World Copyright Summit and the Lies of the Copyright Industry

Mike Masnick over at Techdirt has an incredibly in-depth look at two presentations in particular from the recent CISAC world copyright summit. Rep. Robert Wexler and Senator Orrin Hatch both gave deeply troubling presentations calling opponents of stronger copyright "liars" and suggesting that copyright is the only way to make money on creative works, respectively. "Does anyone else find it ironic that it's the so-called 'creative class' which copyright supporters insist are enabled by copyright supposedly have not been able to tell this 'great story?' Perhaps the problem is that there is no great story to tell. Perhaps the problem is that more and more people are recognizing that the 'great story' is one that suppresses the rights of everyday users, stifles innovation, holds back progress and stamps on our rights of free speech and communication? Has it occurred to Wexler that for the past decade, the industry has been telling this story over and over and over again — and every time they do, more and more people realize that it doesn't add up? "

Comments

There is no debate

[QuantumG]

Debating how Copyright should work is like debating who should be king. If you accept to be ruled does it really matter how?

Re:There is no debate

[QuantumG]

Maybe you are.

We're talking about restrictions on free speech.

Re:There is no debate

[mi]

We're talking about restrictions on free speech.

No, we don't. We are talking about, whether creators — of movies, music, literature, software, fashion designs — have the inherent rights to control their creations, or whether whoever happens to be able to copy their work has the same rights to it as the creator.

Re:There is no debate

[k10quaint]

Drama queen much?

Seriously. We're talking about your "right" to download movies without paying for them.

To equate this with the end of democracy just makes you look ridiculous.

The comparison is quite apt actually, if a tad shrill. Say congress extends presidential term limits every 4 years and the House of Represenatives chose to re-elect him/her every 4 years regardless of the outcome of the "popular vote", you might cry foul. Technically, this would be legal but very unwise.

Copyrights are supposed to expire, mouse or no. Instead, they are extended ad infinitum to provide an economic moat to industries that would otherwise have none. Again, it is legal and quite common to rent congress-critters in order to bolster a failing (or failed) business model.

We were to be accorded limited/fair use of purchased copyrighted works. Instead we are only allowed to view, never transfer, transform, or reproduce these works in any way. Another bait and switch, I bought a product but now, somehow, I have no ownership rights to it.

There is a very good reason why unpopular but powerful governments shut down internet services (facebook, twitter, yahoo email, google, etc). The effortless transmission of information threatens them in exactly the same way it threatens the executives of Disney, Time Warner, Fox, and other large content creators. If you cannot control the flow of information, you cannot control the population or the consumer.

Don't you wonder why AOL could carpet the landscape with CDs/DVDs for pennies, yet when the same medium is produced by RIAA or MPAA members they cost $15.99 or $24.99? Independent filmmakers seem able to produce top quality films for only a few million, even using unionized labor throughout. When the MPAA members make movies, the budgets are in the hundreds of millions just to one up the last blockbuster with more fluff. Who pays for all this? You do. They just moved the decimal place once place to the right and rented congress to make sure that you have to pay it.

The state legislature of Indiana once passed a law that said "3 times the diameter of a circle is the circumference". So everyone who calculated the true circumference of a circle using Pi was in violation of the law. There was no Circumference Calculators Association of America at that time, so today we are able to determine for ourselves just how much runaround we get from congress on some issues.

Re:There is no debate

[Chyeld]

That boat sailed a long time ago grasshopper and the answer back when Shakespeare was doing his gig is the same as the answer today. You build on the shoulders of giants, and only reach the heights you do, by the efforts of those around you and before you.

In order to give you incentive to build, and in deference to the realization that it is work just the same, you are granted the ability to control the rights to copy something for a limited time. But all the same, your work stands on our backs, and thus, we share in the ultimate ownership.

That limited time is and should always be that, limited. If you can't (or won't) monetize your products in that time, then that is on you. Not us.

And we should not be expected to limit our own rights and abilities outside of that specific right of yours to control who can copy your work for a limited time, simply because you've failed to keep up with technology enough.

Re:There is no debate

[Chyeld]

Or me, I'd make a great king. Honest.

Re:There is no debate

[mellon]

They obviously don't have an "inherent" right, because if they did, we wouldn't be having this discussion. That's what an inherent right is - one that exists already. In order for it to be inherent, it would have to be the case, at a minimum, that it was broadly-enough recognized that you didn't have to fight against the average person's natural inclination. But peoples' natural inclinations are pretty clear - while people generally do seem to think that artists should be compensated, they do not agree that artists have a completely unrestricted copyright. You can see this simply by observing how people generally behave.

Copyright is a created right. It exists for a purpose: to encourage people to create new works of art. And it comes at a cost: peoples' right to copy these new works is restricted. Furthermore, peoples' right to speak about these works is restricted, and this does indeed get into the arena of freedom of speech, whether you want it to or not.

When you attempt to claim all rights to your work, in perpetuity, you are taking something away from the rest of the world. It may not be something that you consider important, but it is something that we consider important. So you have two choices: kill everyone who does not agree with you, or come to a compromise.

And that is precisely the purpose of this debate, which you seem to be arguing does not exist.

Re:There is no debate

[Opportunist]

We're talking about how culture is held hostage by people and organisations who think they're entitled to it. Culture depends on the use and reuse of what came before it. You can't do this today, a lot of culture is lying around and nobody may pick it up and create something new out of it. Redoing a 70s or 60s classic to fit into modern tastes? Can't do it, unless you are willing to deal with a huge studio that will rip your pants off if you're not careful.

Copyright was created to give artists an incentive to create, to give culture a boost and to make people create. Today, it is used to keep people from doing just that.

Re:There is no debate

[cpt kangarooski]

We're talking about restrictions on free speech.

No, we don't. We are talking about, whether creators -- of movies, music, literature, software, fashion designs -- have the inherent rights to control their creations, or whether whoever happens to be able to copy their work has the same rights to it as the creator.

No, the earlier poster is correct. Everyone has an inherent right to make, distribute, etc. copies of works, whether they created those works or not. This is a matter of freedom of speech. It's the reason why, for example, you have the right to recite Shakespeare in public, even though you are probably not Shakespeare. During the term of copyright, the public willingly surrenders a portion of their right to make use of the work of the author as part of a scheme to derive a greater public benefit than the public harm caused by suffering such restrictions. When the copyright expires, the author loses his right to prohibit other people from making use of the work, though he retains his natural right to use the work himself. This is why we talk about copyright as an exclusive right -- i.e. a right granted to the author to exclude others from doing certain things with the work -- and why when copyright expires, no rights in the work are, or need to be, granted to the public. The public has always been possessed of rights in the work, and upon the expiration of the copyright, the public is once again free to exercise those inherent rights.

What's not an inherent right is copyright. Authors have an inherent right as to whether or not to create a work to begin with, and they have an inherent right as to whether or not to reveal that work to anyone else, or to hide or destroy it. No one is suggesting that authors be compelled to create or compelled to publish. However, copyright is the right to prohibit the public from making, distributing copies, etc. with regard to works that members of the public have managed to obtain copies of, most often by publishing. The right to prohibit other people from, e.g. reciting Shakespeare, is certainly not anyone's inherent right! And as it is impossible to reconcile the idea with the much more reasonable idea that people do have an inherent (but not inalienable) right to recite Shakespeare, or whatever else, it's clear that this nonsense about inherent rights of authors to censor the rest of the public is absolute tripe.

I'm also rather surprised by the specific language you used. Movies, music, literature, software -- these are not unusual. But in the US at least, there is no copyright for fashion designs. Copyright in pictorial, graphic or sculptural works (such as clothing) can only subsist where the work is separable from any parts which have utility. (The idea, basically, is to avoid having people use copyright when they ought to be using patents) This just isn't the case for clothing, and it's long settled that this is so. Nor is there any need for copyright in the field of clothing design; copyright exists for utilitarian purposes, i.e. to encourage authors to create and publish new original and derivative works, while minimally protecting those works in both scope and duration of protection. That is, copyright exists to get the most stuff in the public domain fastest, with as little copyright as possible along the way. The field of clothing is terribly healthy without copyright. Many new works of fashion design are made all the time. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that there would be a substantial increase in the number of works if copyright were granted. In fact, there is an excellent reason to believe that there would be far fewer, as unauthorized derivatives would not be as common. Further, rent-seeking behavior amongst monopolists being what it is, the public would likely lose access to cheap copies of the designs. There is simply no public benefit _at all_ for copyrighted fashion design. So I'm wondering, why did you mention it?

Long story short, you seem to be quite backwards on this matter. You might want to read up on the utilitarian basis of copyright law, and the actual laws on the books.

Re:There is no debate

[Jurily]

They obviously don't have an "inherent" right, because if they did, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Exactly. Free speech is an inherent right. The First Amendment does not grant it, but forbids Congress to restrict it.

Now contrast that to Disney's right over Mickey Mouse.

Re:There is no debate

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Debating how Copyright should work is like debating who should be king. If you accept to be ruled does it really matter how?

Yes. Yes, it does. There are good kings and bad kings. Now, generally in the modern world we've accepted that "no king" (or having a king who is no more than a figurehead) is the best option of all, but for most of human history that hasn't been a choice.

Will we ever get rid of copyright? Hell, I don't know. Should we? I don't know the answer to that one either. What I do know is that we could have much, much better copyright laws than the ones we have now. (Say, seventeen years upon registration plus an optional, one-time seventeen-year extension ... I think I've heard that one before ...) Condemning all copyright laws as equally bad is not going to make them go away; they'll be with us for a long, long time. There is a lot to be said for harm reduction, just as there is for, to use your analogy, supporting a good king over a bad one.

Re:There is no debate

[cpt kangarooski]

parent's diatribe is the most repugnant smelly piece of tripe.

No, I think I've got it right, but I'm happy to discuss it.

"Authors have an inherent right as to whether or not to create a work to begin with" yup and if I want to starve I won't create anything at all or we'll let you have it the minute I produce it and still I'll starve.
It's my work, You can buy it, you can use it for your own amusement. You CAN NOT make copies of it and give it away.

No. There are plenty of ways for an author to make money without copyright. For example, Picasso could sell a painting for extravagant amounts; the sorts of people who were prepared to pay him such vast sums wanted an actual copy he made, and would not have just gone out and bought a cheap poster of the same work instead. Architects in the US have traditionally made a living without copyright. The aforementioned fashion designers still don't have copyrights, but do okay. The list goes on and on. In fact, I was a professional artist before I got into law, and I never made a penny that was attributable to copyright, but I nevertheless supported myself and had a comfortable life.

Of course, copyright is no guarantee of success either. Even if you do have a copyright, you can still starve because your work is unpopular. There are plenty of flop movies, plays, books, etc.

The work you create is indeed yours, in the sense that you created it. Other than that, you have no particularly special rights in it inherently. Certainly you cannot control whether or not other people make copies of it and give them away merely because you are the author. Whatever ability you have to control what other people do and do not do can only possibly be based on whether or not those other people consent to your control. Why would they ever do so, unless they felt that it would somehow benefit them more to submit to it than not to?

That's not free speech. You certainly have a right to say the same thing I said in your own words you can even quote me on specific points THAT IS FREE SPEECH.

Yes. And copying your work verbatim is free speech too. But I might be willing to temporarily not do that, at least in some circumstances, if you made it worth my while. But you don't just start out dictating to me what I may and may not say, merely because you said it first.

After my ability to make money from it runs out it can become public domain but not until it has run the course of being MY FUCKING WORK ASSHOLE!

That's simply never how the law has worked. Even in this awful era of copyright law we now find ourselves in, the copyright term runs out after a particular period of time, regardless of whether or not you've completely exhausted the copyright-related revenues to be had.

You are supposed to be enriched by what I write for you and teach you or make you think about. It is for you to repeat what I say or disagree with it vocally if you wish. But taking my work and copying it and giving it away at your whim is not free speech.
I don't understand how anyone can support this obvious garbage. That this "public domain first" crap exists I just don't see how in any society you could think that!

Society is enriched by: 1) Authors creating new original works; 2) Authors creating new derivative works; 3) The public being free to use works in any manner they see fit (copying, distributing, preparing derivative works based upon, etc.); 4) The public not having to pay for works, access to works, copies, etc.

An ideal world would be one in which every creative work that could be created, was, and where there was no copyright at all, so that everyone had cost-free access to the entire body of human creative output. For practical reasons, we can't manage that at this time, but we should at least strive to get as close to that as possible.

The algebra of copyright is essentially that without copyright, some number of works x will be created and published because there are non-copyright-related

Re:There is no debate

[drinkypoo]

Congratulations, you have entered the philosophical minefield of the concept of "rights". Really it's just semantic bullshit, it's arguing over whether the word refers to those things which ought to be true, or those things which are true. I say you have a right to violate copyright, and the powers that be have the right to try to pass laws to stop you, and you have the right to riot and throw bricks if you want to, et cetera; you have the right to do your best. The idea of a natural "right to life" for example is hilarious; just try to guarantee it! But again, it's all just arguing over the definitions of words. In English, one word is often used many different ways by definition, let alone colloquially.

Re:There is no debate

[Anonymous Cowpat]

no, that's not entirely true. The actual story is far more releveant though.

A local doctor, who fancied himself an amateur mathematician 'invented' some proof regarding circles which also dropped out the value of pi as exactly 3.25. He they passed this to a friend in the state legislature and got it written into a bill, such that Indiana would have free use of his proof in school textbooks, etc., in exchange for protecting his 'invention' against other people ripping it off. The lower house pushed it around a few committees (who pushed it to other committees, wondering why it had come to them) before passing the lower house fairly overwhelmingly - many members commenting how they didn't understand it, but that if he was willing to let them use it for free, they were all for it. In the upper house, it passed its first reading and got packed off to some more committees. At that point, a professor of mathematics, who happened to be visiting to lobby for university funding, got wind of this bill; looked at it, picked his jaw back up from the floor, and promptly briefed a bunch of the state senators on what they needed to know about it. The bill was torn apart on its second reading in the upper house, then quietly forgotten.

Re:There is no debate

[ljw1004]

There are two balanced rights. You only listed one. Here they are, together (this phrasing taken from the two parts of Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights):

(1) "Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits."

(2) "Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author."

Sure, you can say that one particular implementation of part 2 (i.e. copyright) is not an inherent right. But part 2 itself is the fundamental inherent right which we have to figure out how to implement.

Re:There is no debate

[penix1]

That limited time is and should always be that, limited. If you can't (or won't) monetize your products in that time, then that is on you. Not us.

And we should not be expected to limit our own rights and abilities outside of that specific right of yours to control who can copy your work for a limited time, simply because you've failed to keep up with technology enough.

I am going to play devil's advocate here. I agree with what you are saying that the public domain is the sole purpose of copyright regardless of what the distributors want to portray. That said, here we go...

It is hard for an owner to control for that limited time when whole works are leaked to torrent sites even before they are released. How does that situation play in your scheme of things? How about the infringed content when someone walks into a theater with a camera then posts it online? How about the latest Photoshop version showing up on torrent sites hours after (or even before) their release? The point is, in a connected world, content owners don't get even that limited time you are referring to. Are current copyright limits too long? Sure. Can you guarantee if the limit is reduced to say 7 years it won't be shared on the torrent sites in two weeks after release or before? I thought not.

Re:There is no debate

[Anonymous Coward]

That boat sailed a long time ago grasshopper ...

Back in the early 1950's, my father invented the branch of engineering that is discussed in our textbook. Of course there were some people that did some related work before he did, but they didn't come close to putting together the physics models that are now used commonly (in our field).

Our text book is (C) 1995 and since then there have been 11 printings and well over twenty thousand copes sold of a very mathematical book. When we give lectures to the students that use the book, they are always thanking us for taking the time to write it down. It took eight years to write with a pause in the middle, then a large re-write for the final version. I typed something like two million keystrokes. The artist that created four hundred line drawings was paid something over thirty thousand US Dollars for his labor by our publisher. When people tell us about typos or other errors, we have our publisher correct them in the next printing.

You, grasshopper, have a lot of damn gall to tell me that we can't profit from our labor by restricting who can publish it.

Re:There is no debate

[hairyfeet]

One sentence- Steamboat Willie is STILL under copyright! The man has been pushing up the daisies (or a Popsicle, depending on whether you believe the tale or not) for over half a century, and yet his FIRST work, one made when planes were made out of cloth and antibiotics were just a dream, is STILL under copyright. I don't care which side you are on, i thionk we can all agree that is just fucked up!

The American copyright system, which is now being shoved down the rest of the planet's throats was a CONTRACT- nothing more. in return for a LIMITED copyright, we in turn got a richer and more diverse Public Domain for future artists to build on and for We, The People, to enjoy. Instead we have been robbed of our Public Domain by treasonous corporations with the blatant bribery of our public officials. Until We, The People are once again represented at the negotiating table ALL copyrights should be treated by the people as completely worthless and ignored. An unjust law paid for with outright bribery should be viewed as the illegal act that it is. But until sane copyrights are again restored and We The People are given representation all acts produced by corrupted officials for their corporat5e masters should simply be ignored by all.

Re:There is no debate

[cpt kangarooski]

The Universal Declaration doesn't list inherent rights. It lists rights which are good ideas and which people ought to have. Some of them are inherent, others are not. For example, people ought to have a guaranteed right to medical care (see Art. 25(1)), but we are not endowed by God or nature or whatever with an inherent right to compel others to grant us medical care. And treating oneself only gets you so far.

Frankly, I'd say that Art. 27(2) is outright wrong. Copyright is utilitarian in nature. A particular polity can decide to grant copyrights or not grant copyrights as it sees fit, provided it is generally equitable. It's little different than a town deciding to put up streetlights; if they're useful and cost-effective and realizable, then sure, they might be installed. And people might hold differing opinions as to whether or not they ought to be set up or not. But it's not a matter of human rights. It's a social program meant to help subsidize authors for the public benefit. It isn't necessary or even particularly important. It should not be in the Universal Declaration. Whether an author should be granted a copyright is a question for the society he lives in. It shouldn't be a given.

Plus of course, you still just cannot reconcile Art. 19, 27(1), and 27(2). It cannot be done. They're in conflict if you assign them equal weight. My solution -- that free speech trumps but is partially alienable for the purpose of setting up copyright, if the particular copyright law in question is seen as desirable by those who will be burdened by it -- at least makes sense. This is the same problem the moral rights crowd runs into; it's nonsensical, and even the countries that pretend to practice it are really hypocrites.

Re:There is no debate

[Chyeld]

Good for you friend, you worked hard you did the deed, and you see the fruits of your labor.

Now tell me, your father, did he invent his own number system? No?
Did he invent his own alphabet? No.
Were the laws of physics that his branch of engineering is based upon, discovered by him?
Did he invent the math system behind it? The algebra, the calculus?

No?

Well hey, at least when you published your book, you probably did so on a machine completely of your own design. Using a printing system you invented. No?

Then maybe it wasn't all your work. Maybe, as I said, you and he are standing on the backs of the people who came before you. How much have you reserved of your profits for them and their families? Nothing?

Then perhaps you need to drink a warm cup of Shhh! and think upon your lessons grasshopper. Cause unless you and your father sprung out of Zeus's forehead fully formed and full of the knowledge of life, you owe a lot of your success to a lot of people that you haven't yet given shit to.

Re:There is no debate

[k10quaint]

I point out that any system that requires that the poor die from cancer for 13 years so that one guy can make money is also deranged.

Your point still stands however.

Re:There is no debate

[Chyeld]

The answer to "people are stealing my shit" isn't "you honest folk who aren't stealing my shit need to give up your right to do things" especially when it still doesn't result in people not stealing your shit. Nor is it "Well because some people steal my shit, the public should have to let me control this longer". How does longer control help anything but provide incentive to steal?

There are ways of making buying something more desirable than stealing it, both by creating incentives to buy and disincentives to steal. The problem today is that rather than do either, the argument is made that they simply need to keep control over the work longer and longer. And each time, they'll use the excuse that people are still stealing it, because the point is that they realize that this means they can milk it forever.

Re:There is no debate

[QuantumG]

You mean this? http://www.quantumg.net/tcpsafe/ No, I wouldn't have any problem with that.. being that I licensed it under the GPL v3 and all. And before you ask, yeah, go ahead and sell it without source code, I don't care.

Re:There is no debate

[gnupun]

Now tell me, your father, did he invent his own number system? No?
Did he invent his own alphabet? No.
Were the laws of physics that his branch of engineering is based upon, discovered by him?
Did he invent the math system behind it? The algebra, the calculus?

No?

All authors borrow and use all those things from society for free. And that is why copyright is only for a limited period of time, unlike real estate, which can be passed down to family indefinitely.

Re:There is no debate

[Chyeld]

Did I say he should? Mighty nice strawman you've tried to build there friend. It'd be a shame if some flames hit it and burnt it all up. Perhaps you want to go back and read the complete thread before attempting to put words in someone's mouth again.

Re:There is no debate

[QuantumG]

I believe that creative works flourish much more when the creators right to control the work is protected.

Care you share your reasoning? Or is this "belief" in the religious sense?

Re:There is no debate

[Chyeld]

There's no way you can pay back the people before you? But you expect the people coming after you to pay you? And you call bullshit on me friend?

I think not.

Or once the inevitable happens and your father passes to the next world, are you planning on giving the book away for free? Is that it? You don't think Newton or any of those people in the 'several pages of references' had descendants that should see a buck from their work as well? Or is it only just you are special enough for that reward?

You see my friend that's the point, we give you the right to make money off the part you worked on, as long as you remember that you couldn't have done squat if you hadn't based that part off the much larger volume of work that was already in place due to their efforts. If you think that you should have the right to demand money for your work 'forever' then so should they.

Re:There is no debate

[Dragonslicer]

Exactly. Free speech is an inherent right. The First Amendment does not grant it, but forbids Congress to restrict it.

That depends a lot on your definition of inherent. The authors of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights believed that all people (with varying definitions of "people") should have certain rights that the government could not take away. Either these rules apply only to the government, and any other person can take away your rights, or the government must enforce rules to prevent others from taking away your rights. If it's the latter, then those rights don't really exist without government. If it's the former, the only inherent rights you have are those that you can prevent others from taking away from you, either by fighting off aggressors or evading them.

Re:There is no debate

[Quothz]

Care you share your reasoning? Or is this "belief" in the religious sense?

Half-and-half, or thereabouts. Prior to the establishment of modern copyright,* creators suffered pretty badly. The Statute of Anne makes a note of this as preamble. Although lawsuits, legislation, and Irish book piracy ran wild for the next century, a lot more authors got paid and a lot more books got writ. Based on this, I conclude that copyright works - at least somewhat.

The faith end of things is a general belief in property as a viable concept applied to a belief in the work ethic. A writer, like a carpenter, deserves a day's pay for a day's work.** As noted above, copyright is the only method we've used that's even been marginally successful at achieving that. While intellectual property may not be an inescapable conclusion of those premises, it's the only one I've got.

* That is, a limited, protected copyright granted to the author.

** Yeah, I'm ignoring a lot of nuance, such as what a bad author or carpenter deserve, but I don't want to start a discourse on the work ethic. I'll note that artistry is (generally), and I think should be, a meritocratic vocation.

Re:There is no debate

[Archades54]

Photoshop's main salesbase (creative industry) will always generally purchase licences for their product.

The majority of the downloaders are students who can't afford the $1000plus price, and in some cases will learn on a pirated copy and go on to work for a firm which buys legit copies (or they are the ones that push the bosses to buy the stuff)

Re:There is no debate

[penix1]

There are ways of making buying something more desirable than stealing it, both by creating incentives to buy and disincentives to steal. The problem today is that rather than do either, the argument is made that they simply need to keep control over the work longer and longer. And each time, they'll use the excuse that people are still stealing it, because the point is that they realize that this means they can milk it forever.

It is greed on the part of the copyright owners for sure. I'm not arguing that. By the same token though, it is greed on the part of infringers that keeps it going providing the argument you are putting forward. They want the content but don't want to abide by the wishes of the holder even for a shorter limited time. I notice you didn't define even one of the ways you are claiming to make buying the content more attractive or providing disincentive to illegal downloading. You simply stated there are ways. Please define exactly how a copyright holder can control their content even for a day once it is released. That is the problem.

Re:There is no debate

[k10quaint]

... Did he invent the math system behind it? The algebra, the calculus?...

I call bullshit on you, mr grasshopper.

Of course there isn't any way we can pay back Newton and/or Leibniz for inventing calculus. We are the first to give credit where due--the book has several hundred references to related work, which appeared in the interval between my father's first papers (1950's) and our (C) date. But we can pay forward by helping the next generation (of engineers that are interested in our field) get a real head start on their careers. We do this all the time, our volunteer work includes free lectures and design reviews (for just a couple of examples).

As far as the publishing technology goes, we did pay what the creators asked, we didn't steal any of that.

Let me tell you, I was pissed when some a**hole scanned the book and posted it.

Hurry up and die, I can wait 75 years to build on your work, I don't think I can wait the duration of your life on top of that. Before you shuffle off this mortal coil, please forward your profits and penalties to the heirs of the people named in your bibliography. I would hate to sit on the shoulders of a thief.

P.S. I just sent the great great great great great great grandson of Billy Shakes 50 cents for his timely turn of phrase from Hamlet.

Re:There is no debate

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Are current copyright limits too long? Sure. Can you guarantee if the limit is reduced to say 7 years it won't be shared on the torrent sites in two weeks after release or before? I thought not.

I can't tell if you did it on purpose or not, but you've just made the standard argument for abolishing copyright - it's not enforceable so we should top pretending (and get on to promoting new business models).

Re:There is no debate

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Bzzt! False dichotomy. For one thing it presumes the existence of a government in order to define an inherent right.

Re:There is no debate

[WiiVault]

You nailed it when you talked about building on the shoulders of others. Where is the "cut" for their teachers, parents, role-models, or anybody else who helped build the base from which they created their work. Sure they may have been payed once for their services, but why is once good enough for them when it clearly isn't for the music industry and some of their phony artists? As far as I'm concerned if copyright never ends than neither should the payoff to all those who lent a hand in its creation directly or otherwise. Sounds absurd right? Exactly.

Re:There is no debate

[WiiVault]

I think you may have missed the point. Copyright was never a guarantee that works wouldn't be "stolen". It is simply a means by which society has agreed that if caught for infringement an individual will be punished according to a standard. The length of a copyright term has nothing to do with the actions of individual infringers. Nor should it. Shortening copyright is for the public good, not as a means to fix the piracy issue.

Re:There is no debate

[quickbrownfox]

Now tell me, your father, did he invent his own number system? No? Did he invent his own alphabet? No. Were the laws of physics that his branch of engineering is based upon, discovered by him? Did he invent the math system behind it? The algebra, the calculus?

Facts aren't copyrightable; works of authorship are. The law in this area is pretty well-settled. The original poster wasn't saying no one should be able to use his work in new ways -- only that he thinks it is fitting that he should retain the right to control who publishes it. Your reply does not address this point.

Re:There is no debate

[WiiVault]

While I want to believe you. I also know the game played by writers and textbook publishers. It is dirty, mean, anti-education, and money grubbing. As a recent grad pardon me if I'm untrusting of a group of people who seem to generally view small edits, endless "editions" (with no real changes), endless copyright, and people assigning their own books and at $100+ each. Perhaps you are not like them, but its like trusting an oil executive to tell you the truth about the environment. You are simply too attached to the machine to be taken at face value. By the way, posting AC certainly doesn't help your credibility.

Re:There is no debate

[smoker2]

Who said they had complete control ? Or indeed that they should have ? When Adobe goes bust maybe I'll believe that the tiny minority who downloaded Photoshop for free had something to do with it. But they won't go bust, because the ones who really wanted it usually end up as customers later on - the first hit is free remember. This is not about profit or no profit - this is about "either you pay or you do without". You can never win that fight. Back in the 1800s children were sentenced to transportation for stealing an apple from a market stall. Is that the degree of control you wish to see here ? In the grand scheme of things, no-one suffers from a minority downloading movies. I don't regard making 1 million less* on a profit of 20 or 200 million, suffering. In fact it just highlights the all consuming greed of the media companies that they should make such a fuss about it. They are relying on the slippery slope fallacy to predict doom for their businesses, when in fact they are all making healthy profits. If they weren't they wouldn't be doing it at all.

*They think they are making 1 million less, when in fact they are making just as much as the market will bear. If downloads and copying dvds disappeared tomorrow, their profits would not jump by 1 million. It is entirely notional and wishful thinking on their part. They can test this quite easily, just don't release the movie on DVD, only release in cinemas. But then they'll make less money, something MUST be wrong with their assumptions. Speculate to accumulate - but they are trying to get rid of the speculation and change it to "invest to securely accumulate". Business doesn't work like that. Short of the govt. mandating compulsory attendance at cinemas to view the latest blockbuster, they will never have the profits they seem to be expecting as their right. All companies have margins for "wastage", these assholes are expecting the govt. to reduce their wastage margins to zero at the expense of our liberty and heritage.

Fucking Harry Potter - a book about a wizard at school - written in the english language. Does JK Rowling have copyright on English words ? (Duh !) Has there ever been a book written about a child wizard at school (yes, lots). So how come she suddenly OWNS the concept ? Where would she be without the education she received free of personal cost ? Or without the inspiration she received from other peoples works dating back millennia. Limited time it says and limited time it should be. Copying by a minority for non-profit personal use has no appreciable effect on the value of a work worthy of protection. If they don't get rich instantly, maybe the work is crap, or they have unreasonable expectations. Try creating another work. If that doesn't sell either, then you are in the wrong trade. Asimov started writing (Sci-fi) for magazines. He could knock out a story in a few hours. It was that background that gave him an idea that maybe he could write longer stuff and publish it as books. People today think they can burst into the market and instantly demand top dollar, and if anybody actually reads their stuff for free, then they are being stolen from. What about Asimovs early work languishing in a doctors waiting room ? Should he have demanded payment for every pair of eyes that happened to stray across the page his story was on ?

Get some perspective !

Re:There is no debate

[coolsnowmen]

::rolls eyes::, Lets tear this apart

Now tell me, your father, did he invent his own number system? No?...

Of course not, no one does. That argument doesn't even have a follow up. The math/alphabet/physics that was taught to him in school (Or learned it himself). We (as a society) want people to use their education. Otherwise we wouldn't teach it, and encourage higher education.

Well hey, at least when you published your book, you probably did so on a machine completely of your own design. Using a printing system you invented. No?

I'm sure that when you BUY a printer, or pay someone to print it for you, you get the right to turn around and sell what you've printed. WTF does this have to do with anything?

The rest of your post is simply meant as an attack on the parrent and therefor logically useless.

Of course work done is going to take from influences in your life and possible use technology that you didn't make from sand. That is because long ago we broke into a specialized society where I don't grow the food I eat, or build the car I drive. We also evolved to be able to pass on learned knowledge in various ways. What species are you?!

I am flabbergasted that you even took the time to post your argument because it truly has no information in it at all. You should be modded troll.

Re:There is no debate

[Ihmhi]

Photoshop might have a Left4Dead situation there.

If they sold their product for 1/10th of the price (even as a test), I'd bet that they would see a huge increase in volume - enough to make up for the difference.

Re:There is no debate

[1u3hr]

How about the infringed content when someone walks into a theater with a camera then posts it online?

Who gives a shit about a video cam? Watching that is nothing like seeing a real DVD or much less, watching a movie in the cinema. I think people who DO watch them use them as preview. Anyway, I sometimes get one of these accidentally when I buy secondhand DVDs at flea markets. And 10 seconds into them when it's clear what it is, shadows moving on the screen, rustling cellophane, mobile phones ringing, I press eject and throw it in the bin. In all the celebrated cases when cam version have gone online and the movie company cried about their loss, the movie was a turkey and the cam might have prevented some people from being suckered by the advertising.

How about the latest Photoshop version showing up on torrent sites hours after (or even before) their release?

Again, so what? DTP professionals aren't going to use it. No support, no tax deduction, etc. And they are the true market. A bunch of guys do use the pirate edition to make fake porn or design their MySpace pages. They would have managed with a dozen cheaper or free paint programs if they didn't have PhotoShop. And I strongly suspect that Adobe is quite happy that this entrenches PhotoShop as the standard, those who do later get design jobs are already trained up on it, and now insist their companies buy the legit version. Just look at all the sneers at any alternatives (eg, Gimp) when the question comes up here.

Re:There is no debate

[jesset77]

Hmm, I'm not GP but I'll answer your question with the first few things that come off the top of my head.

1: online services. WoW isn't hurting from people downloading the client for free, and you can't copyright infringe access to a service. This is also more fair, since the provider is providing something continually in return for the residual income.

2: Impulse delivery. You would be amazed, but there are tons of people who will pay token amounts to get your content even when it is also legally available for free (again, see WoW) if only because they are either too lazy or too luddite to figure out how to get a free copy off a friend or some arbitrary site. I make as much this way selling public domain virtual goods I create in Secondlife as my compatriots who sell their goods with locked down permissions do. This is a tiny retail experiment to be certain, but I'm losing no sales that I can tell and gaining popularity via free sharing. Another great (inadvertent) example here was Quake 1. People pirated it and held LAN parties, played online.. many of the people who wanted on board with such action at home simply bought copies. Piracy actually pushed sales in that case.

3: Advertisement-supported. Even if a lot of people use AdBlocker, 10 times more don't. Television and Radio survived 30+ years of VCR and Cassette-tape having consumers with this model, after all.

4: Digital product as advertisement. Record music. Disseminate it freely online. Encourage vendors to burn it to audio-CD to sell for their own margins (see point about impulse buys above). Create buzz. Hold concert which you charge for. Profit. Repeat. This is also a well-tested business model.

Add in any other business models you'd like that do not require pretending that large integers are scarce commodities or that swaths of data are arbitrarily contraband.

While it's true that these models alone probably will not support 300 million dollar blockbuster movies, there is no law of nature that says that those productions must continue to be economically viable. I would much prefer to live in a world where a million great stories are produced as B-rated movies than 2 or 3 as cinematic palaces. The industry must stop bloodying it's head against the landscape features that presently exist, and instead must find ways to use the new lay of the land to it's advantage and prosper.

Re:There is no debate

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Of course you have an example of a new business model. One that will work. By work I mean in reality, on this planet. Care to share it?

First off, what's your definition of "in reality" - are you going to dismiss anything that is not already widely successful? Your snarkiness suggests you would be fond of circular arguments like that.

Assuming you aren't just being an ass, here are a couple off the top of my head:

1) Customization - give away the original recordings and then sell versions that have been customized to the buyer's wishes. Like how Elton John changed the lyrics of "Candle in the Wind" to be about Princess Diana. There are lots of pop songs the feature a girl's name as key to the lyrics, tons of guys would pay $10-$100 for a version customized with their girlfriend's name since it would totally get them laid. Parents would easily pay for certain songs with their kid's names in them. And the beauty of that is since lots of people have the same name, you only have to record a custom version once for each name but you still get to sell it multiple times just like you do now with copyright because very few buyers are going to want to share their own personalized versions with the world. Of course you would charge even more for more extensive customization than just a basic name substitution.

2) Ransom model - set an asking price and shop it around to multiple buyers. The internet is great at bringing people of like mind together, convince 100,000 people worldwide to put in 10 cents each and you can pay for an episode of a television show (if you leave out the coke-snorting middlemen and big name actors). Once everyone has paid in, production starts with a guaranteed return already locked in, that's something modern hollywood would kill for. If the show is good, word will get out because its free to copy the show - people who like it will send a copy to their friends. When it comes time to make the next episode or instalment, previous success will increase the size of the paying audience, which means bigger budgets for quality programming (and shrinking budgets for crappy programming). Similarly, the big-name actors and directors should have the brand recognition to bring in crowds far larger than 100,000 - Scorsese's name alone could probably get 100 million people across the entire globe to toss $1 each in to fund his next movie.

3) Merchandising - Action figures, posters, clothing lines, plateware, candy-bars, perfume, bobbleheads, etc. All with tie-ins to the show or movie - heck that model is already giant business today, the ticket revenue of the star wars movies has long been dwarfed by the merchandising revenue.

Re:There is no debate

[rtb61]

Actually the whole current distortion of copyright is a lie. Copyright protection's sole and only purpose was to allow people to generate an exclusive income from their works for a short period of time in order to promote the creation of more works, "THAT WOULD FURTHER THE ARTS AND SCIENCES". Not make a handful of bloated egotistical people rich, not distort the nature of human society so that it would attempt to mimic the aberrant behavioural patterns of poseurs and grossly self indulgent individuals, not to imprison people for copying it and, most certainly not to corrupt the democratic process.

Clearly the original intent of copyright has gotten way out of hand and something needs to be done kerb it's society destructive excesses and to bring it back under control. Creative content is the work of a society, not an individual, no individual is capable of creating any copyrightable content with out the support of human society behind them, No movies, no songs, no books etc. all those works are the works of society and in reality do belong to the society that created them, that supported them and that nurtured them.

In truth the only time a work is stolen is when some one claims that they originated it when someone else did. Not when it is copied, by simple true and honest logic when a creative work is copied, a new creative work is produced, it takes nothing from the original, the original is not diminished, it is a fact that a new work has been produced. So copyright should never be valued over the true essentials of life, food, clothing accommodation etc. and first and foremost it should promote the arts and sciences and, be of benefit to the society that protects and nurtures. Where it fails this test, and it should be tested against acceptable human metrics and where it fails it should not be protected at societies cost, either that or copyright should simply be abandoned as a parasitical waste of human resources.

Re:There is no debate

[Lumpy]

Shakespeares plays were being played by 2 bit actors in small theaters within days of the opening of the play.

Many times a Song or a play were transcribed by people in the stands and available and being performed by others almost as fast as we can do it today.

This has happened forever, and will continue to happen forever. You cant stop it.

Re:There is no debate

[Quothz]

The problem we're having now is that the massive extensions to copyright terms mean that the writer is getting decades of pay for his day's work (ok, so you can't write a book in a day, but you get my point).

Sure, I support lowering the protection period. I also support eliminating laws against circumvention and reverse engineering. I highly support civil procedure reform to prevent the thuggish tactics so popular with IP attorneys (or at least I'd like to see these mass-threat tactics treated as the barratry they are).

But I won't advocate eliminating copyright. I like copyright; it's put food on my table.

hrmm

[acehole]

Great-copyright-story.torrent

Need more seeds!

dead simple

[markringen]

allow people to choose if they pay, you will see that 50% of the people will pay something. eventually people feel guilty, but you can't force people to pay whatever you want for music/movies/games.

Re:dead simple

[PylonHead]

How about this. We let people choose if they pay. If they pay then they get to watch the movie. If they don't pay then they can do something else with their time.

Seems simple enough.

Re:dead simple

[AnnoyaMooseCowherd]

ignoring the fact that we live in a more connected society where media like films, album master tapes, and so on last longer, and so content owners can make money on something for many more decades than in the past.

Copyright was originally introduced to cover written works such as books. Go to any decent library and you will find books that have lasted a lot longer than most films do.

Copyrights were extended to reflect the times.

In reality, copyright laws were introduced to encourage creative people to create more stuff for the enrichment of society as a whole. The terms of these copyrights were carefully chosen to give the creator enough time to make some money, but not so long that they could simply stop creating and sit back and live of an afternoon's work they put in fifty years before in a recording studio.

Re:dead simple

[Chyeld]

These "Artists" you speak of are the only people in the world that I've ever met who have honestly believed that they deserve to be paid by us in perpetutuality for 'an hours' worth of work using material they've borrows from us.

Engineers don't expect a monthly check from the people who drive over the bridges built to their design.

Architects aren't getting rich off the residuals on their building designs.

Your average office worker doesn't even get paid for all the reports and charts they create.

Why is it that being an "Artist" should equate to "being paid forever".

And PST... if we truely are living in such a connected world, then it sould be even easier for the "Artist" to make their buck in a shorter amount of time than before. The fact that the works 'last longer' is bullshit, given I still can go see the Mona Lisa, yet the majority of the TV shows broadcast just in the 30's and 40's are lost forever.

Re:dead simple

[loufoque]

The way for musicians to make money is concerts.
This is actually how they are earning their money today. Musicians don't earn much from CD sales, really.

This can be generalized to all artists, and also craftsmen and the like, fairly easily: money comes from exhibitions and orders.

Re:dead simple

[Chyeld]

How many times do you think an average McMansion design is designed? Once. How many times is it used? You do know what a McMansion is, right? Once of those previously ubiquitous generic homes that sub-division developers loved building enmasse prior to the housing bubble collapse. Each one exactly the same as the one next to it, only deviating occasionally in paint color and siding choices.

There are a plethora of items out there in the world which a 'creator' has thought up and been compensated for exactly ONCE and yet the thought keeps being resold over and over again.

Why is it that an a CPU designer is compensated only once when the company can sell millions of chips and yet the author of a book is paid per copy sold, in addition to a nice fat advance prior to even finishing the book? There is no actual IP/Physical distinction. It is simply a matter of expectations. There is nothing mystical about a book, it has no special imbued properties that would make it metaphysically different than a computer chip.

And no, I didn't miss your first sentence, I was responding specifically to it.

Re:dead simple

[k10quaint]

Movies: Alternate sources of revenue involve product placement, advertising, streaming, and enhanced theater like IMAX. They must adapt to the new distribution channels, or die. Slowly on the life support from congress or no. Charging an exorbitant fee for what now costs almost nothing just so Tom Cruise can donate millions to the church of L Ron Hubbard does not strike a chord of sympathy in me.
TV shows: I don't see Bloomberg news or reality TV having profit issues. Bad sitcoms spoon fed through government mandated monopolies are having a rough time of it.
Books: Anyone can write anything anywhere that everyone everywhere can read all instantly, why should anyone be paid for doing what anyone can do from the smallest child to the oldest altzheimers victim. A timely analysis of a situation is another thing altogether, I would pay for information before others have received it.

Re:dead simple

[smoker2]

Also, copyright terms were set at the length they were, because printing was a very expensive process, so the length of time allowed to recoup costs reflected that. Reproducing electronic works is virtually free these days, and even printing is far less expensive. Given those facts, if copyright were to be enacted for the first time now, the term would probably only be 5 years. And IIRC, there was no mention of profit at all. The term was meant to allow the creator time to recoup their costs so that the benefit of their creation could be shared.
Now that's irony.

Re:dead simple

[loufoque]

So, how about movies? TV shows? Books? GPL'd code?

They're no different than the rest.

Actors are paid to perform, they don't earn money afterwards depending on the sales of their film. The same principle, being paid for the work rather than for the benefits earned through distributing the work, is already applied to certain programmers and book writers.
This falls into what I called "orders".

Also, cinema can be considered an exhibition for film producers.

The ones that get hurt by lack of copyright are not the artists, it is the distributors.
Internet already killed distribution networks anyway.

Copyright:

[Anonymous Coward]

Too big to fail.

Re:Republicans ! - pay enough and

[MaXiMiUS]

Seems to me it's more like you pay for what you get..

Wexler and Hatch are tools of Big Media

[bughunter]

Just another data point correlated with the general trend of Congresscritters whoring for the **AA. Even Wexler, who is a member of the progressive congress, needs wealthy donors. And he gets them by fellating the copyright cosa nostra, in this example...

Everyone in congress is owned by one or more corporate interests, and although it seems the recording and movie industries target those with a (D) after their names, Orrin Hatch proves that their corruption is bipartisan.

Re:Republicans ! - pay enough and

[CorporateSuit]

Orin Hatch is renowned for being one of the most corrupt men in the United States (accepting larger bribes than any other senator from the shadiest industries in the country). He is the personification of both major parties' vitriol, not just republican. He, like Ted Stevens and the Kennedys, is proof that we need to limit the number of terms that anyone may stay in Washington. He's a royal family, all in and of himself.

Wait a second...

[DesScorp]

I thought we were for copyright reform here... i.e. a return to reasonable copyright periods. When did we decide that we wanted to completely abolish copyright? What about the GNU copyrights? Do we start ignoring them too?

If you just want to completely trash the system and ignore all copyrights, then sorry, I didn't sign up for that revolution.

Re:Wait a second...

[conteXXt]

You have to realise that nobody shoots for the middle (workable) ground.

You have to aim for NO copyright to get "reasonable" copyright.

Tell me I am wrong please.

Re:Wait a second...

[QuantumG]

I thought we were for copyright reform here

-1 Characterizes Slashdot as just a single opinion.

I'm a copyright abolitionist. Other folks on here are copyright reformists. Other folks on here like copyright just the way it is thank you. Other folks on here think copyright should be strengthened. Other folks on here think copyright should be more like regular property laws.

Re:Wait a second...

[RobVB]

How do you make copyright laws more like regular property laws? The way I see it, regular property laws says something like "it's illegal if you take my car without either paying or getting my permission to take it", which is roughly the equivalent of "it's illegal if you take my master tape without either paying or getting my permission to take it". We're talking about the equivalent of "it's illegal if you make a copy of my car with me not noticing it" - which as far as I know has not put many people behind bars.

Re:Wait a second...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Tell me I am wrong please.

You are most definitely wrong.

The position of no copyright simply serves to alienate people. Sure there are reasons against copyright as it is now, but most people are somewhere between "coping with it"and "enjoying it" (or, at least, what it has provided us). No copyright, on the other hand, is an extreme viewpoint that is trivially easy to poke holes in. Copyright supporters, such as myself, barely have to lift a finger in order to generate scepticism and doubt over the "everything will be somehow fine" mentality that prevails over copyright abolition, which is a shame, because middle ground and reform is exactly what would be best for copyright.

As it stands, pro-copyright lobbyists can stand up at a public venue and call you all liars, and get away with it. Tell me I am wrong please.

Re:Wait a second...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

I am against copyright though. I am amused when pro-copyright posters say everyone is in my camp, I think it feels lonely here! :D

It's not quite so amusing when you consider the fact that I was considering only the people in your camp.

I honestly don't understand the moderate viewpoint of copyright reform given that it's a paper tiger no matter how you dull the claws. What on God's Green Earth is the purpose in reforming a law which you have no hope of enforcing?

See, now you've set yourself up to do something really, really difficult. You have just made the claim that, given all the possible and feasible methods of approaching enforcement, including ones no-one have thought of, that copyright cannot be enforced. You've also made this claim in the face of all the lawsuits started by the **AA in order to enforce copyright. You have quite a bit of evidence to present here.

A common mistake made by people in your camp (yes, they do exist beside you) is to think that because something can't be enforced perfectly, it can't be enforced at all. After all these years, after so many billions and billions of dollars sunk into police, we still have crimes being committed that haven't been solved and prosecuted, but we don't ponder the pointlessness of making laws.

Why does everyone claim that media cannot be created in gift culture when we are already in gift culture today? I still see plenty of media being created.

Gift culture? I must admit, I've never heard that term. I can't say that I know exactly what you're referring to, but if I had to guess, I would say you were referring to the ubiquity of free entertainment right?

Well, first let's not confuse free commercial entertainment with "paid for through advertising" commercial entertainment. There's a big difference to the artist between money from advertising and money from charity. That knocks out most TV and radio.

Even the truly free commercial media is often simply an advertisement for other non-free commercial media. Advertising is useless without buying power behind it. There's no point in making your products known if anyone can get them for free.

Naturally, there are people, and there probably will always be people, who will create without intention to profit. However, you're going to have a difficult time convincing people that they make a significant portion of people creating today, or that they'll have the collective man-power, dedication, and free time between jobs to fulfil any significant part of demand for culture. And yes, in order to institute change from something that is essentially working, you do have to provide at least some evidence that such a change won't backfire on us.

Actually, this is a very good example of the "everything will be fine" mentality I was referring to. The fact that you can't see copyright's involvement in culture today, from a cursory analysis, in no way implies that culture will be fine without it. A slightly deeper analysis typically reveals a wealth of issues that haven't even be considered, let alone solved.

There are no valid boundaries preventing anyone, anywhere in the world from getting any media they want for free (save some media you can't even pay to get). Whatever social stigma exists is rapidly eroding as more people realize they can tighten their belt and do not have to give up their cultural participation in the process.

People are realising that there are no "real" boundaries to piracy? OK, I get it. Enforcement is not working too well on average. But does it therefore make it OK? Are illegal actions only immoral if you get caught, huh?

In fact, I would certainly agree that social stigmas are eroding, and people are realising that there is another option apart from paying for their entertainment. If copyright ceases to exist, I can't see this getting anything but worse. T

Re:Wait a second...

[jesset77]

You've also made this claim in the face of all the lawsuits started by the **AA in order to enforce copyright.

I know, and those are just the tip of the iceberg, right? You should see the millions of lawsuits they will file next month. Oh yeah.. they've tapered that activity down since it's both very expensive, and turning their customers against them.

You have quite a bit of evidence to present here.

Look, I am not trying to push a bill through congress, I am only providing information to people hoping some will pull their heads out of the sand.

For example, if I see you under your car pulling your oil filter out, but notice you haven't drained the pan first, I will warn you that you are approaching the task incorrectly. If you demand it, I will not however trot home and grab a copy of "changing oil for dummy's" for you, I will consider my warning good enough and walk away to let you enjoy your face full of oil.

Copyright is simply unenforceable. It is not even imperfectly enforceable. I can share a piece of media I have in my possession with absolute strangers if need be by emailing them an encrypted copy of the data. P2P isn't any easier to enforce than email, but that is more complex to illustrate here. The point is that the progression of hardship we face to continue to pirate is in inverse geometric progression to the hardship producers face to try and stop us.

Now before you launch into a tirade of other clever tricks law enforcement could use to track infringement, I would also like you to take a look at what is being done by this siege. Bit Torrent is a brilliant technology for dissiminating information. MP3 was the top audio encoding format in it's day. Both have had their names drug through the mud by copyright advocates because of the infringement they enable. They are simple, to the point, and they allow people to share media. Since most media people wish to share (apparently) is copyrighted, the technologies have suffered bad PR and the market has missed many opportunities to innovate: focusing instead on complicating the distribution of media solely to preserve vested IP interests.

Chase us into a hole and we'll use moderately complex means to continue to defy you. It is a siege we will win, but some like me will continue to call from our side saying "just give in already and quit scorching the earth in a futile attempt to insert your nose where it has no business being".

Gift culture? I must admit, I've never heard that term.

While I appreciate that you are willing to admit to things you aren't versed in, there is always Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_culture

in order to institute change from something that is essentially working, you do have to provide at least some evidence that such a change won't backfire on us.

Again, I'm not instituting a change. Only asking that you perceive the fact that the change in question has already occurred, and that most of the consequences are simply playing themselves out very slowly. I am also not claiming that (certain) IP holders can expect to earn what they used to or more in the 21st century (that this "won't backfire" on them). Could you convince an early 1800's plantation owner that it was in his short term financial interest to voluntarily free his slaves? I guess if it's not in his short term interests it would't pass your criteria of being morally right either.

That should not prevent an activist from attempting to appeal to a slave-owner's long term interests, should they choose to gamble their words in the educational effort. Human rights (including the right to share your experiences with others, irregardless of overlapping commercial IP) are not a luxury. Thus, it is foolish to believe that advocates must submit to you a competing business

Re:Wait a second...

[jesset77]

I apologize if I've wasted your time thus far. It appears after all as though our view of the world and even our concept of how to apply "reason" in an argument are so dissimilar that we will not be able to agree on the matter of the merits of copyright vs. abolishment. I however won't call you a "whackjob" over this difference of opinion.

I believe you understand the material of my proposition, though you seem unwilling or incapable of discussing what consequences would actually arise. Specifically, you refuse to stray more than a single oversimplified step at a time out of the comfort zone of 20th century copyright model you have become accustomed to. You have made it clear that you are thrilled with the status quo, and deeply humbled by the depth and breadth of media produced today, which apparently would have been impossible unaided by the political power to force every citizen on Earth to sign the equivalent of an arbitrarily large number of convoluted non-disclosure agreements.

So I will agree to disagree on this specific point and leave you to your face full of oil. However, you have now taken the additional step of blaming all negative actions taken by our media industry squarely on downloaders. Apparently, your fair use rights and privacy are threatened by DRM and rootkits, and it's our fault even though we neither implemented this DRM nor coded the rootkits. You agree that innovation is being hampered in protocols such as HTML5, media storage such as blu-ray and transition such as P2P technology.. though the parties actually doing the hampering are innocent of wrongdoing, as Pirates have allegedly forced their hand.

This would be an example of our difference of view on entitlement. You are claiming that big media is entitled to encroach on their customer's property rights when the bottom line is at stake. Compulsory Trusted computing and global wiretapping are apparently justifiable evils when an artist's living (or more accurately, the bottom lines of companies who largely keep artists in financial bondage) are at stake. Damn you free-wheeling pirates for making such hard choices necessary! :P

Thus, I turn your criteria back on you good sir. If you wish me to stop "feeling entitled" to see and hear media which is already freely available to me, I demand that you provide evidence that what I watch on TV or listen to on my media player financially impacts content producers and furthermore that it hampers innovation. Allow me to clarify that corporate press releases where the **IA claims to lose $dice_roll billions of dollars per year are not evidence. Observing generic slumps in CD/DVD sales time correlated to the unquantified "rise in filesharing" are also several degrees of separation away from sane evidence. And the ship has sailed so far as thought experiments go as well, you who would ask Galileo to actually climb the tower of Pisa and measure that which is much easier to induce will be held to that same standard.

In fact, I am hard pressed imagining what form of evidence one could even present to support an argument as far fetched as this chestnut of yours. I happen to know the evidence doesn't exist because the premise is false; but still one ought to be able to imagine what form it would take were it hypothetically possible. The best idea I have would be this then: a single-blind experiment where I illicitly copy and listen to one song from a limited selection of artists you could establish a relationship with. Next, you measure which artist becomes impoverished (or at least financially burdened) by my free lunch and thus demonstrate the damage done by correctly guessing which song I've aurally pilfered. This is just a start, feel free to volunteer any alternate quantificational approaches you can craft.

Another point in your arguments that baffles me is that you no longer sound as though you are defending copyright as a mechanism to release work into the public domain. Your new

Orrin Hatch...

[Evil Shabazz]

...is one of the better examples of why we need to impose term limits on Senators. Right up there with Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.

Re:Orrin Hatch...

[thejynxed]

If two terms are good enough for the POTUS, then two terms are damned sure good enough for Congresscritters.

Sounds great, but

[Mathinker]

There is only one problem with your glib idea. The people who are supposed to choose not to watch the movie are being manipulated into wanting to watch it.

I would totally agree with you if there were laws which required the media cartels to spend even 10% of their advertising budget on educating the Average Joe how he could actually enjoy spending his time not watching their product.

Yes, it isn't going to happen. The same Average Joes are also manipulated into supporting (or at least not actively dissenting to ) governments which also aren't interested in them being less manipulatable.

Restatement of status quo ~ redundant

[Mathinker]

I agree that the moderator probably just disagreed, having been around here for quite a while; however, since the post really is just a restatement of what is supposed to be the status quo, there is a certain amount of justification for it being modded Redundant.

Explain the reason for copyright expansion

[Opportunist]

What's the reason behind copyright? To give authors and creative artists an incentive to produce, to give them the exclusive right to use their creation for a limited time (yeah, that's the idea, now the studios hold it in the stranglehold... bear with me, ok?), so they can regenerate their expense, so they can reap the rewards for their labour, so they can actually live off their creation.

Tell me one thing: If you're unable to regenerate your cost, if you don't earn enough within 50 years to have an incentive to produce, why do you think 70, 90 or however many more years would be an incentive?

My suggestion would be, let's limit it to, say, 20 years and see if people stop creating content. My money is on "they won't stop".

So care to explain to me why you need the lengths you do? To give people an incentive to create? Don't make me laugh!

Re:Explain the reason for copyright expansion

[QuantumG]

What's the reason behind copyright? To give authors and creative artists an incentive to produce

You still didn't answer the question.

let's limit it to, say, 20 years and see if people stop creating content. My money is on "they won't stop".

Now you're getting closer.

Assumption: There's creative works which we want people to create (books, songs, movies, whatever).
Assumption: Without some economic incentive, they won't create them.
The Problem: What is the minimum incentive that we can give them to encourage production?

Thing is, both of those assumptions are simply wrong. The first assumption is wrong because it doesn't actually specify in quantity, quality or kind exactly what it is that we want. This means that any solution we come up with is going to have to include a well functioning market, cause its an observed fact that, on occasion, markets can answer these questions for us. The second assumption is wrong because its an observed fact that people do make these things we're interested in without any financial incentive. "Starving artist" is a cliche because many artists make an economic choice to do their art rather than do something much more economically sensible. It was never observed that there was a shortage of art, books, songs, movies, whatever. For as long as these things have existed they have existed in abundance.

So trying to solve this problem with these false assumptions is folly, but ok, let's give it a go. For a start, we need a well functioning market to determine the quantity, quality or kind of goods we're trying to economically encourage. Great. Let's give artists a monopoly.... hey, how the hell do you get a well functioning market from giving people monopolies? That seems pretty stupid doesn't it?

Re:Explain the reason for copyright expansion

[Opportunist]

You're right, maybe "incentive" was the wrong term. Let's say, how do we enable an artist to focus on creating art instead of forcing him to have a "mundane" job so he can fund his artistry? If people are really good artists, I'd call it a waste if they were forced to work a 9-5 job just to do what they're really good at. Think how much art he could produce if he wasn't distracted by mundane tasks!

If you are dealing with easily reproduced art where the reproduction itself does not represent any sensible amount of 'work' compared to the original creation (any kind of art that can be distributed digitally, from music to movies, computer programs and photographies), not giving an artist the ability to have the exclusive distribution right would result in people waiting for others to invest their time into creation and focus on distribution. The usual market forces of supply and demand will not work, due to a limitless supply. Prices, and thus sales since any other determining forces like quality and availability are equal for all possible supplyers, would not be determined by who is the best creator but who has the most efficient distribution system.

Essentially, abolishing copyright altogether would shift power to distributors even more than the current system does, since they will certainly have more efficient and cheaper distribution systems already in place.

The counter argument for this is of course that distribution has been proven to be easy and can be done (is actually done) by the ones wanting the content, through P2P. This is of course true, but leaves the question of compensation completely open. Content being created without the financial incentive has been mentioned a lot too, because people are creative without an immediate monetary incentive to create. The question that remains is, though, whether the amount of art will be the same without the incentive, whether the quality will be the same and whether the kind will be the same. Art, by its very definition, is something personal. People will first and foremost create the kind of art they like and enjoy, which is not necessarily the kind that will please the majority of the consumers.

Re:Explain the reason for copyright expansion

[QuantumG]

If people are really good artists, I'd call it a waste if they were forced to work a 9-5 job just to do what they're really good at.

Surely if the market isn't offering artists a 9-5 job to create their art then there really isn't that much demand for it.

Think how much art he could produce if he wasn't distracted by mundane tasks!

Think of how much of that art we don't want. I can apply this argument for anything. Think of how many waves I could surf if I wasn't distracted by a 9-5 job.. Think of how many nasty letters to KD Lang I could write if I wasn't distracted by a 9-5 job. Before you decide to offer an economic incentive for an activity you really have to ask what the value of that activity is.

Your other points demonstrate what I've been saying for about a decade now.. There's simply too many existing works for copyright to be used as anything more than a means to suppress their appreciation. There's a reason why the vast majority of books only remain in print for 12 to 18 months. It's not because everyone who would want to read that book has bought a copy in the limited period of time.

Re:Explain the reason for copyright expansion

[Requiem18th]

The problem is that the economic process of creating art is turned on its head. It should be possible for instance to make a 10 million dollar movie if only the buyers payed for it in advance.

No, people want the content to be made before they pay for it, which is funny since in the current system people can't actually know if a movie is good without paying for it first.

TFA seems crappy

[dthx1138]

You could classify me as a Slashdot reader who does not have a firm opinion on overall copyright law and needs to be convinced one way or another. That being said, this article has progressed 0% of the way towards that goal. It's basically several quoted paragraphs following by the writer ranting as if he's yelling at a television screen- "Oh no you didn't say that! Corporate whore!" etc.

Aside from a few anecdotal cases of copyright-related stupidity such as the iTunes song activation limit, I could not tell you anything in particular that is wrong with our overall copyright law that needs to be changed. Saying that all copyrights should be abolished sound ridiculous, and ranting about greed does nothing to advance your position either. Somebody explain to me WHAT should be changed about copyright law and WHY I should support such a change, and you will have my attention.

On my iPod

[MikeD83]

I wish someone in Congress actually served their constituents and asked the simple question:
When a consumer buys a CD/DVD is that customer allowed to put it on their mobile media player? If so, and how would they legally go about doing that?

It seems that the **AA wants a one way street when it comes to this issue. They put anti-ripping software on both CDs and DVDs,,, which doesn't actually reduce copyright infringement; it only causes their customers to break laws in order to actually use the content they purchased.

personal ?

[unity100]

the anti net neutrality attack was hatched by republicans. iraq flop was engineered by republicans. healthcare flop was engineered by republicans. unconstitutional wiretappings, torture, executive powers to the extent of dictatorship were engineered by republicans. the fucking global crisis was only possible thanks to republicans chanting 'hands off businesses' for 30 years and more. entire world is suffering. republicans. republicans, and again republicans.

excuse me but yeah, its personal. because it directly affects me in person.

a problem i see in american people is preferring to escape the easy, bringing-together route by saying 'both parties are equally corrupt', instead of laying the blame where it lies, and prosecuting the guilty.

Laid out bare

[RyoShin]

that copyright is the only way to make money on creative works

While I don't think anyone's been delusional about it, this is proof that government officials are in the pocket of corporations, or at least have some ulterior motive for acting in their interests. (While that line was said by Hatch, Wexler's part doesn't fare much better.)

The US Constitution empowers Congress:

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.

No where in there does it say anything about profit.

I now view Wexler and Hatch as one of the many bought-and-paid-for politicians; it's unfortunate I have no opportunity to vote against either. On an interesting aside, Wexler is a Democrat (FL) and Hatch a Republican (UT). Why neither the summary nor the techdirt article states this is beyond me, as I consider it highly relevant.

Re:Laid out bare

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

While I don't think anyone's been delusional about it, this is proof that government officials are in the pocket of corporations, or at least have some ulterior motive for acting in their interests.

I'm always a little disturbed about what passes for proof of this proposition these days. The whole case against them is heaps upon heaps of here-say, conspiracy theories, and opinions borne of ignorance or a lack of perspective when viewing the facts.

For example, your "proof" here could more easily and sensibly be explained by the government wanting to protect entertainment, due to the fact that the vast majority of their constituents actually like entertainment. Republicans and Democrats are far too smart to jeopardise their position with the people by following something like that.

That's not to necessarily say your theories aren't true, though.

Re:Laid out bare

[RyoShin]

I'm much more inclined to always think of a politician as a crook, and force him or her to prove otherwise.

Re:Congress Can't Do That

[Trahloc]

Your absolutely right. Which is why an amendment was passed to limit it to 2 terms, so the persons example stands. After all you don't think its We The People who elect our President or amend our Constitution? It's Congress.

This is a math problem

[symbolset]

And apparently a distinguished mathematician has done the math. Benefits are optimized at about fifteen years

Long long ago, in a parliament far away

[symbolset]

Thomas Macauley gave two speeches on copyright extension. He covered all the salient points we're going to touch here on slashdot today, and a few more. They are hosted here. Please note that the host is a publisher, and Macauley was himself a distinguished author. It was over 160 years ago, but it's still a good read.

After that, if you have the math to sift through these two papers on the subject, you may agree with their author that the maximum benefit to authors and the public comes with copyright terms of about 15 years. The farther you get from optimum, the less benefit both creators and consumers see - not more for one and less for the other depending on direction, as one might assume.

Excessive length of copyright harms content creators, too.

Why this is bollocks

[Dr_Ish]

As a professor, I write programs, papers and am currently working on a book. All these activities involve creating copyrighted content. The people of my State pay me to do this, as I work for a State university. So, you are probably thinking that my situation is a bit like Bono and the other 'creative' sorts? Nothing could be further from the truth.

Once I have written a paper, it needs to go through peer review, via the blind referee process. This is all good and stops me publishing silly stuff. The next step is where the copyright problem arises.

Once I have a paper accepted, it is necessary for me to assign the copyright to the publishers of the journal. No copyright assignment, no publication. It is as simple as that. So, who gets the fruits of my labors? Big multi-national corporations. What did they do to get this intellectual content? Absolutely bugger all, other than rigging the system! What about the people of my State who paid for my hard work? They get nothing. If they want to read my papers, they have to buy them from the journal (at $15 per paper and up), or visit a library. Libraries have to pay for a journal subscription ($750 per annum and up).

Thus, all this 'creativity' and copyright bleating is clearly bollocks. It is just a case of the powerful folks using rhetoric to fight for their monopoly 'rights'. I don't care to participate, but am forced to. Of course, I also run an e-journal where the authors retain copyright, but that is another story. My little act of subversion.

Don't fall for all this 'starving artist' rubbish. My bet is that we professors in our professional bondage produce more per year than the people represented by the members of both the RIAA and the MIAA, put together. I wonder what those crooks, or their mouth pieces, would have to say in response to that claim? I bet we will never hear.

"We are led by fools who waste our lives". Copyright is a good idea which has now been subverted into a scam and it sucks.