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Lessig's "In Defense of Piracy"
chromakey writes "The Wall Street Journal is running an essay from Lawrence Lessig about the fair use of copyrighted material on the Internet. He makes the case that companies who go to extreme lengths to squash minor videos, such as Universal, are stifling creativity in the modern era. Lessig makes specific reference to a YouTube video that was hit by a DMCA takedown notice, in which a 13-month-old child is dancing to a nearly inaudible soundtrack of Prince's 'Let's Go Crazy.' Lawrence Lessig is a board member for the Electronic Frontier Foundation."
Is that this was written by Thomas Jefferson, and Lessig just republished it under his name. Yes, Thomas Jefferson knew about YouTube 200 years before it was invented.
The obvious point is that he is still championing change, while most of us just sit on our butts and complain. Regardless of our views on just how much more change should be ushered in, you have to respect his efforts.
As a sidenote, my captcha is 'copying'.
Why, it's almost as if there's a spectrum of opinions on /. from disparate individuals that are merely communicating in a shared forum!
Why do media companies think that any use of media should be paid for?
Suppose farmers acted like that. They grow grain to sell, but their plants create oxygen from carbon dioxide gas as a side effect. Oxygen is a valuable commodity, it's sold in bottles for many uses: hospitals, aviators, steel-cutting, etc. But farmers are sensible enough to know that it would be totally impractical to try to charge for the oxygen their plants release into the atmosphere.
Media companies should grow up and accept the same fact for their productions. Copyrights should be enforced in movie theatres, someone sneaking into a theatre to watch a movie without paying is somewhat like someone stealing grain from a farmer. But trying to charge for every little use of their media is like a farmer trying to charge for the oxygen their plants release into the atmosphere the same price industrial gas distributors charge for bottled oxygen.
The US Constitution says:
Copyright is constitutional only if it promotes the progress of science and useful arts.
Now the question is *ARE* science and useful arts being promoted by copyrights? Would you say that this work is a progress over this one? If a remake was made, is the copyright in the older film still valid? Why?
The only thing that's being promoted by copyrights is the profit of some corporations.
Copyright was never intended to prevent private copying for noncommercial uses. Please don't try to argue that "copying = not buying = commercial loss = commercial use" because it's a horribly disingenuous and intellectually dishonest argument. Stealing is depriving someone else of their property. Even if copying is depriving someone of a potential sale, there is no vested property right in potential sales. If so capitalism would not work, as competition would be equivalent to stealing. The makers of cars would be stealing from the makers of horsedrawn carriages. The makers of refrigerators would be stealing from ice manufacturers. The makers of calculators would be stealing from the makers of abacuses (abaci?). You get the point. I should be able to copy and read/watch/listen to/play in my own home, for my own use, any media in existence. The notion that without monopolies, creative people would not create has long been disproved. No monopolies are necessary to foster creativity. The best, most creative people will create regardless. The hacks are the ones who need monopoly protection. For example, without copyright, Neil Young would still be making music, but Brittney Spears would not. Because copyright has been so greatly abused, because it's been proven to be based on flawed logic, and because it only serves to hinder creativity and make money for those who do not deserve it, copright should be abolished completely. There should still be protection for attribution to prevent plaigariasm, in some form.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Stop thinking about the children, you pedophile!
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
If you record a song and someone else manufactures copies of your song and sells them, they are killing your market.
If someone samples your song and uses a 3-second blip of sound to create their own work and sells it, there's no way in hell they are killing your market.
NOBODY has ever decided not to buy a pop CD because they already have a recording of their aunt singing the song in a karaoke bar.
This space available.
The GPL is a form of copyright licensing that attempts to enforce certain usage restrictions/requirements. I don't understand why you think the GPL would be unnecessary if we didn't have copyright. The purpose of the GPL is to ensure that changes made to something are returned to everybody, and without copyright, there would be no reason to follow the license and distribute any changes made. The GPL doesn't exist as a reaction to copyright; it requires copyright to have any power.