Canadian Pirates Sell Spurious Songs — In 1897

Reservoir Hill writes "The NYTimes reported in their June 13, 1897 edition that 'Canadian pirates' were flooding the country with spurious editions of the latest copyrighted popular songs. 'They use the mails to reach purchasers, so members of the American Music Publishers Association assert, and as a result the legitimate music publishing business of the United States has fallen off 50 per cent in the past twelve months' while the pirates published 5,000,000 copies of songs in just one month. The Times added that pirates were publishing sheet music at 2 cents to 5 cents per copy although the original compositions sold for 20 to 40 cents per copy. But 'American publishers had held a conference' and a 'committee had been appointed to fight the pirates' by getting the 'Post Office authorities to stop such mail matter because it infringes the copyright law.' Interestingly enough the pirates of 1897 worked in league with Canadian newspapers that published lists of songs to be sold, with a post office box address belonging to the newspaper itself. Half the money went to pay the newspapers' advertising while the other half went to the pirates who sent the music by mail." The AMPA never dreamed of suing their customers, though.

Comments

where have I heard this before?

[downix]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Did these "evil pirates" kill the music industry, as was proclaimed they would?

Re:where have I heard this before?

[setrops]

"The more things change, the more they stay the same"

Lyrics from Circumstances from Rush's Hemisphere album.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it. A person creates something, somebody else through very little effort on their part makes money off that work.

How is that right?

I don't condone the **IA's actions, or record industry contracts, I just don't see why people think it's OK to "get free stuff"

Re:where have I heard this before?

[CRCulver]

I hope this is a joke where you are suggesting that the OP was copying Rush lyrics without authorization. FWIW, the phrase goes back quite a ways. From the first site I came upon with a Google search:

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME - "Nothing changes too much. The proverb is of French origin and was used by the French novelist Alphonse Karr (1808-90). It also appears in George Bernard Shaw's 'Revolutionist's Handbook' (1903). Listed in the 1946 'Macmillan (Home) Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases' by Burton Stevenson and in the 1992 'Dictionary of American Proverbs' by Wolfgang Mieder et al." From "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996).

While Rush has great musicianship, Neil Peart's lyrics are usually very derivative. He may be a bit more well-read than the average rock drummer, he's doesn't possess any especial insight. It's sad when fans try to hold Peart up as some kind of philosopher of our time. They should be reading more themselves.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[MyLongNickName]

don't get it. A person creates something, somebody else through very little effort on their part makes money off that work.
How is that right?
I don't condone the **IA's actions, or record industry contracts, I just don't see why people think it's OK to "get free stuff"

The fact that this is modded -1 troll says a lot about Slashdot.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[drinkypoo]

It's a troll because the issue has been beaten to fucking death here already and questions like that can only result in the same sad flamefests. It would have been better, though, to simply mod it "Redundant".

Re:where have I heard this before?

[suso]

I'm not surprised you were marked down as Troll. Don't expect to have a meaningful discussion on this on Slashdot, because a lot of the people here have lost their sense of morality on this subject.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[MyLongNickName]

Yeah, but all the "information wants to be free" and "death to the RIAA" posts get modded +5 insightful.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[knudsenr]

Because in "intellectual property" me taking your stuff does not mean that you don't have yours anymore. You still have all the freedom in the world to apply your ideas the way you like, no matter who else uses them too. That you expect a financial gain of being the first one (you heard of) to come up with something is your problem alone.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Clairvoyant]

He clearly insinuates that having other morals than his is a bad thing, yet you try to defend him by saying that people should open up their eyes and see the world?

The world's full of people with money higher up their list than moral or ethics. Welcome to the *real* world. You might want to get used to that :)

Piracy has always been around and it always will be.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[MyLongNickName]

It is sad that there are so many who don't place a value on the most valuable asset we have -- creativity.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[brackishboy]

The phrase also frequently appeared in the newspapers within the game Simcity 2000.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Minwee]

While Rush has great musicianship, Neil Peart's lyrics are usually very derivative.

Exactly. Rush is Canadian, so naturally they steal music. Haven't you been paying attention to what the mafiaa is telling you?

Re:where have I heard this before?

[digitig]

It's moderators are you and me and everyone else -- well, me and everyone else: you only get a look in if you post as yourself, not as AC. The moderators are not an elite corps, they're ordinary /. users chosen by a randomised algorithm. So if it says anything about the moderators, it does say something about /..

Re:where have I heard this before?

[digitig]

Well, clearly the music industry changed its business model and moved away from a dependency on IP, didn't it?

Re:where have I heard this before?

[knudsenr]

Oh I do value creativity. I acknoledge that it takes time, education and sometimes a little luck and that creative people have to be compensated for what they do one way or the other. I don't believe that you inventing the next big thing gives you the right to demand money from everyone around the world who would like to use that idea for the next 200 years.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[H0p313ss]

The phrase also frequently appeared in the newspapers within the game Simcity 2000.

citation needed

Re:where have I heard this before?

[drinkypoo]

A valid point, but if you expect life to be fair, you must be new here, and I don't mean slashdot.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[MyLongNickName]

And this is my original point. "The fact that this is modded -1 troll says a lot about Slashdot." I am not sure that the rest of this thread added to or subtracted from that one statement.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[multisync]

Yeah, but all the "information wants to be free" and "death to the RIAA" posts get modded +5 insightful.

Well, information does want to be free. Given that you can not copyright a fact, why would you have a problem with that concept?

As for "death to the RIAA," just minutes ago I listened to a news report on a local radio station quoting the RIAA bemoaning Canada's inadequate copyright laws and border security. In fact, I see Slashdot carried the story yesterday.

And I agree, our copyright laws are in need of reform. The term needs to be shortened; the definition of fair dealing needs to be expanded so copying for the purpose of time-shifting, archiving and backing up purchased media is included; and the use of DRM should invalidate copyright, as the two are incompatible.

But those are not the reforms the RIAA is talking about. They want Canada and other countries to adopt anti-circumvention laws similar to the DMCA, which would make it illegal to defeat DRM for legitimate purposes like those I listed above, and are busy spreading the usual misinformation in order to achieve their goal.

So yes, death to the RIAA and their propaganda machine.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[richlv]

that isn't right. you know what else isn't right ? ridiculous copyright terms of 95 or whatwasit years after author's death. ridiculous claims that users can't make a copy for their own, private use of purchased works. ridiculous patent claims.
none of these helps to either advance arts or science. none of these helps to improve artist image.

i recently saw a link to a speach, done in 1841.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Copyright_Law_(Macaulay).

"Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living"

that's quite correct, don't you agree ? so if artists have decided to screw everybody else with unreasonable claims (or maybe simply allowed somebody else to do that) - well, screw the artists. maybe it would be healthy to let them feel the pain of no copyright, so that unreasonability of a copyright standing for a hundred of years after they are friggin dead kicks in.

copyright isn't a basic right like right to own a physical unit. it's a privilege, put forth and allowed to be enjoyed with a single stated goal - to advance public good. it has been abused for a hundred years and made in the absolute opposite what was the stated goal. if you see such masses of people considering it unreasonable, maybe, just maybe you are wrong.

ps. it's also quite telling that wikipedia page has the following at the bottom... "This work published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago."

ps2. personally, i do not support complete abolishment of copyright. i believe the pirateparty program of 5 years and no restrictions on personal use is very, very reasonable. i would even support a slightly extended period of 14 years, which i have seen as an optimal lenght, coming out from some studies.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[DinDaddy]

Your post triggered a thought. Content owners respect IP? OK:

We designate the public domain as a legal entity with IP rights. Someone writes a song, they must pay for each element of it which can be identified as something in the public domain. Each word (we'll let them slide on letters), each common phrase such as you have noted above that they wish to incorporate into their work, etc.

Same for films. Thy sky appears in your film or 43 out of 129 minutes. The licensing fee for use of the sky in a film is $100 per second or ,0001% of the film's reveneue, whichever is less. Similar terms for everything else.

All proceeds go to a fund to lobby for shorter, more reasonable copyright.

After all, these people are stealing the public domain's IP without any compensation to the public!

Re:where have I heard this before?

[MyLongNickName]

Try following the thread. The person I responded to said that the original post should be marked redundant because it has been said dozens of times before. So, following that logic "death to the RIAA" should be also modded redundant. Nowhere did I say the RIAA is good.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[letsief]

By that standard this entire story should be modded Troll. At least, the commentary after the article blurb should be (or, perhaps, flamebait). Say what you will about the RIAA's actions here, but it's not even making a fair/accurate comparison between the AMPA's situation in 1897 and the RIAA's today. It would be more accurate to say the AMPA didn't dream of suing the recipients of the copyrighted material. It's my understanding the RIAA didn't do that either- they went after the people that [they argued] distributed the copyrighted material. Now, I agree the "making available" argument was bogus, but I can at least see their reasoning there. And, it's more consistent with going after distributors than it is recipients. It's just that P2P systems have been designed so that those two groups are the same thing.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and in the great Canadian tradition, they say it in French too

Did you get the author's permission to use those words? :)

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment has given me a good insight on the situation. How much do I owe you, and what manner of payment to you accept?

Re:where have I heard this before?

[charlieman]

I don't get it. A person creates something, somebody else through very little effort on their part makes money off that work.

How is that right?

Are you talking about the record companies making money off the artists?

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Hurricane78]

It is your failure to imply this. Because nobody here said this would be right.
If someone is making money off it, I think everybody here agrees that it is wrong.

What isn't wrong, is making copies for people that would not (be able to) buy it anyway, and not expecting anything in return.
Why do I always have to mention the difference between real goods and digital data even here on Slashdot? I mean I seems as if half of /. does not get what digital data or a copy of such data is.
I also noticed that a big part of /. already completely bought into the bullshit that the **AA spreads. Sometimes they even use their exact pseudo-arguments. :(

Seems as if the plan of the **AA works well, and in some years, there is nobody left to know how things are in reality. :(

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Hurricane78]

Implying things that nobody said (that it would be ok to actually make money off of copying stuff of others) is no part of a meaningful discussion, but either a strong misunderstanding, or just a **AA-worthy troll. So if it's moderated partially troll, and partially offtopic, it's moderated correctly.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[skeeto]

It was also the last words spoken in DS9.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[PunditGuy]

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Impress your significant other: it's pronounced something like "ploo sah shanj, ploo say la mem showj."

4 years of high school French -- and finally, 20 years later, I get to put it to some use.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[mabhatter654]

except that Canada passed a law to levy digital mediums to compensate the Canadian copyright firms for their "lost" sales. There's already a "tax" on fair use defined into law... there's no need to make new laws to make things more complicated.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

The following is taken from http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/04/6662.ars [Previous incidents where the recording industry sued demonstrably innocent or dead people haven't pushed the lawyers to perfection quite yet. A family in Rome, GA, (one of the 235 defendants) was very surprised when the local newspaper contacted them to ask about the file sharing lawsuit in which they were implicated: "I don't understand this," said James Walls. "How can they sue us when we don't even have a computer?" The RIAA are going after anyone and everyone in an attempt not to punish pirates, but to scare everyone into falling into line. Pirate bay trial being a perfect example of this (uses the same technology as google in the same way, but just without the money behind them).

Re:where have I heard this before?

[averner]

Did Somali pirates kill the import/export industry? Did arsonists kill the housing industry? Did murderers kill the healthcare industry?

Re:where have I heard this before?

[RichardJenkins]

Absolutely. I think there's broad agreement across society that people have some form of ownership of original ideas, but you can't really do anything to make it difficult to copy published ideas - it's so easy to do.

Either society should find it acceptable to usurp the creative endeavours of others or accept that preventing that requires draconian laws put in place to prevent unfettered violation of copyright.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[slack_justyb]

fair and unfair is extremely subjective. I'm not really sure how the argument of, "the world's unfair get use to it," really answers what the person was asking.

How does one justify attacking the RIAA for protecting the artist's IP? When we'd attack someone breaking into our house (or at least expect someone to come and protect us.)

That's like saying, "I can't believe that you're pressing charges on that poor guy who stole your TV from your house."

Oh yeah, fair use, right? I grant the next guy fair use any day. But c'mon a whole song on your iPoo is not fair use.

<humor> Anyway, biggest excuse I always hear is, "Well I support independent artist who freely give their music away! That's right my 1.3 TB music collection is made up of 100% independent artist who gave their music away."

Really?! Let me see it.

"Um, no. It's too long."

Really? Well I've got nothing better to do then look over 1.3TB of music song by song. (yes, I read slashdot aka I have no life) </humor>

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, personally I like Peart's lyrics on YYZ. :-)

Re:where have I heard this before?

[multisync]

Try following the thread. The person I responded to said that the original post should be marked redundant because it has been said dozens of times before. So, following that logic "death to the RIAA" should be also modded redundant. Nowhere did I say the RIAA is good.

What, I can't reply to your comment, I have to reply to the whole thread? Is today your day to be boss of Slashdot?

Okay, here goes:

I don't agree with drinkypoo that the AC's comment was redundant, but he is entitled to express that opinion. I think the AC's comment was a troll, and bordering on flaimbait, because it essentially stated that people who oppose the tactics employed by the RIAA/MPAA simply want to "get stuff free." The comment could also be perceived as a straw man, as it argued against a stance that the original comment didn't take. For these reasons, the original Troll moderation was appropriate.

Your claim that "death to the RIAA" and "information wants to be free" posts get moderated +5 Insightful was neither accurate nor relevant. It's not accurate, because many posts of that nature are modded Troll or Redundant. Despite what a lot of people seem to think, Slashdot isn't just one guy in his basement. There is a broad spectrum of users who moderate, including people with all sorts of vested interests and axes to grind. Your argument was irrelevant, because it does not follow that if the AC post was redundant, so too are all of the "information wants to be free" and "death to the RIAA" posts. Each comment should be judged on its own merits.

Interesting that the AC's straw man comment only received one Troll mod. The rest have been Underrated and Insightful, which actually says a lot about the tendency of Slasddot moderators to overcompensate for one (perceived) bad moderation by heaping positive mods on a post that was neither insightful nor underrated.

But here we are going back and forth discussing this instead of the article, which is exactly what the AC wanted, and another reason his comment was a troll.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[bill_kress]

So let's take a more basic view of this. You are standing there in a courtyard in your village and hear someone singing a song. You like the song and you go back to your house and start singing it on the way home. Is that wrong?

Is it wrong if someone hears you?

Is it wrong if people like hearing you sing and pay you for it?

There are a million different variables here. The fact is, the whole concept of copyright is admittedly manufactured. People have NO right to to call what they create IP (and restrict others from its use) except as we choose to grant it to them.

According to the constitution (read it, that part is a short, understandable paragraph) we choose to grant it to them ONLY because it will encourage them to create more works that will eventually become part of the public domain.

Note, it is NOT so they can make money off it EXCEPT as that might encourage them to make more.

So your whole premise is just wrong. You can work as hard as you want at something, but that does not give you any natural/obvious/automatic right to exclusively commercialize that work except what the public chooses to give you.

By these corporations lobbying congress for extensions to copyright law, however, they ARE stealing MASSIVE amounts of IP from US. Billions or Trillions of dollars are lost to this.

We're talking dozens of years of the ability to create derivative works. How much money has Disney made on Micky Mouse and Winnie the Pooh in the last 50 years? That is all money STOLEN from the American people via congressional bribes and political manipulation (at least as seen from the point of view of the constitution which explicitly calls for a limited time period--initially it was like 7 years, now it's nearly 100!)

Yes, there are IP criminals around, but they are not who you think.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[SquirrelsUnite]

I don't get it. A person creates something, somebody else through very little effort on their part makes money off that work.

I always wanted to ask that from my boss.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[inca34]

Don't worry about it. They will get meta-moderated and in the future not get as many mod points. Eventually.

In the mean time, feel free to expound upon the most difficult aspect of the copyright dialogue: how to compensate original authors.

Certainly the moral aspect of taking someone's work for free, representing it as your own, and then profiting tremendously from it is plain as day wrong.

However, let's complicate it a bit. Take each of these as a "What if?" scenario:
The original author is dead.
The "rights" were transferred to an organization that will never die, like his family or corp.
The original work is obscure.
Other work is independently achieved.
The work is too expensive for someone to "buy".
The work is used, but not for profit.
The work is used, new work is made and the original cited.

The list goes on, though it should show some of the key inherent problems with material value and ownership. Attributing material value to an idea seems fraught with philosophical peril.

What is ownership, anyway? Just some government given attribute that allows us to take from others.

Being your usual polite Midwestern guy, I would prefer to solve to problem by getting people to willingly remove money from their wallets for my work, as opposed to some government enforced law decreeing so. The solution to copy-cats is fairly easy: keep creating. They may have taken your fish today, but you still know how to fish and they don't.

How we ought to legislate copy-rights and other such weird concepts such as intellectual property, I have no idea. So long as the government doesn't spend much money on it and it's so unenforceably broken (like now), it's fine.

In the current system, the low hanging fruit seems to be 1) spending less tax money on the problem overall, 2) decreasing the copyright lifetime, 3) protect individuals, not corporations, 3) simple policy, 4) provide swift and immediate judgments.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[multisync]

except that Canada passed a law to levy digital mediums to compensate the Canadian copyright firms for their "lost" sales. There's already a "tax" on fair use defined into law... there's no need to make new laws to make things more complicated.

There shouldn't be a tax on "fair use." Fair use means non-infringing activity. The CRIA should not be compensated because I want to back up the digital media I buy, or because I want to watch TV when it suits me, or listen to a CD I purchased on my iPod while I run.

As far as new laws, Bill C-61 (which would have been law by now if Harper had not violated his own fixed election legislation last autumn) would have outlawed circumventing "digital locks" in order to make fair use of copyrighted material, just like the DMCA. DRM is incompatible with fair use, and prevents materials from entering the public domain. This is the reason it is incompatible with copyright law, and the reason Canadians need copyright reform that protects them from the US entertainment cartel.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[yerfatma]

I can't believe this has gotten that far, but SimCity 2000? How 'bout 1849? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Alphonse_Karr

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that you wrote this post says a lot about you.

The fact that the post got modded -1 troll says a lot about a moderator moderating one post.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[hairyfeet]

Well, to be fair it is probably because most of us are sick and tired of being ripped off by greedy bloodsucking leeches that are these giant multinational conglomerates. For 150 years we had sane copyrights. Most could argue that since we have "instant sales" via places like Amazon and iTunes that the copyrights as they were originally written would be considered excessive today. We should have a rich public domain, where I can download Buddy Holly and Jimi and Janis and tons of other great music. Remember copyright is a CONTRACT, nothing more. I the public give you the right to a LIMITED monopoly in return for having a richer public domain to work with when you are through.

So all these artists have Jimi and Buddy and Janis to sample from to create great new tunes, right? And I can go to the public domain archives and be jamming to "all along the watchtower" right? Nope. even though Jimi has been dead nearly 40 years and Buddy has been dead 50, greedy pigs lobbying for giant bloodsucking corporation BRIBED our politicians to come up with truly draconian copyright terms. Now they have virtually limitless copyrights. Hell your great grandkids will probably be in the ground before you see Janis Joplin in the public domain. It is no wonder that many of us are pissed. It is because we are being royally ripped off by thieves that then have the gall to come and whine "Wahhh! You don't respect my thievery! I paid good bribe money to steal the public domain and you won't pay me extra when you rip your CD to your iPod! Wahhh".

Well needless to say many of us don't give a diddly damn about the *.A.As and hope they all get cancer and die. Expecting us to "respect their IP" when they have been royally screwing the artists while they have been screwing us raw is frankly too much to ask. Sorry.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does your plan of removing the entire concept of public domain - because that is exactly what you do by declaring that the 'public' in public domain doesn't actually include anyone - solve anything?

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is sad that there are so many who don't place a value on the most valuable asset we have -- liberty.

There. Fixed that for ya.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[meyekul]

For myself, and I'm sure many others, its not about getting free stuff as much as its about getting something the way I want it. If I could drive across town and get a new game/movie that I want for free, or download it at home for a few dollars debited from my bank account, I'd download it to save the trouble of actually going out and making a physical purchase. Sadly, reality has been working the other way around, and the industry is just starting to catch on.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[ktappe]

I don't get it. A person creates something, somebody else through very little effort on their part makes money off that work.

How is that right?

I don't condone the **IA's actions, or record industry contracts, I just don't see why people think it's OK to "get free stuff"

Do you ever listen to the radio? Check out the story from last month how a stable owner in the UK was forced to stop playing classical music from the radio for her horses because she received a cease-and-desist: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5061004/Woman-who-plays-classical-music-to-soothe-horses-told-to-get-licence.html

Then go on trying to defend the actions of the **IA and their international brethren.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, these people are stealing the public domain's IP without any compensation to the public!

You misunderstand the concept of "public domain". If it's public domain, then they own it just as much as you or I do.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Ant P.]

The thing is that two groups of people sell the same thing under the same name - there are the creators, who tend to get screwed, and there are corporations that make a business out of stealing or ripping off creative works and passing them off as new and their own. You'd be surprised how many mainstream tracks are just covers of dead musicians, and let's not get started on Disney.

It's the latter group that most people would think nothing of stealing twice from, the bad thing is that the former group doesn't have a big enough collective voice to protect themselves, so they get screwed by both the labels and the warez kiddies.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[PunditGuy]

I find it curious you never put French to any practical purpose in twenty years

Probably has something to do with the fact that I sucked/suck at it.

In my defense, I stated clearly that it was pronounced "something like" what I wrote. What you wrote is something like what I wrote.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[tiananmen tank man]

I am but one person of this slashdot group, and I do not think it is ok to "get free stuff" but do you think it is ok for copyright terms to be as long as they are now given the technology we have today to easily duplicate and distribute?

Re:where have I heard this before?

[H0p313ss]

I can't believe this has gotten that far, but SimCity 2000? How 'bout 1849? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Alphonse_Karr

I was riffing on XKCD: In Popular Culture and Wikipedian Protester.

But thanks for coming out.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[herbertchapman]

Rush drew heavily on Ayn Rand's writings, particularly in the 2112 album - loosely based on the 'Anthem' novel by Rand. In the UK they were seen as being politically right wing because of this, probably correctly, but rather unfairly also seen as racist - the logic being that Right Wing and racist are the same thing - which is often true in the UK. This also painted Heavy Metal as being either racist or politically unacceptable - a bit of a case of New Wave good, Old Wave bad. A bit off topic I think

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Anarke_Incarnate]

I doubt it. Just today, I found out that some dude named Sam Clemens was ripping off Rush, and using an assumed name to make money off their Tom Sawyer song. What a douche......

Re:where have I heard this before?

[mattack2]

I think you're making the same illogical connection that many others are.

What does "the technology ... to easily duplicate and distribute" have to do with whether someone should be compensated for creating new material (even if derived from some existing sources, there was new work put into it.. e.g. a remake of a movie)?

Re:where have I heard this before?

[meringuoid]

personally, i do not support complete abolishment of copyright. i believe the pirateparty program of 5 years and no restrictions on personal use is very, very reasonable. i would even support a slightly extended period of 14 years, which i have seen as an optimal lenght, coming out from some studies.

Five years seems quite short. No author would ever again earn money from selling the right to make a movie adaptation, because the studios would simply wait out the five years. Then again, no film studio would ever publish DVDs of their movies - why would they, when any rival could pirate them freely and without consequence? Instead, they would maintain a physical monopoly on copies of their films, and see to it that they aired only in cinemas, where they could still get a cut.

Copyright has a role in bringing new material into the culture. People need this incentive, and it's fair to give them the chance to earn money on it for a time. But I've never seen why a copyright should last so much longer than a patent does. If I invent a new kind of useful device, I can monopolise its reproduction for twenty years, after which anybody can copy my design and make their own. If I write a new song, I can monopolise its reproduction for all my life, then my successors can monopolise it for most of the following century, before anybody else gets to copy it for themselves. This I do not understand.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[mabhatter654]

but that's the point, there's no need for DRM because companies are already compensated for it. And Canada still does takedowns so things like the Pirate Bay are clearly illegal there. They're not rolling over and it's pissing the *aa off.

Like other posters have said, there's no way to protect the people from these clowns. They write the laws and fund the campaigns.... they send people to spend 60 hours a week lobbying about just this per politician! There's nobody with time to spend arguing for us to keep what we've already got!!!!

Re:where have I heard this before?

[DinDaddy]

It doesn't solve it by actually being implemented, it underscores the absurdity of their claims that anyone making use of their IP or even anything resembling it owing them money.

As I said, his comment triggered a thought, not an in-depth analysis and plan. To me, my thought is just the logical extension of the direction content owners are presently headed, excepting it recognizes that all works are derivative.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[DinDaddy]

No, I understand. It's just if they are going to attempt to eliminate the public domain, I propose we arm it with the capability of self-defense.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[sumdumass]

Are you sure it was Sam Clemens or the look alike Mark Twain? Yes, identity theft is a problem too. Seems like everyone is ripping everyone off.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[sumdumass]

But those are not the reforms the RIAA is talking about. They want Canada and other countries to adopt anti-circumvention laws similar to the DMCA, which would make it illegal to defeat DRM for legitimate purposes like those I listed above, and are busy spreading the usual misinformation in order to achieve their goal.

It's not just RIAA that wants other countries to adopt DMCA style laws. The DMCA in the US was pretty much constructed completely out of the WTC and the WPPT (with the exception of penalties). Both are WIPO treaties and you can find out more about them there.

It's actually quite interesting. RIAA and the MPAA seem to be the ones taking all the attention but international treaties were negotiated a while back and that would seem to be the real driving forces behind the DMCA style laws in other countries that keep getting shot down.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[sumdumass]

The US has the same laws, just not to the same extent. It's for blank "music" media that can be recorded on in the US.

Ever go to the store and see data CDs sitting next to music CDs and find the blank Music CDs are more expensive? The tax is why. It also fund to find a sales rep and ask them what the difference between the two are besides costs. Only once have I has someone say the real reason, Best Buy holds my personal favorite response for saying "the aluminum oxide inside the plastic is a better grade on the music CDs so the sound will be clearer". I had a circuit City employee tell me once that the labels cost more to print on the Music CDs.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[Foobar of Borg]

there's no need to make new laws to make things more complicated

You must be new here (well, to life anyway). Politicians always want new laws to make things more complicated. Imagine a term of MPs or Congressmen (depending on your country) where no laws get written or passed. You can't? Well, I can't either, at least not realistically.

Re:where have I heard this before?

[moortak]

The relationship is that copyright terms should be a balance between compensating the creator and enriching the public domain. Easier reproduction and shipping technology reduces the time needed for a work to be profitable. The final goal of copyright is not to compensate the creator in the US system. That is a means to improve the public domain.

One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[CRCulver]

In ancient Rome, it was completely ordinary for an audience member to transcribe a poetry recital, hand it over to amanuenses to massively copy, and then sell it in the marketplace with no money going back to the creator. Even poets didn't have a problem with it. The only protest I'm aware of in the literature is Martial's unhappiness that some talentless fellow was putting his own name on the transcription of Martial, and plagiarism is rather separate from copying without authorization.

In spite of this activity, literature still flourished in the ancient work. This is because the market depended on patronism. I wouldn't mind going back to those days, and to some extent we never left them. Indeed, most of the films and music I enjoy now are funded through a great deal of support from state arts ministries and private patrons. Record labels aren't so worried about piracy when the bills are already paid.

So privacy might make it harder for makers of the lowbrow to turn a profit. Boo-hoo. True art will continue to shine regardless of copyright laws.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[jonbryce]

This situation existed up until the printing press was invented. Before then, everything had to be copied by hand and a distributed system was the most effective way of doing this.

The temporary monopoly was to encourage people to invest in printing equipment and printing plates so they could mass produce copies cheaply.

The economics of the Gutenberg Press don't apply to the HP Laserjets of today though.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[tepples]

and plagiarism is rather separate from copying without authorization.

Not necessarily. I imagine that the connection between plagiarism (failing to attribute) and unauthorized copying comes from the fact that in U.S. law, and I'd imagine in the copyright law of most other Berne members, it's easier for a use to qualify under fair use/dealing or one of the other statutory limitations on copyright if the copyright owner is properly attributed.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[CRCulver]

I wouldn't exactly use ancient Rome as an example for anything.

The enormous amount of art produced between the dawn of Man and the institution of copyright about 500 years ago should stand a sufficient response to the industry's argument that disregarding copyright will destroy art.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[catbertscousin]

What horrible evil people. Thank goodness that never happens anymore!

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[furby076]

In ancient Rome

In ancient Rome slavery was allowed, people would enter arena's and compete against each other until someone (or animal) would be killed, and adults having sex with children was considered OK.

Given that - you really shouldn't compare what happened in ancient Rome to what happens today - it's definitely not a good comparison.

If an artist is so concerned about society and the flourishing of an industry then the artist should release his works to the public without restriction. If he doesn't sign a contract with a company then he can do whatever he wishes with his works...but I am pretty sure the artist would like to get paid so he can own a house, car, have some food, clothing - you know what most people in this world aspire to have.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[Thundarr Trollgrim]

Many musicians, myself included, do just that. We release albums and other releases without any copyright restrictions and pay the bills with other jobs. Separating music from money removes any sense of making music just for money and shifts the focus back to the music. This may be bad for industry, but it is good for music.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny? More like insightful! This one dichotomic sentence sums up everything to be said on the discussion of Copyright and IP laws. Dun dun dun!

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[Anonymous Coward]

In spite of this activity, literature still flourished in the ancient work. This is because the market depended on patronism. I wouldn't mind going back to those days, and to some extent we never left them. Indeed, most of the films and music I enjoy now are funded through a great deal of support from state arts ministries and private patrons. Record labels aren't so worried about piracy when the bills are already paid.

So privacy might make it harder for makers of the lowbrow to turn a profit. Boo-hoo. True art will continue to shine regardless of copyright laws.

Yes, because we all want boring post-modern "art" that amuses only jaded aristocratic farts. A return to patronism will only mean a return to pseudo-intellectual garbage that appeals only to a select few, or worse, to a government art committee.

Without popular art we won't have Twain, Dickens, Conan Doyle and every other great author that got started on magazine and newspaper serials. I know /.-ers like to feel superior and that it is all too easy to denigrate popular art, but you need to get a sense of history before making such a blanket statement.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[couchslug]

Good for you. You might also take advantage of this additional exposure to build an audience.

Musicians can also tour and make money. It worked for the Grateful Dead for decades, and they were fine with fans taping their shows. It built their community of fervent supporters.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[jcnnghm]

In spite of this activity, literature still flourished in the ancient work. This is because the market depended on patronism. I wouldn't mind going back to those days, and to some extent we never left them. Indeed, most of the films and music I enjoy now are funded through a great deal of support from state arts ministries and private patrons. Record labels aren't so worried about piracy when the bills are already paid.

So privacy might make it harder for makers of the lowbrow to turn a profit. Boo-hoo. True art will continue to shine regardless of copyright laws.

But the arts have absolutely flourished with copyright. You're totally discounting modern films and large-scale video games, which wouldn't be possible without unbreakable DRM or copyright. In order to conduct art on a massive scale, the producers need to be able to recover their costs. You couldn't spend $100M on a project, if you could never recover the expense.

In addition to enabling the creation of such works, copyright has also provided tremendous financial incentive to produce these works. In the US alone, about $30B per year is spent on these two art forms. In addition to that, art has never been more available. We have public libraries that lend audio recordings, books, and films. Everyone in the United States is able to access electronic entertainment free of charge via radio and television. Art creation is no longer restricted to those patronized by the rich, but can be performed by anyone for the common person, as even the little guy can protect and profit from their work.

And just to defuse this argument before it starts, the one about what constitutes are, ask yourself this. If you were a (probably digital) archaeologist looking back to the mid 20th to early 21st century from 500 years in the future, do you think you would learn about our culture from Band of Brothers, From the Earth to the Moon, The Godfather, and GTA 4, or from a bunch of Pollock paintings?

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[JWSmythe]

    That sir, is true love of your art.

    If I had the talent, I'd likely do the same thing. I can play music (but am a bit out of practice), but I can't write to save my life. When I did play for people, I didn't charge for the performance. I played because I enjoyed it. Not that my performances were much more than friends listening saying "play more! play more!"

    I never pursued the idea of being paid for performances. Well, the thought crossed my mind, but I'd believe the need for woodwinds or keyboard were rather limited, so I fell out of practice. My keyboard now is a computer keyboard, and yes, my "performances" are well reimbursed. :)

    Someday, I hope to get back into practice. I dusted off my sax and started playing again. I have to find the accessories for my keyboard, so I can get back into at least playing for friends. The most keyboard time I've had in the last 10 years was sitting down on friends piano's, because they were there.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[nomadic]

Many musicians, myself included, do just that. We release albums and other releases without any copyright restrictions and pay the bills with other jobs. Separating music from money removes any sense of making music just for money and shifts the focus back to the music. This may be bad for industry, but it is good for music.

Sure, if you do generic indie rock kind of music, which you can play after learning a few chords. But music requiring real skill requires a much bigger time commitment; besides just the actual performing for money part, there's also the intensive practicing part.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[Anonymous Coward]

So...

In Ancient Rome, the ROMANS do as YOU (the pirates) do?

Anonymous because my posts have been getting Overrated-bombed lately.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[charlieman]

Association Fallacy, you Fail

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[furby076]

Many musicians, myself included, do just that. We release albums and other releases without any copyright restrictions and pay the bills with other jobs. Separating music from money removes any sense of making music just for money and shifts the focus back to the music. This may be bad for industry, but it is good for music.

Well that is great for you (no sarcism intended). If you wish to have a day job and then produce music on your own that is your choice. Some people want to get rich from their music and want to make that their day job - that is their choice. BTW being in the high end music industry does not necessarily mean your music is not good or good for the music industry. Music doesn't have to be free to be good (Nirvana wasn't free and their music is cited as the start of grunge which is very popular).

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[bzipitidoo]

But the arts have absolutely flourished with copyright.

The arts have flourished. But can this be attributed solely or even mostly to copyright? Others that should not be discounted:

• patronage
• population growth
• technologies that directly contribute such as the Gutenberg press, phonographs, radio and TV, the VCR, cassette tapes and CDs, and computers and the Internet.
• indirect contributions from technologies that give everyone more leisure time.
• marketing

Technology has done way more than the law. It's arguable whether the law has helped or actually hindered the arts. And we're still missing technological advances. I'd like to see free digital signing services spring up. It'd be so easy to do, and would be a big help in preventing plagiarism and seeing that authors receive proper attribution.

You couldn't spend $100M on a project, if you could never recover the expense.

What sort of nonsense is that? Millions are spent all the time on projects with no expectation of a measurable profit. Typically it's done for less easily measured returns, and often it's called "charity". Or the returns are so far in the future that no business will try it, so other organizations have to do it if it's to be done at all. How do you compute the returns on a nice medieval church or the eradication of a disease or putting a man on the Moon?

Art creation is no longer restricted to those patronized by the rich

How can you think that? Some time in history, did some nation try to enforce a law that forbids people who make less than a certain income from creating art? Well of course you didn't mean that, but you are saying that art takes lots of money and that in the past people didn't have the resources, but now thanks to copyright they do. Again, you forget all the other things that have enabled more art. And, no, art doesn't have to take lots of money. Not even video need be expensive, not with good cameras so cheap these days and getting cheaper and better.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[Anonymous Coward]

you're essentially comparing black velvet paintings created for mass consumption to the mona lisa? Artists do not create to get paid, all the "projects" you mentioned are just that, projects intended to make money.

No art is the book which was written first, that is the part which would be art. The movie they spent 100 million on recreating the directors interpretation of the art he consumed, is just that a poor regurgitation of the universal truth which touched all who read the book.

Protect and profit from their work? An artists last concern is how much money his newest work is going to make him.

Art has not flourished, black velvet elvis' have flourished, Britney Spears has flourished, Maxim magazine has flourished. None of those things are related to art. An entertainer always knew their place, they were not artists, they were entertainers.

The best art of today is unknown and will most likely be lost, thrown away or sold in a garage sale.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[vivaelamor]

You're totally discounting modern films and large-scale video games, which wouldn't be possible without unbreakable DRM or copyright

Interesting presumptions, they have a lot in common with the Churchill quote in your sig. Your analysis gives an incomplete cause-effect prediction by neglecting the positive effect of alternative outcomes as they are not directly related to your agenda.

In your sig, Churchill is right in saying that the poor will not be richer as a direct consequence of wealth being redistributed but does not explain what would happen to the wealth. In one possible scenario he could mean taking rich peoples money out of the economy altogether which would increase the value of all money - a net benefit for the poor. Another would be taking the money to provide services for the poor - a net benefit again. Then again he could be talking about taking the money from the rich to use for a purpose that would in no way benefit the poor. So while he could get away with saying 'the poor are no richer for the rich being poorer' as an observation, his actual quote can only be treated as a matter of opinion and is pretty useless lacking context.

Moving back to copyright, you assert that copyright is the only realistic way to ensure the production of expensive art. However, take away copyright and you have no less resources and no less consumers. As copyright does not actually facilitate the production of art only the means to fund it we can presume that the resources are available to be used elsewhere including but not limited to, the subject of art.

Scenario one, no copyright, people don't invest in art. It would follow that all the effort that had previously been put into producing art is now elsewhere.. maybe science, maybe war. The important thing is that while people would be poorer culturally the void would be filled by something else.

History tells us that people like art though and that it is practically impossible to destroy it completely. After all, why would it be an issue if the art had no value in the first place? So given that art is wanted and copyright has no effect on the 'need' for art, what would happen with no copyright? You say that we would have no big budget productions. I say good riddance. As I have explained, the value of those productions does not disappear, the gap is filled by something else.

Given that art will exist, and given that for art to exist there has to be some means to make it.. what need does copyright address that cannot be met by the forces of supply and demand? The so called 'positive' effect copyright has is skewing the redistribution of wealth in favour of art far beyond the actual demand for art. It may well be that you think any price is worth it for big budget movies but if that is true for everyone then the demand will be met regardless of copyright.

As with the quote from Churchill, your argument in favour of copyright relies a lot on the world being exactly as you perceive it.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[sarujin]

And just to defuse this argument before it starts, the one about what constitutes are, ask yourself this. If you were a (probably digital) archaeologist looking back to the mid 20th to early 21st century from 500 years in the future, do you think you would learn about our culture from Band of Brothers, From the Earth to the Moon, The Godfather, and GTA 4, or from a bunch of Pollock paintings?

Since most soft copies of media such as movies and video games will be unusable in 500 years, I would place my money on Jackson Pollock; unless someone backs up GTA 4 on a gold platter with a PS3 emulator.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[againjj]

This is one reason I have less of an issue with the "moral rights" of European countries than I do with standard US copyright. As I understand them, moral rights allow the enforcement of certain things outside normal copyright, such as attribution and the right to the work's integrity. Thus, plagiarism would be illegal, but copying may or may not, being governed by something else.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[c1t1z3nk41n3]

I've spent countless hours practicing on my guitar. I haven't done it in the hopes of making money at it. Actually I won't even play in front of people, but I do it anyway because I enjoy it.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[againjj]

unbreakable DRM

LOL. Tell me, which DRM was unbreakable?

More seriously, your argument hinges on the investor recouping his costs. Let's assume this, even though one can argue that it is not true (F/OSS seems to be working).

If copyright is just to recoup costs, given the 3-6 year cycle of theater -> DVD -> TV, where the majority of income is made, why do we need copyrights longer than a decade? But then you did not argue that. You argued that without any copyright (and DRM) the costs could not be recouped. So, I'll try again.

Given that there are so few media producers and distributors, it seems that contractual agreements against copying (similar to how NDAs work) could possibly be a solution as well. Theaters not abiding to the contracts can get blacklisted and sued. Technology already exists to determine which theaters copy illegally.

What about other methods? Imagine theaters band together and sponsor creations, which those theaters alone are able to show? Then, those theaters have an incentive to not leak the movie.

What about on your government tax return, you fill in movie producer numbers and the amount of money you want the government to fund that company for the following year? To get government funding, you need to register for a number, and all footage related to a given movie must be released to a public database the day that the movie goes live.

There are many inventive ways of causing movies to be made even without copyright. Free your imagination.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[Ant P.]

You should at the very least slap a CC by-nc-sa or similar on those albums, so the RIAA can't steal your work and sell it for a profit with minor modifications.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[HTH NE1]

In ancient Rome slavery was allowed, people would enter arena's and compete against each other until someone (or animal) would be killed, and adults having sex with children was considered OK.

So when in Rome, doing as the Romans do may be prosecuted in your native country upon your return.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[jcnnghm]

That's right. Art should only be enjoyed by those rich and sophisticated enough to a) deem it worthy of being art, b) condescending enough to believe the artist doesn't deserve to be compensated for their work, and c)stupid enough to believe that everyone else cares what they think. Get over yourself.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[jcnnghm]

What sort of nonsense is that? Millions are spent all the time on projects with no expectation of a measurable profit. Typically it's done for less easily measured returns, and often it's called "charity". Or the returns are so far in the future that no business will try it, so other organizations have to do it if it's to be done at all. How do you compute the returns on a nice medieval church or the eradication of a disease or putting a man on the Moon?

Haven't been to church lately have you. The nicer your parish, the more parishioners you attract, the more hands the collection plate passes through, the more income the church generates. Those cathedrals paid for themselves thousands of times over, why do you think the church has so much money. Try going in a church in a poor area sometime, and notice that it's always the same set of priests. Then go to a church in a rich area ($50M+ annual donations), and you'll notice they constantly bring in traveling clergy that are really great motivational speakers. There's economic incentive behind this.

The irradiation of a disease is measured similarly. Why else do you think anybody with enough cash can buy an instant hard-on today, but there is still AIDS in Africa.

If you think anybody is going to spend $100M to develop something so that a company in China can come along and stamp disks and sell them for a dollar each, you're sadly mistaken. Especially for something with no measurable benefit, like the arts.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[jcnnghm]

The data is digital, it's not going away any time soon. You can go find NES ROMS and emulators right now.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[jcnnghm]

LOL. Tell me, which DRM was unbreakable?

Doesn't have to be totally unbreakable, just unbreakable enough, like the Xbox 360. If you really want to see some serious trusted computing initiatives, modify copyright law.

More seriously, your argument hinges on the investor recouping his costs. Let's assume this, even though one can argue that it is not true (F/OSS seems to be working).

As a pretty serious contributor to FOSS (it's all I've worked on in the last three weeks), I would argue that it only works in certain cases. It's great for library or framework code, or code that will mainly be used by programmers for programming related tasks (ide's, scripting languages), but falls flat most everywhere else. There still isn't a good FOSS image editor, groupware client/server, or office suite. I still can't get a linux desktop to detect my monitors, my mouse, my graphics card, and my network card, all in one go.

If copyright is just to recoup costs, given the 3-6 year cycle of theater -> DVD -> TV, where the majority of income is made, why do we need copyrights longer than a decade? But then you did not argue that. You argued that without any copyright (and DRM) the costs could not be recouped. So, I'll try again.

What about things that aren't movies. If an author writes a book when he's young, then writes another and becomes famous for the second one, but then everyone realizes his earlier work was the true masterpiece, are you OK with the megacorporation publishing companies exploiting him to reap massive profits for little work? The reason FOSS library and framework code works so well is that you can make the calculation that by contributing code, others can expand, improve and maintain your code. Your sacrificing the competitive advantage the proprietary code gives you, for the long term advantage of a library with more features than you could realistically create yourself.

Given that there are so few media producers and distributors, it seems that contractual agreements against copying (similar to how NDAs work) could possibly be a solution as well. Theaters not abiding to the contracts can get blacklisted and sued. Technology already exists to determine which theaters copy illegally.

Good luck with that.

What about other methods? Imagine theaters band together and sponsor creations, which those theaters alone are able to show? Then, those theaters have an incentive to not leak the movie.

Isn't this proposed solution much more restrictive than copyright.

What about on your government tax return, you fill in movie producer numbers and the amount of money you want the government to fund that company for the following year? To get government funding, you need to register for a number, and all footage related to a given movie must be released to a public database the day that the movie goes live.

That should work as well as use tax. With brilliant ideas like this, you should definitely go into politics. After all, the government runs everything else so well, they should provide our circuses as well.

There are many inventive ways of causing movies to be made even without copyright. Free your imagination.

The ideas you had, while imaginative, were stupid, impractical, and more restrictive than copyright actually is. Join me in reality.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[shentino]

Good luck finding a company without enough monopoly power to force such a work-for-hire provision upon you on a strictly "take it or leave it" basis.

Especially with the current economy the way it is.

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[harry666t]

> The arts have flourished. But can this be attributed solely or
> even mostly to copyright? Others that should not be discounted:
>
> [snip]

You forgot to mention drugs :)

Re:One saw the same thing in ancient Rome

[againjj]

LOL. Tell me, which DRM was unbreakable?

Doesn't have to be totally unbreakable, just unbreakable enough, like the Xbox 360. If you really want to see some serious trusted computing initiatives, modify copyright law.

We're getting it anyway.

More seriously, your argument hinges on the investor recouping his costs. Let's assume this, even though one can argue that it is not true (F/OSS seems to be working).

As a pretty serious contributor to FOSS (it's all I've worked on in the last three weeks), I would argue that it only works in certain cases. It's great for library or framework code, or code that will mainly be used by programmers for programming related tasks (ide's, scripting languages), but falls flat most everywhere else. There still isn't a good FOSS image editor, groupware client/server, or office suite. I still can't get a linux desktop to detect my monitors, my mouse, my graphics card, and my network card, all in one go.

Okay, since we are arguing it, then: Linux isn't preinstalled generally speaking, vendors do not cooperate with making drivers, and it is a minority system. These three do not affect only F/OSS; see other commercial OSes that have or had these properties. For other software, some has been polished, some not. Firefox is a nice example. A lot of stuff can be produced without the sort of legal ownership that copyright provides. Others have pointed out various works from before copyright, etc. The patron and donation models have existed in the past and still continue to exist as common models. There is far more out there on why F/OSS can work. One reason it has a hard time is the large warchests fighting its adoption.

If copyright is just to recoup costs, given the 3-6 year cycle of theater -> DVD -> TV, where the majority of income is made, why do we need copyrights longer than a decade? But then you did not argue that. You argued that without any copyright (and DRM) the costs could not be recouped. So, I'll try again.

What about things that aren't movies. If an author writes a book when he's young, then writes another and becomes famous for the second one, but then everyone realizes his earlier work was the true masterpiece, are you OK with the megacorporation publishing companies exploiting him to reap massive profits for little work? The reason FOSS library and framework code works so well is that you can make the calculation that by contributing code, others can expand, improve and maintain your code. Your sacrificing the competitive advantage the proprietary code gives you, for the long term advantage of a library with more features than you could realistically create yourself.

Original copyright in the US was only 28 years (if claimed and renewed), and didn't cover anything from outside the US. That model worked. And if it were that model, then the megacorporations would not exactly be exploiting the author you talk about. There certainly wouldn't be massive profits on an out-of-copyright work. I mean, really. Copyright (according to the constitution) is supposed to encourage production of works, not protect or produce profits. As long as it accomplishes that in the most minimal way possible, the creator not getting greatly compensated is not all that important, since he doesn't in the current system anyhow.

Given that there are so few media producers and distributors, it seems that contractual agreements against copying (similar to how NDAs work) could possibly be a solution as well. Theaters not abiding to the contracts can get blacklisted and sued. Technology already exists to determine which theaters copy illegally.

Good luck with that.

Things like that have worked in the past.

What about other methods? Imagi

Canadian pirates?

[stonedcat]

Yarg eh!

old news

[gEvil (beta)]

Pffft. This is old news. Try to keep up guys...

Re:old news

[commodoresloat]

Yeah this is totally a dupe. kdawson posted this story in 1898!

Related to those old Candian pirates *arr*

[BadAnalogyGuy]

It turns out that my great grandfather was involved in the sheetmusic pirate trade. Actually, he was involved in beaver skinning and general supply chain stuff in the Great Lake area of Quebec and later Manitoba as the pioneers headed westward.

He had two sayings, that are still repeated in my family. "Your customers will buy whatever you sell them, because they don't have a choice." and "What no one finds out you're doing, they aren't going to complain aboot."

While it's certainly not so much true today as it was in those frontier days, the marketplace is still a monopoly in many ways for many types of products. It's only those "customers" who can either forego some product or generate it themselves that can avoid buying from sellers like grampy.

Nowadays with the near instantaneous ability to copy and distribute ephemeral works like music, more and more customers are falling into that latter category of "generating it themselves". Those sellers who want to make a profit off of these pioneers aren't going to see a loon.

Re:Related to those old Candian pirates *arr*

[drinkypoo]

Actually, he was involved in beaver skinning and general supply chain stuff in the Great Lake area of Quebec and later Manitoba as the pioneers headed westward.

That's amazing! I like to consider myself a beaver skinner.

Nowadays with the near instantaneous ability to copy and distribute ephemeral works like music, more and more customers are falling into that latter category of "generating it themselves". Those sellers who want to make a profit off of these pioneers aren't going to see a loon.

What I'd like to know is, why Canadian pirates? Just because of the added difficulty in tracking down the offenders? The article was pretty similar to NYT articles of today, which is to say, light on the important details and inflammatory in the extreme.

Re:Related to those old Candian pirates *arr*

[Morphine007]

Actually, he was involved in beaver skinning and general supply chain stuff in the Great Lake area of Quebec and later Manitoba as the pioneers headed westward.

That's amazing! I like to consider myself a beaver skinner.

All beavers should be skinned, imo.

Re:Related to those old Candian pirates *arr*

[camperdave]

Oh, we've been trying to civilize our southern neighbours for quite a while: Sheet music piracy, rum running during prohibition, the metric system. So relax, pour yourself half a litre of fine Canadian ale, and listen to some good music.

Re:Related to those old Candian pirates *arr*

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, he was involved in beaver skinning and general supply chain stuff in the Great Lake area of Quebec and later Manitoba as the pioneers headed westward.

That's amazing! I like to consider myself a beaver skinner.

All beavers should be skinned, imo.

Of course! Who likes to floss while they eat?

Re:Related to those old Candian pirates *arr*

[Skjellifetti]

Oh, we've been trying to civilize our southern neighbours for quite a while...

Ahh, maybe that's why you declared aboot 200K of us to be Canadian citizens recently. I thought it was because you'd graduated from sheet music piracy to citizen piracy. It was a bit of a shock to learn last week that I was a Lost Canadian who has suddenly been found. Just one question: Where is Canada, anyway?

PaperSharing.

[HungryHobo]

I think these PaperSharing M2M(Mailbox2Mailbox) systems which allow just anyone to swap files, folders and even whole books should be banned immediately before they destroy all that is good and pure with our country!

Re:PaperSharing.

[Chabil Ha']

Not only that, but the USPO should start instigating deep package inspection because I'm sure that these illegal files are causing undue stress on the delivery infrastructure.

Re:PaperSharing.

[MostAwesomeDude]

Well, they can perform deep inspections of my "package" anytime they like. :3

Re:PaperSharing.

[H0p313ss]

Well, they can perform deep inspections of my "package" anytime they like. :3

John, Dave, you heard the man.

Re:PaperSharing.

[Joe Snipe]

Wow, you must be BadAnalogyGuy's archnemesis.

How did people learn about new music?

[Anonymous Coward]

The music company sent artists around from town to town to play the music in public places for free.

Similar to pushing it out on the radio.

page 6

[Pretzalzz]

Neighboring stories on page 6: right below it is a bird eating a snake, to the left is construction workers find papers shedding light on 40 year old missing person case, to the right are ads. Apparently this wasn't a very important story back then.

Re:page 6

[Anonymous Coward]

DOOLADDY'S SNAKE STORY

He Saw It Fight a Bird on the Park Ball Grounds and Furnishes the Details.

Mounted Park Policeman Dooladdy is authority for the following snake story: "I saw a crowd of about 200 people at the northeast corner of the ball ground early this afternoon," said he last night. "I supposed two boys were having a fight, and I went over to see that the Horton law was not being fractured. In the centre I saw, not the boys, as I expected, but a big blackbird fighting a fifteen-inch garter snake. The bird had a double Nelson on the snake's neck, and for fully two minutes it kept this hold, while the snake twisted to get loose.

"This was weakening the bird, and it tried a new scheme. Dropping the snake, it flew to a bush. We thought it had laid down on us. For an instant the snake was quiet, and then it made a wiggle for the bush. The blackbird waited until the snake was almost there. Then it swooped down and hit the snake in the back. The blow of the sharp, stiff bill broke the snake's spine, and it was paralyzed.

"Several times it was struck by the raging bird, and finally it died. The blackbird then picked up the snake and flew away over a tree top. Two hundred feet or more in the air it dropped the snake and disappeared. A little later the bird came to its nest in the bushes. A gentleman in the crowd told me the fight started when the bird, which is a female, returned to her nest in the bush and found the snake keeping her eggs warm. In a jiffy she had that snake out of the nest and fighting for its life."

Re:page 6

[HTH NE1]

A gentleman in the crowd told me the fight started when the bird, which is a female, returned to her nest in the bush and found the snake keeping her eggs warm.

Officer Dooladdy and/or the gentleman was very generous to the snake, setting it up as a "no good deed goes unpunished" story. Of course, I'm sure the snake was intending to keep the eggs warm, albeit "in mah belly!"

Great-great-grandad.

[grub]

Yeah, my great-great-grandad did this, guess it's just in my genes. That'll be my defence in court!

Just trying to live up to our history...

[joelmax]

Lolz.. well, it seems that Canada has long been a copyright thorn in the US's side.. based off this article and the fact that we canadians just got added to the copyright blacklist by the us, joining russia/china/and co... I'd say we are just trying to live up to our heritage..

The ancients invented libraries too. Lets ban them

[Anonymous Coward]

You could find any book in a library and read it without paying the publisher or the author. No wonder outraged authors burned them down in the end.

But we know better. We respect the Sanctity of Intelectual Propery. We would never allow copyrighted work to be borrowed for free. So let's burn down all modern libraries, and ban the creation of any new ones.

Phonograph Killed the Music Hall Star

[Drakkenmensch]

You must ban the wax cylinder musical format before it destroys the musical performance industry forever!!!

Re:Phonograph Killed the Music Hall Star

[FlyingBishop]

This is modded funny, and I suspect that it was intended to be sarcastic, but it's really quite accurate. John Philip Sousa campaigned extensively against the record when it began, for fear that it would destroy the market for live performance.

Of course, it didn't eliminate it, but it did remove live performance as a reasonable way to gain income, since restaurants could now get ambient music essentially for free.

And of course, removing copyright from the equation would restore the performance industry to its former glory.

Re:Phonograph Killed the Music Hall Star

[FrankieBaby1986]

Ya kno, it's funny, but the bars in my college town always seem to be more packed when they have a live band playing...

There is still quite a market for live performance, but I agree, the performers likely can't make a living off that, and the market is definitely smaller. But then, how many restaurants can really afford to pay some musicians a living wage? Unfortunately, like many former professions, being a musician for a living is becoming impossible. Time to move on, I guess. Limiting other people's freedoms (copyright, DRM, etc) just to keep your profession alive is anti-social and unproductive.

Re:Phonograph Killed the Music Hall Star

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, what are you talking about? Performing is how bands make their money now, at least if they're signed on a large label. Sales of CD's only make money to the corporation, not the artist.

Re:Phonograph Killed the Music Hall Star

[FlyingBishop]

But very few make a reasonable income from performance.

Copyright The New York Times?!?

[MartinSchou]

The article was published june 13, 1897 - how the fuck can copyright still be applicable to that article?

The copyright was assigned to a corporate entity, and as such there is no "life + 70 years". It becomes what - 90 years at the outside?

Trying to claim copyright on a 112 year old article is insane ...

Re:Copyright The New York Times?!?

[jeti]

Isn't the copyright valid for up to 120 years for corporate entities? The claim is plausible enough (but still insane).

Re:Copyright The New York Times?!?

[jeti]

The [Copyright Term Extension Act] extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
Since the given date is the date of publication, the copyright should indeed have expired.

Re:Copyright The New York Times?!?

[Falkkin]

This seems to be a blanket statement that NYT puts on all their online articles. It might be insane in this case, but from their standpoint I understand why they do it: they put the publishing date there, and the fact that the article was Copyrighted then, and let the user figure out whether the laws in their jurisdiction actually allow the work to be copied. They have no idea what the hell laws Congress might pass (even applying retroactively) in the future, so pass the buck to someone else on determining that a given article is, in fact, not copyrighted.

I also wouldn't be surprised if this is just laziness on the part of some programmer; I can imagine something like this happening:

for (a in articles) { addStandardCopyrightMessage(a.date()); }

(I'm not saying that any of this is *right*; I'm just saying that I can see how this happened, and I'm not at all surprised.)

Re:Copyright The New York Times?!?

[emddudley]

Trying to claim copyright on a 112 year old article is insane.

The article is in the public domain because it was published in the US before 1923. As someone else stated it is just a blanket statement.

See http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/.

Re:Copyright The New York Times?!?

[againjj]

The image is copyrighted, not the article. If you were to retype the article in its entirety, you would be perfectly safe. Just don't copy the image.

Re:Copyright The New York Times?!?

[HTH NE1]

The article was published june 13, 1897 - how the fuck can copyright still be applicable to that article?

It doesn't. It applies to the PDF of the article. Affixed in a new medium, that affixment enjoys a new copyright.

If you want to copy the copyright-expired public domain version of the article, you must do so from an original 1897 edition.

Expect the NYT to charge a fee for access to their copy.

Ergo, the public domain is dead and copyright is unconstitutionally eternal.

kdawson = idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

The AMPA never dreamed of suing their customers, though.

But they did. Those "pirates" were customers. There were just way fewer of them because BitTorrent hadn't yet been invented.

Argh

[RemoWilliams84]

Arrrgh! The Canadian pirates be true pirates, eh?

Fifty Percent? Really?

[mc1138]

Sounds like just another music company exaggerating the effect piracy is having on their business... That being said, its nice to see back then people still had the common sense not to alienate the very people you're trying to sell to.

The ruin of the music industry...

[Savage-Rabbit]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Did these "evil pirates" kill the music industry, as was proclaimed they would?

It didn't ruin the music industry but it probably ruined any number of small composers and threw them to the mercy of big distributers who were the only ones that had the resources to defend against this sort of thing. Even back then piracy could ruin you or at least cause you significant economic harm. A classic example is the 1902 movie: "A Trip to the Moon" by Georges Méliès. The movie was stolen by agents of Thomas Edison and widely circulated in the US by Edison. This ruined Méliès plans to market his film in the US and Méliès never got a profit from this movie. Eventually Méliès was forced into bankruptcy and although the losses on "A Trip to the Moon" probably didn't help his bankruptcy was mostly due to aggressive anti competitive behavior by the big studios of the period. So perhaps the lesson is that there is not much difference between pirates and evil mega-corps from a small/independent artist's or for that matter a small software developer's point of view. Both cause you economic harm and if you are a small/independent artist or software developer you can therefore feel free to detest both equally.

Re:The ruin of the music industry...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except, of course in this specific case (that you use to illustrate your general point) the 'piracy' was performed by a major player(Edison - believe it) and not joe pirate with ... some sort of nifty/cheap 1902-era film copying device.

So it seems to me that your point is that major companies are much more harmful to independents than li'l old pirates.

So, yeah.

Re:The ruin of the music industry...

[Savage-Rabbit]

xcept, of course in this specific case (that you use to illustrate your general point) the 'piracy' was performed by a major player(Edison - believe it) and not joe pirate with ... some sort of nifty/cheap 1902-era film copying device.

So it seems to me that your point is that major companies are much more harmful to independents than li'l old pirates.

Not really, my point was to compare the situation at the dawn of the 20th century, when the only one that could do a filmmaker major economic harm by pirating his film was an evil mega-corp like the one run by Thomas Edison, with the movie piracy situation today. The sheet music piracy problem of 1897 is much closer in nature to today's music piracy problem. Both examples, however, illustrate that piracy either by a mega-corp as in Méliès case or a legion of individual pirates as in the case of the sheet music distributers could cause you, the content copyright owner, major economic harm even a century ago. Today, thanks to computers and the internet, pirate users are capable of doing just as much harm to a filmmaker as any evil mega-corp because any tom dick or harry can rip off your movie and make it instantly available to millions of people. Arguably the pirates today cause you more harm because you can sue a corporation for stealing your stuff, there is practically speaking nothing you can do to stop the pirates.

Yes, the music industry died

[mangu]

Did these "evil pirates" kill the music industry, as was proclaimed they would?

They sure did! In the 1890s there was a great market for piano rolls. Where can you buy piano rolls today? Conclusion: pirates killed the music industry.

Re:Yes, the music industry died

[HTH NE1]

Where can you buy piano rolls today?

They went digital decades ago. I saw a piano at Sears that took rolls stored on 3.5" floppy disks.

The Canadians Have a Better Selection

[wandazulu]

Pft...anyone can go into a music store in the US and get copies of standard popular drivel like "Let's Hear it for McKinley!" or "The Victoria Waltz", but those stores won't carry the more edgy stuff like "Please Don't Die of the Dropsey, Dear Adeline" or "Miss Merryweather's New Corset".

Until the US realizes that there's a whole market for sheet music and piano rolls that is out of the mainstream, I'm going to keep buying from north of the border.

Blame Canada!

[DarthVain]

Too funny. I love how even the NYT is making fun of the lobby, or was this supposed to be serious?

It looks like they are using the same stats and logic from 1897 today, none of which is likely correct or makes a lick of sense.

The first thing that popped out at me was the 5 million songs a month figure. I can't be bothered to look it up, but considering what the entire population was in Canada in 1897, I would have to say that it looks like every single ancestor we have up here is a pirate... Yarrr!

Stupid then. Stupid now.

Re:Blame Canada!

[u38cg]

It does seem high, but some level of musical training was ubiquitous before the advent of the record player. One of the things a respectable home had was a piano, just like they now have a laptop.

Re:Blame Canada!

[DarthVain]

Still...

Population of Canada in 1897 was approximately 5,122,000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_population_of_Canada_by_years#1890s

Number of Songs Per Month Pirated = 5,000,000

Soooo that means EVERY MONTH pretty much every man, woman, child, grandmother, frickin' everyone pirated one song. Every Month. That's a lot of songs. You figure at that rate you would quickly reach some kind of music saturation point where every person in the entire country owns every song ever made...

Anyway it is ridiculous. It is stupid. Just like the lies and propaganda that is spread by the US music copyright lobby today. It has no basis in fact, and is so wrong that all it really is, is a thinly veiled excuse by industry to try and give politicians a legitimate excuse for doing what they are being paid by them to do.

Unfortunately the only political party that seems to get this in respect to this issue is the NDP (New Democratic Party, who really should change their name as they aren't exactly new anymore) party, and they haven't a hope of being in power unfortunately. They are constantly at the losing end of both Conservative and Liberal fear tactics against one another...

Re:Blame Canada!

[Brainfryd]

I guess I'll go buy a parrot to perch on my shoulder, get one leg amputated & replaced with a wooden peg, and practice saying "Yarrr" instead of "eh"..... I think that when you are using an outdated business model for your revenue stream like the major record companies are doing, you'll reach for any straw within grasp to lay blame on, simply to avoid the necessary work and expense to adapt to the new business world we are in today.

Loss leader

[sakdoctor]

I hate the way they sell those Gutenberg presses as a loss leader, then gouge you on printing plates and ink refills.

Re:Loss leader

[lucas_picador]

I hate the way they sell those Gutenberg presses as a loss leader, then gouge you on printing plates and ink refills.

Not to mention that the typesetter they give to run the thing you always tells you you're out of ink when you've still got half a barrel left...

Re:Loss leader

[jonbryce]

Joking aside, the plates were expensive as they had to be engraved by hand. The ink was probably relatively cheap.

Whereas, now you can get a Laserjet for not much more than the price of a toner cartridge.

Re:Loss leader

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, what is most famous about Gutenberg's presses is that they were the first commercially useful pressing machines in the West and they featured movable type that did not involve cutting whole plates by hand as in the East.

Probably worth noting

[DurendalMac]

These guys were for-profit pirates who sold this stuff and made money. I have no sympathy for people selling bootlegs. However, bittorrent and such is a different story as I don't make any money by sharing copyrighted goods.

Another Reason...

[cagrin]

...to be a proud Canadian!

It's not just the beer, eh ;)

REPOST!!11

[Anonymous Coward]

god slashdot sux so much, i posted this story 112 years ago but apparently everyone loves reading repeat stories.

HAHA!

[reidiq]

Canadian Pirates!!!! Instead of saying ARRRRRRR they go EHHHHHHHHH?

Re: HP Laserjet III & IIID

[cagrin]

...ah the good old days :) and i still remember when Lexmark spun off of IBM too ;) ...if only i had a time machine ;) i'd probably buy a few stocks i missed out on too ;) like the company that makes Tasers, LOL (when the Taser first came out the stock went from ~$1 to ~30 in a matter of months...one of many examples i missed out on :(

Go Canada!

[Drone69]

I remember acquiring pirated, erm...liberated, music back in 1897. The download speeds were excruciatingly slow on my 0.1 baud abacus. The old tin cans tied to string trick sped things up a bit until ADSL came onto the scene.

Dupe!

[117]

This story originally appeared on Ye Olde Slashdotte 112 years ago, although archive.org don't seem to have a copy of the original page....

Hilarious, but verified?

[Exp315]

Hilarious, and plausible - but has anyone verified that this is a real NYT article and not a mock-up?

Re:Hilarious, but verified?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's verified.

I call BS

[macterra]

Isn't anyone skeptical on the authenticity of the article? Do you really think copyright infringers were called "pirates" in 1897?

Re:I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

It's authentic.

Re:I call BS

[u38cg]

I thought so as well, but it turns out to be legit. Some very snappy writing for the time, it must be said.

Re:I call BS

[FeatherBoa]

Do you really think copyright infringers were called "pirates" in 1897?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement

"For electronic and audio-visual media, unauthorized reproduction and distribution is occasionally referred to as piracy (an early reference was made by Daniel Defoe in 1703 when he said of his novel True-born Englishman : "Its being Printed again and again, by Pyrates"). The practice of labeling the act of infringement as "piracy" actually predates copyright itself. Even prior to the 1709 enactment of the Statute of Anne, generally recognized as the first copyright law, the Stationers' Company of London in 1557 received a Royal Charter giving the company a monopoly on publication and tasking it with enforcing the charter. Those who violated the charter were labeled pirates as early as 1603."

Re:I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, it didn't help that charter violators also carried cutlasses and sailed the high seas...

Same song and dance

[Joe Snipe]

'They use the mails to reach purchasers

Funny how they seem to lack the same understanding of (then) current technology and terminology as the current group.

Re:Same song and dance

[H0p313ss]

'They use the mails to reach purchasers

Funny how they seem to lack the same understanding of (then) current technology and terminology as the current group.

Actually that terminology was in common usage in the period. For some examples read the original Sherlock Holmes stories or works by H.G. Wells.

John Philip Sousa

[commodoresloat]

Here's a quote from his article "The Menace of Mechanical Music" from 1906:

I foresee a marked deterioration in American music and musical taste, an interruption in the musical development of the country, and a host of other injuries to music in its artistic manifestations by virtue -- or rather by vice -- of the multiplication of various music-reproducing machinesâ¦. The ingenuity of a phonograph's mechanism may incite the inventive genius to its improvement, but I could not imagine that a performance by it would ever inspire embryonic Mendelssohns, Beethovens, Mozarts, and Wagners to the acquirement of technical skill, or the grasp of human possibilities of art.

Some would say he was just greedy, however; he had an investment in marching bands, which is what most of the article is about, especially those using the Sousaphone. The phonograph was seen as a threat to that.

Re:John Philip Sousa

[H0p313ss]

I foresee a marked deterioration in American music and musical taste...

Wow... Given that Sousa is probably one of the worst composers of all time that's just an awesome quote.

Re:John Philip Sousa

[Anonymous Coward]

Sousa is probably one of the worst composers of all time

I am interested in why you say this.

I readily admit that not everyone likes marches. But then, not everyone likes opera, or heavy metal, or jazz, or country, or ... . Personally, a find an occasional march every now and then makes for a nice break in routine, just as a piece of ragtime might. I wouldn't want to listen to nothing but marches; just like ragtime or jazz, I find them to be very monotonous after the second or third in a row.

But Sousa as one of the worse? I don't think I would put him in even the bottom one hundred of my own personal least liked.

Abe Simpson might be proud

[Mr Z]

See, they didn't have the Internet on computers back then, so they had to share their music over regular mail, not email. *d'oh*

Value != Price

[mangu]

It is sad that there are so many who don't place a value on the most valuable asset we have -- creativity.

Ideas have an immense value. The value of an idea can be so great it's meaningless to compare it with monetary value. How much is the concept of a wheel worth? The idea of using a fire to cook food? The idea of defining an alphabet of symbols to represent spoken sounds?

Price is a different matter. You want to sell something, set a price for it. If the potential buyers agree that it's a fair price then a business transaction results, it's as simple as that. However, if the buyers don't agree it's a fair price, no business results and you are stuck with an unsold item.

Consider a simple idea: a steel nail. Anyone can make nails with a roll of steel wire, pliers to cut it, and a hammer and anvil to make a head and a point. But does anyone make nails at home? No. Why? With the price of nails at the hardware store, homemade nails make no sense.

If an industry that has no "intellectual property" on something that anyone can make at home can compete on price, then why can't the musicians and film producers underprice their amateur competitors?

I a could download a song for $0.10 or a film for $1.00 I'd buy plenty of music and films online. But at $0.99 for a song or $14.95 for a film I refuse to buy anything. If I can copy songs and films for free I copy them, if I couldn't copy them I'd live without them.

In any case this makes no difference at all to the producers. They prefer to get $0.00 of my business and complain of "piracy" instead of admitting their prices are an order of magnitude higher than what the market will bear.

US was a pirate nation too

[bugi]

The US only passed copyright laws after its printing industry was established.

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pre Berne convention

[FeatherBoa]

This was pre-Berne, in an era when copyright rules operated only within a country. Of course even then the US media would not have said so, but this sort of thing was going on both ways. In fact it was American's routinely pirating copyrighted books for sale in the American market that was one of the drivers for instituting the Berne convention to begin with. Canada signed Berne in 1928. The US in 1989. Where was the urgency for fancy international copyright conventions then?

W00t, eh ?

[billcopc]

Yay Canada! From a time when our leaders weren't U.S. lapdogs...

My, how things have degenerated over the century.