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RIAA's Oppenheim Tries To Protect MediaSentry
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's 'Prince of Darkness,' Washington DC lawyer Matthew Jan Oppenheim of The Oppenheim Group, who controls and supervises all of the RIAA litigations against ordinary folks, has requested permission to intervene in the 'probable cause' hearing scheduled next week in Raleigh, North Carolina, against MediaSentry. The hearing was convened by North Carolina's Private Protective Services Board, after complaints were filed by a law firm representing a number of North Carolina State University students who had been targeted by the RIAA based on the unlicensed 'investigation' conducted by SafeNet (the new name for MediaSentry). I guess the RIAA is worried. They should be."
Fuck them and what the stand for. Legally sanctioned oppression. Fuck em.
"The RIAA's 'Prince of Darkness,' Washington DC lawyer Matthew Jan Oppenheim..."
How lang has he been Prince of Darkness? I bet not since 1979!
-- Cheers!
Could someone please introduce Ray Beckerman to a decent CMS and donate some design work so his site doesn't hurt the eyes?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
So he's also the Prince of Darkness? Maybe Vivendi can get him to do another gut wrenching WoW commercial!
I am become death destroyer of digital rights
Oh wait, I thought you said Oppenheimer.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I am become death destroyer of digital rights.
The whole Prince of Darkness bit reminded me of this:
Thus he came alone to Angband's gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And Morgoth came.
That was the last time in those wars that he passed the doors of his stronghold, and it is said that he took not the challenge willingly; for though his might was greatest of all things in this world, alone of the Valar he knew fear. But he could not now deny the challenge before the face of his captains; for the rocks rang with the shrill music of Fingolfin's horn, and his voice came keen and clear down into the depths of Angband; and Fingolfin named Morgoth craven, and lord of slaves. Therefore Morgoth came, climbing slowly from his subterranean throne, and the rumour of his feet was like thunder underground. And he issued forth clad in black armour; and he stood before the King like a tower, iron-crowned, and his vast shield, sable unblazoned, cast a shadow over him like a stormcloud. But Fingolfin gleamed beneath it as a star; for his mail was overlaid with silver, and his blue shield was set with crystals; and he drew his sword Ringil, that glittered like ice.
Possibly a bit too poetic, and we're hoping Robertson does better than Fingolfin...but it's the first thing that popped into my head.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
As the internet matures more and more, questionable legal methods are only going to get more and more defined. Remember in the bad old days (7-8 years ago) when there were legal threats being brought for things like "deep linking"? Back when the technology was new (compared to the legal system's understanding of it) I can see where the RIAA might have been able to strongarm people just by saying "we know you're doing it" but that's getting harder and harder to do. Thank heavens for progress.
and who knows how many ads. I'm all for you pal, but I'm not going to look at them.
this has been a logical flaw in the 'the artists must get paid' argument.
I just bought some used cd's from amazon. some are sold from stores, some from net-only businesses and some from regular old individuals.
in NO case (that I'm aware of) is anyone required to pay any additional amount to any artist or association. yet used cd (and book) sales on amazon are 100% legal.
how come downloading bits on the net (which causes no revenue to return to riaa or artists) is 'illegal' yet used media sales are legal?
I'll even go further than that - lets talk about libraries and how they loan out (for free) books and also cd's.
with all this non-money media stuff changing hands, how come riaa isn't bothering the used sellers and libraries?
answer: their arguments about 'stealing' are less than paper thin...
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Also an Oppenheim(er). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer
-- http://ninthagenda.com/
I use PeerGuardian to help protect MediaSentry from accidentally downloading any potentially copyrighted works from me. I'd feel awful if they inadvertently came into possession of illegal data on account of my negligence. Suppose I mis-named something that I copyrighted? I'd cry if I were forced to sue the fuck out of them for casual infringement.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
It seems, that in the above post, the Euro sign was eaten by Slashdot's outdated, non-Unicode-compatible system.
It's 50€ and 400€. And this time I'll preview and use €. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The only thing that he's asked for is the (entirely reasonable, IMHO) chance to give specific testimony because he believes that the complaint is factually incorrect. Given his history of prevarication, I don't believe his claims but I cannot fathom why anyone would deny him the right to go in front of the board and say his piece. It's not like the board will somehow be in a worse position to sanction MediaSentry/SafeNet for whatever violations they have committed.
To me this is basically a non-story. Aside from the involvement of the RIAA, you could reduce it to:
Corporation asks to give testimony in regulatory hearing that directly impacts its business. Truly shocking.
Im sure they would love to ban used CD sales ( books and movies by their respective cartels ).
Libraries i think are safe as that would be a real tough sell, even with their purchased legislatures.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The RIAA's 'Prince of Darkness,' Washington DC lawyer Matthew Jan Oppenheim of The Oppenheim Group, who controls and supervises all of the RIAA litigations against ordinary folks...
Satan called, he wants his good name back.
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
Framing an argument this way all but guarantees the desired - Pavlovian - response.
Yep, because the slashdot crowd assuredly has a ton of faith in Satan.
Look it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Sale_Doctrine
Musicians and artists aren't allowed to *patent* their work. The software industry needs to make an executive decision as to which they really are, is it creative art like writing and making purty pictures or singing, protected by copyright, or is it some sort of digital structural engineering protected by patents. Oh look, for some reason you get *both* Isn't that just special. Either way, show us your warranties for your patented engineering "products". Oh, you don't have them, because it would be "impossible" and "too hard". You want more revenue and be treated with more respect? Then the software industry needs to step up to the plate and offer the public code that isn't perpetual beta ware with no warranties. How many billions a year lost to the general economy because of crap code? How many millions of manhours lost because code simply doesn't work as advertised and ships with hundreds of bugs and exploitable holes? Hell's bells, they make beauticians at least get a license to sell their service, they have to be able to show at least some competence and they are liable for screwing up, software for the most part doesn't even have to make that lowball standard, yet for some reason the "software artists" involved in it think they are all worth a hundred grand and up a year, plus "residuals" for unlimited digital copies.
Enjoy your snakeoil profits while it lasts, within one generation it will be back down to entry level data entry clerk wages. There are hundreds of millions of new coders coming out in the next decade, all over the planet, in areas where ten dollars a day means you are quite well off....your skills won't be that rare anymore.
What we know is that Media Sentry used very shaky methods to insinuate that some people committed copyright infringement. Then they used this incredibly shaky evidence to cajole the courts into doing their work for them. This is wrong. Very wrong.
While I completely agree that their methods are abhorrent, I'm left wondering what legal means the RIAA had of pursuing their case. The fact is that wanton copyright infringement is occurring. As copyright holders, the RIAA does in fact have the right to go after the infringers. Their methods under the guise of Media Sentry are obviously less than ideal (both morally and legally), so what *should* they have done? Getting a PI license is obvious, but the evidence gained this way is still shaky. Getting warrants for each and every individual infringer? Probably, but as I understand it, the evidence necessary to justify a warrant needs to be a little more significant than just a name attached to an IP address. I suppose they could pay ISPs to monitor their traffic and get the same results they did with Media Sentry, but can ISPs legally monitor their own traffic that way (and report the results to a third party)?
I'm not trying to be an RIAA apologist. I'm just wondering if there's any course of action they could taken whereby their IP was protected and they weren't demonized by all of us.
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
You have an awesome User ID number.
Anyone know what these posts are about? I've been seeing em more and more. Are the interwebs talking to us?
Framing an argument this way all but guarantees the desired - Pavlovian - response.
Yep, because the slashdot crowd assuredly has a ton of faith in Satan.
I'm not sure that faith is the right word, exactly.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Anyone know what these posts are about? I've been seeing em more and more. Are the interwebs talking to us?
Yes, most people don't realize it, but this is all Cisco's vault. Their routers have had the potential to act as a neural net for some time now: the Internet became fully self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th, 1997. We just haven't realized it yet.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Probably the only thing left is to lobby congress to change the law in some way to make it practical to go after people, e.g. requiring ISPs and colleges to be responsible for enough monitoring to identify people for real. I'm not happy at the thought of this, but you ask for courses of action, and that's a likely one.
Just because you really like a guy (and I like NewYorkCountryLawyer too -- his work is invaluable) does not mean that "Why thank you" is Insightful in any way. Seriously mods, go find something else to masturbate to. He's a wonderful guy, no one is disputing that, but when he takes a shit it still stinks and he cannot walk on water. The definitions of clearly-worded guidelines, such as the moderation guidelines, don't change because it would suit your personal feelings. To pretend otherwise is utterly childish.
They can use the same method that hundreds of thousands of renters use when their landlords illegally keep $50 or $100 of their cleaning deposit. They either take a legal route that costs more to prosecute than it is worth, or they write it off as the inevitable screwing that you get when you are dealing with values too low to warrant a lawyer.
The unfortunate reality is that in the real world, there are billions of illegal things that are a financial loss every year that the victims have no recourse on because the cost of the legal system is more than the value of what they lost. I see no reason that the RIAA should have any extra privileges above what the population has.
And this is only if you even think that copyright as it now stands is valid (morally), which is certainly a debatable subject.
The fact is that wanton copyright infringement is occurring. As copyright holders, the RIAA does in fact have the right to go after the infringers.
Yes, they do. I don't think that we'd have had a problem with them if they followed the rules of the game. The problem is that they keep changing the rules in their favor to make money.
The U.S. Constitution empowered Congress to enact copyright laws, and in 1790 they did. The original copyright term was 14 years with the right to renew for an additional 14 year term. So, at most, 28 years.
But in the last 200 years, the copyright has been extended 5 or 6 times to a point where it's flat-out ridiculous. Most artists who create a song (under the current terms) will be dead before their works enter the public domain.
Copyright is, in modern times, basically meant to protect content creators' works so they can exclusively make money from those works. This would ostensibly allow people in creative industries like writing, composing, etc. can have a livelihood since they do not produce tangible goods like machinists, farmers, etc. It's supposed to encourage content creators to create new works for the greater public good.
But they don't. Sure, people write new books and make new songs, but the incentive isn't really there anymore. Most copyrights nowadays are held by corporations, not people. I personally believe that this is one of the factors that contributed to the emerging anti-copyright movement (copyleft, creative commons, etc.)
For copyright to reform, changes need to be made. One day the system may be functionally obsolete if people continue to give up their copyrights as it, and its enforcers, is being viewed as a less palatable scheme more and more over time. A good start, in my opinion, would be:
1) Bring down copyright back to reasonable terms - something like 5-10 years. How often do books/music/etc. make money after the first few years? Certainly not enough to justify such a long copyright.
2) Make it so only people - not corporations - can hold copyrights. Copyright cartels literally sit on their duffs getting fat off of royalties and trying to protect that money. It's the very definition of protection money and most of the time it doesn't even go to the artists themselves anyway.
3) Make fines in the case of restitution more reasonable. A fine of hundreds of dollars for a song that can be bought for $0.99 is patently ridiculous. Restitution on fair market value with a 200%-300% penalty would be more than fair enough to make up any money lost.
Ultimately, reforms like these will help unclog the courts and make it much more likely that money actually gets into the artist's hands - where it's intended. The RIAA is necessary in some ways - like a union for artists. But rather than working for the artists, the artists work for them. Put the power back in the hands of the creators.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
If a new disruptive technology makes your old business model obsolete, and if you've exhausted all your current *legal* options, then you change your business model (or you go look for another job in a different field). You don't start taking illegal action, because you *feel* you deserve to. Two wrongs certainly don't make a right.
I'm just wondering if there's any course of action they could taken whereby their IP was protected and they weren't demonized...
Of course there are many. But for that they would have had to hire
(a) competent technology people and
(b) honest lawyers,
(c) at a tiny fraction of the cost.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
First, it's not a decided fact that there is rampant copyright infringement. Copying for personal use may or may not be infringement depending on your jurisdiction (where I am, for example, it's explicitly allowed.)
Second, what the RIAA should be doing is performing real investigations (instead of just pulling IP addresses seemingly at random), going after the alleged infringers individually (instead of trying to join hundreds of unrelated people) and not treating the court system like a revenue center.
For the obligatory car analogy, it's like traffic laws being enforced by private companies, someone pulls you over, and says "oh, here's your ticket for $3500.00 for failing to stop at a stop sign. You can call our dispatch to arrange payment options." You say "I stopped at the sign - I am 100% certain." The cop says "well, you can try to fight it in court, but it's your word against mine, and if you lose, that $3500 will turn into millions of dollars, plus the two years in legal fees it will cost even if you win."
If you ask "well, what should the cops be doing?" the answer is pretty obvious: they should be presenting evidence of infringement, and giving people a fair chance to defend themselves.
The answer is the same for the RIAA.
First, it's not a decided fact that there is rampant copyright infringement. Copying for personal use may or may not be infringement depending on your jurisdiction (where I am, for example, it's explicitly allowed.) Second, what the RIAA should be doing is performing real investigations (instead of just pulling IP addresses seemingly at random), going after the alleged infringers individually (instead of trying to join hundreds of unrelated people) and not treating the court system like a revenue center. For the obligatory car analogy, it's like traffic laws being enforced by private companies, someone pulls you over, and says "oh, here's your ticket for $3500.00 for failing to stop at a stop sign. You can call our dispatch to arrange payment options." You say "I stopped at the sign - I am 100% certain." The cop says "well, you can try to fight it in court, but it's your word against mine, and if you lose, that $3500 will turn into millions of dollars, plus the two years in legal fees it will cost even if you win." If you ask "well, what should the cops be doing?" the answer is pretty obvious: they should be presenting evidence of infringement, and giving people a fair chance to defend themselves. The answer is the same for the RIAA.
Wow, what a fair and reasonable approach. The RIAA would never buy it.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
This is one of the most sane statements I've read/heard regarding copyright in the USA for a very long time.
On the matter of restitution, the claim that making available is tantamount to multiple infringements is one of the most ridiculous tactics of the **AA. If they are allowed to carry on with such behavior and definitions, it will be dangerous to all users of the internet.
Content is not a commodity under copyright, it is a property. The **AA have been treating it as a commodity and that violates the principles and intent of copyright law. Congress was given the ability to establish protections for content CREATORS, not commodity brokers.
In addition to what you have said, I suggest that one of the tests applied to any legal action against copyright infringement is that the plaintiff show just cause AND that they are indeed directly protecting the content creator and not just some revenue stream. If the copyright holder is not a citizen, there can be no case without extreme evidence of egregious infringement. Yes, that would make it difficult for corporations to defend their copyrights.... damn right it would.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
zappepcs.... just wanted to thank you for that signature. Can't believe you did that. I am awe struck.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
spoof it all over media sentry's logs
have him sued for piracy
lock him the same cell as the somali pirates
same thing, right? right?
arrrr
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
While I completely agree that their methods are abhorrent, I'm left wondering what legal means the RIAA had of pursuing their case. The fact is that wanton copyright infringement is occurring. As copyright holders, the RIAA does in fact have the right to go after the infringers. Their methods under the guise of Media Sentry are obviously less than ideal (both morally and legally), so what *should* they have done?
I'm just wondering if there's any course of action they could taken whereby their IP was protected and they weren't demonized by all of us.
Well, no. I think the upshot of much of the copyright discussion in the geek world for the past several years has been, there is NO way to enforce copyrights to the RIAA's satisfaction in the 21st century.
But part of the problem is, there's also no *reason* to. What the RIAA has failed to realize is that their problem is DEMAND. People *want* their product, in a given form. If it was easier to get for pay than for free, heck yeah people would do it, and DO do it.
If it was easier to put $20 on an account with RIAA's website, and then download songs from their catalog as the mood strikes you, in an unfettered format, they'd rake it in. Soooo many people would be far more willing to do that than to install a program, search for the song, hope it's REALLY the song and not some malware... yadda yadda.
Many of the songs that people are trading aren't even for sale, anywhere. What's ridiculous is that there *is* a demand for them, and it would be dead easy to supply it.
Once upon a time, recording equipment was awesomely expensive, media was delicate, and reproduction was a professional job. That made the business model easy. That has all changed, and this scares the crap out of the RIAA, but it shouldn't... it's made their job easier. However, it's also made it easier for someone else to do it. And that's exactly what's happening... as iTunes etc. take over the music market.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Ray, don't be awestruck. That would kind of weird out those of us who are awestruck by you and your work :-)
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I was in the middle of reading the deposition record of Dr. Jacobsen when I saw this. I did not know about this part.
Man... are they digging their own graves? Or is the system so corrupt that even this will fly?
cross between jury and furry
(a) competent technology people = Slashdot = Check ... DOH!
(b) honest lawyer = Ray Beckerman = Check
(c) at a tiny fraction of the cost
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
But is he as good as Nicolae Carpathia?
I'd quote but that would anger the powers that watch for such things.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
So *are* you?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Suppose I did decide to donate 50 Euro * (Exchange Rate), Ray.
Would you take him up on his offer, or do you like "going it alone"?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I'd still rather buy monogrammed pens from you. Did anything ever come of that? I'm a senile avian and forgot.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
What would happen if Law meets micropayments?
(On Blog)
"Farnsworth bought an objection to insufficient evidence from prosecution expert."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Thank you for submitting a patch to his post.
The rest of it was fine. Welcome to Open Source.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
But is it legal?
Besides the "We say it's legal" bit, the **AA strongarmed so many protections for themselves I don't know.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Step 1: Accept Visa/Mastercard payments for purchased songs.
Step 2: Q. How do I receive money from songs that I sell?
Immediately after someone has purchased your music, bopaboo transfers 80% of the selling price into your bopaBank. You can use your new found money to buy more of your favorite music on bopaboo.
Step 3: Profit!
(it does not mention ability to cash out a bopabank balance)
Excellent logic, here in Autralia anything less than $50 is too small even for the small claims tribunal.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
but that's for their lawyers to figure out, right now they are not acting ethically in the courts. What the RIAA is doing is every bit as "liberal" as other groups that have used the courts to rewrite laws for their agenda.
The shell companies set up to rat out infringers are every bit as illegal as the Pirate Bay, but like Napster, somebody just has to get the right "hooks" to get them shut down. They've been careful to keep the search company and the lawyers separate, even though they're both acting under the same direction. It would be fun to see the whole thing unravel in discovery, we just need one sympathetic judge that will hold the large companies to their mistakes same as the "country lawyers" get held to theirs.. or allow allow discovery for the "court" in spite of what the lawyers ask for.
Most artists who create a song (under the current terms) will be dead before their works enter the public domain.
That's a given. It's life of the author + 75 years, IIRC. The irony is that Disney, one of the prime backers of each new extension, wouldn't have been able to make a lot of their classic movies if current copyright terms had been in effect at the time, like Jungle Book. And the neat factoid that every content industry, with the exception of software, was itself founded on piracy. For example, Hollywood didn't just settle in California for the nice weather - studios set up shop on the west coast to avoid having to make patent payments on cameras to Thomas Edison.
Content industries don't have a problem with violations of the law - they have a problem when the violations of the law don't make them money.
Careful, make the copyright too short and independents will have trouble selling their ideas to the cartels since the cartels can just wait until the independent's work expires.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
You are hereby condemned to view Britney Spears videos for all eternity.
Shirley, that's a fate far worse than death =:)
../frank
Slight correction: RIAA holds no copyrights - or at least no copyrights to material that people want to download. Instead, RIAA represents the holders of copyrights that cover material that people DO want to download. RIAA is not protecting their own assets, instead, they are paid by copyright owners to investigate and prosecute infringements. If, in fact, RIAA held any copyrights, they would have some degree of legitimacy. In reality, RIAA has no claim to legitimacy in ANY COURT IN THE WORLD beyond what they are capable of buying. Or, to be more blunt, when they can no longer buy or bullshit judges, they'll be run out of court, or charged with contempt.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
When the independent's work expires, no one would make any money from it. It would be free. Copy it left and right.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
"Thank you" is a good thing. How did you come to believe it to be a piss take of you?
Maybe because even YOU could see that your comment was easily considered a snide remark unwarranted.
Seems like it to me.
Now, if YOU had offered some help, or just kept out the worthless hyperbole (did it REALLY hurt your eyes? You big wuss.), maybe you wouldn't feel so guilty about it.
Slight correction: RIAA holds no copyrights
I use "RIAA" as shorthand for EMI, Universal, SONY BMG, and Warner Bros, and their affiliates. They own no copyrights in the music but they do own sound recording copyrights.
This litigation campaign is not an RIAA thing. It is a collusive activity between these 4 companies, hiding behind their trade association as a front for their conduct in order to protect it from antitrust scrutiny.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
...the RIAA considers the damage an average filesharer causes to be approximately eleventy bajillion dollars:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=RIAA+lawsuit+%24+per+violation&btnG=Search
This leads to the question, if someone runs over my rusty old bicycle, can I claim it was worth $20 million and sue for it? What if I say I was about to go and make $20 million in a pro BMX career later in the day? That's at least as good as the RIAA's logic.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Bring down copyright back to reasonable terms - something like 5-10 years. How often do books/music/etc. make money after the first few years? Certainly not enough to justify such a long copyright.
Terms should be longer than 10 years. Sure, most books, songs etc are out of print long before then. But there are creative types that are sort of familiar names, but not megastars, that should really be supported by copyright. The types that get "cult followings" and are "rediscovered" years after their creative height. They probably make up the majority of people who make their living off their creative output. If the copyright terms are too short, this group could atrophy, which would be a big loss.
One of the saddest problems with ridiculously long copyright terms is that you basically lose loads of stuff because they're out of print, and the person controlling the copyright has no financial interest in a reissue -- but society would benefit enormously from having free access to it. Or you find something, but you don't know who has the rights to it, and it would be quite expensive to track them down (when the people involved might be dead, or have forgotten about it, and ownership has passed to some as-yet unknown third party). This can have a chilling effect on the production of synthetic works and the like.
There is a happy medium. I'm not sure what it is, someone wiser than me will be a better judge. However, I imagine it would be closer to your length than what they are currently, and there's probably quite a bit of flexibility about it.
How dare you be so modest!! You conceited bastard!!
One of the saddest problems with ridiculously long copyright terms is that you basically lose loads of stuff because they're out of print, and the person controlling the copyright has no financial interest in a reissue -- but society would benefit enormously from having free access to it. Or you find something, but you don't know who has the rights to it, and it would be quite expensive to track them down (when the people involved might be dead, or have forgotten about it, and ownership has passed to some as-yet unknown third party).
I think "out of print" is irrelevant in the age of cheap disk space and bandwidth. There's plenty of stuff that would be nigh impossible to find an original hard copy of such as the Star Wars Christmas Special (in this case, a first generation VHS or Betamax from the original broadcast).
Books? Text is cheap when it comes to data. I recall learning in computer class many, many years ago that a 1.44MB floppy disk (not even compressed!) could store over 1,000 pages of text. PDFs aren't that much larger, either - most PDFs of books I've seen are in the tens to hundreds megabyte range.
I think an important part of reform would be an online, easily-accessible copyright registry that's largely automated. A simple database that could be sorted by medium, artist, etc. It shows the date the copyright was filed as well as the date it was approved and took effect. Set up a filter so you can see which material in which subject are public domain and which material is not yet in public domain.
From here, it's a matter of actually storing the material. Having one place host something means its bound to get hammered for bandwidth if its popular. Recording studios could set up archive servers with torrents and make use of sites like rapidshare where files could be downloaded legally after the copyright expires. Once its out on the net, there will always be a copy out there somewhere. Once its legal to share a majority of the material, people won't have to cower in fear behind proxies and Peerguardian. We can organize and work as a society to preserve and distribute this material as best we can.
The only way something is "lost" is if it is never uploaded in the first place. Anyone who records music can make a MP3 easily, even if they rip from the master CD from a recording studio. Anyone who writes a book could easily request a proof PDF from the publisher. I don't think it's as big of a problem as you envision it.
More and more people are regarding copyright as this nasty thing that just funnels money into fat cartels so they can get fatter, and its not being used. If this system isn't reformed, then it is going to be largely obsolete in a few decades time. Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Jonny C - it's already begun.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
I'm not trying to be an RIAA apologist. I'm just wondering if there's any course of action they could taken whereby their IP was protected and they weren't demonized by all of us.
Hmmm... having MediaSentry apply for the appropriate licenses to conduct investigations? Having MediaSentry truly disclose their methods and the code they use for peer review?
The first is a no-brainer, which they still avoid (and if I were a state government, after they have wantonly violated such a licensing requirement, I'd never issue them one now) and the second would of course probably discredit their evidence hands down....
But nonetheless, the first action alone would end a lot of their problems on this front. Yet they still dont do it. I'm sure they are making a ton from their illegal actions... one tiny step in some percentage of the 50 states and they wouldnt be in this problem.
Of course, then there are all of their "attack servers" with their DDOS attacks on places they think are hosting music... those are criminal violations with stiff penalties if convicted. It's time someone steps up to the plate and buries them for those actions as well...
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
for it's own sake, but rather to hold off the storm that's brewing over MediaSentry's unlicensed, illegal, and fundamentally incompetent investigations. I assume that if MediaSentry ends up in some serious hot water this could affect a lot of lawsuits.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
But they don't. Sure, people write new books and make new songs, but the incentive isn't really there anymore. Most copyrights nowadays are held by corporations, not people.
But corporations are also the ones spending the money. Going with your artistic guy writer guy. He wants to get his latest work published, who does he turn to? A corporation who thinks that his work is worth investing their business money into. As a part of the deal, he gets a certain amount of the cash from sales, but he is in effect selling his work to the company. It would be nice if he could just publish it for free and give the publisher a percentage for publishing, promoting and publicizing - but that world is filled with handbags full of rainbows and pink fairies with pots of gold.
Make it so only people - not corporations - can hold copyrights. Copyright cartels literally sit on their duffs getting fat off of royalties and trying to protect that money. It's the very definition of protection money and most of the time it doesn't even go to the artists themselves anyway.
See above point. I don't think that's realistic or productive.
Make fines in the case of restitution more reasonable. A fine of hundreds of dollars for a song that can be bought for $0.99 is patently ridiculous. Restitution on fair market value with a 200%-300% penalty would be more than fair enough to make up any money lost.
This would work if you got caught more often than not. If I tried to download a song worth $1 and got caught and had to pay $5 for it, and it happened again, and maybe again, I reckon I might start looking at buying said song. The problem here is that there is such a small chance of being caught. The fines don't seem fair or reasonable. Tell you what though, instead of fining for thousands of dollars, how about making the people who get caught serve a little community service? We can always do with more help at charities - and I am sure it would be a good way to get some PR back for the labels.
I am not saying the RIAA is going the right way about what they are doing, but I am also a bit of a realist.
Here is another totally random thought, I wonder how many people would be more inclined to buy music rather than downloading it if the musicians weren't making literally millions and millions of dollars off it in some cases? It's hard to cry "stop stealing my stuff" on behalf of an artist who makes apparent squillions of dollars with all the downloading anyhow? Wonder how many people would change their tune if the music industry started drying up due to not being profitable for artists.
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Piffle. Do you think actors do the plays of Shakespere out of the goodness of their own hearts? Do string quartets fail to make a buck out of playing "Bloody Pachabel's Canon" at weddings? Do the works of Jane Austin continue to be published in DeadTreeFormat despite being in the public domain and downloadable from the Gutenberg Project?
You make money from the public domain by making the product better or more accessible to the users. Marketers would just have to value add to the product.
A sig is placed here
To display how futile
English Haiku is
The thing is, anyone could get to it readily and easily. The only value would be in seeing a live performance or getting a dead tree copy, etc.
Unless the RIAA wants to spontaneously develop a theater company, there wouldn't be much they could do aside from work with concerts and radio stations.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
The original copyright law fulfilled this fuctnionh of alowing productive members to gain wealth, while insuring their families would have to do the same. The problem can when fictional institutions were given a significant degree of personhood, something opposed by a significant faction of the early US intelligence. Now we have fictional entities that did not die, and in fact had national implication if they died. Look at the big auto companies in the US. They should be allowed to die, but we won't let them. They are our new aristocracy. Not contributing to society(proven in marketplace because no one wants to buy the products), but important enough to be placed on the Civil List with unlimited access to the public purse. Thousands of pairs of socks, designer pants, girls, drugs, anything the aristocrat needs.
And in the middle of this, a realization that if disney is going to survive, they need a copyright that will last the lifetime of the modern aristocrat, the corporation. It would be irresponsible not to have the kind of IP laws we currently have unless we were willing to allow the corporations to fail. Clearly we are not, so there it is.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
What I'm wondering about though is renting/borrowing CDs
Same as used book/cd/dvd/whatever sales. It's not copying, therefore copyright law doesn't come into play.
But derivative works wouldn't be.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
And don't forget that Edison, himself, was a big infringer.
Come on. Vagina is a nice thing, RIAA is not...