Nesson & Camara Increase Attack Against RIAA

eldavojohn writes "We talked about Charlie Nesson of Harvard Law School before, and it may not have been known to you, but he is backing former student and Jammie Thomas' new lawyer, K.A.D. Camara. Ars is reporting that Nesson is upping the charges against the RIAA. Not only is file-sharing fair use, but the $100,000,000 the RIAA has collected through fear is due back to those wrongly accused. He's also increasing the number of fronts he's fighting. On Camara's website, he indicates that in another case, Brittany English (pro bono), they 'are asking the courts to declare that statutory damages like these — 150,000:1 — are unconstitutional and that the RIAA's campaign to extract settlements from individuals by the threat of such unconstitutional damages is itself unlawful, enjoin the RIAA's unlawful campaign, and order the RIAA to return the $100M+ that it obtained as a result of its unlawful campaign.'"

Comments

Frosty

[sexconker]

Piss

hey, a modern saint!

[swschrad]

skip the three steps, Vatican, and buy this man a gold chair and cape!

Re:hey, a modern saint!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm sure the idea of collecting the usual 30% of that $100M on behalf of all the class plaintiffs the lawyer is "representing" never crossed his mind.

Re:hey, a modern saint!

[Anonymous Coward]

Chair and a cape? Toilet and a grandad more like, this is terrible news. The last time something this bad happened I was in the airforce and they'd broken the valves, and I had to send for the captain to get them fixed. How is this going to help?

Re:hey, a modern saint!

[drgould]

Unless I'm mistaken (and I probably am), a person must perform a miracle before they can be declared a saint.

If he wins, that would probably qualify.

Re:hey, a modern saint!

[DarkOx]

IANAL, but consider this.

Doing this kind of work requires you invest tons of hours and probably a bit of money in expenses for which there is a high likelihood you can never recoup. Like any other investment the greater the risk the greater the rewards must be to attract anyone. Lawyers who do this sort of work are investing with time and materials that they could have been using to do work that was more likely or even certain to pay off.

Its often not something you can do on the side either. You are up against of team of lawyers with corporate backing, If you half ass it you probably don't stand a chance. How big a cut of something like this would it take for you to risk quiting your day job for? with odd that are probably quite long?

****

Now consider you are a member of the represented class you have been abused by the RIAA directly. You fought them and lost, or settled and paid up. You though you were out your 100K settlement or damages. Now someone comes along and puts the smack down on the thugs you could not defeat or did not think it was even to your interest to try and fight. They also manage to return 70% of your losses to you. I suspect most people would be great full to get 70K refunded to them of 100K they thought they'd lost forever.

I don't find the lawyer's take on these types of things all that outrageous when you look at it objectively.

Re:hey, a modern saint!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great full? WTF? Ahh, you meant grateful. I was wondering how those poor starving people were full :)

Re:hey, a modern saint!

[Anonymous Coward]

skip the three steps, Vatican, and buy this man a gold chair and cape!

Not just any saint, a saint-Lawyer - one of the rarest kind.

Re:hey, a modern saint!

[uniquename72]

You also have to be dead -- I'm sure the RIAA would be happy to oblige.

Re:hey, a modern saint!

[OECD]

Now someone comes along and puts the smack down on the thugs you could not defeat or did not think it was even to your interest to try and fight. They also manage to return 70% of your losses to you. I suspect most people would be great full to get 70K refunded to them of 100K they thought they'd lost forever.

I don't find the lawyer's take on these types of things all that outrageous when you look at it objectively.

Unless "objectively" means "like a lawyer" I still don't see how a huge injustice has not been done. ("Injustice" is the opposite of "Justice." You may need to consult a dictionary.)

Re:hey, a modern saint!

[Tanktalus]

All the lawyers are doing is mitigating, not eliminating, the injustice that RIAA has already done. Time for a car analogy: you get in a fender-bender and it's 100% the other guy's fault. That's injustice. Mitigating the injustice is that the other guy's insurance pays to repair your car (which does not bring it back to mint shape - the frame has been bent and put back, so it has additional stress points making the vehicle less safe in any following collision) and your hospital bills (which still means you missed out on work for a month or three, during which time a coworker got a promotion you were in line for).

The insurance company didn't eliminate the injustice did to you, but did mitigate it. You're better off with the insurance money than without. Much like the lawyers here: you're better off with the 70% back than without. And all with no risk to you - the lawyers are taking the risk.

Re:hey, a modern saint!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't find the lawyer's take on these types of things all that outrageous when you look at it objectively.

Not to be pedantic, but you mean subjectively. Your asking us to look at it from both the lawyers the defeated defendants points of view, who are both personally involved and invested and in the situation.

Not that I'm disagreeing with what you said - it's just that I'm not even sure how you look at something like this objectively, as everyone will have some kind of opinion of agenda to steer them, or without applying/implying some standard of morality that won't apply to everyone.

Re:hey, a modern saint!

[mpeskett]

To become a saint you can either perform a miracle, or die for your faith as a martyr... so he could qualify either way.

The requirement to be dead that the other guy mentioned is so that all their actions can be considered before they're declared a saint. Thus avoiding the possibility of a saint doing something evil after being sainted.

My Take

[arizwebfoot]

It is my hope that they just flat out kick the RIAA's collective butts from Main to Cali.

Re:My Take

[Anonymous Coward]

It's spelled Maine you fucking retard.

Re:My Take

[Pieroxy]

It's actually funny how all they are fighting for seems just like common sense. The RIAA is blackmailing all the people they can, under ridiculously claims... Man, 150000:1, who in their right mind could come up with something that stupid !!!???!!!

Re:My Take

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called a typo, dingleberry.

Re:My Take

[Anonymous Coward]

Politicians.

On the take of course.

Re:My Take

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's fucking retards? Maine Coons? Those cats are pretty big, but Corky has the upside of Downs Syndrome: huge dick, superhuman strength and the desire to hump everything in site. Maybe the touch of the Downs has confused Corky.

Main Coon == pussy
pussy != vagina

Oh, now I see. != confuses Corky. He's undoubtably confused "bang equal" with "banging equal". He's not much of a coder, he's really more of the idea guy. I'm pretty sure he wrote Matrix 2, Boxing Helena, Crash AND came up with the suck off scene in Swordfish. Best job interview EVAH! Don't you see what I mean? He's an idea guy! Oh, that Corky!!! Not too smart but a heart of Au.

Please, my double personality AC, go and find Corky and let him know he's banging the wrong kind of pussy. He's really more of a Charo type. Cuchi-cuchi!

Re:My Take

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, in this case, it's a schnozzberry

Re:My Take

[Kjella]

Man, 150000:1, who in their right mind could come up with something that stupid !!!???!!!

I can't be bothered to dig up the year they last changed those figures, but it's old like before online copying was a problem. So if you got one guy making 100 copies of a book, one liability = 150,000$. In modern day file sharing everyone makes one copy - what's the point to having more than one copy - so you have 100 guys making 1 copy, 100 liabilities = 15,000,000$. Basicly the punishment is made for a completely different situation.

Re:My Take

[Anonymous Coward]

You're probably entirely correct, but remember that non-comercial copying became (explicitly) illegal _because_ of digital copying. And I for one find it incredibly difficult to believe nobody was thinking about statutory damages when they created this situation.

Slashdot users are fucking bastards.

[Anonymous Coward]

I amm going to write a virus for linux and then get all slashdot users to have their penises cemented into bricks.

Go, Kiwi, Go!

[mangu]

After reading on Slashdot about this guy and reading more on the internet, I've become his fan. I wish him well.

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[erroneus]

Do you turn your back on NYCL so quickly just because some real-life Doogey Houser thinks he can take on an establishment that has been bought and paid for? Not only will there be high resistance from the courts, there will be heavy resistance from the DoJ and possibly even the Obama administration. These media people have a lot of favors they can call in.

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[sys.stdout.write]

Charlie Nesson has lost his mind. I support the movement, but claiming that file sharing is protected under "fair use" is a horrible legal argument..

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[zimagold]

He should change his name to John Connor and lead the resistance!

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why go for fair~ We know the RIAA isn't going for fair. So why not try and shoot for the moon. If it does become fair-use I know many people who will be rejoicing.

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[cheekyboy]

record companies used to claim the art work and physical cd were valuable and worth the high price in the 90s.

therefore if thats still true, the music it self is a smaller portion of value of the whole cd, and if a copy in mp3 is 1/2 the quality, then it represents an even lower value.

And no, online shops and sony dont sell 'convenience' we can create our own convenience thank you.

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[BCW2]

He is just striking back "in kind". His claim is no more ridiculous than any and all claims made by the RIAA.

Imagine chest pains in certain board rooms at the thought that this could be ruled on against them. Just the thought, kind of like how their victims have felt.

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I support the movement, but claiming that file sharing is protected under "fair use" is a horrible legal argument.

Actually the way you, and perhaps they, have expressed the issue is overly simplistic. "File sharing" is a broad term. There are many factual scenarios under its penumbra. Some of those scenarios would constitute fair use, some would not, and some would fall into a gray area to which we do not know the answer. There has been NO litigation of the "fair use" defense in the RIAA v. Individual cases, except for a single 2003 case in which the only question was whether running off unauthorized copies of unauthorized copies on a p2p file sharing network, and placing those in permanent hard copies on the defendant's computer, was a "fair use". The Court held that it was not. But there are many other possible fact patterns, none of which have presented themselves yet in a litigation context.

Meanwhile the constitutionality defense -- that the RIAA's theory of statutory damages fails to pass constitutional muster under the Due Process Clause due to the disproportionality to actual damages -- is certain to succeed, in my professional opinion, once the issue ripens.

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[Anonymous Coward]

File sharing may not be protected under fair use, but it absolutely is 100% legal under American law. No one has ever cited a single law that states otherwise.

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[forgot_my_username]

Do you turn your back on NYCL so quickly

NYCL doesn't seem to mind the extra help...at least I have never read anything to the contrary

My personal take on it is... there are enough cockroaches* to go around. The more lawyers stepping up to the plate, the better!

*I apologize to all the cockroaches that I have offended with this remark.

just because some real-life Doogey Houser thinks he can take on an establishment that has been bought and paid for? Not only will there be high resistance from the courts, there will be heavy resistance from the DoJ and possibly even the Obama administration. These media people have a lot of favors they can call in.

If anything, that just makes me want to root* for them all the more!

* How do you spell root... I wasn't trying to be all h4ck0rz and stuff.


.....
refinance cost

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[dcollins117]

Erm, it's just spelled "root". Just use your l33t h4xx0r skills and visit dictionary.reference.com. Or do I need to post a link?

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[rs79]

"Do you turn your back on NYCL so quickly just because some real-life Doogey Houser thinks he can take on an establishment that has been bought and paid for?"

I know Charles Neeson. Comparing him to Doogey Houser indicates you don't know a thing about him. He's educated some of the finest legal minds day, off the top of my head: Larry Lessig, Jon Zittrain and Ben Edelman.

There's a reason the RIAA never moved against Harvard students. This is the one battle they didn't want and they may be assholes but they're not stupid.

Charlie may not win. But something is gonna happen here that will change the landscape forever, mark my words.

Read everything you can about Billion dollar Charlie then see if you still have the same opinion of the man and thr RIAA's chances.

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[Runaway1956]

I've never BEEN a fan - of anyone, except maybe myself, and my sons. I'm reconsidering my stance on the stupidity of ever being a fan..........

Re:Go, Kiwi, Go!

[forgot_my_username]

You can post LINKS !!!
You are too KEWL.


Actually, I looked it up in Google, but a friend of mine kept telling me it was Route.
And, being the thorough methodical man that I am. I flipped a coin.

Well, back to throwing rocks at those danged kids on my lawn.

I doubt that'll work

[Anonymous Coward]

On Camara's website, he indicates that in another case, Brittany English (pro bono), they 'are asking the courts to declare that statutory damages like these â" 150,000:1 â" are unconstitutional

When it comes to the courts, including the Supreme Court, it seems that corporations' power compared to people are allowed to be practically infinite so long as they're not literally listed as infinite. See: extensions of copyright, corporate personhood.

Re:I doubt that'll work

[Bigjeff5]

Actually, last year Nesson had the opportunity to shut the copyright nonsense down and dropped the ball. He basically refused to argue the practical merits of the case, sticking only to principles. The SCOTUS was tossing him softballs to allow him to show, basically, that the argument he wanted to argue was important enough that they should decide the constitutionality of it.

What he failed to consider was that, despite granting him the hearing (which was an extreme longshot in itself), and practically begging him to give them a reason to decide the case in his favor, the SCOTUS will NOT decide constitutionality unless it is absolutely necessary. They need to be convinced that individuals and society at large are actually harmed, not just theoretically. In the end, they tossed the case on completely different grounds, and didn't address Nesson's argument at all.

I doubt he'd make the same mistake twice, but hopefully Camera will make the case more effectively than Nesson did.

BTW, Nesson is frickin brilliant, and he was RIGHT in his arguments, he just has little to no experience actually litigating a case, and because of that failed misserably.

Hate to be a downer..

[Aldenissin]

Why we here on /. may agree, we are talking about big business here. I wish I had the confidence to say this has a fighting chance, but I just don't. Too many times $ has allowed corporations to steamroll over the little people, even if the little people added up. Small and laughable settlements are like salt in the sugar. Sure, the tea is now sweeter, but I am still paying for salt instead of sugar and now the tea really doesn't taste that well.

Heroic but probably a bit too much

[Jonas Buyl]

I applaud the bravery but I think they're asking too much. I'd focus now on convincing the judge filesharing should be regarded as fair use, making the RIAA repay their debts afterwards will be easy as pie. Making the RIAA repay first may even be easier. Although I'm not familiar with their justice system, in my opinion this looks more unfair and I'm sure a fair judge will feel the same way. I'm guessing they're aiming high and ask a lot to have a bigger chance to get at least a small success. And... you never know.

Re:Heroic but probably a bit too much

[vivaelamor]

That is a fine strategy if you are worried people aren't going to take you seriously but this guy is a renowned professor at Harvard. He should have more than enough credibility to make a difference here and I don't see how dragging things on longer will do anything other than give the RIAA time to sweet talk some more politicians and judges.

Don't let their legal thugs off the hook

[Lead Butthead]

Make sure their lawyers are disbarred too.

Re:Don't let their legal thugs off the hook

[florescent_beige]

Make sure their lawyers are disbarred too.

Especially the five that now hold senior positions at the Department of Justice.

Re:Don't let their legal thugs off the hook

[jav1231]

Nice

Re:Don't let their legal thugs off the hook

[shentino]

goodluckwiththat

Seriously, getting lawyers knocked out of the DOJ?

You're reaching into a political hornet's nest.

It would take a watergate to get them out.

Re:Don't let their legal thugs off the hook

[Anonymous Coward]

goodluckwiththat

Seriously, getting lawyers knocked out of the DOJ?

You're reaching into a political hornet's nest.

It would take a watergate to get them out.

Yes, it would take another Watergate.

Unfortunately, today's press is too enamored with giving Obama blowjobs instead of investigating things like 5 RIAA lawyers winding up at the DOJ.

Because it was no coincidence that Watergate happened to Nixon, who the press HATED.

Re:Don't let their legal thugs off the hook

[jesseck]

Maybe it would take another Watergate, but this abuse of our legal system is in itself scandalous. If the RIAA is slapped down because of their practices, in which 5 senior DOJ officials openly supported and participated, that could cause a big stink. Then again, for that very reason, nothing may be done to the RIAA. And by slapped down, I mean right-out bitch slapped.

Re:Don't let their legal thugs off the hook

[Anonymous Coward]

Well now, I'm no terrorist but I seem to recall quite a few, um, veteran nations enjoying the use of such political equalizers as the noose, guillotine, and in some cases good old rusty piano wire.

And if you think assassination is barbaric, well I think mass abuse via litigation and white-collar thuggery are barbaric acts in their own right.

Re:Don't let their legal thugs off the hook

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the realization that they participated in an extortionist shakedown of a bunch of everyday people (including children, struggling single moms, and grandparents) for extraordinary sums of money just to earn a buck. That would qualify them as worthless two bit thugs, in my opinion.

Then again the other bunch of assholes (read: the rest of Washington) that watched the banks fuck up and tell us "You're going to pay for the mistakes of these rich guys so we don't have to make them un-rich" are pretty fucking crooked on their own. Perhaps one of the qualifications they were actually looking for in government lawyers was "corporate thug for hire".

So even if this gets colored as their Watergate, all we'll get to hear is "Well duh. Why do you think we hired them? They're on OUR side, not yours."

FAIL

[MrEricSir]

My penis is already cemented into a brick, what are you going to do about that?

Even worse with DoJ in **IA's pocket

[Mathinker]

When seen in the context of an administration which is stuffing the Department of Justice with lawyers with strong ties to the entertainment industries, your post is even bleaker....

Re:Even worse with DoJ in **IA's pocket

[geekoid]

There good lawyers who now have a different client.

I think they were some excellent recommendations.

Even the criminals have rights

[mi]

It is good to see people getting good and passionate legal representation — and even bona-fide criminals deserve it.

But lost behind it all is the primary problem — "Thou shalt not steal". Because, if the 10 Commandments were a "living and breathing document", the "Thou shalt not copy content without owner's permission" would've been found in it long ago.

For "file sharing" is much closer to actual theft (of tangible things), than the Freedom of Speech is to selling pornography, for example.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[QuantumG]

Oh dear god, kindly fuck off.

Copyright is an amoral law that concentrates power over culture into the hands of profiteering publishers.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Shikaku]

For "file sharing" is much closer to actual theft (of tangible things), than the Freedom of Speech is to selling pornography [about.com], for example.

Nobody loses anything if you download a song. If I steal your car you lose your car.

How many times do we have to go over this?

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

So wait, when I buy a CD, I don't actually own it?

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[RCC42]

But lost behind it all is the primary problem — "Thou shalt not steal". Because, if the 10 Commandments were a "living and breathing document", the "Thou shalt not copy content without owner's permission" would've been found in it long ago.

The Ten Commandments != The Constitution

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because it's all about the publishers. No artist could possibly want to sell their work. They'd much rather pack your bags at the grocery store and then go home to make music, video games, movies and books for you in the evening because they like you so much.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[genner]

But lost behind it all is the primary problem — "Thou shalt not steal". Because, if the 10 Commandments were a "living and breathing document", the "Thou shalt not copy content without owner's permission" would've been found in it long ago.

It's not like they're set in stone.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares what the ten commandments might theoretically say?

Even the minority that claim to care about them as real guiding principles of their lives do not consider them relevant or meaningful in any modern context. They are actively countermanded by the very same text that documents them.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[stinerman]

Excellent job of laying the problem at the feet of those namby-pamby liberals! Bravo, sir!

If you want to debate the merits of strict constructionism, do that on your own time. Don't try to shoehorn it onto the infringement v. theft debate.

For what it's worth, there is a good chance that these damages are unconstitutional under precedent from BMW v. Gore and Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker.

Sincerely,

An Originalist

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Monkeedude1212]

You don't lose anything if I steal your credit card information either. The idea is that you'll lose money over it.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

"Copyright is an amoral law that concentrates power over culture into the hands of profiteering publishers"

Nicely summarized aren requoted for Great Truth. How did mankind ever advance for thousands and thousands of years without copyright.... it must have been horrible :P

I'd also add that current implementations of copyright even screw the CREATORS in the way intangible things can be appropriated by other intangible things we've given personhood and call corporations.

"corporation" CAN be redefined and reforumulated... it certainly seems to be more cancerous than helpful to society lately...

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

that is retarded. I dont lose anything if you steal my credit card number. I do infact lose money if you steal that using my credit card number.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[mi]

Nobody loses anything if you download a song.

Bzzzzz, wrong. Thanks for playing...

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[meringuoid]

You don't lose anything if I steal your credit card information either.

No, that's quite true. If you copy my credit card information and do nothing at all with it, I don't lose anything. If on the other hand you copy my credit card information, then impersonate me and start buying things with it, then it costs me money. COSTS me money. As in, I have to pay the bills for your spending.

The only sense in which the victims of copyright infringement lose money is that they don't get money they might otherwise have had. That's a very different thing from taking away money which they actually did have.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[florescent_beige]

But lost behind it all is the primary problem â" "Thou shalt not steal".

The primary problem is not that people are stealing, the primary problem is that people don't think they are stealing.

And the primary question is: is the problem a problem with the moral health of people, or is the problem a problem with the entertainment industry's business model?

Are people as a collective allowed to decide what is publicly transferable? I would say, yeah. That's a bummer for those who profit when copies of works are scarce in the economic sense but then again times change. And the Ten Commandments don't contain any guarantees from God about the minimum level of profitability of the music business.

Of course one should always obey the laws of the land. Except when one shouldn't. For example, civil disobedience in protest of the arbitrary and disproportionate victimization of ordinary people by powerful elites has always gotten sympathetic treatment in the history books.

On this one, I predict the history books will portray the industry as a callous group who tried to enforce their will on the populace by making people terrified of their wrath.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

That was proverbially funny! You really nailed that joke.

(If you're out there, God, please don't nuke me. It's all in good fun.)

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[QuantumG]

"Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining personal profit without individual responsibility."
      - Ambrose Bierce

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Mr2001]

Yes, because it's all about the publishers. No artist could possibly want to sell their work. They'd much rather pack your bags at the grocery store and then go home to make music, video games, movies and books for you in the evening because they like you so much.

Yes, because that's the only alternative. No artist could possibly make money from their work if they didn't have a government-granted license to restrict other people's speech. They'd rather give up and go work at grocery stores than adopt a sensible business model that isn't threatened by technology.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[QuantumG]

Hey wait.. that explains George W. Bush's entire presidency!

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Mr2001]

The only sense in which the victims of copyright infringement lose money is that they don't get money they might otherwise have had. That's a very different thing from taking away money which they actually did have.

Right -- and it's a thing we've all come to accept already as a fact of doing business.

If I decide not to see Terminator Salvation (because I've heard it sucks), the theater and the studio are "losing" money they might otherwise have had. The reviewers who convince me not to buy a ticket are every bit as responsible for that "lost" revenue as the file sharers who give out free copies so other people don't have to buy tickets. So if the anti-P2P forces are so concerned about lost revenue, why aren't they fighting against bad reviews too?

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but that's the thing, they are fighting against bad reviews. They co-opt reviewers to make sure they get good reviews and seek to have fired, or simply sue reviewers who give them bad reviews. This is the quality of people we're dealing with here.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[hldn]

i havent purchased a cd in years. i also do not download "pirated" music. if today, i went and downloaded a "pirated" cd from somewhere on the internet, what has anyone lost? (besides bandwidth)

same if i download a movie, who is losing what? regardless of whether i download it or not, i certainly wouldnt have paid any money to see it in a theatre, and i certainly wouldnt have paid even more than that to own it on dvd. either way, no one is getting my money.

as far as it concerns me, i have gained a copy of a movie/cd/song and no one has lost anything.

maybe you can explain how someone lost something in these cases?

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[WiiVault]

I got the karma to burn so I just gotta ask. Where the heck does somebody come off blaming losing their job because of Obama? Do you work for Blackwater? Last I checked this recession pre-dated the new administration. I suppose if somebody has to lose their job, it might as well be somebody who is a supporter of the policies that put us there. Not the rest of us that went with the other guy both times.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, just please explain to us how a small, unknown artist is to get a name for him or herself without any legal recourse to a bunch of assholes nicking his/her work early on, claiming it as their own, and running off with an ill-gotten reputation. Sure, once everyone catches on, the assholes get nothing, but the work and name of the artist is tarnished as well.

Oh, wait, sorry, did someone forget to inform you that copyright law is more than just making money? It also entails plagiarism and similar concepts.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[pilgrim23]

Please review the documentary Good Copy Bad Copy http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/ then return for the scheduled discussion 3rd period.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[value_added]

And the primary question is: is the problem a problem with the moral health of people, or is the problem a problem with the entertainment industry's business model?

You could probably argue the former, but like most things that take on a new and typically abstract form, there's too much pychological distance for morality to play a significant role. Financial crimes, for example, typically cause more real loss or damage to people's lives than a bank robbery, but are rarely considered as serious. That's why stealing a physical CD from a retail store can be considered taboo, but downloading digital files from the intarwebs will be viewed as something that's ordinary if not acceptable.

Then, of course, there's the issue of what a downloaded file is really worth. There's eleventy million mp3 files out there on the intarwebs, so individually, they can't possibly be worth very much, right? From the point of view of the casual downloader, the only monetary value associated with a few minutes of network activity is the electricity used to power the blinky lights. If downloading files is a crime, then its moral equivalency is telling your girlfriend that no, those jeans don't make her look fat.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[retroStick]

Make it free.

Sure, sell hard copies, merchandise, etc. to profit from your creativity, but you can benefit mankind much more by releasing your art to the public domain.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Mr2001]

Oh, wait, sorry, did someone forget to inform you that copyright law is more than just making money? It also entails plagiarism and similar concepts.

You know what else also "entails" plagiarism and similar concepts? Anti-fraud laws. Lying about something in order to sell it is already illegal.

You don't need copyright in order to outlaw plagiarism. Even if you find that existing anti-fraud laws aren't enough, then you can pass a new law that specifically forbids passing someone else's work off as your own, and you still won't need copyright.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, if the 10 Commandments were a "living and breathing document", the "Thou shalt not copy content without owner's permission" would've been found in it long ago.

Are you kidding me? Name the one person allegedly copying fish and bread in the bible!

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

But lost behind it all is the primary problem — "Thou shalt not steal". Because, if the 10 Commandments were a "living and breathing document", the "Thou shalt not copy content without owner's permission" would've been found in it long ago.

WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT.. You're quoting from a book that for the most part plagiarized most of it's stories from other religions? Hypocrite. Not you sir, just the book in which you refer.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[geekoid]

true, and for a limited time, that's a good thing.

More then 14 years is too much.

14 years is less then a generation; which is what it takes for something to really penetrate as part of the culture, and it's a little after the point wen most people are really getting any money.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[reddburn]

Oh dear god, kindly fuck off. Copyright is an amoral law that concentrates power over culture into the hands of profiteering publishers.

Copyright is based on precedent, one that originally promoted original art. Once upon a time, anyone with a printing press could take someone's work and make a book. Authors were getting screwed, particularly overseas authors: American publishers were printing Dickens without paying royalties and British houses were doing likewise to Melville (one reason he died a pauper - he was vastly more popular in Britain, but never saw a cent for his books printed there). Establishing Copyright and an international treaty made it possible for artists to make a buck. Like any law, it needs retooling, but to dismiss the concept of copyright as amoral is puerile.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[cdrguru]

If there was no law to prevent it, Sony or WalMart would simply grab all the music they could get and put it out on a CD you could buy. For the people that (a) don't have Internet broadband and (b) people that don't know any better this would be much more convenient. They would make millions and the artists would get nothing.

They could probably out-distribute the artists with their own work. Why not? WalMart is the biggest distribution channel in the world.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[geekoid]

Without copyright, artist would loose money because publishers/music/movie corporations would just take it.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[cdrguru]

Why would you need to pass it off as your own? WalMart sells stuff every day that they didn't make. So they could just as easily sell artists work without compensating them. No copyright law means there would be nothing to prevent this from happening.

Trust me, WalMart and Sony have already figured this part out and know exactly what to do should something like the elimination of copyright law. They will make more money than ever before.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[geekoid]

Becasue it's different when you actual partake in the service and not pay.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[cdrguru]

OK, since you got a copy you can "share" it with me. I would have paid, but I am cheap. I would rather download it from you (or anyone else on the planet) rather than pay.

I guess if I have to pay, I might. But I don't want to. I am cheap and I know it. The Internet today is assisting me in being cheap. Low price trumps everything, which means if I can get it for free I win.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[geekoid]

It is NOT stealing, it's copyright infringement.
If you can't understand why that is, and why there is a specific law regarding it then you really have no business talking about it.

Calling it by it's correct name in no way endorses violating it.

And the Commandments are a myth built upon another myth with no proof.
SO, fuck em.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[cdrguru]

Sorry, nobody ever pays for credit card fraud. It is just a cost of doing business for merchants. I've never heard of a cardholder paying for fraud.

Now the merchants don't like it much because indeed they do have to pay. Both in fines (for submitting fraudulent charges) and in merchandise they didn't get paid for.

So in this way you can say that credit card thieves are just sticking it to those nasty corporate merchants. Unless you happen to be one.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[cdrguru]

Bad reviews are one thing. Competitors pounding out bad reviews are another. Legitimate bad reviews can be good - they can point out flaws in something that can be corrected. But one thing that is easy on the Internet is to get people to put in phony "reviews" that just say not to go to a restaurant or something because the food is terrible or someone got sick there.

The true power of the Internet is that it makes all reviews meaningless because phoney ones are so easy to come by. But most people don't know that. So they pay attention. And competition lives on, by hook or by crook.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Sasayaki]

The ten commandments are also a little outdated. Thou shalt not covert another man's wife? Really? So I can't fap to some other guy's chick if she's married? Okay, fair call. But women can covert all the men they want? That's not exactly fair. What about gay couples? Coverting is completely okay? Lesbians, too? Interesting...

If the ten commandments and by extension the bible were, indeed, a living document a LOT more changes would come before the copywrite infringment stuff. Sorry.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is NOT stealing, it's copyright infringement.
If you can't understand why that is, and why there is a specific law regarding it then you really have no business talking about it."

Just stop with this idiocy. Copyright infringement is stealing. Get a fucking dictionary. Steal(v): to acquire without authorization. Calling it stealing in no way affects the ethical, social, economic, and legal issues involved in setting the proper bounds for enforcement of copyright.

End of story. If you can't understand why your ignorant meme is neither legally nor semantically defensible, you have no business talking about it. "Stealing" isn't a legal term of art, so you're not making a legal terminology argument. You're not making a semantic argument, either, because "stealing" does not refer exclusively to any quantitative measure of loss.

The sooner you stop wasting your time on stupid displays of ignorance, the better.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[turbidostato]

"Sure, just please explain to us how a small, unknown artist is to get a name for him or herself without any legal recourse to a bunch of assholes nicking his/her work early on, claiming it as their own, and running off with an ill-gotten reputation."

Do you really think Homer was a big known Sony-backed up artist prior to his Illiad? But somehow he did manage to become famous and respected without neither a Sony contract nor 90-year-after-death copyright laws.

"Oh, wait, sorry, did someone forget to inform you that copyright law is more than just making money?"

Do you really think so? Nowadays?

"It also entails plagiarism and similar concepts."

Sorry to splash your bubble, but not: plagiarism and copyright are not in the same boat. They are not even on the same ocean.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[mi]

... kindly fuck off.

Wow! If that's not an insightful response, I don't know, what would be!

Copyright is an amoral law that concentrates power over culture into the hands of profiteering publishers.

Even the copyright on GPL-licensed content? Ooopsie...

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Mr2001]

Becasue it's different when you actual partake in the service and not pay.

Different from whose perspective? Not the artists' -- they're in exactly the same situation either way.

This isn't like getting a haircut or a meal and then refusing to pay for it. If I download a song, I'm not costing the artist any more than if I decide not to listen to it at all.

It only makes a difference from my perspective, and if that's what you're railing against, well, you're going to come off just like the puritans who oppose dancing, sex, and any other harmless pleasure that isn't "earned".

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Monkeedude1212]

But a Credit Card isn't money that you have either - its Credit. Theoretical money that you essentially have because you have a job. When you create something and plan on selling it, and then someone copies it and gives it away for free - thats theoretical money you're losing, the same as credit basically. Maybe even worse then credit, because you can at least call up your credit card company and cancel your card or even have theft insurance for it. Starting up a business and/or developing a project costs you money, and essentially you expect to see a return on that, and if someone else gives your stuff away from free, you will never see that time or money back. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Open Source, I think its one of the few precious jewels in the world, it allows for mass collaberation and major improvements. But if you guys want to take away Copyright because its "All for the man" or what-not, you're going to put us developers out of a job. The two can peacefully coexist, and have before.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[turbidostato]

"Establishing Copyright and an international treaty made it possible for artists to make a buck. Like any law, it needs retooling, but to dismiss the concept of copyright as amoral is puerile."

So you really think that giving credit to the idea of expecting money for a work nobody asked you nor promised compensation for is not puerile?

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[florescent_beige]

...you really have no business talking about it.

Talking about things that are not my business is my business. And business is gooooood.

Also just because something is not stealing doesn't mean that it isn't not the opposite of stealing. By which I mean, inconspicuous recidivism. On the other hand, I forgot what I was talking about.

Bear that in mind the next time the dry cleaner ruins your floral drapes.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Mr2001]

Why would you need to pass it off as your own? WalMart sells stuff every day that they didn't make. So they could just as easily sell artists work without compensating them. No copyright law means there would be nothing to prevent this from happening.

Oh, really?

Where is Walmart going to get all this material to sell if artists aren't being paid to produce it? Do you think all those artists will just work for free, knowing that their work will immediately be copied and resold?

If an artist is happy working for free, then sure, the Walmarts of the world will have a chance to make money by reselling his work. And they'll deserve to make that money, because they're providing a distribution service.

But an artist who doesn't want to work for free can easily stop this scenario from happening. Walmart may be a powerful company, but even they can't force artists to work against their will.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[mi]

Low price trumps everything, which means if I can get it for free I win.

And the owner of the content loses... Ergo, somebody lost something, when you "shared" their song — contrary to your original, incorrect, assertion.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Mr2001]

Without copyright, artist would loose money because publishers/music/movie corporations would just take it.

How, exactly?

I assume you don't think Vivendi or Sony would send goons to mug artists on their way home from the studio, but the alternative ways that publishers could "just take" money from them are even more absurd. Surely you don't believe artists would give these publishers a bunch of free material to resell, without getting anything in return, do you? That's foolish enough with copyright; without copyright, it's ridiculous.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[canajin56]

Without copyright, the profiteering publishers just publish anything they find, and the authors get $0. It was, in fact, created for the express purpose of taking that power away from the big publishing houses.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[QuantumG]

Nice. Good to see someone else pointing out that "deserving compensation" is an absurd concept.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Mr2001]

They could probably out-distribute the artists with their own work. Why not? WalMart is the biggest distribution channel in the world.

Yes, why not indeed? Artists should be looking to make money from creating art, not from distribution. Leave distribution up to the distribution experts, whether those are retailers like Walmart or P2P networks like BitTorrent.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright sprang up as a tool for political leadership (the monarchy) to keep an eye on what was being published. To get a copyright, an author had to register his work with the government. At this point, the government would decide who got to print or copy the document (the printer was usually not the author himself).

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[QuantumG]

Ya.. you're missing the point. He's saying that Walmart will publish and distribute only works that they can get for free.. and that without copyright that means all works.

Of course, this is easily shown to be wrong. Firstly, they can't get new works for free, because authors will not release their new works without a fee. (That's the point you made). But, more importantly, Walmart won't waste their time selling works that anyone can publish.. because competition will drive the price of the work below an acceptable profit margin. So it's pretty obvious that without copyright Walmart would only sell works for which they were the first publisher.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[72beetle]

>> OK, since you got a copy you can "share" it with me.

can != will

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Mr2001]

But, more importantly, Walmart won't waste their time selling works that anyone can publish.. because competition will drive the price of the work below an acceptable profit margin. So it's pretty obvious that without copyright Walmart would only sell works for which they were the first publisher.

I don't think that's true. You can already buy copies of public domain books and films. Anyone can compete in the market for published copies of Moby-Dick, for example, but that hasn't driven the price down to an unprofitable level.

Indeed, without copyright, copies would be commodities like many other products which are still profitable. Look around you: there are probably a dozen things within arm's reach that are produced by competing firms who all manage to make money at it. Naming just a few, I see CD-R media, printer paper, and plastic straws, all available from many different companies, but even the cheapest ones are still sold for a profit.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[slarrg]

That's funny. Even in your own statement, you change from "I would have paid" to "if I have to pay, I might." You simply cannot say someone would have bought something until they actually do so. Personally, I don't listen to much music but I do enjoy movies and television shows. I have purchased thousands of DVDs (HD-DVD's and Blu-rays, too) because I enjoy them. Currently, there are hundreds of others that I would buy but I haven't and may never actually purchase them. I'll only spend within my alloted budget so many things I would buy will never actually be purchased.

As far as your belief that low prices trump everything else, there are many successful luxury brands that prove this is not true. The iPhone and iPod are not the cheapest devices of their class but they seem to sell well. Many people pay to see movies on an IMAX screen when they could pay less and watch on a smaller screen.

One of the things I always find missing in these discussions, though, is the actual cost of piracy to those who participate in it. Setting issues of morality aside, I'd like to say that file sharing is rife with problems: downloads that never finish, bad quality files, files that aren't what they claim to be, etc. If you place any value on your time and available bandwidth, the cost of copying the file is often as high as simply buying it in the first place. The only reason people are willing to expend so much of their time in this endeavor is because they lack the funds to purchase the item in the first place. So it's unlikely that the studios are losing much money in any case. But then, maybe I place a higher value on inconvenience than most people, after all, I purchased a couple of Apple TVs and ripped all my DVDs to iTunes so that I wouldn't need to go look for the disc or be forced to watch those FBI warnings that purchasers of DVDs are not allowed to skip but those pirating movies are blissfully spared from watching.

I like the convenience of buying DVDs, so I do. However, I would like to mention that Netflix is providing a service almost identical to to what the file-sharers do: allowing you to watch any number of movies without paying money to the studios for the rights to do so. But it's perfectly legal for them to do so. In addition, my local library lets people borrow movies for free and it's perfectly legal, too. Maybe those who watched movies from those services would have bought the movie if the service wasn't available. Seriously, what's the difference?

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[nausea_malvarma]

Copyright isn't really as solid as we think it is. It's a recent concept (relatively) that followed the arrival of the printing press. Science and the arts still thrived in the days before copyright. There is no reason to think it's necessary or essential for a society to work.

I'm not saying we should abolish copyright, but I don't see why the concept is puerile.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[QuantumG]

The profit margin on Moby Dick is as close to zero as you can get.

The book industry is continuous boom and bust, with titles lasting no more than 6 months before disappearing into obscurity.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[GuruBuckaroo]

You might try googling "Jonathan Coulton" someday. Seriously. Ever hear of the short-lived TV show "Code Monkeys"? His song was used as the theme. AFTER he released it with a Creative Commons license.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Tuoqui]

The Ten Commandments != The Constitution

I hate to say it but much of the legal system is rooted in The Ten Commandments. Basically The Ten Commandments were a document designed to ensure stability of a society or to put it more academically it was a social contract. If you have people running around killing, stealing, cheating/lying then you have society breaking down. And at a time 4000+ years ago when this document was first created a society that was in the process of breaking down would easily be lead to ruin and destruction.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Mr2001]

The profit margin on Moby Dick is as close to zero as you can get.

No doubt, but that small margin is still enough to make it worth publishing and distributing. Therefore, I don't think we have to worry about "works that anyone can publish" becoming unavailable.

Of course, in the absence of copyright, every work is a work that anyone can publish. Even works that Walmart commissioned could be republished by someone else the moment they hit the street; Walmart would have a very short period of exclusivity.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[stine2469]

You are wrong too.  Businesses that are victims of credit card frauld increase their prices to cover this added expense, which means that everyone except the fraudster pays for that fraud.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[QuantumG]

Walmart would have a very short period of exclusivity.

Indeed. The publishing world would become segregated into two types: first publishers and secondary publishers. Over time, the period between first release and secondary publishing would diminish. First publishers could only counter this by embracing technology.. I imagine they'll do personalized delivery of watermarked serialized preorders at significantly hirer cost. People who want first editions will pay that premium.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Technician]

Did you notice that most people who reference the Ten Commandments only mean the last seven and disregard the first three?

Who cares what the ten commandments might theoretically say?

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[rohan972]

But lost behind it all is the primary problem -- "Thou shalt not steal". Because, if the 10 Commandments were a "living and breathing document", the "Thou shalt not copy content without owner's permission" would've been found in it long ago.

King David must have made his money charging royalties on the psalms, right? The apostle Paul certainly would have done well from selling copies of his portion of the NT. Do you know how vigorously he pursued enforcement? I'd be interested to know what action he took against unauthorised copies.

What happened to Jesus ministry was tragic though. He could have produced so many more loaves and fishes if he wasn't paying royalties to the Bakers guild and the League of Jewish Fishermen.

I would say that a christian perspective would have to be that copying was not theft because of the loaves and fishes, but then Jesus turned water into wine and there is no shortage of christians who think you shouldn't drink. I suppose the difference is if you want to follow Jesus or if you want an excuse to lay another rule on people. Get your religious interpretations off my P2P.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Runaway1956]

Sorry, but I have to call "BULLSHIT" on your ten commandments thing.

From the earliest freaking CAVEMEN, people copied other people. If not, only one family would ever have tamed fire, and if/when they died off, fire would have been lost.

Don't copy? Do you use wheels? Do you pay some sort of royalty to the first bozo who discovered that two round slabs with an axle can carry a heavy load easily?

Thou shalt not copy? The ten commandments DEMAND that you copy the conduct of the priests and the prophets.

Don't copy? Every single book, every thesis ever written copies ideas that have previously been published. I DARE you to find a single doctor of any discipline whose thesis COPIED NOTHING from those who preceded him in the discipline. You can't do it.

The sum of human knowledge would be quite a small, dismal heap of dung, if we failed to copy. Every automobile, every motorcycle, every airplane in use today copies copious amounts of previous experience.

Copyright was NEVER MEANT TO PREVENT COPYING!! Copyright law is ONLY MEANT to prevent other people from MAKING MONEY from your ideas, for a set period of time.

Being an author doesn't make you a demigod. You're still just another dumb jackass who had BETTER continue working, and producing yet more valuable stuff that people want - or you go hungry. Don't presume to tell us that you deserve to live on easy street for the rest of your life, just because you gave us a stupid song, or acted in a movie, or wrote an innovative software, or a new moronic game.

You sold a great game, that appeals to slashdotters who live in their Mama's basements? Great. Shut up, and get back to work. Get cracking on the next one. Slashdotters have short attention spans anyway, the faster you write code, the longer they stay amused, the better you can eat.

Now, piss off, idiot.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

--
What I know about Obama, is that I had a job, when Bush was President.

What I know about Obama is that he must have fired all the idiots and deadwood who were wastes of money when Bush was President.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[vakuona]

Pray tell, how would the artists make money from creating art. Would there be a fixed amount for each art item created? For each song? Who would pay that amount?

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[vakuona]

So you really think that giving credit to the idea of expecting money for a work nobody asked you nor promised compensation for is not puerile?

If I take your argument to the logical extreme, BMW should not expect payment for the cars it makes because no one promised to pay for them once they are made. So stealing their cars is OK.

Artists do not expect money from people who do not want to own copies of their works. Only from those who do. They can do without your money, if you will do without their works.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Copying their cars is different from stealing.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[vakuona]

You seem to have missed the point. I am disagreeing with the notion that since people should not expect to get paid for their works, then it's OK to take their works for free.

It's a very bad argument to make applied to anything, including copyright infringement.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have permission to copy the ten commandments? In writing from the author?

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[turbidostato]

"If I take your argument to the logical extreme, BMW should not expect payment for the cars it makes because no one promised to pay for them once they are made."

And that's exactly the case. BMW offers its cars on the expectancy of selling them, but if nobody effectly goes into the shop and buys them, it will eat them without asking government to pay for its stock or sueing anyone that happens to buy a different car or decide to ride a bycicle.

"So stealing their cars is OK."

It's not OK. Each car you steal from BMW is a car less on its expositories and it's a car less it *can* sell. And even if somebody steals a BMW car from an owner, BMW doesn't go overthere telling people that means a car less to be sold: they know that a stolen car doesn't mean they would have sold a car to the thief.

"Artists do not expect money from people who do not want to own copies of their works. Only from those who do."

All they have to do for that to happen is not pushing their work into the public. BMW retains its cars in the dealer shop till they are sold; they don't leave them open with keys for anyone to take and then go after the users saying that they do that in the expectancy that once you take one of them for using you first should go to the dealer to pay for it afterwards. Oh, and they don't sue everybody that happens to have a better distribution model than theirs.

"They can do without your money, if you will do without their works."

I can do perfectly without their works, thanks. It is *them* the ones forcibly pushing them to the public environment without my consent or agreement.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[vakuona]

How are they pushing their works onto the public? Are you saying because they advertise their works they lose their right to revenue from these works.

Leaving my car running in the driveway, with the keys in the ignition is not a clever thing to do. But it also isn't an invitation to steal it.

And having a distribution model without anything to distribute is just silly. People do not consume a distribution model. They want the convenience so that they get the works they want as easily and as cost effectively as possible. But not having it is not justification for taking without permission, which is what the copyright law requires consumers to have. In the past, that permission entailed going into a shop and buying a CD. Of course the distributors need to change their distribution models, but for their own survival.

The biggest disservice people do to genuine arguments against the recording industries is to allow them the moral high ground. As a consumer, your biggest power is to not buy their offerings until they offer them with acceptable conditions. Perhaps, instead of using the internet to break the law and we should use it to organise mass boycotts of their products until they change the way they do business.

What has happened is that the legitimate debate has been taken over by a rather loud radical minority which doesn't believe in most rights that most people believe in, including the rights of artists to make money of their works.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Tom]

Because, if the 10 Commandments were a "living and breathing document", the "Thou shalt not copy content without owner's permission" would've been found in it long ago.

Err... breathing or not, you are not seriously requesting that we base 21st century law on the ethics and morality of ca. 500 BC? Maybe you should read a little further in that little book, about how it's ok to stone homosexuals to death, or that "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", and all the other stuff that we consider outrageous today?

Though, as a male I find it funny that it's against the 10 if I lay eyes on my neighbour's wife, but apparently not if she has a fancy for me. Dig that.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Tom]

The primary problem is not that people are stealing, the primary problem is that people don't think they are stealing.

And they aren't. Copyright infringement may be a crime, but it is not the same crime as stealing. The differences are important. There are reasons why the law makes a difference between, say, armed robbery and manslaughter. See, in one case someone ends up dead, in the other just poorer. Same for theft vs. copyright infringement. In the one you are actually deprived of the posession of something, in the other it remains in your posession, but you are out of some hypothetical future profits.

The distinction does serve a purpose, and ignoring it serves no purpose but pro-RIAA rhetorics. That doesn't mean copyright infringement is fine, that's a different argument.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[slashqwerty]

You write of the foundation of copyright yet you seem ignorant of its history. Copyrights were originally established as a form of censorship:

At its birth in England, copyright was an instrument of censorship. In 1557, Mary Tudor, the Roman Catholic queen, capped off a 120-year monarchal struggle to censor printing presses by issuing a charter to the Stationers' Company, a guild of printers. Only members of the company could legally produce books, which had been licensed by the crown.

Modern copyright is based on the Statute of Anne from 1710. The Statute of Anne granted the author 14 years of exclusive rights with the option to extend for a second 14 year term. The first U.S. copyright did the same when George Washington signed it into law in 1790. You'll notice both of those happened well before Charles Dickens (1812) and Herman Melville (1819) were born.

I also question your understanding of the terms 'amoral' and 'puerile'.

Amoral not involving questions of right or wrong; without moral quality; neither moral nor immoral. Puerile childishly foolish; immature or trivial

Most of the world bases 'morals' off of religion. No major religion makes any mention of copyright. So for most of the world copyright has no moral or immoral quality. By definition that makes it amoral. To hold that opinion is hardly childish or immature.

If you're not religious you could just look at the purpose of copyright as it's spelled out in the U.S. Constitution:

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries

Copyright was meant as a deal between the public and an author. The public would grant the author a temporary monopoly as an incentive to create new writings. After a limited time the writings would pass into the public domain so the pubic could do with it whatever they want. That is not an issue raised over morality. It is a business deal. Again, to label this amoral is not childish or immature. It is correct.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[turbidostato]

"How are they pushing their works onto the public?"

It is not that I know of Britney Spears. It is that I've heard her songs from start to end. And I've done it without any previous agreement with her agent.

"Are you saying because they advertise their works they lose their right to revenue from these works."

No. They still retain all their right to profit form their works. But I already know of it. They were free to make me know their work (not know about their work, but know their very work), but now there's no way to backpedal.

But there's an interesting point on your argument. Exactly: packaged music born as a means for an artist to advertise himself, it was not meant to be a means of revenue (you still see videoclips being used mainly that way). Distributors, on a very clever step, made what is basically an advertisement into a very profitable market. Good for them. But those days already finished; they should enjoy the good ol'days when they did mountains of money out of almost nothing and move on.

"Leaving my car running in the driveway, with the keys in the ignition is not a clever thing to do. But it also isn't an invitation to steal it."

Certainly. But if I then take your car, how are you going to return home? On the other hand, if I owned a magic device able to copycat cars parked in the driveway and I used it to copy yours for my benefit, would you still consider I stole your car?
Please stop making analogies between physical properties and knowledge: they don't hold water.

"People do not consume a distribution model. They want the convenience so that they get the works they want as easily and as cost effectively as possible."

And that's *exactly* what they are doing: taking the most easy, convenient and effective model.

"But not having it is not justification for taking without permission"

Again: nobody is *taking* nothing, since it's already "there" since the moment they decide to make it public. It's indeed needed laws to forbid the naturally obvious, but don't take the laws that avoid doing the naturally doable as a "natural right" of those protected from such laws because it isn't.

"Perhaps, instead of using the internet to break the law"

What you forget is that it is not breaking the law in vast parts of the world, and it is not because as I already stated in my previous paragraph, is unnatural to put doors to the country, so to say, so is needed some afterthougth prior to such natural behaviour to become illegal. Of course, those doing the afterthought are the very same collective lucky enough to become already absurdly rich with the distribution model. Basically, reality is not that you are using the internet to break the law but that entertaiment industries are making illegal your usage of the internet. Quite a different thing.

"What has happened is that the legitimate debate has been taken over by a rather loud radical minority which doesn't believe in most rights that most people believe in, including the rights of artists to make money of their works."

What has happened is that a rather powerful minority which only belief on sustain their own flux of benefits are making other people believe in the absurd, like that somebody has an inherent right to benefit from their work, which is not only false but absurd (or else, I could be digging holes the whole day and somebody would have to pay for my unasked for effort). Of course, nobody would expect otherwise from the very powerful entertaiment lobby in their efforts to maintain current 'statu quo' since, as Heinlein stated

"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[easyTree]

Another tactic is to withold pre-release copies of movies so that reviewers who won't guarantee a favourable 'review' are put at a disadvantage with respect to their less honorable peers.

God bless self-interest, corruption and greed :-)

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[jesset77]

Even the copyright on GPL-licensed content? Ooopsie...

While I'm not the original poster, allow me to express that I personally support neither commercial, RIAA style copyright nor the EFF's GPL copyright. I believe that no author ought to have control over what happens to information once it has become publicly available — be it to exact profit, or to attempt to lock people into certain ideological publishing models.

I submit that censorship is wrong, even when the EFF perpetrates it; and I call upon as many /.ers as will follow me to commit to opposing censorship and copyright in every form.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[jesset77]

In the 21st century information can no longer be commoditized. It's marginal value is truly zero.

Thus, why should an author be paid every time their publicly available information changes hands in the wide world? The author did not remake the item for every recipient. The author made one infinitely reproducible piece of media and then chose to release it into the wild, hoping to leverage copyright/censorship laws to force money out of the pockets of potential recipients.

For a brief time in human history, this almost made a reasonable business model. Media was expensive to produce and to distribute, so quality sources of media had to be treated like commodities in order to make it reliably to the public at all. Competing producers might wish to steal original work and undersell it, using the expense of distribution against the original authors.

Today however, distribution has zero marginal cost. If I had musical talent, I could record a song, upload it to my website or myspace page, and the world would have access to it instantly. Thus, there is no longer any justification to charge for a copy of a media product: it's value is zero since it can be copied and relayed to any point on the globe at virtually zero cost.

The barriers between artist and public are now gone, so the public should stop being charged toll. Modern media, from television shows to movies to songs, are woven directly into our culture via marketing, and then those facets of our culture are held hostage from us at the iTunes store.

The practice of carving up the sum of human experience and charging each other to travel across the boundaries encourages our population to save money by choosing not to experience new things. It is incalculably detrimental to our society and serves no purpose other than lining the pockets of those who already control the most IP.

This is why I not only oppose copyright but openly support Copyright Infringement. We should have the right to share media we are capable of playing ourselves. We should have the right to download media others choose to make available to us. Even if the media is top 40's crap, telling us to boycott the media is actually counterproductive. For better or worse, it is now a part of shared human experience and we thus have a right to experience it and even build from it. Remix it. Parody it.

And finally, let's be practical. You cannot abridge this right of ours without invading the privacy of every human and encroaching upon the sanctity of every home in the world. People can copy whatever digital material they posses, and without DRM aka malware, how can you stop them? People can transmit whatever information they wish to one another, and without introducing a mediator aka Big Brother into every flow of internet traffic, how can you prevent it?

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti-trust laws were enacted to prevent businesses such as walmart from dominating the market and limiting our choices.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[jesset77]

I do not authorize anyone to read this post. Not even this warning disclaimer. Neither do I authorize /. to change it's licence. Therefor you, by your very definition, are stealing it by reading it right now. Even if you do not read it, /. has delivered a reply-notice into your email box which means you have acquired it. Ergo you have stolen it.

I have no idea if this has any direct moral or legal impact. Are you a bad person for stealing this post? Can I sue you? Who cares. I can however label you a hypocrite, since you are partaking in the very action you demonize.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Mr2001]

Pray tell, how would the artists make money from creating art.

By selling their labor directly, just like most other workers.

If you're a musician, don't record any songs unless someone has agreed to pay for your time spent writing/recording. Or, if you prefer, record them but don't release them until someone has paid, which is basically the Street Performer Protocol.

Would there be a fixed amount for each art item created? For each song?

That's up to you and your customers. Whether you charge by the song, by the album, by the hour, etc. is an implementation detail.

The important thing is that you and your customers agree on a fair price, so that once your work is released, you don't have to worry about piracy because you've already been compensated.

Who would pay that amount?

Anyone who benefits enough from your work to make it worth paying for. In the case of music, that's most likely the people who want to listen to it (thousands of them, pooling their money), but might also include others: other artists who want to use your work as a soundtrack, for example.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

"I do not authorize anyone to read this post."
Sure you did. Check the Slashdot TOS.

"Therefor you, by your very definition, are stealing it by reading it right now."
Nope, because: 1. There is no reproduction, distribution, or display on my part that would violate any of your legal or moral rights. 2. It's authorized. 3. Slashdot has no way of emailing me anything; if it did, again it's an authorized use.

"I can however label you a hypocrite, since you are partaking in the very action you demonize."
1. I'm not partaking in anything. Reading is not reproduction. I have acquired nothing.
2. No one is "demonizing" anything.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[vakuona]

That's just silly. If you think long and hard about what you are suggesting, you would realise that it doesn't work.

Let's say it takes a year for a musician to come up with material for a single album. To pay them to produce this, you are going to have to pay them a year's wages, plus other costs.

Now how do you decide which artist gets the money? Is it any artist who produces some work who gets the money? And how many people are really going to pay for someone to produce works which everyone else will get to enjoy for free? Do you want to go back to the days when a few patrons paid for music works?

Copyright created means for the process of the production of artistic works to be democratised. With consumers' money being the votes or course! Artists take risks. Heck, even the record labels and film producers, by putting their money on the line, take risks. If they get it wrong, they do not get their initial investment back.

The law is not only intended to reflect what we believe to be 'natural law'. Sometimes, it is enacted to create order out of chaos. There are lots of things we, the public, could legitimately claim to belong to us, and not to any corporation. Mining rights, or drilling rights, to name a few. Yet I don't see too many claims here on slashdot that we should have the right to drill for oil on Exxon's oil fields. And such claims would ultimately have more legitimacy than the claim that we own the fruits of another man or woman's labour, and should be able to take it for free.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[easyTree]

Please review the documentary Good Copy Bad Copy http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/

That was pretty interesting.

Along the same lines is Steal This Film:
  * http://www.stealthisfilm.com/Part2/download.php

Both Parts I and II available at the linked location.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[easyTree]

...but you are out of some hypothetical future profits.

Not necessarily. Some people probably downloaded _then_ buy.

So, in that case, does a problem still exist? No hypothetical future profits have been lost. No tangible damage has been done by the actual infringement.

Of course the hypothetical future profits may, in an alternate case, disappear from the timeline the instant the downloader hears the music due to it not suiting their musical taste. In this case, should we be focusing on the infringement or the unsatisfying musical qualities present within the recording?

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[easyTree]

Are you kidding me? Name the one person allegedly copying fish and bread in the bible!

Yah but according to the bible, his Dad has the copyright on fish and bread and therefore probably licensed it to him at a family rate :D

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[easyTree]

One of the participants in the goodcopybadcopy documentary is a by-night DJ called girltalk. I encourage you to trawl your favourite torrent site for some of his work...

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[easyTree]

Wait, that would be 'girl talk', the space matters.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Tom]

Not necessarily. Some people probably downloaded _then_ buy.

Which is why I called it "hypothetical". This is one of the reasons why the difference is important - in a theft case, the damage the victim sustained is fairly straightforward (value of the stolen good). In an intellectual property case, it is much more difficult to calculate.

Interestingly, the RIAA/MPAA call it "theft" in all their non-legal publications, but they don't calculate their damages as for a theft. So much for honesty.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[easyTree]

Which is why I called it "hypothetical"

Oh. It seemed to me that you meant that at the exact instant before the nerd's decision to download, they 'victim' has no information as to whether the nerd is interested in becoming a customer:
  (a) they are
  (b) they aren't

  so in that sense there are hypothetical profits in the pipeline.

  i.e. it's the lack of information about the nerd's and in fact all current non-customers' desire to be a customer, without consideration of downloading, that leads to uncertainty.

Of the two possible ways this uncertainty could resolve itself, only a) is measurable by the 'victim' and it's measureable, even after they've downloaded it 'illegally' - at the point where the purchase occurs.

Immediately after the decision to download, an extra level of uncertainty is introduced, so at that point the victim may consider themselves to be unsure as to wether they are out some hypothetical sale or whether their hypothetical sale may translate across two levels of uncertainty into an actual sale.

--
My point seems (:) to be that (b) isn't measurable by the hypothetical victim regardless of whether downloading occurs, so it's pointless to even consider downloading as being a factor.

Ok, that was painful; sorry :D

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[mi]

So you really think that giving credit to the idea of expecting money for a work nobody asked you nor promised compensation for is not puerile?

That's how most businesses operate. They bake bread, for example, that nobody has ordered yet, for example. Your (and QuantumG's) illogic, would suggest, it is Ok to steal such bread, because it was not requested by anyone...

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[turbidostato]

"That's how most businesses operate."

No, they don't.

"They bake bread, for example, that nobody has ordered yet"

But they *never* expect money for bread that nobody asked them for; if by the end of the day the still have breads on the shop, they won't ask money to third parties for their "effort". I didn't ask RIAA for any song but still they expect me paying them in such and such circumnstances. Oh! but you used your "ACME Backed Bread Duplicator" so know you owe me *two* breads... I know you asked me just one, but now you owe me two... and by the way, the friend of yours that you duplicated another bread to, owes me one bread too, he never asked me nothing, but now he owes me one bread!

"it is Ok to steal such bread, because it was not requested by anyone..."

A very, very different issue -again, mixing real things and intangibles doesn't hold water, but if you ask my opinion, it's your point of view the one that have 1/3 of human population literally starving and another 1/3 on the verge of it, so go figure.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Mr2001]

That's just silly. If you think long and hard about what you are suggesting, you would realise that it doesn't work.

Trust me, I've thought longer about it than you have. ;)

Let's say it takes a year for a musician to come up with material for a single album. To pay them to produce this, you are going to have to pay them a year's wages, plus other costs.

Yes, of course. Just like under the current system: if a musician is going to spend a year recording an album, he has to expect to eventually earn a year's wages plus other costs. The difference is that under the current system, the musician is forced to gamble, because he doesn't know how many copies he'll eventually sell; under my proposed system, he knows ahead of time whether it's a good investment.

Now how do you decide which artist gets the money? Is it any artist who produces some work who gets the money?

What a strange couple of questions. I bet you'd feel silly asking the same thing about any other job: "How do you decide which mechanic gets the money? Is it any mechanic who fixes a car who gets the money?"

The one who gets the money is the one who found a customer who agreed to give him money in exchange for working. Pretty simple.

And how many people are really going to pay for someone to produce works which everyone else will get to enjoy for free?

Do you really think the average person's purchasing decisions are driven by a desire to deprive other people?

If I'm thinking about getting my dirt road paved, but my neighbor doesn't want to chip in, am I going to keep living on a dirt road rather than let him get something for free? Or am I just going to ask myself whether the benefit of living on a paved road is worth the cost? I don't know about you, but I'd choose the latter (just like some people I know who were actually in that situation).

Do you want to go back to the days when a few patrons paid for music works?

I don't think that's a realistic outcome of asking people to pay for production. This isn't the 17th century; we have internet connections and credit cards now. The same technology that makes copyright unenforceable also makes it possible for thousands or millions of people to fund large productions with small amounts of money.

Copyright created means for the process of the production of artistic works to be democratised. With consumers' money being the votes or course!

No, that's what my proposed system does. Copyright encourages works to be created regardless of whether there's any actual demand for them, on the off-chance that they might end up selling a lot of copies.

And such claims would ultimately have more legitimacy than the claim that we own the fruits of another man or woman's labour, and should be able to take it for free.

Sorry, but the "fruits of a man's labor" argument is bullshit. You don't own words just because you write them, any more than you own numbers just because you calculate them, or own a house just because you paint it.

We all take advantage of other people's labor for free every day, and it's fine. You didn't invent the transistor, TCP/IP, or the English language, and yet here you are using all three of them without paying a dime to any of the people who did invent them.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[vakuona]

That's just silly. If you think long and hard about what you are suggesting, you would realise that it doesn't work.

Trust me, I've thought longer about it than you have. ;)

Let's say it takes a year for a musician to come up with material for a single album. To pay them to produce this, you are going to have to pay them a year's wages, plus other costs.

Yes, of course. Just like under the current system: if a musician is going to spend a year recording an album, he has to expect to eventually earn a year's wages plus other costs. The difference is that under the current system, the musician is forced to gamble, because he doesn't know how many copies he'll eventually sell; under my proposed system, he knows ahead of time whether it's a good investment.

The economy doesn't work like that. When BMW designs a car, they do not know ahead of time how successful it will be. If they knew, then no company would ever be in trouble.

Capitalism is about gambling, to a very large extent. That is why musicians can end up very wealthy, because they take huge risks. I choose a more mundane and predictable profession. And my rewards are consequently more pedestrian.

The system works.

No, that's what my proposed system does. Copyright encourages works to be created regardless of whether there's any actual demand for them, on the off-chance that they might end up selling a lot of copies.

And that is not a bad thing. In fact, it is one of the things copyright was trying to achieve, so on that count, it has succeeded.

And such claims would ultimately have more legitimacy than the claim that we own the fruits of another man or woman's labour, and should be able to take it for free.

Sorry, but the "fruits of a man's labor" argument is bullshit. You don't own words just because you write them, any more than you own numbers just because you calculate them, or own a house just because you paint it.

We all take advantage of other people's labor for free every day, and it's fine. You didn't invent the transistor, TCP/IP, or the English language, and yet here you are using all three of them without paying a dime to any of the people who did invent them.

Er. It id not my problem if the inventor of TCP/IP did not make sure he became rich of his invention. I am not saying there is a requirement for people to pay. The point is I have a right to choose whether I want payment or not. Different people will create works for different purposes. The law should not force us to be altruistic.

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Mr2001]

The economy doesn't work like that. When BMW designs a car, they do not know ahead of time how successful it will be.

That's actually an example of car companies relying on monopolies just like the recording industry. What do you think would happen if another company copied BMW's design? Lawsuit party, that's what.

Auto makers can get away with this reliance only because copying a car design is much harder to do (and thus much easier to notice and shut down) than copying a song.

Capitalism is about gambling, to a very large extent. That is why musicians can end up very wealthy, because they take huge risks.

That's also why lottery winners end up very wealthy. But should we encourage people to play the lottery for a chance at a nine-figure income instead of working for a guaranteed five-figure income?

The point is I have a right to choose whether I want payment or not.

Yes, you have the right to want whatever you want. But you don't have the right to restrict other people's actions or speech in order to force them to give you what you want.

The law should not force us to be altruistic.

Certainly not. I hope you haven't gotten the false impression that I'm relying on anyone to be altruistic!

Re:Even the criminals have rights

[Anonymous Coward]

14 years, to a mayfly, is between 5000 and 250000 generations, you insensitive clod! (You did not specify human.)

My humble take on all this

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy is pushing extremes in court, but, isn't that what the *IA has been doing all this time? Because of this extremes, I have people telling me when, how and for how long I can listen/view to tracks/movies I have legally purchased. I don't know about you, but if I buy a movie I want to see it however I damn please, whenever I damn please with whoever I damn please. Same applies to music. I've had enough of this bullcrap, so I for once, welcome our new amoral lawyer overlord.

Another pro-piracy article on Slashdot

[bonch]

Just another article to let the pirates on Slashdot feel like good guys for bashing the RIAA. If you haven't noticed, Slashdot is up to posting two to three of these kinds of stories every day now because they generate easy page hits and help people forget that they're ripping artists off.

File-sharing of copyrighted materials is not fair use. Why do you think big names like John Carmack no longer post on Slashdot? This website has adopted a position that he doesn't deserve to be paid for his work simply because the RIAA and MPAA exist. It's ridiculous and juvenile. Pirates are just human leeches who don't want to lose the free ride, so they try to make somebody else look like the bad guys to absolve themselves of guilty feelings. Human nature is a selfish thing, and the denial around here is constant.

Re:Another pro-piracy article on Slashdot

[Overly Critical Guy]

A lot of Slashdotters are college kids soaking up dorm room bandwidth in uTorrent. The rest have been pirating things for years using everything from Napster to Bittorrent, so people are just used to getting the free ride and will brush off any guilty thoughts because it's easy and convenient. Remember that Slashdot is very pro-Linux and pro-GPL, so there's an attitude of providing things for free. The thing is, the GPL relies on copyright to exist. It's actually a copyright and usage license, even though Slashdot often posts stories about how evil copyright laws and EULAs are. And, of course, there are the stories of "stolen" GPL code, even though we constantly hear that "piracy isn't theft." It's pointless to point out these kinds of hypocrisies, because the mod system is so easily gamed to drown those kinds of criticisms out. A lot of people come here to pat each other on the back for thinking a certain way, rewarding themselves with +5 Insightful ratings. It's just how it is around here, but sometimes you get the dissenting opinions that are actually responded to rather than censored by overreacting mods, and you get an interesting discussion out of it.

Re:Another pro-piracy article on Slashdot

[Chabo]

Wow, a 5-digit UID posting at -1 by default! You must really love that negative karma, huh?

Re:Another pro-piracy article on Slashdot

[QuantumG]

File-sharing of copyrighted materials is not fair use.

Fair use is a doctrine of copyright law that defines a small set of activities that are regulated but permitted. So yeah, what you said was true, but clearly irrelevant to the discussion. Well done.

Why do you think big names like John Carmack no longer post on Slashdot?

Heh, John doesn't post on Slashdot because there's no point. See, there was a time when posting on Slashdot was considered a productive activity (shocking I know), now it is simply "fun" or, less generously, procrastination. Some people embrace procrastination, some people feel shameful from it, some people actively fight against it. John has a lot of interests that take up his time, and posting on Slashdot just isn't one of them. I'm on some rocket mailing lists and he posts to them, often daily.

This website has adopted a position that he doesn't deserve to be paid for his work simply because the RIAA and MPAA exist. It's ridiculous and juvenile.

Ya know, it's an open submission process.. if you want to hunt down articles which are pro-copyright and post them, you can make this site what *you* want it to be. My position is that copyright is amoral and ineffective. I don't believe authors have a natural right to control their work.. any more than chainsaw makers have a natural right to control how their chainsaws are used.. that is, any more than the right to decide who they sell to. As for deserving to be paid for their work, what kind of communist are you? To get paid for work you have to find someone who is willing to pay. If I dig holes all day, do I deserve to be paid? I've put my sweat and back-breaking labor into making those holes. People clearly enjoy them, otherwise why would they come watch me dig them (sure, they call me crazy, but all great artists are called crazy in their lifetime). Does it make sense for me to demand payment? Or did I get it backwards and should have found a buyer for my holes, first, and got them to pay in advance or sign some legal contract that they would pay later? After I've sold them the holes can I say what they can do with them? Or does that, too, defeat the point of a buy-and-sell property system?

Pirates are just human leeches who don't want to lose the free ride, so they try to make somebody else look like the bad guys to absolve themselves of guilty feelings. Human nature is a selfish thing, and the denial around here is constant.

Well, there's certainly an element of that.

Re:Another pro-piracy article on Slashdot

[Mr2001]

Remember that Slashdot is very pro-Linux and pro-GPL, so there's an attitude of providing things for free. The thing is, the GPL relies on copyright to exist. It's actually a copyright and usage license, even though Slashdot often posts stories about how evil copyright laws and EULAs are.

The primary benefit of the GPL, according to many of us, is that it turns copyright against itself, restoring the freedoms that copyright took away in the first place.

In a world with no copyright, there wouldn't be nearly as much need for the GPL: we'd all be free to distribute software, patches, and reverse engineered source code. If you release a proprietary fork of Linux and refuse to give out the source code, that's OK, we'll just disassemble it and incorporate your changes into our open-source branch.

And, of course, there are the stories of "stolen" GPL code, even though we constantly hear that "piracy isn't theft."

I agree that it's a poor choice of words, but "stealing" GPL code is actually closer to theft than copying commercial works is. It deprives end users of the source code and the distribution rights that they rightfully should have.

It's pointless to point out these kinds of hypocrisies, because the mod system is so easily gamed to drown those kinds of criticisms out.

You mean, the people who point out flaws in your arguments get modded up, while your flawed arguments get modded down? Gee, what a terribly broken system.

Re:Another pro-piracy article on Slashdot

[Taevin]

Remember that Slashdot is very pro-Linux and pro-GPL, so there's an attitude of providing things for free.

Sort of. It's more an attitude of free flow of ideas is good because it drives progress. In the whirlwind of progress that is software development, I think you'll find there is less sympathy for those who want to slow everything down while they figure out a way to make money off it.

The thing is, the GPL relies on copyright to exist. It's actually a copyright and usage license, even though Slashdot often posts stories about how evil copyright laws and EULAs are.

No, it's a distribution license. It says you're free to do whatever you want with this code but if you distribute it to other people you must also distribute the source code and any modifications you have made.

And, of course, there are the stories of "stolen" GPL code, even though we constantly hear that "piracy isn't theft."

These are situations of companies taking the work of others, given in good faith to the community, and then closing it up to make a profit. Even in those cases, while the act of profiting off the work of others is unsavory, the bigger outcry is that they haven't distributed the modifications they made to the code.

I should be careful about speaking for others but I think it's fair to say most of us that write GPL software don't really give a shit if you make money off it. I know that some of the stuff I write could be sold, but I just don't care enough. My interest is in writing code, not running a business. So I release the source and the only thing I ask in return is that if you improve it, you let me and everyone else know what you did so that we can benefit from that and improve our skills.

Sorry to interrupt the "copyright and money is more important than anything else" train. Continue on.

Re:Another pro-piracy article on Slashdot

[spanky the monk]

The thing is, the GPL relies on copyright to exist

Actually, GPL exists only as a counter to copyright. If there was no copyright, then GPL would not be necessary. This is circular reasoning.

Furthermore, copyright infringement is only "theft" if you believe in ownership/monopoly of ideas. So what we have here is really an ideological debate. It seems you have the establishments dick in you're mouth or you're just on a moral high horse because you pay for music like a good corporate slave or perhaps you're a poor struggling artist who just can't make a break peddling his imaginary wares. So perhaps slashdot is not the place for you.

Re:Another pro-piracy article on Slashdot

[KwKSilver]

Human nature is a selfish thing

Care to demonstrate how demanding >$150K per downloaded song, when songs were $1.00 at Amazon etc. and which (IIRC) not even the RIAA claims to have been subsequently shared) is unselfish, or equitable, or even only a little greedy? Downloading is not right and the artists have a right to be compensated, but I fail to see how ruining someone's life is appropriate. As for the artists who support (either actively or by their silence) the RIAA campaign against their customers, may they share the fate of the music industry, which I personally hope is very bleak. Two wrongs != one right.

For a while, when the music industry seemed to have halted its wanton campaign of lawsuits, I started buying CDs again. Now I've stopped, despite the fact that I'd love to have the latest Melody Gardot release, or some of Lara Fabian's albums. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. It will take years to convince me to buy again. And NO, I don't download.

This is all supposed to be about teaching people a lesson. Success! However, I suspect that the lesson most people are learning is not the one Big Music intended to teach.

Re:Another pro-piracy article on Slashdot

[Artemis3]

"File-sharing of copyrighted materials is not fair use." You get modded down because you are just trolling here. You are telling exactly the opposite of what this story submission is about, and its the main argument to be tested in court.

What is piracy to begin with? The abuse of this word is stupid, and legally you can only talk about copyright infringement, because there is no stealing (removing a physical object) involved in sharing copyrighted works.

Copyright.. Copyright was made to do the opposite of what is doing today: To stop third parties from perpetuating publishing rights over generations (printers guild, etc). Copyright was meant to give everyone the right to copy by imposing a limit to the number of years an entity might monopolize the intangible product, after this short period (14 years with a single 14 years extension) it went to the public domain. It was this what they meant with copyright promoting arts progress, by opening the human library of culture and knowledge to all, and thats the spirit of the US Constitution.

The way things are today, everyone has the right to oppose copyright law, exactly as everyone had the right to oppose slavery law. Fair use is like the last resort people has left, and this too is quickly being destroyed. See, the original Copyright law was fair enough and didn't need special fair use provisions, but now even this is being challenged by the media cartels.

Is non profit sharing of copyrighted words fair use? For me yes. If it isn't, the law is wrong and must be changed. This is exactly the agenda of the Swedish Pirate Party, yes, they use the word you love to abuse if only to laugh in the end, when the concept and laws concerning "Intellectual Property" are challenged all over the world.

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but you are in the minority here. Of course, in the US its the corporations, not the people who get to dictate laws and force the government to impose the same laws worldwide. However, this worldwide thing is not willing to follow orders, so easily. And the people who grew up sharing, now being ordered not to, are not going to stay still seeing their way of living destroyed. They are all going to support full legalization of non profit sharing, the way it should be.

Will this force you to rethink the way you earn money? Well about time, else you can simply stand aside and remember the times where you could slave artists and musicians for years of never ending profits in your comfy chair, Mr. Recordman.

is the RIAA even legal?

[bionicpill]

Is there anyway we can get the RIAA classified as a trust or something similar and have it disbanded? It seems like a conglomerate of large corporations is just as dangerous and bad for competition as any single company monopoly.

Nonsense!

[Weaselmancer]

Do you turn your back on NYCL so quickly

Who says we have to have just one hero? All we've done here is to go from Superman to The Justice League.

So, more heroes please! Keep 'em coming!

Then it's par for the course

[Weaselmancer]

This entire fiasco is full of horrible legal arguments. John Doe bulk filesuits, extortion, racketeering, the notion that you are your IP, settlement letters before suit is filed...you name it.

Having it close on a horrible argument would be poetic at this point.

It's bootlegging

[KalvinB]

File sharing is a misnomer. When dealing with copyrighted works it's bootlegging. Not sharing.

Fair Use (maybe) qualifies if you're actually sharing with a few friends. You can copy a few pages but not the whole book. You can loan a copy to a few of your friends but not the whole world.

You can complain about the law all you want but the lawyer is dealing with the existing law and absurd applications of "Fair Use" are just going to demonstrate the inability to come up with a legitimate reason why bootlegging on the internet is A-OK while bootlegging on a street corner is not and never has been. Which is going to result in a lot of lost cases and further development of DRM schemes.

If bootleggers would give it up, consumers would have a lot less trouble taking advantage of Fair Use to protect their digital goods. But because bootleggers aren't giving up and fighting windmills trying to justify themselves, media companies have to protect their digital goods instead.

Re:It's bootlegging

[JStegmaier]

a legitimate reason why bootlegging on the internet is A-OK while bootlegging on a street corner is not and never has been.

The fact that one is for-profit and the other is not seems like a legitimate reason to me.

Re:It's bootlegging

[Anonymous Coward]

Bootlegging is when you sell something that you ripped off. Filesharing is not bootlegging.

Re:It's bootlegging

[Anonymous Coward]

The bootlegger on the street corner is trying to commercially exploit his unauthorized copies of the protected material.

Johnny Pirate is not.

Re:It's bootlegging

[Sfing_ter]

i'm tellin the coppers about the library - anyone can go in there and read whole books - and listen to cds .... shit - those thieves are stealing!!!!!

Re:It's bootlegging

[nausea_malvarma]

If bootleggers would give it up, consumers would have a lot less trouble taking advantage of Fair Use to protect their digital goods. But because bootleggers aren't giving up and fighting windmills trying to justify themselves, media companies have to protect their digital goods instead.

Are you saying that if people like Thomas give up, and people stop pirating so much, the big media companies will just back off? You're too optimistic! They'll just find some other way to hassle you. They will do anything now, because they are realizing their business models don't work as well as they used to.

Charlie Nesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally! A lawyer I can like!!

Basic Rules of the Internet

[cdrguru]

1. Any crime in the physical world can be ignored if it is done using the Internet. This is especially true if the victim is not wise in the ways of the Internet. Bragging about your conquest tends to void this rule.
2. A low price trumps all other considerations. Free is best.
3. Anything that can be represented digitally is viewed as fair game for the taking on the Internet. If it isn't available from one source for free, keep looking. Someone else has already stolen it and is sharing.
4. The lowest common denominator is the only way anything works on the Internet.
5. One bad apple spoils the barrel. One stupid or ruthless user on the Internet can screw things up for the entire world.
6. Security is the responsibility of the end user. If you haven't protected yourself, it is your own fault. The entire world is out there looking for vulnerabilities in your computer and it is their right to do so. See item 1 if you have any questions.
7. Attempting to invoke the rule of law on the Internet is at best a joke. It shows your imcompetence. There are no laws and no rules.

I think it can be best summed up as "I want." Yes, I want to download movies and music for free. Anything that gets in the way of that is obviously oppressive and damages my fragile psyche. There should be laws against things like that.

Re:Basic Rules of the Internet

[rusl]

cynical.

imagine the catastrophic economic loss if the plethora of free shared information suddenly dried up. how much have google and wikipedia increased your productivity, to say nothing of all the FOSS software out there. Even my son's Great-Grandmother refers to the Internet for gardening questions when she is stumped.

The paradigm of capital trading to maximum competitive advantage is not going to be around forever. It's pretty new and hasn't a great track record. Our culture will grow to accomodate the cooperative advantages of sharing. It's a good thing too, Capital Trades enriched few at the detriment of the many.

Re:Basic Rules of the Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes, cdrguru. And every terrorist loving, latte sipping, Birkenstock wearing, pot smoking, unwashed, long haired, straw-stuffed, trust fund leftist thinks that Obama is the messiah, too.

Re:Basic Rules of the Internet

[cheros]

Umm, sorry, no. There needs to be a balance between free and what generates income - somewhere someone has to support a living. If he/she/it is a success I'm OK with that generating lots of dosh too.

However, this is not a debate over free vs fee, this is about fee vs theft. The whole problem with theft is that it allows the overcharger to claim that it's theft that is ruining their business instead of forcing them to admit their approach is no longer valid as a business model. In other words, the belief persists that theft is the cause rather than the consequence of the way they price things, and as soon as they caught the "bad guys" the problem will go away.

The fact that attacking the bad guys equals removing them as future customers appears not to register, but let's not delude ourselves here - sharing of paid-for material of any kind beyond the fair use concept *is* illegal. Full stop. That doesn't justify the RIAA approach one bit, but even if the whole world does something does not automatically make it right.

Re:Basic Rules of the Internet

[jonaskoelker]

1. Any crime in the physical world can be ignored if it is done using the Internet.

0. You do not talk about the Internet.

Re:Basic Rules of the Internet

[jesset77]

This entire thread (parent post, grandparent, etc) boggles me considerably.

Pirating, or "bootlegging" as you label it here, is a natural and inexorable consequence of the freedom of information. As long as you allow users to transmit information to one another, some of them are bound to transmit information that you (as an obnoxious third party) would prefer they did not.

You cannot put this genie back in the bottle without the power of fascism. So who's tilting at windmills now?

In the twentieth century, media producers had some measure of control over who had the media because it was expensive to reproduce. Those who wished to copyright infringe also had to profit to cover their opportunity costs in the expensive process, and those who stayed below the radar had such little impact on the establishment that they could be ignored.

Today, everyone on the internet has limitless opportunity to obtain the media that you peddle for free from anyone else who has previously gotten their hands on it. Aggregately, this puts you out of the media peddling business, and you can't get back on that horse without pervading all global communication with your vitriol.

I feel terrible that you are losing so hard, but I blame you (copyright supporters) for digging your own hole. The ship is sinking, and the sooner you explore and mature new models for doing business the better.

Re:Basic Rules of the Internet

[easyTree]

The ship is sinking, and the sooner you explore and mature new models for doing business the better.

Shhh; let them go down with the ship...

Re:Basic Rules of the Internet

[rusl]

*full stop*

It just isn't.

The idea of owning an idea to begin with. We have over-reaching laws and laws that are behind the times or ignore things... There isn't a black and white here.

I agree with you that in some sense the "piracy" (or the narrative of it) enables bad business models to continue by using the excuse of it.

But the economic model of selling licenses to your ideas is very flawed to begin with and we aren't thieves those that share against the letter or spirit of laws supporting that business model. Obviously the sharing of an idea doesn't hurt the originator, because it is so hard for the originator to even know something like that is happening - it's an indirect impact of another sort.

Would not want to be outside window

[Anonymous Coward]

If he is anything like Balmer and they lose.

Remember who else fought on multiple fronts

[Grimbleton]

...at once, when the odds were stacked against him, and remember well what happened to him.

Dutch law would disagree

[SmallFurryCreature]

Filesharing is partially PROVEN legal in holland. Downloading is 100% absolutly legal and judges have ruled on this multiple times.

So, it is only a horrible legal argument in countries where the law is owned by the copyright industry.

And please note, human civilization has DEPENDED on copyright "violations" for millenia. Rossetta stone anyone? Copied all over. How did you think books were made before the printing press? Hand copied over the centuries without any notion of paying the author. Modern copyright as the RIAA and the likes want it is a very recent invention and can easily be argued counter-productive.

Re:Dutch law would disagree

[easyTree]

Filesharing is partially PROVEN legal in holland.

Watch for the u-turn when the US government starts threatening to put your country on a watch-list... *cough* Sweden */cough* as a favour to their buddies in the MAFIAA.

Re:Dutch law would disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you think books were made before the printing press? Hand copied over the centuries without any notion of paying the author.

Well, before the printing press, pretty much the only people who could read were the people who wrote the books. So you'd have to pay the author to read it to you.

I WOULD

[WindBourne]

I would like RIAA, AND THE LABELS THAT BACKED THEM, be made to pay all the money back along with a fine of 150000:1 on the money paid. I think that they have established the rate of what is wrong is worth. So, if somebody paid 100, they should get 15,000,000 (from the labels).

Crotch, meet brick

[RichiH]

I hope he wins in every possible way.

Kudos & good luck.

two words kill this

[CHRONOSS2008]

Obama , Biden

umm, who?

[AliasMarlowe]

Remember who else fought on multiple fronts
...at once, when the odds were stacked against him, and remember well what happened to him.

Is this a subtle attempt to Godwin the thread?

What have they a copyright on?

[sa1]

http://offsystem.sourceforge.net/