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RIAA Awarded $675,000 In Tenenbaum Trial
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The jury awarded the record company plaintiffs $675,000 in the Boston trial defended by Prof. Charles Nesson, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum. I was not surprised, since exactly none of the central issues ever even came up in this trial. The judge had instructed the jurors that Mr. Tenenbaum was liable, and that their only task was to come up with a verdict that was more than $22,500 and less than $4.5 million. According to the judge, her reason for doing so was that, when on the stand, the defendant was asked if he admitted liability, and he said 'yes.' The lawyers among you will know that that was a totally improper question, and that the Court should not have even allowed it, much less based her holding upon the answer to it."
A good example of the justice system at work for your average citizen... So really, what happens next? The guy files for bankruptcy. The RIAA doesn't get any money (not that they really intend to get significant income from those cases). What are the consequences for Mr. Tenenbaum? Can't get a credit card for a few years? Needs to get a job? I'm really curious as to what the true consequences will be.
--
fantasy camp for iPhone developers
bomb the damn HQ of the riaa already, where are the terrorists when you need them? fuck them
If the judge gets to decide the verdict (unless it's a not guilty verdict in a criminal case)? Why not let the judge consult with whomever he/she wants rather than the 12 jurors in this case? If jury trials are not necessary in civil cases, mandate judge trials. At least outrageous fines will become rare. But don't create a farce hidden by an appearance of a right to a jury trial.
For those of us who aren't lawyers, why was it improper?
... and artists everywhere REJOICE, knowing that the RIAA has expended countless billable hours to smite one of the 18923789738945345 file sharing individuals of the world.
Furthermore, these artists know that they'll all be getting their share of this $675,000 in a rapid and straightforward manner, because the recording industry has never, ever, f****d over the artists before.
How many RIAA/Copyright related lawsuits this year have started off with a hopeful - "Yeah! Damnit! We are taking this one all the way and are going to stick it to the MAN! Fuck him! Fuck the MAN Baby!" only to result in a circus and a horrible verdict for the defendant?
Damn that's depressing, and this one was the one I was actually hoping the guy running the show had some sort of fucking clue/hidden plan that he was going to spring out at the end.
I mean, yes, I'm not particularly fond of the idea of willfull copyright infringement, but I thought at least this would come out to forcing the RIAA to cut out some of their crap.
Isn't there something in the US constitution about the punishment being proportional to the crime? $675K is just as absurd as $675M or $675B. They should have just given him the chair, that would've shown those pesky pirates not to fuck with the record companies.
$675000? Lol.
Oh, wait. You're serious. Let me laugh even harder. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
What was this guys defense? It sounds like he took it all the way to court, only to admit to everything he was accused of. Was he even trying to win? or just martyr himself?
Hmm... that must have been a real big torrent, this guy downloaded, because I haven't seen music worth any money for years.
Anyone got a link to the file(s) he downloaded? Now I'm curious!
Is your credit is, in fact, NOT ruined after a bankruptcy. Why? Because you can't file again for a number of years. Thus lenders don't have to worry about you using bankruptcy to just walk on your debts. That doesn't mean your credit is grand, but it isn't worthless. Companies will lend to you since they know you don't have that as a way out.
The lawyers among you will know that that was a totally improper question, and that the Court should not have even allowed it, much less based her holding upon the answer to it.
The linked article doesn't give a complete transcript of the questions and answers, so I can't speak to whether the question was 'totally improper,' but as Ray Beckerman (aka NewYorkCountryLawyer) should know, it was the job of Mr. Nesson, not the judge, to object to improper questions. Furthermore, Mr. Tenenbaum was almost certainly deposed prior to trial, and Mr. Nesson would know what questions were likely to come up.
Finally, the offending question is presumably "Are you admitting liability for all 30 sound recordings?" Under FRE 704(a), an opinion as to an ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact is admissible (with the exception given in FRE 704(b), which does not apply here).
Lay opinion evidence is limited by FRE 701, which requires that the opinion "(a) rationally based on the perception of the witness, and (b) helpful to a clear understanding of the witness' testimony or the determination of a fact in issue, and (c) not based on scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge within the scope of Rule 702." Crucially, the question was not "Are you liable?" it was "are you admitting liability?" The former might possibly be objectionable, the latter is almost certainly not. In any case, Mr. Nesson did not object and so the point is largely moot.
The only reasons to disregard Mr. Tenenbaum's admission would be if the judge believed he was either lying or mistaken. He had no reason to lie, and since the other evidence makes a strong case that he was in fact liable, his admission fits with that.
In any event, Mr. Nesson's strategy has always been to admit liability but argue that the damages are unconstitutional or otherwise impermissible. He has been very clear about this in his public discussion of this and related cases.
Finally, I'll just add that the right against self-incrimination applies only to criminal cases and has no application here.
Moral of the story: Just because some crazy-ass professor has "Harvard" next to his name does not mean he is going to magically get you off. Hell, from the looks of this case this Nesson guy should probably be brought up on sanctions for trying to turn this trial into a circus for his own fantasy-version of fair use. An attorney representing a client is supposed to act in the client's best interest, and not in the best-interest of his political cause. From what I've seen of this Nesson guy, his argument that P2P of complete copyrighted works constitutes "fair use" is completely ridiculous.. just see the four factors reiterated in Acuff-Rose case: There's no transformative use at all, these are all commercial works not some political diatribe, and the guy was distributing complete copyright works online. About his only defense is that he wasn't charging for the works, but that factor alone is never going to win. Oh, I'm sure this new "fair use" theory is popular with other faculty at Harvard and in some bizzaro academic enclaves, but in the real world it was a great way to get his client screwed over. Not that Nesson cares, it will just make for publishing fodder he can push out to a hapless law review that's more wowed by his "Harvard" credentials than by his complete lack of legal reasoning.
Oh, and pending my passage of the bar exam I finished two days ago, yes I will be a lawyer. I also went to a school with a much better copyright curriculum than whatever these jokers at Harvard are pushing.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Which does...guess what...increase the tax base
This is why I keep calling for legalizing and taxing hookers and blow, to ensure that we're getting the maximum taxation from our music dollars.
Wow. Just no. Back some of that shit up or leave.
It's clear that now the RIAA can make people pay for copyright infringement and will have an important victory under their belt to back up future litigation in persuit of damages. Whether or not the defendant can pay is irrelevant, there's a court-order backing up the verdict. I don't think RIAA will lose sleep over never collecting $650k, it's the principle. in one fell swoop they have legally consumed an individual. Salami slicing now has a pricetag and it has a poster child.
I understand you are merely trolling, Mr. pr0n, but I'll go ahead and link this to explain why you are an idiot. Broken Window Fallacy
<Complete your profile by adding a signature!>
At that point, the bankruptcy falls off your credit report. So more or less what they look at is your history during that time. All inactive accounts slide off your report after an amount of time, and all bad information. You can look it up as to what goes off when. However if over the 8 years you maintained proper credit usage, you'd have good credit. If you dug yourself in to a deep hole, you'd have crap credit again.
Credit isn't a permanent state. It is intended to be a risk assessment off of your usage history. However it only goes back so far. IF you defaulted on a credit card when you were 20, nobody will know at 40. It isn't held against you for life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhBpI13dxkI
Joel Tenenbaum was a teenager at the time of his conviction, accused of downloading 7 songs from a file sharing network.
This bodes bad weather indeed. If money is what sustains the flesh, we have here a case of cannibalism.
(Somewhere, a barman in a life-jacket pours Scotch for a passenger while the cruiser sinks..)
Not so. First, copyright law has been around for a long time. What the RIAA has been attempting to do is extend copyrights far beyond any intent of its original foundations.
Copyright was never intended to give the copyright owner complete and full rights as though it were a piece of tangible property. The intent of copyright was to give the holder temporary rights to an original work, in order to give artists, writers, and other creators incentive to create... as opposed to simply letting all original works automatically be in the public domain. This incentive to create was (as is clearly stated in the law) intended to benefit the public, because after that temporary period was up, the work reverted to the public domain.
The period of copyright was originally much shorter: about the same as a patent... and if it is reasonable for a patent, it is also reasonable for copyright, for exactly the same reasons: it allows the creator to make money, while also benefiting the public.
The period is longer now because copyright holders (mainly large corporations) lobbied Congress to make it so, in order to profit from it more. It is now up to the life of the creator, plus 50 or 70 years or so... I forget exactly. Now, tell me: how does that benefit the public (the whole original purpose of copyrights)? Someone can write a book, and someone who was born the same year might never live to see it in the public domain! That does not fit very well into my definition of "temporary"!
I should also point out that letting original works and inventions automatically be in the public domain from the beginning has been tried in other countries, and guess what? You end up with a society that on the whole does not create, and does not innovate. (Think, "Soviet Union" during its heyday.)
The desire to work for one's own gain is powerful.
On the other hand, when works never (or almost never) revert to public domain, then you end up with a stratified society, in which the public does not benefit from creativity and innovation... exactly the opposite of what copyright law was intended to establish.
Gah. I hate it when I give a reasoned reply to somebody, then they get modded down so it looks like I am talking to air.
I guess the lesson there is: "Don't feed the trolls."
It is not stealing, it is copyright infringement!
I agree 100% that the money the RIAA's member companies make gets taxed and partly funds the government.
I disagree with the implication that infringement decreases funding to the government. Money not spent on music will be spent somehow (whether saved (and loaned), or spent outright).
So what is lost when a person infringes on the government-granted monopoly that is copyright? Possibly some works would not be created, though I have never heard of a musician or a book publisher or any artist whatsoever going under due to piracy. There's no reason to pirate inferior goods, so the most pirated goods are also those that make enough money from non-pirates and from sale of tangible items (concerts, apparel, etc.). Even in a rampant piracy market like China (where perhaps a few thousand legit copies of a CD are sold), there are new musicians and new songs, etc. The musicians are apparently motivated without the copyright. That would suggest that the constitutional basis for the copyright of music is in danger: the copyright must "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". If the artists make the music without protection of copyright, where's the benefit of copyright in that instance?
It's clear that the game is rigged. Here, with the defenses all tossed out before the case even got to the jury. Worldwide, as the Pirate Bay trial with the judge being the next best thing to a card-carrying member of the copyright cartel. All your presence does is legitimize the system by making it look like something other than the RIAA and its allies steamrolling over those without the resources (including paid-off legislators and fellow-traveler judges) to fight them.
bomb the damn HQ of the riaa already, where are the freedom fighters when you need them? fuck them
Never admit to being liable.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Fifth Amendment?
This "i don't want to be forced" is a virtual problem...you/we are FORCED already.
People paid for your treatment that you defaulted, one way or the other (its not that the doctor went hungry or the hospital also went bankrupt) its paid by contingency funds that we people who contribute into...one way or another...the physicists amongst us will agree you donot invent things out of nothing...conservation laws work.
Its like people say google is free ....no its not ..its financed by ads which is paid by us because we buy stuff at higher prices for companies to ...i want free market and free stuff" ...yet it will cheaper than the indirect tax we pay already...because in the process of making ads we finance ad agencies and all kind of intermediates and intermediaries to finance google search engines....
pay for ads...now if we had a tax to finance google and no ads people will shout "OMG its a tax
Your intelligent argument is totally trashed by the fact that I, as a buyer of music on CD, create the demand for that and more music to be created in the first place, which thus allows someone else to download it freely.
Therefore, I myself am subsidising the music collections of those who choose the copyright infringement path - and if everyone chose that path, then there would be no profit to be made from music meaning it wouldn't get made in the first place leaving no material to infringe the copright thereof.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Someone at Ars pointed out that at $750 per song, the minimum award is 750 * 30 = 22.5k.
The jury multiplied the 22.5k * 30 to get $675K.
Were the judge's instructions misunderstood as "22.5k PER SONG"??
You didn't read my entire argument. China sells hardly any CD's, and they still have artists making music. They simply make their money in other ways, like concert tickets, posters, apparel, etc.
Music was made well before copyright existed as well: look at the Classical genre, which is full of great works, only the most recent of which were subject to copyright.
Juries are also supposed to try the law itself too. Although this is rarely done today, the right of jury nullification is a long standing tradition.
Fully Informed Jury Association:
http://fija.org/
Libertas in infinitum
>These industry groups lobby for strong copyright protections to...guess what...make money! Which does...guess what...increase the tax base! Which leads to...guess what...
Huh? Your reasoning will be correct, if for each song I downloaded for free, my bank balance increased by $1. But it does not! Each month's end there is the same amount in my account: $0 - not matter has I downloaded something or not.
That means: downloading has absolutely no impact on taxes. No social services or programs are damaged by it. Hey, even police are not damaged, bastards.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. - Winston Churchill.
Let's cut straight to the chase: I get the impression that Americans are rabid individualists. They do not want a socialized health system tell them that they are not worth saving because others have higher priorities. They believe that an individual relying completely on themselves is responsible for their own well being. Socialized health care on the other hand understands that humanity has a dignity and if you are unjustly disadvantaged then you can still get treatment according to fairness with everyone else. Myself in particular: I have schizophrenia. I take $20CDN worth of medication for it every day. I cannot afford this medicine. My government subsidizes me based on individual need. If I was in the US I'd be living on the street talking to the birds. So, the conundrum for the US style of care is: what if you are incapable of caring for your self?
Shh.
Gah. I hate it when I give a reasoned reply to somebody, then they get modded down so it looks like I am talking to air.
I guess the lesson there is: "Don't feed the trolls."
OR, just quote the relevant parts of the post you are responding to.
I should also point out that letting original works and inventions automatically be in the public domain from the beginning has been tried in other countries, and guess what? You end up with a society that on the whole does not create, and does not innovate. (Think, "Soviet Union" during its heyday.)
They also didn't have the internet - a nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of original works and money, although we could stand lose even more friction on the money part.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
That's the basic problem in this case: the defendant was in fact making and distributing copies of copyrighted works without authorization, and doing so well outside the bounds of any fair use. Copying works you already own for your own use is (or should be) fair use. Giving the occasional copy to a friend, maybe. But handing out copies in wholesale quantities to anybody who stops by your booth to ask (which is what P2P file sharing involves)? Not even. The lawyers know it, the judge knows it, the defendant knows it, and the average person knows it. And frankly I agree with the law on that point. Whether it's a book or an MP3, the author for a certain period gets to be the sole source for it. I don't agree with certain of the details, but in this case none of those areas were implicated. The only defense Joel Tenenbaum might have raised is "I had a geek set it up for me for my own use, I had no idea it was sharing those files with the world.". And even that's hurt by the fact that much of his library wasn't his own, wasn't anything he'd paid for. I've noticed that judges are like DMs: they don't like players who use technicalities to get away with breaking the rules, and they tend to find ways to use those same technicalities to make it so the players don't get away with it.
If the RIAA comes knocking, ask yourself three questions: "Am I downloading copyrighted songs without paying for them?", "Am I sharing copyrighted songs with the world?", and "Do I know full well I'm doing this?". If the answers to all three are "Yes.", then suck it up and pay the settlement. You can delay the inevitable, but they are going to win.
If all the music on your computer's rips of CDs, tapes etc. you own and you've only used P2P software for legal material, have a geek check your system. Even if you didn't intend to, if you use the software it may have started sharing more than you intended. If it turns out that's the case, don't try to hide it. It just makes you look guilty. Preserve the evidence (so the RIAA can't use the appearance of hiding something against you), shut down the sharing, and prepare the "I honestly didn't know it was happening." defense. It may not save you completely, but if you're otherwise clean it's likely to get the judge leaning in your favor.
If it turns out you've no illegal material on your systems and demonstrably weren't sharing anything out, then and only then do you haul out the big guns and go for a showdown with the RIAA.
Eh! slashdot; how many I owe you for "working offline" your copyrighted pages???
If you were familiar with some of the trials and suits of the early 20th century, you might change that tune. (No pun intended.)
At that time, copyright did not specifically cover recordings of any kind... whether rolls for player pianos, or the new Edison recordings.
The writers of music (the aged John Philip Sousa made sure to make a lot of showings of his famous face on this side), were arguing that they should receive royalties for these "recordings". The "recording industry" (makers of player piano rolls and Edison-type recordings), argued that the writers already made plenty of money from royalties on their sheet music, recordings did not cost the writers anything, and that the recordings, in effect, amounted to "free advertising" for said sheet music... and indeed, once a recording became popular, sales of the sheet music did go up, often dramatically.
In effect, the makers of recorded music were making EXACTLY the same arguments that downloaders of music are making today. There is not a whit of difference, except that back then, their motive was profit, and you cannot fairly say that about the vast majority of downloaders. But of course, now that it is mainly the recording industry (generally more even than the artists) that are on the profit-making end of things, they have turned 180 degrees and are suing their more-modern counterparts for shitloads of money. Just as Sony -- winners of the "Betamax decision" in court -- now take exactly the opposite stand now they they are content providers.
They are a bunch of f**ing greedy hypocrites, and I have no sympathy whatsoever.
IANAL, but AFAIK the 5th says you cannot be *forced* to testify against yourself. If you do so voluntarily, you have nobody to blame but yourself - and no recourse. So if you plan to plead the 5th, you need to do it right off the bat.
Not so. First, copyright law has been around for a long time. What the RIAA has been attempting to do is extend copyrights far beyond any intent of its original foundations.
Correction: They have extended copyright successfully and are pushing to extend it again, just watch the similar cronies around the world representing the same dead media cartels. They extension bribing has already started.
Copyright is now at the point where it means we'll never see anything coming into the public domain.
1984 was killed on the Kindle recently. Why is it still locked up? It was published in 1949 and the author died in 1950 at the age of 47 or so. Does his material still need protection so that he may make other works? How about Elivs, died in 1977, 32 years later he still hasn't released anything, the slacker!
Seriously... I do not download tracks and I do not use any P2P clients. I simply listen to whatever I can find on the TV, radio, or on sites like youtube (streaming to me .. but not me downloading it). Perhaps I am not as much of a music lover as other ppl are. But this type of attitude from the industry makes me so p@#* off, that I feel even less inclined to buy a CD now than I ever felt. At least before, I could see myself buying one as a gift to someone else as I have done in the past. There is no way I will be buying a CD/DVD anytime soon now. Don't you guys feel the same way?
I think that few people would argue that copyright law has been extended too far and that big corporations have gained too much power from it. I would happily support politicians who want to reign in that law. If I were in politics I would actively work to reduce the copyright monopoly. However, it is the law of the land. If I were on a jury to decide a case like this, I would certainly rule against Tenenbaum because there can be no disputing that he violated the law. If I were a judge, I would help enforce that law. I might have to hold my nose, but I would do it. No one is above the law. If we can pick and choose which laws to follow we open ourselves up to the Richard M. Nixons who declare that whatever they do as president must necessarily be legal or the George W. Bushs who think they can decide when to ignore the law in the name of "protecting the nation".
As I mentioned elsewhere, Nesson's strategy has always been to give up on liability and argue that the damages are either unconstitutional or otherwise impermissible
Liability for what? Everybody, including the Judge, seems to have forgotten that there were 2 theories of liability, 1 for violation of the reproduction right, 1 for violation of the distribution right. While there may have been sufficient evidence to support infringement of the reproduction right, there was not evidence to support "distribution".
Additionally there appear to have been other important issues which were overlooked such as chronology, evidentiary admissibility of technical material, admissibility of extraneous matter, the lack of verification of most of the sound recordings, absence of evidence of dissemination of copies "to the public", absence of evidence of a 'sale, other transfer of ownership, or rental, lease, or lending', and possibly how many "works" there were.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Bullshit legalized extortion. Ridiculous judgment, loaded juries and complicit judges. Money talks, rationals suffer. Quite the greeting for nascent technology. Greet rationality and vestigilize the RIAA.
That's interesting and all, but doesn't really address my point about the internet being a frictionless medium for distribution and payment, its really just circular reasoning for justifying copyright, as in we already have one kind of copyright on sheet music so we out to have another copyright on recordings and performances. It is still in the box.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
However, it is the law of the land. If I were on a jury to decide a case like this, I would certainly rule against Tenenbaum because there can be no disputing that he violated the law. If I were a judge, I would help enforce that law. I might have to hold my nose, but I would do it. No one is above the law.
I respect your answer, but I don't know that I agree with it.
In 1850, slavery was legal in the United States generally, with the various states free to choose whether or not to legalize it in their own territory. But Congress enacted the Fugitive Slave Law which ordered that all law enforcement officials in all states assist in capturing runaway slaves so that they could be returned to their owners. Anyone who helped a runaway slave was subject to fines and imprisonment. Also, if a slave owner came to the north and filed an affidavit alleging that a particular person was his slave, that alleged slave had to be captured and given over to the slave owner without a trial, which resulted in a number of free people being enslaved by slave owners who made false (and never verified) affidavits. The US Supreme Court found that this law was constitutional.
While this is an extreme example, it is not a hypothetical one; this all really happened, and many people had to face the dilemmas it presented.
My question to you then is, if you magically wound up back in time in 1850, would you break the law of the land in order to help runaway slaves, or would you obey the law and engage in supporting the evil of slavery?
Personally, I would break the law. If I happened to be punished for it, so be it, but I would do everything in my power to avoid such punishment, including fleeing myself if I had to, because the punishment for breaking such a severely unjust law would itself also be unjust.
I do not mean to suggest that copyright is anywhere in the same class as slavery; it is not, at least not currently, and probably not ever. However, it is important to recognize that some issues which are regulated by laws have moral dimensions, and some do not. For example, homicide has a moral aspect to it (murder is wrong), while zoning regulations do not (building a house with too many bathrooms does not make the house, architect, builder, or owner, evil). While copyright is pretty clearly an amoral law, which is merely concerned with social utility, in those cases where morality is a factor, I think that it is not enough to merely say that the law must be obeyed because it is the law. We must also examine such laws in the light of morality, and see if the law is right or wrong, and only obey the former.
Does this mean I would excuse Nixon or Bush for their crimes? Not really, as they broke laws which were not themselves wrong, so that they could engage in wrongful behavior.
Sure, examining laws for morality, and then which way that morality leans, means that things are no longer as clear-cut as whether it is legal or not, but no one ever said that a righteous life would be easy.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Thought I'd add a little footnote to this.
In all likelihood, the monetary damages recently awarded by juries in both Jammie Thomas and Tenenbaum trial far, far dwarf the amounts that the record labels
actually spent and advanced to the artists and producers when originally acquiring the rights to the master recordings of those very songs that were being shared.
It would be interesting to compare the average damage paid for stealing something tangible (how many times the value of the object?) versus these obscene amounts for
something of which there is an infinite supply, and the copying of which truly caused very little harm (and which most times the labels themselves bought so cheaply).
Maybe the defense's tactic is to force the issue of disproportionate damage to the crime committed, hoping that one of these cases will ultimately need to go to the Supreme Court ??
Historically, such excesses have never been good press for those who while they may morally be 'right', overstate the harm caused, and therefore the size of the punishment meted out.
Lest we forget, similar punitive practices were the ultimate catalysts for some famous past tea parties in the very same town's harbor where this trial is taking place today.... how fitting!!
Z.
Lionel Hutz: And so, ladies and gentleman of the jury I rest my case.
Judge: Hmmm. Mr. Hutz, do you know that you're not wearing any pants?
Hutz: DAAAA!! I move for a bad court thingy.
Judge: You mean a mistrial?
Hutz: Right!! That's why you're the judge and I'm the law-talking guy.
Judge: You mean the lawyer?
Hutz: Right.
I am not a litigator, so I really never go to court. It being a novelty to me, I had a fun time watching the trial this week, and seeing how an infringement trial goes outside of what I've read in books. However, I noticed what I thought was a significant mistake in the jury instructions as the judge and the two sides were working them out today. I predicted that this could cause the jury to err in a particular way, and looking at the award, I think it may have actually happened.
The plaintiff suggested that the jury should award damages based on the number of infringements. The judge felt that this was acceptable, and the defense did not counter with an alternative. When the instructions were finally given to the jury, they included language to this effect. The problem with this is that the law -- 17 USC 504(c)(1) -- specifies that statutory damages are awarded per work infringed, not per infringement. That is to say, if you were on trial for distributing one copyrighted sound recording to one million people, that would only count against you one time, not one million times. But if you were on trial for distributing two different sound recordings once each, that would be two counts against you.
I feared that due to the flawed language in the instructions the jury might believe that even if they were to award the minimum of $750 per count (in this case there are 30 counts), they might take notice of the fact that the defendant infringed when he downloaded, and infringed again when he uploaded, and therefore might double their award, thinking that each type of infringement counted separately for computing damages. Or worse, they might multiply their figure more, if they thought he uploaded a lot.
Well, the figure that they came up with after deliberating was $675,000. The minimum award in this case would have been $750 per work times 30 works, or $22,500. Multiply $22,500 by 30, and you get the amount actually awarded. It is possible that the jury meant to award the minimum damages, but due to the incorrect instructions, multiplied to account for multiple acts of uploading that they believed occurred.
Or they might have just felt that 30 times the minimum was a just figure, and they understood the instructions just fine. Not having seen reports (if there are any, or are ever going to be any) from the jurors as to what their logic was when deliberating, I don't know.
But the doubt, it seems to me, could be grounds for a mistrial. This is of course entirely unrelated to the constitutionality issue that has been discussed at length. On both issues, I will be very interested to see what happens. And since an appeal is likely, and any appeal will go to the First Circuit, I will probably get to see that myself as well.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
You chat with Joel and make a friendly teasing joke about the novelty t-shirt he's wearing and he just kind of freezes up. He's a geek. He doesn't handle even light, joking confrontation well. God knows what he'd do in the hot seat. Still, isn't this what prep is for?
Need I say more?
If you give away digital copies for free, does that count as "other transfer of ownership"? I'm assuming it can't be sale/rental/lease because no money changes hands, and I'm assuming it's not lending since there is no expectation that it will be returned.
I am not American, but isn't there something called "Cruel and unusual punishment"?
As you pointed out, there is no comparison between copyright disputes and slavery and other immoral acts (e.g. Japanese detainment camps during WWII, Alien and Sedition Act, Segregation Laws, etc.) The authors of the Declaration of Independence certainly understood the concept of a higher moral code that the law should ideally be a reflection of. They also understood that rebelling against that when the law falls short is acceptable (and even obligatory). These men also understood that there is significant risk in doing this. Willful violation of the law subjects you to those penalties.
Tenenbaum is certainly within his rights to make a heroic stand for justice in this case. If he feels this strongly that he wants to be a $675,000 martyr for this cause then goodie for him, but he gets no sympathy from me.
As to what I would do in the slavery era? Who knows because I am not in that position. Helping slaves not only puts you in jeopardy of breaking the law, but puts you in jeopardy of lynch mobs full of ignorant rednecks with either tacit or implicit approval of the local law enforcement. I.e., you could find you and your family dead without even a trial. It's one thing to say that people should violate immoral laws. It is quite another to say that people have an obligation to become martyrs. It is really hard to look back at the history of this country and come up with a scenario where the south gives up slavery without a civil war.
The rule of law is important because it helps ensure equality and fairness in our system. This is much better than the anarchy of having some laws randomly enforced or ignored for indeterminate reasons. Some people will question my use of the word fairness by pointing out that Tenenbaums punishment is hardly fair. That may be, but the law is pretty clear on what the penalty is for this behavior. If you know what the law is and the penalty and willfully break the law, it is hard to claim the law is unfair unless it violates some higher moral code.
Is it just a coincidence that 675,000 == 22,500 * 30 == 750 * 30 * 30? or was it a mistake, or was it intentional?
If we assume that the judge told them that the minimum penalty per song was $750, and there were 30 songs infringed, bringing us to minimum damages of $22,500... what happened next:
a) they coincidentally decided to punish him by awarding 30x the minimum judgment -- a nice round number (bigger than 10 but less than 50)
b) or they misunderstood the judge's instructions -- they thought that $22,500 was the minimum per song, and so actually awarded the minimum they thought possible -- 30 * 22,500 = $675,000
c) or lastly, they intentionally chose that since he pirated n=30 songs, they would punish him at n^2 * 750... In other words, they chose to punish him exponentially in relation to his crime(s).
As far as I see it, if it's a) that seems a rather arbitrary number, and arbitrarily wide range of punishment for a simple act which harms no one. If it was b) then this sounds like some kind of mistrial or jury reboot.. and if it was c) well... exponential damages sounds like cruel and unusual punishment to me. How does $675,000 fit the crime?
Hooray! This is another victory for artist's rights. I hope Tenenbaum pays & suffers the rest of his life.
It's a victory for property rights. Enforced by a jury no less. An artist or author has a right to bread and butter and not just slave wages. If it takes only a few pirates paying a larger cost, that is justice. An artist should be able to set the price for their product.
Look at every country that trashes property rights. POVERTY for all.
If you covet others, they will covet you. It's simple math. If you don't want the product at that price, don't buy it and certainly do not defraud the original artist.
A few people stealing is manageable. But illegal distribution is un-manageable and creates poor quality media. Pirates suck!
May Tenebaum be haunted for years. Property rights work! and they work quite well. Don't trespass on my lawn, thank you. Go find your own property.
Expect the quality of media to rise some, because prices can be set, not just quantity.
Score & Karma: SASA: Slashdot Approval Seekers Anonymous
(a) If you get caught by the RIAA, settle quick.
(b) Don't be a dummy and keep ripping copyrighted material after you're caught.
(c) If you're too stupid to settle quick, DON'T engage show--off lawyers who won't try to settle your case for the lowest possible amount. Engage lawyers tuned in with a sense of reality.
(d) Talk strategy with a bankruptcy lawyer very early on in the process.
(e) Don't listen to any of the whackos who keep railing about how (boo-hoo) unfair the copyright law is. Your predicament DEMANDS a pragmatic approach--devoid of political or emotional overtones or undertones.
In the Army, I was taught the practical response when exposed to a nuclear attack. It seems appropriate here:
(1) Bend over;
(2) Put you head between your legs; and
(3) Kiss your ass goodbye.
Not at all. "Recordings" (which included piano rolls) were the "internet" of their day. They could be easily copied and distributed, even easier, in many respects, than the printed sheet music. (Some people copied piano rolls by buying blank rolls and using a paper punch.) Ways were even devised to mass-produce the copies. So no, I disagree with you. The situation is completely analogous.
I might agree with you, if it were not for the fact that today's recording companies have not shown -- not even close, actually -- that their "losses" have been due to piracy. But nobody has actually shown that... and in fact, in general their overall revenue and profits have continued to increase. So far they have not actually been able to demonstrate any actual losses... and in fact even tried to hide their profit-loss statements in the Tenenbaum trial. (And there can be only one reason for that: it is embarrassing to their position.) What actual evidence there is causes me to believe that it is much more likely that piracy operates in the same way that recordings did, over 100 years ago... as free advertising that increases their revenue, rather than actually causing monetary damage.
To clarify a little bit: the situation then was that people were making and distributing recordings of music, without permission by the creators or payment of any royalties. And they were being distributed en masse to the public. And there were no laws to control it. How is that different from today? In fact, it was worse then (from the creators' point of view) because most of them were doing it for a profit!
How can you say that is different from today? In what way, other than the profit motive? Yes, it is even easier to copy now, but nobody (almost nobody, anyway) is doing it for profit.
And this is one of the points I made earlier: there is another way to effectively change the law, other than simply defiance of it, and that is through jury nullification.
Fully Informed Jury Association
It *IS* legally within the power of a jury to refuse to convict, even if the defendant has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have violated the law. I know this sounds strange, but go to that website, and read not just their guide for jurors but the legal history of this principle. It is relatively unknown today because it undermines the power that judges and prosecutors have over people, and they have acted to suppress it, over a long period of time. But the fact is that the jury has the legal authority to judge the law itself, not just people accused of violating it.
The current western legal system has become a joke. You really can't achieve anything in the lower courts except to act as the most basic pursuader. So if the other side is already 99% convinced then the lower courts can tip the balance but for real cases, they are worthless. The judges are all incompetent. It would like getting your medical diagnoses from a highschool biology class. Biology class is to seperate the plumbers from the doctors and even those that pass won't be any good until AFTER they been through med-school and some years of practice.
Judges are tried and tested in the lower courts and most never make it. Relying on them to rule fairly or even sanely is an excersise in futility.
Rather use it as a test bed, get to see what your opponent has to show and then build you next defence based on that.
Really, every serious case is appealed. Even if a judge ruled in your favour it is worthless, because the other side would just appeal.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you buy through iTunes then you support the idea that a digitially distributed song should cost not only the same as if it was pressed on a CD with all the logistics costs involved but that said songs should never land in the discount bin.
Really, iTunes is NOT freedom, it is enslavement of a kind the media companies would only drool about if there dreams didn't go so far as that EVERY song must be rented and paid for each variation (mp3 player, home stereo, ring tone) and for each performance (ring tone can be heard by dozens, so you should pay for that).
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Not at all. "Recordings" (which included piano rolls) were the "internet" of their day.
Are piano rolls excludable? Are piano rolls rival? The answer is yes to both questions which puts them in an entirely different category than efficient digital distribution. Any comparison to fixing ideas in an excludable and rivalrous medium will not yield significant insight.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Profit is irrelevant. In fact, the very reason nobody is doing it for profit today because it is so much easier to do it. Valenti was right when he said that you can't compete with free. He just didn't realize that the logical conclusion was to change the business model to one where competition was possible.
The right to legally monopolize distribution is of no value when distribution is no longer a service of any value. Therefore copyright is no longer a significant incentive so never granting copyright, as was done in socialist countries like the USSR. is no loss to a capitalist system that includes the internet.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You are implicitly assuming that the laws in question have been enacted by democratically enacted representatives representing my and the general public's interests. I think you'll agree that your argument wouldn't fly in a dictatorship for example.
Problem is, there's a gray area between those two extremes. What do I do when there's a level of corruption in the democratic process? e.g. money politics.
Do I treat the law as gospel or do I have a more nuanced view that recognizes that the law is imperfect and should, depending on the circumstances, sometimes be ignored or worked around?
I and many others think that "IP" law is far, far into imperfect territory and thus deserving of little respect. Even though I make my living by selling the products of my mind.
You are both splitting hairs, and missing the point. I wasn't trying to "justify" anything having to do with copyright at all. I was simply making a historical comparison, which in my opinion is still valid.
That is downright funny. You are arguing that never granting copyright at all is a reasonable solution? You are deluded.
First, there is plenty of incentive, as any company that does distribute digitally (and legally, as opposed to piracy) can tell you. They are not exactly going broke... quite the opposite. So profit is anything but irrelevant, and therefore the first sentence of your second paragraph is demonstrated to be wrong. The problem in the music industry was a typical capitalist problem to which older industries are prone: they did not keep up (in fact refused to keep up) with advances in technology. Those who did, and who offer the public what they actually want for a reasonable price, are making lots of money, despite the ease and minimal cost of digital distribution. That is a simple fact and no amount of rhetoric will make it otherwise.
Second, if there were no incentive to create, then it would be necessary to create one, in order to prevent exactly the kind of situation that prevailed in the Soviet Union. So while your last argument is not false, its premises are, and therefore ultimately it is still meaningless.
bomb the damn HQ of the riaa already, where are the terrorists when you need them? fuck them
Pursuing agendas which however perverted have a somewhat larger dimension than the geek's right to a free media fix.
Why anyone would mod up an incitement to murder is beyond me.
It reinforces the most dangerous and self-destructive stereotypes of the geek mind and culture.
Second Amendment ?
Also, I don't think you can honestly say that piano rolls were "rival" to sheet music in any meaningful sense of the term. They were used at different times and usually under very different circumstances. Rather, they had a clearly demonstrated tendency to increase sales of the sheet music for the tune that they played. Market-wise, their effect was to expose people to music that they otherwise would probably not have heard, and that increased the sales of that music.
A great many knowledgeable people have made the same argument in regard to "pirate" downloads. Is it proven? No. But reliable statistics have, for obvious reasons, been hard to come by in these circumstances.
Count me as one more person who, after this farce, will do everything I can to never give the RIAA record companies another dime of my money. I'll buy independent music, listen for free on the radio, or simply do without. I can live a good life without their music, and they ought to be scared by that thought.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
In a completely free market, only the healthy get insurance. A healthcare system is about solidarity, e.g. between those that have the luck of not having some gene mutating into a cancerous one and the relatively small group that isn't that lucky.
Maybe they were hoping for jury nullification.
Or "The license for this music DVD..." or "This software is licensed not sold...".
How about that.
No license was transferred so nothing that you pay for when you buy a digital music track, DVD or software is passed on when filesharing.
Therefore nothing was transferred as ownership.
How does supermarket provides cheaper food than local store?
Power of negotiation. They buy a lot of the stuff that producer has to sell. If a supermarket don't buy your product, they will buy someone else and their market share will increase and yours drop. If a little shop tried to make you reduce your price, you would just ignore him.
Same with health care. If the government decide that one drug is too expensive while the next one which has similar effect is cheaper, they can decide to push the prescription of the cheaper one. especially if they agree to reduce their price even more. Even if the first company offer better holiday package for doctors, the price of prescription will diminish.
Why do you think drug in the US are so much more expensive than in Europe?
Health insurance is easy for people in good health. Unfortunately, not everybody is so lucky.
In this case, the jury was explicitly forbidden to decide on liability. So they had to assume that he did it.
In effect, the makers of recorded music were making EXACTLY the same arguments that downloaders of music are making today.
Sure, but are they right? Maybe the argument was wrong back then and maybe it still is wrong now.
This is the issue being debated: How much copyright is fair and good for society? None, a little, a lot or total?
i think we can remove 'total' from the list of possibly beneficial copyright terms. if copyright lasted infinitely long, shakespeare for example, wouldn't have written anything, disney would have been unable to make half of their films, beethoven would have been unable to compose etc. etc.
in some ways this is analagous to the software patent situation. 1 million patents, at any time a further 100 thousand you aren't allowed to read. does you software impede on any of them? good luck finding out.
He may never pay but his life was disrupted by being forced to defend himself. Now he will have to go through the hoops of bankruptcy and all the crap that goes along with it.
If you mental midgets think that is worth it then I hope you continue to steal property you didn't create and I hope you also get prosecuted. Then get forced into bankruptcy while being a slave to the bureaucracy and your lawyers fees. I'm sure you will enjoy every minute of it.
Eventually copyright holders are going to win this war. And this generation of leeches will be just a bad memory. Copyrights and the revenue they generate are the incentives for creative people to create. Take those incentives away and you stifle innovation. That is a huge reason why generation x and y have total crap for music. Why work hard on something when you won't make any money and clueless slugs are going to steal it?
> I should also point out that letting original works and inventions automatically be in the public domain from the beginning has been tried in other countries, and guess what? You end up with a society that on the whole does not create, and does not innovate. (Think, "Soviet Union" during its heyday.)
They didnt have the internet then. We live in a different world.
You are right, this is about creating an atmosphere of fear. One suspects that it has been successful. I have to wonder if the RIAA realize that most people want nothing whatsoever to do with those they fear Could their success in creating fear have contributed to the decline in purchasing? [The vastly increased crappiness of their products is a whole 'nother story]
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
It seems odd that everybody is screaming unfairness because of the amount of the settlement, but almost nobody is taking a cold, hard look at the defendant's actions during the trial.
Frankly, he got off EASY. For what he did, he's lucky he isn't in jail.
On the stand, Tenenbaum admitted that up until that part of the questioning, he had willfully lied under oath, with little excuse other than "It's what seemed the best response to give." That's perjury, and under American law, it is a felony offense that carries with it a jail sentence of up to five years. And there's a reason for that.
A trial is supposed to be the administration of justice, which in ideal circumstances is fair and balanced. But for justice to be administered, it must be based on truth. By lying throughout most of the trial, Tenenbaum made a mockery of the trial, and prevented the court from being fair and just. At least he admitted it before the trial was over, but he still ensured that for months the jury's consideration was based on false information.
Judges and juries don't like being lied to. So, yes, the defendant has been ordered to pay $675,000 USD in damages. But, he doesn't have a felony on his record, and he's not going to be spending up to five years behind bars. He'll be able to declare bankruptcy and get on with his life.
Considering the alternatives for willful perjury, that's getting off really damn easy. And frankly, after his conduct, I have no sympathy for him whatsoever.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
I would question whether he did admit liability. The quote:
is a horrible question akin to "have you stopped beating your 30 wives?" One can easily intend to answer the numerical quantity without considering the issue of liability.
-HobophobE
Nothing laughs forever.
A very dogmatic position, in my opinion.
Part of the reason for the justice system in the first place is to test the laws and, where deemed necessary, repeal them or modify them. And how does that happen? By people breaking unjust laws and being brought to court.
Justice isn't just a set of rules.
It's the job of the police to enforce rules. It's the job of the justice system to dispense justice. If all they had to do was determine violation of the law, you'd just need an accountant, not a judge.
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
Nah. Anybody with brains will click "parent" if they want to see what you replied to. And it was a good post anyway.
Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
Not so. That does not matter in the least, as you would know if you did your research. A jury can ignore the instructions of a judge, and sometimes has good reason to do so.
Citations of a few of the legal decisions regarding this are HERE.
And so (if you have read those citations), it is clear that if the jury had acquitted despite the judge's instruction (as it does have the power to do), the judge has no choice, under the law, but to accept that verdict.
I don't think so. The issue that should be debated first is: Is the recording industry actually suffering overall damage as a result? This has NEVER been established to date, and until it is, any debate over whether to change copyright law -- on either side -- does not have any foundation.
Statistically out of every 100 trials, you'll only get 2.5 juries to nullify the conviction and release the defendent.
In a civil case, there is no "conviction," only a decision for the plaintiff or the defendant.
You can't claim there has been "nullification" until you have shown that no "reasonable" jury could have found for the defendant.
You have no source for your statistics. You've made no distinction between the state and federal courts, civil and criminal law.
There were states that went "dry" before Prohibition and states that remained dry after Prohibition. Salt Lake is not Chicago.
Broadband is not universal. You might just discover that 40% of the jury pool is standing in line with the peons at Blockbuster.
Allow me to correct myself: the first sentence of your second paragraph is not demonstrated to be wrong... just irrelevant. While nobody is monopolizing the method of distribution, a lot of companies ARE making enormous profit by using it. The actual electronic distribution may not be a source of revenue, but sales that use it still are, by a long way.
You can talk all you want to about the fact that 5 files were uploaded to MediaSentry, bottom line is that plaintiffs never proved a "distribution" occurred within the meaning of the Copyright Act, and never proved that more than 5 of the files were actually reproduced. Moreover, it appears that they failed to prove the requisite elements for entitlement to statutory damages. So what you should have had was a judgment in favor of plaintiffs for approximately $1.65.
Next round is the constitutionality of the award under due process analysis. You can bet that Judge Gertner will reduce the verdict on that ground, but not enough to bring it anywhere near $1.65, which is all she should have allowed were she carefully applying applicable law.
Highly regrettable that the litigants' attorneys and the Court all failed to stay grounded.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I am an attorney, but this is not legal advise. If you need that, pay an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
Actually wage garnishment is a joke in most instances. They can't garnish your wages if they don't know where you work.
So far, so good.
You aren't obligated to help them find out where you work.
Welcome to the real world.
Judgment will be followed by a judgment debtor's examination, at which you will answer under oath questions about your assets, and where you work.
Don't answer, or lie, and there's a cell waiting for you for contempt.
Dodging a judgment, while doable, is non-trivial.
That's problem number one for them. Problem number two is that a civil judgment is generally last in the priority list for wage garnishment. Child support, alimony and taxes come ahead of it -- and if they exceed a certain percentage of your income (garnishments are generally limited to 10-15% depending on state) then there's nothing left for the civil judgment to garnish.
Yes, that means those with child support arrearages and back taxes don't have additional consequences.
BTW, 25%, not 10-15%, is the typical wages cap.
There's also at least four states that don't allow civil wage garnishment. Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Pennsylvania.
At least for certain items, including taxes, PA allows garnishment of wages without the inconvenience to the creditor of obtaining a judgment.
hawk, esq
I am an attorney, but this is not legal advice. Pay for it if you need it.
I've always been amazed at the post-bankruptcy flood of credit offers. But then, you're years from filing again.
However, it is *not* clear that the debt would be discharged in bankruptcy. Debts for "intentionally caused harm" are not discharged, and given the specific intent involved in file-sharing, it is at least arguably covered. The issue hasn't been litigated yet, and I can see it coming down either way . . .
hawk
I am a Canadian retired lawyer and judge. I am appalled by the Alice in Wonderland nature of US copyright and related laws and penalties [blame for this must be laid at the feet of the criminally negligent legislators and bureaucrats who created, then passed, the legislation] and the attitude of the courts in these cases. I know that most legislators accept bills from the bureaucrats or whoever prepares them and pass them into law without, in most cases, reading them or understanding them. This law is a good example of the personal harm that can be done by such negligence. I say criminal negligence because if it has resulted from negligence, it is such a high level of negligence as to come so close to the deliberate doing of harm as to be indistinguishable from deliberate intent. If the law didn't come into existence because of negligence, then it reveals an even greater evil. There is no doubt in my mind that the penalties revealed by this and similar cases are so disproportionate to the harm done that the laws and the policies behind them are much more evil than the acts they are punishing people for.
Incredibly the defendant's Harvard Law School "legal team" is now taking up a collection to raise money to PAY the RIAA.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Second, if there were no incentive to create,
And here we come to an end. You, like so many of the brainwashed and uncreative masses, assume that copyright is the best and only incentive. That because some businesses are able to be successful despite all the costs of the model, most of them externalities, that there is no better way. That it is impossible to earn significant amounts of money from one's creative labors without copyright and that the frictionless environment of the internet offers no new business methods without such externalities. Until you are able to get past that misconception you'll forever be stuck in the world of buggy-whips, or piano-rolls.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
No, that is NOT what I stated. I think you might have been washing your own brain just a bit too much, buddy.
All you seem to see in my statements are the arguments you want to see, even if that is not what I stated at all. Please show me where I stated that copyright was the only solution, because I don't believe that statement exists. And I went back and checked things over again just to make sure.
What I stated was: if there were no incentive to create, it would be necessary to create one. I did not mention copyright in that statement, or in fact anything about what kind of incentive it might be... only that there needs to be one. (History has demonstrated that, repeatedly.) If you choose to believe that this means I think copyright is the only solution, then fine, go on believing that... but it would mean you are hallucinating. And then, to go on and insult me over a statement I never made... that's really way out there, guy!
Nor did I state that there was "no other way". I merely pointed out that contrary to what you stated before, it is possible to make money by selling and distributing music, even though copying and the means of distribution are dirt cheap (but they are not "free"), and even though pirating, in many cases, is even easier than buying the music. That is not even close to what you just wrote.
In fact, I am aware of a number of cases of exactly what you state above: people who did (or could have) made quite a bit of money selling their music, without the benefit of copyright. The first (but not only) example that comes to mind is Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor), who was giving away "Ghosts". He did have copyright on it, but chose not to enforce it via exclusivity (and so, therefore, it was pretty much irrelevant to the whole situation). Yet Trent made plenty of money on that album by offering "extras" to the people who chose to throw some money his way.
Not only that, but I am a programmer who makes extensive use of Open Source tools, a number of which have been quite profitable for the core group of a given tool.
So not only CAN I conceive of alternatives to copyright, I am aware of a great many examples of same. Which means: you are just plain wrong in your assessment of me. And wrong about what you seem to assume I meant before... and wrong about... well, I will stop there, though I could go on.
If you insist on arguing with someone, why don't you go argue with someone who actually disagrees with you? Or at least wait until you understand what the argument is about, before throwing in your two cents.
american legal system. have more money ? spend more money, and either outsue everyone or convince the 'jury' that you are right, despite having a knife with a blood on your hands, and youre off the hook.
inverse also applies. sue jesus, provide bullshit evidence and even withhold evidence saying that it would 'damage your trade secrets' and just convince the jury that he is actually son of satan, and you win.
excuse me but this is total bullshit. and happens only in america. you have to ditch that jury system and move to a system that requires hard cold evidence for anything to happen.
Read radical news here
All you seem to see in my statements are the arguments you want to see, even if that is not what I stated at all. Please show me where I stated that copyright was the only solution,
If you don't believe that, then why did you bring up the entire bit about "if there were no incentive to create?" In a discussion about copyright WHY would you bring up such a HUGE red herring as assuming that there would ever be no incentive to create unless you didn't believe it to be a red herring at all? For all your ranting on being called out, I see absolutely no justification for centering your post on that argument.
Couple that with your total misdirection of claiming that some digital publishers are profitable the frictionless nature digital distribution BY EVERYONE ELSE of the same content is somehow irrelevant when said profit is in fact due to two wholly unrelated characteristics - convenience and copyright enforcement. The first being a potential business model and the second being a buggy whip. I expect now you will conflate the artificial scarcity of copyright enforcement with the natural scarcity of piano rolls.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Also, I don't think you can honestly say that piano rolls were "rival" to sheet music in any meaningful sense of the term.
I just saw this. Lol. You really don't know your terminology, no wonder you think physical copies are the same as digital copies.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The issue that should be debated first is: Is the recording industry actually suffering overall damage as a result?
Absolutely not. Society invented copyright for its benefit, not for the benefit of creators. The issue that should be debated first, last and inbetween is: Is society receiving a net benefit from the copyright system any more.
That's why I disagree with your claim that a society without copyright leads to creative stagnation -- the circumstances have changed immensely since your examples were relevant. To compare piano rolls to the internet is to presume that circumstances have not changed, that enforcement costs have not gone up by many orders of magnitude, that the value of the public domain has increased just as substantially.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
> According to the judge, her reason for doing so was that, when on the stand,
> the defendant was asked if he admitted liability, and he said 'yes.' The
> lawyers among you will know that that was a totally improper question, and
> that the Court should not have even allowed it, much less based her holding upon the answer to it.
So the undiscussed issues, proof, and so on, don't matter since she said, "I Did It"?
I can't argue the propriety of the question or answer, but that's another issue. If it's Ok to do so, I can't see why there's anything wrong.
The only objection would be about the question and answer itself and whether that's valid. Anything else (in this particular case) is, at this point, sophistry at best.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I did not bring it up, YOU did: "Therefore copyright is no longer a significant incentive so never granting copyright, as was done in socialist countries like the USSR. is no loss to a capitalist system that includes the internet."
And neither did I "center my post on that argument". In fact, that comment was an afterthought; an aside, as it were.
And your final paragraph above clearly shows that either you did not even read my statements fully, or that you misunderstood them. In plain English, I pointed out how copyright was NOT a major or central issue for at least some of those profitable ventures. But somehow you missed that... hmmmmmm. You seem to have a habit of reading words into other peoples' statements that do not actually exist. Or possibly subtracting words that do exist. I am not sure which, but what I am sure of is that I did not write the things you seem to think I did.
And your final sentence makes no sense whatsoever. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything I actually wrote.
Have fun in your fantasy world, pal. I want no part of it.
See, there you go again, distorting my statements. When did I ever state that physical copies are the same as digital copies? All I stated was that the situations are comparable.
And if you were using the term "rival" in the economic sense, i.e. "rival good", rather than the common usage, you should have stated as much. Both definitions are valid, just in different contexts.
But even if you did mean "rival good" in the economic sense, you are still wrong, though not quite as wrong. Part of my point was that it was trivial to copy piano rolls, which means that they are not "rival" to the degree that is commonly thought of when someone says "rival good". No, it was not as cheap and easy as direct digital copy, but it was very cheap and trivially easy. That was part of the very point I was making, which you seem to have missed. Again.
There you go, yet again! Amazing. "Absolutely not. Society invented copyright for its benefit, not for the benefit of creators."
A point I brought up myself. So what's yours?
"The issue that should be debated first, last and inbetween is: Is society receiving a net benefit from the copyright system any more."
Yes, of course. I do not disagree at all. But this statement is not relevant to my own. I was talking about changing the law (as I am sure you know, it has been changed in some rather major ways already, in recent decades). And before we go changing the law, it behooves us, as a society, to make sure that we have the FACTS concerning the effects of the law. Is a major industry being damaged by the law as it exists now? Maybe, maybe not... what we do know is that this has not been demonstrated.
Having said that, I will admit that I should have made my point more clear: what I meant was, before we go changing the law based on the claims of damage by the recording industry, we should make damned sure that such damage actually occurred. Given that I was not clearer as to my meaning, I have no basis to criticize that comment of yours, but I hope it is clear now what my meaning was, and that given this, your comment is not in the same context. I certainly agree that the good of society is always the overriding factor.
"That's why I disagree with your claim that a society without copyright leads to creative stagnation -- the circumstances have changed immensely since your examples were relevant"
Really? It was relevant AFTER the internet was invented, and before the Soviet Union had a chance to implement much change... and further, there are examples that still exist today. So it is still quite relevant.
As for stagnation being a necessary consequence, I am not asking you to take my word for it. If you don't believe that it is a necessary consequence of that kind of social policy, all you have to do is pick up a history book, and you can find numerous examples... and no exceptions of which I am aware. If you can find some genuine exceptions, by all means point them out. I am as eager to learn as anyone. For that matter, if you can explain coherently why you believe that there is no longer a cause-effect relationship there, then please do. I am willing to listen. But I reserve the right to disagree with you, just as I do now, based on the evidence of which I am aware. Show me better evidence that indicates otherwise, and I am capable of changing my mind.
But until then, as has been said before by many people in different ways: those who forget history are doomed to repeat it... and you seem hell-bent on a course that would have us repeat it. I'll pass on that, thank you very much.
"To compare piano rolls to the internet is to presume that circumstances have not changed, that enforcement costs have not gone up by many orders of magnitude, that the value of the public domain has increased just as substantially."
Two things here: first, I was only making a comparison. Nowhere did I say the situations were identical... in fact I pointed out a couple of places where they were not. What I did state was that the legal arguments were nearly identical. Those are two very different things. But the second thing here, which is more to the point: as for THAT comment of yours, you brought up a comment of mine that was in a different part of this thread, to somebody else, in a somewhat different context, as though it belonged in the middle of THIS part of the conversation. It doesn't.
Is a major industry being damaged by the law as it exists now? Maybe
You don't get it. When I said "first, last and inbetween" I meant no other issue matters. The help or harm of the current law to that industry is of no concern, they exist purely at society's whim.
you brought up a comment of mine that was in a different part of this thread, to somebody else, in a somewhat different context,
Internal consistency not relevant to your arguments. Check.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I did not bring it up, YOU did: "Therefore copyright is no longer a significant incentive so never granting copyright, as was done in socialist countries like the USSR. is no loss to a capitalist system that includes the internet."
The difference between pointing out that copyright is no longer a significant incentive and saying things like "if there were no incentive to create, it would be necessary to create one" is that the former eliminates one artificial incentive while the latter assumes that artificial incentives are necessary. You clearly believe that leaving the market to itself is not sufficient.
And your final sentence makes no sense whatsoever. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything I actually wrote.
The fact that you don't even realize you have been talking about artificial scarcity versus natural scarcity shows just how uninformed you are, kind of like your complete misunderstanding of the economic term "rival."
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
When did I ever state that physical copies are the same as digital copies? All I stated was that the situations are comparable.
They are not comparable. Absolutely no useful comparison can be made between rivalrous and non-rivalrous goods. That's why your whole piano-roll analogy is so terribly poor and all of your citations of history books about societies without copyright but also without near-frictionless markets are also not useful.
And if you were using the term "rival" in the economic sense, i.e. "rival good", rather than the common usage, you should have stated as much. Both definitions are valid, just in different contexts.
(A) Except that there is no context where your particular usage of rival applies to the situation. To say that sheet music "rivals" recordings is nonsensical - as you pointed out yourself. You thought you were being clever by saying that when you were only pointing out the obvious and irrelevant.
(B) Quit acting like you knew what rival meant, the context was clear, four words prior I used the related term "excludable" -- if you knew your terms the meaning would have been obvious. If you didn't know your terms you would have taken the sentences to be prosaic.
Part of my point was that it was trivial to copy piano rolls, which means that they are not "rival" to the degree that is commonly thought of when someone says "rival good".
You just looked up the term, probably on wikipedia, and you still don't grasp the meaning. A rival good is something that inherently can only be used by a limited number of people at a time. Cost is irrelevant, it can be free for all it matters. One piano roll can not be used by more than one piano player at a time, even if it is free. Therefore piano rolls are completely rival.
The nature of copyright changed completely once nearly all creative works no longer required fixing in excludable and rivalrous goods in order to be distributed. Which, again, is why rivalrous and excludable piano rolls are a useless analogy.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Use of the broken window fallacy is a fallacy. Don't use it. The prOn may be trolling but his essential point is correct. It is deliberate theft, even if 'everyone' is doing it.
No, the fact that you are talking about things that were never mentioned and weren't part of the existing discussion shows that you are living in a fantasy world. Why can't you stick to the subjects under discussion? Or, if you want to discuss things like natural scarcity vs. free availability, then bring them up and discuss them openly, rather than assume other people are talking about that when they aren't?
I am beginning to think you are a loony.
"They are not comparable. Absolutely no useful comparison can be made between rivalrous and non-rivalrous goods."
Except that I already explained why they were not rivalrous goods, and you have made no attempt to refute that explanation. Yet here you are, still saying that they are rivalrous goods, with no evidence or real argument to back that up. If you really want that to be an argument, it needs lots of improvement.
Further, this has no bearing whatsoever on my other comments about historical evidence related to societies without copyrights. That comment simply makes no sense. It is a different subject. How did you mix them up?
"(A) Except that there is no context where your particular usage of rival applies to the situation. To say that sheet music "rivals" recordings is nonsensical - as you pointed out yourself. You thought you were being clever by saying that when you were only pointing out the obvious and irrelevant."
Excuse me??? It was you who claimed, unequivocally, that they were rival goods, not me. Sheesh... don't you remember your own statements? HINT: you can go back and read them if you just scroll up a bit!!! SECOND HINT: Other people will, even if you don't.
"(B) Quit acting like you knew what rival meant, the context was clear, four words prior I used the related term "excludable" -- if you knew your terms the meaning would have been obvious. If you didn't know your terms you would have taken the sentences to be prosaic."
I quite clearly indicated that I did not understand your use of the terms at first. It's right there in print, fella. I took your comments in one context, but I later realized that you meant them in a different context. There was no pretense. Again... go back and read it. It's right there in black and white. I don't claim to be perfect, and I don't mind admitting when I have misunderstood. As I stated in perfectly clear English, for everyone to see. So how was I "pretending"??? That makes no sense.
But since you were stupid enough to bring it up again, not only have I already shown that piano rolls were not a rivalrous good to sheet music, as it turns out neither were they excludable. It was not possible to force users to pay for it for two very good reasons: (1) they were too easy to copy, so even if that were illegal, there was no effective barrier, and (2) in fact there was, at the time, no law requiring pay to ANYBODY in order to produce or reproduce the product, so excludability was not even an issue. And therefore, you were wrong on both points.
And no, to reinforce the point, you are wrong about the term "rival", or at least its relevance to this topic. A good is only rivalrous if its use by one person prevents its use by another person. But, as I have already explained, it was trivially easy and cheap to copy piano rolls (one of my original points), so its use, in fact, did not prevent the use by another. Further, the copying, at the time, was LEGAL. Just in case you needed that driven home.
Your claim that a piano roll in this context is "completely rival" is actually an argument against yourself. Using your own logic (either using this historical, physical context or a modern one), in practice nobody can use exactly the same copy of an MP3 at the same time, either. Therefore -- by your weird definition of "rival" -- MP3s are also "completely rival" and therefore don't fit into your argument about "frictionless" distribution.
You are simply wrong on those points. You contradict yourself, and argue in circles. You don't seem to recognize that you are going in circles, but I am sure that if you keep it up long enough, you will finally run across your own tracks in the snow.
You made an all-encompassing statement that, "letting original works and inventions automatically be in the public domain has been tried in other countries, and guess what? You end up with a society that on the whole does not create, and does not innovate. (Think, "Soviet Union" during its heyday.)" I quoted and disputed that statement by pointing out that the economic circumstances of those cases were exceptionally different from today. You responded with an irrelevant tangent about legalistic arguments in the 1900s - completely missing my point about how ECONOMIC CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE CHANGED when I spelled out the fact you missed my point you just restated your irrelevant history lesson of legalistic arguments. When I pointed out that your history lesson had nothing to do with why I disputed your original premise you first went a little schizo and referred to yourself in the 3rd person, then you went further afield because you didn't understand the terms. After which you continued to misunderstand the terms unable to admit you've painted yourself into a corner with your terms in direct contradiction of their standard meaning.
So basically your claim that this was a discussion of legal theories rather than economic theories is complete BS - your first post said nothing about legal theories, only economic (how the economics failed in the soviet union) and then when I disputed that point on an economic basis you went off the deep end by trying to cite legal arguments that aren't relevant.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"You don't get it. ..."
Sure I do. I am not the one misunderstanding here. But first let me state that your claim that "no other issue matters" is an extremely broad claim, so broad that it is almost certain to be proven incorrect. But I am not going to bother to do so right now.
As I have already explained, the situation under discussion was whether to change the law, based on the claims of the "recording industry". And even if we accept your point of view of society, it still behooves us to understand the FACTS about what is happening in this industry. Are they being cheated or not? People are pushing to change the law. Should it be changed or not? Does the industry have a reasonable chance to exist under the current rules? Or are consumers being cheated instead? These things must be known. Your absolutist approach arguably does not serve society because you aren't even trying to learn these things.
"Internal consistency not relevant to your arguments. Check."
Right. As in being at a cocktail party and talking to the boss about your co-worker's affair with his secretary, but not mentioning your own or even paying attention to what HE is talking about. Sure. Very much appreciated (sarcasm) and sure to be remembered later.
"I quoted and disputed that statement by pointing out that the economic circumstances of those cases were exceptionally different from today."
And so you did say that. But that's all. You did NOT point out exactly HOW they are different, or offer any evidence to support that view, or really make a point at all. All you did was make statements.
You keep saying that I made irrelevant statements, but all I did, really, was repeat my original thesis. And at no time have you presented ANYTHING that actually refutes it. Do you know how to make a logical argument?
I did not miss your point about how economic circumstances have changed. And so they have. But not that much. YOU have failed to show, in any way whatsoever (or even present a valid argument in attempt to show), that economic circumstances have changed anywhere near enough to support your claims. All you have been doing is making unsupported statements.
Please... show me how things are so different now that the evidence of the history books is irrelevant. I am waiting. I am willing to learn, if such learning is to be had. But I suspect not. However, that is only an opinion, based on my own readings of history. DEMONSTRATE it to be wrong, if you can. But if you can't, shut up.
"When I pointed out that your history lesson had nothing to do with why I disputed your original premise"
But that's all you did. You pointed it out. You did not offer evidence, you simply made statements. And, as I have shown elsewhere, some of those statements are simply incorrect. Your economic arguments regarding the piano rolls and recordings were fundamentally flawed. Aw hell, let's be blunt... they were just plain wrong.
Your link above to what is supposed to be referring to myself in the the 3rd person actually links to nothing of the sort. Assuming (perhaps wrongly) that you simply made a mistake, please correct it and show me where I "went a little schizo" and "referred to myself in the third person". I do not recall doing so, and that certainly wasn't it.
Your disputation of my original premise was wrong, on both counts: excludability and rivalry. And, though I did go afield because I misunderstood your meaning at the time, I have both corrected myself and admitted the misunderstanding. But I disagree that I have misunderstood the terms since. If you mean something else, then define your meaning. If you are using terms in a non-standard way, then make yourself clear. This is not a failing on my part. You cannot validly base an argument on definitions that you make up yourself.
And in your final paragraph, you demonstrably contradict reality. Again. Please point out exactly where I claim that it was a discussion of legal theories rather than economic. I mean that seriously. Please quote the words where I stated that. If you can, I will admit to making a mistake.
But I suspect you can't. In fact, most of the time here we haven't even been communicating on the same level. I don't think you have really understood a word I have written from the beginning. I have already clearly shown that you did not understand SOME of my statements... but I suspect it goes deeper than that.
Have a nice day. Without me, please.
And so you did say that. But that's all. You did NOT point out exactly HOW they are different, or offer any evidence to support that view, or really make a point at all. All you did was make statements.
What part of "a nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of original works and money" do you fail to understand? Actually, I think the fact that you are so busy arguing that piano rolls are neither rivalrous nor excludable indicates exactly what you fail to understand. Until you get your terms right you can't make a meaningful contribution to the discussion. Write this 1000 times on the chalkboard until it sinks in -- all physical objects are excludable and rivalrous.
PS - Glad to see your implicit acceptance that your tangent of comparisons of legal arguments was a complete red herring. Good for you.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I understand "nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of digital works". In fact I showed how a number of companies are using that medium, TODAY, just as it is, and given both the advantages and disadvantages that you claim, are making A PERFECTLY DECENT PROFIT using that medium. It is you who are failing to understand. Yes, the economic model has changed. But no, it is not the world you think it is.
Write THIS 1000 times on the blackboard: "Idealistic theories seldom represent reality."
I have given you concrete examples of how your idealistic economic theories have not worked as you claim in the real world. I have given actual examples of how your theories have not matched with actual history. Yet not only have you failed to refute my examples, you continue to spout your idealism as though it represented the real world.
I feel sorry for you.
"PS - Glad to see your implicit acceptance that your tangent of comparisons of legal arguments was a complete red herring. Good for you."
Care to explain? As I have stated before, I am willing to learn... but somehow I missed that. Would you like to point it out in detail?
I understand "nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of digital works".
So you admit that all your plavering about what is and is not rivalrous was completely bogus. You've pretty much completed a full back down from the bullshit you were flinging earlier. Good for you.
In fact I showed how a number of companies are using that medium, TODAY, just as it is, and given both the advantages and disadvantages that you claim, are making A PERFECTLY DECENT PROFIT using that medium.
You showed examples of companies making money without relying on copyright and that proves the need for copyright?
I have given you concrete examples of how your idealistic economic theories have not worked as you claim in the real world.
What theory would that be? Link the post where I promoted a single economic theory as working - all I've done is show how the old no longer apply.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You know what? I had answers for you but I am not going to bother to post them here. You are simply writing nonsense.
The fact that I understand what you are saying about "frictionless" distribution does not mean that I accept it as true. (It is demonstrably NOT true.)
"You showed examples of companies making money without relying on copyright and that proves the need for copyright?"
Huh? Where -- anywhere -- was I trying to "prove the need for copyright"? You are delusional. You twist my words and try to make them mean things that I never stated.
Quote (an oft-repeated statement that you have made): "a nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of original works and money" "
I hate to break this to you, guy, but that is an economic theory. And one that is demonstrably false. Just for a simple example, try to pass some money over the internet today without being charged a fee for the privilege. If you can find a way to effectively do that for any amount more than a few cents, let me know. I am sure a few million people would be interested.
Huh? Where -- anywhere -- was I trying to "prove the need for copyright"? You are delusional. You twist my words and try to make them mean things that I never stated.
I should also point out that letting original works and inventions automatically be in the public domain from the beginning has been tried in other countries, and guess what? You end up with a society that on the whole does not create, and does not innovate. (Think, "Soviet Union" during its heyday.)
Is that supposed to mean you think "soviet union during its heydey" is a good thing?
"a nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of original works and money"
I hate to break this to you, guy, but that is an economic theory. And one that is demonstrably false. Just for a simple example, try to pass some money over the internet today without being charged a fee for the privilege.
What part of "nearly" do you fail to understand? What part of, "we could stand to lose even more friction on the money part" are you disputing?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
That does not necessarily mean copyright... there are other kinds of incentives that could be worked in. All I stated was that automatic and immediate public domain hasn't worked. And I challenge you again: pick up a history book (covering any time there was an actual money economy) and find an exception. Then tell us about it here.
I understand "nearly" very well, but apparently you don't. The internet is NOT a "nearly frictionless" medium for distribution of... money". Anywhere. It costs about the same to perform a transaction over the internet as it does to perform that transaction via any other medium. You are just plain wrong about that. What part of that don't you understand?
letting original works and inventions automatically be in the public domain from the beginning
That does not necessarily mean copyright...
Rrrrright. Give one example of excluding the public domain that is not copyright. You can't. The very definition of copyright is "not public domain." Your corner is all out of dry floor.
I understand "nearly" very well, but apparently you don't. The internet is NOT a "nearly frictionless" medium for distribution of... money". Anywhere. It costs about the same to perform a transaction over the internet as it does to perform that transaction via any other medium.
You seem to have forgotten what it used to be like before we had electronic networks. Just because a rising tide floats all boats doesn't mean the tide doesn't rise.
You are just plain wrong about that. What part of that don't you understand?
Woooosh. Don't try to use the phrase if you can't correctly connect any of the end points.
PS. Still not economic theories - just observations.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"Rrrrright. Give one example of excluding the public domain that is not copyright. You can't. The very definition of copyright is "not public domain." Your corner is all out of dry floor."
Not at all. A counterexample is ridiculously simple: Government holding all the rights to original works would be one alternative. I am not saying that I recommend that, but there are acres and acres of "dry floor" here, friend.
"You seem to have forgotten what it used to be like before we had electronic networks. Just because a rising tide floats all boats doesn't mean the tide doesn't rise."
And what do you mean by that? Put it in plain words. Before we had electronic networks, you paid by cash or check. If you paid by check, you were charged for the privilege... whether that charge was up-front, or "buried" in a slight difference in interest rates or margins, you still paid for it. Same with a credit card. With a credit card, the company doing the selling was charged both a percentage of the sale AND a per-transaction fee. Therefore prices went up.
When credit cards became chargeable electronically, the credit card companies did not stop charging a fee for the service. And it wasn't cheap.
When payment systems began to spring up on the internet, it actually tended to be more expensive to do transactions over the net than check or even credit card, because there were fees on both the buyer and seller end of the transactions, and if you were a seller, you were forced to pay not only for unnecessary Point-Of-Sale electronic equipment, you also had to pay a fee for access to the service, AND "lease" the software you needed to manage your account. The latter tended to be very expensive. And I know, because I had countless people try to get me to buy in to such systems. I researched both the major and many of the minor players in that area.
Now, the price has fallen to the point that bank or credit card transactions are nearly identical to performing transactions any other way. I can invest in my own merchant account with any number of charge-service companies, or just forego that whole process and collect money via PayPal. The actual fees are pretty similar... and pretty similar to what you would pay if you had a storefront and someone walked in from the street to buy. The only difference there is that you really do need that point-of-sale equipment, such as a card reader and so on.
So your point about "floating all boats" does not make sense. Regular, non-internet payments are not "frictionless" either. They cost a significant amount of money. There really is no significant difference. And YOU were trying to claim that there WAS a difference, or you would not even have called it a "a nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of original works and money", which was directly tied to the point you were trying to make. But now, by saying the water "floats all boats", you are trying to claim that you meant it was the same as everything else, all along? Then why didn't you say so? And why did you claim that about the internet, and not everything else? If you meant they were the same, you wouldn't have bothered to single them out.
Nope. You aren't going to get away with it.
You are still wrong. There is nothing "frictionless" about exchange of money over the internet. It doesn't matter how you look at it. For a seller, it is just as much of a pain in the butt, and costs pretty much just as much as it always has, even pre-network. For the buyer, prices are increased to cover the seller's extra cost.
And so, "a nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of original works and money" is still in the realm of economic theory, not just observations, because if it had really been based on observations, those observations would have had to be wrong. But that is really not very important, because that statement is not just observations anyway, it is an attempt to group observations into a single, coherent statement. In other words, a theory.
Not at all. A counterexample is ridiculously simple: Government holding all the rights to original works would be one alternative. I am not saying that I recommend that, but there are acres and acres of "dry floor" here, friend.
And what rights would those be? The right to distribute? It is STILL copyright regardless of who holds it. Your floor ain't dry at all.
Put it in plain words. Before we had electronic networks, you paid by cash or check. If you paid by check, you were charged for the privilege... whether that charge was up-front, or "buried" in a slight difference in interest rates or margins, you still paid for it. Same with a credit card. With a credit card, the company doing the selling was charged both a percentage of the sale AND a per-transaction fee.
Wooosh. Seriously, are you so completely unable to discriminate between man-made barriers and barriers due to limits of technology? Here's a clue - if moving money around electronically is just as expensive as doing it physically, why is it that every business, every bank, even the US government, does as much of it as they possibly can that way? Do you think the Fed pays a 2% transaction fee on the billions in commercial paper loans that they open and close every week?
is still in the realm of economic theory, not just observations, because if it had really been based on observations, those observations would have had to be wrong.
That's the dumbest load of baloney I've seen today. Its not an observation because you think it is false? Even if it were false, that wouldn't make it anything other than a false observation. "In the realm of economic theory" -- WTF does that mean? Theories make predictions. What I wrote does not make predictions, ergo not a theory. Full stop.
You are so damn desperate - always responding with those long, meanderingly pointless screeds. Looking to hook some new red-herring to hang your hat on. You've already acquiesced on all your major claims, you ain't going to win anything by trawling for more red herrings.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Ah... so now you are re-defining "copyright" to mean anything you want, too?
No, it's not an observation. It is (if it were really what you say it to be), a generalization about observations. That is commonly known as a "theory".
It took me a while, but I see that this is not even a discussion. It's an exercise in fantasyland, and I refuse to participate further.
Ah... so now you are re-defining "copyright" to mean anything you want, too?
Lol. Coming from you that's rich. Copyright is the right to make copies. Simple as that. Ownership of a right does not define the right just as owning a house does not change it from a house into something else.
No, it's not an observation. It is (if it were really what you say it to be), a generalization about observations. That is commonly known as a "theory"
You deny that theories must be predictive? You must have flunked high school science.
It took me a while, but I see that this is not even a discussion. It's an exercise in fantasyland, and I refuse to participate further.
Finally. You should have given up the minute you thought legal arguments about piano rolls were at all meaningful.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
One last attempt to get you to understand SOMETHING:
If you think that "copyright" is merely the right to make copies, you are deluded. That may be what it was originally named after, but it is a hell of a lot more than that.
And no... where do you see me stating that I deny that theories must be predictive? Again, you are indulging in fantasy. I have not stated that or even implied it.
I am not "giving up" my position, but I am giving up on you. You are hopeless. Either you are incapable of reasoning, or you have just been purposely spouting nonsense in an attempt to piss me off or something of that nature. I am not going to guess which... I do not care, nor am I going to take the bait.
I am simply walking away from your bullshit, because (1) you have made very little sense, (2) you have consistently read things into my writing that I simply did not write (sometimes some pretty weird interpretations), and (3) your arguments, in the rare cases that they did make sense, were inconsistent and contradictory.
As I stated before: fantasyland. Goodbye.
If you think that "copyright" is merely the right to make copies, you are deluded. That may be what it was originally named after, but it is a hell of a lot more than that.
Put your money where your mouth is. Give an example of where modern copyright law regulates some aspect that is not copying in one form or another. I think you are so deluded you would try to cite some variation on making derivative works. Clue - still copies, just because they are 1:1 doesn't mean they aren't a kind of copy. Great opportunity to make good on your promise not to respond though, lets you hide your ineptitude one more time.
And no... where do you see me stating that I deny that theories must be predictive?
My observations don't make predictions. You claim my observations are theories, ergo you deny that theories must be predictive. Or is it that being "in the realm of theory" is some special state where they are theories only when convenient for you?
I am simply walking away from your bullshit, because (1) you have made very little sense,
Ah, so the reason you've accepted the incorrectness of your claims about legal theories, piano rolls, electronic financial transactions and economic circumstances is because I made very little sense.
(2) you have consistently read things into my writing that I simply did not write (sometimes some pretty weird interpretations),
You haven't been able to show a single case of that yet. Yet I put together an entire post showing just how disconnected you are from reality and I didn't even have to exaggerate or misrepresent to do it.
(3) your arguments, in the rare cases that they did make sense, were inconsistent and contradictory.
The only reason what I wrote doesn't make sense to you is because you are completely out of your depth. You didn't even know the terms "rival" and "excludable" until you entered this conversation and even after looking them up still you tried to insist that physical objects like piano rolls were not rivalrous.
Look closely in to the mirror - you are the product of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
No, you won't get away with that. You have tried to change your argument in mid-stream. You wrote "Copyright is the right to make copies. Simple as that." Then, above, you give an example where it very clearly is NOT as simple as that. Yes, I admit that is one example I would have used. But all you did there was prove MY point for me. It is NOT "... making copies. Simple as that." There is more to it, just as I stated and as you just admitted.
"My observations don't make predictions."
Yes, they do. You claimed that the internet was a "a nearly frictionless vehicle for distribution of original works and money". That is a prediction: you predict that if I try to distribute money, for example, it will be "nearly frictionless". As I have shown, that simply isn't so. So not only is it an economic theory, it is a failed one. If you had stated instead that the internet was this or that, or had possessed this or that property at some time in the past, then you would not have been making predictions. But that is not what you did.
"You haven't been able to show a single case of that yet. Yet I put together an entire post showing just how disconnected you are from reality and I didn't even have to exaggerate or misrepresent to do it."
I think other readers will have less trouble recognizing those places than you. Nevertheless, here is just one example:
Can you point out where I wrote anything even remotely like that? I made this reply: "The fact that I understand what you are saying about 'frictionless' distribution does not mean that I accept it as true. (It is demonstrably NOT true.)" So in fact I did point out one place where you clearly did not understand what I was saying, and you just ignored it. There were others that I did not bother to point out, but you did not respond to the one time that I did.
Again, you are in error. Much of that exchange is right here.
I challenged you to give an example clear back then. And you have, so far, never even attempted to back that argument up. And I will make this point (which you have continued to miss) one more time: Yes, y
You have tried to change your argument in mid-stream. You wrote "Copyright is the right to make copies. Simple as that."
So, I guessed right. You want to argue that copies that are not 1:1 are not copies. Well, never mind the law, even pop culture is against you -- people routinely rail against remakes of foreign movies as being "rip-offs" because the idea was copied. You are far too willing to alternate between literal and flexible interpretations when it suits your purposes, where copies must be 1:1 in order to qualify as copies but ideas need only be "in the realm" of theories in order to qualify as a theory.
I think you are just pissy because I shot down your weak rationalization you had before you even could bring it up.
I challenged you to give an example clear back then.
Yeah and your continuous challenges for an historical example of copyright-free, but money-based systems just go to show how completely lost you are. My point was that circumstances are different than they have ever been before and thus all previous cases aren't applicable. If you weren't so far out of your depth you wouldn't keep trying to make same irrelevant point over and over again. I ignored your previous challenges because my first post in the thread spelled out why examples from history are not applicable.
I freely admitted that I misunderstood how you were using the terms, but that was because you did not put them in any context. You just dumped them into the middle of the conversation.
Yeah, I "dumped" them in the middle of a conversation where they are probably the two terms most relevant to the discussion. The lack of context was only a lack of experience on your part. It totally cracks me up that you keep trying to deflect responsibility for being uneducated on the topic on which you make so many bald assertions. Its like you want to live up to the Dunning-Kruger.
And (2) this whole subject is about to drop off the bottom of my queue in Slashdot, and I have no real motivation to hunt it up again.
Haha. There you go again not understanding how a system works or chosing to deliberately misrepresent it. Should I conclude that you keep "hunting it up" so as to protect your ego or that it pops to the top of two of the three different stacks available to you whenever I post to it?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
(This has not dropped off my queue yet, so I happened to see your reply.)
I tried logic, but that didn't work on you. I tried to be polite, that didn't work on you. I tried telling you that I was done, in the hope that you would just go away. But no, apparently that just prompted you to start in with the disparaging remarks. You are hopeless.
So I'll just be blunt: my honest opinion is that you are a clueless, opinionated dipshit, and that you would not recognize a logical argument even AFTER it bit off your nose. You are simply not worth my time. Maybe if you stopped quoting from your economics textbook and thought a little bit about the real world around you, you might learn something. Or maybe, now that you are recently finished with your economics class, you might consider signing up for one that teaches philosophy... like maybe Logical Thinking 101. Or even Remedial Debate.
You have continued to FAIL TO UNDERSTAND that I do get your points... but that they are wrong, and you have failed to show that they are true. You haven't presented even one little scrap of evidence for your claims. Example: One of your claims was that our economic system is sufficiently different from what it was before that we can completely eliminate copyrights. I understand that point fully. But I disagree. And you have totally failed to offer even one iota of any kind of evidence that this extraordinary claim is true. Not one little thing.
Does THAT get through?
This is definitely my last reply. One of my big failings is that I tend to think that if someone is human, they HAVE to understand reason, sooner or later. But sadly, that has too often turned out to be untrue. You make me embarrassed to even consider that we are of the same species.