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Congress Asks Universities To Curb Piracy
The Illegal Subset of the Integers writes "According to Ars Technica, Congress has sent letters to 19 universities identified by the RIAA and MPAA as havens for copyright infringement. In it, they not only seek to discover what these universities are doing to dissuade students from infringing activities, but give the implied threat. House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX) was quoted as saying, 'If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act.'
One wonders, though, what the universities are supposed to do when international disrespect for imaginary property rights is so widespread that there are currently over two million hits on Google for a certain oft-posted illegal number, up from the three hundred thousand hits from sometime yesterday."
To curb the bullshit. (And they seem to be off to a good start during the past few months, except for this.)
I mean, as long as we're asking for stuff we're not going to get...
I just searched on DC++ for "Spider-Man 3" and the results gave me "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
/. and click the link to this article, and I got a page saying "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
Then I come to
They're out to get me. *huddles in a corner, grasping at his tinfoil hat*
I believe that a number of universities have taken this approach and left it at that. There are a number of things that are done in a university setting that would be considered illegal anywhere else. From what I understand, the general consensus is that this should fall under the same protection. After all, isn't college a collection of curious students trying to learn?
TFA isn't clear if the letters were sent by Congress as a whole (unlikely, that would take a joint resolution of both houses), by a particular Committee, or by a handful of members of Congress. The only member clearly involved is a member of the minority party who isn't even in the minority leadership on the Committee mentioned, who is also, apparently, the source of threats of action.
University students ask Congress to shorten copyright terms.
If Congress is forced to "act" by re-evaluating the entire copyright system, discovering the unfairness and complete futility of the DMCA, defining fair use, and shifting the balance of power back to the citizens (not "consumers"), then that could be a good thing...
...but I'm not holding my breath.
"Oh boy! Are we going to try something dangerous?"
The students at University will often end up in Software Development, Law, Arts etc.. they know what they are doing. Students don't have the spare cash that employed people have.
there is nothing imaginery about the fact that if you work for years producing some digital content, you have the right to decide what to charge for it. The fact that a lot of people willfully ignore the law and take what isn't there's anyway does not make the property rights 'imaginery' any mroe than the preponderence of people breaking the speed limit makes the speed limit imaginery either.
I guess the submitter would prefer it if the whole concept of copyright and IP did not exist, but I wouldn't get your hopes up for any new movies, TV, music, softwre or games in that case.
I wish all the people moaning about the fact that 99% of entertainment content is commercially produced and requires payment would stop moaning and just produce some free content instead. Could it be that its way easier to complain about the content produced by other people than it is to actually contribute anything yourself?
On behalf of universities everywhere, I'd like to ask Congress to stop being the RIAA and MPAA's bitch.
Last time I was stopped at a light on the perimeter road of my local university a vessel approached me and demanded all the tea and spices in my hull. When I told them I didn't know what they were talking about, they shot a canonball at the side of my car.
It's about time Congress stepped up to protect the people from these pirates! I had to miss class that day (that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
More Twoson than Cupertino
what does congress expect universities to do short of outright CENSORING school computers? What they don't realize is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to stop students from using other computers that they have no way of controlling. Even if they did CENSOR the students online what can they do to stop encrypted/TOR/off network access? What about the tried and true downloaders who share wifi hot spots at cyber cafes etc. utterly hopeless for them me thinks.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
OK, I must be out of the loop. What is this talking about?
Several high level members of the RIAA and MPAA were reported coming out of the offices of Lamar Smith and several other congress members, smiling and waving, along with an odd white frosting on their lips.
Internet Whack-a-Mole is a game that you can not win, not even if congress tries to help you. The problem is that when the **AA tries to play IWaM(TM) they don't have enough hammers, and never will. Colleges are one of those places where people who want to share music can and will share music. Refer back to the sneaker-net theory of file sharing:
One student and 25 of their best friends join a pool. The pool members make a list of the music they would like to have a copy of. Each of the pool members buys a music CD from the list and 25 blank CDs. After making the requisite 25 copies, they all get together for some beer and a CD swap party. If done with discretion, nobody at the RIAA will ever know. The quality of the music is high, there is no record of the transaction that the school or ISP can hand over to the RIAA, there is no way to detect this copyright infringement. BTW, 26 x 25 = a loss of 650 CD sales in one night, in one location.
If the RIAA continues on their path to destitution, this is how music will be shared in the future, the same as it was shared in the past. IWaM is stupid, stupid, STUPID.
If the RIAA member companies were to do something that would make their product (distribution of someone else's content) more desirable, or valuable then they would again see rising revenues. Their business is outdated, and dying. Congress can't save them. God himself (if he exists) couldn't even save that business model.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
The HJC has no business being a mouthpiece of the MAFIAA.
The fact that such corruption is now being done so openly highlights how bankrupt our public institutions have become. This is going to end in civil war.
I personally think they should go for option (2). I mean, many universities are already going that route. For example, MIT course material is being made avaiable via Open CourseWare. Also, many academics are pushing for open access to all academic publications.
So, really, given that universities are supposed to be (and frequently are) institutions dedicated to dissemination of information, free speech, intellectual progress, and radical ideas... isn't it entirely consistent with the ethos (even their mandate) to not act as enforcers of copyright law? (Note: I'm not claiming that the universities have to actively encourage copyright infringement, merely suggesting that it is not their role in society to enforce those laws, even on their own campuses.)
From the blurb: ... there are currently over two million hits on Google for a certain oft-posted illegal number...
Tell me: how can a number be illegal? What if they had used a normal word as the key, would that word then suddenly be illegal?
-- Cheers!
While congress ensures that the rich don't stop getting richer anytime soon, we still have pressing social issues with which to deal.
The fact that copyright infringement, no matter how widespread, seems to regularly top news feeds lately is just further evidence we as a society are losing sight of our real threats: Further absolution of previously vaunted personal liberties, the lower class continuing their gradual attempts to topple society, and every special interest group out there with their pet right they're trying to get removed.
Thank you congress, for accomplishing nothing beyond the placation of your idiot single-issue voter bases and largest campaign contributors.
Good to see that I'm not the only one who sees things as they really are.
What?
I attend one of these universities. I don't think I should name which one, but I like their anti-piracy policy.
The university does not monitor student activity. If the RIAA or MPAA determines that a student's activities are possibly illegal, they must formally request the information from my university. Following this, the university will begin an internal investigation to ensure that wrong-doing was going on. If it was, only then will anything be turned over.
It's not the job of a university to police its students. The job of the university is to educate.
--Thomas J. Owens
The right to have the right to say how something you own is used is an imagenary right?
No one is stopping them from putting a fence around a concert and charging people an admission fee. But going after the people listening in the parking lot is over the top.
We can tape music from radio, and we can record programs on tv with a VCR. What the fuck is the difference between that and downloading a song? There is NO DIFFERENCE.
This is a battle for the control of YOUR COMPUTER, not "intellectual property". And THEY are winning, what with DRM and "Trusted Computing", etc.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
As a student of the one of the mentioned universities, I have already taken it upon myself to write to my chancellor in response to this story.
I charge other students of mentioned universities to do their duty and protect their university and fellow students in the same manner. Universities should not be punished for anonymizing or protecting the privacy of students as long as due diligence is taken to try and stop copyright infringment.
Do your part and write to those in charge, and tell them that they should defend their university and their students from arbitrary threats from the music cartels.
artists give control over recordings of their work to cartels who have lawmakers in their pockets.
Really it's a privledge granted by the people.
It can be taken away by the people as well.
There are a lot of very good and strong arguments for not ahving copyright.
Personally, I thin a limited copyright is a good thing, but for about 14 yaers. Longer then that then you give power to corporations to dictate your culture.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm so tired of watching congress protect the corporations from the people. It's supposed to be the other way around!
This would cost an awful lot of money, simply because of scale, and the diverse needs of the community. There are 15000+ students at my (not on the list) school, with at least 7000 of those on campus residents. About 80% of the off-grounds people have laptops, and maybe 15% bring them to class daily. That means that during the day you have in excess of 2000 laptops connecting throughout the day, in addition to the 6000 computers in people's dorms, and the 1000ish in libraries and computer labs, and you hit 9-10 thousand computers on your network on an average day. You can't monitor or sort that traffic cheaply.
Given that no University (especially not a top-25 one like mine) wants to be seen as anti-digital-freedom to prospective students, no college can really afford to go to a locked-down system of "block everything but ports 80, 8080, and AIM", because, well, they can't afford to politically, and there are dozens of departments that need to use Technology X on Port Y.
Essentially, colleges have to chose between massively inconveniencing legitimate uses and spending truckloads of money badly needed elsewhere at colleges.
It's wonderful to know that what with nuclear proliferation, thousands of Americans dead in Iraq (not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis), a President that insists on a millitary "carte blanche" despite his downwardly spiraled track record, international tension at its highest levels since the Cold War, and the highest fuel prices the world has ever seen (with no alternative in sight), it's wonderful to know that the US government has time for the really IMPORTANT issues.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
My best hope is that they simply shut down all access to the commercial music that today's kid enjoy so much, so the kids will have to learn to survive on college made jam, and the labels will receive no revenue whatsoever.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Haven for piracy?
Did that mean they didn't volunteer to hand over private data of their students to the RIAA when asked?
If that is the definition of a haven for piracy, then I want to attend those schools.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
If students didn't want to have congress work against their privacy rights, they should have voted for someone else when the election they were likely too young to take part in was held!
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
And thats that. And apparently RIAA rules united states, not "the people".
Lamar Smith (R-TX)
Read radical news here
To mirror Texan sentiments from their Revolution against Mexico, "Come and take it"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_and_take_it)
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
"Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX) was quoted as saying, 'If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act.'"
What the schools should say:
'Here's what we're doing to curb piracy: we respond to subpoenas signed by a judge to their full extent. We remove infringing content that has been identified by its owner in full compliance with the DMCA.
Oh, you wanted us to do your job for you? Don't think so.
I'm in favor of anything that makes students work harder to get a measurable and meaningful reward, e.g. music & videos. Any barriers schools put up will only encourage students to learn more computer science in order to evade the barriers.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
Unspoken is the fact that up to a generation ago, universities did just that. Universities have recently seen an opportunity to monetize their innovation and defray growing costs. There still has not been sufficient public debate about the law and ethics surrounding publicly-financed institutions patenting, licensing and in some cases directly capitalizing IP developed with public funds, often explicitly funded by DAPRA, NIH, etc.
illegitimii non ingravare
Only 4 of the 11 Big Ten schools were singled out. I feel honored to include my own Purdue University among the few.
Go Boilers!
add this to the list of ways the RIAA/MPAA try to stop P2P but actually end up pissing off its own customers. You know, if they spent half the time and resources they do in their witch hunts on a education/PR campaign they would have much better results. Instead of using FUD, educated the people on what they are doing and what it constitutes. Downloading a CD from thePirateBay is stealing, but copying a CD you bought is not. Draw some lines, let them be known, and maintain your image while still fighting your fight. Probably to late for that now though... oh well...
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
Yes, it is imaginary because they don't own anything. Copyright is attempted theft with government backing. It exists for the sole benefit of an industry of entrenched interests. The artist is frequently left holding the bag. They shall get paid when they perform, just like the rest of us peons. They deserve no special privileges. They are welcome to use their organizations to promote their work and upcoming events, not to make law and claim authority they wouldn't have without the bribing of government officials and the might of the police and the military.
What?
in one corner, grumpy old men who simply don't understand the full ramifications of the internet, issuing law after law after law
in another corner, technically astute, highly motivated, media loving, and most of all, poor teenagers
it doesn't matter what some corporation thinks is right and wrong. it doesn't matter what out of touch with reality laws a bought and sold congress passes. it doesn't matter how huge their financial war chest. it doesn't matter how large their army of lawyer whores. it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter
what matters is what is going to happen, and what is already happening. events now surrounding media and the law and internet seem to have an air of inevitability about them to me. time will simply take care of the details, but the ending in sight seems fixed and immutable: unenforceable and universally ignored and shortcircuited intellectual property laws. a colossal joke. for better? for worse? who knows. but inevitably so
riaa, mpaa, dmca, etc. used to infuriate me. now i am more sanguine about events. because i don't see how history can be changed, how the genie can go back in the bottle. some old grumpy men simply do not get what is happening, and never will. and the only solution is to let them die off. and so they will. and so time will take care of this problem
people who get into legal incriminations and moral hysterics about the inevitable unstoppable alterations the internet is making to media and the law just put me to sleep now: they simply don't matter anymore, and they are the only ones who don't realize that. let the dinosaurs die, and simply avoid the swings of the old dumb lizard's faltering weakening tail. let time take it's toll on those with minds too brittle and sight too dim to adapt to the new reality. the new reality: the full ramifications of media on the internet and what it fully means for society and companies and how media is produced and consumed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...Congress is dying.
Can it be any clearer to average Americans; Government will allow all your hands-on, technical, dirty, manual, but well-paying jobs go to other countries without hardly a gasp, but fight tooth-and-nail to protect an elite few who own, run, and work in the movie industry. An industry that cannot possibly own all mindshare as globalization continues, a pointless industry that actually produces nothing long-lasting, bankable, and advanced(like a pyramid or a profitable niche industry; just fake sets and technology), an industry that captures, monopolizes, and narrows popular culture draining away money and attention from local venues and real talent, an industry that simply cannot support all Americans.
Ownership of a thing is nothing more than a legally enforceable power to control what other people do with regard to something. Ownership of a copyright is no more "imaginary" than ownership of a stock, ownership of land, or ownership of a hand tool.
The same argument has been made of property more generally, and is no more true in the narrower case of copyright than the more general case.
No, it doesn't. Though, of course, many of the details of copyright law serve various industries of entrenched interests.
... and it looks like I probably won't vote for him next time, either.
"If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act."
Funny, I thought government had the monopoly on force. Or do corporations (the MAFIAA) have more force than the government now?
The university administrations should say a polite "Thank you for your letter" and file it in the round filing cabinet.
> Tell me: how can a number be illegal?
:(
Under the DMCA "trafficking" provisions, they're claiming that the 09 F9 number you've seen if you read Slashdot is part of an illegal circumvention device. Never mind the fact that it's totally useless without some complex software I doubt most of us have a copy of (I sure don't). The one bit of good news is that the DMCA is a US law. The bad news is that the US has a bad habit of "exporting" bad laws and enforcing them against people like Dmitri Skylarov who aren't even US nationals when they get the chance.
> What if they had used a normal word as the key, would that word then suddenly be illegal?
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the law has to make sense. I sincerely wish that were true, but we live in a world where courts have declared that tomatoes are vegetables, even though botanists insist they are technically fruits.
My non-lawyer, uninformed guess would be that they wouldn't sue you for using the word itself, but for letting people know that it happened to be the key to whatever, just like they've nailed people for posting links to sites if it was clear they knew there was illegal content there, even though the people in question weren't distributing anything illegal. The irony being that they most likely included the very same "illegal" links in their own legal filings and on the court records.
No sir, I'm sorry, but I think you'll find that the laws are written by highly imperfect beings and interpreted by judges who do their best to make due with a lot of self-contradictory rules and flawed legal principles.
In short, yes, they really can write laws and make rulings that make no sense whatsoever, that contradict incontrovertible facts, and which are self-contradictory. It doesn't make sense. It never has made sense. But, alas, it does happen
Hex, octal, binary, Base64, or Base32?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I believe the "imaginary" substitution is somewhat warranted. What is it, exactly that you believe these "artists" own? Is it the chords and how the song is played on an instrument? Because being a guitarist/psuedo-pianist/instrumentalist myself, I find the idea highly objectionable that anyone, that's right anyone can own chords or combinations of chords (known as chord progressions). If it's not the chords they own, is it the lyrics? Because as I've seen it, lyrics often contain information such as cliches and phrases borrowed from other sources. I find it difficult to believe that someone can "own" phrases.
Is it the chords combined with the lyrics? What exactly do they own?
The truth is that "intellectual" property is imaginary. It was only until I read that phrase in this very article that the issue had been nailed home so clearly in my head.
Nobody owns the plot that everyone uses in modern movies, popular culture, or "folk songs" and things were never before subject to such legislation. They were never "property" before. Myths and tales permeated the countryside. That was until plays could be captured forever as "movies", and music could be stowed away on "records." The truth is that media provided these now hugely successful recording artists with a brief window in which to make millions. That window was only provided by the fact that recorded media could be scarce. That limitation is now gone. Records don't require media anymore and are now as free as they were via word of mouth or through strolling minstrels. The truth is that it was a very small amount of time and their business model should *not* be protected. The reason why people say that artists ripping off other artists makes for great artistry is because it's true. Artists for centuries simply innovated and were free to do so by the free society of culture which has been cut off with records and movies. Well, gentlemen, welcome to the other side of the mountain. If you give something out to the free air that can be copied and played again, it will be. You have no power to stop the echo of your voice once you've used it to scream something from atop a mountain, it is then no longer yours to contain. And as such you have no power to stop the spread of your content. Culture is now back in the hands of the people, where it belonged to begin with. All your justifications and ideas of "intellectual property" are now gone. Get used to tightening your belt and practicing your craft...or find a new trade.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Nice. We have the worlds LARGEST market pirating entire theme parks, and we are worried about a little economic loss from cash-poor college students? Don't we bleed them enough with Fannie Mae loans?
Once upon a time, we were the world leaders in the free exchange of ideas. Many of our universities surpassed even institutions like Oxford, because we cherished the idea of free ideas. Today though, St George has become the dragon he slew. Today, all ideas are to be owned and monetized, and information is valuable enough to wage war over. Once, we killed each other over ports, trade, gold, and mines. Today, we have nothing left to fight over, so we must imagine property to kill and enslave each other for. Movies, music, literature hold no value without a reader or listener, their value is purely virtual. Do we really need to threaten our youngest with a future police state over things that do not exist, and never will?
Dear Congress,
As requested by the MPAA we are currently doing everything we can to ban the numbers 0, 9, 11, 2, 9, 74, 5, 8, 41, 56, 5, 63, 56, 88 and the letters f, d, e, b, and c from our campus. The math and english departments are giving us some resistance, but we should have them under control soon.
--The University
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Step 1: Create broken legislation
Step 2: Appeal to government funded institutions to provide free customer service
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!!!
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
How about Congress start worrying about their own problems (balancing their budget, ending a futile war, etc) instead of getting involved in private business?
except that congress is not currently representing the people, congress is currently representing the money. so the people cannot revoke copyright laws. because the people currently have no representation in congress. mr. lobbyist and his fat check does. so the conflict cannot be solved in washington dc
sonny bono and his ilk will fatten and fatten the cow of intellectual property. meanwhile, the internet is only getting more upiquitous, faster, and technological means of file sharing only getting more anonymous and easier to use
history is full of these sorts of issues coming to the head with no proper recourse. so recourse still occurs, it just occurs underground
until such time that copyright laws are an open joke, and are completely ignored, by everyone. of course people will still try to enforce them, and of course a few unlucky souls will be sacrificed on the altar of those-who-do-not-get-it. but by and large, those at the top are completely out of touch with what is happening in the realm of copyright laws and the ramifications of the internet on them
the future for the usa is china, where ip laws are not enforced and are openly flaunted, and artists make their money via sponsorship and advertising, and there really is no media conglomerates
which, although i have a lot of problems with the authoritarian nature of china, is obviously a superior situation, on the subject of intellectual property. and china's status quo was arrived at not because the technocrats in beijing were enlightened on the subject, but because the people on the streets just laugh at the idea of intellectual property, as they should, as we should
we should not afraid of the riaa/ mpaa and their gobs of cash and legions of lawyer whores. we should laugh at them. a few us will get caught and squashed like a bug, but if you scurry around at night and are a little careful, you can go on living your life with the proper respect that bloated corporate-interest serving american copyright laws deserve: absolutely none
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That said, I think the Military Industrial Complex is a far more insidious and dangerous entity and poses a much stronger threat to Democracy in the United States. The problem is that they have infested many of the congressional districts and states so that no lawmaker will deny their spending (as it means jobs and constituent happyness for the politico).
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I think he means the imaginary rights to imaginary property.
Simple Machines in Higher Dimensions
House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX) was quoted as saying, 'If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act.'
It is extremely telling that we do not hear anything like this from Congress on issues that actually matter, such as environmental pollution, sweatshops and child labor in third-world countries, the IMF and the World Bank attempting to privatise, among everything else, the water systems of those same countries, electronic voting, the war in Iraq, violation of the Geneva conventions, and the list goes on.
No, we only hear this kind of forceful talk when the issue benefits corporations and business interests. We get our Congress going after universities, because some students download music for free. What kind of priorities are these? I would have to say that this is just one example, of many, that categorically proves who controls the government now. This government is not ours, and it does not have our interests anywhere near the top of its list. This is a government begging to be radically altered or overthrown.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Actually, the difference is facility and complete duplication. In taping music from the radio, and recording TV programs, you get a tape or VHS of reduced quality than the original. However, in downloading a song, you get a complete bit to bit transcription of the original song. Not only that, it's considerably easier, as you can do it remotely while someone else hosts it. All you have to do is download it. Compare that to the method of waiting for a good song to come on the radio, hitting the Play + Record button, and then hoping that you got a good selection. Or even doing it via VHS. However, that isn't to say I disagree with you. Until the music / movie industries are willing to accept the fact that people are going to download, and they try and charge people more for a broken product, people will continue to download. And yes, DRM is broken. You're giving the user the locked chest and the key. Even if you tell people they can only unlock it for reasons a, b, and c, people will still unlock it for d - z, simply because they can.
Cynical Idealist
"No, it doesn't. Though, of course, many of the details of copyright law serve various industries of entrenched interests."
Yes it does and it always has.
It happend in Britain, which is why Franklin wanted it forbidden in the constitution.
Did you know that music wasn't even copyrightable in the US until the 1970's? Yet we managed to have a whole music revolution before that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But stealing thousands of dollars of intellectual property by the college student? A cherished right for all Americans! But the college student is poor you whine. He can only afford to steal music onto his 1000$+ computer, so he can listen on his 100$+ iPod, before he goes to blow a few dozen dollars on beer? You can't take away the rights of "poor" college students to steal IP. Please.
If you cannot understand the difference between a physical object and information, there is no hope for you. Noone is claiming that stealing a physical representation of information is legal. But arranging for a physical representation of the same information, using my own resources, is not stealing. It is only illegal because of copyright law.
My own opinion is that copyright law only exists to make the creation of new works economically feasible. So long as I do not harm anyone's ability to make a living (and you don't need upteen millions of dollars to live), I feel no qualms about violating copyright. I pay for anything I in turn use to make money. Anything else is pretty much fair game to me.
Wow! You know you have a lot of power when you can tell congress to directly protect your interests. Think about it this way:
:(
Since when did Congress get into being the personal police enforcement unit of the RIAA?
If that isn't the equivalent of being RIAA's bitch, I don't know what is.
If only RIAA would use their power for good, instead of evil. Maybe they could have congress bid for world peace, or getting healthcare for everyone in the United States, or maybe even tackling corruption, inflation, or increasing minimum wage... oh wait!! That's what congress is SUPPOSED to be doing!! My bad
I am open source, and Linux baby!
Today's pirating student is tomorrow's paying customer. When I was a student I didn't have money, so
I never paid for music, computer games or any other software - I copied it.
Once I started working I had money and I started buying all these things that I learned to appreciate through copying.
siener's youtube channel
...to extend copyright every time Mickey Mouse is at risk of becoming public domain.
Blar.
Funny that you mention it. If you're a student stuck on a Windows machine (like I am, half of the time):
.mp3 format and put them on your iPod with iTunes.
1. Register for Ruckus.com
2. Download their (piece of complete shit) proprietary "Ruckus Player."
3. Search and download whatever music you want using the service.
4. Strip the DRM from your songs with FairUse4WM
5. Convert them to
6. Don't worry about things like this affecting you.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Err according to the RIAAs own site.
"""
In the United States, the principle took hold during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 when James Madison suggested that the Constitution include language "to secure to literary authors their copyrights for a limited time." The provision passed unanimously. It is found in Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution. It states...
The Congress shall have Power . . . To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries . . .
"""
Copy right has existed in the US since the beginning what happened in the 70s is the respect for the phrase "limited Times to Authors and Inventors " started to disappar when congress allowed companies to take over and extended that time again and again. Removeing the whole purpose of copyright. This was originally created to move more stuff into the public domain by creating incentive to generate that material.
Most pirated copies do not equal lost sales!
Most pirated copies do not equal lost sales!
Most pirated copies do not equal lost sales!
Piracy is just free advertising!
Piracy is just free advertising!
Piracy is just free advertising!
Piracy is not the same as counterfitting!
Piracy is not the same as counterfitting!
Piracy is not the same as counterfitting!
I went to college not so long ago, back when MP3s were first becoming the rage (before Napster). We all downloaded and shared pirates MP3s and built up large MP3 collections.
Did any of those copied MP3s result in lost sales for the record companies? No, hardly any did. We were poor college students. If we couldn't have pirated copies for free, we would have simply gone without.
This is true of every form of content piracy I've ever witnessed. I know someone who modded a PS2 and loaded it up with hundreds of pirated games. Would he have bought most of those games if he couldn't have pirated them? Of course not -- he couldn't afford to. He would have simply not had the games.
Piracy does not have much real impact on sales, and most stats citing "industry losses due to piracy" are fabricated bullshit. All piracy does is allow people who can't afford the product still get access to it. And that's not a bad thing, as it's free advertising.
As an college degree-holding adult who can now afford things, I bought many CDs by bands I only knew about because I had pirated their early stuff back in college. Had I not done that, I wouldn't have bought their CDs years later, because I wouldn't have even known about them. Similarly, I can now afford to purchase software like Photoshop that I wouldn't know how to use (and wouldn't have any reason to buy) today if I hadn't pirated the software back in college so that I could learn how to use it. Just more evidence that piracy is the strongest form of free advertising, and companies should learn to leverage that instead of trying to stomp it out.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I recommend that you download the full set of specifications.
/dev/null /dev/null /dev/null /dev/null /dev/null /dev/null /dev/null /dev/null /dev/null /dev/null /dev/null /dev/null /dev/null /dev/null
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_BD_Prerecorded_0.912_redline_to _0.911.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_BD_Recordable_0_92_redline_to_0 _91.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_HD_DVD_and_DVD_Prerecorded_0_91 2_redline_to_0_911.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_HD_DVD_Recordable_0.921_2006072 5-diff.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_BD_Prerecorded_0.912_change_lis t.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_BD_Recordable_0.92_change_list. pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_HD_DVD_and_DVD_Prerecorded_0_91 2_change_list.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specification _support/AACS_Spec_HD_DVD_Recordable_0.921_change_ list.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specs091/AACS _Spec_Common_0.91.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specs091/AACS _Spec_Prerecorded_0.91.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/specs091/AACS _Spec_Recordable_0.91.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/AACS_Spec_BD_ Prerecorded_0.912.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/AACS_Spec_BD_ Recordable_0.92.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/AACS_Spec_HD_ DVD_and_DVD_Prerecorded_0_912.pdf >
curl http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/AACS_Spec_HD_
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Umm radio and tv are legal broadcasts. Companies pay for the right to broadcast stuff. Noone paid for the right to put their CD collection up on bittorrent.
Also, the accessibility, scale, and quality of reproduction is significantly higher with downloadable content.
Dear Congressman,
We appreciate your concern for our educational environment. We also appreciate your attempts to aid us by offering to legislate our educational programs. We will be sure to share the knowledge of your offer with our students, alumni, faculty, supporters, and local media members to bring forth more exposure of the proposed legislation and support for it. Hopefully, we can work together to find a solution where the Congress can fully shape the moral quality of our students.
Thank you,
youradouchebag
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Um, I can. Property rights exist in things that are tangible physical objects (tangible personal property and realty) and in things that are not (stocks, debts, etc., as well as the subjects of intellectual property.)
Property rights are merely legally enforceable powers. Exactly what parameters they have vary based on the subject of the rights, to be sure, but that doesn't make property rights in any one class of subject any more "imaginary" than any other.
And no one is arguing against that position, either, so why are you bringing it up?
There are certainly definitions of "stealing" for which that is true, and ones for which it isn't. So?
Everything which is illegal is only illegal because of the specific law which prohibits it. That's pretty much true by definition. So what?
You seem to be partially correct. The court did rule in SONY CORP. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., 464 U.S. 417 (1984) that manufacturers of VCRs could not be held accountable for copyright infringement due to the actions of their customers.
But this was included in the ruling as well:
Recording programmes for the purposes of time-shifting qualifies as fair use in the United States according to this decision.
I don't care why you're posting AC
That'll give the CS students and PhD's some more incentive to come up with real anonymous file sharing.
Where's the synthesis between Emule/Kad, BitTorrent and Tor, packaged in innocuous HTTP?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Artists deserve limited control over their work, otherwise there is very little incentive to create. Why am I going to bust my ass writing some musical materpiece when 5 minutes after it's finished every asshat on the internet has his own copy of it?
The fact that current copyright benefits the cartels instead of the artists isn't a problem with copyright. It's a problem with the way the industry is organized. If artists stopped giving the cartels the rights to their work, it would fix a whole hell of a lot.
We all know that college students have no money to buy music, so **AA doesn't get paid either way. Additionally, I like the idea of the leaders of tomorrow living in fear/hate of **AA. It may take longer than we want, but if you back college students with copyrights, then copyrights will be history in 100 years.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
If someone provides you with something you want, pay them for it. Compensate them for their time/effort/costs. Thinking that everyone else is obligated to entertain you for free is pretty self-centered, don't you think?
Nobody owned their likeness until it could be captured on canvas or more importantly film. Nobody owned their DNA information until we could decode it. Nobody owns their social security number, after all it's just a number.Then it should be fine to have video surveillance everywhere. If you want to walk out in public, you have no power to stop your image from being seen.
There is no such thing as identity theft, because my use of your identity doesn't necessarily prevent you from using it.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
I went to two of those 19 universities, one for my undergrad degree and one for grad school. And now I work on the campus of a third. It's not just a money issue -- yes, where I did my undergrad degree everyone was flat-ass broke, but in grad school most of the undergrads (not us Ramen-eating TA's) had plenty of daddy's money. It comes down to all the other issues that copyright law keeps going back and forth over. Kids -- and that means most of us into our late 20s and early 30s, even -- share stuff. If you're 18 years old and you've just heard this great new song, what's the first thing you do with it? You play it for your roommate, and her friend, and her boyfriend, and a week later 3/4 of your whole dorm building is singing it in the shower (er, not at once). And anyway, what 19-year-old doesn't think sticking it to the man is a good idea? Next thing you'll be saying college kids drink, too! *gasp, shock* In the meantime, Congress can keep their hands out of my alma mater(s). This is so far from being an appropriate congressional issue right now that it's laughable.
I created a music player that plays zip files of my music encrypted with the names of prominent Congresswhores, such as 'Lamar Smith'. Obviously, he's disseminating my decryption keys unlawfully. There are over five infringing keys just on his home page, as well as sneaky attempts at avoiding detection by placing the key in images, and posting half of it preceeded by 'Congressman'.
The DMCA is obviously on my side, and I will be sending takedown notices to quite a few websites. The civil suit of 150,000 bucks per infringment won't be bad either - I can use it to lobby Congress to outlaw lobbyists, or even get some canidates who represent people, rather than industry groups.
Cynical Idealist
Try obeying the law,
Actually I DO obey the law. See, where I live, downloading music is NOT illegal. The ones NOT obeying the law are the people trying to force my equipment to abide by the laws of some foreign country and preventing me from doing something completely legal.
Piracy is not theft. Piracy is not casual downloading. Piracy is downloading stuff, burning CD's, and selling the damned CD's for profit. The only clueless person here is yourself.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The universities should answer with "go fuck yourself", wrapped in suitably nice legalese, of course.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Weblo looks interesting to poke around. Thanks.
I would like to buy music in mp3 format on a DVD. The DVDs titles should be:
1. All of rock
2. All classic
3. Top 1000 for 2007
and a few more. i would be happy to pay premium or $20 for it.
And when HD players become more common, I would buy buy the "Top 10,000 songs for 2009" disk as well.
no need to involve congress or to sue anybody here.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
That's right, because I don't think anywhere else even has such a moderation flag. Maybe so, by now, but they just "borrowed" the idea. Course, if Slashdot made that idea, they must own it. So, no, nobody can mod anything flamebait anywhere else, because Slashdot owns "flamebait" (tm).
I wrote the above paragraph to express something about "ownership" and "copyright." What exactly do "artists" create from? I know that as a fledgling artist, you often learn how to play others songs first. Then after you get sort of good at that, you develop a way to create a "sound" of your own. Well, now what exactly is that sound?
Music as a whole is only the way it is due to popular consent. Scales, chords, etc are learned entities. Learned from thousands of examples, music is essentially an evolutionary artform much like any other. Often today's "artists" will rehash old blues chord progressions stolen ideologically from the southern countryside in the 1920s. Even many of John Lennon's best songs (a fantastic artist if you ask me) were simply the standard blues fair, 12-bar blues progression with a riff or two thrown in for good measure and prehaps a unique melody line.
The MPAA and the RIAA want to make it seem like artists are people on a tower, conjuring up melodies, fantastic scripts and ideas from the thin air. That they are a vital part of society that is better than society, that the things they make can never be performed unless first stamped and certified by the original copyright holders. Music hasn't worked like this for a long time and it's not going to start now just because it's making a bunch of lawyers, bureaucrats and spoiled artists from making a few million more per year.
Rock and roll is based off the blues, the blues is based off of earlier folk music of other origins. Everything is derivative. Music isn't created in a vacuum, it's a steady push of the familiar with a little spice of added touch from an "artist". Let It Be and With or Without You have the same cliche chord progression, and it is I suppose illegal to have a chord sheet of either of them without authorization. Who owns the chord progression then? It certainly isn't something U2 created, so should they have to receive royalties because someone plays it?
Perhaps you hear this line of logic here more than anywhere else, but that doesn't mean it's not a worthy argument. Instead of trying to criticize the argument for being unpopular in other venues and popular here, how about you attack the argument?
You must also realize that most "everywhere else" the media is bought and sold. The MPAA and the RIAA and respective industries are deeply ingrained with the newscasts and "news" that you receive on a nightly basis. The idea that intellectual property is a load of horseshit doesn't exactly reflect well on their perspective businesses. I can't imagine why they would want to air information about it.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
There's no argument the music/movie industry is totally out of wack. And your argument about IP make sense to a certain degree. It's hard to argue if you own the 'combined lyrics/chords' but you cannot deny that you spent the time with your 'creativity' and created something. It's possibly that you're the only person in the universe that has create such unique chord progression, with they lyrics and your vocal. But to an extreme you are implying that with an infinite number of monkeys and infinite amount of musical instrument, they'll be able to create every single possible songs ever, good or bad? And you still need to feed those monkeys. Until that day, IP cost something and it does worth something.
See what happens when you kids get out of hand. Sites like Slashdot and Digg encourage lawlessness and now you are going to have the federal government becoming involved.
The rest of society doesn't feel sorry for you because the rest of society has to work day in and day out to put food on the table. Working for a day, recording the output, and then expecting a lifetime's compensation for that single day's output isn't the way society functions. Get over it. You want to make money as a musician? Perform concerts, work every day, just like the rest of do. The idea of the record as a profit center for primadonna artists is dead. Welcome back to the real world.
Congress is a product of a process controlled by the political parties. The political parties are in turn controlled by monied and powerful interests who let the parties know who they will back, and who they will not. The parties pick from candidates that can get backing, of course, otherwise they will be picking candidates who cannot advertise, campaign and travel freely - in other words, losing candidates. Once acceptable candidates are chosen, then they let the people vote on which one of these hand-picked people is to continue in the (very, very expensive) process. Once elected, carrying out any promises made during the political campaign is strictly optional.
In this way, congress (and the senate, and the presidency) end up being 100% made up of people selected by those same monied and powerful interests. "the people" do not control the type of person, or the obligations of that person. Once in power, the usual currency of politics - being supported to run again by the party, junkets, "fact-finding" trips, dinners, appointments to powerful committees, visits to the white house, campaign contributions, rubbing elbows with the powerful, pork for their district, commitments for speaking engagements, returning as a lobbyist, employment at a think tank, tips on everything from stocks to escorts - these, and more, are the "currency" of "elected" government service. It also doesn't hurt to remember Orwell's assertion that "the purpose of power - is power."
Aside from those people, there is a vast army of unelected, but very powerful individuals who manipulate our daily lives with absolutely no requirement to, or evidence of electing to, pay any attention to public input. Not that such input is lacking; they just don't listen. Examples abound; the FCC with its censorship and pandering to the rich for broadcast (broadcast speech belongs to the rich - period), the FDA with its holding back of therapies even to those who are about to die, the US park service which takes homes from people by force (eminent domain), the Supreme Court, with its topsy-turvy interpretation of the commerce clause, disingenuous support for ex post facto laws, craven ducking of the religion issue, and of course, just generally trampling the constitution left and right. And of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
So when you talk about the government - any of it - as being "the people" - you're speaking of a situation that doesn't exist in the United States of America. Our federal and state governments are operating broadly outside the bounds of its constituting authority, within a cycle that is entirely controlled by special interests who have money and power. There are absolutely no signs that this situation is going to change. In the specific case of music and video, the people have already made it quite clear what they want, and they are being roundly ignored by government. Business is showing some movement because their hand is being forced, but legislatively speaking, it is only getting worse on all fronts - patents, copyrights and IP law in general. These laws are not made to benefit the people, and sure enough, they generally don't. As soon as you look to see how they benefit industry, however, the light will begin to dawn.
You may wonder why free speech is allowed with a government gone so catastrophically wrong. The answer is simple: It is far better for them to let you vent than it is have you smolder and suddenly show up on some politician's doorstep with what used to be your second amendment rights in hand. Between that and making sure you achieve a general level of complacency, while being distracted by the current round of boogymen (Terrorists! Pedophiles! Immigrants! Global Warming!), they can keep the population from getting out of hand, even as they trample constitutional rights, engage in broad repression of personal, victimless choices, and pursue military adventures on sovereign foreign soil for the benefit of industry.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
But, with music the 'perfect copying' would really only apply to those ripped and traded in lossless formats like FLAC or AAC-lossless...the mp3's and other lossy versions are not bit for bit copies of the originals, and are of lesser quality (analagous to the old taping of radio/tv/albums)...and should be legal, right?
So according to your proposal, anything of iTunes which is not lossless, would be fair game right?
I'm pretty sure that taping off radio/tv/album back 'in the day' (I was there), wasn't exactly legal...they just didn't bitch about it till now 'cause the copies are better (not always perfect though), and with regard to being easier and more widespread...that too.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Actually, I meant the original to be the file which you were copying. In the case of VCRs and tape recordings off of TV, the original is the data you got from the cable / soundwaves.
Cynical Idealist
Go perform a piece of software or a video game.
You're confusing the reason for the existence of property laws with the reason for the existence of copyright laws. Property laws exist because objects are an exclusive resource - if I use foo, you don't get to use it. Not only that, but use generally transforms or destroys the object. This means that sharing is difficult, and takings via force preclude my enjoyment of my property. Compare that with why copyright exists: it's so that people are guaranteed an incentive to create ideas and abstract concepts. If someone copies an idea, I can still enjoy it. If someone copies my music, I can still enjoy it. Ideas are a non-exclusive resource - their availability actually increases the more people use them. The problem with sharing ideas is not that someone else can't use them, it is that it becomes difficult to make money from ideas.
As a result, property laws and copyright laws are dramatically different in their goals: one tries to prevent anarchy and the law of the strongest to rule the land, the other tries to give an incentive to people to create art, new concepts and advance science. I wouldn't call copyright government instituted theft, but it certainly restricts the dissemination of ideas. And at some point you have to ask yourself, do the restrictions hurt the general society more than it benefits specific individuals?
At this point, I think the answer is a resounding yes - especially since very often, the individuals who benefit from IP laws had no hand in creating the IP.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
signature pending slashdot approval
In order to prevent piracy, we have unhooked our tubes
thank you for your concern, State U
Tell this to anyone else who was put out of business by a machine or a computer. Protect the people who make whips for those driving buggies from going out of business or scaling back employees.
Artists aren't somehow protected from market forces or the driving force of technology. Some of the best music came from remarkably terrible times, people like those enslaved created art in order to express their anguish about their situation. You might know this as the blues....you know, the foundation of modern rock. If you take away the millions of dollars and the glitz and glamor, people will still create music. You've seen the type of "art" bestowing upon a select few millions of dollars causes. Do you think it's really necessary for them to be this rich? Do you think the market still warrants it? They exploited a temporary gap.
I say this as I create my own art. As perhaps billions of people other than me make art every day for the enjoyment of the craft and the enrichment of our lives that creative expression brings. If someone stops creating songs because they can't sell a million plus copies per single, you probably didn't lose much in them putting the guitar down anyway.
The loss of intellectual property will not bring art to a screeching halt. It might bring to an end some of the exploitation of art, but it will not stop the human mind from the never ending pressure and release cycle that is creativity. I work a full time job and I still create art. I might not be the best, in fact I'm sure I'm not. But there are millions and perhaps billions out there that do the same thing. Thanks to the Internet we can pass this stuff on without even touring if we don't want to. Culture changes, yes, but who is to judge if its good or bad. This culture change *is* our industrial revolution, those that stand in its way will be its artifacts.
Many very talented artists are already embracing this new way of looking at music distribution. Only greed keeps people from just, as south park put it, being stoked that so many people are listening.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX) was quoted as saying, 'If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act.'
A Republican from Texas is threatening broke college students; go figure. Can't we just give this state (especially the folks living in Crawford) back to Mexico?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
A good point, but for many people, downloading music from an artist is used to see if they like that artist. If they do, they'll go buy an album or find a nearby concert sometime. So for many people, downloading is a necessary step that ultimately leads to a purchase.
Nice to know that you alone can speak for all of Congress, and the President, who will have to sign it, and The Supreme Court, who may have to uphold it. You must have a really big mouth.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Right. It is going to collapse, there is no question about that. The revenue isn't there to support commercial media after the old folks that keep buying stuff die. The younger people know about downloading it for free.
The question is what will be left? There might be some attempt at ad-supported movies where commercials are either cut in (like network television) or incorporated into the story. You know, where the character stops what he is doing and launches into a monolog about how great some brand of condoms is. I don't see that having much of a future, though.
The future that I see is people with a true love of the art will continue to make their own movies and music. They will be able to publish this and you will be able to get it for free. Unfortunately, the number of people that can afford to dedicate their lives to polishing their craft (music, movies, or whatever) without compensation are relatively few. So you might have some rich folks that are highly polished and a lot of folks that think they are highly polished.
I'm sure Darwin Reedy (American Idol) thinks today that her performance was highly polished and that people will fall all over themselves to hear her sing. Since publishing will be free she will indeed be able to get her work out for the masses to enjoy without any restriction.
The big question for the next 100 years or so is going to be will anyone care? If you haven't heard Darwin sing, by all means you need to check her our. Possibly one of the better voices that we will be hearing from.
When I was in college working towards a performance degree, I spent 8 hours a day just practicing, generating no income, simply to prepare myself to begin making money from my craft. This was on top of a part-time job and classes. And it's not like when you hit a professional level, suddenly every note you play generates a paycheck. If you think doing anything on a professional level musically takes a 'day of work for a lifetime of returns' you're a fucking idiot. It take a LOT of time and a LOT of hard work, and unless you're some POS pop star blessed by a label, it's crappy income.
Is the system broken? Yes. Copyright reform is sorely needed. Expecting artists to work for free isn't the answer. You aren't entitled to shit.
Actually it is impossible to achieve an exact copy of audio off a CD. I remember reading the details of it years ago on r3mix.net but since then it seems that site has gone in *ahem* other directions. But in short an mp3 even at the best settings is not an exact copy of a song off a CD.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
They can. There are a great load of things a person who wants to make the musical arts their career can do. The fact of the matter is that the majority of people that practice their craft for their profession probably aren't even recording artists. Many of them are teachers, teaching others the craft, performers in local bands, and cover bands. It is not as if by free copying there is no income to the music industry. There still is. Perhaps I would be better. Perhaps not. Perhaps the blues would be better if the slaves were allowed to just play their banjos all day, but that wasn't reality. It's not to say that I embrace the idea that artists should struggle in order to create art. Mozart, I'm sure, was relatively well off in his day and made some of the greatest works of art. However, the artist adapts to his own time and place and location in life. To be a full time performing artist isn't always in the cards for everyone. But the dedication doesn't vanish. People will create music whether or not they are directly compensated for the dispersement of its recordings is my point. Whether that music will be better or worse is a guess, but it will be created. To pretend that it won't is ridiculous. And nothing is stopping you from compensating the artists you enjoy currently and I suspect nothing will stop you in the future either. But to pretend like musical recordings have the same value nowadays that they once had is ridiculous. No amount of foot stamping is going to change the industry shakedown that's about to occur, the people that stand in the way of the stampede will likely be its first casualties.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
That's because the "rest of society" is a bunch of work-a-day shlubs who think everybody should be a shlub like them. People with drive, determination, and skills become entrepreneurs, and break out of the work-a-day shlub lifestyle. They create/invent/produce/manufacture something of value, or they invest wisely in the creations/inventions/productions/manufacturing of others, and create wealth that sustains them.
That's the beauty of capitalism. If you have the drive, the determination, the skills, and a little luck, you too can break free of the work-a-day shlub lifestyle. Not everybody can. In fact, if everybody "could", capitalism wouldn't work. But that doesn't give the work-a-day shlubs the right to try to haul the entrepreneurs back to the pack just so everything will be all even-steven again. You want that, go find a socialist/communist country to live in. If you already live in one, hey, good for you.
Making fun of dumb people since 2009
by 'joins a pool' you mean 'shares out his itunes library' or 'mp3 directory', etc.
it's that simple. and it already happens far more than internet music downloading (within universities).
Someone gets a new ipod or laptop or comes back from summer vacation, they meet a few people, and suddenly then they've got 20gig of new music.
why do you think the RIAA wants the universities to establish acceptable network use policies over and above any other ISP?
It's so the schools become obligated to police intra-university sharing.
College kids learned pretty quick. The vast majority don't blindly download anymore. A handful still do, and they share with everyone else, across a network the RIAA can't easily seed with noise or infiltrate and track.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Why should universities be under any more of an obligation to stop copyright infringement than any other ISP?
They should be under less obligation because education is one of those things people believe in and make exemptions for. We expect that music and film students will be provided with a library of materials to study, that their teachers may duplicate these works for the same purpose. We expect that teachers can make composite texts from samples of other materials when it suits the goals of furthering the arts. Furthering the state of the art is the reason copyright exists in the first place and it is also the goal of any university. Peer to peer sharing at a University can be looked at as an extension of the university's mission.
As Ars implied, the whole thing stinks. The leading questions about "discounts" pushes that industry wet dream of compulsory licensing - in effect nationalizing the existing publisher. Combined with steps that will hamper would be competitors makes this little more than legislative extortion. Shame on those who had a hand in this.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I would so love to hear just what these RIAA lobbyists are telling our congress critters about the dangers of piracy. Maybe they're saying that, if left to run amok, America's children will start dressing and acting like Johnny Dep?
I drank what? -- Socrates
No, I'm not.
That's rather emphatically not true for physical objects. For many kinds of things (much tangible personal property), the most common uses will exclude simultaneous use by other parties, but its certainly not the case, for instance, that my presence on a large plot of real estate necessarily interferes with your use of that same piece of real estate. It may, it may not.
The reason for the existence of property laws, whether for real property, tangible personal property, or intangible personal property is that, property laws encourage the creation and/or improvement of 'things' (either tangible goods or social constructs) that are valuable to society by providing a legally enforceable right of control which creates an incentive for people to create, or provide an incentive for others to create, things which the person who acquires the legal right to them would be unable to protect and extract as much value from in the absence of law. The legal right of control increases the value of creation/improvement for the person creating or improving, and therefore encourages creation and improvement.
Certainly, that is why copyright exists, but it is also (expanded to a more general concept of "valuable things" than "ideas and abstract concepts") why all property law exists. Without enforced property law, a person can't keep more than they can defend by force, and thus has no incentive to create or improve anything that they can't defend personally by force.
It is true that the subject matters of copyright (and patent) protection are different from physical objects in that respect; this doesn't create a difference in the purpose of copyright law (or patents), though it does create a difference in the way in which the public can benefit from the subjects, which encourages limited terms of protection where such are probably not as useful in terms of tangible personal property (they may be, for different reasons, in real property, but that's an entirely different debate and beyond the scope of the immediate discussion, I would think.)
It can have that effect, certainly.
Certainly, you do. And I agree that, for many provisions of present copyright law, the answer is "Yes". Present copyright law fails to return value to the community that it ought to, I agree. I'm certainly not a fan of the current copyright regime.
Lots of people go to school and do work on the side to prepare themselves for a career. What's your point?
I never said I expected artists to work for free, stop putting words in my mouth you "fucking idiot". However copyright is badly broken and the assault on fair use by the media conglomerates simply serve to make people disrespect all copyrighted material. Get copyright back to a reasonable time frame and strengthen fair use such as format shifting (why should I have to buy separate copies of a movie for my home theater and my iPod?) and then go after the pirates with my blessing. Until then, screw the media industry.
copyright should be excluded from the conventional understanding of 'intellectual property'. If there is a 'property right' with regard to copyright, then the property right belongs to the public. That's right, all copyrighted material belongs to the public, it is public property. What copyright provides is a temporary monopoly on the creative work to the creator of the work as reward and incentive to create original work. Perhaps the confusion is understandable as the term of copyright keeps getting extended, but it's important to understand so we can recognize the bullshit way the term 'intellectual property' is used with regard to copyright.
Loose lips lose spit.
It is certainly not a problem with the fundamental idea of copyright, but it is, largely, a problem with the details of copyright law.
If Congress stopped adding to the rights (particularly, adding to their duration) after they had been been sold (through, e.g., copyright extensions), that would fix some things, as well. You think there would be a big impetus for copyright extensions if the copyrights reverted to the heirs of the original creator after the date on which they would have expired when created?
Poor teenagers? Don't tell the marketers. They have the absurd notion that teens typically have more disposable income than their day-job-holding parents. Wait! They're right!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
While the parent indicates that you can download an exact copy of the song/movie, in many/most cases this is not quite true. What you do get is an exact copy of the re-encoded form of the media, which is usually at least to some extent a "lossy" re-encoding. This means that for music - unless you're able to download a full CD ISO image (or a flac, etc)- you are getting an mp3 that isn't quite the quality of the original song-on-disc, but the difference isn't noticeable to everyone. Audiophiles are still likely to buy CD's, but many others settle for the lower-quality mp3's. I am one of those people that does notice a quality improvement when listening to an original disc, but at the same time I often prefer the convenience of having a DVD of mp3's in my car (in my case, legally ripped from originals) rather than a whackload of CD's waiting to be stolen.
The same thing applies to movies. For DVD's, the encoding actually has some loss as it is (MPEG-2), and re-encoding doesn't really help things. If you're willing to download an 8GB image and burn to a dual-layer disc you can reproduce the original, but given the cost of dual-layer media it's not really worth it. Again though, the purists - if they want to best copy available - will buy a disc.
For theatre cams, there is a more noticeable loss of audio/video quality, but this is going down as the quality of cameras improve and the number of rips-from-masters goes up as well.
It is only the initial rip that does lose quality though, unless you are re-encoding or re-mastering for some reason (maybe to convert to a format that's friendly on your local NTSC/PAL DVD player). So that means that the parent is still correct in that "copies of the copy" remain digitally identical.
I think that if the MPAA/RIAA *really* wanted to make an impact, the best way for them to go would be to embrace the digital media, and offer cheap but low quality copies. For a small price, you can get a lo-fi Mp3 that lets you know what a song sounds like, or a low-resolution lesser-framerate version of a movie. Of course, this means they will also have to try harder to not market worthless crap, but for good movies the el-cheapo versions would probably do quite well in sales while at the same time pushing people towards buying the higher quality CD/DVD/etc version.
No, that's not true. Congress has the power to enact copyright/patent protection for a limited time (though modern copyright law has stretched the definition of "limited time" to the point where it is impossible to take seriously), but it is not directed to do so. It can choose to or choose not to.
I would define property as an item that can be demonstrated to have a concrete value. Intellectual property would then be a creative construct that has a provable value. Most creative endeavors result in failure, and have no value. However, when an artist creates a successful song, he has proven that there is a market demand for the song, and therefore it obviously has value. The artist has invested time and resources into the song to create value in it, so that artist should be able to recoup profits if he or she so chooses.
However, I would argue that market demand for creative works wanes quickly, and the artist in question should only have the right to profit off a creative work for a comparable (and fair) amount of time before it becomes public domain.
My solution would be to limit this "copyright" for the creative work to a period of around 10 years from the date of the first "sale" of the work in question. At the moment that you sell a creative work, you have proven that it has value, and the clock should begin ticking for it to become public domain.
While there will be a few creative products that will show exceptional merit and market presence, the majority of items will not. Using the song example, an artist is free to create a new recording of the song in question to profit from, as it would be a new work. However, that artist should not have the right to control the original work that the new recording is based off of beyond the "copyright" period.
In short, creative works should exist to benefit society as a whole. The person who succeeded in generating value around a creative work should be rewarded, but should not be the sole decider on how that work best benefits the public.
It's hilarious that everyone I argue with about copyright assumes I'm a dirty commie. Quite the opposite, I'm a libertarian who believes in the free market. In a truly free market, there'd be no protection for IP. Being able to duplicate something without affecting the original is the ultimate free market, everything then comes down to efficiency.
Personally I'm willing to concede that perfect market for a limited time monopoly, because as the founding fathers well understood, a temporary monopoly will serve society by spurring creativity. Too bad the concept of limited time copyright no longer exists. Anything published today won't be in the public domain until sometime in the next century, and that's assuming copyright doesn't extended again between now and then. Since copyright holders have chosen to completely ignore their contract with the citizens of this country, namely that their work will enter the public domain after a reasonable period (and believe me, Disney will get copyright extended even further the next time Mickey Mouse is scheduled to enter the public domain) I see no reason to uphold my end of the bargain.
As far as the rest of society being "work-a-day shlubs", those "shlubs" are the ones cracking your beloved DRM. Crackers are every bit as determined and skilled as your entrepeneurs. I guess that should entitle them to whatever they want?
Such sentences should be separated by two spaces if ending with a period. If ending with a question mark, the proper spacing is a single space.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Communists also believe in broadcast and publication monopolies. This power is generally used to shore up their own position by fraud. The US broadcast and publishing industry is not much different.
Copyright in socialist by nature. In a free society it is a Faustian bargain that infringes on your right to do what you want with your property and your culture. This must constantly be justified by some "greater good" which is socialist by definition. That greater good, according to the US Constitution, is the promotion of the arts and spread of knowledge. When copyright violates that, it has failed it's social duty.
The protection publishers seek now threatens the funding and mission of Universities. Even if you believe in violating people's rights to promote their best interests as it was defined an age of paper publication, you have to admit that the issue is now one of public corruption. Big dumb publishers want to own the internet and perpetuate their place in society. It is a scandal for the government to aid them in that mission at the expense of public education and freedom of press.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
music will live as long as humans live
in its current pop driven corporate backed format? probably not. in other words, goodbye top 40 tracklist, goodbye everyone in the usa knowing about britney spears
i really don't know if we should weep for the end of the corporate-backed pop era
and there will still be pop... it will just more sparse. concerts will still earn money, tickets to them. so there will be more phish/ grateful dead type pop music. heh. i don't if THAT is a good thing!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
corporate money in politics. i also think they are powerless to do anything about it. so in a way, you are blaming iraqis for saddam hussein, or filipinos for ferdinand marcos: what cvan the common man do about corruption?
you have an "interesting" understanding of how responsibility works. as in, you're deluded
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
dead on. it's insane. it's corpoate greed eating OUR culture. an artist is considered due financial consideration for his work. due financial consideration according to some apparently means his greatgreatgreatgrandchildren deserve rolls royces. fucking bullshit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The musician potentially (if s/he is the author/composer) has ownership of the written music and the lyrics. The musician also has ownership of this seemingly intangible right to profit from his/her performances and/or recordings. Other musicians may use the tune, lyrics, or both if they pay a royalty to the original owner or the current copyright holder (if the original rights were transferred). If musician B takes a song written and composed by musician A and plays it at a concert or includes it in a recording, royalties are due to musician A. When we delve into recorded and reproduced media, current law extends the same protections to those recordings. If you don't like it, work to change the law.
I agree that performed media cannot be constrained in a manner analogous to your mountain echo example--otherwise the RIAA would have a right to sue everyone who walks away from a concert while humming a tune from the show. Yet you seem to forget that musicians did not always create music simply for the enjoyment of all people. Musicians often crafted their works at the behest of dukes, barrons, lords, and ladies who would pay them for their services. The model may have changed, but musicians are still in the business of scraping out a living.
My solution to this entire scenario is two-fold. First, the recording industry should realize from history that any great product will be copied, and often it is the copy, not the original that sees real success. If they want to undercut 90+% of song swapping, they should cut the price of a track down to 25 cents (1/4 USD) or less. Their second option is to let them keep selling their full sample rate digital content for whatever price they ask, but that consumers be allowed to freely exchange music files that are at a lesser sample rate (at near-CD quality or less). That way, those who want the premium quality can pay for it. Those who don't, won't.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Given that several people are pointing fingers in this thread and other places, I thought a little bit of hard data was in order: campaign finance data for the movie and recording industries. More detailed information can be found here, here, here, and here.
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
Biggest thing to fix copyright: make it non-transferrable. The artist owns their work and CAN'T transfer those rights to a 3rd party. Put a reasonable time limitation on it before it hits public domain. Non-renewable.
TO clarify my stance: I record a performance and intend to sell copies of that recording. As far as I'm concerned, you have NO right to make copies of it for your friends. If they want it, they can buy it from me. If they don't want to buy it from me, then they can't have it. Once it hits public domain do whatever you want with it. Until then, you are NOT entitled to do what you want with a copy of that recording beyond fair use. (personal backups and format shifting)
I don't want to restrict what people do with their purchases, and fully support fair use of things. But downloading art off the internet that you didn't pay for in the first place isn't fair use. Not in the slightest.
Also keep in mind that these laws affect a lot more than mp3's. An ex-teacher of mine does custom arrangements of pieces for high schools. (Mostly marching bands) Doing so takes quite a bit of time and skill, and he has to get permission from copyright holders of the originals where applicable. Well, copyright gives him some protection from people simply photocopying his scores and giving them to their music educator friends. He often spends months on a single score for a single group, and the loss of one customer because of a illegitimate copy costs him months of income. He has to viciously protect his work to survive. It is a very real issue in ways most people here have no clue about. And the idea of 'information should be free' can be quite destructive to a lot of good people. There is more to the music industry than the RIAA. Many people would do well to realize that.
the people have a responsibility to do something about their government, of course. but you fail to understand the corrupting influence of money. in countries where it is small, it is still real, canada for instance tries to diligently minimize the impact of cash in public races, but still has political dramas involving money, like the kickbacks to quebec in the previous administration. it is a basic tenet of all politics, from the dawn of time that power corrupts those in power. that's one of the reason we have term limits. the only way to defeat the process is limit people's time in power. because no matter how clean or heroic the person, pwer will change them
against this backdrop of the basic realities of politics, you want people to feel 100% responsible for when their leaders go bad. like i said before, and i'll say again, you have a deluded understanding of how responsibility works. because you see all of this reposnibility on the people's backs... but none on the politicians themselves
sometimes, when people DO get fed up enough, they revolt. unless you're a brainless romantic, revolutions are seriously bad for any society
but at the same time, you are right, short of revolution, a serious long term concerted effort and loud voice by the people is required for change to take place. however, this does not mean the people are to blame, the politicians are, and always will be
if you don't comprehend this, then you are seriously deluded. how you could blame the actions of a corrupt leader on those who suffer under him is insane. he smiled and rode on their support, and then changed. he made a mess the people have to clean up. but that doesn't make the people responsible for someone else's corruption
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You can't have a fair free market on a product that anyone with a cd drive can make perfect dupplications of your product in seconds for next to no cost. An artist spends time and effort learning how to make their art, then time and effort creating something, then more time, effort, and money to produce it in a way that it can be sold. Then some jackass runs off some copies and undercuts.
The original artist has a price floor they can't go below and still sustain themselves. The person copying has a much lower price floor that the original artist can't remotely compete with.
Since when are schools in the law enforcement business, or the crime prevention business?
That's the jurisdiction of the police. Enforcing federal laws (like copyright laws) and preventing violations of federal laws is the jurisdiction of federal police, like the FBI. Congress funds the FBI. If Congress wants this problem tackled, they should provide more money to the FBI to police the universities in question. And since most of the piracy in question happens via the Internet, and since the government is currently able to see most of what happens on the internet due to AT&T's willingness to allow them to use their fascilities to abuse the law, this ought to be a simple matter for them.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
I pay the theatre to use their facilities to view a movie. I pay my ISP for the bandwidth in order to download said movie. And in the case of the bartender, I pay him for my drinks (a physical item) and a tip for his services. It's not like every time I ever drink some liqueur I have to pay the same bartender for that one time he mixed my martini.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Money may be the root of all evil, but evil is not the root of all people...
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
This is where the service industry kicks in. Companies like Red Hat, Novell, IBM, Sun, Canonical, Linspire, MySQL AB, etc., all make money from free software (typically gratis as well), and companies like Blizzard, Linden Labs, Microsoft, etc., make plenty of money from providing an online gaming service.
Think outside the box next time.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Do you think it's fair that copyright lasts for infinity - 1 years? I don't. Hence, I have no problem with copyright infringement of materials older than 14 years since that was the original length of copyright. I also have no problem with paying to go to a performance of something that is older than 14 years because it's something new: another live performance.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
But wait you don't use those things to make money, so they're fair game, right? You're contradicting yourself.
I agree on non-renewable time limitations on copyright. I also think the rights should be non-transferrable, and fair use needs to be better defined to cover legitimate personal usage. (Such as archival copies and format shifting)
In real democracies, the executive can only operate with the approval of the legislative. This is an important check that the Usian system lacks. In any real democracy, the legislative wing could express non-confidence in the executive and trigger an election.
how much do zimbabweans bear resonsibility for mugabe? how much responsibility does your average chinese have to bear responsibility for the technocrats in beijing? how much responsibility does your average burmese bear for the generals in rangoon?
i know these are not democracies, but before i respond to you, i want to plumb the depths of your twisted take on responsibility
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Good artists (by which I mean those who art is commercially successful) are encouraged by their success to make more good art; their customers and they both benefit. Poor artists receive no such encouragement and hopefully will give up so that fewer people will be exposed to their incompetence. Take away copyright and some of this positive feedback is removed. The ratio of crap to good stuff will rise.
I don't want the people who make stuff I like to suffer, and I'm willing to pay a reasonable amount to ensure that they don't suffer, particularly if I get some more of the stuff I like in return. It seems to me that you don't care about the wellbeing of those who produce things you like.Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
You do realize that healthcare and poverty are NOT issues that Congress is allowed to deal with, right? No where in Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution is Congress permitted to 'fight poverty' or 'setup healthcare'.
Libertas in infinitum
The problem is that the teenager is lazy and disrespectful of the rights of the music owner. He sees others around him getting away with it, so he figures he should too. Someone's paying about $10,000 a year for this jerk's education, he can't pay 1/100 of that amount for his own pleasure?
The distinction is not between grumpy old men and impoverished prodigies, it's between responsible adults and grasping babies.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
it is not a responsible adult who extends the notion of copyright to the grandchildren of an artist, or rather, for the benefit of entrenched business interests. that's not called responsibility honey. that's called corrupt. morally corrupt
there is no respecting it, according to any moral code. you lack the moral authority you believe you have
and yes, absolutely: teenagers are mostly irresponsible punks without any real life experience and a sense of entitlement. absolutely. but because teenagers are irresponsible punks does not make corrupt venal old men paragons of virtue. you dig?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I noticed Rochester Institute of Technology is on the list. They subscribed to a legal music download service called Ctrax for a period of time. It was one of those crappy DRM-laden WMA services. As of May 1, 2007, it's no longer being offered.
It's no wonder why it was discontinued... the thing was awful. You couldn't play your music unless you were connected to the internet and it could check the licenses.
The article mentioned that Congress wanted to know about legal alternatives attempted. At least RIT can say they tried... but really, what did they expect? DRMed music is not what students want.
You're right. Because no musician ever plays gigs to get exposure. Nope, they just sit in their mansion, and pop out a CD every year and make a 7 figure salary. Are you really that ignorant to think that situation applies to more than the top 0.1% of performers?
You get an "A" - congratulations!
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
No, it doesn't.
It most certainly does. It was demanded by the writers guild to protect their business from the printing press. Their only legitimate complain was against plagiarism. And even I am against that. Everything else is an attempt to silence government and corporate critics thought the monopolization of distribution which at the time the printing press completely wiped out, just like the net is doing to today's distribution cartels. Those other things you describe are physical objects and simply do not apply to thoughts and ideas. Those are like smoke. Once they are released, that's it. It belongs to everybody. You can keep your copy, of course, but nobody has any right to control what I can do with mine. That would be like taking my property. It's like saying the architect owns the house he built on my land. That is unacceptable.
What?
If anything, laws dictating that IP ownership, as a matter of natural law rests with the artist regardless of contract is what we need, not mindless rabbling about Copyright = Theft.
There is no natural right for a creator to control what I have in my hands, period. Putting the statement into the Constitution doesn't magically give it to them. That is a fantasy created by the distribution cartels since the very beginning of this mess 297 years ago. And besides, Copyright = attempted theft.
What?
You do know what a contract is, don't you? You can accomplish an awful lot with one. It helps to assure that you keep your business out of mine. Where the law is quite meddlesome.
What?
The flaw is modern interpertation of the ICC. People try to look at "original intent" when they should be looking at the "original meaning" of the words written down.
When the Constitution was written, the prhase "to regulate" meant 'to make regular'. In other words, no trade wars between the States. Open trade between all the states was the original meaning and purpose.
The books "Consitutional Chaos" and "The Constitution in Exile" explain this.
Libertas in infinitum
I'd beg to differ. Nowadays there are more people. More people = more artists, more artists = more selection. This wouldn't be such a factor if we were geographically isolated, however, since there are substantially more artists in the world, there are more artists overall, since you can listen to just about any artist in the world. As the supply goes up, the demand, and the price is supposed to decrease. The only reason it hasn't is because a bunch of media companies formed a cartel and attempted to fix prices, as they are attempting again with the digital market. Only now, they can no longer control distribution.
Do I owe anything to an artist whose album I download and it doesn't entertain me? Because the RIAA and such think I do. I have no problem buying merchandise, attending concerts and compensating artists. What I do have a problem with is the price fixing 15 dollars a CD crap for pompous artists who put one single on it and 10 tracks of garbage. In the past, we had no choice but to swallow it or listen to only local artists (which, I must say is almost a better choice), but now we have a widespread alternative.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.