Slashdot Mirror
A Composer's-Eye View of the Copyright Wars
bonch writes "As an experiment, composer Jason Robert Brown logged onto a site illegally offering his sheet music for download and contacted hundreds of users, politely asking them to stop listing the material. Most complied, some were confused, and a few fought back. Brown chronicles a lengthy exchange he had with a teenage girl named Brenna, which provides an interesting insight into the artists' perspective of the copyright debate. He also responds to several points raised in comments to the article and says, 'I don't wish to be the enemy; I'm just a guy trying to make a living.'"
You are allowed to share, as long as it is the original copy. That's how libraries work. You are allowed to buy a piece of sheet music and give it to a friend. But you are not allowed to buy a piece of sheet music and give your friend a replica. Then there are 2 copies and you only paid for one. Without DRM, it is nearly impossible to share music or sheet music legally on the internet. To share it legally would mean deleting your copy when you send it to a friend.
If you can make a 1:1 copy of my sammich without degrading the original, then please, share away.
Hell, from strictly a security standpoint that would be the best way to purchase anything from the web.
Lack of a credit card is not an excuse, you can get prepaid ones.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
You fail to grasp what the word "copyright" is: The right to copy. The capability to copy something easily does not automatically grant you the legal right to do so.
This composer clearly believes that when someone downloads a copy of his music, it somehow deprives him of something by the examples he gives.
NEWSFLASH: Not having a screwdriver or a book is not the same as having a copy of your music pirated at all.
To make his example work, here's how you'd have to phrase it:
A friend is building a house. He needs a screwdriver. I know a store with only one left at 80% off. I also need that screwdriver. I face a dilemma:
- Do I let the friend know where he can get that screwdriver for 80% off so he can save the money?
- Do I buy the screwdriver for myself first, then let him know and lead him to believe he "just missed" it?
- Do I lie by omission and tell him he'll just need to buy it at full price at a different store?
You see, that's the problem with suggesting you are deserved future profits. You can't get blood from a stone, and this girl schooled you on that.
That being said, it is your right to deny her your music. I'm certain she'll find a different composer to idolize (one who either gives away their sheet music free, or one from whom she can pirate) and there's only a small likelihood her "career" will take off so you really don't need to worry that in the future you might have just cut yourself off from an even bigger revenue stream. She obviously isn't going to buy your stuff, because she can't.
Of course, if you were a little bit smarter, I think you'd have offered to email her a copy if she sent you $4 in an envelope (or even a money order). But your ego is bruised. So sad. In business (and that's what copyright is therefore) there's absolutely no room for feelings; hell, there's barely even room for MORALS nowadays.
The problem is that small time composers/musicians/artists want to play both sides. They align with the large distribution channels when it suits them. They don't speak out when the RIAA sues everyone and their brother. They don't stop licensing their music through ASCAP. They don't get involved when their historical distributors fail to adapt to changes in technology. They continue to feel they "own" their creation (vs. actually owning a very specific, limited, license granted voluntarily by governments). They don't stand up against DRM. They don't stand up for consumer's rights.
So, essentially, I don't believe for a second, that he is "just a guy trying to make a living." He is manipulative; he is self-centred, and, now that is suits him, he is trying to play the role of the innocent bystander.
You made your bed, now lie in it. You had a chance, back when Napster was new, to change things. You failed to act then. Now, you are reaping the rewards -- or lack thereof -- of you short-sightedness. You (in collaboration with your fellow musicians) could have made easy, legal, inexpensive, distribution of music the standard. Instead, you chose to split it between expensive, legal, and restrictive and cheap, illegal, and easy.
So, in summary, fuck off; where were you 10 years ago, when you could have *actually* changed things.
No biggie. I didn't make the sandwich with the intention of being a gigantic twat and keeping it to myself or gouging people for copies of it, I was just hungry.
Amazing. slashdot is of course a tough crowd for proprietary IP advocates. Here's my own story. My ten year old got a CD from a friend who is a record producer in Hollywood. He liked it and wanted to make copies to give a few friends. I advised that he ask the producer for permission to do so. The producer, bein' from Hollywood an' all, of course said no. If they wanted a copy they could go to the music store and buy one. So my son, disappointed, did not share it with his friends, stopped listening to it, and no additional copies were ever made. OR SOLD! The fallacy seemed to be the belief that the kids would rush out and buy the CD if they couldn't get it for free. Of course they didn't. They went home and played with their Wii. The album died on the junk heap of history, as most do. And without at least a half a dozen potential ardent young fans.
Hello there Jason.
Let me explain a few things to you, since you seem to have wrong information regarding "copyright" and other fictitious concepts.
Copyright isn't an inalienable right. It isn't real property. It is imaginary property. Copyright is a recent concept. As recent as the Renaissance. Before that, you could own physical property, but Ideas were free. If you created a magnanimous work of art, that work of art belonged to the human kind. Then, you could earn a living by performing live, doing work for hire, etc. During the Renaissance, the catholic church, in their unstoppable hunger for power, tried to control the output of printers. They already had a very tight control on scribes, and they wanted to extend that control over to the modern press. The motive: To ban unwanted books. In a word: Censorship. This concept of owning ideas and controlling what you did with them was nothing but lies, just like the rest of christianity.
Later, governments jumped in on the boat, trying to control the press, for mostly the same reasons. Many, many years later, with the church mostly obsolete, and government under the control of corporations, our beloved corporate overlords wanted to hold the almighty power over free speech. So they were the ones that wrote the modern copyright laws.
Nobody owns ideas. Nobody owns art. They belong to the human kind. Period. Any attempt to control ideas is nothing but another fascist atempt at control of this Orwellian society.
But I do understand the POV of the creator. I do, because I am a creator too. And yes, we need to make a living just like anyone else. Now, there is a hugI de difference between the NEED to make a living, and some stupid god-given right to be given money just because we create. That won't work because a) there is no god and b) we have no such right. We decided that we wanted to create. Great. That doesn't allow us to control ideas. I do believe, like many other creators, that our creations are like our childs. You don't own your children. You have to feed them, care for them, and protect them until they are mature enough to have a life on their own. And then they are gone. They are as free as you are. Our need for food and shelter (read: money) doesn't change that basic principle.
You CAN profit from what you do, but always remember, you DON'T own your creations.
P.S: Regarding your screwdriver analogy, it doesn't work. It's been debunked several times before. Basically, your screwdriver is a physical object. A more valid analogy here would be if you made a house that was a replica of the house your friend was building. And it would be totally ok.
Sincerely,
Sebastian.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Nearly all the value of nearly all copyrighted works comes from ideas that the author learned from people who came before and who the author didn't pay. If you got the ingredients to your sandwich from a charity, and you begged for someone else to assemble it for you, and somebody else invented the methods of producing the ingredients, and some volunteer soldier protected you from having your sandwich stolen by invaders, and all you did was specify the layout of the ingredients between the the bread, I still wouldn't steal it from you. But if I did I would feel a lot less guilty about it. I support copymonopoly, but only for the minimum length of time needed to incentivise people to produce it. Fifteen years, like our first congress authorized, is plenty for the vast majority of works. Even less would be appropriate for most works. To let copymonopoly extend for 150 years like current law is a violation of the constitution's requirement that copymonopoly not go on forever. More than 100 years is forever for all practical purposes and is totally unnecessary to incentivise production. It's very damaging to humanity to restrict access to all that old information.
For those who don't want to click the link to Glynn Moody's reply, the gist of it is this: the young girl in question argues that:
1. Yes, she downloads the sheet music (illegally).
2. But she then performs the song, exposing it to a lot of other people.
3. These other people then go out and buy the albums, or other sheet music by Mr. Brown, or buy tickets to Mr. Brown's shows.
Therefore, the argument is made that Mr. Brown should just ignore the trading/sharing (whatever you want to call it), because he comes out ahead in the long run. "Spot on," says Ms. Moody.
What she misses is that Mr. Brown owns the copyright, and it is HIS CHOICE whether to permit it or not. If he chooses to miss these sales, then maybe he's worse off for it, but that's his decision.
Copyright is copyright. The *reason* why the GPL has standing in court is because someone has copyrighted that code, and chooses to permit usage and distribution under the GPL. Copyright is copyright, and if I choose to distribute under some free and unencumbered license, or if I choose to make it so restrictive that only one copy will ever be sold at auction to the highest bidder, it's MY choice as the copyright holder.
One cannot consistently argue for one, but not the other. (And I say that as a full-fledged supporter of open standards, open software, and the elimination of so-called software "patents.")
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Copying is a right. Just one that is restricted by law.
Copyright law is a misnomer, it would be more appropriate to call it copy restriction law.
A right is something you can do without the hindrance or the requirement of assistance from another. Copying information available to you is such an act.
Copyright restriction is not a right of the creator, but an entitlement bestowed temporarily in exchange for publishing creative work. Once information has been handed to another, only physical force can stop that person from making copies.
Friend of mine is building a house. He drew up the plans, he chopped down all the trees, he's got it all together. He doesn't have a screwdriver. He calls me up, says, "Dude, I need a screwdriver." I happen to have a screwdriver, so I give it to him, but I say, "Hey, I need that back later today, I have some work to do." He looks incredulous. "I have to build a house, my man. I'm not going to be done in a day. And what if someone likes my house and wants me to build one for them? I'll need the screwdriver to build their house too, yo." So I suggest he get his own screwdriver. "Why can't I just use yours?" he says. I tell him he can use mine, but then I need it back, it's my screwdriver, after all. He insists that he has the right to take my screwdriver, build his house, then keep that screwdriver forever so he can build other people's houses with it. This seems unfair to me.
But when I copy something, I'm not depriving someone of an original. If someone said "Hey, can I take your screwdriver for a few seconds, scan it in my computer and have my 3-D printer make me a replica?" I'd say sure. That is the closest thing to "piracy" in the physical world.
The screwdriver he wants is a tool that he is using to further his own aims. I went out, I bought a screwdriver, now I should just give it away to someone? Now let's say I wrote a song - it took a lot for me to write it, and it has been my full-time job for over twenty years to make sure that the songs I write go out into the world to be heard and sung. The way I support myself and my family is through the sale of those songs, on CD's, in sheet music, in tickets. Sheet music represents almost half of my yearly income. You seem to be saying that you should be able to take that song, that screwdriver, just take it for free, and go build your career and your happiness without ever compensating me.
If you don't want people using your stuff, don't release it. Don't write it down, don't publish it.
I collect first edition copies of the works of Thornton Wilder. I've been doing so for a long time, he's my favorite author in the world. Friend of mine comes over to the house, sees my collection, and says, "Wow, I've never read any of this stuff. This one looks cool." He takes down "The Bridge of San Luis Rey." "Can I read this?" Sure, I say. It would be rude of me not to let him borrow my book to read, after all. You might even say it would be "nasty." Two months go by; there's a big hole on my bookshelf where "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" is supposed to go. I call my friend, ask him for my book back. He comes over and says, "I love this book, yo. Make me a copy!" I look at him strangely. Why would I do that? He can just go to the bookstore and get a copy of his own. "No, dude, I love THIS book, you should just make me a copy of it." But the publishing company won't be able to survive if people just make copies of the book, I say, and the Thornton Wilder estate certainly deserves its share of the income it earns when people buy the book. He says I'm a jerk because I won't make him a copy of this genius book that I shared with him. I tell him he's a prick and he should get out of my house, and that's the last time I see him for years.
First off the guy is wrong in saying that the estate "deserves" to get a share of the profits. The book in question was published in 1927 just a decade or so shy of 100 years old. You don't "deserv
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I make my living writing software that retails for approx $1000 per license... and done fairly well at it... recently I was directed to a hacker site that had cracked copies of my code... I lurked for a few days to get a sense of the place and give myself time to think about how to react. The site's users were in two camps... those who use the software in an educational (usually self education) and those who are using it as a tool in their professional arsenal. Once I revealed myself I found that neither group said they would be willing to pay or stop using, even when edu discounts were offered... but the students were really cool about it and asked lots of informed questions and pointed out that when they moved to professional life they would recommend the tool... the others were really abusive.
In the end I decided to give the students my blessing as long as they didn't come seeking support... no lost sale, no money changing hands, no big deal and a potential for future sales. The love-wave that came back from those guys felt almost as good as actual sales.
The so-called professionals were anything but, their attitude was that in business it's all fair and if using cracked software gave the a competitive edge then it was crazy to do otherwise... no love-wave.
Yeah, anecdotal I know but this composer chappy has got the wrong end of the equation and 'elenor' is on the right track... I for one will be telling my musical friends how much of an a-hole this guy is and hopefully he will have more lost real sales.
At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living.
- Thomas Macaulay, 1841
This fine composer is the victim of the theft of the commons. He seems a reasonable guy. Unfortunately for him copyright is no longer a square deal and since people are now ignoring all copyrights, they're ignoring his too. That's not fair, but what is there to do? We as individuals have no power to make copyright back into a square deal again and to research every author and contributor to a work for each use to determine if there's net sanity there is just too high a burden. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. His loss is no greater than ours: he's lost some potential income; we've lost our culture.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"Rental or purchase of sheet music or the purchase of a record does not authorize its public performance."
Not saying I agree with that, but there are a lot of intricacies to public performance. See also: NFL threatening suit against bars that have Superbowl[tm] parties and show the game to their clientele. They also tend to sue (or threaten to) people who use the word "Superbowl," which is why all the radio stations promote their "BIG GAME PARTY!" in January, and not any sort of party having to do with bowls that may be super. But that is trademark law and outside the scope of what we're talking about here.
The point is whether he has the right to control what is done with his work. Whether people can make copies of it. Generally, I think the answer is yes. However, I think the real question is: do we want to live in a society where money is what motivates art? The true genius filmmakers, composers, they aren't doing it for the money, and if they are, well, I'll be disenchanted with their work when I find that out. Make art for art's sake. Artists and doctors, two professions that should be about sharing with your fellow humans, about the common good, not about profit. (*imho, of course — and my money is where my mouth is, I'm a filmmaker and people openly pirate my films. Huge pieces of them are on YouTube. I'm okay with it.)
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
... but surely the transcription process is quite easy for any talented musician.
If you play a song in a band, and are a decent musician, the sheet music is just a minor inconvenience, a bit like writing out the steps to a math problem that you've done in your head. Why would a by-product be 400% higher than the finished product? Does it make any sense that the nails, boards, etc. in a shed would cost 400% more than the finished product?
Spoken like someone who has probably never gotten very far in music. Try finding a "talented musician" to transcribe all the parts of a symphony for a full orchestra. In a reasonable amount of time.
And comparing nails of a shed to sheet music is ridiculous. More realistic would be comparing the assembly instructions for the shed to sheet music. To someone who has no idea how to build a shed, the instructions are VERY valuable. Your shed instructions analogy is appropriate to compare to beginner's music. For more complex music, simply pick assembly instructions to a more complex structure.
The capability to copy something easily does not automatically grant you the legal right to do so.
...Which is exactly what the article is about. From the teenager's perspective, she's grown up in an environment where virtually all content is available at the click of a mouse, without having so strain a single neuron in consideration of the implications of that.
And it is easy to sympathise with her point of view as a teenager without a credit card and without family supportive of her theatre. But nonetheless, the composer has a perfectly valid point - in fact, several.
One area where he could have made his case a bit better is that the teenager was apparently offering his work for "trade" (whatever that might mean), which actually does not fit quite so conveniently with the image of a struggling artist in need of sheet music.
Really? Have you ever written staff notation, or plotted it out in cakewalk, rosegarden, etc? Sure you can use a MIDI keyboard for some of the work but you're not going to use the generated MIDI file for the final product; you will be tweaking the notation by hand - quite a bit. It does take days to weeks of editing. Some musical works have taken much longer.
It's not even just the "editing" - it's composing. That's what composers do. Take Beethoven's 9th symphony; that work is the result of six years' worth of "editing" as you put it.
You are a programmer/developer, right? So, can I say all you do is "edit code?" Even better, I could say all you do is "push buttons" in the right order and don't deserve more than minimum wage for your unskilled labor. That of course ignores all of the architecting/engineering you have to put into it, and it belittles your talent, just as you belittle the composers.
Does that put it in perspective?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
DRM usually works on a license. You can copy the file as many times as you want, but you can only authorize a finite number of copies. If that number was 1, you can give a copy to your friend and then deauthorize your own. Then it is legal.
Thats DRM on paper, but it rarely if ever works out that way. My friend has games on Steam and last thing I knew, he couldn't transfer one to me and deauthorize his own. Same issue with anything bought from iTunes. Greed mixed with DRM typically turns out to be a bad combination. This also doesn't take into consideration of DRM issues with server checks. Servers are shut down (or in the case of the newer Ubisoft DRMs, servers can have connection issues) and then it doesn't matter how well care you give your purchase/'investment', it can and will be taken away from you regardless if it was legally purchased and your the original purchaser, all without your consent.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
I don't believe Eleanor is even real..
No teenagers talk like that. Ever. The guy wrote it himself look at the writing style between his responses and hers, they're practically the same. He made it up.
The capability to copy something easily does not automatically grant you the legal right to do so.
Clearly not the legal right but what about the moral right to do so? Creative works used to be funded by either patronage or live performances so clearly copyright is not required for composers, singers etc. to make a living. So is it morally right to prevent people from sharing simply because creators want to earn more money or be supported in a particular way? Perhaps a case can be made if the current copyright system could be shown to produce a larger variety of higher quality material than its predecessor but I've yet to see that argument made, or at least made convincingly.
He's not going to argue that point either. If copyright law were reasonable copyrights would expire in a reasonable timeframe. The result would be a huge public domain where Eleanor could take her pick of free popular songs. Her instructors and mentors would point her to the rich public domain and that would not help Mr. Brown at all.
Really, copyright debate boils down to free-loaders demanding free access to everything, and copyright holders demanding restrictions on everything. So long as either side refuses to acknowledge the flaws in their arguments we are not going to see reasonable debate about where copyright ought to be.
The best solution for individuals wanting to learn new music, inefficient in the short term but invaluable in the long run, is to learn how to play by ear and transcribe the music yourself. But I'm sure you've heard that before. Anyway here are some sheet music sites I know of, primarily piano.
In case anyone does not already know, IMSLP is a great site for public domain sheet music.
If you can make unlimited copies of my sandwich without in diminishing the original then you, by all means may.
In fact I'm particularly hungry today so could you make me a copy of said sandwich.
OK, Sudo make me a copy of the sandwich.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Copyright law exists for the advancement of society
Copyright law was created for the advancement of society. It currently exists because of a historical precedence. Whether copyright law still benefits society is a debatable point.
One is for personal entertainment and the other is for providing a performance tool.
Except that the sheet music you buy does not allow you to perform the piece in public - you also need to purchase the right to perform it as well. So the only legal use purchasing the sheet music gives is personal entertainment as well.
Yeah, what's with all that "music" and "movies" and "books" and "video games" etc crap? I just can't understand how anyone in their right mind could need to make or enjoy that stuff, when they could instead go work for a couple more hours per day in the fields or in the mines or something equally real and worthwhile. If everyone worked 16 hours per day instead of just 8 and then wasting the rest, just think about how much more advanced a civilization we'd be.
I'm a small-time composer, and I think $4-5 for a single copy of sheet music is ridiculously over-priced. I have always believed that all this huffing and puffing over copyright law just clouds the basic business problem: the music industry is not giving its public the products it wants, in the forms that they want it, for a price they are willing to pay. Here are some things I think people are looking for: - $5 for a single piece of sheet music that is downloaded is $4 too high. The cost of the sheet music shouldn't be five times (!) the price of the song itself. That feels like gouging. Which it is. - When people buy more than one copy of something, they should get a bulk discount. That's the way they do it at Costco, and that's the way it should work for sheet music. - When I buy something, I don't want any stupid restrictions such as trying to prevent me from printing more than one copy, or printing to a file, or anything else like that. I've got a $50 printer with a 1200 dpi scanner; you think I can't make a perfect copy? It's just insulting, and the user experience is horrible. Just give me the bleepin' file! I'm gonna convert it into a PDF anyway. The push-back to all this will be "oh, but we'll lose all our money!" Not so. If something's only priced at 99 cents, it's not worth my time to steal it for my friends. It's the price of a small fries at Micky-D's. Get your own, cheapskate. Likewise, if you're going to give me 15% if I buy 5 copies for everyone in my band, I'm going to take the 15%. Duh. And lastly, if you make it drop-dead simple to buy something online (see: amazonmp3.com), I'm going to buy from your online store because it is easier and a heck of lot safer than trolling illegal sites. -
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Really, copyright debate boils down to free-loaders demanding free access to everything, and copyright holders demanding restrictions on everything. So long as either side refuses to acknowledge the flaws in their arguments we are not going to see reasonable debate about where copyright ought to be.
Really? How does it boil down to that? I thought there were lots of other parties to the debate, like librarians, archives, artists, etc. Many copyright holders (myself included) also don't like current copyright at all and would much prefer a different kind of copyright.
In fact, most of our copyright issues would vanish if we went back to traditional US copyright laws: 14 years + one 14 years extension if the author is still alive, with a registration requirement. I have yet to see an argument why traditional US copyright isn't the right choice.
If you can make a 1:1 copy of my sammich without degrading the original, then please, share away.
I'd say you have a patent but Prior art has been claimed by Jesus Christ
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
If I could mod him down as "troll", I would. Anti-Slashdot-groupthink has been done better before, and cynicism for cynicism's sake can become its own form of groupthink, of a sort tired and whiny, not insightful.
There is no single "Slashdot-approved" stance, as is evidenced from the back and forth in this thread. What's more, even among Slashdot's anti-status quo group, there's considerable divergence in opinion, from the more extreme idea of abolishing all copyrights on principle to the "accept reality and change your business model" crowd to those in favor of lessening the period for copyrights to pre-Berne convention levels, or those who simply don't want that period to be extended any further than it already has. (Technically I suppose that last would be pro-status quo, except that they're against the prevailing status-quo legal framework of extend ad infinitum.)
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
While I'm somewhat sympathetic to this composer's viewpoint, like others here I cringed upon reading the bad analogies between copyright infringement and stealing physical objects. It's not surprising if the girl he was talking to didn't find them convincing, because they are fundamentally really bad analogies.
However, reading this really crystallized for me how to express the nature of the error: when someone infringes on your copyright they're not stealing from you but they are cheating you. Copyright infringement doesn't fit neatly into the analogy to stealing, which is a convenient one because it's something everyone understands. Instead, copyright is a sort of social contract between society and creators, which says that we will respect an artificial scarcity on those creative products because we recognize the value in them and want to incentivize creativity (or you could look it as trying to internalize positive externalities). When someone infringes copyright he is violating that social contract, going back on the agreement and cheating the creator.
Although I'm sure it's possible to think of a better analogy, one that comes to mind is if you built a sports stadium and convinced a vendor to spend a bunch of money to build and stock a hotdog stand, on the promise that those would be the only concessions available in the venue. Then the next week you started having free hotdog night, and consequently the vendor ends up loosing out on his investment. While that might not be a particularly moving analogy, I think people arguing against copyright infringement would be much more convincing if they stuck to some such analogy that had a sound connection to the actual problem. Analogies about screwdrivers and the like are never convincing because they are horrible analogies. I suppose a large part of the problem is that while property is a natural right that has been intuitively recognized for ages across many human societies, copyright is more of a pragmatic strategy that our society has adopted, which is not universal and is relatively recent (on the scale of human history); there is no reason to expect that copyright infringement should seem intuitively wrong. Indeed, the notion that spreading the wealth of information is wrong makes little sense if not considered in the context of the particular social contract we have established.
The other half of the battle (at least among those who are aware of the issues) is that copyright, as a social contract, is a two-way street. While it was once a contract between the creators and the people at large that was limited, reasonable, and clearly mutually beneficial, copyright has grown and changed and is now the product of laws that are bought by corporate money with little input by (or, indeed, even knowledge of among) the public. In effect, first the artists broke their side of the deal (or, at least, the organizations purporting to represent them did), and now the people have ceased to honor their side. Each party feels wronged, and there is a lot of bad blood. It would seem to me that the best way forward would be new alliance between moderate, pragmatic groups on both sides that seeks to establish a new compact that will again be limited, reasonable, and one both parties can recognize as mutually beneficial. Unfortunately, I think the popular but fallacious of "intellectual property" only hinders this goal.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Rights are established by governments
Epic misunderstanding...on the Fourth of July no less.
Advice: on VPS providers
I believe you are correct, sir. Either he is filtering what she actually said through his own words, or he made her up out of whole cloth. My little sister is in the same age range, and although she tries to mimic the way I type when we e-mail or chat (you know, with real capitalization and grammar and suchlike), she always ends up making at least some mistakes.
Throughout the whole exchange, this girl makes almost no errors - an intentional "u" instead of "you" in the first e-mail (which is quite odd when juxtaposed with the proper capitalization, but that happens in some clients), a couple of missed caps in the fourth e-mail (which is again odd when contrasted with the first e-mail; different clients, perhaps?), and that's about it.
No homonym mixups, no further abbreviations that I can see, no Internet talk at all. Hell, her writing is even stylistically sound - no doubled punctuation (which is quite common), no overuse of ellipses (which I know I was guilty of until college, even), relatively simple and to the point, doesn't get lost in her own verbiage when trying to make a point.
She's a far better writer than I was at that age, which is possible - however, I was pretty good at it according to all those standardized tests, and he randomly picked her out of a sample of 400 users on one sheet music trading website? That's kind of odd, but I guess a sheet music trading website would self-select for higher literacy. On the other hand, she does kiss his ass to an absolutely astonishing degree, calling him a "genius" no less than three times while heaping other praise on him. You'd think that if she was grumpy about him contacting her personally she might tone it down a little, especially if she didn't recognize his name right off (see her first e-mail).
Further, and somewhat more damning in my mind, are the timestamps. His mail client has to be one of the retarded ones that doesn't translate sender time zones to your local time, because otherwise this Brenna not only pirates sheet music but is also capable of time-travel. This makes getting an accurate idea of how long it took them to write their various e-mails more of a pain in the butt.
However, according to his blog, Jason would have most likely been writing from either LA or Italy; it's pretty obvious from the first exchange that he's not writing from GMT+2 to the USA, so I'm going to assume that he was writing from Pacific Standard Time. Given that, the only reasonable place for Brenna to be is Hawaii, after the aforementioned time-traveling; just look at the timestamp on her fourth e-mail compared to the one she's responding to. So we have a highly literate, sheet-music trading teenager who lives in Hawaii (of all places), with its teeny tiny population, who just happened to be part of a random sample of 400 people on a sheet music trading site. This is getting less likely by the minute, though that's not saying much from a statistical perspective.
This brings up another problem, though: her great big "Bill" example, with perfect grammar and spelling and reasonable style, was written over the course of (at most) twelve minutes! Maybe I'm just weird, but that seems like a ridiculously short amount of time to write an example like that, especially when you're writing to someone who actually matters to you (she called him a "genius", remember?). She has to see the e-mail, compose her thoughts, write it up, maybe check it, and send the reply, all in the course of twelve minutes - and then she comes up with that cogent and well-written argument? Hmm.
And as she mentions before, it's her iPod that puts the name "Eleanor" on her outgoing e-mails. Clearly at least some of the e-mails were written from it, as the guy refers to her as Eleanor once or twice (unless this intelligent teenager doesn't know the difference between an iPod and a mac, which would make Steve Jobs cry). However, this does mean that she's managed to type pretty quickly on that thing; if she wrote the Bill e-mail on it, she maintained at least 20 WPM
Things are getting muddled a bit here. Perhaps there is no "right" to "copy", but don't toss the whole idea of "certain unalienable rights". The idea of those rights, and founding a government based on protecting those rights (and not granting them) seemed to work well for quite a while...
Simply dismissing "innate/natural rights" [as] the realm of philosophy and theology... may sound good to you, but when you think that way you come up with thoughts like A right is an agreement among society and Rights are established by governments...
Which leads to where it would be OK if society and government start taking away your "theoretical rights". Some cultures suck. The trick is to maintain a culture that only metes out punishment fit for a crime, lest it become one of the cultures that suck too.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I'm sorry, I have to disagree with this. My personal thoughts and beliefs on the matter run counter to the general population on /., but here goes.
Copying is a right. Just one that is restricted by law.
First, you are completely, absolutely wrong. Copyright is, (quoting Wikipedia which has is right): "Copyright is the set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. These rights can be licensed, transferred and/or assigned. Copyright lasts for a certain time period after which the work is said to enter the public domain. Copyright applies to a wide range of works that are substantive and fixed in a medium. Some jurisdictions also recognize "moral rights" of the creator of a work, such as the right to be credited for the work."
Copying someone else's work is not a right. period. While I disagree strenuously with the *AAs and other assorted fuckery surrounding this issue, your position is one of hey, you can't stop me so I can do it. This is wrong. I especially support the copyrights of individuals like Brown, and myself. I work my ass off creating applications for companies and I absolutely prohibit them from selling my works or distributing copies, and I will sue anyone that violates that agreement. They do not have the right to copy my work, because I did not grant them that right. End of story.
When you get right down to it, while not exactly the same as stealing or shoplifting, copying someone else's work without permission is still a bad thing, but of course there are degrees. If I download a song to listen to, that is one thing. If I'm doing it because I don't like it enough to pay for it, that's one thing, as arguably I haven't cost the owner anything since I wasn't going to pay for it anyway. If I download it, burn discs and sell it for a profit that is the other end of the scale. Both are wrong, but the latter is much, much worse. This is where I get really pissed off at the *AAs, because they apply the law meant for the latter to the former, which IMO is an abuse of the civil law system, but I digress.
only physical force can stop that person from making copies
So what? This is a lame ass excuse for poor behavior on your part and nothing more. To carry your analogy to it's ludicrous extreme, the only way you can stop me from dragging someone into an alley and slicing their throat is by physical force. Is copying something as bad as killing someone? No, of course it isn't, but excusing behaviors because they can only be prevented by physical force is just fucking stupid.
In general I support the rights of an individual or a company to protect the copyrights of their works. Creating software, writing books, making music and movies is, in realty, a lot of work, and the people involved should enjoy the fruits of their labors, and if you don't want to pay the price, then don't. This does not change my position on the *AAs - they can fuck off and die in a fire.
In short I find your position self-centered, childish and utterly incorrect.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Wolfram Research claimed copyright on the proof of the Turing completeness of the "Rule 110" cellular automaton. It obtained a court order excluding author paper from the published conference proceedings.
Nearly all the value of nearly all copyrighted works comes from ideas that the author learned from people who came before and who the author didn't pay.
I don't know where you are from, but 'round here teachers don't work for free. My wife is a musician and she paid a hell of a lot of money for her education. She payed for the knowledge she acquired (as I feel it is safe to assume the composer in question did as well). However, even if you are from this magical land where teachers work for free he is not trying to be payed for the work of his instructors. He took the knowledge he acquired and then CREATED something with it. The musical compositions that he wrote did not exist before he created them, which is what's important. It is very rare that any creative endevour is achieved without some outside influence. If your reasoning is taken to its logical conclusion, then no creative person should ever expect to be paid for their arts, no matter how popular they become, unless they created their art in a vaccume.
/. because my wife had just finished reading some of TFA to me 5 min before. It is rare that her interests and mine intersect like this.
The fact is, if a composer had taken previously published work (maybe something in a text book from a college class he took, so he therefore owns a copywright to limited use of it) changed a handful of notes, and then sold it as a new work he could be sued for copywright violations. However, he can take a small portion of a copywrighted work and design an entirely new piece that is influenced by the original and then copywright that. The fair-use provisions of copywright law allow for some LIMITED use of others work as long as the later composers chages are sufficiently transformational that the new piece is truely novel.
Ultimately you are confusing two different issues. I too agree that the duration of copyright is excessive now. But excessive duration does not make violation of copyright legally or, as some above have suggested, morally acceptable.
P.S. I got a real thrill out of seeing this on
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Nearly all the value of nearly all copyrighted works comes from ideas that the author learned from people who came before and who the author didn't pay.
I wonder why you think this is the case. This guy is a famous broadway composer. I would expect that he went to school to learn composing. That was very far from free. I would also suspect that he's gone to lots of live musical theater. That certainly wasn't free. I would also guess that he has bought lots of music and paid for it. In fact I wouldn't be at all surprised if he, like many music fans, had spent a huge quantity of money during his life just buying records/cds/etc. So please explain exactly what ideas has he failed to pay for?
Now he's out there in the world trying to make a living writing music that has added value to the lives of countless people and all he wants is a lousy $3.99 for a copy of the sheet music of an original piece of music that he wrote. If he sells three or four copies, he can go buy a CD to listen to. If he sells 20 copies (and assuming he gets 100% of that $3.99) then he can buy a matinee ticket to go see a broadway show. A few thousand copies and he can pay his rent and bills for a whole month during which he can write a few more songs that you might like so much that you want a copy of the sheet music for them. It seems like a totally reasonable request to me.
I agree, and he probably would also, that the 150 year copyright duration is crazy, that was done essentially at the request of Disney because Mickey Mouse was about to enter the public domain. But hell this poor guy is alive right now and trying to make a living writing music. Cough up the lousy $3.99.
-- QED
And it's also an assumption that it'll result in increased sales, just like it's an assumption that piracy is a lost sale. For all you know everyone that heard that performance would just go home and fire up bit torrent to yoink this guy's stuff. The whole argument is pointless because both sides are just endlessly talking out of their asses about hypothetical situations.
Does the media industry in general need to change? Yep. But I'm getting kind of tired of pirates that get on their high horse as if they were protesting the god damn Vietnam war.
And it's what, 4 bucks for that sheet music? She couldn't compromise with him, scrounge up some couch change and mail it to him? It's not going to kill you all to actually pay for some of the stuff out there.
I would argue that, if a work still has value and currency after 15 years, then it is an important piece of cultural property that _Desperately_ needs to be in the public domain.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
I write software for a living. I have worked for 2 years full time on a new version and I sell that version for money. I can do so because copyright law exists: I _own_ the work I created.
I therefore fail to see why this is a bad thing. Who are you to say what *I* should do with the software I worked on for over 2 years full time? (mind you: I payed my bills from my own pocket) Copyright is a right given to people who create stuff to make THEM decide what they do with it, instead of the people who want to USE it. You for example are not in charge what should happen with my work, I am. And I think that's fair, as I wrote it, spend all my time on it and payed for it from my own pocket, you didn't do a thing for it, so why should you be entitled to use it freely? How am I then going to pay the bills?
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
I compose music on the piano. I'm not saying it's GOOD necessarily, but I do compose.
You know that? The idea that I OWN the music I write is insane. Just fucking insane. It's notes in someone's HEAD. Furthermore, while yes, I do work hard on composing, the reality is that composing is more a process of finding a nice combination of preexisting things. There are only so many notes, only so many chords. It's like piling up Tetris pieces.
In fact, some of the tunes I've come up with I don't bother to record because even though I have NEVER heard a song with that melody, it just seems so damned obvious that I just know that it has to have been written, or damned close to it, MANY, MANY times before.
I don't record them NOT out of fear of somehow copying someones "property" that I have no personal knowledge of its actual existence or not, but rather because I just don't like composing obvious stuff. I like to stretch.
Meanwhile, you have the music industry and some colluding "artists" claiming that they not only own a piece of music - they "own" a particular bassline, or a simple chord progression, and not just that one, but any CLOSE to it.
And then (sampling) you have people claiming they own a 5 second waveform from the midst of their recording.
Copyright was essentially an incentive program, artificial monopoly to encourage creation of things that would eventually (in 14 long years, originally!) become public domain, their natural place (the way human culture developed from the caves in the first place)
In no way is there someone who is not going to buy a CD because they say to themselves "well, I've already got a CD with that snare drum sound in it."
In no way is an artist going to be discouraged from creating music merely because they think someone might take a 2 second clip and use it in a completely unrecognizable way in a completely different composition.
But that is what copyright law has devolved into. You record a song, and nobody can use that 2 second bleep for anything until 75 years after you die. because you "own that bleep!"
THAT is INSANE.
This space available.
In fact, most of our copyright issues would vanish if we went back to traditional US copyright laws: 14 years + one 14 years extension if the author is still alive, with a registration requirement. I have yet to see an argument why traditional US copyright isn't the right choice.
Not even close. For one, if we are to keep copyright I would want compulsory global RAND licensing. No more region codes. No more waiting for the DVD release, or iTunes to ever bother making TV series available here. No more making me pay 30% more because I'm on the wrong side of the atlantic. Have the free market work both ways, you are free to get labor where you want and I'm free to get the product where I want.
What can I say, I have the "service" I want already. I just want someone to offer the same, legally.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Rights of one individual can conflict with rights of another. That does not mean that they are not rights.
My right to shoot my gun conflicts with your right to live in some cases.
My right to have property conflicts with your right to have the same property.
A just society will have a set of laws that establishes the precedence of rights to deal with those conflicts.
By law the right to life trumps the right to kill in (almost) all circumstances.
By law prior possession trumps possession after theft in (almost) all circumstances.
Rights can not be granted and can only be taken away by physical force. The law effectively limits the free expression of rights by the threat of just punishment (when one right conflicts with the rights of another). Thugs can limit the free expression of rights by the threat of unjust punishment.
Copying is a right. Restriction of that right by the people is an entitlement for the author.