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$4 Million In Fines For Linking To Infringing Files
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The MPAA won judgments totaling $4M against two sites which merely link to infringing content. They're not arguing that it's an infringement of their distribution right, like the RIAA has with their 'making available' argument. Instead, they got the sites for 'contributory copyright infringement', just like RIAA v. LimeWire. To translate all that legalese into English, search engines which primarily index copyright-infringing material and the people who run them may not be safe in the US. That applies even if the sites in question do not host any infringing materials, participate in, or encourage the infringement done by their users. And, even honoring DMCA notices in order to take advantage of the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions hasn't prevented the **AA from suing."
So now any service can be DoS'd by the RIAA and MPAA. You know they will stuff any independent index with their crappy content and so destroy all alternative distribution channels.
Google is likely to sued real soon as well as many other web sites.
I hope it is google then maybe the iaa and mpaa will be put in there place
I see this as a very bad thing all around. Surely the point of search engines is that they provide access to all corners of teh interweb and can only do this by hitting every site and indexing it. If they become responsible for the content on those sites, or rather not providing links to "illegal" content, how do they continue to provide that access when they may potentially have to vet every link they index?
OK, so they can filter but surely that's as much of a minefield as indexing everything? Imagine the law suits when their filtering algorithms start excluding one company and include their opposition.
Not sure I like the sound of this.
And what if Google were to lose? It's sad when we have to wait and hope for these organizations to sue someone big instead of picking on the little guy to have some hope that they might actually be struck down.
Well, no. These sites' purpose and content consisted substantially of indexing and enabling the search for unlawful copies of copyrighted works. While Google certainly has some capability to do this as well, I don't think most people would see that as a substantial portion of their content or their purpose.
This case really isn't that surprising.
This will break the internet.
if google would lose that kind of case, they wouldnt be able to fight back the anti net neutrality law or affect the wireless spectrum auction as they were. they are not an outfit that would lose that kind of case.
Read radical news here
good call UnxMully, thats the way I see it too, I wish I had mod points I would bump your comment up :^)
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
So, does this mean that when Starforce posted a link to a pirated copy of Galactic Civilizations II to try to encourage Stardock to use their copy protection (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/11/2049230), they opened themselves up to a lawsuit from Stardock?
I'd love to see a company that is part of the problem get snared by the laws that they were pushing for themselves.
Although not meeting the strict legal definition as such, search engine providers like Google could conceivably angle for the protections afforded common carriers.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
A judgment was made: If you link to copyrighted material, you can be taken to court.
I didn't notice any conditions that exclude this based on "substantial portions of content".
And why wouldn't Google be suable, for general reasons & the fact that a cached-page of those indexing sites can be just as useful as the original sites?
Don't think so. The ??AAs are much like school bullies. They prefer picking on the weaker kids, they rarely try it on the ones that can push back.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Of course not. **AA would be crazy to try to take on Google. Their case would be much weaker for two reasons. First of all, Google has the cash to put together a stellar legal team. They would do so, because linking to stuff is pretty much at the center of the business model. Second of all, Google links to all kinds of content, of which infringing content is just one, while ShowStash and Cinematube primarily linked to infringing content.
How do you know that these two sites did not intend for people to share their own movies? How can you keep the MPAA from loading up any "legitimate" site with all of their own files they way they have with Media Sentry? The ability to DoS legitimate services mandates a change in copyright law. If cases like these continue to win, there will be no alternate distribution channels or free press on the internet.
I have a 32" working just fine non digital TV and don't have cable but use an antenna. I have no intention on getting a converter box or new TV. But I'll use the TV for DVD's and VHS, for which I buy inexpensive previewed media.
Since I'm no longer going to support the broadcast markets, including PBS, its advertisers and won't buy new media, there is one obvious things that is going to happen.
The MPAA is going to really get spoiled baby scream noisy and make all sorts of claims about piracy destroying their business when this digital only broadcast TV switch happens. From this they will pursue any and all non-authorized outlets, further isolating the property of their scope, away from me.
But the fact of the matter is, it is the entertainment industry attacking consumers, that is the biggest turn off, where the digital TV switchover will be turning off the set for the consumer, whom will not turn it back on so quickly...
Out of sight, out of mind.
Think about it. If a site links to a site which links to illegal content?
This nonsense needs to be stopped real soon now. (OR inject "offending" links into **AA company members websites and let them sue each other to death).
Same principle should work for most programs if done carefully. (consider the code from the C etc. run time library).
On a large enough scale the resultant false accusations and legal actions from the **AA could get them into serious trouble.
Andy
if i was in charge of a search engine and my web spiders found some kiddie porn i would most definitely forward that information to the police as quickly as possible, (i am sure Google already does that)...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
No, they can't filter without running a much higher risk of being held responsible for the content.
I see what you mean. An even worse can of worms to open.
Google's "SafeSearch" feature sort of skirts the fine edge of this reasoning, but hasn't been challenged yet (i.e. Google getting sued because someone found kiddie porn being "make available" via their search engine). Their broad filtering of search results in some non-U.S. markets might be "iffy" as well.
I would have thought the visibility of the safe search function would mitigate against this - it's very clearly there and easy to turn on and off.
Although not meeting the strict legal definition as such, search engine providers like Google could conceivably angle for the protections afforded common carriers [wikipedia.org].
I would hope so, otherwise the whole concept of a searchable internet falls on its arse there and then.
if i was in charge of a search engine and my web spiders found some kiddie porn i would most definitely forward that information to the police as quickly as possible, (i am sure Google already does that)...
Agreed. Though if you're not filtering the content and looking at every URL, this ruling sort of implies that even hosting the link makes you liable. OK so from TFA that sounds a bit of a stretch, and I do hate to invoke the thin end of the wedge, but I do sometimes wonder where common sense comes into law...
Sounds horrible to me.
Just a FYI, the appeal on this would most likely win and find them guilty of nothing. Assuming they're smart enough to do so...which they probably won't, unfortunately.
If there is an appeal, then it will be a bigger deal on this one.
This is different to google, these 2 sites were linking specifically to mostly infringing content (and from a quick google, they were clearly indicating the fact that they link to feature films and TV shows, both things that generally imply content produced by someone who isn't going to give a random web site permission to host their content)
Google links to anything and everything.
If I run a newspaper and someone places a classified ad to sell a stolen TV, I am not breaking any law by running that ad. (especially if, like google, I have no idea the TV was stolen). But if the majority of the classified ads in the paper are for stolen items and/or I was promoting the use of the paper to sell stolen goods, I would be in trouble.
We would like to welcome our new search-engine overlords! Seriously, Microsoft a few years ago was considering jumping ship to Vancouver, BC. We are working on a more open set of copyright laws (vs the draconian U.S.) and I'm sure there would be some HUGE tax incentives. Granted the RIAA/MPAA's northern arms will want the same thing but I suspect it will be denied. Money trumps pretty much everything, and up here Google et all would have a lot more then the CRIA.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
easy, find an XSS vulnerability in either the MPAA or the RIAA site and link it to copyrighted material, then also target government websites with the same XSS vulnerability and do the same, repeat over again until change.
My /. has a short memory... this was exactly what the old 2600 case over DeCSS was about.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Looks like they have it both ways again. The requirement to honor DMCA complaints without a court order is balanced by the privilege to host information without having to check it for copyright violations first. If they don't want to allow the latter, why should we allow them to take a short cut when they want some information taken down?
So you just take it for granted that they specialized in MPAA content?
I am a name troll of Westlake. Visit my homepage to learn why.
Our copyright in the US works largely on the owners' good graces, apathy, and ignorance. Copyright infringement, in a technical sense, happens constantly. And not just from music and movie downloaders, but ordinary people. Tattoos of cartoon characters, playing some popular song on your guitar, hosting images someone else created on your own server.
This may, in fact, have appeared on Slashdot before, but John Tehranian, a law professor at the University of Utah, estimates that a typical person could easily rack up $12.45 million in copyright liability doing ordinary things like sending email, sketching on a notepad, the afore-mentioned cartoon tattoo, writing poetry, and singing "Happy Birthday." And then there's this:
You can find the entirety of Professor Tehranian's article in PDF here.
The entire structure of our copyright law in the US is based on what strikes me as being the courts' absolutely blind willingness to enforce laws, the language of which criminalizes the day-to-day acts of normal people, and therefore makes the system open to the sort of hyper-technical abuse characterized in the article.
Of course, our national legislators are to blame for the sloppy language, not the courts. But the courts are still the agents enforcing these laws that just fly in the face of any reasonable or well-considered social policy.
Which is eaxctly the reason they will not be attacked openly. Aside from that, Google has agreements with large part of MAFIAA members and nicely and friendly removes content from Youtube or Google Video on any hint of possible theoretical infringement. Why make them into enemies and spoil such convenient arrangement?
OTOH we cannot underestimate stupidity of some lawyers...
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
After many years of cases like this, why are people still basing their services in the US? I live in Norway, and due to some legal precedents set in this country, I would not ever have my torrent trackers or ed2k indexers hosted here. In fact, I would not even have my name associated with that service because I would be paying anonymously to a host in a country were the laws are more suitable.
Dvorak on Doomtech
so; therefore, the entire internet is illegal, according to these clowns...
How easy would it be to write a front end to Google that would zero in on links to copies of copyrighted works? I, for one, would be delighted to help the MPAA find these violations. With a simple Google front end (rather than having to learn complex and sometimes arcane search terms and methods) many good citizens could join in this distributed endeavor.
To make clear the point of this software, a "Report this to the MPAA" button should appear beside each potential violation. As part of the volunteer MPAA vigilante association, it will be your duty to actually view what you find, to be sure that you are not reporting files merely coincidently similar to copyrighted, restricted works. A lack of MPAA staff time to do this has led to embarrassments for them in the past. Let's show them how much the open, distributed approach can help!
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Personal and verbatim, non commercial copy should be allowed.
And commercial copying should simply be taxed and the revenues handed to the creator of the copied work (to the extent with which such creative works need to be funded and monetized beyond other incentives). The whole monopoly aspect is what prevents and hampers the creation of wealth and flow of information. It needs to go.
It's annoying that many politicians in capitalistic countries can see the economic market damage created by state-run monopolies, but somehow fail to acknowledge the same damage caused when you hand out state-sponsored monopolies to private interests.
I hope it is google then maybe the iaa and mpaa will be put in there place
Not that I disagree with you but I would also like to see Google put in their place. That company's do no evil is the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard.
First they came for the indirect links and I did nothing. Then they came for the doubly indirect links and...
Perhaps they should just take the $4 million dollar fine and divide it by the exponentially increasing number of sites that link. We could all link then and just pay our 0.2 cents, this way they could get the ipod tax they always wanted...
The lesson here is that a sufficiently large corporation is indistinguishable from government. --ultranova
Not the same. I said, "UNLAWFUL copies." If a news agency wants to put up their copyrighted photos on a website, then someone browsing their site isn't a copyright infringer. Ditto for a search engine that POINTS to those sites. The index is to a bunch of LAWFUL copies.
In this case, we have UNLAWFUL copies of copyrighted works. Someone ripped them from a DVD, CD, or TV and posted them on the internet. It's not the copyright owners actions, it's a direct infringement by a third party (hence indirect copyright infringement in this case).
That said, I do think (and have always thought) that Google's position is legally precarious when is massively archives, stores and repurposes copyrighted works. But, that's not the issue here.
completely dark Internet 3.0 sites that give you links to sites outside of the USA in 3.... 2.... 1...
Bad laws are bad laws, the community will 'route around them' and that will be that. Also get ready for the court cases that the **AA will lose because the content was not infringing etc.
It's not possible to continue their berserk legal campaign and not injure some parties. I believe that the blowback will always be expensive for them, and continued elucidation of their antics to the public will be harmful to their standard revenue streams. There will be NO new CD's or DVD's in my house from now on. I can live without them. period. it's not so difficult.
In the USA in particular, any effort to educate the populace should be squarely aimed at government legislators. That is to say: When you publish, publish in the form of:
Look what we sent to Senator XYZ? All this information about IP and how the law is not good, and why it's not good. Senator XYZ doesn't care about your rights, here is how s/he voted on issues relating to your rights.
If 800 legislators have to be swift boated, meh, who fscking cares. That's what happens when you volunteer for public service.
Once the issues become election issues, it will get sorted out because they cannot begin to help the lobbyists if they are serving biggie sized burgers in their home city after the election. They have to get elected, and if doing so means forsaking their **AA lobbyist friends, believe me, they will.
That is how the people shut down a bad law campaign. Elect only people that do not support those laws.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Simple solution really. That will instantly also take care of the **AA too. Nobody needs the spam coming from the USA anyway...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Then they'd probably get the fuck out of the States rather than see their business suffer in America. Probably some sort of tax haven.
Great idea, let's give American companies even MORE of a reason to leave our shores.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Try looking for Transformers on Google. That fan site with the picture of Optimus Prime? That's infringement; it's unlawful. The wiki hosting a sound clip of some exchange between Star Scream and Megatron? That's infringment. The fanfic? Infringement. Google's linking to it all. They're even hosting thumbnails of some of it.
The distinction between linking to lawful and unlawful copyright works is something that can't be sustained in the face of a modern search engine. It would be asinine to tell Google that it couldn't link to anything without first ascertaining that the site has a clear and lawful copyright on the substance. A search engine just couldn't work in such a case. Likewise, saying a search engine is guilty of contributory copyright infringement when it does link to infringing material is no more sustainable, because the internet is a minefield. The liability imposed would be so monstrous as to either destroy the entire industry or create such legal liability that we're left with the last situation: search engines only able to link to things after they verify the owner's valid copyright claims.
For this to be good precedent, there needs to be a distinction made by the courts as to what makes these sites different from Google, Yahoo, and the like, and it can't be based on a post hoc determination of the host site's copyright validity.
Please put down the mallet and quit sounding the deathknell for personal freedom. I still have mine. You still have yours. Try to stay within the law, and you'll probably keep it. If you don't like parts of US law, then vote and lobby to change it. Research the issues and write your congressmen real paper letters with convincing arguments and evidence. Post cogent, pertinent comments on their web sites. If you don't like paying for movies and music, you certainly are welcome to make your own [subject to copyright and pornography laws, of course]. Contrary to some opinions, the US is still a free country. As evidenced by this rant here today.
[Flame Off]Invenio via vel creo
On the bright side, the netroots is attracting the attention of politicians primarily for our "death by a thousand papercuts" fundraising ability (and irritating habit of picking apart speeches and doing troublesome fact checking). There's a chance we might actually get some sane IP reform legislation to shut down or at least sedate rackets like the RIAA.
Except that *linking* should NOT be considered a crime, regardless of how you view IP rights.
That is as bad as simply writing a book on how to make an explosive device and being sued into nonexistence.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They didn't "merely" link to these sites. Google "Merely" links to the sites.
These guys appear to have run sites who's sole de-facto purpose was to make finding infringing material easier. They can't claim they didn't know good and well what was going on.
Yup.. linking shouldn't be.
Running a searchable, well maintained database of links to primarily infringing material with the sole purpose of helping more people find and take it illegally faster, while collecting ad revenue from the traffic that generates for your site. that might be a little different.
Its not different enough. its still not housing the content.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They just need to send Pretty leading Man/Woman of the month around to the court house to blow a judge or three.....
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
1) Translate name of movie into Chinese
2) tudou.com / 56.com / youku.com / any chinese video site
3) ???
4) PROFIT
Good luck getting Chinese sites shut down. Even if you get rid of the indexing sites, mildly creative people will be able to just search foreign video sites.
I picture places like tv-links.co.uk (Oh, how I miss thee) reemerging, perhaps as some sort of decentralized P2P darknet. There's no host to take down, and you couldn't possibly target all of the members. A good use for Freenet, I think, that doesn't involve pedophilia (unless they index Alice In Wonderland).
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
The problem is that these kinds of decisions open up new slippery slopes in places where there wasn't any sign of one. People have settled and paid substantial chunks of change to the RIAA and MPAA when they weren't even the ones infringing, because they were afraid that if they fought they'd end up paying more. It's only been recently that any of these false lawsuits have been successfully fought. Once they get their foot in the door they'll start throwing the "linking" argument in their bag of dirty tricks, and who knows how many people will end up getting nailed by this who had no idea that there was a slope anywhere near them.
This has NOTHING to do with whether I object to "paying for music or movies". My shelves full of CDs and DVDs should answer that. This isn't about me, I don't run a music search engine. This is about bad law and bad precedents creating new ways for people to unwittingly infringe.
It sets a chilling precedent. Where ownership of the equipment, content, and facilities providing it are all subtracted from an otherwise innocuous web interface. I agree that the 'virtual medium' tends to route around. It should bring up some interesting conversation.
To simplify things drastically, a common carrier receives a measure of immunity from ordinary civil and criminal actions in exchange for the public services it provides.
The price is regulation. The price is cooperation with the government. You play by the rules or you lose your protection.
Lock the wife and the dog in the boot of the car.
Return one hour later.
Who's happy to see you?
The whole monopoly aspect is what prevents and hampers the creation of wealth and flow of information.
The whole monopoly aspect is what controls and channels wealth and information. This doesn't have anything to do with protecting the artists, it has everything to do with protecting the artist's overlords ability to control and profit from the artists in their stable.
We are all just people.
When will you open your eyes and realise it was the constant lies, flaming and misrepresentation that got you into the karma hole you're in? Ben Franklin had conversations with himself in his and other publications and it's a legitimate way to explore an issue Ben Franklin never had those conversations in a public space while pretending to others that he was several different people. What Ben Franklin did was continual, accurate, bipartisan self-assessment. What you do is try to control legitimate discussion by trying to force it into being between people you control, so your ideas seem to be the ones held in high merit in the community. Ben Franklin was after self-improvement. You just want control. When it's used to game the moderation system, censor users, spam and promote filth like this, it's a problem. Which is exactly what you're doing. How can you bring yourself down to what you consider to be a base level, then pretend you're still somehow better than everyone else? There's not much dishonest about what I'm doing. You post using at least 9 different accounts and you don't reveal that anywhere in your posts. That is a lie of omission at the very least, and is inherently dishonest by nature. Of course, AC, you know all of this. You read all of my journal articles, posts and those you think I write. It must be exhausting because you think so many people are me. There's no bigger fan of mine than you. Keep reading, you might learn something even if you are paid not to. I, for one, certainly know which ones are you, because no matter how hard you try you can't keep that arrogant posturing of yours under control. What's even more amusing is, the more often you reply to yourself to make your points stand out, the easier it is to spot.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will pick one account and keep posting from it because we don't have to hide from who we are.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
So what if it is "simple entitlement"? Why should we grant copyright holders perpetual monopolies?
After all, I am strangely colored.
The geek is libertarian only when it suits his convenience.
Taxation on distribution is the simplest way to control content and production.
The market doesn't set the price, the tax code sets the price.
The monopoly passes to the state and what the state doesn't want to see on the shelves doesn't go on the shelves - because no one can afford to buy it.
Mixed economies like those of the United States have been remarkably successful in generating wealth and and encouraging the free flow of information.
In ten years, J.K. Rowling moved from welfare to being richer than the Queen of England. That didn't stop other writers from claiming a significant share of the juvenile market.
The Harry Potter films became a training ground for a generation of young actors and a world showcase for veterans of the London film and stage.
Harry Potter is uniquely British - like The Avengers or James Bond - and its value to the UK as a cultural export can't be measured simply in pounds or dollars.
Whenever a p2p technology (or the way it's implemented) becomes so easy that (the average) grandma can use it, it will be shut down, and the community will invent new grandma-proof p2p.
Napster went down because my mom or grandma could download music. So today, when the non-technical user can "go to web page and click the shows they want to illegally acquire", the clock is running.
Backroom file-getting in the old(er) days via Hotline always seemed just difficult enough that the masses wouldn't get involved.
The sign in front of the ride has always been: "you have to be 'this' clever to get free stuff."
"Have you heard of some type of thing?" -- anon
That's an interesting idea, anytime money changes hands in a copy it can be taxed. Advertisers can be taxed a portion of their revenue and sales taxes can be levied on any kind of sale.
The problem then is making sure it goes to the creator. Sound Exchange is an example of how not to do this because it's more like the monopoly given to a private interest that you worry about. Sales taxes are typically used for infrastructure and that might not be a bad way to spend what the RIAA has been squandering on payolla, whores and coke. Creators have a better chance of getting paid by a state office than they do now.
I am a name troll of Westlake. Visit my homepage to learn why.
There's not much on the web that isn't copyrighted. Almost every web page, forum posting, blog entry, graphic, etc. is copyrighted.
its because your quote fails exactly at that point.
musicians and movie makers have never been compensated for the work they do. musicians have been given few cents over $20 worth single album sales by the distributors, and told to go on unending world tours in order to earn money for themselves. this has been going on for aeons.
same goes for movies. directors, actors get much more cut from movie sales, but then again the lion's cut goes to people who do nothing but monopolize the distribution effectively.
we are paying zillions of dollars to people that do not generate any added value into the music/movie.
i wouldnt give a damn, if they were not also harming, damaging the ability of the creative crowd to distribute their own stuff. but situation has been so that up to today, if you havent been able to sign your soul out to a big distributor, noone knew your music, your art, your small films. but then internet came and alternative distribution became possible. good. things were going to change. but then big buck distributors started to try attempts in hampering those distribution methods, because they pose a great danger to their own monopoly - people being able to do distribution independently - holy cow, what kind of heresy.
so, this point is the point where your argument breaks down. those people not only damaging a business sector, but in general damaging the creative development of human civilization, for they have a bigger power than they are worth.
Read radical news here
Nice straw man - who said anything about perpetual? Copyright isn't perpetual. The GP didn't mention perpetual either.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
I have no embarassment whatsoever in telling musicians and moviemarkers that they've cultivated a disgusting and immoral entitlement mentality in expecting to get paid for the rest of their lives for each work they produce.
I'm a software developer. I write thousands of lines of code every year. I've probably written well in excess of a million lines of code since I started doing this. And you know what? I was paid for writing each one of those, with no expectation of continuing profits until I die. I can point to lots and lots of places where the people that employed me made quite a bit of money from my code. I really don't have a problem with that, even though I'd say that the majority of programmers, tech writers, and other creative folks who produced copyrighted work for hire provide a lot more benefit to society that the majority of musicians and filmmakers. Why should some high-school dropout with no useful skills other than wailing (off-pitch, no less) into a microphone expect to be any different? Similarly, why should any corporation expect that?
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
It might as well be. There have already been two copyright extension acts, and the Supreme Court has decided that there is no upper bound on the number of extensions. Yes, perpetual is the right word.
After all, I am strangely colored.
I for one want the RIAA/MPAA to be able to blind me and make me deaf.
Fair point. It would serve me well to remember that there are other countries and I don't know the full extent of copyright in them.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Before sites like youtorrent and torrentz sprung up for indexing torrent sites, it wasn't uncommon for people to use search strings like filetype:torrent "Star Wars"
and find plenty of torrents for what they need.
The difference is of course google could defend themself in court, and would take down the links if asked. They also don't go out of their way to index copyrighted material by name/category the way some sites do.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Well, when I browse that news site, a temporary copy of their image is stored in my browser cache. If I have a worm, that means I might have distributed a copy of that image, albeit unknowingly.
The difference is of course google could defend themself in court, and would take down the links if asked. They also don't go out of their way to index copyrighted material by name/category the way some sites do. Yes, they could. But I do worry about how these judgements could be taken to extremes particularly by an industry that is apparently fighting for its existence.
How about here, now, you decide to be just "twitter" and post useful comments from only one account. Your karma will skyrocket, especially since you are pretty well known now.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
"I'd say that the majority of programmers, tech writers, and other creative folks who produced copyrighted work for hire provide a lot more benefit to society that the majority of musicians and filmmakers."
This is really good stuff. You're a programmer, so you don't have a problem with your employer selling licenses to your work (and presumably paying your salary). But other people's work.. that should be freely distributed.
Maybe we should summarize your philosophy as "Other people's information wants to be free."
An attractive proposition to be sure, but perhaps not very just.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
Yep; the creation of the Great Firewall of the United States. This one is primarily for the protection of some corporate interests rather than of one political party.
if you put an article up on the web, unless you robots.txt it, I think tis pretty clear you are happy for people to link to and index it.
You are ALL entirely free to index and link to any page whatsoever on ANY website that I own, that is not password protected or hidden.
I'm fine with that.
But if you have a password protected, or encrypted system, where you sell access to those files, with an explicit agreement that the links and the files are not to be made public, then its pretty fucking clear that copying the files, uplaoding them to an anon hoster and spreading the links is not the same thing as linking to someone's homepage.
Its a pretty far and twisted piece of backwards rationalising to defend websites full of pages and pages of links to rapidshare or other sites, containing Hollywood movies, games,software and music, under the pretence that "its ok! because otherwise we couldn't use hyperlinks!!!11111oneone"
Don't pretend there is a grey area here, there just isn't.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
What monopolies are we talking about here?
If Britney Spears records a song does that mean that nobody else can record a song?
If Pixar creates "The Incredibles" does that mean that nobody else can make a movie?
No, there is plenty of competition in the music and movie worlds.
So go out there and make some art my friend. And give it away if you like. Nobody is stopping you.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
And Google will win, since they are not promoting crime.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
The difference is land actually exists outside of your imagination. Physical property and imaginary property are not the same thing.
Well done, you just found a way to wipe out the music, movie, book, play, software and games industries. And all done so you can feel better about downloading torrented movies to save a few bucks...
Actually, I do buy the stuff I watch/listen to/etc. I also have worked off and on for the past 25 years as a part-time musician in a number of pit orchestras, bands, and other venues, and also have written incidental music for some of those same venues, so kindly don't talk to me about how bad musicians have it. The difference is that in addition to being able to create music, I also have skills that are considered valuable in the real world.
I noticed that you didn't address what makes musicians different from programmers re: the entitlement mentality of being paid for their work until after they die.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
This is really good stuff. You're a programmer, so you don't have a problem with your employer selling licenses to your work (and presumably paying your salary). But other people's work.. that should be freely distributed.
That's not what I said and you know it. Besides, my work is largely in embedded-type systems, so there's not any "license selling" going on. Can you or can you not defend your stance without resorting to putting words in other peoples' mouths and oblique ad-homs?
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
If this is true, google is going to get sued for trillions.
If you've never used it, here is a little trick with a google query (just replace Green Day with whomever you wish).
http://www.google.com/ie?q=%22parent+directory%22+mp3+OR+wma+OR+ogg+OR+wav+Green%20Day+-html+-htm+-download+-links&num=100&filter=0
and yet both take work to create. so in your imaginary world where we reward creating one but not the other, who the fuck is stupid enough to make movies any more?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
You play this "game" because people got tired of your inane and harmful "advocacy" of Free Software and started modding you down. You prefer to pin the blame for that on Microsoft, like you blame them for the dot com bomb, bridges collapsing, CompUSA going out of business, the recession and anything bad China does, among other things. As if there weren't enough things to pin on them. Let me give you a bit of advice: None of this. None has anything whatsoever to do with Microsoft or any other company.
You then switched to your other older sockpuppet, which unsurprisingly met the same fate. Since you keep claiming no one knows which accounts are yours, it must be what you are saying rather than who you are. Even five or six people can't bring down an account to -50 negative karma, that's either an admin bitchslap or the result of the community shunning you.
The second paragraph on your post is more of the usual self-serving and self-contradicting semantic sugar. These "anti-slashdot sites" by definition would have nothing to do with you, and if they're unsuccessful, then why are we having this conversation at all? It seems to me they are successful, assuming they existed anywhere other than your mind. Oh and the Ben Franklin thing? Please.
There's not much dishonest about what I'm doing.
No, of course not. You replying to you is not dishonest. After all, you're just "informing" people, right? No matter that you're pretending to be someone else when you do it. Instead of cleaning up your act, you simply create more accounts and continue to do the same things, except that now you're crapflooding every thread with five or six different accounts that people don't know about. Let's look at an example outside of this thread:
twitter says "x".
Then gnutoo jumps in with some inane tripe, to open up for:
Mactrope, at which point the whole thing backfires because the whole premise of your three-account point is invalid to begin with, as usual.
I'm sure free software also benefits when you shill your own attempts at humour.
No, I'm not going to tell you what those accounts are
That's OK, you don't really think people are actually waiting for *you* to tell them about your sockpuppets, right? Here's the current list:
http://slashdot.org/~twitter
http://slashdot.org/~Erris
http://slashdot.org/~Mactrope
http://slashdot.org/~gnutoo
http://slashdot.org/~inTheLoo
http://slashdot.org/~willeyhill
http://slashdot.org/~westbake
http://slashdot.org/~Odder
http://slashdot.org/~ibane
It's not difficult, after all. Aside from the initial two, the first thing all of these other accounts do is reply to the others, or paste links from your journal. They all use the exact same writing style, creative spelling, insults, misspell the same words and so on. Not like it's rocket science or anything like that. When someone like me points out what you're doing, you insult them. Oh, and I get modded down
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
You're entirely missing the point. He says that programmers make money as long as they do something creative, while musicians and filmmakers do something creative and make money off it indefinitely. And he does not imply that other people's work should be freely distributed. He says that the create-once-profit-forever notion is wrong (life + 100 years is almost like forever, because most creative works are totally outdated or obscure many years before that).
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
The RIAA/MPAA continue to view P2P as a phenomenon that can be somehow eradicated or at least controlled by attacking it with a combination of technology and lawsuits. The ironic thing is even while most of these countermeasures don't even work at all, when they do the effect is short term and ends up serving as a sort of selection pressure to force P2P to evolve and adapt. I think before too long most BT searches will be decentralized. Most of the geek barrier problem with BT is that it involves browsing outside of the application to download files that are not even the files you really want. Forcing BT to work around this is just hastening the development of a client that eliminates all of this from the GUI and is 3 clicks easy for everyone to use. Then TSWHTF.
So when does google get nailed for allowing 'bad links' to occur? They have proven the can remove links on command.
When does Borders get told to remove books off the shelf as they have 'improper information' in them, and be fined afterwards for having them searchable in their database?
Libraries.. same thing.. They have a 'card catalog' that links...
This has so many long term ramifications that it should scare the piss out of you if you value your freedom to speak.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Any time power is granted, bar none, it will be abused. This has nothing to do with the spirit of the judgment.
I apologize. I misinterpreted your post and misrepresented you.
There are basically two types of software development that go on. Contract work for individual customers (that you and I both do for a living) and consumer software directed to a larger audience (which I've written in the past).
Copyright protection is clearly less important for contract work, because there isn't any need to spread the development costs of the software over a large group of people. One side writes the code, the other side pays for the code. Everybody is happy.
But for consumer software where writing the code may require many man years of development and will appeal to a wide audience, copyright laws allow a vender to charge a comparatively low price to a wide swath of people.
Take Bioshock for example, a popular single player video game. They spent millions of development dollars creating this piece of software, but what did I pay for it? $60
Because with copyright laws they can sell individual licenses to people like me so that the development costs are shared.
If only one person had to buy the software then they could share it with everyone on the internet, the developer would go broke. Or the one person would have to pay $10 million for the video game. Pretty unlikely.
That's the part that the free information people never seem to get. Copyright make it possible for people to create great stuff and make a living doing it. Stuff that you and I want to buy.
You kill copyright, and the stuff goes away.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
I dunno... why should there be perpetual ownership of property.
This doesn't answer my question. I am a voter. I want to know what I am getting out of granting, for example Disney, the exclusive right to copy and distribute hundred year old cartoons. Convince me.
After all, I am strangely colored.
**AA would be crazy to try to take on Google.
If it's crazy for the **AA it could be a very good idea for google. Google should ask the courts to give a declaratory judgement to reduce business uncertainty. The public would like them too.
At the very least they should be lobbying congress hard to get sane copyright laws and encouraging other companies to do so as well. Congress needs educating and Google has the resources and business need to do that. For too long the mafiaa has been getting free rein to create whatever type of law they like. They've completely lost in the court of public opinion but unfortunately they have been making "progress" in the legal system.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
Don't pretend there is a grey area here, there just isn't.
Actually there is, and your fanaticism isn't helping.
---
Don't be fooled, slashdot has many lying astroturfers fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as third party opinion. FUD too.
One more thing. To the person who dies before the copyright expires it is certainly perpetual.
Since copyright extends beyond one lifetime then such perpetuity is guaranteed for the vast majority of works and the vast majority of people. Thus, the original words "for limited times" no longer really apply. That means that in practice, the current law is unconstitutional.
Everyone (with time to read a 300-page book) needs to read this life-changing book containing the most comprehensive treatment of intellectual property out there: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/imbookfinalall.pdf
I used to think copyrights were beneficial before I read it. Now it's clear they are obsolete.
You can't send a takedown notice to an already printed newspaper.
Right. Which has nothing to do with a monopoly, unless you're going to define the term in an incredibly wide way.
Everyone is free to make and market computer generated super hero movies.
I agree that YouTube is incredibly compelling. And I'm a little surprised that they're getting away with it since it is (for the most part) one big copyright violation. I think it's because the clips are of limited length and the quality is such that nobody in their right mind would consider it a worthwhile source of either video or audio content. Except to browse and reminisce. Which in turn generates interest in the commercial properties.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
Supply and demand.
People watch movies to see the actors and actresses they like. This gives them the bargaining power in a contract in regards to compensation.
How much do you they think Linus is worth or Denis Ritchie or James Gosling? My guess is 6 figure salaries.
You need to do what the market (Society) wants. Working hard is not the same as working smart. You can work very hard doing something no one wants that badly such as brewing coffee at a starbucks. Therefore your salary will be in the poverty level.
http://saveie6.com/
A good lawyer could make that argument that Google is in the business of organized crime.
After all what are teh perecentages of google searches for mp3's or porn?
My guess would be quite high in the %20 range. If that is the case it could be argued that Google should pay up for hurting the poor little record companies.
If I were google I would quickly lobby some politicians fast to create laws to protect search engines. This is very not good indeed.
http://saveie6.com/
So did these guys even show up in court? Or did the MPAA take them to court in some wildly inconvenient venue, wait for them not to show up, and obtain default judgements?
These anti-indexing judgments are also an assault on discovery. There is no link whatsoever that doesn't link to copyrighted content. This post I'm writing right now is copyrighted. I've given implicit consent to slashdot to display this comment, but I haven't given any other third parties implicit or explicit consent to copy this post. So if Google links directly to this post, I could sue them for statutory copyright infringement damages. Or anyone else who links to this post from elsewhere. That is the literal absurdity which is at stake. This post is for all practical intents and purposes absolutely no different than any RIAA music .mp3 file or any MPAA .tor movie file.
This is the main reason copyright is already de facto dead on the internet. If the MAFIAA succeeds in establishing the legal procedure precedents for establishing infringement for links to content, it will merely open up an economic and legal meltdown copyright troll floodgate, where absolutely everybody is a priori guilty of copyright infringement. In such an environment, those with the most to lose will lose the most. That means the bankruptcy of individual citizens, the bankruptcy of the RIAA, the bankruptcy of the MPAA, and the bankruptcy of Google. Except that individuals will only declare bankruptcy after their losses advance into the 6 figures, while the RIAA, MPAAA, and Google will pay out damages until the damages first exceed 9 and 10 figures, which won't take for long given the exponentially increasing amount of daily increasing (by definition *copyrighted*) content on the internet. At $30,000 per linked post message, it won't take very many copyright trolls to literally shut down the system.
How do you think people like us are already causing the MAFIAA so much trouble? And we ultimately control the button to the legal minefield which is being laid by the incursion of copyright law onto the internet. We'll form a publicly traded law firm which takes the claims of every individual citizen against those with deep pockets, IPO it, and show the big content fools who's really the boss. These MAFIAA lawsuits are just paving the "free rider" legal precedent to making it a financial reality. The legal threats literally threaten Armageddon for the existence of the internet.
And "contributory copyright infringement" can easily be extended to hardware and software producers such as Cisco and Microsoft. So add in the bankruptcy of Cisco and Microsoft and Apple, and Comcast, and on and on. We are literally talking about so many trillions of dollars of legal liability that it is many fold greater than the total economic value of the entire world.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
I completely agree with what I just said. Did I say 'I'? I've never heard of this guy in my life, but he's clearly very insightful and informative.
Anyway, we should totally listen to him and stop modding Twitter down because I'm always right.
Did I say 'I' again?
I'm Just Another Twitter Sockpuppet, and I approve this message.
"Its not different enough. its still not housing the content."
I think I see the confusion here -- it's important to understand the difference between "copyright infringement" and "contributory copyright infringement."
A lot of people read the summary a little too quickly and are of the impression that the sites were busted for infringement. If that were the case, then you'd be 100% correct: they weren't hosting the files, so this would be a hugely inappropriate ruling.
You can add "contributory," "facilitating," "aiding and abetting," and similar terms to the beginning of many, many crimes and torts and come up with a separate offense. It works kind of the same way: you can be busted for being an accessory to robbery even if you didn't hold a gun or even set foot on the property. And, as the link blog operators are learning, you can be nailed for contributory infringement, even if you're not hosting the files.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
And if you download any file whatsoever into a shared folder and never actually look at the contents of those files you are blindly unknowingly distributing content. You don't know whether any files whatsoever is a copyright infringement until you first copy and secondly examine. This is exactly how the MAFIAA operate to: they first blindly copy, and secondly examine.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
That would mean admitting that all his previous posts are garbage! That's really too much to ask.
I'm not neglecting anything.
The law ALREADY defines the elements of contributory infringement. First, you need knowledge of the infringing activity. That's pretty easy in these cases. The torrent tracker sites purpose seems to be infringement. Second--and here's the distinction from Google et. al.--material involvement: inducement, causation, contribution, etc.
Take a look at the Grokster case.
Also, everyone should realize that this concept is not new or original to copyright/patent law. Take a look at what happens to people selling burglary tools. As in those cases, the question ultimately becomes whether there is a substantial non-infringing purpose and not just some trivial non-infringing purpose.
And, again, I'm not going to take a position one way or another vis-a-vis Google's liability, but it seems pretty clear that general purpose searches and caches are not subject to the same standard as a search whose primary purpose is to direct infringers to their desired content. It's for these reasons Dell, Gate, HP, Compaq, Apple, etc. would not be subject to indirect infringement even though absent the computers they sold the would-be infringers may not have had the ability to infringe.
Frankly, I'm not really sure WHY people are defending these sites.
You seem to be saying that musicians should get full-time jobs with music publishers and get paid by the note.
Go create more accounts. Some of them seem to be running out of karma, no doubt because Bill Gates is monitoring them.
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
Carefull Anonymous Coward. You have stirred up plenty of trouble in the past. Do you want to get banned?
The truth shall set you free!
Similar to the upcoming US election results
So there aren't any other versions of Cinderella? Huh.
Sorry, but Disney holds copyright on the work and specific likenesses they created when a hundred or so animators they paid made their version of the story and brought it to the screen.
You're completely free to buy someone else's version, or even make your own, for that matter.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Allowing companies to be sued for linking to copywrite maiterial is absurd, it goes against the original design of the internet. The internet was created to allow the military and universities to connect to each other for the purpose of making information available. And in the event of a nuclear attack, the information would always be available. The search engines/databases have always been designed to index and categorizes all information, (long before the likes of google) for the purpose of allowing those who use it, to find it fast and to always be dynamic as information grows. While many things may be illegal, we also need to guard our rights to freedom of speech, freedom of information and freedom from censorship. While I don't endorse downloading of copywrite material, illegal acts, terrorism etc..., I think if we start down this path, it could also lead to governments deciding what else it believes is illegal, or goes against party policies, or religious establishments think is immoral, could be the start of another form of censoring information.
Someone erase Wikipedia, I think I reverted a vandalism on a potentially copyright infringing article.
wow, someone on slashdot using the word 'strawman' what fucking innovation.
get a grip kid, before copyright, did you have multimillion pound movies employing 500 people?
And let me guess, you will whine about "all hollywood movies being crap anyway" whilst still downloading all of them and watching them, like 99% of slashdotters.
And BTW, you DO realise that music and movie companies pay corporation tax on every cent earned by their 'imaginary' property right? or is that tax just imaginary too? in which case, owners of IP should be tax exempt right?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Explain to me how www.warezforfree.com or similar sites are a grey area?
you know the ones, listing hundreds or thousands of pre-categorised hollywood movies and big budget commercial video games.
show me how that's a grey area.
and *I* am the fanatic? you people will rationalise any kind of criminal behaviour, even support thepiratebay and its right wing criminal financial backers, if you think it justifies torrenting 'heroes'.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Dude, your sarcasm detector is broken. A sure sign you've been flaming too long. Better dial it back, or you'll end up like twitter!
People who would prefer to make movies for a living instead of flipping burgers or developing land or writing computer programs or doing sysadmin or answering telephones or ...?
I mean, seriously -- is that the best argument you can come up with? Why should film making or book writing or song writing be different from any other career? You get paid to do it, and you decide whether the compensation for doing it and the satisfaction you get from doing it makes it more worthwhile than the other things you could do.
What hasn't been well addressed is the mechanism for paying people to do these things. For a film maker that's "easy" -- someone wants a film made so they find someone that can do it, same as with any other job. But who would want a film made badly enough to want to pay for it? There needs to be a profit incentive, which is currently provided by having a monopoly on the distribution of the finished work.
No, if you work for 3 years on an album, you get 3 years wages, which you can then save/invest/buy land with. And that land, which is a tangible asset, is yours forever, until you sell it.
Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Handing public services to privateers is otherwise known as ... FASCISM.
The Founder and 'philosopher' of Fascism was Mussolini's mentor, one Giovanni Gentile.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Gentile
yea, youre right. i shouldnt be siphoning off 100% of the remaining 1%. instead i should pay exorbitant rates to cds containing 2 useful songs next to 12 shitty ones, and feeding the existing system so we all can get exploited gloriously.
Read radical news here
you have confused DISTRIBUTION with PRODUCTION.
Read radical news here
"Most musicians are not being paid up front"
The vast majority of professional musicians are paid a fixed hourly rate, and have to start looking for work again when a particular job is finished. People tend to use the term "musician" as a synonym for "artist signed to a record company" despite the fact that this is actually a very small proportion of musicians, just as a very small proportion of actors get to charge exorbitant fees for being in a movie.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
I'm not arguing the economics of supply and demand - what you've said is true and pretty much goes without saying, but I'm asking what moral justification the government has regarding a grant of what is fast becoming effectively infinite copyright. Congress is preventing any works *at all* from entering the public domain by continually extending the copyright term, which flies in the face of the stated purpose of copyright as per the U.S. Constitution.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
The vast majority of professional musicians are paid a fixed hourly rate, and have to start looking for work again when a particular job is finished.
This.
Whenever I did a pit orchestra or other contract gig, I negotiated a fee per-performance (not hourly, but it's basically the same thing) and I knew up front how many performances would be involved, and there were stipulations in the contract regarding the possibility of extra performances and that I was providing a service that I could subcontract out if needed. Contracts where a *specific* performer was required would obviously be better paid due to the restrictiveness of the contract, and the basic "supply and demand" aspect another poster alluded to somewhere along the line.
"Why should an artist not be entitled reap the benefits of the album they recorded?" One could ask the same of any other industry - why doesn't a newspaper reporter or magazine editor get a cut of every copy sold? It's because the recording and film industries (and to some extent, publishing) have developed a ridiculous entitlement mentality that most other industries are grown-up enough to avoid. I really don't have a problem with a limited term of copyright, but what we have now is just totally out of hand. The idea of copyright was to encourage future creativity, not be another form of welfare, and certainly not an endorsement of the ridiculous idea that just because someone thought of something that idea somehow *belongs* to them.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
That's one approach, and it's how songwriters used to work almost exclusively. I'm not suggesting that's the best approach, or that musicians/actors/etc. can't make a lot of money from their work, but the current copyright situation is just totally out of hand. There's no cosmic morality that says someone should make millions of dollars for the rest of their life just because they wrote a little jingle that a lot of people like.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
It's gotta be more embarassing to pretend that copyright laws actually help artists make a living.
I can't speak directly for the movie makers, but for a lot of us musicians (and the film-makers I work with) it's a noble crusade, too. Existing business and royalty models based on today's interpretation of copyright fail for musicians. Giving it away is more profitable than selling it, for more artists than not.
The music industry eats its young - the models haven't been broken for years, they've been broken for decades. The only artists served by the "my copyright or wrong" mindset are the mega-stars who are in themselves walking corporations. The savvy artist is learning different rules and making a living.
*sigh*
so under your new system I'd paid to make games, but not for selling them yes?
Fine. I'll be making an epic RPG next, where do I sign up for my government paid game dev salary? BTW the game may take 200 years to make and never get finished, and may be shit, but thats fine right? because you want to sever the connection between making a popular product and earning royalties, so why the fuck do I care anymore if the game is any good?
NOW do you see the problem?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
IMHO, "Once they get their foot in the door..." typifies "slippery slope."
You were advocating that we stay away from the edge of the slope, extending the "slippery slope" metaphor in a different direction. I'm pointing out that we don't KNOW where the edge is... you can stay clear of anything you could possibly imagine being a problem, and still discover that you were on the slope all along.
If there is no difference between a "slippery slope" and a "slippery trapdoor" then you can't stay away from the edge.
I do understand that congress caused the current problems with changes to IP law, but they remain the best path to pursue correction of the problem. [...] I was hoping to catalyze some to action.
What, by arguing that the honest man has nothing to fear?
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Which is is a distinction made only by those rationalizing why content should be "free". Production costs are real, and are amortized and combined with the distribution costs of each individual sale. Reduce one cost, and the other still remains.
Now, figure out how to make a $100,000,000 movie for nothing, and you may have something. In the meantime...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
'production costs are real' - yes, and they are divided by infinite numbers of products which are easily copyable. at pathetic cents per cd, even the medium they are written on is ridiculously low if you mass produce. if it comes to internet distribution, those costs become almost nonexistent, per item sold.
so dont talk nonsense about production costs. if you pay 1 m dollars for producing a song, and then try to lock in your price by selling 1 million copies from $30, that is a ridiculously overblown profit margin to be defended. and thats the way it is with today's big buck distribution.
Read radical news here
Did you read the last paragraph, where I explicitly said there needs to be a profit motive and that hasn't been addressed by proponents of this plan? Probably no, because otherwise you wouldn't have ended your post with "NOW do you see the problem?" if you'd read my acknowledgement of the problem.
By the way, if you're making an epic RPG today you're probably doing it as part of a large team of other programmers, artists, animators, musicians, writers, and so on. And guess what? You're paid a salary for your work. The copyright and distribution rights are owned by the game's publisher, who is the one paying your salary. YOU do not get royalties from it. YOU are paid to do a job. (There may be some exceptions to this, for example if you're a rockstar coder who can negotiate a special deal for yourself, but by and large this is how it works. Just like application development.)
Taleworld's development model for Mount & Blade is an interesting one. I'm not sure how far it could scale though; their team is very small in comparison to many others.
Moderation -1
100% Redundant
Someone show me where there's another comment posted before I posted mine that is a detailed discussion of what this judgement really means for the possibility of indexing content without liability for the possible lawbreaking of the other people who actually publish the content.
--
make install -not war
My point about hourly rates was referring to recording session musicians and backing singers who, along with all the others whose non-excessive incomes are directly or indirectly derived from the recording industry, tend to be ignored in discussions about copyright because it's far easier to self-justify piracy if one one only thinks of it as only harming overpaid, talentless stars and coke-sniffing executives.
""Why should an artist not be entitled reap the benefits of the album they recorded?""
This wasn't a point that I made, so I don't see why you addressed it in an answer to my post.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Why do you think **AA have settled most cases out of court in their favor?
Was it because of the legal merits of their case, or because of the effective tactics of their legal team. I know where my money is.
On the other hand, you're very specific about what you're doing.
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
Who's pretending? I live in Los Angeles. About 20% of my friends make their living in the film industry.
They're not getting rich or anything, but they make a decent living doing script supervising, lighting special effects, building sets, etc.
Their salaries depend on the money people pay for the movies that they make.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
Awesome. Back in August of 2007, I called Superbowl XLII and prophesied that there would be an earthquake in China this year. You can see the date of my journal entry, so clearly I can blog about Python and predict the future.
Just who do you think you're fooling?
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo