restrictions on individuals' physical-property rights that only benefit a very small number of content monopolies.
You have no fundamental right to control what another person can do with information. There is an essential difference between someone breaking into your house and stealing a bunch of manuscripts on your desk, and between copying something that they bought legitimately from a publisher. The idea that I can publish and sell you a printed sheet with something written on it, but at the same time prohibit you from photocopying it (or, for that matter, making it into a collage or papering your catbox with it) is completely artificial. It represents an assault on one right -- that of being secure and having control over one's own possessions -- in exchange for a vaporous goal of engineering society in a way that a minority feel is beneficial. Sounds a lot like communism to me.
That some of the same political parties who support a re-evaluation of intellectual "property" laws also support other measures, some of which are redistributive or socialist, does not necessarily imply that anyone who is anti-IP is a communist. To say that is dishonest and discourages meaningful discourse; frankly it borders on McCarythism. There are many people, myself included, who are unconvinced of the merits of the current IP law framework and system, but who are sharply critical of redistributive ideologies.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Cory gives his books away for free on his website. That doesn't stop him from selling a lot of copies.
http://www.craphound.com/index.php?cat=5
See for yourself.
consists of free drugs they give to doctors to distribute to the poor and eldery. Somehow, you failed to mention that. Either you didn't know this fact, in which case you have no idea what you are talking about, or you DID know this fact, and are being dishonest. Which do you plead guilty to?
Only about 10% of pharma advertising is direct to consumer. A little more than half is the aforementioned drug donations, and the rest is pharma-to-doctor. The latter may not be perfectly excuted but is obviously necessary in some form, and it will never be cheap.
distribute their black metal music. Hail Satan!
The Liberal party of Norway is a relatively small party that received only 6 percent of the vote in 2005, and has been shrinking since its creation. But unlike the Pirate Party of Sweden they do have 10 (out of 169) seats in parliament.
Anonymous Cowards start at 0 points.
:-)
He hasn't been modded down. Nobody felt the need to use a mod point to mod him up. That's all.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
If you're going to permit people other than the copyright owner to make copies of a work, why should the exchange of monies change that? Instead of limiting the scope of the law to non-commercial activities, how about just defining a minimum royalty payment requirement.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Here are some links for the interested:
n st.htm
h p/Main_Page
0 07/computer-2007-article.html
Music and books
http://questioncopyright.com/
Patents
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/agai
Network economy
http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.p
Collection p2p politics
http://www.p2pfoundation.net/
Software
http://www.riehle.org/computer-science/research/2
IP economics
http://www.rufuspollock.org/economics/
I've been on the fence for some time now about DRM and copyright. There are some good arguments on both sides of the aisle for the issue. But if a Socialist party is coming out against DRM and copyright, then it must be a good idea. Considering that Socialists don't believe in or respect private property rights, and always seem to be in favor of destroying property to further the power of the state, if they're against DRM and copyright then those must be a net boon to society.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
The Democrats here in the USA are just like your politicians!
A populist party...a party of freedom and liberty...a party for the people!
Wow, now I'll go take a legal bong hit to celebrate all the freedoms I have in America!
And then I'll share some mashups with a few of my friends online!
Ow my head....I just woke up to the nightmare.
How do you make (or plan to make) your living?
No, nobody bothers to do it now, because as a society we spend an awful lot of resources enforcing a framework of laws which allow them to produce art on speculation and then sell it like aspirin tablets, over and over, and prohibit people from making further copies of something they've already purchased. With a framework like that in place, there's no reason to try and build an audience and sell serials. You'd be a fool to, particularly if you're a publisher (where starving writers will send you manuscripts for free on the sheer hope that you'll decide to read a page while blowing your nose or wiping up a coffee spill with it and maybe give them a contract).
But that doesn't mean it's a good system, or that on the whole -- when you include the costs of the current system, generally taken for granted -- that an alternative system that was more directly market-driven wouldn't be preferable.
And it's not as though direct-patronage systems don't work, they've obviously worked fairly well in the past; it's also well understood that subscription services work very well in many media, where you pay less for any individual unit of information than to a continuous stream of information -- the value of such services would likewise be unaffected.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
This is incorrect. The Red Electorial Campaign in Norway (Raud Valallianse/Raudt) has proposed and promoted this in their program for years. In the upcoming elections, also they will be promoting this. On a more curious note, the Red Electorial Campaign was the first political party in Norway to have their program on the world wide web and to make use of the internet.
"In any case, these companies most certainly don't have our health or best interests in mind"
How many things have you bought over the years were YOU have the best interests of the producer in mind? Don't ask of others that which you're unwilling to give.
"As Pirates (I am a member of the Swedish Pirate Party) we believe there is no inherent right in getting paid for copies."
And yet you benefit as others do from a system of mass-production were every "copy" is paid for.
"We do however believe in a right to charge for performing a work"
I'll be giving reading from my new book. I should be in your neighbourhood say about 2212.
"If artists who are out to make money stop producing due to copyright reform -- good riddance. There'll still be plenty of music and culture left, just as there has always been."
That's why the GPL should be abolished, because as we both know, coders will still continue to create quality code cheerfully to a "non-abusive" audiance like Broadcom, and Linksys. Just to name a few.
"The fact is that technology for unlimited copying is here -- and the laws preventing private exploitation of this technology are outdated and counterproductive."
I wasn't aware that treating others with respect was "outdated and counterproductive". I also wasn't aware that it was "outdated and counterproductive" to honor our agreements with others. Maybe humanity should consider that technology isn't so much a permission slip as it is a pause to consider what one is doing is right or wrong (or has technology rendered that too "outdated and counterproductive"?)
Well, not really since I'm under 18 and I don't live in Norway.
But just introduce online elections and they'll definitely take the cake. And when they do, I wonder how many political parties around the world will follow suit? Everybody loves free stuff from the net!
Topic Sold Separately - A blog about everything, anything, and sometimes not
"I disagree fundamentally. There is no pro-"subsidization" at all. In fact, quite the opposite. The entire concept of intellectual "property" requires that a society enforce certain totally artificial rules in order to encourage people to do things that they would, presumably, otherwise not do."
Interesting. I wasn't aware that a reciprocal agreement was "totally artificial", although I do agree for the need for rules "in order to encourage people to do things that they would, presumably, otherwise not do" considering the historic record shows an overwelming tendency for destructive behaviour on humanities part, both individualistic and as a group.
"You have no fundamental right to control what another person can do with information."
Well aside from the argument someone put forth before that information isn't art. It is a perfectly reasonable thing for a society to ask that others don't compete with the original creator using an exact copy of their works. If you truely wish to compete? Then invest the effort in coming up with an original work to do so. Likewise I should point out at least copyright as stated in most societies was established with creators and society in the central roles. Not copiers and society.
I can't buy it.
Damn.
I realize I'm probably a dinosaur in that I get more out of printed copy than what's on my screen - I like having a book I can open up and read. My nice dual 1680x1050 LCD's definitely aren't anywhere near the quality of the printed copy.
I ended up printing it at Kinko's so I could get a decently bound (spiral bound - opens 360 flat) at my own cost - more than $20 total; I remember when I would've gotten a free copy from the chip rep. I'd've happily bought a copy from them anyways, even though it's free on-line - I just want to be able to use both!
"Of course it is - how can people dedicate their life to something if they can't eat? I'm not talking about pop music - I'm talking about real music - the kind of music that will disappear in the scenario you describe."
There's several factoids that get lost in all these "my rights" discussions.
1-IP is not just about music, or software, or movies, or books, or...you get the point. It's about the creative output of every human being.
2-Substitute piracy for IP in the above sentence and reread.
3-Our society (not just the US) is becoming as Alvin Toffler said, a knowledge economy. One and two need to be considered in that context.
Unfortunately I don't think anyone here has presented their arguments (pro or con) that far seeing. Just in the nearness of "me".
Actually quite a lot of films made in the US today are financed from abroad - and the profits also go there. Most production companies do not sell their products directly - they have distributors in each country. Not sold from America in other words.
Since the German government instituted a tax incentive program to encourage film making Germans have been funding lots of Hollywood movies. Not that the German government wanted to support Hollywood.. but that's just politics for you.
Oh, and companies like Universal is partly owned by the French Vivendi group. Columbia is owned by Sony of Japan... TimeWarner is publicly traded. etc
These days, the DVD *IS* the lions share of the profits - mostly due to the number of people going to the cinema reducing dramatically.
If these people do not have this medicine then they will die.
If there people do have this medicine then they will die (from starvation, war, overpopulation, pestilence, etc etc etc).
Agreed: The big pharms want their money for what they spent to make the drugs, and the last thing they want is to sell it for rock bottom in a 3rd world country and then have it shipped to a 1st world country.
However: If they did increase their hearts and sold it for free/very little then they wouldn't get anything out of it and the impact isn't so great in the end. Between dying of a disease and dying from lead poisoning these people don't have much choice.
Who are Kripos and EFN?
Here's my translation for those that don't understand Norwegian:
Note: Arne is
Arne is interested in Japanese samurai films. They can only be bought from Japan and are all Region 3. Arne makes his DVD player (including his pc) region-free in order to watch the films.
Arne's 3 year old daughter plays wildly with the children-DVDs he's bought. Many have been damaged. Arne therefore makes back-up copies of the DVDs after he buys them. Since Arne is not very good with computers a colleague does it for him.
Arne has many DVDs. When he's travelling he transfers some of them to his iPod in order to watch them on the plane.
Arne har lastet ned tusenvis av låter fra forskjellige nettbutikker. Dette har kostet mange tusen kroner. Arne klarer ikke å ta sikkerhetskopi av alt på egenhånd.Han vet at det er viktig å ta sikkerhetskopi. Derfor lagrer han musikken på en ekstern lagringstjeneste (f.eks mp3tunes.com) slik at musikken ikke forsvinner hvis maskinen hans går i stykker.
VPS-like shared hosting, on under-crowded servers.
Here's my translation for those that don't understand Norwegian:
Arne is interested in Japanese samurai films. They can only be bought from Japan and are all Region 3. Arne makes his DVD player (including his pc) region-free in order to watch the films.
Arne's 3 year old daughter plays wildly with the children-DVDs he's bought. Many have been damaged. Arne therefore makes back-up copies of the DVDs after he buys them. Since Arne is not very good with computers a colleague does it for him.
Arne has many DVDs. When he's travelling he transfers some of them to his iPod in order to watch them on the plane.
Arne has downloaded thousands of songs from various on-line shops. This has cost him a lot of money. Arne can't make a backup of all of them on his own, but he knows that it's important to make a backup. He therefore stores his music on an external service (such as mp3tunes.com) so that they won't disappear if his pc breaks down.
Arne uses some of the songs he has downloaded as ring tone on his mobile.
Arne's mother has been given a Creative player for Christmas. Arne has bought a lot of music on iTunes that his mother would like to listen to. He therefore converts said music so it can be played on his mother's Creative.
In USA Arne found the perfect game for kids. When he came home he found that the game was unusable because it was the wrong region. He thus wants to modify the Playstation so that his daughter can use the game.
Arne's wife is blind. Many of her favourite writers have published books that are only available as e-books. She wants to have them read aloud. This is not possible, so Arne uses a program found on the net to read aloud the books.
Note: I'm Danish, not Norwegian, so there may be some slight errors.
Also, who are Kripos and EFN?
VPS-like shared hosting, on under-crowded servers.
In all the years of slashdot, I have never seen half a thread occupied by one person. It's impressive.
:-)
So this thread it is officially named 'the Swedish party thread'.
Since it is a party, is the famous Swedish chef invited???
not to detract from your original point, but functionally identical drugs which work differently enough are not bad from a consumer standpoint either.
each drug has its unique side effects, and even drugs with similar advertised function do not necessarily work equally across all people.
the best example i can think of is antidepressants, another example would be antibiotics.
imagine if we had stopped at penicilin. not only would millions be excluded from treatment by allergies, hundreds of the most common infections would now be untreatable due to built up immunity.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed the progressive thinking coming out of this part of the world. Its as if people from Norway, Denmark and like areas are all a little further evolved in their thinking compared to the average or average Westerner!
I wonder what it is?
Anyway, I love that someone is thinking in a manner that it puts pressure on those who are on the other side of the coin, I.e. RIAA (?), and friends.
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
Let the flames begin :]
I can't believe that people are seriously considering a ban on DRM. I suppose I should have realized that it's natural to try to fix a problem by making a new law, but when the problem *is* the law, you should fix it by repealing the problematic law, not making more.
There is absolutely zero need to ban DRM, for one simple reason: DRM doesn't work, has never worked, can't ever work. All DRM schemes are fundamentally flawed, at a deep technological level. The only course of action necessary is to remove all laws protecting DRM, thus making it completely legal to make, distribute, even sell software and/or hardware for the explicit purpose of breaking DRM. Completely legal copies of DeCSS, FairUse4WM, QTFairUse, BackupHDDVD, etc would be available everywhere. Entire companies could be founded to muster the resources to perform sophisticated attacks on DRM hardware and software (perhaps even a brute force cryptological attack would be feasible in some cases with enough resources). Modchips, firmware hacks, replacement toner cartridges with DRM lockout chips, etc would all be readily available.
In such an environment, all DRM would be futile. After a few more thwarted schemes, even the most stubborn holdouts in the RI/MPAA would have to see the light. DRM would go away of its own accord, and it would all be the result of *repealed* laws instead of new ones. Fewer laws on the books is a good thing.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
How do you differentiate between DRM and a proprietary format? Couldn't companies create a new format that requires obfuscation and/or encryption? Where do we draw the line?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
"No, but if an author's vision seems like it has a shot at being appreciated, funding comes from people expecting a return on their investment."
Perhaps, but the question of the parent poster remains. Let's take your own example, but related to your 'investement'-reason:
"Some authors may be able to secure funding (from companies, in your case), some may not. Let's pick 10 of your favorite authors (any arts field). Now let's say that maybe 5 of them will be skilled enough to secure funding (from companies). The world would still lose 5 authors' great works."
You see? Nothing really changes, you just replaced a chance to get funded by the government or philantropists with those by (movie)companies. Yes, in the first case, the appreciation is not (or at least less) based on the question how big the profits will be from the movie... but is that really a bad thing? Unless one wants to insinuate that movies are better when they become more profitable for the companies, this seems irrelevant.
However, european movies have shown this to be a false argument; many of the EU movies *were* in fact art-jewels, where many of the commercially inspired films from hollywood were crap. Of course, there was some crap in subsidised movies, and some good hollywood-commercial ones, but all in all most people would agree that plain commercial-oriented films are far from the best the movie-industry has provided.
But regardless of WHOME authors get funding from, you will always have 5 who succeed, and 5 who don't (as it were). So one could as readily say it's a shame one has lost 5 authors' great works, because they weren't skilled enough to convince movie-companies of their commercial potential.
The reasons why those authors get funding or not may change, but the argument you used hasn't, and the endresult doesn't differ.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Just so's you know, these are not a bunch of leftists as would be US liberals. "Liberal" in Europe means the same thing as "Libertarian" in the USA.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
DVD's provide the lions share of the *profits*, but a movie will still break even on movie theaters.
Also, copyright reform won't stop copyright owners from selling copies of what they've produced. As long as it's more convenient than peer to peer, and it's priced reasonably, people will come, if they intend to pay.
If they don't intend to pay, they won't come either way.
Calling Venstre a mainstream party is not quite sane. And neither are their representatives.
GNUs don't kill people.
This tiny political movement is not going to fly. The country would get dropped from the WTO in a heartbeat. They're talking about literally legalizing robbery.
First, the market and free things:
If any of you are American and support this, you're idiots. All we really export is IP nowadays... it's a huge asset to our economy. A political party is trying to pass a movement that's effectively robbing tons of hard-working Americans and their businesses. You think games, music, and movies are free to make?
If you're not going to buy them, then when do you pay us back for the cost of making these things? Have you not taken ECON101? Sometimes things that are convenient for us as individuals are bad for our nations and economy. It would be cool if food was free, but then who would grow it?
Don't give me a cathedral and the bazaar argument, either. If these arguments made any sense, there would be a communist or highly-socialist super-economy destroying us from overseas-- and don't cite China; they're not operating as a communist country internationally.
The open source model works, don't get me wrong. Like software, anything can essentially be copied. If we all chipped in and performed tasks to support each other at no cost, we wouldn't have to pay for anything! But we use a market economy to micro-manage compensation for work completed and general influence over production and macro-manage the demand and delivery for products. One of America's new primary roles is the production and subsequent defense of intellectual property. Welcome to 'where did my computer come from?' or 'how come I have food?'
If you're purchasing Microsoft profits, you're supporting Redmond, WA and its surrounding area. It's a lovely area that is largely fed by Microsoft- a huge boon to Seattle, not unlike Boeing. I'm sure Apple has a similar position in Cupertino. When you're just using Linux, you're simply sending our jobs to China! (They can make Linux, too!)-- that's where large firms like Motorola get their userspace operating systems. China!
Next, why this is bad for us and Norway:
As members of the world economy, you can't just produce products and gain international favors and contracts while utterly robbing your competitors-- (yes, we compete with Norway in the music market.) Not okay, not profitable, not beneficial.
NOT happening.
Well I see your post is still alive and has replies. Here's mine. Your post can best be summed up as. Do the alternatives give a wide variety of choice? And do the alternatives give an acceptable quality? With the present system I do have a wide variety to choose from (even if my fellow slashdotters feel they may be crap). And a lot of it is of an acceptable quality (also irrespective of my fellow slashdotter's opinions). And last there's a socially acceptable punishment-reward (accounting for degrees of risk) system in place to encourage more of what I enjoy. So far as I can see none of the suggestions presented meet all three of the criteria.* Some are even worse by assuming that the audiance has something it may not have due to either geography, or economic conditions. e.g. broadband, computers. The present system isn't perfect (but the alternatives are worse), but there are socially acceptable means for correcting that situation. I see that a lot of suggestors aren't using them, or using them poorly.
*There's also the historic record that shows that the "gravy train" came about because of the widespread acceptance of IP. Not the denial of. Assuming that removing the forces that brought that "train" about will still continue the "same ol, same ol" is shortsighted, and niave.
but if you are going to pass basically communist legislation and erase the financial incentive for the creation of intellectual property, you also have to accept the fact that the quality of that sort of work may no longer be professional. Sure, tons of people create amazing things as a labor of love, but the labor of finance is something which helps that love labor along. Would great bands like the Who have even persisted if they had no intellectual property rights during their heyday? Why is it that so many people I know are constantly complaining about the state of music today, and how much pop sucks, and yet so many also want to create a disincentive for artists to take on music making as a potential career? If you have ever put any love into a piece of artwork, you know inherently that you do not want OTHERS arbitrarily deciding what rights your work does and does not have...I mean you completely pulled it out of the ether, independently of them. I'm not rabid about file sharing but I'll tell you that I am sick and tired of the redundant, transparent, and cowardly rationalizations I read online, year after year, and I wish more people would just cowboy the fuck up and say "I felt like stealing something."
If I was a musical artist I would no longer allow my music to be sold in Norway. If I was a popular musical artist living in Norway.. I would be getting ready to pack my bags and move.
This is the "whats mine is yours" communism method.
When you run OS X on a machine other than a pretty Apple box, it's called an iSore.
An approach that resulted in nothing being written without a market for it would result in less pages produced annually, but it would lead to only the stuff that people were actually willing to pay for getting written.
I heartily agree with your post, but I'd like to add one thing further. In addition to works which people are actually willing to pay for, you'd also end up with those works which are made just for the sake of them being made - because the author/artist/etc just felt the need to create them and had the means to do so available. The cost of production and distribution continues to decrease with improvements in technology (granted, the former more slowly than the latter). The average lifestyle in the industrialized world is becoming more leisurely and luxurious all the time (which is not to deny all the social ills there are today, but would you rather be an average citizen of $INDUSTRIALIZED_COUNTRY today, or an average citizen of that same country 500, 300, even 100 years ago?). With these two factors combined, I imagine we'll continue to see more and more works being produced by talented 'amateurs' just for the love of the art, because they had something to say or a vision in their head that they just had to share with the world. And that, IMO, is most often the highest quality work out there.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
100 years ago, it was all about industrial capacity. Today, it is distribution. The large pharmaceutical companies have a distribution channel that requires products to be fed in. It doesn't matter if they don't have some new wonder drug ready, they need a product.
Just making lots of asprin doesn't cut it anymore.
The "solution" of making patents on drugs disappear means the distribution channel is still there and needs to be fed. Unfortunately, all there would be are the same versions of existing drugs. Why would anyone create something new to stock up someone else's distribution channel?
dont be morons.
MANY stuff, like minimum wages, retirement, weekly vacation rights, maximum working hours, social security and such, things you all care about much have sprung up from socialism/communism.
extreme prototype versions of these were tested with time, modified and made to work in conjunction with other principles of society.
if not, you would be working monday till sunday 12-14 hours, only getting a break from the work after sunday mass until monday morning.
this is the same thing with filesharing/music/ip thing.
filesharing may be extreme now. just as intellectual property shit (excuse me here, as it is really in the point of being shit right now) is.
in time a balance will be reached, and everyone will be happy.
up until then, "the people", the billions who constitute most of the human civilization on this world will be having to do their downloads in a kinda illegal position, and musicians/artists will be serving as underdogs to already stinking rich and spoiled media/publishing barons.
Read radical news here
The logical flaw of your reasoning lies in the fact that
_ of_intellectual_property )
1)your premise isn't substantiated,
2)AND you make a false dillemma out of it (patents and medicne, or no patents and no medicine, as if that were only the two possible options).
Patents are *supposed* to lead to investments. However, in reality patents are more than not used to stiffle innovation. In reality, the huge profits those companies make go primarily into marketing, NOT R&D. And the relatively small investment (compared to the overall profits and what goes to other departemtns like marketing and the legal teams) that remains, is that really the best return one can get? Is that the most efficient (in terms of being beneficial to the populace at large instead of being most beneficial for the monopolist) we can get?
I doubt it. ( http://www2.piratpartiet.se/referenser/the_reform
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---