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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.'"
It gives me great pleasure when these things escalate, because the more they escalate, the higher chance the media may accidentally make these arguments mainstream, and people might actually wake up and notice how flawed the system currently is.
Disagree != mod troll.
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
if you want to sell air, don't bother the politicians, the law makers, and law enforcement with your "intellectual property" security concerns.
the politicians are supposed to serve the people. the greater good. not the good of companies with ideas that are akin to selling me a license to breath the air in my own house.
if you can't create works that you or a service provider can't secure, then you need to find another product to sell, or job to do.
I'd love to be paid every time someone used the word "yeppers". and with enough money and attorneys and influence in the district of columbia, I could probably get it to pass.
Then I'd start suing all the john does...
...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
The EFF is incredibly clever. They propose an unwieldy collective sharing system that's incredibly bureaucratic and then spend the rest of the time undermining every other system out there. The existence of this proposal lets them claim that they're not anti-artist, but the net effect is that they just make Google and the hardware companies richer. And who's their biggest donors?
No, it's easier than that.
AS = Ass.
CAP = Hat.
They're just a bunch of asshats. I don't think there is an actual composer or author left in the group; ASCAP years ago drove anyone with any common sense into either individual publishing and licensing, or the arms of rival groups.
I mean seriously. These are the same group of dickfaces who tried to sue 5-year-olds for singing songs at summer camp. No joke.
It looks to me like it's the established music (and film as well) industry whose position on copyright is radical and extreme.
ASCAP itself is an incredibly mafia-like entity. I've known bartenders who have been shaken down by ASCAP thugs for fees that they clearly didn't owe, as bands that performed in those bars played their own, non-ASCAP compositions. The bar owners soon find out that the ASCAP fees are far cheaper than the legal fees.
And these lying, theiving sociopaths have the gall to say that the EFF is radical and extreme? I'd laugh if it weren't so pathetic. ASCAP execs belong in prison for their extortion of bar owners (and likely other establishments).
Free Martian Whores!
I don't know, but I suspect that most money from movies, books, or songs, is made in the first year.
Support the EFF: http://www.eff.org/helpout
Support Creative Commons: https://support.creativecommons.org/
At least to me it confirms my belief that big media is absolutely terrified of its own demise. The complete hyperbole of their statements only makes sense to me as a expression of this terror. Unfortunately, since they have great influence I don't forsee them doing anything but morphing into some other greedy monopolistic form. Still ... watching the terror makes for a good show.
'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....
From the speech, item #7 on the list of reasons they hate the EFF et. alia: 'They favor the elimination of the songwriter and publisher rights for server, cache and buffer copies.'
I am actually rather shocked that ANYONE can rationalize royalty fees for 'server, buffer, and cache' copies of content. This is content that people are not seeing or hearing. These are invisible pink unicorn copies.
I mean seriously. These are the same group of dickfaces who tried to sue 5-year-olds for singing songs at summer camp. [steinski.com] No joke.
For those who are not going to click the link, the material referenced there is from David Bollier's book "Brand Name Bullies".
That is still on my bookshelf, but I can highly recommend Bollier's work generally, as a promotion of the concept of a "commons" - "Silent Theft" being a prime example, or, for those who prefer shorter reading matter, Bollier's paper, which gave rise to the book, "Public Assets, Private Profits".
(As a lawyer with a keen interest in this area, I'm a big fan of David's work, and his easy-to-access writing style.)
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
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.
They should find a better use for my money than the music industry.
Here's the EFF donation page, for those who'd want to contribute as well.
The answer is greed, pure and simple. Whether people actually hear the music is irrelevant, the point is that a copy is made in the most extreme technical sense, and the greedy folks from ASCAP 'n pals want to charge everyone for that.
Palm trees and 8
EFF is pretty much moderate copyright/freedom balance organization.
OTOH, ASCAP is a rabid extremist radical pro-copyright agenda.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
What's more telling is rather than defend their positions with facts, economic or otherwise, they are simply name-calling groups that are attacking them. "They're stupid because their ideas are stupid" Bonus points for using words like 'extremist' to label their opponents in there too.
Part of the strong-copyright groups problem is that they have been producing reports in their favor for years, and folks are finally coming around to realizing that those reports were wildly inaccurate, and skewed heavily in favor of their position.
The art of debate in politics and policy has been lost. No --- the art has simply been reduced to kindergarten-like school fights.
Why aren't you encrypting your e-mail?
Some of the older Slashdotters here may remember, but one of the founding members of the EFF was John Perry Barlow, who is intimately associated with the Grateful Dead, having collaborated as a lyricist, primarily as a partner with Bob Weir (Garcia tended to collaborate with a poet named Robert Hunter). The reason this is relevant is because the Dead is perhaps one of the best examples of the model that "free culture" advocates promote. The band pretty much encouraged bootlegging of concerts, sometimes even letting the occasional fan tap into the mixing board. There are millions of bootlegged recordings available, yet they still sell tonnes of records. More importantly, they were a huge concert draw and one of the biggest touring acts prior to Garcia's death. The spin-off bands with the remaining members, such as Dark Star and Rat Dog continue to go pretty strong, as do bands who were culturally influenced by them, and not just musically influenced, such as Phish.
While EFF is probably more famous around here for providing defense funds for MOD hackers in the late 80s and early 90s, outting NSA wiretapping programs, and stuff like that I think it really is kind of important to remember that from their founding, they were probably the most qualified organization to take a stand on this particular issue.
Typical. Instead of just defining what copyleft is and isn't we get into a dickering match with people that have more money and resources. Let's get to the point already. In small bites so your grandma can understand in less than 2 minutes.
Here's a start, under typical creative commons copyleft:
Copyright - a way to make sure nobody plagiarizes your material, so you get credit for your work, usually with a motive to make profit.
Copyleft - a way to make sure nobody plagiarizes your material, so you get credit for your work, with little regard to how that material is used, copied, improved, changed, etc.
The main difference being copyright can be used in a Daffy Duck method. "MINE! MINE! MINE!" and copyleft is generally a "Hey, if you want to use this to do something else with, go ahead. Just make sure I get credit."
Flame on.
Sig missing. Reward.
Funding from ads != profit. Or did you not know there are operational costs incurred with running a website? If that's your best scrutiny of this issue, then I'd say you should probably try harder to find something else.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
I'm a musician, one of the people ASCAP claims to be helping. I don't feel helped. ASCAP and BMI shakedown establishments who hire live music. Either they pay this extortion or no cover tunes can be played there. If you post your rendition of a cover tune online to promote your fledgling local band, you may be sued or extorted. Sure makes it more difficult to get a band off the ground.
I despise these sons of bitches and I'm sure I'm not alone. I also think ASCAP and BMI people are aware that their policies and activities make them unpopular. I've never seen or heard anyone who identifies themselves with ASCAP. I understand why.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
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
Untapped revenue. All your sound waves (and their reflections) are belong to us!
The EFF and Public Knowledge are doubtlessly on the relaxed side of copyright. Also doubtlessly the ASCAP is not in any way relaxed about copyright. In fact, it would seem that the ASCAP is a fervent pro-draconian-copyright troll.
The question isn't weather the EFF and Public Knowledge are radical contra-copyright. The question is who will be radically contra-copyright if the radical pro-copyright trolls force an equal opposition to emerge to their radical pro-copyright views. I've got doubts though that the EFF or Public Knowledge would be polarizable enough in the coming copycalypse. I'd peg them as mid-field. The Pirate Party (I'm a member of the swiss one) seems a much more natural contra pole to the pro-draconian-copyright trolls.
Experiments and other stuff
No, that wasn't a misquote from the NMPA, that's a quote from Canada's Heritage Minister James Moore in response to reasoned opposition to his Bill C-32, which introduces DMCA-style IP laws, labelling any opposed to it or in favour of a more balanced approach, like Michael Geist, as "radical extremists."
Unsurprisingly, these inflammatory words come from the ruling party which takes as many pages from the neo-conservative playbook as they can.
The phrasing is so similar that Moore should sue the NMPA for willful copyright infringement.
I think that the time has come for the members of our community (individual and organizational) to stop holding ourselves to a higher standard of decency. The simple, ugly fact is that these kinds of battles are won by those who are willing to fight according to the rules of the game -- ie: dirty.
These fascists are bent on corrupting our legislative process to put more power into the pockets of copyright lawyers and labels with no regard for the artists they manipulate beyond their own corporate self-interest, let alone the interests of other artists or society as a whole. That is, perhaps, as it should be. Corporations are supposed to be purely rationally self-interested. But do not let them pretend the moral high ground.
Let us put this argument on the ground it should be on. Do not merely defend our position that copyright should be designed to maximize artistic productivity and reach within our society as a whole -- expose their rationally self-interested fascism and corruption for what it is. They do not have the interest of the advance of science and the useful arts at heart. They want the progress of the useful arts strictly controlled in a manner that maximizes their corporations' acquisition of wealth.
I do not begrudge them this desire. They are what our economic system designs them to be. But it is entirely necessary that we, in our public discourse of such matters, consider them as they truly are. In short, they have made this a matter of public opinion. Tell the public what these vicious animals are, in the harshest and most unflattering light possible.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Creative Commons is a LICENSE. It's built on and entirely dependent on copyright. ASCAP deals with licenses all the time. Creative Commons and similar licenses are another variety of copyright license with different terms. If ASCAP wanted to provide some legal advise for artists and claim it isn't a good license, fine, but why go to ridiculous extremes such as claiming it undermines copyright itself? Why?
It's obvious what the real problem is. Creative Commons and similar options are a special kind of license that ASCAP must care deeply about because it's an option that artists can choose to apply to their own copyrighted work -- without involving ASCAP. This is why ASCAP is fearful. It leaves them out of the equation. They worry that artists will choose to distribute their works using some other license option on the Internet.
It's a scary proposition when your racket is being threatened, and they're lashing out at it as maliciously as possible. Thus, ASCAP must misinform artists about alternative licenses, and scare artists into thinking copyright is under threat if these licenses are used. It's nonsense. Artists are free under copyright law to choose whatever license they want. Copyright itself is untouched. ASCAP must paint institutions that support alternative licenses as having ulterior (and false) goals such as eliminating copyright. Also nonsense, given that these institutions use copyright every day in their own works.
Basically, ASCAP hopes artists won't come to understand what the Internet can do: get rid of the middlemen. Thus, ASCAP is against choice when it comes to artists and copyright licenses.
So, how does it feel, artists, to have "your" interests being taken care of by ASCAP?
Calling something "extremist" is an attempt to slide the Overton Window away from that position.
A silly example of how this works:
Party A: This bill proposes that we kill 10 puppies a day, just for the fun of it!
Party B: That's horrible! Why would you ever do such a thing?
Party A: Ok, ok, we'll compromise - how about only 5 a day?
Party B: In the interests of bipartisanship, we'll go along with that.
I am officially gone from
eh, they're just a bunch of asshats.
The notion of Intellectual property, backed with military force, is the mechanism by which the elite is preserving its place in the world. America has outsourced all industry, mostly to China and India, and has no way to generate income except through revenue from Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights. The greatest leverage the recording/movie industries have is they are the only ones bringing in wealth from outside. The only other thing we export is debt. Change will not come from within the United States because by the time the middle class starts to care, they will be crushed.
You claim that shortening copyright would have no impact on the availability of (many) books because there is no demand for them in the first place.
You then support your claim that there is no demand for them by claiming, presumably, that the cost of a limited print run would be so low that were there any demand, it could profitably be met.
I don't really buy this. Isn't the entire problem with thousands and thousands of orphaned works that the copyright holder can't even be easily identified? So that even if there is demand, and the costs of a limited print run are small enough that I decide it would be profitable to do it, I can't find the copyright holder (who may be dead, have gone out of business, or simply forgotten or lost the records pertaining to the copyright).
There are a huge number of books that are out of print but still under copyright. Wasn't one of the benefits of the Google Books scanning project to make these widely available at essentially no cost to interested readers? I could turn your argument around and say, look, if the copyright holders weren't exploiting their copyright and selling the book in the first place, clearly they didn't think it was worthwhile to do so, so what's the harm in Google scanning it and making it available?
Furthermore, there are other reasons to have access to the text of old books than just for passing interest or pleasure of reading them. Lots of scholars would love to have full-text search capability of old, out-of-print works, if only for statistical analysis. It doesn't make sense to do this with limited print runs, and it would be prohibitively expensive. Just scanning everything, OCR, and archival makes much more sense.
On the issue of film preservation, a letter from the National Film Preservation Foundation discusses the problem of orphan works again:
"In an environment of scare resources... Copyright status becomes part of the preservation decision-making process... I believe that important parts of America's film heritage will become lost to educators and the general public unless some simpler, more structured and cost-effective system can be developed for ascertaining the rights status of orphan works." (source)
If copyright were shorter, there would be fewer orphan works, and at least according to that group, more preservation and dissemination of cultural material.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
You are talking about dropping a book into the public domain once the sales are no longer enough to keep it in print, and in order to do that, you have to strip all rights the author has to their own book away. So, if the author wants to try again, they can't - the book is in the public domain, and they no longer have any say in the matter.
You do realize there are alternatives to just "all or nothing", right? For example, bringing back copyright renewal accompanied by a registration fee (which in fact used to be the way it was done in the U.S.). Statistical evidence shows that the vast majority of works were not renewed, indicating that the copyright owners did not think the fairly small renewal fee was worth it.
That sort of system both enhances the public domain and allows authors who believe their work has continued economic value to continue to exploit the copyright. In fact, one proposal by Posner (7th Circuit Appeals Court Judge, famous for law and economics) and Landes (a well-known IP academic) actually makes a case for indefinite copyright. See: Landes, William M, and Richard A Posner. “Indefinitely Renewable Copyright.” University of Chicago Law Review 70 (2003): 471.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson