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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.
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!
"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.
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.
Copyright isn't a license. Copyright is a law granting certain rights and privileges to the creator of that work in return for the eventual handover of that work to the public domain for the public good. When you walk into that store and buy that CD, you didn't have to agree to any license. By living in a society where copyright is a recognized law, and by not having similarly like-minded individuals to abolish such a thing, you are required to honor that law until such time as you can convince a sufficient percentage of the population that it should be removed. That copyright states what you can and cannot do in reproducing or replicating that work. In some cases, where the literal copying of the work doesn't make sense or doesn't well fit (playing a recording of a performance for profit), the law seeks to cover those situations as "fairly" agreed upon by a "majority" of the population. "Fairly" and "majority" in quotations because this tends to get skewed in easily corruptible societies.
As for there being more specific terms of a copyright "license", all that should really be is a written form of granted rights that the creator of the work is granting the owner of that copy. Think GPL. In the forum of software, copyright applies just as it does in any other realm. However, the terms of the GPL do not seek to limit further than the law states, it seeks to grant additional rights to the 'owner' of that copy of the software, with additional terms and conditions in place for that grant. If you choose not to abide by those terms, then your standard copyright law would apply and you would be prevented from doing whatever copyright has disallowed you to.
If you enter into a contract that seeks to restrict beyond copyright, then yes, those terms should be plain, in writing, and agreed upon by both parties. The car analogy that was given was not an invalid analogy, even though it is a car analogy. In the analogy, a prototype (unique, one of a kind) is available to you, but in order for the creator to allow you to purchase it, they want you to sign a contract that will bind you to additional terms and conditions. As long as it is agreed upon by both parties and you enter into that contract to buy that car, even though you "purchased" that car, you are still held accountable for the conditions stipulated in that contract you signed. You agreed to them before purchasing the car, therefor being (to me and apparently the parent of your post) an ethical, legal, and proper agreement.
Of course, these are all 'ideal world' statements, and simply my opinion and understanding of how it should operate. You don't need to agree to laws to be bound by them, and copyright is a law. There are a great many I don't agree with, but until/unless I can convince enough other people that they are useless laws, the 'majority' feel that it is the public interest to have them, and so they will stay. Oh ya, and IANAL so I may have made mistakes in my understanding of the laws.
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.