Slashdot Mirror
Doctorow On Copyright Reform & Culture
super-papa sends us to Locus Magazine for an article by Cory Doctorow discussing the conflicts between copyright law and modern culture, and arguing against the perception that copying media is still unusual. Quoting:
"Copyright law valorizes copying as a rare and noteworthy event. On the Internet, copying is automatic, massive, instantaneous, free, and constant. Clip a Dilbert cartoon and stick it on your office door and you're not violating copyright. Take a picture of your office door and put it on your homepage so that the same co-workers can see it, and you've violated copyright law, and since copyright law treats copying as such a rarified activity, it assesses penalties that run to the hundreds of thousands of dollars for each act of infringement. There's a word for all the stuff we do with creative works — all the conversing, retelling, singing, acting out, drawing, and thinking: we call it culture."
Yeah, they clearly spent $100 million on copyright clearances alone for Transformers.
The better argument is that if there is really a market for movies, someone will find a way to finance them, copyright or not (I'd risk a buck on the next Bourne movie, and I bet enough people would join me that it wouldn't be all that hard to put it together).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
If voters had a chance to vote on such, the penalties would be much shallower. There are three reasons they are so high: Lobbyists Lobbyists Lobbyists. Biz has too much influence over our politics and I hope the new administration does something about it. We risk not being classified as a democracy.
Table-ized A.I.
I'd risk a buck on the next Bourne movie, and I bet enough people would join me that it wouldn't be all that hard to put it together
Thats how movies should be financed.
Let the film companies raise the money for them by getting it from customers... giving money gives you the right to own that movie on whatever formats you choose.
If the film does well, it shouldn't be hard to raise more for a sequel but if they make it a pile of crap they wont earn as much next time.
It encourages studios to make good movies, not just churn out whatever remake/special effects shite they think will earn them the most.
Fund Bourne Film 4.. 10 million shares @ $10 each... all the profit gets split between the shareholders (with a percentage being held to help raise money for Bourne 5?)
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
I'll see that, and I raise you a "up until a short time ago, artists used to make most, if not all of their money through concerts".
Other laws make all sorts of distinctions based on motives and other conditionals. Often, it's conditionals just like the distinction you are drawing that matter.
The FBI for example, becomes involved in kidnappings of victims defined as 'of tender age' (usually 12 and under). Many people believe the Lindberg law requires a ransom be sought, or that the victim be transported across state lines. Instead, the law lets the FBI start gathering evidence without either condition, just in case there's a federal crime, and the agency is looking for motives such as ransom or interstate movement for immoral purposes. Some of these motives may make a given kidnapping a federal crime. But, if the FBI doesn't find evidence to support a federal crime, they are supposed to pass the case back to the state agencies, and just provide lab services, database help and such on request.
Shouldn't copyright laws do something along these lines - make a distinction between organized crime and individual violators, violation for profit and violation for ego-boost? It's not only penalties that don't seem to reflect these distinctions, it's also a question of which agencies become involved. And there are other results that would be affected by making the right distinctions, such as limiting how much taxpayer money should support the forensic processes in trivial cases. That's all what doesn't seem to be happening anymore.
Who is John Cabal?