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Copyright Alliance Says Fair Use Not a Consumer Right
KingSkippus writes "In response to a complaint to the FCC filed by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) to change copyright warnings before movies and sporting events, Executive Director Patrick Ross of the Copyright Alliance tells us in an editorial that 'fair use is not a consumer right.' The Copyright Alliance is backed by such heavy-hitters as the MPAA, RIAA, Disney, Business Software Alliance, and perhaps most interestingly, Microsoft, who is also backing the CCIA's complaint."
I'm kind of worried about the sort of language being used nowadays. In the media, and by corporations, people are increasingly being referred to as 'consumers', whereas in the past they were more referred to as 'citizens'. I think this kind of language subtly displays a sort of attempted disassociation of people with their rights through getting them to think of themselves not as citizens, with all their inalienable and somewhat inconvenient (for corporations) rights, but mere consumers of products with somewhat more alienable "consumer rights", belittling them in the process. Merely using the term "consumer rights" implies that they are somehow separate from "citizens rights". This has shades of the somewhat fascist book "Starship Troopers" IMHO, with its distinction of citizens and civilians.
Indeed. Many of most our highly regarded social values/goals (freedom of speech, racial equality, etc.) are rather modern concepts. I would argue that in addition to the "moral high-ground" of such concepts, they brought with them considerable peace, progress, and prosperity (both intellectual, and even economic). The conclusion I hope people draw from this is that we must be on the lookout for new social values which will "elevate" our society.
Perhaps one of the hardest ideas to get across in the whole "intellectual property" debate is that, perhaps, there is some social value currently being ignored. Many people decry the "information wants to be free" rally as nothing more than "greedy pirates justifying their selfishness." While I will not deny that many people violate copyright law for purely selfish reasons, I again want to emphasize that there may be a deeper moral question... and that many opponents of the status quo may be deriving their opinions from that question.
I do not really think that a "no copyright" world is the right way to go... but there is a social value of "digital freedom" (or whatever you want to call it) that is not yet taken seriously, but I believe will be crucial to our advancement, as a society, in the coming years. I think we need to learn to accord fundamental respect to the pursuit of knowledge, to the free distribution of knowledge and culture. Yes, this needs to be balanced against incentives to artists and reward for contributing to society. However I believe the present climate where all ideas are "owned" is untenable and, ultimately, immoral.
Fair use is part of of Freedom of Speech/Press.
/rant off, more beer.
/fsck spelling too. =D
I am Free to use parts of copyrighted works as part of my commentary, aslong as it abides by the principles setforth in the Fair Use Doctrine.
'No part of this broadcast may be diseminated, reproduced, or rebroadcast without the express written permission of major leage baseball....'*
Is a LIE!
Yes I can diseminate information about it, and yes, I can rebroadcast part of it.
I can talk about Barry Bonds being a douche at the water cooler, and I can also post a video from MLB of him being a douche.
Posting whole movies, shows, and games to youtube isnt Fair Use, its copyright infringement. Posting a clip and talking about it is commentary.
Proper attribution of the source is the key here.
Same thing applies to books and news papers. Source it properly.
Use of DMCA to prevent Fair Use...dunno if that has been upheld is courts yet.
DeCSS wasnt speech....but thats the only case I remember involving DMCA and First Amendment issues being raised.
*or whatever the hell it really says...
movies aren't. the movie house business is going gang busters, but the dvd after market will fizzle (which evolved from the vhs aftermarket, which these same morons fought with the same rationalizations you hear now, 30 years ago, lost, and came to embrace the vcr as a cash cow. nice foresight, x2)
music will become something people only pay for to go to live concerts. all other music will be freely traded, and musicians will make money from advertising and abovementioned concerts. no, it's not jayz money. as if that was ever a prerequisite for the desire to make music
the only people who are losing are the economic middle men. all we hear are the cries of their death throes. zzz
let them lock up their copyrighted works with all of the advanced tools of copyright protection they want. #1: it's easily defeated anyway. #2: much like newspapers have learned, it's all about accessibility. so let the morons make their product inaccessible, and reap the fruits of that genius strategy in a new world with new rules
all we hear are from idiots in media companies who don't understand what the internet means to their business, or desperate men who do understand what the internet means to their business: it's killing it
oh well, who cares. sucks to be on the losing side of history
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
FTA: "So, how exactly would the FTC rewrite these copyright notices to reflect a consumer's ability to attempt a fair use defense? Should they paste in all of the above language? We're wading into the area of providing legal advice"
He is basically arguing that Fair Use is so complicated that explaining it to people constitutes legal advice. Yet he admits that the notices currently in place are simply scare tactics.
"these warnings do exactly what they're meant to do--notify consumers in a succinct fashion that infringement has legal consequences."
In essence, he's saying "Our rights are easier to describe than yours, so we'll forget about yours."
I...I'm attacking the darkness!
Does it really surprise you that all these companies are in bed together? Axis of evil?! More like the Fourth Reich! This is a war damn it!
The game.
"nobody actually stops buying."
Sorry, but you're mistaken. *I* stopped buying ebooks. And I was HOOKED for a long time. When I figured out that Adobe was going to steal the books I'd purchased back from me after I bought my 3rd laptop (they limit the number of devices you can read their books on), and after I spent hours on line with their "tech support" (sorry if milk just squirted out your nose at the notion of Adobe providing tech support), I decided I was done. Cold turkey. This was about 3 years ago. I'd love it if I could go back to ebooks, but I will not until they fix (or eliminate) their horrible DRM scheme.
I am not left-handed, either!
Personally, I think the means of restoring the balance would be to repeal the DMCA and even scale back copyright law, rather than creating yet more laws.
Even better, just do it. (sorry Nike, track my ass down.)
Seriously, the current copyright regime has twenty years tops before people realize that it's counter-productive. More significantly, the (jargon alert) MAFIAA will have reduced itself to a shadow of its former might by its heavy-handed tactics.
There's a beautiful symmetry to all of this. The copyright holding companies wanted to make sure a fluke like "Night of the Living Dead" never happened again. So they made everything copyrighted. Problem solved? No, since everything is copyrighted, everything was potentially infringing. The achillies' heel in all this is that if everything is sacred, nothing is sacred. You've debased the term to a meaningless point.
Now, they're trying to deal with the fact that they're a victim of their own success.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
Why does a government agency get to dictate what is and isn't true?
As far as I see it, and any so called "consumer" should... if a GOOD is sold... then claim to it is relinquished for that object/service. Whether its an apple, or a DVD, if I give it to you in exchange for your cash, I can't tell you what to do with it or whom to show it to. Neither can you tell me not to use your cash to strengthen my own assets. Oh well, free markets aren't free in this world and will not be for at least a few more years.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
I've been reading stories about the DMCA, DRM, and stuff like this restriction of fair use on slashdot for a few years now. The more I read about it, the more I start getting the feeling that when my generation (teens-twenties) comes into power in the next 15-20 years, that we're so fed up with this shit that we'll abolish patents and copyright altogether, if it hasn't been done already by then. At the very least, restrict it to a very short time limit. 6 months, maybe a year.
I can see the point in copyrights and patents, but these companies have gotten so power hungry and greedy that they've really started abusing the system. I have started thinking that maybe they don't deserve the system's help. Companies like Coca-Cola have managed to make it well over a century without needing a patent or copyright on their main money-making formula. I believe that any intelligent businessman will be able to make money on any product whether or not they have a copyright/patent or not. The copyright system has become a crutch for extremely outdated business models that have been rendered obsolete.
I do not really think that a "no copyright" world is the right way to go...
I'm not quite there (yet,) but the thing that I can't figure is:
The Founding Fathers (if I ever do a superhero spoof, that's the one) figured that fourteen years was enough.
In the interim, We figured out how to do printing much faster (that's my industry, so trust me on this one)
On top of that we figured out how to get copies out to potentially unlimited individuals (c.f., SPAM.)
So, why is copyright now longer (and more inclusive) than it was when the country was founded?
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
What in the world are you talking about? Fair use is based on the constitutional RIGHT of free speech. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use.
The "defense" aspect just concerns procedural stuff - who has the burden of proof, etc. So what? It remains the case that free speech is very much your "right" and that copyright law does (and must) have an exception (called "fair use") to allow for the exercise of that right.
I chose 17 years as an upper bound. It was the original term of exclusivity. And it's about how long a human generation takes to turn "pop" content into "folk" content.
But there is clearly a measurable economic underlying this principle. To be more precise, every registered copyright (which should be required for any enforcement, not just the current system which gives punitive damages only to registered ones) should have an auditable cost invested. As soon as the work has returned 10x the investment, or 17 years, whichever comes first, the copyright expires. Every 5 years or so the average time to return 10x investment should be recalculated for the previous maximum expiration, and the default set to that new term. That way, progress by profit motive will be ensured, as will return to the public domain.
--
make install -not war
If you take away copyright as an automatic right, then don't you get something like the patent system, where big companies can afford to legally restrict usage of things, but everyone else can't?
Maybe someone should sue on the grounds that more then 200 years is quite long enough, after all the government including SCOTUS has misread the intent of the founding fathers so many times already, why can't we be allowed this once? ( This line intended not only in jest, but perhaps soemthing to cause thought.)
*A search of each of the 7 articles and the first ten amendments gave negative results for the term "god".
I go out of my way to spend money at Baen; a lot of the stuff i read comes from them anyway, but they are just so flipping COOL about things I feel bad when I don't give them my money; when I'm buying at brick & mortar stores, that is one of the things I use as a tie breaker.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
No. And remember that the US required authors to specially seek out copyrights, instead of getting them automatically, from 1790 through to 1978. The system worked just fine. We never should've changed it merely because other countries did things differently; it's as stupid as jumping off a cliff just because all the other kids do it too.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Also, IIRC, one of the reasons Hollywood exists as a film mecca is because the studios were trying to avoid having to pay royalties to Edison.
A game has objectives and is competitive, anything else is just play
"It is not some "inalienable" God Given right like free speech or freedom of religion."
Actually, I think the "inalienable" rights are "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Those are pretty broad, but a reasonable person would conclude that that copyrights don't fall into that realm. So if we're talking philosophically (and we are, since probably neither of us is a lawyer), then if fair use can be argued away so casually, so can copyright.
I think the corporations being pretty shortsighted, but corporations tend to do that. They would stab themselves in the eye if it made next quarter's results look better, never mind that it would put them out of business in 5 years. So perhaps it is time to codify fair use as part of copyright to help these guys help themselves.
I mean, to me, if I tape a game off the air, it's a reasonable thing to loan the tape to my buddy at work. But I'm sure some company would claim I was stealing from them. But then again, you can probably find companies that would claim anything you do as stealing from them. I've heard an RIAA representative claim in front of congress that if a person gives a copy of a CD to their spouse that it's stealing. Orin Hatch disagreed with him, but it does give you a good feeling that the RIAA thinks anything you do that doesn't result in direct money to them should be illegal. That's why it's hard to take the record companies seriously. I'm listening to free streamed music as I write this. The RIAA thinks that's illegal and is doing their best (as I type this) to shut it down.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Blockquoth the AC:
Sadly, that "weasel" reasoning is the law in the UK. Sony won their modchip case by arguing that the transient copies made while playing out-of-region games hadn't been authorized. And the judge bought it.
In Europe, a relatively little-known law from a few years ago explicitly made it legal to make any copies necessary for the normal operation of things like software. There's an interesting position paper floating around on the web, IIRC written by a real lawyer, which makes a pretty solid argument that since that European law took effect, EULAs have been rendered impotent here. It's just that since there haven't been many high-profile cases yet, most people haven't noticed the implications. (Sorry, I don't have the link bookmarked on this computer.)
Possibly that failure to notice was relevant in the mod-chip case you mentioned, but I have a feeling that that case (assuming you're talking about the PS2 case back around 2001–2002) slightly predates the relevant European law taking effect in the UK. Obviously the case won't set much of a precedent if it's directly contradicted by subsequent statute law.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
... OK, fair use is not a right then. Take it away. One right they can't take though is if I choose to purchase their movies and music. Which, if they do this, I won't. I will choose to steal them or simply refrain from purchase and viewing entirely. If everyone does this, it will solve the problem entirely.
Even if you don't accept the terms of the licence, the Law of the Land (Sale of Goods Act 1979, as amended) gives you the right to use the software for its intended purpose. And a contract cannot take away a statutory right.
Not to mention that copyright law itself states that copies made as part of the normal operation of software do not constitute infringement. In other words, you don't need permission to make the copies that must necessarily be made to run the program, so if it's true that EULAs are based on the principle that you do, then they're not necessary to agree to.
Ah, here we go: U.S. Code Title 17, Chapter 1, section 117.
The enemies of Democracy are
Thank you for taking the time to reply and your insight on the process. I nevertheless remain skeptical about the ability to affect change in consideration of how congress, and the rest of the world, continues to pass malformed copyright legislation. I do continue to vote according to my feelings on their records in office and haven't missed a federal election - ever.
Regarding SCOTUS' decisions on copyright law and intellectual property: a statement of understanding is one thing, but their actual decisions on cases can be quite another. Remember, this is the court that over-ruled the U.S. Patent Office and allowed patents on genome sequences: not just the inventions that can and will spring from them, but the actual sequences themselves.
I understand your point on mixed rulings overall (battles in the war, if you will), but I respectfully disagree on your assertion of how the overall "War" is progressing; too many important *big* decisions are being lost and too many greedy, stupid laws continue to be passed.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
Them sound like fighting words....think there'll be some kind of revolution?
Yes, actually I think there will. Copyright holders are trying to make their rights indefinate, in short they're trying to own an idea like real property. They're trying to criminalize everything related to copyrights. They're trying to cash in massive amounts of money on teens and students pirating. Once the first generation of P2P sharers have kids, I think we'll see a massive change in public opinion. "My kid is not a felon", "My kid doesn't deserve to be a debt slave for downloading the latest top 40 album", "My kids is just sharing, like I taught him to share his other toys". I think a lot will change simply with the passage of time, and not at all like the copyright holders want.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings