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ASCAP War On Free Culture Escalates
An anonymous reader writes "After ASCAP declared war on free culture and Creative Commons responded on the incident, the war of words is escalating. Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid has been following this story closely. The EFF responded to the ASCAP letter, saying 'we don't think that ASCAP characterized EFF and its work accurately. We believe that artists should be compensated for their work, and one proposal we have for that is Voluntary Collective Licensing.' The response from the EFF came with a study and a letter written by one irate ASCAP member who donated to the EFF and to Public Knowledge as a result of the ASCAP letter. Public Knowledge also responded to the letter, saying, 'It's obvious that the characterization of Public Knowledge is false. Public Knowledge advocates for balanced copyright and an open Internet the empowers creators and the public. What we oppose are overreaching policies proposed by large corporate copyright holders that punish lawful users of technology and copyrighted works.' Now the National Music Publishers Association has weighed in to support ASCAP, saying that organizations like Public Knowledge and the EFF 'have an extremist radical anti-copyright agenda,' according to a transcript of a speech posted on Billboard. Public Knowledge has dismissed those allegations, saying 'anybody who has spent more than five minutes on our website or talking to our staff knows that these things are not true.'"
I think that copyright should exist to promote the creation of content. Once the money involved in creating that content has been paid, copyright should automatically expire.
This isn't just about money. It's gotten to the point where I can't go a month without hearing someone mention something they'd like to do, or would like to track down, or would like to show others, but can't because of short-sighted copyright laws. How many books, movies, TV-shows, radio plays, and other content, is irretrievably lost for all time, not because of a lack of technology or willingness required to preserve it, but because of some insane and nonsensical copyright laws which prevent archival of content whose monetary incentive was long-since paid? This must end. Culture is dying.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
...is their word to associate us with terrorists in the public's mind.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Indeed, the sheer audacity of the industry giants behaviour has increased over the years and is becoming more and more visible.
If only we had better coverage of the issue offline. The mainstream media is wroth to anger their corporate overlords.
But millions of people are discovering the war on freedom through websites online...
Hence the need for an INTERNET KILL SWITCH!
Honestly, it's nearing the point where we should physically confront these politicians and smack them upside the head. The farcical pretense of democracy has been stretched so damn far that it might just tear down the middle.
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
Have to agree. Since when is it considered illegal for me to give away my own content, if I chose to do so? How is that forcing anybody else to give away content? How is that stealing anything?
The line between the government and the corporation has been blurred.
In fact, every time something like this happens we scramble to find that line, and it's nowhere to be found.
And some of us can scarcely remember what it looked like.
What we have now is a global Corporatocracy, the compromise between government and corporation.
What have the compromised? Our rights.
If we don't fight ACTA, our grandchildren will have no idea that a line ever existed at all.
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
'anybody who has spent more than 5 minutes on our website or talking to our staff knows that these things are not true.'
That, in a nutshell, is why the public in general will ever know what is true. We've pretty much reduced our collective thinking to ingesting media prepared "sound bites" and have no motivation to think beyond that point. I heard a politician or campaign manager once summarize the problem with the statement: "if you're explaining, you've lost" (or something to that effect.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
These ASS-CAPS have been largely irrelevant for a long time, at least for me. The problem as I see it, is that copyright is all about money for them - it's not about art anymore. In order to be fair, they should re-publish their entire back-catalogs clear back to World War One, on CD's for $8 each. Basically if they're going to lock up copyright for that long, then they should be required to publish and sell for an equal lenghth of time, else they should STFU. I have *hundreds* of record albums recorded back in the 1950's and 1960's that you won't find anymore, and I wouldn't mind getting them on CD's from the original labels. If the labels cry that this would cost them too much, then I guess that shows a lot about them, and what they're really after. If they're not making anything off a recording anymore, then they should relinquish the copyright on it.
C|N>K
Moreover, their own extreme position is the real motivator behind their opinion of the opposite side of the debate. It's similar to debates in the culture wars or similar debates where one side accuses the other of having an "agenda" when in reality it is they who have ulterior motives beyond the matters at hand.
Essentially what is going on here is that the copyright industry is trying to label those in favour of reform as extremists in an effort to shut them out. It's actually surprising that its taken them this long to reach this strategy. As history has shown, such tactics work very well--in the US in particular--where you can turn a debate completely on its head by proclaiming the exact opposite of what's going on. The best example of this is: "The Media has a Liberal Bias."
The ultimate objective here is to make copyleft illegal and ensure that copyright is legally the only game in town. It's not implausible that ASCAP et al may succeed in this endeavor.
May the Maths Be with you!
Copyrights are government granted monopolies contrary to the free market. That should be the argument against ASCAP's belief that anyone who disagrees with them are radical anti-copyright extremists.
The EFF should be hammering it: Why does the copyright industry need increased government handouts and draconian government monopolies to survive? Let the free market sort it out. If they can't survive in a free market without massive government help and an erosion of our rights, so be it.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I shouldn't feed the trolls, but have you tried talking to a normal person about the conspiracy against them? If so, were they an American? They listen to you talk for about five minutes and then the eyes roll back into their sockets and if you're really lucky they continue to sit there pretending to listen to you even though they're just praying for something, anything to actually make you stop going on and on, especially since American Idol comes on in a half hour and all they want to do is run down to McDonalds to pick up a 50 piece McNugget meal before it comes on so they don't have to miss any of it. An individual can't make a difference in this country until they get on the big glowy box the people here venerate like a god. America the Proud, indeed.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
"Ya know that new CD you bought? ASCAP and RIAA won't let you copy it to your iPod."
"What?!?!?"
"That's right. They expect you to buy the song twice - once on CD and again for your iPod and then a third time for your computer. It's nuts." - That's how you get people to pay attention.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Since when is it considered illegal for me to give away my own content, if I chose to do so?
It isn't. ASCAP's position is that it should be.
That's very true. ASCAP (and the RIAA, and all other such abominations) feel that they are entitled to a piece of every sale or performance of every copyrighted work. Doesn't matter if they have no rights to such works. Doesn't even matter if the work is under an expired copyright, is public domain, or was released under some other terms. So far as they're concerned, we owe them for the right to "consume" creative material, whatever the source because, well, we just do that's all. Bloodsuckers, all of them.
And they call Public Knowledge and the EFF "extreme"?
Their level of hypocrisy is just stunning, really, it is.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
While you are here, do try to follow all our laws. Unfortunately, there are so many of them, that nobody is even sure what the exact number of those laws are, and most people wind up breaking them anyway, but you should at least try to follow them.
Palm trees and 8
Too mild.
"you know that New CD you bought? ASCAP and RIAA think that you are a stinking dirty THIEF scumbag if you put it on your ipod."
"They also think you are a complete douchebag that needs to go to jail and be raped if you loan the CD to someone..."
That is the approach you need to take, it get's attention far more than "they dont want to let you"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Do you know music artists? I am one, and I know a lot of them. I don't know any who think they "automatically deserve to be paid for producing their music". Most are thrilled when they can make a living from their music, but none expect to. Most musicians I know make WAY more money from shows and t-shirt sales than from CD or MP3 sales.
In fact, many, like myself, give the music away for free (I license it under the Creative Commons) in order to get more fans, so to have more people at shows and sell more merch.
Get my music for free at http://theexperiments.com/
Making music is a labor of love, and anyone who does it expecting to get rich is an idiot.