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DMCA Exemptions Desired To Hack iPhones, Remix DVDs
An anonymous reader writes "For copyright activists, Christmas comes but once every three years: a chance to ask Santa for a new exemption to the much-hated Digital Millennium Copyright Act's prohibitions against hacking, reverse engineering and evasion of Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes protecting all kinds of digital works and electronic items. Judging from the list of 20 exemptions requested this year [19 shown], some in the cyber-law community are thinking big. The requests include the right to legally jailbreak iPhones in order to use third party software, university professors wishing to rip clips from DVDs for classroom use, YouTube users wishing to rip DVDs to make video mashups, a request to allow users to hack DRM protecting content from stores that have gone bankrupt or shut down, and a request to allow security researchers to reverse engineer video games with security flaws that put end-users at risk."
Reader MistaE provides some more specific links to PDF versions: "Among the exemption proposals is a request from the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic to allow circumvention of DRM protection when the central authorization server goes down, a request from the EFF to allow circumvention to install third party programs on phones, as well as a request for ripping DVDs for non-commercial purposes. There were also several narrow requests from educational institutions to rip DVDs for classroom practices."
Make DRM breaking illegal only when there is criminal intent, such as to share reproductions with others or to sell bootlegs...
I was under the impression that jailbreaking an iphone is not illegal (or at the most against their TOS not the DMCA), but Apple can do whatever they want to make it as difficult as possible.
Is this incorrect? Is what is being requested a requirement that Apple not block jailbreaking?
having the DMCA only apply when and if the person or persons infringing are intending to do so for a profit. That would make the DMCA a law I could get behind.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
Allowing professors the right to rip sections of movie's should be highly considered. I am currently in a class that uses movies primarily to show real life value to what is being taught in class. Sometimes watching a movie is the only way to get some concepts and topics across to the student. If reduced movie revenues and increased piracy are primary reasons for not allowing it, my response to that is that is I usually end up buying or renting a movie I watch in class if it was good. It is merely additional advertising if anything in my opinion. Why restrict our nation's youth to a potential increase of learning through the use of current media?
Is it too late for Psytar to file for an exemption? ~
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Make it legal, always, period.
There are already laws against the criminal things you've suggested. I really don't see why it should also be illegal to break DRM with the intention of doing that -- why should the intention matter at all? Maybe you broke it with the intention of watching it on your Mythbox, and later got the idea (independently) of using the cracked version for something criminal?
No, that's all needlessly vague and complex. If you want to make it hurt more to pirate stuff, change those laws -- which wasn't even a criminal offense until recently, but rather, a civil matter.
Think about that -- it is a federal crime to crack the DRM. It's merely a civil offense to redistribute the music. One goes on your record, the other doesn't. WTF?!
Tag says it all: justrepealit. Or, if you're going to ask for exemptions, don't ask for such pathetically small ones -- are iPhones mentioned specifically? Why can't I crack an iPod Touch, then?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Rocky hammered on his opponent, his fists writing a soliloquy of destruction on Apollo's face. Each blow was a finely crafted metaphor of pain. Shifting his focus to the abdomen, Rocky pummelled paragraph after paragraph up and down Apollo's ribcage. After finishing the body of his exposition, he topped it off with a climactic sentence to the jaw. Apollo went down for the count.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
add bypassing of hardware locks in software so people can BUY mac os x and run it on any system that they want. There also been other apps and that used other types of hardware lock in as well. Also add bypassing printer ink lock out chips used to keep 3rd party's out.
You should also have the right to add bigger hd's to game consoles / drvs and other devices that try sell you there own hd size upgrades at very high cost.
Smart phones also need to have the right to bypass any type of sim locks / network locks / even phone app network locks as well.
Is someone at least requesting it?
I suppose if we get an exception we could play both DVDs and BluRays on Linux.. legally. Well except for the codecs, but shh.
We need exemptions for any software used to do the same type of stuff form cars to printer ink.
If I put up a sign next to a shitty restaurant saying "Do not patronize restaurant X, the food is crap", that's my free speech right.
If a city puts in a new highway that means less people drive down a service road that was previously the highway, and a number of businesses don't get as much impulse "I think I'll stop there" business, they either adapt or move or die, they don't get recompense.
Nothing should be different with DRM. DRM is a method by which the companies try to infringe on the CONSUMER'S right to fair-use activities like space-shifting, nothing more. DRM itself should be illegal.
I'd want to expand on this one: "university professors wishing to rip clips from DVDs for classroom use"
Make it: "Allow home users to rip DVDs for personal use"
So if you rip the video off of the DVD to put it on your home media server, you're fine. If you rip a bunch of children's DVDs to compile a single DVD with your kid's favorite episodes, you're ok. Basically anything you do where the video doesn't leave your "personal zone" would be allowed. Things like sharing clips, classroom use, or YouTube mashups would be a separate exemption.
Then, perhaps, we could get set top boxes that would take DVDs in, rip them to an internal hard drive, and allow home users to choose from hundreds or thousands of movies without handling any discs. As any parent with little kids will tell you, you want to keep the discs away from kids' hands, but keep them in reach enough that you can access them quickly and easily. A set top box like this would be ideal.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Joey
Here you go. Now, I'll be checking up on you guys in a week and I expect to be impressed.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Do you want to do your job for free? Do you want to not get paid for any work you do? If not, then you support copyright restrictions. Because violation of copyright is exactly the same thing as hiring someone but not paying them.
I get paid when I work. I don't get paid today because I worked 4 years ago for one week, and people still benefit [sic] from what I did. Violation of copyright says "You did you job, good job. Now get over it and get BACK to work like the rest of mankind!" and not "I don't think you should get paid for what you do."
I have zero sympathy for those untalented hacks who spent a whole week in a recording studio and now want me to feed them, their whores, and their children for the rest of their pathetic lives. If they want to eat, they need to go out and win bread like the rest of us!
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Your logic is astounding.
Do you want to do your job for free?
Strawman.
Do you want to not get paid for any work you do?
Strawman.
If not, then you support copyright restrictions. Because violation of copyright is exactly the same thing as hiring someone but not paying them.
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
Yeah, why dig that ditch yourself when you can just copy the one that somebody else dug.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
You are getting / paying a copy of mac os x on each system. Dell and others per load images on there systems apple likely does the same thing as well.
I've had two situations in which I had a legally-obtained older version of software for which the provider had dropped support, which included dropping support for the DRM built into the products.
In one case, you had to call in, give them your product ID and get a DRM key. I wanted to move the product from an older machine to a newer one. I called in and they told me they had dropped support, including handling the DRM keys, and to buy their new product. The old product served my needs, and the new one had improvements that were useless to me. Luckily, one tech support person was nice and told me where I could find the DRM key value in the old installation, that I hadn't yet deleted. Had I needed to reinstall for any reason, I would have been stuck.
In another case the DRM required either an internet connection or printer access during installation. This was not explained in the installation instructions. I was installing software on a new machine and hadn't yet set up either internet or printer. With that (early) DRM, if you didn't go through the procedure at installation time, there was no opportunity to do it later. The provider later came out with other versions and dropped support for this version. I moved on to using a FOSS product, so I never tried to resolve the issue, but I have a useless copy of that particular software. It didn't set me back any cost, because I had won a copy of the product in a drawing at a trade show booth for people who sat through a demo of something.
If DRM support is dropped for a version of a product, it should be treated as an abandoned product, even if the DRM is maintained for later versions.
Agreed. I believe in Copyright only inasmuch as others shouldn't be able to claim they wrote something that I wrote (or created, more generally).
If Tom Clancy wrote a novel and some hack copied and republished it as his own, that should be wrong.
If however, I loan the book to a friend or cite a few paragraphs as an example of how he foresaw the future of warfare (or not), that should not be illegal.
It seems so common-sense, until the government lobbyists get involved.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I presume if you are watching clips in class, the professor has either a computer or a DVD player hooked to a large monitor or projector. Why not just cue up the particular discs? Especially with licensed DVD player software it's easy to jog forward to the clip necessary and the professor need only mark the time code on his notes to find the clips quickly. Nothing here is restricted, it's just less convenient and make take an additional 15-30 seconds of load time, during which the professor may be discussing the upcoming clip. It's easy enough to carry a portable case which holds 20, 30, or more DVDs for a lecture - certainly more than you could reasonably watch and discuss in a 50 or 75 minute standard lecture period. If it's a matter of worrying about moving the DVDs from case to lecture book and back, there are 3 ring binder sleeves which the professor could use to permanently place the DVD in his or her lecture binder. Sure, that might mean buying a second copy, but that's a small price when compared to what it would cost him to actually purchase the rights for his "public performance" he seems to do every class, even on an academic pricing scale. And what is the cost of 100 or so DVDs (say, $1500-$2000 at retail) for a lecture which is likely to generate over a hundred thousand dollars in tuition revenue (and/or state funds) for the university over the course of four or five years? You would cheat someone spending millions of dollars on content out of just 2% of your revenue stream for the sake of your convenience? Look at real estate agents - they get 6% of the sale of a home...they only want a small fraction of that, and as a one time fee. I've had graduate classes where the cost of the textbooks for the class (a 12 person lecture series) cost more than $2000.
Of course, that's a bunch of bullshit. But if you say it with a straight face and an "honest day's pay for an honest day's work" mannerism, it makes the MPAA sound like they're just looking to ensure that they are justly compensated for their work. And, sadly, many won't see through it.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I get paid when I work. I don't get paid today because I worked 4 years ago for one week, and people still benefit [sic] from what I did. Violation of copyright says "You did you job, good job. Now get over it and get BACK to work like the rest of mankind!" and not "I don't think you should get paid for what you do."
The problem with this logic is that without copyright protection in some form, it would be much harder to be a self-sufficient producer of original work whether that be writing, movies, etc. Without copyright, you could spend years working on a novel, and only sell a few copies, since someone could legally reproduce your novel, distribute it, and not give you a dime.
I think we need some form of copyright protection to encourage people to create, but I would agree that what we have now is protection that lasts too long and is a bit too onerous.
See, here's my problem: After Tom Clancy dies, he no longer benefits from sales. So why should it be illegal for some hack to copy and republish his book? As copyright stands today, if you live slightly longer than average, anything you write after you're 8 years old will be copyright until after you're dead. That's bullshit. Why should some company that didn't even _do_ anything continue to profit from someone else's work for so long? It should be illegal to copy and resell someone's work until they have had enough time to produce a new work. That's it. Most of the sales come in the first year or two anyway, so what the hell is the difference between a 10 year copyright and a 70 year copyright? And why the _hell_ should it be possible for my children or even _grandchildren_ to still be getting royalties off of something _I_ did?
I can understand the reason for getting paid royalties and having your own work copyrighted but I have no sympathy for the untalented hacks their children or whores are (whether they are corporate (Disney) or individual (Yoko Ono)) years after the original artist or group has ceased (benefitting from his work). I also have no sympathy for the hacks that are trying to profit from the same work MULTIPLE times from the same people.
There should be a limit that cannot be extended for work done and it shouldn't be 40 years after the artist has died, it should be given up as soon as the artist or the artists as a group can't benefit from it anymore (whether it be death of a member or split from their record label).
It should also be allowed for the buyers to reclaim their own copy of a work they bought rights to in different (new) formats. I paid for the song that I wanted to listen to and I don't want to become deprived of my product simply because the format they chose 20 years ago (like DAT tapes) didn't keep up with current technology both in terms of quality as well as portability. Asking me to buy a new media-version of the identical product is like asking me to pay off my car all over again simply because I changed the tires or part of the engine or asking me to lug around a portable turntable so I can listen to the White Album while working out.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Dude, Apollo Creed won.
Called the No Electronic Theft Act which makes non-fair use reproduction of copyrighted goods automatically a federal criminal offense? In other words, you're free to share a copy of a history program with your department at college. You share a copy of the latest DVD with your neighbor back home, you've just put yourself in line to have broken the NET Act.
I have found a number of places where people have exaggerated the effect of DRM on their use cases far beyond reality. Others have quoted officers of corporations who were clearly lying about the reasons they made business decisions to restrict access, and attempting to direct the blame to other companies. I wish people wouldn't do this, because these errors of fact are clear to anyone with a reasonable familiarity with the situation, and cast any argument against DRM... even the many many valid ones... into disrepute.
I would like to request this exemption: Let me do what I want with the things I paid for.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
If you cannot sell the rights of your book, you might as well die out of starvation.
So, to make you able to sell your book, it must have some value to the buyer.
The buyer needs some kind of assurance that the book is still valuable after you suddenly die out of a car accident.
Also, most people (not all) feel it incentive that their children or grandchildren benefit from their work. If writing books is not working this way, but earning money by dish washing is, most people would give up on writing books in favour of washing dishes.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
But see, your child doesn't get paid because you washed dishes. Your child gets paid because you save money and give it to them. Same can be said of writing books.
Copyright isn't supposed to protect the publishers, it's supposed to protect the artists. If you happen to die of a car accident...well, that sucks, but you don't need the money, and I doubt the publisher does either. It'd just be an additional risk of business. Though honestly I don't think copyright should expire when the artist dies - it just shouldn't last so long that it's virtually guaranteed that the artist will die long before the copyright expires. Perhaps 10 years? Long enough the publisher and artist will most likely get the same amount of money.
I agree with the 10 year limit, in general, but I fear that the actual quality of the content being produced would go way down. You see, since they can't reset the clock by extending the original copyright, they will simply produce and push a new work every ten years. Quantity will go way up, but eventually everything will begin to resemble reality tv.
Among the exemption proposals is a request from the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic to allow circumvention of DRM protection when the central authorization server goes down
Which first lists Circuit City's Digital Video Express (DIVX) disks under "DRM-based Stores Have Failed In the Past":
I hope it includes allowing for the authorization of my lawfully purchased copy of DVD X Copy Gold which I didn't get activated before the company was served with a cease-and-desist. That would be sweet irony.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Because Code is Law?
</lessig>
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
most people would give up on writing books in favour of washing dishes.
In other news, dishwashing is a way more popular career than book-writing.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
They're proposal is very similar to one I made here and at Content Agenda (it's the last comment on the page) a month or two back. Their proposal seems much more detailed.
I would've sworn that I submitted my version to copyright.gov, and got a confirmation, but I can't find any evidence of it now. Hopefully, it will be considered as an additional vote for this version.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
When was the last piece of commercially produced culture you saw that you honestly believe will continue to have cultural relevance after a decade or 2?
I mean, I agree entirely that the content industries are producing more, faster, worse content than ever before, but I don't think copyright terms really have a bearing on that fact. I'd say it has more to do with the fact that:
a) it's cheap to produce
b) financial turnaround for such productions happens within a year or three in 99% of cases
c) they've taught all our kids to have ADD.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Mickey Mouse
Chronicles of Narnia
Lord of the Rings
etc, etc, etc
It isn't common, but it happens.
OK, fair enough. What about the other 99% of artists, who do spend more than a week in the recording studio (or on location at a film, or in their studio painting, etc), or who some consider to be talented, or who can't get anywhere near the equivalent income from selling their art as any other skilled person? Do you have sympathy for them? Or do you lump all artists into that extremely tiny subcategory just to make yourself feel better when you rip them off?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
> but that makes too much sense!
Unfortunately, you're quite right. Under their interpretation of the law, they have all kinds of crazy statutory restrictions on what they can grant.
And they'll only grant you powers with respect to a particular class of works (e.g. audio-visual works on CD) not something nice and broad like "any copyrighted work." There's also crap about access restrictions vs. use restrictions and other stuff I don't even remember.
Long story short, the EFF all but gave up on asking for more restrictions a long time ago because it's a complete waste of time. At best, we get small victories like the ability to figure out what sites censorware blocks (though that one may have expired?) or the one we got last time to get rid of the Sony DRM rootkit.
In case you're wondering, I know this because I was one of many people who requested that anti-Sony exception that they ultimately granted. Though I think that the other people did more good than me, because the replies pretty much ignored me. Even so, I only sent it in to show them that random private citizens care enough about it that they should get their butts in gear.
They're rhetorical questions, not strawmen. The idea is that you answer an emphatic "no" to the both questions (obviously), and then the last ties it back copyright infringement. He's not misrepresenting someone else's argument, he's merely creating his own.
Sure it's technically fallacious, but he's most of the way there to a decent argument. What he missed was the premise that if you want to be paid for your work, then you want the same for everyone else. It's true that you may well be an asshole, and want just yourself to be paid, and you could give a flying Foxtrot if anyone else gets paid for their work.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The anti-circumvention clauses of the DMCA should be trashed altogether. The only reason they are there is to "guarantee" profit for big corporations, at the expense of innovation and even research.
Anti-circumvention regulations have a chilling effect on education and small business, and form a defacto barrier to entry to competition in important areas of technology. Further, it drives business and innovation to take place in other nations that do not have such regulations.
Like the encryption export regulations of old, these need to go away. Completely.
You make an EXCELLENT point, one that I'd like to amplify.
I keep odd hours and like the History and Science channels. In the very early morning hours, there are short shows specifically called out for classroom use. HERE'S THE KICKER: At the end, there's a statement to teachers recording the info for classroom playback that copyright restrictions require them to erase and not use the given program after some certain date. From my memory, it is a VERY short time span.
No way do I believe that this has anything to do with updating current research or anything else kind-minded - it's just a pointless restriction.
Another amplification - what do film and music students get stuck with because of these restrictions????
PLEASE MOD PARENT UP.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
The problem with this logic is that without copyright protection in some form, it would be much harder to be a self-sufficient producer of original work whether that be writing, movies, etc.
your utterly specious argument is debunked by:
programmers
web developers
architects
graphic designers
garage, small time local, cult, and underground bands
every "new sound" that's ever arisen (how long before rap was "acceptable" to established labels?)
Without copyright, you could spend years working on a novel, and only sell a few copies, since someone could legally reproduce your novel, distribute it, and not give you a dime.
restrict copyright only to commercial production and that ceases to be an issue. This is done quite nicely with the print media example, as it's expensive for both the reproduction and enforcement sides. With audio-visual it's much more lopsided.
But, once again, if not getting paid stops you from writing a book (in your spare time if necessary) then I question whether it's a book worth reading.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Would any of these projects have been scrapped if the producers knew they'd only get to collect the first 10 years' worth of commercial revenue?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
OK, fair enough. What about the other 99% of artists, who do spend more than a week in the recording studio (or on location at a film, or in their studio painting, etc), or who some consider to be talented, or who can't get anywhere near the equivalent income from selling their art as any other skilled person? Do you have sympathy for them? Or do you lump all artists into that extremely tiny subcategory just to make yourself feel better when you rip them off?
Show me one of those who buys laws every few years to deprive the public of more and more rights
Show me one of those who abuses the DMCA like a cudgel against everything that moves
Show me one of those who houses an army of lawyers in his basement with which to launch horribly asymmetric attacks against defenseless individuals often on the edge of poverty.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
They're rhetorical questions, not strawmen. The idea is that you answer an emphatic "no" to the both questions (obviously), and then the last ties it back copyright infringement. He's not misrepresenting someone else's argument, he's merely creating his own.
The fact it's rhetorical doesn't change the fact it's a straw man. Its a fallacy so obviously misrepresentative as to be absurd.
Being paid for your work is not the same as being paid in perpetuity for work you once did.
Sure it's technically fallacious, but he's most of the way there to a decent argument. What he missed was the premise that if you want to be paid for your work, then you want the same for everyone else. It's true that you may well be an asshole, and want just yourself to be paid, and you could give a flying Foxtrot if anyone else gets paid for their work.
The disconnect in the fallacy is not the implied idea that everyone should be paid for their work, it's the equation of (not) paying someone for their work with paying someone forever for work they did.
The question I'd suggest to ask GGP is:
"So, when I spend a day flipping burgers, I should then, until 70 years after I die, be paid whenever someone eats a burger from that establishment?"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
OK, fair enough. What about the other 99% of artists, who do spend more than a week in the recording studio (or on location at a film, or in their studio painting, etc), or who some consider to be talented, or who can't get anywhere near the equivalent income from selling their art as any other skilled person?
Touring, selling t-shirts and stickers on their website, and having day jobs if they're not making enough money off their hobbies... like the rest of us do. I live and work in Los Angeles, and so I have friends (the kind who actually consider ME their friend) who range from small time entertainment to international superstars that are used to seeing their faces on the front of tabloids. I'm not so detached from the industry that I'm unaware at how a change like this would affect them personally, and I tell them the same thing. "No such thing as a free ride." It keeps them in the black for now, and when their draconian royalties payment system catches up with the rest of the world's economic flow, they probably won't be left to starve.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
You wrote the words, but you still don't seem to grasp the meaning: you get paid WHEN YOU WORK. People/corporations who are producing copyrighted materials are NOT getting paid when they work, they get paid in the future, when the works are actually sold. You unilaterally deciding that they don't need to get paid is no different than you picking up your paycheck and finding your employer decided that Wednesday was work-for-free day.
If you don't like this system, change it. Go out and hire some musicians to create a new, unseen, unheard work. Negotiate a fair price. Pay them up front. Pay all of the expenses up front. Since this is now a work-for-hire, you get to keep the copyright. When they finish the work, give it away for free. See how long you can sustain that.
If you have zero sympathy for the 'untalented hacks', why do you want their music? If some musician is truly untalented and/or produces a bad work, don't buy it, but don't just take it either.
What are you talking about? Every one of those jobs gets the exact same copyright protections that also apply to musicians, etc. And certainly the bulk of people in those fields are doing it to get paid. What exactly are you claiming is debunked? How many students would select computer science, architecture, graphic design, etc if there was no opportunity to be paid for doing that work?
The EFF requested an exemption for "audiovisual works on DVD, where circumvention is undertaken solely for the purpose of extracting clips for inclusion in noncommercial videos that do not infringe copyright."
I proposed an exemption for "motion pictures protected by anti-access measures, such that access to the motion picture content requires use of a certain platform." This was targeted at the inability of Linux users to legally watch DVDs on Linux: no legal DVD player exists for most Linux distributions. I argued that converting DVDs to video files for personal viewing was fair use, and that the anticircumvention rule harmed consumers' ability to use their legally purchased media. I also argued that it harmed Linux developers, who cannot compete with Windows and Mac OS X on fair ground. This is because DVD players cannot be included with any Linux distribution that is free to download (for royalty reasons), and the appeal of Linux to ordinary users suffers commensurately. Without this exemption, the DMCA favors major incumbent operating systems, and thwarts the possibility for a disruptive and innovative technology like Linux to enter the market.
I thoroughly doubt that this exemption would be granted, but I will be interested to read the Register's response.
Mark Rizik
Of course you, as a burger flipper, would not continue being paid. You took no risk. You went to work for a day and got paid for it. Even if no-one came in and bought one of your flipped burgers you still got paid. However, the guy who took the risk (the business owner) WILL still be being paid every time someone eats a burger in that establishment (and I mean profit, not just the marginal cost). As long as there is a demand for his burgers, he gets paid. When he dies, the business goes to whoever is in his will and THEY get paid for every burger, and there is no artificial time limit on how long that can go on.
Now, if your contract with the guy was 'flip burgers for free for a year, and I will give you 10% of the profits for the next 70 years', then yes, I suppose you would still be expecting to get paid all those years later. And you would probably (hopefully) expect that if you died before that time your heirs would continue to receive YOUR MONEY.
So what is to prevent some other band, which doesn't have to worry about things like taking time to write songs, from performing the exact same show and reducing their ability to sell tickets? And unless I am very mistaken, the images on t-shirts and stickers are protected by the very same copyright laws, so surely downloading those images and making your own t-shirts and stickers is perfectly acceptable, so why would anyone go to their website to buy them?
No they dont.
Do you get to charge license fees in perpetuity for the lines of code you write for your employer? If you do they're morons, because that's not standard.
architects don't either.. they're paid hourly or salary
same for graphic designers
local bands are paid by the gig and for merchandise by fans
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Now it's risk is it?
My uncle, who is a doctor, took the risk of launching his own practice.
I guess he should be paid in perpetuity by every one of his patients until his grandson is 40.
Risk does not "entitle" you to be compensated for work you have long since ceased doing.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Yes, they do, just indirectly. Obviously I do not get to charge license fees for things I wrote for my employer. They paid me to write those things. Even if my code is total crap and never sees the light of day, I was still paid. My employer, on the other hand, does get to collect license fees for the things I wrote. And I am pretty sure I (and many, many others) would not have a job if my employer could not charge fees for things I wrote. So the only reason I have a job is because my employer can make money selling the things I wrote, and the only reason they can make money selling it is because copyright laws protect the work.
The same is true of architects and graphic designers.
The only one of your examples that is accurate is the local band. And most 'local bands' are local bands simply because they are not good enough to be more than that. So those bands are doing it for the fun of it, not to make a living. The same is not true of the other professions.
No its not, I did not hire any of the people who's content I download from bittorrent.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
When your uncle gave up his practice, did the entire value of it just vanish into thin air, or did he sell the practice to some other doctors? Most likely, unless he was a bad business man (or he let the value of the practice run down to nothing), he sold the practice, in which case yes, he was still profiting from all those years, and the risk he took those years ago.
And when did anyone, anywhere, suggest being paid for things that happened in the past? When you buy a song you are not paying because the artist wrote it, you are paying because you want to hear it. That is now, not in the past. The contract society has made with content creators is that we pay when we use the content, not when it is created.
I agree, though copyright in the sense of attribution should be perpetual(you can publish my book but you can't claim credit for it without making substantial modifications), and that some provision has to be taken into account for ideas which are not immediately marketable(if you can't find a publisher for 5 years your books is already worth half as much, which isn't really right).
I'll agree to the first part. As to the second - I highly doubt your book is worth half as much. The majority of the sales will probably come within those first 5 years. Besides, you've had 5 years to create a new work...and if you can't sell the rights within 5 years, then it's apparently not worth much in the first place.
But how do you know? Mac OS installers are not serialised. They could just be selling the one copy over and over again, and just telling you that you are buying your own copy.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I'm pretty sure JRR Tolkien didn't get any of the money from the movie anyway, despite Copyright and his successors.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
that would be the entire point.
You seem to be displaying exactly the kind of cynicism I'm concerned about.
Do you really think some of those exemption papers were written deliberately with the intent of derailing the efforts to fight the wildfire growth of DRM technologies?
Well, if copyright ceased at death, then killing artists would be even more in the interest of business. That is not good for the artists.
I dislike copyrights for most things, and I think a good compromise would be reasonable fixed terms, like 10 years after it becomes public, and only if you register it.
Right now there is no need for editorials to do the actual publishing. The only services they provide is promotion and distribution, actual publishing is cheap enough right now for authors to publish themselves.
And if you get a box with each system then how are they pulling it off?
People/corporations who are producing copyrighted materials are NOT getting paid when they work, they get paid in the future, when the works are actually sold.
They're paid for their distribution and investment.
You unilaterally deciding that they don't need to get paid is no different than you picking up your paycheck and finding your employer decided that Wednesday was work-for-free day.
The record companies do NOT work for me. If they cannot deliver a product to me in a better way than their competitors, they do not deserve my money any more than their competitors do. I cannot be sued by Burger King because I prefer eating at McDonalds unless I am sponsored by Burger King to eat only at Burger King.
If you don't like this system, change it. Go out and hire some musicians to create a new, unseen, unheard work. Negotiate a fair price. Pay them up front. Pay all of the expenses up front. Since this is now a work-for-hire, you get to keep the copyright. When they finish the work, give it away for free. See how long you can sustain that.
Do you work for the RIAA? Can you not see the train of progress rolling by without you aboard? The old ways are dying. The model of extorted distribution is completely obsolete. People don't HAVE to pay $20.00 for a $0.15 CD to listen to the music they want to hear anymore. Music is not dead, but its distribution model is -- it just hasn't noticed yet. Like the typewriter manufacturers had to do when the computer became popular, they need to either abandon their current business practices or radically change them to a new, profitable, beneficial-to-society model. Simply because the recording industry isn't made up of small businesses doesn't mean it's immune to failure if they lose their market niche.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
My uncle IS a doctor, not "was". he still practices, and he now runs, if I remember correctly, 8 clinics.
And when did anyone, anywhere, suggest being paid for things that happened in the past?
persons like yourself who claim artists should be paid for their work.
When you buy a song you are not paying because the artist wrote it, you are paying because you want to hear it. That is now, not in the past.
Did they work to create that extra copy? I contend they did not, because I can click an icon, click 3 more times, and it have 4 copies of the file. Copying is not work.
The contract society has made with content creators is that we pay when we use the content, not when it is created.
that contract was made before the internet came along, and most importantly it was made for limited times and with much more limited scope.
Since then, the powerful publishing interests which have emerged from this contract have been altering it against "our" (the public's) interest for almost a century now.
At this point, it's no longer even about just controlling distribution, it's about ruling the god damn world by proxy through the DMCA. Let me know when ford can demand full regulatory control of all roads and businesses accessible through their vehicles.
The denial of free speech rights, the slow strangulation of the greatest technological advancement since the steam engine, and the pillaging and extortion of tens of thousands of defenseless people, among many other things, were not part of this contract.
They breached it first, they shot first, and just like japan, they have awakened the sleeping giant.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I didn't say it was perfect, I just said there was probably some more thought required to go into that sort of thing because sometimes it takes a while to get yourself out there in the first place, and as books can take quite some time to write you'd have to sort out exactly where the copyright started from if you were looking at a really short period.
Alright, sure. But 70 years? No. 10 would be good. Or even 20. Hell, I could tolerate 30. But 70??? That's just obscene. And we're talking about books, which I would imagine are one of the more difficult to produce works covered under copyright law. Why do you need a 70 year copyright on music, when your band puts out a new album every two years? Makes no sense.
By copying the packaging? It's almost as easy as copying discs.
... and then they built the supercollider.