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Richard Stallman Talks On Copyright Vs. the People
holden writes "Richard M. Stallman recently gave a talk entitled Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks to the University of Waterloo Computer Science Club. The talk looks at the origin of copyright, and how it has evolved over time from something that originally served the benefit of the people to a tool used against them. In keeping with his wishes to use open formats, the talk and QA are available in ogg theora only."
Why is there no transcript? I'm not saying I couldn't download the video and watch it, but I'd rather not spend at least an hour downloading it and then have to watch it.
Because the anime industry is one of those really quirky things where they let fans do things which is against the law.
:)
Fansubbing is illegal the way it's most often done. They pirate TV programs with added text and then give them to hundreds or thousands of people. Now the companies could start being assholes and try to shut these groups down, but instead they have a gentleman's contract. Subbers stop subbing when a series is licenced and a blind eye is turned to the subbers.
In this way companies learn what is popular and get free market research, fans get what they want when they want it and then in an ideal world the fans buy the official releases to support the original companies and the ones who licenced the anime.
So basically, it's a good way to show copyright isn't always the answer. If you allow people leeway they will repay you back at a later date by supporting you. One could argue fansubs work as the perfect advertisement for merchandise to people outside of Japan and if copyright was put down on it, it would hurt the industry more than if they ignore it.
So anime is a good example of copyright done correctly in a lot of people's opinion.
I like muppets.
He talking about the importance of derivative works for some works. Typically, functional works.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Am happy to say: I was there! :)
It was a good lecture, Stallman has some interesting ideas on what should be done. In particular he talks about how society and copyright never clashed before as the public never had the ability to create commercial grade copies of content (before the advent of the PC). He then goes on to explain a way that copyright can be reformed, including some possible categories for works (based upon their usefulness and application within society). Bit of a spoiler: the works that are instructional (cook books, car manuals, GNU+Linux howtos etc.) should be totally Free, but art for arts sake should have a 5-10 year copyright. There are many more details that you should watch the video to find out about (plus my memory of the event is a little vague and the video hasn't downloaded yet).
The talk drifted at the start and in the middle, with blather about GNU+Linux and the evils of Vista; although some of the Vista evils are on-topic, Stallman did lose his way a bit on the subject. Otherwise it was damn good, well worth going to and/or watching on your OGG player!
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
VLC is just one player that can play Oggs, download it free here.
If someone did an ogg vorbis (just the sound) that would be good for us to listen to on the go, the main video file is 686.3 MB which would mean I would have to ditch a lot of stuff to get it on my rockbox.
My little Linux and tech blog
RMS gave the same speech two years ago in Bulgaria.
Not everyone who saw the lecture agreed with the contents. A counterpoint can be found here.
I didn't write that counterpoint, but there's one thing the author and I agree on: Richard Stallman is a lot more crazy in person. One guy in the audience asked how he was supposed to pay for his university education by releasing free software. Stallman didn't really give him an answer, he just told the student that he didn't have to go to school, and he had no right to release closed source software in an attempt to earn money. Stallman has compared closed source software to "a crime against humanity", yes?
I talked to Stallman after the lecture. I asked him how he paid the mortgage after leaving MIT in 1984. He said that that he's never had a mortgage and "he lives cheaply". I later heard that he basically squatted on the MIT campus.
See, here's the problem with Stallman's philosophies: they're highly incompatible with the status quo, and there's no clear path for change. If you want people to do $Y instead of $X, $Y has to be relatively pin-compatible with $X. Telling people to write free software is well and good, but your paradigm isn't going to have much success if it also requires programmers to buy a house, get married, and otherwise have a normal life.
On a related note, I also asked Stallman what he thought of the wedding photography industry. For those of you who don't know, typical wedding photographers cost over a thousand dollars, show up at your wedding to take pictures, and then make you pay through the nose for prints. They don't even give you the copyright, if you want more prints you have to go back to the photographer! One must shop around to find a photographer who'll actually give you the digital originals. Anyway, I asked Stallman if he thought this was analogous to what was happening in the software world, and he said no. He thought closed source software was a greater imposition on freedom than holding wedding memories hostage.
The man is too close to his particular pet cause.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Please kindly ignore the incorrect link. The correct one is here. (Damn tabs)
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
He probably don't want his detractors to have fun cutting something together from the clip that gives people the impression that he said things he didn't say. For recorded speeches, this is a very reasonable demand.
Well, I cannot speak for anyone else, but I have actually bought multiple different anime series after downloading and liking them.
And actually on some of them, the fan subbing is a hell of a lot better than the actual subtitles on the DVD. I mean, common, if the characters say a name (in English even), then should the subtitle not reflect what was said? Or they could at least be consistent in the same conversation and keep the same name on what they are talking about.
Well, guess we can not expect a company to actually do something sane...
If you allow people leeway they will repay you back at a later date by supporting you.
That's exactly how I bought fraps. When it first came out I was a poor student and couldn't afford the proggy. But I've tried it and it just kicks ass.
Years later, when I become a poor designer, I shelled out the $40, and send the author a mail giving props. If I had never tried fraps I bet I would just pirate it to "see" how good it is and ended up not paying. But to revisit the site after all these years and see this guy still at it, with a lifetime upgrade, that $40 was one of the best $40 I've spent on useful stuff. Even more useful now with youtube.
The same can be said for Wii. I am in Hong Kong and I can pirate the Wii like no tomorrow, but I chose not to in order to thank nintendo. After all these years of being the underdog, the big N never gave up on us and made something truly new. I don't even play much on it, but it's a good feeling.
it's the goose that lays the golden egg syndrome... quick cash is better than become established and making more cash over time in the minds of most companies.
Am I the only person who has the sudden urge to download it and transcode it into mp3? Or even better, DRMed WMV?
:D
But RMS, information wants to be free, and this is just another form for it to freely take!
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Stallman rocks
Nico M, London, GB.
What needs to happen in a lot of circumstances is that copyright should not be transferable. So, if I write a song, it belongs to me. If a company wants to promote it, we can make a service contract. But the copyright is mine, not theirs. The labels are my agents, they could provide studios, or off-site storage for my works, and people with marketing savvy. But guess what? The industry that gave us the indentured servitude of the recording contract is no more. iTunes is more of a music company than any label out there. All they are are assholes with legal degrees.
Not being able to force artists into loan sharking arrangements with the labels would mean, however that all the labels as they exist now are effectively and instantly bankrupt. Yay. Without this leverage, The artist writes contracts with agents, and grants his or her managers a piece of his copyright for say, five years. So, the more tracks of mine they sell, the more they make. The more concerts I give to the bigger audiences, the more money they make. But the artist is in control. He has the copyright. I might spare them 10% of revenues, or 50% if I'm a newbie. But it will revert to me.
Because, after all, what function do the huge conglomerated labels have? They used to provide money for manufacture and distribution. They no longer have any significant burden, since once the final track is laid down, all they have to do is sell copies for more than it costs to download. And they were loan sharks. Game over. Finita la commedia.
The site's gone down, so here's a copy of the torrent file:
rms-talk.ogg.torrent
I didn't get the Q&A torrent.
There is no such gentleman's agreement. The owners of the copyrighted works despise fansubbing, and the companies that license the distribution rights overseas despise them even more. There have been enough instances where producers and artists have openly said that they don't approve of fansubbing. The only reason fansubbers haven't been sued by the japanese distributors is because they realise they would gain very little compared to the time and effort wasted.
Biggest load of bull ever. Fansubbers don't always stop, they officially stop when the company that licensed it sends them a cease and desist. That's what happened when Viz picked up Death Note. What happened after the C&D was that the people originally subbing it, changed their name and continued to sub it.
I think companies get a reasonable amount of fan research from the original market already. What's popular in Japan is bound to be popular with the non-japanese anime fans if it isn't too localized (eg. containing jokes that are very culturally dependent). Market research isn't that expensive by the way that companies would start depending on fansubbers to do it for them.
In an ideal world, yes... In our world, the words "lol 'buy'" come to mind. You could start by arguing that those people were never going to buy it in the first place, but that's beside the point really. Fansubbing is a copyright violation, and it is viewed as such, but not actively pursued because it simply wouldn't be advantageous for the original copyright owner. There is more money to be made by selling the rights to an overseas distributor and let them deal with the lawsuits, than by trying to squeeze a few cents out of a college student. Fansubbers that stop distributing once it's licensed by an american company don't get C&Ds or lawsuits because they acquired the rights after the fansubbing took place.
In short, fansubbers aren't as "tolerated" as you would argue, they just aren't worth investing time and money in yet.
That torrent saturated my 100Mbit connection... Will keep on seeding.
I too have bought many an anime after having first sampled them for free via fansubs. I also hear plenty of anecdotal evidence that many other people do the same. It's basically impossible to get any hard numbers on how much good fansubbing ultimately does for the industry, but my general impression (as someone who frequents multiple anime forums, one of which belongs to an anime distributor, and sells anime and manga for a living) is that it is more good than harm, by a pretty decent margin.
But fansubs being a hell of a lot better than proper DVD subs? No way. The way you're describing the DVD subtitles though, it sounds suspiciously like you've been buying Hong Kong bootlegged DVDs, in which case you gain absolutely zero karma points for having bought the show after watching it fansubbed.
I actually find I'm that way with music. Bands that do offer their music for free online I am quick to support when they have a legit album for sale. On the other hand, bands on those major record labels that are notorious for suing everything with a pulse - I'm very reluctant to support acts like this. (It seems like when you do, you're just giving the RIAA and like groups more money to do their litigation thing with.)
I would suggest that 'promoting progress for the benefit of the public' being the only legitimate purpose of copyright requires justification.
Another possible purpose is to protect the right of the creator to be the sole beneficiary of his labour.
Points to consider include dependence on earlier work and novelty and the benefits of the creation vs. the costs of protection with respect to those who have to pay.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Having not seen THIS video yet, I've seen previous talks, and yes, he's normally not very presentable and doesn't really have any shame. Reason being? He's been sheltered from the "real world" ever since he stepped foot inside uni.
This is how he can have a totally polar draconian view of commercial software. He doesn't have to rely on selling it to make a living. And since he doesn't have to win over customers ever, he doesn't have to act tactfully in public. I mean, I rarely dress up, but I at least shave, bathe, comb my friggin hair and act polite when guests/customers are around. It isn't selling out to have proper manners and hygiene...
That said, copyright is hardly as big a problem as people make it out to be. The DMCA [and similar laws] are, but they're not required for copyright to exist and be useful. And at anyrate I'd worry more about patents [especially on math and software] then copyrights.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
If someone's interested I can search my Karekano collection for her answer and translate it. But the short answer is: no, the OP isn't making stuff. This is for real.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Every /. story about the RIAA involves a conflict between principals dejure and the defacto state of affairs.
"Five years is plenty fair IMHO for getting paid for (in some cases a few hours worth of work), over and over again for the rest of one's life."
James MacNeil Whistler sued John Ruskin for libel. On the stand Whistler was asked how he could ask for two hundred pounds for two days work. He responded that he was charging for knowledge "gained in the work of a lifetime." Among musicians that don't appreciate his work, Handel will still remain immortal for writting The Messiah in a mere three weeks. IIRC, Dostoyevsky "knocked off" Notes from the Underground. When you argue that monetary compensation derived from copyright should be tied to hourly measures of time you assume equivalence in the value of work by Beethoven and one by Madonna. Hell, in this day and age, a fella can make millions by playing a game of basketball. How long does that take, an hour and a half?
"How would making instructional works copyright-free lower their quality?"
I think he/she was definitely talking about future "to be created" work as opposed to existing stuff. Maybe the intent was to suggest that the set of instructional works on a particular topic would be of less quality overall. There would certainly be smaller body of material available. I'd sort of consider that "lower quality", even though the quality of an individual work might be ~ the same.
"The value of a manual (to the company making it) is not in it's royalties. It is usually given away for free, so there are no royalties."
I guess you've never purchased the service/maintenance manual for an automobile. These typically run in the $100-$200 range. There are 3rd party alternatives in similar price ranges, but I *think* they must license the specs from the manufacturer as well.
I see no reason why instructional works should get different treatment.
if the characters say a name (in English even), then should the subtitle not reflect what was said?
There are several reasons a name might be mentioned in the Japanese dialog and not be used in the English translation. For one, Japanese speakers tend to go out of their way to avoid using second-person pronouns like "anata", so they will often speak in the third person about the person they are talking to. In English this would sound bizarre, and we would just use a word like "you". Also, the level of formality the culture uses for names is different and doesn't always translate well. You might have Japanese students referring to one another as "Yamada-kun" but the most direct translation, "Mr. Yamada", sounds far too stiff and formal for kids to be speaking of one another as, so in English dubs, and sometimes subs as well, a first name might be substituted in.
Stallman has never claimed to be a fan of "openness", he talks about freedom. You are confusing the four freedoms with the ability to distribute in the currently popular formats. Information cannot flow freely if it is frestricted by patents, licences and other legal wrangling.
MP3 has a history of licencing and patenting issues, OGG Vorbis is patent free and open. Thus, of the two, the latter format is more likely to ensure continued access to the data.
Yes, the popular ( read: pre-installed with an OS ) music playing software make it difficult to play Ogg but there are plenty of players around. You call it fanaticism and say he has compromised to make a point. I (and many others I suspect) would say he is absolutely not-compromising and this decision is completely in line with Stallman's aims and philosophy and those of the FSF.
I was at the lecture at U of Waterloo and he explicitly said the opposite. He said that he is fine with software-for-money (which in any case does not preclude its being free-as-in-speech), and in fact is even fine with custom or in-house software -- which he argued is the vast majority of paid software -- not being made publicly available.
And the best way to maximize profits is to give the consumer what they want. Companies that are successful are usually very good at delivering things people want and usually at a price people can afford.
Bullshit.
Companies MAY be successful as you say, but it's certainly not as categorical as you state.
Indeed, your description of how things work may be valid only in your Platonic Form World; down here on Terra, companies are ruled by the spiritual grandchilden of Carnegie, Rockefeller and Hearst. In this instance of reality, these people employ a whole industry (advertising) who's sole purpose is to CREATE WANT in the "people". THAT is how profits are maximized; whether people really want or need those things comes in a very distant second to freeing up their purse strings.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
this is debated all the time, but i think the overall view is that there are plenty of times fansubs are a hell of a lot better than proper DVD subs, even if it is generally not the case.
the privacy of one's mind is important.
you do have something to hide.
In the talk, he separates works into three categories: Functional works, artistic works, and position statements (like this lecture, where he gives his personal opinion on a topic). For position statements, he thinks it's reasonable for authors to be able to restrict modification - since modifications would mostly just allow people to mis-represent the opinions of others.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Second half, since slashdot can't handle a 68Kb comment.
... the user's computer, and then disguising its own presence so if the user tried to look for it in certain obvious ways, it wouldn't even show up. It also damaged the security of the machine against other threats, and if that wasn't bad enough it also committed copyright infringement because it had ... it contained code of free programs that were released under the GNU General Public License. [laughter]
... really enforcing those laws strictly against mega-corporations. Laws are meant to be enforced strictly only against you and me. However Sony did get a lot of hostility and eventually promised that in the future when it developed Digital Restrictions Management it wouldn't do all the other nasty things that it did that time. You see, the hostility was mostly based on the other nasty things that Sony did along the way, rather than on the evil purpose of doing this in the first place: the evil of trying to stop people from copying. Most people accepted that, and they only criticized the means. So Sony said "oh no, we won't put rootkits on our CDs anymore." So having learned their lesson, their idea is that the rootkit will be installed on your computer before you buy it and it will be impossible to remove. And that's called "Windows Vista." [laughter]
... to increase Microsoft's control over everything. It keeps on contacting Microsoft over the Net and demanding upgrades and the user can't even refuse them. Which means it's nothing but one big back door. Anytime Microsoft wants to stop you from doing this or that, control ... take more control of any kind, it can just do so, because your computer has no security against Microsoft, if it's running Windows Vista. And that is very dangerous.
... developing Windows itself, and accused them of uh ... working for Al Quaida as well as Microsoft, trying to insert a back door that Microsoft wasn't supposed to know about. Well, apparently that attempts failed. We have no way of checking if there was another that succeeded. But we do know that in 1999, Microsoft was caught having installed a back door for the use of another even more violent terrorist organization: the United States Government, [laughter] specifically the National Security Agency.
... basi
[41:55]
[Stallman drinks]
So, that's whats going on in the area of movies and video. But we can see attempts to restrict us in music, as well. For many years, some apparent compact disks aren't real compact disks, they're corrupt disks. Because they're designed not to be standard, not to be proprly readable with your computer. Sony got in a lot of trouble, although not as much as it should have, for its scheme to produce corrupt disks, because Sony had the bright idea of putting on the disk a program that would automatically load into a Windows system if a person put that disk into it. And what did that program do? It's what's called a "rootkit," which meant that it actually broke the security of the machine and installed itself into the system. But why did it do this? Well, its purpose was to stop the user from copying whatever files were read off that disk. But they way it did this was by illegally breaking the security on the computer
[43:58]
[Stallman drinks]
Now, that was a felony in the US, but I don't think Sony was ever prosecuted. They're not interested in uh
[45:23]
[Stallman drinks]
Windows Vista is designed specifically to pull the chains tighter around every user's neck. That's what it exists for. It's entirely designed to increase
[46:24]
I mean, we don't know what there is in Microsoft software that could be used by terrorist organizations. A few years ago in India, I was told they had arrested some Windows developers, that is, people working on
[47:20]
So it's not only Microsoft that could uh