Slashdot Mirror
White House Wants New Copyright Law Crackdown
An anonymous reader writes "The White House is concerned that 'illegal streaming of content' may not be covered by criminal law, saying 'questions have arisen about whether streaming constitutes the distribution of copyrighted works.' To resolve that ambiguity, it wants a new law to 'clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances'""
Looks like Obama is paying another installment on the debt he owes to his Hollywood buddies.
Between Democrats in bed with Hollywood and Republicans in bed with big business, wouldn't it be nice to have at least *one* choice in an election who doesn't support draconian DRM, Feds kicking in our doors because little Jimmy downloaded an advance screener of The Dark Knight, and ISP's tracking and archiving our every click on the internet? Would that be too goddamn much to ask?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
1) Someone noticed that something popular is not illegal. ...
2) Lobby to have it made illegal.
3)
4) Profit.
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
You can no longer compete on the world stage in terms of products, don't innovate anything, and have more or less given up on educating your people.
But, the biggest priority of the White House is to ensure that streaming content is a fucking felony???
Enjoy your decline into irrelevance and the dark ages. I used to greatly admire what America stood for.
"The interests that hold the leash of american government" should be used instead of "white house" phrase. We always take it as 'implied', but the more we leave it not expressed, the more the meaning of the reality gets lost in the seeming illusion.
Read radical news here
So if you come up with a way which is not similar or have a tech which isn't new, it's ok? FairyNuff.
The say slavery is over, but Obama is clearly up for sale.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I'm sick of him selling-out to these megacorps. Damn Republican. What we need is a Democrat president who is not a puppet of the corporations.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
You have to admit that copyright infringement is a major problem that needs to be handled one way or another.
Why? If people create content regardless of copyright infringement, which is the purpose of copyright, I fail to see why it's a major problem that needs to be handled.
Copyright infringement is supposed to be CIVIL LAW, not CRIMINAL LAW.
If the USA is to continue this trend of criminalizing everything under the sun, then perhaps the next thing we need to criminalize is when elected and appointed government officials violate the US Constitution. Let's make that a felony.
One of the first new rules to be established will be making it illegal to use Quantum Public Key Encryption.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
"Streaming" is mostly a clarification of law, much more threatening is the authorization of wiretap, perviously allowed only in "serious" cases and terrorism.
I have to admit nothing. In fact, you have to admit that imposing stricter laws isn't going to change or solve anything.
Experiments and other stuff
Because streaming music is a crime worse than murdering kittens with a sledgehammer.
Well this is the same thing, except it's indirect revenue via ads. It is still, however, making money with warez.
Which is why the consumers love it so much. If there's really so much money to be made reselling 'warez' with ad-raised revenue, why don't the big companies do that instead?
I expected someone who would listen to the people instead of the will of large corps. I was wrong.
with free shows paid for by advertising, like TV or radio? Uh, wait a second....
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Nobody has gone to jail for crashing the world economy.
Nobody has gone to jail for authorizing or committing acts of torture.
Nobody has gone to jail for placing unconstitutional wiretaps.
Yet we have room in our prisons for people who share files. It is more clear than ever that the US justice system exists to protect the powerful against the less powerful. There is no justice system, there is an exploitation system.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
1b) Will a large company/group of companies benefit if 1 is illegal?
Can I point out that all the third-party candidates in 2008 were batshit fucking loco?
Anything that can perfectly reproduced instantly, easily and for free has no value. Sorry.
That's a dumb argument. The people selling warez are doing so off other people's work without incurring any of the effort or cost that goes into creating the content or software. Taking the cost out of the equation obviously makes it easy for them to profit at price points that wouldn't otherwise make sense.
They're free to release their content and for free if they want to.
His point wasn't that people can't create content freely.
His point is that the purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of creative works. Today, with the existing system, there are PLENTY of creative works being produced. Therefore, copyright certainly does not need to be made more restrictive, and in fact the opposite may be true.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
What's odd is the streaming aspect. Is downloading a torrent and then watching it "streaming"?
Try voting with your mind instead of your emotions.
Yeah, we're just not putting the right person in the White House. Keep trying!!!
I am so glad the Pres and Co. have sorted out the middle east, the world economy and that pesky natural disaster in Japan and have time to focus on enriching their pals in the MAFIAA. Barry you are truly the best benevolent ruler ever.
Thanks. I was going to reply, but yours is more concise.
Write in moot then for all it matters; just stop voting Democrat / Republican until they stop being idiots or put forward a candidate with a proven track record.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
Um, if there's no law covering it, how can it be illegal? Isn't everything by default legal until either a law is passed regarding it, or a court case interprets an already existing law to cover it?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
That's every parties mantra apart from possibly the libertarians.
There's been an FBI warning on DVD's and VHS for years saying that it is not for public screening, punishable by fines and/or jail time. I fail to see how streaming is different from public screening. I am by no means in support of our government in its attempt to strange the average joe over movies and mp3s, but it is what it is.
I need more people like you. People seem to think that copyright is about "compensating" people or "being fair". The funny thing is that people who claim to be conservative and for small government often seem pro-copyright. Which is bizarre, since it is really one of the first socialist policies enacted by the young US government, along with patents, the postal service, and postal roads. I'm at a loss... :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I wonder how many constituents wrote letters to the President about this serious problem? Of course, none did. We need a separation of Corporations and State, now.
And what do they mean by "streaming"?
Will they go after sites like Orb.com, Slingbox, and PlayOn that stream things not necessarily intended to be streamed or in ways they didn't approve of (even over 3G not just your home network)? Seems content providers are trying to lock down their content too tightly. By doing so they lose the ability to id and track the product, our eyeballs, as we work around them.
Well that is one of the advantages of the USA over others. term limits on the president.
Now we just need term limits for all elected officials and maybe we can finally start making some progress.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Because it's fucking wrong. That's why. A creator has the right to, as part of the terms of selling his work, require that the receiver not make copies for anyone else. Copyright is the best way to legally enforce this (unless you want to make everyone have to sign a contract when they buy stuff), so a violation of copyright is a violation of the creator's natural rights (that is, the right to only engage in a transaction under the conditions he agrees to).
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Because it destroys small businesses and seriously hurts medium sized business.
If a small-to-medium business's leadership has chosen an unsustainable business model that's disconnected from reality, then it's their own fault if the business goes under. There can be new businesses if a given model doesn't work out. That's how our economic system works.
"But the fact remains, piracy is so rampant, pirates have literally chased developers away from the platform and literally created the entire ad ware market on Android"
But the only way this could happen is if pirates made pay-apps economically non-viable - which means that without piracy, most of those adware programs would be ad-free but require some level of payment instead. As things are now, they are mostly available in both ad-funded and for-pay, adless versions. So if your conclusion is accepted, it follows that piracy has indirectly increased user choice.
The White House is a building. It represents the executive branch of the US federal government.
Buildings don't have opinions, so which part of the executive branch is pushing for this?
"A creator has the right to, as part of the terms of selling his work, require that the receiver not make copies for anyone else."
A water-seller has the right to expect the government to issue laws preventing people from drinking out of puddles if it starts raining.
With all of the problem that we are facing in the United States, how does this even make it into to the top 100?
With a lot of lobbying, bribes, blackmail and under the desk blowjobs.
And now that we've fixed the economy, education, unemployment, political corruption, social security, health care, our world reputation, and ended the two military conflicts we've been engaged in for the past decade, we can finally focus on these vital issues like curing cancer and stopping boot legs of Golden Girls!
I'm a bigger fan of making procedural changes in how committees are picked and structured, so that being an incumbent chairmen doesn't become so common.
Term limits transform a festival of self interests being served into a festival of self interests being served with other interests being served incompetently.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
It's the only way to legally keep them from voting.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
with big business? What in the hell is Wall Street then? If that is not the top end of big business then I don't know what is. Who is GE, who is Google? They are both in bed with big business. This is President Wall Street, from his cabinet picks to the bills that pass. Oh sure, they have ominous we are going to rein in big business names, but you can be damn sure all those contribute are immediately exempt, like how none of the big unions are subject to the new health care law.
We can't change the Democrats or Republicans so we need to work on the American people. They need to learn that the only way change will occur is if they elect people who don't ascribe to the party line of either the D or R side. Trouble is, far too many are interested in getting everything handed to them while at the same time decrying its cost. The American people need to change before their government will.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Wow, way to set up a strawman there. The water seller doesn't have the right to have anyone do anything about water that it isn't providing. That is nothing like copyright, which is a mechanism for enabling the creator to say what people can do with his or her own work.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Yep, ensuring streaming can be a criminal offense sure is high on the priority list! I'm sure Manning won't mind continuing to be tortured by his own government while this important issue is dealt with. Maybe that's why Crowley was fired by Obama for pointing out the torture - he was getting in the way of dealing with streaming!
I hope every US citizen is as ashamed of your government as I am. Its hypocrisy and blatant selling out to corporations is simply despicable.
When will you rise up against this crap?
Just because the particular file only exists on your computer for the use of watching a single time (in a buffer) and then being deleted doesn't mean you haven't committed copyright infringement. Any prosecution with a half-decent argument will get that out in the open with an expert witness first thing.
If you don't like ad ware, find a pirate and repeatedly kick him in the nuts until he goes unconscious. He and other like him, are literally the reason why we all suffer with ad ware on Android.
I don't think so. I think most people are willing to put up with ads in order to get free content. Pay TV barely exists compared to ad-supported TV. Shall we blame the pirates there too?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It's also strange that many leftists seem to adore copyright, even though it's a system designed around a monopoly on thought and removal of freedom.
Greed makes for strange bedfellows, I guess.
I would be shocked if less than 99% of people viewed copyright as a utility to protect your intangible (intellectual) property in the same way a car alarm and criminal laws protect your house, car, and person. People support eternal copyright, for example, because you own your house and have the right to give it to your wife when you pass and then to your children and then to your grand children and at no point does it simply become forfeit because the house has existed for a declared number of years.
I don't know how long it has been the case, but modern society certain views copyright as a protection against property that you explicitly own and should own forever. The underlying purposes of copyright and fine points of intellectual property are far too abstract for the majority of Americans to even begin to comprehend.
Yeah, felony. While spending us into oblivion at a deficit of over $200 billion per month.... Nice priorities dickheads.
US of A is no longer an exporter of goods, so if bread is no longer a merchandise, what else it can sell? Circus (movies) and vanity (fashion).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Then Google and every other search engine is every bit as liable for the same behavior.
It is about time we see the government tackle some of the tough issues.
Government running on continuing resolutions with no budget in sight. Let's sit on our thumb.
Government racking up astronomical deficits. Let's sit on our thumbs.
The serf class streaming content that may be infringing on copyrights? All hands on deck - we have to do something, now!
Our government is useless.
This post comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee!
Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
Mod up, just because a person thinks that it isn't stealing because it is not a physical property, doesn't mean it didn't cost money to make that needs to be recouped, and then some if they are going to be able to do it again. And any idiot who says "well I only download things that I wouldn't buy" makes me say that if you wouldn't buy it, why download it? I am completely against all DRM because I think it only hurts honest consumers, and the RIAA/MPAA because of their mafia like tactics and the fact that they are both effectively a monopoly; and I support the public domain and a limited lifetime for a copyright but anyone who says copyright in general is a bad thing needs to grow up. Nothing is free. There needs to be an incentive to continue producing new IP, whether in print, video, music, or software.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
I have always liked the idea of streaming copyrighted material as being legal, so that those who know how to save streamed data get rewarded for their skills, and those who do not receive no unprecedented benefits. What it ultimately means is that there are different laws for Geeks and hackers than for the rest of society, to the benefit of the former, as it should be. To be honest, it's kind of surprising there's any debate at all. If the state is going to prevent us from downloading content, then they ought to be preventing us from streaming content. Not that I agree at all with what they are doing. What they don't get is that streaming *IS* a form of downloading, and those who know what they are doing can always save streams. Silly rabbit!
Copyright "socialist"? I've got news for you: "socialist" doesn't mean "anything I don't like". Copyright is strictly capitalist. The socialist equivalent would be all IP belonging to the State.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I'd handle it very simply:
I would have to accept it. I'd then find another job where I consider it worth my while, or find a way to make myself worth higher pay to my employer. Nobody has an implicit right for things to stay the same. Only explicit contracts provide that.
Nobody has the right to be paid. Someone has to decide to pay you for what you're offering. If your offering isn't worth the cost, people won't pay it.
I think you need to educate yourself on what a 'right' truly is. Despite what you might think, a right isn't something you are granted or born with. It's something you fight to attain, and afterward, fight to protect. A creator has no more natural rights to charge money for his creation as I do to destroy the creation because it would humor me.
Copyright was created to encourage creation of works, not to stifle or ensure "fairness". That came later when people realized how much more money they could be making if they could stifle other people.
Let's take a look at some quotes from his recent posts (some of which post to other similarly newly created accounts with the same type of statements, accounts such as "Billy the Boy" and "Devxo" or whatever he's called).
It looks like they're really making good progress. Windows 7, XBOX360, Windows Phone 7...All awesome products. It's good, since I really wouldn't want to live in a world dominated by Apple and Google.
I have to say I agree here. Lets see Bing for example. Live search was always worse than Google, but now they're really up to par, sometimes even better. While Google is spammed with all kinds of shitty websites, Bing is clean. Kudos to MS.
I agree. By far open source advocates have mostly attacked Microsoft and other software companies that produce closed source applications.
Where is FOSS answer for Visual Studio? There just isn't anything as good.
Where is open source games that beat the hell out of commercial games?
Opera is faster than Chrome IMO. Opera's UI is amazingly responsive and fast, and Chrome has stupid bugs where you can't click or scroll the webpage while it's still loading
Everything he says is designed to big up MS or try to harm Google/Apple's image. I got slagged off the other day for accusing devxo for being a shill, but these guys are all talking the same. I think they're trying harder to just chime in even on non MS related subjects to try and pass themselves off as real posters, but I'm not really buying it. I don't hate MS as much as I used to when I was young(er) and idealistic, but these kinds of dumb tactics are pathetic.
which is totally what she said
It makes me feel safe and secure knowing that our government is hard at work ensuring the various media corporations can sue the pants off anyone and everyone who infringes upon their copyrighted works in any way shape or form imagined, unimagined or otherwise potentially imagined in the future; all the while a potentially devastating nuclear catastrophe in the Pacific with possibly far-reaching effects grows more likely by the hour.
I hear those fallout proof bunkers are rather expensive, so maybe that's their motivation.
but criminal = jury trial and public defender rights
Wow, way to set up a strawman there. The water seller doesn't have the right to have anyone do anything about water that it isn't providing. That is nothing like copyright, which is a mechanism for enabling the creator to say what people can do with his or her own work.
For the express purpose to increase the innovation of the arts and sciences. Since there is still creativity and innovation in both the arts and sciences, I fail to see why copyright should be made stronger. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that says by reducing copyright (particularly the length of copyright) we would increase innovation and advancement thus furthering the goal of copyright. =)
A creator has the right to, as part of the terms of selling his work, require that the receiver not make copies for anyone else.
Sounds like a contract. That is civil law and is already codified. There is no need to turn it into a felony the government should not be policing private contracts, the justice system should handle civil matters as it already does.
Because being in office for 30-50 years shouldn't be allowed. it creates a situation where those in office longest have more power and influence when in reality they are equals.
Being in congress should be a career. Some of these people had one career, and then get a second one being in office for decade after decade. What is needed is more fresh thought, not the same old bullshit that put us in this mess to begin with.
Besides it would cost lobbyist a lot more money if they have to bribe all new people every 10 years.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Since when is Hollywood not big business?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The underlying purposes of copyright and fine points of intellectual property are far too abstract for the majority of Americans to even begin to comprehend.
And that's a shame, because the entire concept of intellectual property was pulled out of a British man's ass in the 18th century. Prior to that, people kept secrets by not telling them to anyone. Great composers made their money with piano lessons and performances. IP law has only been with us for perhaps 5% of the time since we started writing, so it's not exactly fundamental.
I happen to think that IP law is valuable and I like that it reduces lost arts and provides us with more entertainment than our ancestors could have imagined... but it has taken on a life of its own!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Do any non-"idiots" actually go in for careers in politics?
which is totally what she said
No, there are natural rights. You have the right to, in general, go about your business unmolested (for example). The creator has the natural right to only enter into a transaction under the conditions he agrees to, and if one of the conditions is "don't copy this", it should be enforceable.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I've got news for you: "socialist" doesn't mean "anything I don't like".
Thanks.
Copyright is strictly capitalist.
???
So it is "capitalist" for the government to grant monopolies? Please say that into the mirror and then get back to me... this is exactly what I was lamenting.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Page 10 of the actual whitepaper.
I like how "appropriate" is not spelled out.
import system.cool.Sig;
What happens if you actually happen to find someone who is doing the country some good? Would it not be better to allow them to stay in power?
which is totally what she said
Not like the vote counted anyways..
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
> Why? If people create content regardless of copyright infringement, which is the purpose of copyright, I fail to see why it's a major problem that needs to be handled.
Because the United States creates a great deal of IP, as do many countries. The people pirating are not only the people who would not pay for it--so market size decreases, GDP decreases, and trade imbalances increase. The biggest long-term threat to the United States, after Global Warming and possibly after spiraling healthcare and higher education costs, is the trade imbalance. We send more and more money outside the country to buy things. A bigger economy means more money for the few people at the top, but MOST of America is NOT at the top, and sending money out means that capital leaves and goes to buy things, putting other people at the top, leaving us in a worse and worse position (except for a very few) as the gini coefficient increases.
That being said, making copyright law on that basis is arguably unconstitutional. The only reason Congress is empowered to make copyright law is to promote the development of copyrightable works. (The terminology is actually "science and the useful arts, IIRC, but as it was understood two hundred years ago). They also have the power to regulate commerce between the states and with foreign nations, but making copyright law under the Commerce Clause is reading the IP clause entirely out of the Constitution, which should not be legitimate under any reasonable principles of interpretation. But most if not all courts would probably accept it anyway.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
You sir, are absolutely right!
"not convered by criminal law" != "not covered by law"
Saves the trouble of rigging the election.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
That was before 9/11. Now everything not compulsory is prohibited.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I'm under the impression that even smart people become idiots as soon as they go into politics.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
Uh, how is it "illegal streaming" if it's not covered by criminal law?
Yet not a single study has been able to prove that it harms the economy. In fact, studies have shown that copyright infringement has has between no effect and a beneficial effect on the economy.
What happens if you actually happen to find someone who is doing the country some good? Would it not be better to allow them to stay in power?
Not worth the risk, IMHO. Nobody can hold The Ring for that long and not be corrupted by it.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
So if our government didn't exist, you still think you would have this right? Does one have this right in China? What about other socialist states? I think you are confusing what our government gives you (because it furthers their own economy) with the so-called natural born rights.
Semantics aside, copyright was not enacted to make money. It was created to encourage the creation of content- money was just the carrot.
> I need more people like you. People seem to think that copyright is about "compensating" people or "being fair". The funny thing is that people who claim to be conservative and for small government often seem pro-copyright. Which is bizarre, since it is really one of the first socialist policies enacted by the young US government, along with patents, the postal service, and postal roads. I'm at a loss... :)
Well, to be fair, one rationale of copyright--not the primary one or the stated one, but one that makes it an acceptable policy for many rather than merely something economists say is useful--is the Lockean idea that people should have some reward or ownership over the product of their labor.
Out of curiosity, why do you consider patents, the postal service, postal roads, and copyrights to be socialist?
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Not that I agree with the state of affairs in copyright law, but....copyright...socialist policy? Really? Copyright and patent laws originally gave individuals monopolies of limited duration, for their particular artistic creation, or useful invention, in exchange for publishing, and eventual release into public domain. That is, in fact, pretty much opposite of the way art / literature / invention works in a true socialist/communist *cough* utopia.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
So now we're going to charge a large demographic of our citizens with felonies and put them on the same level as a terrorist.
I hope the more they attempt to vilify it's own people that we start fighting back soon.
Moving is going to end up being the only choice I fear.
> The underlying purposes of copyright and fine points of intellectual property are far too abstract for the majority of Americans to even begin to comprehend.
I disagree--I think they could understand them just fine, we just do not choose to teach them. The "fine points" would obviously be harder to teach (it would have to be a concerted effort that was better than how we teach math), but most of those are useless outside of certain arcane professions. (i.e. patent attorney)
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I think it means something that a previous law would have made illegal, except that circumstances unforseen at the time mean it isn't technically covered. An example in a completly different field would be human cloneing in the UK - there was a period when it was completly unregulated, because the Human Fertility and Embryology Act defined an embryo as 'an egg fertilised by a sperm' - at the time of writing, no-one envisioned embryos could be created by any other means. It was amended a few years ago to redefine embryo and close the loophole.
Copyright isn't "strictly capitalist." It is an agreement between a creator and the public--I will spend my time creating work, and share it with you, in exchange for which you (the public) will have it free to use in a million years or so. (Less for patents) Arguably the socialist side is the public domain.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
No, leftists are anarchists, for a stateless society. Any "leftist" who stands up for government authority is a fraud.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Perhaps as more of this draconian crap filters down to things average people care about it will wake them up to whats going on around them. My biggest concern about this is that its very vague on "streaming" what about things like slingbox, playon or even home media streaming applications like XBMC or Plex? I rip every DVD I buy to put on my own media server, am I now a criminal?
I do sort of wish that there was some way to make all media completely locked down and as draconian as possible just to see how wildly wrong their supposed "losses to piracy" would be. My guess is that sales if anything will actually go down.
I suspect most of them already are. So many things are illegal today.. hell, I'm commiting a criminal offense just by writing this post. I'm doing it from work, and the rules (which everyone ignores) forbid personal use of the internet or any form of political debate online (Lest it reflect badly on the organisation). This means I am accessing a computer system without the authrisation of the owner - a criminal offense under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
Everyone commits crimes on a regular basis. It's just that most of them are so trivial that there is no reason to enforce the law, even when in princible there could be a jail term of many years.
Read the quote you cited again. He didn't say there was no law covering it. He said there was no *criminal* law covering it. Now go actually read the white paper. The question is whether it is "distribution" or "unauthorized performance". Either way it is copyright infringement (in his estimation, at least), which is illegal. But only distribution is criminally punishable. Unauthorized performance only carries civil punishment.
I'm not confusing the two at all. Lots of natural rights get trampled by other governments, that doesn't mean people don't have those rights. You may be confusing what I'm saying is a natural right, however. Copyright is not, but it is the best way to enforce the creator's natural right to set the condition of "don't copy this" as part of a transaction.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
With all of the problem that we are facing in the United States, how does this even make it into to the top 100?
If you're dismissing this because it's about copyright, you should take another look. Copyright infringement is a problem, but why does the government need to WIRETAP people about it? What the fuck are they listening for? "Yeah bro I totally streamed that show online last night"??? It's also worth noting that this law would make most of the country into felons (i.e. people who can't vote)
Water sellers don't create water. The water seller only has the right to expect the government to issue laws protecting the other people from selling the water seller's piss without his permission.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Lets use the Scarlet Letter for example. The US did not have copyright, but Britain did. The publisher didn't get his ducks in a row fast enough to get the copyright in Britain (which was needed to make some money, because all that was circulating in the US was bootleg copies).
Well, the bootleggers got there first, and nobody got anything from the work.
Sound fair to you? I sure as hell wouldn't have enjoyed having that happen to my work.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
If all this paper did was suggest categorizing streaming as distribution rather than performance, that would be small potatoes. It also recommends:
The article focuses on streaming, but the real meat here is in the use of government funds and police powers for the private benefit of rights-holders.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
And that would differentiate them from the Republican and Democratic candidates how?
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
No, we have copyright law to encourage works to be created. Not to let someone else control what I do with something in my possession. If you do not want your precious IP out in the world, then don't ever show it to anyone.
The original idea of copyright is a good one: time limited control of my creative works. This allows me to make a living on creative works. As bad as the music business is today, imagine no copyrights. I write a great new song, perform it a few times while I'm working out the kinks, saving up for studio time, etc. Before I know it, a large media conglomerate has used their performance scouts, on-staff musicians, and fully tricked out in-house studios to steal my song and release it nationally... before mine is even done. I have no legal recourse and, even if I do ultimately release my version, it's forever seen as the cover version.. and that big conglomerate makes a huge pile of money on my work, without me getting a dime.
Same thing with any application... I release a great new program that I'd hope will help keep me in the independent software business. It's very well regarded, I get good reviews on the pre-release, I have people lining up to buy it. And then, a week before release, I find that someone's hacked my server, and two days laters, Microsoft release the product under their name. And there's nothing I can do.. my version can still sell... no copyrights means no copyrights, but Microsoft will make millions, I'm lucky if my family members buy my version rather than Microsoft's.
No, the real problem with copyright is the perversion of it. And that's big business buying Congress, nothing less. Disney's one of the worst. A reasonable copyright on a song or software program is maybe in the 10-25 year range.. you can haggle about the specifics, but there's a normal life to any creative product, after which the value to me as the creator is probably small. It's still hard to argue the value to society is greater at any point, simply because society doesn't NEED my work at all. I may, just to put food on the table. But there's definitely a reasonable period of time here. Disney's crazy wealthy, and worried about "Steamboat Willy" being used in porn or something... so every time their copyrights come close to expiration, they send a semi-or-two of cash to Congress, and the copyright laws get amended. That's the real problem.
The other real problem is that there's no good means to log copyright abandonment. If a creative work is no longer valued by the original copyright holder, a good holder will put it in the public domain, re-release under GPL (more on this later), etc. But a bad, disinterested, or dissolved copyright holder won't do this. I had a question put to me last week... a guy has nearly every program for the Amiga computer system on a set of DVDs. What does he do? Well, that's all still under copyright, and other than a few programs released to some kind of FOSS, he can't do anything with that, despite that few if any of the copyright holders are liikely to care. And, thanks to Disney, we don't even know if his grandchildren can release those DVDs. So another big flaw in copyright is the lack of automatic loss. After 10 years or so, a copyright holder should have to re-assert their rights, or have the work put into the public domain. Particularly in the internet age, this puts no significant new burden on the copyright holder. Managing this wouldn't be expensive, and it would lead to a central repository of all copyright data... you could easily check to see if an older work was still under copyright, because those under copyright are listed in the renewal database.
And don't forget, GPL's "copyleft" is actually just another copyright. If there's no copyright law, there's no GPL... it's public domain, like BSD, all the way. I could take any GPLed work, mod it to my heart's content, and not release the source code changes. It's only the power of the copyright laws that enforce that. Many GPL users embrace the GNU philosophy and would release their code anyway, but there are plenty of big companies, building on GPL and FOSS, who do only because they must. And even without copyright, there's no mechanism at all that gets source code out in the world... code developers would simply be much more careful with their code propagation, knowing that any code that got out would be out for good.
'
-Dave Haynie
Like you, I weep for the buggy whip makers.
Blar.
Madoff went to jail because he stole 70$ BILLION dollars mostly from other rich people and corporations.
If he was simply screwing the plebeians he'd be in Jamaica right now.
Yeah, and that deficit has nothing to do with the Bush tax cuts, or the two wars Bush got us into, does it?
Yes, Obama has been a disappointment... but mostly because he hasn't undone all of the clusterfuck created by his predecessor. I have some respect for the deficit hawks that admit that our current situation started under G.W. But those that try to blame it all on Obama are just partisan whores.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It also creates a situation whereby the better man (or woman) has to leave office even if they would be a better contender. I seriously think that Bill Clinton could have won against George W. Bush, if only he had been allowed to run. The country would probably be in much better shape if did have a third term. I do see some potential problem with letting one person stay in office too long, but I see more problems created by a system where somebody is denied entry into politics even if people want to vote for them. Also, the two party system in the US just stinks. The end.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Let's hope so. A generation of angry, disenfranchised young men is just what the US of A needs right now.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
All ownership is essentially a monopoly, enforced (if not created) by the State. If I build a pool in my back yard, I have monopoly control over who uses the pool. If I have an idea for a better mousetrap then I have monopoly control over who uses the idea. Both are enforced by the State. If they weren't, both would be enforced (probably less effectively) by the shotgun. Arguing that a monopoly granted by the state is wrong is arguing that all property is theft: it undermines the whole basis of capitalism.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Bullshit. If I sell you a copy of my album, on the condition that you don't copy it to anyone, I have every right to expect you to follow that. If you aren't willing to abide by that condition, then you should negotiate a different deal or not take the deal. If you take the deal, and then ignore the terms of the deal, you should be held accountable... and copyright law enables society to do that without making everyone sign a contract any time they purchase something from an artist.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Nobody has an implicit right for things to stay the same.
Nobody, that is, but Wisconsin school teachers.
Music piracy doesn't affect you that much, right? What about when 3D printers are everywhere and all the best designs are locked up? This is a fight for the future and most people don't realize they're already losing.
In my office full of conservative people at my work all believe Copyright laws should be dissolved completely. Much like 1960's nuclear technologies, updates are often necessary to make things work for the benefit of the most people. Last time I checked, we have almost no conservative politicians in California on ANY side of the party spectrum. They all suck at the teat of Hollywood.
How about a law that sets term limits
How about a law that balances the budget.
How about the truth about 911
How about an investigation into Big Pharma, International banksters, the rubber stamping of patents on GMO plants.
How about a recall.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Biden is a known shill for the media cartel. As far back as 2002 Biden held a Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 2002 on “Theft of American Intellectual Property” And Vice President Joe Biden is a co-founder and co-chairman of the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus.
Here is a choice quote from the Vice President Joe Biden to chew on: “When somebody holds you up on the street and takes your wallet, we call it robbery,” Biden said in May 2007. “And when somebody steals your idea and creation, we call it theft, plain and simple.”
Lets face it. Biden is no friend of the people.
Geek says:
What it ultimately means is that there are different laws for Geeks and hackers than for the rest of society, to the benefit of the former, as it should be.
Why does this sound so familiar?
Corporation says:
What it ultimately means is that there are different laws for large corporations than for the rest of society, to the benefit of the former, as it should be.
Ah, there we go. Laws are never for us, they're always for the other guys, right?
While moot would be pretty cool, voting third party has the same as not voting. It simply defers your vote to someone else. I guess there's a bit of a "political message", but that gets about as much traction as a strongly worded U.N. letter of disapproval.
Actually, you only have a right to expect that because of copyright. You are correct that copyright law enables society to do things without making everyone sign a contract any time they purchase something, however copyright also covers a great deal many other things. The purpose of copyright is not to enforce the will of the creator, it is to encourage things to be created. If copyright law does not do that (which in my opinion it no longer does, the fact that works continue to be created faster and more so than ever despite piracy is proof enough) then it is unnecessary.
Now, going from the absurd amount of copyright we have to no copyright at all would cause chaos and economic mayhem. I understand that, but the progressive weakening (starting with shortening its length) of copyright is a good way to go about reaching the optimal terms of copyright which maximize creation of works.
A creator has the right to, as part of the terms of selling his work, require that the receiver not make copies for anyone else.
...
I'm merely giving an answer to the question of why we should have copyright law.
The only problem is that the reason why we have copyright law is codified in the U.S. Constitution, and is completely different from what you suggest:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
To suggest otherwise would imply the need for a constitutional amendment, and I haven't heard anybody mention that recently.
How about Fucking Wall Street and Banking Corruption Crackdown???
You know why we're voting you out in 2012? Because of the massive collusion between Washington, Wall Street, and Bankers to fleece and rip off the American People every chance they get.
Those jackasses in Washington worrying about copyright have much bigger things to worry about IMO.
Hope is the currency of fools
Ok, sorry but i do have to respond to this. I'm a conservative...I'm in favor of copyright as it is law.
I'm in favor of any law on the book...enforce it...enforce them all.
When you realize that you have too many laws on the books, you'll learn that we don't need new laws...we need less laws.
Socialist Soviet Russia had no such thing as copyright, and all works published in Russia immediately entered the public domain.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
That's what you idiots get for buying into the Obama facade.
The article states that copyright is generally not a partisan issue. Both relevant U.S. political parties favor expansion of its scope and expansion of enforcement, and a lot of that is due to movie studios' control of TV news. How do you recommend that I convince enough people in my congressional district and my state to vote third party?
Really? HBO and Showtime have sizable budgets, most people I know prefer their content as well as other stations inundate you with so many ads that you fall out of interest in what you were watching.
Peter Pan should be free mate! His author died in 1927. How stupid is a law that believe something needs to exist for 70+ years after its author is dead in order to PROMOTE art. Come on!
Wait, our choices are "perpetual copyright" or "self-entitled bastards who think they should get everything for free"? WTF ever happened to *sane* copyright law instead? Say backing it down to a level where creators have plenty of time to make money off of $WORK but it does eventually enter the public domain, preferably within a generation or so.
Say 50 years total from date of first presentation, or 5 years per term with an increasing fee schedule for each successive term purchased (with the first four being dirt cheap, then ramping up dramatically each time -- that way it eventually becomes unreasonable as a business decision to renew Steamboat Willie again)
Given the state of the bottled water industry I think you should probably rethink your position as they take water from public resources that are shared with many townships. While towns are conserving water during times of drought they are still pumping away causing even more problems.
The argument isn't whether copyright should exist at all, it's that it has been extended ridiculously past it's original intended purpose. It no longer drives further works as a single work has the potential to provide someone with income for the rest of his/her life.
If it dropped back to 10 years you'd find the resistance to it greatly reduced as works would become part of the public domain as was originally intended.
To be perfectly honest, I don't give a damn about the creation of works. I support copyright because it is the best way to enforce the right of a creator to sell their work under the "don't copy" condition. It's that or an endless sea of contracts, which would be horrendously inefficient. We need to enforce this right somehow, and copyright is the best way. If more works get created, that's simply a bonus.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Fine, but then I want you to sign a contract indemnifying me from any damages that come from any IP you used to make your album.
Yes, we have copyright to protect IP, but it was to be limited due to the fact people from all walks of life borrow from the society they live in. Musicians steal from the past, so do inventors and others. Whatever a person creates is not presumed to be 100% unique, so it enters the public domain at some point. Personally, the time should be far less due to the speed of our society. For patents, 5 years. Copyright, the lifetime of the creator.or 50 years for a corporation. Mickey Mouse should not be protected until the end of time.
That's right. You get paid for your work. You don't get paid to sit on your ass after you're done working.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
You're confusing "we should enforce copyright" with "current copyright law is reasonable". Copyright should end, at the latest, when the author dies, and it's ludicrous that current law exceeds that.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
And it will be interesting to see what this does to iTunes users, given that unless something has changed recently, iTunes allows streaming to anyone on your LAN, including music ripped from CDs.
I'm assuming the law will be written in such a way that it applies only to for-profit streaming. If not, there are going to be a lot of infringers in every college dorm. And by that, I mean pretty much 100% of America's college students, at least until the first round of ten million John Doe lawsuits. Not to mention that it would bring the risk of contributory infringement lawsuits against one of only a couple of tech companies that are actually thriving in this economy.
Also, strong intellectual property rights are not in the best interests of content creators. They are only in the best interests of IP hoarders—those big enough to negotiate cross-licensing agreements with other such colossuses.
For the individual creator, it's already basically impossible to write a song that doesn't infringe somebody's copyright, thanks to the courts' exceptionally broad definition of how similar something has to be to infringe. The only question is whether you'll be the lucky one who gets sued.
Note that I am speaking with my musical composer hat on right now. I come from a long line of musical composers and performers. This isn't somebody who just wants free music saying this. It's not just the public domain that you hurt with overzealous intellectual property laws. It's the people who are actually trying to create new intellectual property.
I hope Mr. Obama has enough of a clue to realize what a terrible idea this is. Want to destroy America's ability to create and innovate? Pass this law. In a few decades, when our country is hopelessly bankrupt except for a few rich corporations, history will know who to blame for its continued death spiral.
Want to help our economy and create new markets for music? Cut the copyright term back to 28 years, provide unlimited exceptions for music streaming to open up Internet radio as a viable alternative to the monoculture that broadcast radio has become (Clear Channel and Infinity/CBS, I'm looking at you), and then continue to chip away at the excess that our copyright system has become.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
So it is "capitalist" for the government to grant monopolies?
All property is a monopoly, recognized and often enforced by government. Copyright is just an especially dubious one.
It is capitalism run-amok. Socialism would be if they then charged a fee for the use of this gov't granted monopoly and redistributed the proceeds.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
If more and more of the 'silent majority' - if you will - stays home, then the only result is more bug-fuck crazy fringe candidates being elected by an increasingly influential bug-fuck crazy fringe electorate.
HBO and Showtime have sizable budgets
HBO and Showtime put out such a small fraction of all TV content that it is almost negligible. You have like 400 stations on digital cable, and a handful are pay TV.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It certainly is. A property deed is the exclusive right to use a section of land granted by the government.
The secret is that without government there is no capital.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I'm all for limited copyright (having it extend past the life of the author is ludicrous), but the original post which I responded to said we shouldn't enforce copyright at all, since people are still creating even though copyright violations are going on. My point is that it doesn't matter how much work gets created, we still should enforce copyright because it's the right thing to do.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Really, this is ridiculous....
Musicians...if you want us to give a damn, then you need to reign in this crap.
I can kill someone or I can illegally download a song. I'd probably get a tougher penalty for the song download.
---
This crap has got to stop.
The conservatives long-view goal in destroying unions and giving unchecked power to corporations is to drop the cost of labor through the floor! Enforce unregulated slave wages and we can again compete on an even, mud-hut, dirt floor playing field with the Third World! Genius!
More delusion. In reality, you'd like get a judgment and never be paid. And that's assuming you can find an attorney to take you case. And if you can, most of your judgment, assuming you ever get paid, would be absorbed by the attorney.
Find a new job.
So what you're advocating is everyone who creates must find a new job. You just destroyed a huge segment of the economy. Congratulations idiot!
I'm no longer surprised by anything the government does. They barely even try to appear truly legal anymore. And then only when it suits their needs. One of the biggest tricks they have is making you believe there is a difference between democrats and republicans. It makes no difference who is in office. Someone is pulling whoever's strings is in office. To use a analogy, you're looking at the SAME coin, you're just flipping it back and forth. And yes the copyright/patent laws are so far out of control I don't know they could ever be fixed. Broken entirely and insane. And in case no one noticed, nice misdirection. Don't look at the REAL crimes that government is committing everyday and nothing happens to them.
I'm old, not dead. Well that's my 2 cents worth, your mileage may vary. I say what I think, not what you want to hear.
Go back to pulling numbers out of your ass. 14 year copyright, 14 year patent, end of story. Even that's too long for most people to benefit... I would agree to a 6 year copyright with three filed extensions: up to 24 years. The first would be a cheap ($100) re-file; the second, moderately expensive ($1000) because if you're not making the cash in 12 years something is wrong. Besides that, you need to file all direct source material: all of the products of labor that went into the final product. This means all computer source code (but not necessarily design documentation), all the master tracks (but not necessarily sheet music, lyrics sheets, etc), computer source document files for books, etc. Where the line is drawn between "creating" and "assembling" ... writing words, formatting them, etc, is "creating," while "Converting to PDF, printing," and so on is "assembling."
So if you want that big 18 or 24 year copyright, your software is getting PD'd open source, your master tracks are getting released, your word documents are being handed out, and any in-house proprietary tools you wrote or commissioned that are essential for building your work (remember, running a tool to convert X into Y is not creating, it's assembling) are also getting dumped with them.
Also, a record of all tools needed is included, and who owns the rights; upon filing, these rights holders are contacted for a copy of their tool, if not on file already in another copyright extension. If they don't extend their copyright, then that tool is released; if they do extend their copyright--twice, past the 12 year first extension--then they are also required to release all source material. This is to ensure that such tools are on file, in case someone keeps a "very specialized" piece of software NDA'd and shifted to only a few clients (a couple dozen corporations have it). The software would still go out of copyright in 6 or 12 years, but only a few people would have it to release; those corporations may well not care anymore about that particular iteration of that tool by then, and it may be lost, and incompatible with old work, and now you lose that functionality. So we want it on record: what you used, who owns it, and a copy of it.
I should run for office.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
This is exactly the type of rhetoric we hear from the left all the time. "You should listen to those who know better. You should care more about the community over your own desires; conservatives are just a bunch of ignorant hillbillies clinging to old ideas and fooled in to voting against their own best interests"
In actuality, the left is leading us right back into feudalism, where men are enslaved to lords, knowledge is left to the ruling class, and freedom and ingenuity are hindered to prevent man from reaching his full potential. This is exactly why our founders pulled us away from the ideas of Europe and gave us every right and freedom the feudalists said were wrong to have.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Every time there is a discussion of copyright, some idiot brings up buggy whip manufacturers (I guess because it requires no thought to do so). Buggy whip manufacturers went out of business because people no longer wanted buggy whips. Period. If your argument was that copyright protected professions are going out of business because people no longer want professionally produced work, then you might have a point. No change to copyright can prevent that from happening, and in fact there is no attempt being made to prevent that from happening. However, there has been NO indication that people don't want professionally produced works (otherwise, there would be no piracy), only that people don't think they should have to PAY to get other people's work.
If you want to send the message to producers of copyrighted works that their services are no longer wanted, fine do that. Don't buy their stuff. Don't pirate their stuff. Don't use their stuff at all. However, if you DO pirate their stuff, you are showing that their service is wanted, you just feel you are entitled to their work without giving anything back.
An informative article on Vice President Biden's position and how we got here. http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/joe-bidens-problem-music
You know, I'd have some sympathy if pirates had a "cause" anymore.
Years ago, we said "we're pirating music because they won't let us download it!"
And they made download stores.
Then we said "we're pirating music because they won't sell individual tracks!"
And they let us buy single tracks.
Then we said "we're pirating music because they add DRM!"
And they stopped adding DRM.
Then we said "we're pirating music because 128kbps is crap!"
And they gave us 256kbps+ tracks.
Then we said "we're pirating music because the major labels have a monopoly!"
And now any indie artist can get on iTunes and other major music stores.
And we still pirate.
Because all along, we really just wanted stuff for free.
I'm all for copyright reform, but really: The latest music, movies, and games are not vital liberties, and they take a lot of time and money to make. If someone wanted to give their content away for free, they would have done so. So ask yourself: If a person who made something you want expects compensation, why do you deserve to have it for free?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
That is, in fact, pretty much opposite of the way art / literature / invention works in a true socialist/communist *cough* utopia.
Socialist/communist? They aren't the same, nor do they necessarily even correlate.
Anyway, socialism in practice typically means that either the state or a state-sponsored monopoly takes over some industry in order to benefit society at large. So yes, copyright pretty much fits this idea exactly, except that the state also invented the concept of intellectual property itself. So in Canada the government took over health care and runs it. In 18th century England, the government took over publishing and granted a monopoly. Same thing. The US reformed the system by allowing more than one publisher - but the socialist principle is still there. Hell, it even says so in the Constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts..."
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You could have elected McCain, Kucinich, or Paul in 2008 and this would still be happening.
No, definitely not. We could have elected any of those candidates and some completely different set of batshit crazy policies would be implemented. Imagine "drill baby drill" McCain's response to the BP oil spill. Or Kucinich trying to do anything whatsoever about the deficit. Or Ron Paul trying to abolish the federal reserve in the middle of the financial crisis.
Existing mechanisms for "delivering" music/video etc. suck if you are from pick a country> because none of the existing distributors (sic) - aka the vampires that take the money from the original artists are living in anytime after 1960. Why?(as an example) Because my Ukrainian friend couldn't find a legit DVD of TV series from his ethnicity (Russian) in this country even if he performed fellatio on the highest level mafia dude here. You simply *cannot* find Russian television series, or anything else here in Athens, Greece (substitute Athens with any other European capital and you'll find the same).
I guess over in Hicksville USA (which is most of your country) you wouldn't grok that
In the old days, even in the UK you could *find* (if you looked hard enough) recordings by your favorite "group". Right now, good luck finding even CD's.. Something inside me is reminded of the old closed medieval guilds. What is different here? Who is legititimate? Who *really* has rights?
(and if you really wanted a *free* market.....)
Andy
Ben Franklin: "Fellow traveller".
he's up there with Marx and Trotsky.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
jackass?
Wars without end: Check
Spending us into default: Check
Harsh punishments for minor crimes: Check
Bush sucked. Obama sucks. To be fair, pretty much all politicians are egomaniac control freaks with a certain amount of charisma.
At least it's a bipartisan trait :/
Which is bizarre, since it is really one of the first socialist policies enacted by the young US government, along with patents, the postal service, and postal roads. I'm at a loss... :)
I might be missing some sarcasm here; but aren't copyrights and patents pretty much constitutionally mandated?
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
What I do find odd, though, is that the people who like to spout the Constitutional mouth noises as if it is the end all be all of every single issue on the earth don't understand that quote most of the time. It isn't about "rights", it isn't about "money", it isn't about "individual freedom", it's about "promoting science and useful arts" for the common good. So the optimal copyright law won't favor artists, or try to get them the most compensation humanly possible (while harming the common good).... It would be a balance of benefits and misery to keep them squeezing out "science" and "useful arts" for the betterments of us plebes.
But then again the more someone utters the term "Constitution" the less they generally understand it, and the less they have actually spent time thinking about it.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
How else can we establish the commission of a felony in two-clicks, by a ten-year-old?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I'm in favor of any law on the book...enforce it...enforce them all.
Sure.
We'll start by making you hire a flagman to travel 30 ft in front of your car to warn off any horse-drawn carriages lest you spook the horses.
Dumbass.
It also creates a situation whereby the better man (or woman) has to leave office even if they would be a better contender. I seriously think that Bill Clinton could have won against George W. Bush, if only he had been allowed to run.
He lost any goodwill I had for him when he threw all his political weight and 'charisma' behind Obama. And look where we are now. You are correct though - the two party system sucks.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
Protecting property rights is all the state is doing, and it is one of the basic fundamental functions of government. That is different than granting a commercial monopoly. Maybe you're confused by the "Intellectual Property" term. That's intentional, because the things that fall under that definition are not really "property" at all. The term is just a clever trick by corporate lawyers to confuse the issue.
If I build a pool in my back yard, I have monopoly control over who uses the pool.
And if you didn't, you would never build the pool. Why put your own time and resources into something when it can be taken away from you? But to compare it to copyright, you would have to not only have control over your own pool, but the ability to ban your neighbors from building a similar pool in their back yards.
Arguing that a monopoly granted by the state is wrong is arguing that all property is theft: it undermines the whole basis of capitalism.
Not really. I'm reminded of the Jefferson's statement about ideas in reference to patents: "... no one possesses the less because everyone possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me receives [it] without lessening [me], as he who lights his [candle] at mine receives light without darkening me."
You're thinking of it entirely wrong. The monopoly that copyright grants you isn't control of the work you created - you can do anything you want with it regardless of copyright. The monopoly is a ban on any other individual's right to make a copy. So it's actually a restriction on rights, rather than protection of them.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Out of curiosity, why do you consider patents, the postal service, postal roads, and copyrights to be socialist?
The postal service is pretty straightforward - you give the government a monopoly over delivering mail, which at the time was the only reasonable way to communicate over any distance. It would be like charging the government with maintenance of the internet or the telephone system today.
Roads are similar - I'm quite surprised that you'd ask how they are socialized... when is the last time you traveled any significant distance on a private road?
So then we get to intellectual property. Not only is the entire concept invented by the government, but they then grant monopolies on this pretend "property". It's a neat concept, and I think it has worked toward its intended purpose, but how in the world it is anything but socialism is beyond me. Even the Constitution says it is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts..." What's missing is "public or collective ownership" maybe? Oh wait, there's the concept of "public domain", which would not exist without IP laws. The whole point of patents in particular is to bring trade secrets out of the woodwork so that we don't have things like lost arts or processes.
Maybe you still don't want to call it "socialist", and that's fine. But it sure ain't capitalist! Since when is a government-created monopoly capitalist?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Mickey Mouse is trademarked, not copyrighted
GENERATION 24: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
I'm not seeing how term limits stop corruption. Sure you won't have one corrupt person in power for long, but if you're just replacing them every few years, have you really changed anything?
First and foremost, copyright exists to FAIRLY reward creation by means of COMPENSATION. Only after the creator has been FAIRLY COMPENSATED is the public at large intended to receive the works. I
Compensated? As in monetarily? Copyright law at its core says no such thing. Copyright law is about control, and nothing more - that is, a temporary monopoly over control for a period of time before which it goes back to the public... control to do with it as the owner sees fit - selling it, giving it away under particular terms, etc. Case in point: People copyrighting their works to prevent it from being ripped off by others in some form, but allowing free distribution/sharing of said work [or doing so under licensing schemes that rely on the existence of copyright law - like Creative Commons].
tealing before the creator can be compensated is completely contrary to the notion of encouraging creation.
Of course that beggs the question of whether theft, or stealing is at all applicable or relevant. And this also ignores the fact that creativity is not ENTIRELY about financial gain - and to treat it as such is intellectually dishonest.
This is such a simple concept and one which is extremely well document. Its really hard for me not to look down on those who come to some other conclusion as somehow being mentally deficient. Literally.
Pardon my snarky nature, but the irony is kinda dripping profusely.
On what world is it possible for creation to not be rewarded and it to concurrent encourage creation?
I think that is a false premise - one that assumes a lot. For one, people created before copyright exited, and even with the challenge of wrestling with piracy they have adapted and succeeded - the ones whom proved capable. Even if the concept was to go into the shitter, people will find a way to make money off their works, people WILL make money off their works, people will create - whether for profit or on for their own reasons. The doom and gloom shtick has been perpetuated since the 60s, with audio tapes, and here we are almost 50 years later, adaptation has occurred successfully.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
I might be missing some sarcasm here; but aren't copyrights and patents pretty much constitutionally mandated?
Indeed they are! Does that mean our founding fathers were socialists???? :)
But then again the more someone utters the term "Constitution" the less they generally understand it, and the less they have actually spent time thinking about it.
That's why it is fun to point out the socialist stuff in the constitution to these people.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Would "US Campaign Donors Want New Copyright Crackdown" have made a better headline?
The secret is that without government there is no capital.
Tell that to the Warlords in Somalia.
The difference between physical property and intellectual property is that it is possible to defend physical property, and loss of said property deprives you of it. In the absence of government, if someone hums a tune you made up, you have lost nothing. In the absence of government, if someone takes your cheeseburger, you have no more cheeseburger.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
What if 'we' defines a different set of people each time? What if 'we' represents a smaller number of people each time?
I think you're taking specific points and assuming they represent everyone's opinion here, when in reality this site, and every other gathering of more than one person, is made up of individuals. ESPECIALLY a site with lots of readers.
The problem with the "do you work for free" argument is that it compares different things - making something, and continually receiving revenue from it, to working, and making money off the labor as you continually have to do it. Not IMO the //best// analogy.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
> That's because their statement is based and wholly rooted in fact - unlike yours - which is pure delusion.
I'm glad that the US Constitution is delusional.
> First and foremost, copyright exists to FAIRLY reward creation by means of COMPENSATION.
> Only after the creator has been FAIRLY COMPENSATED
Perhaps you didn't notice that the poster you reply to did not in any way contradict this? He merely said that the wealth of creative works being produced clearly indicates that creators are already being fairly compensated and that it makes no sense to compensate them further, and in fact, it might be overall more effective for society to compensate them less. This is similar to the fact that it is possible to gain more profit overall by charging less money for your product.
> Its literally a retarded notion.
Maybe you yourself should put the brain in gear a bit more before replying next time with flamebait?
Mod up? Are you nuts? The post you replied to doesn't come anywhere near addressing the point that was being made, that this is not the best use of resources to make this stuff a felony for kids-P2Ping-mp3s level stuff, wasting resources on more valuable things... the post is just flamebait in and out.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Nope. At the risk of becoming redundant, if the creator sold it, it's not theirs anymore.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
You have the right to, in general, go about your business unmolested (for example).
That's obviously not any sort of "natural right." It exists nowhere in the natural world. Only through artificial means (for instance, a government or a gun) can one attain that "right."
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Yeah, so the government that implemented the draconian measures is not AT ALL atfalut for said hypothetical situation? Bullshit.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
No. That's not how it works. If I sell you something, predicated on certain conditions, you are obligated to accept them if you accepted the sale.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
First and foremost, copyright exists to FAIRLY reward creation by means of COMPENSATION.
Hmmm...
Funny, I don't see the words "fair" or "compensation" or any synonyms of those words in that quote.
On what world is it possible for creation to not be rewarded and it to concurrent encourage creation?
On Earth from the first time a human created something until about the 18th century. Shakespeare regularly borrowed from other works with absolutely no compensation, or even attribution.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I should clarify what I mean: The "right" to set terms of sale of a creative work is *not fundamental* and is *conferred* by copyright law, pursuant to the purpose laid out in the Constitution. It is important not to put the cart before the horse and assume that copy rights are as important as the "unalienable rights" to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" because they most certainly are not. If anything, copy rights should be considered *privileges*, granted for limited time as a reward for adding to the sum of human knowledge, not something you are automatically entitled to because it came out of your head.
Wrong. You get paid for your time, whether or not the work you produce is worth anything or not. Granted, you may not keep the job long if your work is worthless, but you still got paid in the meantime. People is copyright industries only get paid IF their work has value (ie. people want it). Guess who has the better deal.
All property is a monopoly, recognized and often enforced by government.
Of course, but you can defend your property even without a government. The same cannot be said with an idea. Also, in the absence of government, you are deprived of nothing when someone performs a song that you wrote. Contrast this with someone taking your guitar - now you can't play the song, government or no government.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You really don't understand the concept of natural rights if you think it means that a "natural right" is automatically respected. The idea of natural rights says nothing about that, it simply means that a right is universal and inalienable. You have the right for me to not walk up to you and punch you in the face, even society is unwilling to punish me for that act. If your natural rights are not being respected, that doesn't mean they don't exist... it means that society is out of whack.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
That's not a sale. That's a license.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
You're thinking of it entirely wrong. The monopoly that copyright grants you isn't control of the work you created - you can do anything you want with it regardless of copyright. The monopoly is a ban on any other individual's right to make a copy. So it's actually a restriction on rights, rather than protection of them.
No, it isn't simply a ban. I can choose to charge you. Just like the pool: I could ban you or I could choose to charge you.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Only sometimes. I'd much rather take the criminal penalty for shoplifting a CD than the millions of dollars in civil penalties for file-sharing it.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
The problem with your argument is that while you have a valid point about copyright infringement causing harm in some cases, a) much of the current IP law is hampering other forms of economic growth, especially where patents are involved; b) you are arguing that the best way to improve the economy and create jobs is to create new laws to prosecute, imprison and disenfranchise (look it up if you don't know what it means, specifically with regards to convicted felons) citizens for violating copyright in a CIVIL manner; and c) by posting as AC you look like a troll at best, and a shill at worst.
The ENTIRE point of copyright (and other IP laws in general) is to encourage people and companies to invest in creating things in exchange for TEMPORARY control on their distribution. Copyright, with all of the extensions, is now for the most part a PERMANENT thing, given that it is possible for people to live their ENTIRE lives and not see copyright expire on something that was created before they were born, and as a result may people don't see the benefit of it, especially given how much easier it is to copy and distribute works in this day and age. And until the laws are revised to reflect that reality, and not the desires of the big companies to retain control, people are not going to respect the laws. Add something like this to the mix, and people are going start treating copyright law like they did Prohibition, until eventually the whole thing comes tumbling down. And it's one heck of a lot easier to transport unauthorized copies of digital media than it was moonshine!
Out of curiosity, who among either the Democrats or Republicans in the primaries did you not consider crazy and/or corrupt, or would you make the same statements no matter who had been put forth by the D/R?
Can I point out that all the third-party candidates in 2008 were batshit fucking loco?
To be fair, the "third-party" candidates were actually a democrat (running under green) and a republican (running under libertarian). I'd say we really didn't have a major 3rd party candidate in the last election, just 2 dems, and 2 repubs.
In economics, there are two kinds of resources, but I forget the names. One is a controllable resource, like access to CDs or food; while the other is uncontrollable, like access to air. While I can pick all the fruit off all the orange trees, I can't take air away from you. In arab desert country I can lord over the only source of water for two miles and become a powerful Sultan by using that influence to control the salt trade, but I can't take sunlight from you.
Of course, clean, refined, safe water is at a premium. It's also a solid good: I can sell you a gallon of water, and you can't give away two gallons of it. You could, however, buy the equipment to make water safe and pure.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
It's not a license. In my example, I can't come and take away your copy of the work (let's say a CD). Once it's yours, the sale is complete and you get it forever, there is just a restriction on how you can use it. That doesn't make it a license.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I realize a lot of anti-copyright idiots like to pretend that copyright infringement doesn't actually hurt anyone (mostly because it makes them feel better about themselves), but in fact it does harm the economy.
Yep, it happens almost as much as the pro-fascism idiots like to pretend we should all be as alienated from our property rights as the average American. Thankfully some of us still live in functional democracies that do more than funnel public dollars in to the pockets of private monopolies. Hyperbole sure is fun isn't it?
This is a disjunct argument: we have copyright laws to encourage works to be created [by ensuring that they can be profited from, by making it possible to claim just compensation]. If you do not want your precious IP out in the world, then don't ever show it to anyone [and never profit from it, so don't even waste the time and expense creating it].
Support my political activism on Patreon.
They're not universal. They're not inalienable. God damn, are they ever not inalienable. For most of human history (and in a lot of places right now) they are absolutely alienable. They're privileges that exist in some places at some times. There's no such thing as a "natural right."
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Yeah it does. You can demand any sort of ludicrous concession you like as an added rider to selling me that CD. You can say that I can only listen to it in the dark hopping on one foot while wearing nothing but boxers and a smile. But the only thing that makes that enforceable is a license.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
You're drinking the cool-aid if you think it's progressives leading the charge towards feudalism.
You mean "Kool-aid"? All I hear from progressives is "more government, no spending cuts, more regulation, bigger taxes", etc. No delusions at all.
Conservative economic policies are what protect the wealthy 'feudal lords' you're talking about. Their regressive tax structures make social mobility much more difficult, which is useful for keeping the wealth concentrated in as few hands as possible.
I don't know what you are talking about here. Only about half the population in the US pays income tax at all. The top 2% pay more than the bottom 95%. Corporate welfare and complicated tax incentives, breaks, and all that crazy crap isn't "conservative economic policy" - balanced budgets and smaller government that gets out of the way are what conservative policy [should] be about.
Conservative social policies...
Social authoritarians, regardless of political stripe, need to get out of the way. People own themselves and that should be respected. But the progressives want to control every aspect of everyone's life, including how much water and energy they are allowed to use, what they should eat, where they should live, etc., etc. Nice straw man there with the whole social authoritarian rant.
Conservative educational policies
Education isn't a government function - maybe you could justify some government financial support for educating the less privileged, but you're so enamored with the monopolistic state indoctrination centers all you can complain about are the religious types trying to interject their views. Really?
Please provide some sort of example of how progressive policies try to control the population to a greater extent than conservative policies...
Sure. Here you go.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
What industries do you think work differently? Every consumer business is based on the 'work now, get paid later' model. Let's say you are a manufacturer of widgets (not copyright protected). You hire a bunch of people to design the widget, engineers to set up the manufacturing operation, secretaries, managers, janitors, etc. You take out a loan and pay all those people, even though you have not yet started manufacturing. Eventually you start manufacturing and selling your product. At that point you are 'getting paid' for all that work that was already done, and you 'get paid' for that with every widget you sell. The only difference between 'regular' jobs and copyright industry jobs is how the employee's get paid. In 'regular' businesses the employees get paid up front, and if the product does not sell well they lose nothing. On the other hand, if the product does sell well, the business owner gets all the benefit. In 'copyright' industries, the employees may be sharing in the risks and rewards. To the consumer, there is zero difference in these models, you are paying for work already completed in either case.
As surprising as this may seem, I agree with your distinction between physical and intellectual property. However, that doesn't impact my statement that property does not exist without government. Without government there can be no recognition that you own anything, you merely control something until someone stronger, sneakier, or with better aim takes it away from you or your rapidly cooling corpse. Once you have some agreement on who owns what, you have both a society and a government.
As far as Somalia goes, warlords are, by definition, a primitive form of government sometimes referred to as despotism. Government is required for capitalism, but it is not sufficient by itself.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Yeah. If we enforced that law, it would get repealed pretty fast, which is kinda the point. If there are unenforced and frequently broken laws on the books, then anyone who wants to hurt you can bring you up on frivolous but damaging charges. That is, rather obviously, a bad thing.
Also, if we start having some laws that are not enforced, it becomes much easier to enforce any laws selectively, which opens one huge door to corruption and oppression and other -essions.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
The only reason third-parties don't gain any traction is because of your lazy, defeatist attitude.
No, it's because the U.S. uses a first-past-the-post electoral system, which makes a two-party dominant system almost inevitable.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
You really don't get this concept. At all. There is absolutely such a thing as a natural right, and many governments are founded upon them. Having the right to X does not guarantee you will get X. It's a moral concept, it means that whenever you are deprived of X by someone, that person is in the wrong and deserves to be punished. Read some of the political thought that led to the creation of the United States, there's a lot of natural rights floating around there. I really hope you aren't from the US, because I'd hate to think that anyone here is completely ignorant of the concept which is the foundation of our entire government.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
LOL, okay - I don't want to quibble over semantics and definitions. We broadly agree. I'm not even anti-copyright. I think it, while not necessary, does benefit society.
My problem is that people have hijacked IP, and it goes far and above what is necessary to promote the useful arts. Most corporations might plan out 5 years - maybe 10 at a stretch - when planning a film, for instance. Extending copyright for films beyond that is just gravy for them and does nothing to add to society. I mean, to say that Disney controlling "Steamboat Willy" somehow benefits society is so absurd that it makes me question our collective sanity. :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Oh, so a "natural right" is in fact an abstract concept that is neither universal nor inalienable, neither natural nor a right. Should have just said so from the start, we wouldn't have had to have this argument.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Yeah, there is a cadre of next generation shill flamebaiters recently. I was going to add that besides Pro MS, Anti Google/Apple, they also seem to be taking the far right wing side of Gov issues.
Then on a quasi related theme, Goatse is back in version 2.0. The copy of choice used to be the French one, now it's the Russian one, except this new troll posts almost readable comments and uses at least four different links.
Very rough guess is that these new guys derail a thread worse than the Frosty Piss posts.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
It actually is a natural right.
In any case where you feel continuously threatened, problems will occur. Stress becomes damaging, and you will seek to alleviate this stress. Because of this, people living in societies where they feel they are constantly in danger eventually form revolutions, then governments that address all their fears.
A situation which creates a society where the majority feels unsafe is abusive, and naturally rejected. A society which punishes murder, assault, theft, rape, etc reduces the amount of general danger people are in; thus these things are inherent rights: life, freedom (i.e. the freedom to say or do whatever you like without encroaching on the safety and freedom of others and without fearing repercussions), security in your belongings (that they won't be stolen), etc. If the society does not make a meaningful and generally effective attempt at ensuring these rights, that society will find itself faced with huge technical problems; then a new society will replace it.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
...I laugh at Canada a little less.
I miss when this country actually used to stand for something worth defending.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
It's an abstract concept that is all the things you mentioned. Universal and inalienable, meaning that everyone has this right and cannot be stripped of it. Natural, meaning it does not come from any man-made law, but that it is inherent to existence.
You're making the assumption that having a right means you can apply it. That's not true, rights get ignored all the time (what else do you think the phrase "human rights violation" comes from?). The words you're using do not always mean what you're using them to mean.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I think we are pretty much in agreement. I remember an older article where the optimal length of a copyright term was determined mathematically. The result? 14 years.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
For the life of me I don't see why this is so hard to figure out. Sane copyright is simple. You get 5 years, free of charge to keep your work under copyright, then, once a year, you must send in $100 per year the work is past 5 years to maintain the copyright. So, the sixth year is a $100 fee, the 10th year it's $500, and so on. That lets the big companies like Disney, who don't want to see Mickey fall out of copyright saddled with big payments to keep their whole 70 year old catalog copyrighted, but it lets a simple author who wants to publish a book for 5 years to get to sell it for that length. If it still makes money after 5 years, he can pay the $100 to keep it copyrighted. Asimov would be paying about $6500 a year to keep each of the original Foundation books copyrighted, but he'd be making $50K a year on royalties, so it's worth it. On the other hand, the stuff that's only selling 20 copies a year fall to the public domain. Look, I just solved the whole argument. Simple, easy, and it pays for copyright enforcement out of the people who are paying to keep their old crap "safe."
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
Universal (adj.): including or covering all or a whole collectively or distributively without limit or exception, present or occurring everywhere
Inalienable (adj.): incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred
(From Merriam-Webster)
Neither of those words apply to the idea that you are describing. You are describing "legal rights" or "civil rights."
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
No, actually, you're describing those things (because a legal right is the guarantee that you will be able to secure your right to something, and is obtained by threat of force... exactly what you have been describing). You're failing to grasp that a natural right, as an abstract concept, is still present even if it is being ignored. That is why it is universal and inalienable, even though it may not be recognized in practice.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Both conservatives and progressives have good ideas. Both have bad ideas. Many times it's completely arbitrary and depends on what's important to you and what's important to society. I think politics are good or bad depending on the times, much like genes are good or bad depending on the environment. Spending as much on the military as the rest of the world combined seems extreme, but nobody every talks about cutting the military or addressing waste in defense. Social Security is a pyramid scheme that is unsustainable with a stabilizing/aging population. Neither side as any realistic solutions. The only decent solution I've heard to keep benefits steady and payment steady is to increase the population, but one side doesn't want anyone to have any more kids and the other doesn't want to allow immigration so we will just take it from younger generations by way of them paying in with little hope of ever getting anything back.
Anyone that thinks one side is 'better' than the other is less than objective. Both want to maintain wealth in the hands of the people that give to their campaigns. Whether it's those greedy rich people or those greedy unions. Both want to tell us the way we should live our lives. Whether it's one side telling me what I can eat, drink, and how much energy I can use or the other side telling me what I can smoke or who I can f**k, they are both for 'themselves' and against 'us'. I vote for people, not parties and to do otherwise is to drink the Kool-aid. It's just a choice between blueberry or cherry.
Amazingly enough, throughout history, regardless of the economic and social policies of any given society, humans as a whole have steadily progressed forward in technology, standards of living, health, rights and just about any other positive attribute you could name. It's as if the great minds that actually move society forward do so because of their great minds. Religion didn't stop mankind from figuring out the solar system or gravity or evolution and economics didn't stop the theory of relativity from being postulated.
American politics is a divide and conquer proposition. Aligning with either side of our black and white political spectrum just continues the decline of our country. Don't worry though, humans as a whole will continue to march forward it's only the name of the richest country that changes.
You're failing to grasp that a natural right, as an abstract concept, is still present even if it is being ignored. That is why it is universal and inalienable, even though it may not be recognized in practice.
That's ridiculous. Take an American citizen, a Saudi citizen, and a Chinese citizen. Ask them what their natural rights are. You will get three sets of answers. Not universal. Not inalienable. Not natural. A man-made concept. Split all the hairs you like.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
You have to admit that copyright infringement is a major problem that needs to be handled one way or another.
No, I don't.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
when 99% of politicians are bad, just because that 1% comes around every so often doesn't mean you can treat the 99% that are bad better.
Besides all power corrupts. the longer you give a person power the more it will corrupt them.
The greatest thing George Washington did wasn't defeat the british, or shape the government, but step down after 8 years and let someone else do it. That is the part most new countries fail at. It wasn't that at the time Saddam was a bad person, but the fact he stayed in office. When one person is in office so long that they begin to think that it is theirs then they have been there twice as long as they should have been.
Letting politicians police themselves is stupid. look at how many pay raises they give themselves already. I don't get an annual pay raise. I am non union. but elected officials give themselves pay raises and their staff raises and then complain the country has no money.
If they can't be trusted with paying themselves how can we trust them to stay in office?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Every time there is a discussion of copyright, some idiot brings up buggy whip manufacturers (I guess because it requires no thought to do so). Buggy whip manufacturers went out of business because people no longer wanted buggy whips. Period. If your argument was that copyright protected professions are going out of business because people no longer want professionally produced work, then you might have a point. No change to copyright can prevent that from happening, and in fact there is no attempt being made to prevent that from happening. However, there has been NO indication that people don't want professionally produced works (otherwise, there would be no piracy), only that people don't think they should have to PAY to get other people's work.
A literal genius among idiots. Seriously, thank you!
Its so refreshing to see someone post on this issue who actually has a brain and can say something other than the pirate propaganda and lies. Seriously, thank you!
Interestingly enough, notice when you ask these morons what they would do if someone was stealing their labor, they say they'd sue and yet its somehow morally wrong if the people they steal from does the same thing. And given the scale of the theft, whereby its all but impossible for owners to actually sue everyone, laws which protect them such scale of theft are somehow even more morally outrageous and disgusting.
Pirates on slashdot have literally convinced me that pirate is a nice way of saying, selfish, idiot, leech, loser, liar, hypocrite, delusional, with hints of proud communism.
So if you drop Think of the Children and 2 Click Felony into a big shiny casing, will the paradox power a car's engine?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
So you're willing to get paid 1/1000 of you're current wages? And obviously you're willing to paying $1000 per song and $10,0000 per movie?
Didn't think so. Pull your head from your ass. They get paid very little up front on the basis they'll make their money over time. Now you're arguing they are not entitled to make their money over time which means their only option is to make it all up front at day one.
So either you're an idiot and a lying hypocrite.
LOL! I just love that label. "Progressives."
Douche nozzle.
--TrisexualPuppy
That's easy. The best way to control the population is to suck them into being dependent on government programs and entitlements. Once that happens, not only will they tolerate the fraud, inefficiency, and waste inherent in those programs, they will keep voting for the people who will ensure that they remain dependent. These politicians and their useful idiots will claim that by not voting for them, the people are "voting against their best interests". A perfect example are the 'poverty pimps' like Rangel who are in office for decades while their districts largely go to hell.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
This is not a right. This is a government granted monopoly that can be revoked at any time.
No you are reading far too much into it.
We have copyright to encourage works. As we have no shortage of works we have no need to really enforce it anymore than we currently do, if that much. If that means you should not share or even create ideas as you could not stand someone else have the same idea then do not do it.
Copyright in itself is not a right. Copyright is a way to secure a right, however.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
You're assuming "something different" is always better. Term limits would kill any good politician from running again. We already have a mechanism for getting rid of bad politicians - it's called the voting booth. It would be far better to spend time making the voters more educated...
Says who? Since when is offering anyone a monopoly the right thing to do?
Copyright is morally offensive as it imposes on my rights by limiting to give someone else a monopoly. I actually do support a limited copyright under the original terms used in the USA. Copyright only exists to encourage works to be created, to impose it for any other reason is as offensive as any other oppressive law.
sending -kids- to prison to increase the prison population and make themselves money.
Google "kids for cash scandal". And kids can't vote either. And even though the judges were found or pled guilty, I don't think they are themselves in prison. I think they are out on appeal. I doubt they have even felt cuffs yet.
It's not offensive. If you knowingly buy a copy of a CD (for example), aware that it is being sold to you on the condition that you make no copies for anyone... that's your own fault for accepting a deal which you don't like the terms of. What is offensive is when the musician would be unwilling to sell you a copy without that restriction, you buy it, and then break the terms of the deal. You have, in effect, forced the musician to engage in a deal which he was not willing to engage in. We need a mechanism to prevent this.
One possible mechanism is making everyone who buys a CD sign a contract (so many contracts would be a nightmare to maintain, so not very practical). Another possible mechanism is copyright. By implementing copyright, we ensure that the musician who wishes to sell his work only on the "no copy" condition can make this deal without it being violated, while those who do not wish to enact this condition can declare that they are willing to allow their work to be freely copied. Either way, the creator is given the ability to sell his goods on the terms he/she chooses, and have those terms upheld.
Copyright isn't the only mechanism to protect this right (the right to choose how to do business), but it is one possible one, and works pretty well. It is not morally offensive to implement copyright for this reason. In fact, it would be morally offensive to not have a mechanism to protect this right, whether that mechanism is copyright or something else.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
The only reason third-parties don't gain any traction is because of your lazy, defeatist attitude.
The reason third-party candidates don't gain any traction is because the USA does not have widespread preferential voting.
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
That is a lovely little rant, and has nothing at all to do with the supposed argument that people are getting paid for 'doing nothing'.
Your rant is missing one crucial point: no-one is REQUIRED by the RIAA/MPAA or government to buy songs or movies, ever. So there certainly is a way to limit their greed - if the price is too high, don't use their product, same as for all other products. Gee, that wasn't so tough, was it? The only problem is people who think they are somehow entitled to have everything they want, on whatever terms they choose, and to hell with everyone else. I suspect you are in that category.
More delusion. In reality, you'd like get a judgment and never be paid. And that's assuming you can find an attorney to take you case. And if you can, most of your judgment, assuming you ever get paid, would be absorbed by the attorney.
Assuming that I won the case, which if i was fired but never paid for working up till then I would, I would ask for (and probably receive) attorney's fees paid for by the company.
Find a new job.
So what you're advocating is everyone who creates must find a new job. You just destroyed a huge segment of the economy. Congratulations idiot!
Wow, you hold up a strawman of "what if your boss came back saying they don't think they should have to pay you" and then manage to bring it back to the tangentially related topic of copyright. If my boss decided that they didn't want to pay me, it would be stupid to continue to work there, I'd find a job that wanted to pay me for my work. Considering I'm an engineer, it's a very different situation from a self-employed artist or creator.
I didn't advocate "everyone who creates must find a new job" i was talking about the specific situation you described which is not the same as "everyone who creates". Good job. A boss deciding not to pay an employee is very different from a business not having a viable business model with the current state of consumers.
> Ignoring for the moment your use of that absurd euphamism ("share")
Antipirates use much more intellectually dishonest terms to describe p2p. "Stealing" and "theft" come to mind, despite that copyright infringement is neither. You yourself are fond of saying "ripping off".
> This is about people who are in the busines of ripping off other people's work so they can draw visitors to their own web sites and generate their own ad revenue without having to invest money in creating the content that brings eyeballs in.
Considering the context of the grandparent's post, it is you who are missing the point. The injustices listed by the grandparent (causing massive economic disruption, torturing people, and unconstitutional wiretaps) are orders of magnitude worse than copyright infringement, even for profit. I have to assume that you know this, and yet you are pushing emotional arguments against copyright infringement as though it were more important than any of the aforementioned issues. This, too, is dishonest... unless you truly believe that copyright protections are of the utmost importance, relatively.
To be perfectly honest, I don't give a damn whether you care about the creation of works. There is no reason for government to be involved whatsoever in what is essentially a private interaction of commerce. The decision to provide copyright was a bargain struck between the public and the people who create works that they could get a government granted monopoly of their creation in order to create an incentive to create. If copyright is hindering creation, then it no longer serves its purpose and should be fixed so that it can serve that purpose or removed. If there's no facilitation of creation, then the government has no right to grant the monopoly.
People were able to make a living by creating things long before copyright and they continue to make a living in many many situations without copyright and they would continue to find ways if we got rid of copyright. Copyright is not essential. Now, I'm not fanatic and saying we must abolish copyright altogether, though I don't see a problem with it, I'd be perfectly happy with simply reducing its length drastically. Say the original 14 years or less.
Well, of course there are many, many different flavors of socialist and and communist philosophies (both economic and political), but most real wold examples overlap more than they do not.
Theoretically, both free market capitalism (where the means of means of production are privately owned) and socialism (where the means of production are publicly owned/controlled) can work toward the public good; whether either system often does this in real life is debatable. There are, however, a myriad of real examples where capitalism works to make the people's life better, through the competition. So, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", is hardly socialist rhetoric. Competition in a capitalist economy benefits the corporations, it benefits their owners (managers and shareholders alike), and it benefits Joe Public through optimizing price and innovation, and it also gives people something to do.
The idea of a limited duration monopoly isn't a socialist ideal--in a socialist state, people who do more work (such as inventors) are simply supposed to be recognized with a larger disbursement of public resources. It's really telling, as the big names amongst people who pushed for "workers states" never had regular jobs.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
If there's no facilitation of creation, then the government has no right to grant the monopoly.
That's where you're wrong. In the specific case of the US government, you may be correct due to the way the constitution is worded. In general, they have every right, because they aren't granting a monopoly that the copyright owners couldn't already grant themselves with contracts drawn up between them and every buyer (and any creator who wishes to not exercise that option can still opt out of copyright). Nothing different is happening, this is simply a more efficient way to reach the same point.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Actually something very different is happening. Copyright infringement results in large damages and mandatory statutory damages with unproven situation and industries that are created around it. A creator who drafts up a contract and then some one does something against the contract would simply be a breach of contract civil suit. The penalty would be hugely different and there wouldn't be entire industries surrounded around it. Let's face it, Copyright as it is currently implemented is not sufficient nor useful when the cost of copying is 0.
In general, they have every right, because they aren't granting a monopoly that the copyright owners couldn't already grant themselves with contracts...
Except without copyright, people who abuse that monopoly (ie. most copyright owners) to stifle competition (ie. most copyright owners) could be investigated and fined under the anti-trust laws. Instead copyright allows them to have a monopoly, granted by the government, legally, and be as anti-competitive as they like.
The idea of a limited duration monopoly isn't a socialist ideal--in a socialist state, people who do more work (such as inventors) are simply supposed to be recognized with a larger disbursement of public resources.
I might buy that it's not socialist because the intent isn't there, even if the effect is similar, and even if the goal is to better the entire society. But I sure won't buy that it is capitalism. Government interference in the free market is never a free-market capitalist idea, let alone the government invention of a new form of property. It is a lot like a tax incentive - the government gives tax incentives in order to achieve some social result. Home ownership for example. But no one would argue that the mortgage deduction is a capitalist program. It is social engineering, even if you don't want to call it socialism.
Now mind you, I am not a pure capitalist myself. I think the huge swings associated with capitalism are worth moderating, even at the cost of some efficiency. I think a limited patent/copyright term is a great idea, and it seems to work in practice, even if the laws have been stacked over the years in favor of the IP holders at the expense of society.
I just don't understand it when people are against other places where the government meddles with the economy/society, yet they support copyright as if it is the same as a physical property right.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
> Pirates love to pirate but if they keep it up, someday they may not have anything worth pirating. The things I mentioned in the previous post are likely consequences of pirates winning.
No, they are examples of the nonsense spread by the antipiracy groups in order to scare people away from the idea of free distribution. You are making the assumption that if the end user does not pay for the content, then creating that content is not possible. I'm typing this comment on an operating system composed entirely of software that I legally downloaded for free; the creators have chosen to give their work away to the world, and I find their software to be of a very high quality. I listen to music that I similarly acquired freely and legally, with the artists' blessings. Hell, even Wikipedia and similar wikis are a perfect counterexample to your points, as the contributors give freely to the sites, which give their content freely to the public via copyleft licenses. You will notice that in none of those cases do I pay a dime to anyone for their work, and yet, for some reason, I still receive software updates, I can still browse for new music, and people still edit Wikipedia.
The old business model of artificial scarcity is not the only way of doing things. In fact, in an environment that does not acknowledge the existence of artificial scarcity (the Internet, where everything can be copied), it's a bad business model.
> Secondly, high criminal penalties probably would stop piracy.
Ridiculous. First, an article was just posted a couple of days ago which completely disproves your point and states that the only really good way to minimize piracy is for content creators and distributors to lower their prices and remove artificial barriers that drive people to piracy (such as 'not available in your region' messages and DRM). Who would have guessed that suing and criminalizing your customers isn't a good business strategy?
Second, why do you support 'high criminal penalties' for something as minor as copyright infringement? Is downloading a song really such a massive offense that you deserve to be subject to 'high criminal penalties'? I hope you realize that you're playing right into the hands of large media corporations by supporting their nonsense. And when all is said and done, they would be happy to throw you in prison along with a huge chunk of the world population. (What, did you think that pirates were anything but your average Joe and Jane?)
Third, what sort of penalties are we talking about here? Naturally, you have a good idea of the legal measures that should be put in place to smash pirates once and for all. Naturally, they will be effective at their stated purpose. Naturally, there will not be any chance of punishing an innocent person. Naturally, these measures will not impose any restrictions on rights that are more important than copyright protection, such as free speech, due process, fair use, and personal privacy rights. Naturally, these measures will not impede technological advancements or innovation. All of this is correct, right? Because I've never seen an antipiracy measure that does all of those. Good luck trying to stop the copying and sharing of certain strings of bits without unjustly interfering with the copying and sharing of any other strings of bits.
> The points I'm trying to make is just because something can be done easily doesn't mean you should do it.
It doesn't matter. Antipirates can rage all they want about the sheer immorality of file sharing, but it cannot be stopped. If people want to pirate, they will. Everyone else needs to adapt to this truth and find ways to live with it, rather than vainly trying to fight it back to the stone age.
You missed Price... Price is still a big cause of piracy... and then you have obnoxious DRM which you claim is dead
I can name at least 2 PC games ive purchased, which i then obtained torrented copies, because it was easier to make the torrents run 'out of the box' than the purchased copies
As for DRM, theyre trying to use it as much as possible, though a few companies are getting the hint, most are pro DRM, and they heavier the better as far as theyre concerned. Then you have incidents like http://www.hardocp.com/news/2011/03/11/ea_forum_ban_prevents_game_access63/ getting a temp ban on a forum, which gets you banned from Single Player
Finally you have companies wanting the First Sale doctrine to be scrapped, as they dont want people buying second hand games/music/software as it hurts their precious business model of 'well make $x of every man woman and child in the world and if we dont, "ITS A LOST SALE TO PIRACY"'
Logical next step - unapproved encryption is illegal.
They already tried that in the 1990s. It didn't work because of the sheer ridiculousness of regulating encryption.
Commenting on Slashdot makes you feel witty, but doesn't accomplish much. Write your reps, vote with your money.
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. " - Douglas Adams
No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
This is not a natural right, it is no different than claiming that you owe GM money everytime you sell your used car. What part of that is so hard for you to grasp?
This is a granted monopoly. There is no right to choose how to do business. If there was I could pay with dollars that the MPAA can only spend in my store or on things I approve of.
Bullshit. Everyone has the right to choose how to do business. That includes both parties. You absolutely have the right to only pay with money the MPAA can only spend in your store, just as they have the right to refuse to accept that as payment. What part of this is so hard for you to grasp? You seem to have a fundamental lack of understanding about the basic liberties that individuals have.
If you don't like the fact that some musician is only selling copies of their CD on the condition that you don't copy them, then don't buy it! That is your right. Nobody guarantees that people will do business with an individual in the way he/she chooses, but doing business in that fashion is their right if they so choose.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Sorry, but the original idea of copyright is a bad one: the use of coercion (fines, imprisonment, etc.) to control others' behavior when said behavior causes you no harm. (No, competition with your preferred distribution service is not harm; your ability to employ your own property remains unaffected.) Even granting that you have the best of intentions—and that, for better or worse, copyright privileges certainly do increase the amount of copyrightable works created, as with any subsidy—it remains wrong to use aggression for any purpose.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Term limits mean nothing. The next candidate will also play ball. They all will. They must, because if they don't, those who support "Prohibition III - Now You Are All Criminals" will finance their opponents and third party PR firms. The Citizens United ruling has opened the doors to infinite amounts of corporate money.
The only thing that could stop this - and it should have been done ten years ago - is to remove contributions to political campaigns entirely, public and private. Publicly finance campaigns. Remove the money from the system. But it may now be too late. The money is the government now, and they won't let go of power.
Additionally:
1. Repeal the laws regarding corporate personhood.
2. Pass laws stating that money does not equal free speech. Speech is speech.
3. Remove with utter prejudice the computerized voting system and use Canada's manual count system. It's useless to try to throw the rascals out if they can control the vote totals. They can and will.
Pretty soon just disagreeing with the government position will be a felony
That's the one thing I'm pretty sure they won't do. Speaking as a non-American, my observation is that Americans have it pretty much imprinted in their heads that freedom of speech equals freedom. As long as he can criticise the government, the President, the "clowns in Washington", etc, to his heart's content, it will never occur to the average American citizen that he's not free even if, say, the incarceration rate for the USA is the highest in the world by some significant margin.
And there's really no point in curtailing freedom of speech. Establishment-friendly mass media shape discourse very effectively. A person or a hundred thousand complaining their hearts out in the Internet or whatever make no difference at all.
"Everyone commits crimes on a regular basis. It's just that most of them are so trivial that there is no reason to enforce the law, even when in princible there could be a jail term of many years."
Unless there is something else you're doing that someone doesn't like that they can't actually bring charges for. Case in point, Assange. Can't bust him for Wikileaks so they dig up some trivial thing from years ago and throw you in the lockup.
When lawyers and cops are involved, NOTHING is trivial.
No, it is a government granted monopoly to encourage the creation of works. That is all. I highly suggest you read up on the subject and its history.
"...And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers!" ...and streaming infringers.
You mean "Kool-aid"? All I hear from progressives is "more government, no spending cuts, more regulation, bigger taxes", etc. No delusions at all.
I thought you'd be more sensitive to trademark infringement in a copyright infringement thread. Seriously though, explain to me why any of those are bad things. More government is what pulled the US out of the great depression, and this is the worst economic slump since then. No spending cuts isn't a bad thing, espicially when you consider the fact that the conservative definition of "spending cuts" means "social program cuts, but absolutely no cuts to the unending torrent of cash poured into the gaping maw of the military industrial complex". More regulation would definitley be a good thing, unless you suffer from some form of brain damage that causes you to believe that the reason we're currently in an economic crisis is because wall street and the mortgage brokers were overregulated, even though there were twelve straight years of de-regulation preceding the crisis. And anyone who has ever actually analyzed the history of income taxes in this country can tell you that bigger taxes on the rich results in a healthier middle class, which is what a government that plans on existing for any extended period of time should be trying to promote.
I don't know what you are talking about here. Only about half the population in the US pays income tax at all. The top 2% pay more than the bottom 95%. Corporate welfare and complicated tax incentives, breaks, and all that crazy crap isn't "conservative economic policy" - balanced budgets and smaller government that gets out of the way are what conservative policy [should] be about.
Really, the people who control almost the entirety of the wealth in this country pay most of the taxes? That would almost be fair if it weren't for the fact that it's a complete fucking lie. http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=129270,00.html clearly shows to anyone who understands basic division that the top two percent, actually contribute less than 50% of the tax income recieved by the US, even they control over 80 percent of the wealth. Please try again, this time check your numbers.
Conservative social policies...
Social authoritarians, regardless of political stripe, need to get out of the way. People own themselves and that should be respected. But the progressives want to control every aspect of everyone's life, including how much water and energy they are allowed to use, what they should eat, where they should live, etc., etc. Nice straw man there with the whole social authoritarian rant.
Education isn't a government function - maybe you could justify some government financial support for educating the less privileged, but you're so enamored with the monopolistic state indoctrination centers all you can complain about are the religious types trying to interject their views. Really?
Ok, we'll just have to agree to disagree here. You can go ahead and move to some spot where you'll be under the jurisdiction of a third world despot if you want to live in a country that forsakes education of the masses for the financial benefit of the rich, because there are plenty of them out there, I'm just guessing that you wouldn't actually want to live in any of them, because they're all horribly regressive shitholes where a silly religion would be forced upon you under penalty of death. Seriously, list one nation that doesn't have state sponsored educational programs that isn't a complete fucking hellhole. You can't, because they don't exist, because only a moron would want to live in a country run by people who were so stupid they didn't understand that education is the key to success in the modern world, and that it is literally in every single country's on best interest to ma
I think you mean the ones that are the most successful are pay TV which was my point. 15 years ago when commercials weren't so obnoxious and there weren't nearly as many then ad-supported TV was much more popular. At some point in the last few years people gave up and started fighting back. On the Internet you get adblock-plus which many sites are complaining about these days and on TV you see HBO and Showtime gaining viewership.
That's an old trick. Famously used on Al Capone. The police couldn't actually prove beyond reasonable doubt any of his dealings with the mafia, but they were still very confident in his guilt - so they looked for something else, searching his past for some other crime he had committed that they could use for which conviction would be easier. They came up with tax evasion - conviction successful.
To give a more underhanded example, there was Matthew Bandy. Due to a mistake by the state police, he was falsely charged with posession of child pornography. His computer had been hacked, but without his knowledge, and he was able to show this in court. The incident was a huge embarassment for the police - it created the standard media circus in the local press, with many locals angry that they would accuse someone of such a serious crime wrongly. After it became clear they had screwed up, the police grew desperate. They discovered during their investigation that, when in high school, he had once brought an issue of Playboy in to show his friends. That was enough for them: They charged him with 'distributing pornography to a minor' instead, and this time told him that if he would plea guilty to that and register as a sex offender for life they would generously drop the child porn charges - thus saving them the further embarassment of actually losing in court or letting him go free. Eventually he managed to get out of that, but not through legal means - he managed to get the TV program 20/20 to do a program about event, and with the national spotlight turned on them the police finally dropped all charges just to make the whole thing end.
Back to the original point: Everyone has done something illegal, and if you upset the police there is a good chance they'll go to dig some of that up.
I correctly undestood that if this goes in effect and be applied non-discrimanatory in USA if somebody smuggle sniper rifle into USA and used on MPAA executives(and repeat that until either caught or out of ammo or MPAA is out of top management),after police asks to surrender - this somebody surrender and confess) she will punished less severly than just uploading before official release?
I think you mean the ones that are the most successful are pay TV which was my point.
No, I meant the pay model is not very successful. HBO is hurting, despite having awesome content. Far from gaining viewership, they are bleeding subscribers. One explanation could be that people who care about commercials find Netflix more appealing. But my point is that on the broadcast television "platform", commercial-free TV is an aberration. Commercials pay most of the bills.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
People no longer want content that makes legitimate users jump through hoops. And they are doing something about it.
When demand is created through advertisements found everywhere, expect people who cannot afford it to desire it and take it by whatever means they have. Can't have it both ways.
Send a better message. Tell them that they keep changing the covenant on using copyrighted goods and that we are sick of it. Making it difficult to make my legal back-ups? I'll take that out on you by accessing some of your content without payment. It's just a little give and take.
Blar.
You should have gone into plumbing or brick-laying. Copyright has a place but the rights continue to shift towards the producers and away from consumers. It's just a little civil disobedience.
If you staked your livelihood on copyright law, well...sorry.
Blar.
Nobody is entitled to make money. Business models should not be protected by law. Copyright is being abused...it no longer creates value for society as a whole. You'll understand when you get a little older.
Blar.
A 'felony'.
I guess the erosion here of any concept of respect for the individual begins at passing new laws with absurd consequences. It can be a misdemeanor to assault another individual on the street, but they propose that it be a felony to dare infringe upon the potential profit of the faceless would be corporate benefactor of your unwarranted and unlicensed viewing of some 'copywritten' content.
Oh if only that same blade cut both ways. Let it be a 'felony' for any corporate prick who got my personal info that I didn't specifically permit, or who used up my precious time with a phone call I didn't specifically authorize, or who sent me a pound of junk mail that I didn't ask for and won't use.
Perhaps this is just my own agitation, but I feel this is an egregious example of corporatism.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
You only think that because you've been culturally engineered by growing up in a society like that.
There are plenty of examples throughout the history of human existence where that was not the case, with exception of murder. The right to light is perhaps the only natural right we have.
You have no idea how the entertainment industry works. Educate yourself, then come back here and troll again.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
You didn't bother to read the post, or are an idiot. I explained a base psychological need for security in all things perceived as necessary for life, which is a strong evolutionary advantage and thus naturally developed as part of our species. Put packs of animals in situations where they constantly feel threatened and they will eventually begin to attack things around them, infight, etc, until they develop some sort of comfortable life.
If you have an alpha wolf that is constantly attacking members of its pack for no reason, stealing their food so they're often hungry, attacking them in their sleep, etc, eventually the other wolves will all attack it because they don't feel any safer by default anyway. They'll kill it, and one of them will become the pack leader.
Nature does not accept rule by assholes. I mean hell, the easiest way to get a girl to sleep with you is to make sure she's safe, relatively happy, not tired enough to really want to sleep, and not hungry. If she feels threatened and you start making moves, you're not getting anywhere. Doesn't this tell you something about the nature of peoples' desire for security?
Support my political activism on Patreon.
expect people who cannot afford it to desire it and take it by whatever means they have.
That's a critical flaw in justifying theft. These are luxury goods first and foremost. Second of all, several studies have repeated shown, the majority of pirates absolutely can afford what they are stealing. Third of all, several studies consistently show price has very little to do with piracy. The vast majority of pirates steal because they feel entitled to steal. The vast, vast majority of reasons pirates say they steal are either completely illogical or factually invalid, and really all boil down to excuses to justify theft without having to admit to themselves and society they are nothing but a common thief. Furthermore, to maintain their own hypocritical sense of self, they then actively recruit others into their like mindedness reality distortion which then further props up their failed sense of self.
Piracy has literally become the world's largest cult.
This is copyright infringement.
I didn't claim that the price mattered, simply that if you shove something in someone's face long enough they are going to want it...and if they can get it free, they will.
That's human nature, and just like socialism doesn't work due to human nature, copyright protections in the digital age don't work due to human nature.
Blar.
Your error is that you mistake "base psychological need" with a natural right. I have a base need to eat food. I have a base need to procreate. I have a base need to be warm and comfortable. Are those natural rights? No. If so, then I could go demand that the bank is infringing on my natural rights because they took my house away and left me in the cold.
Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights#Natural_rights_versus_legal_rights and maybe this will help.
Also, you say Nature does not accept rule by assholes, and yet there are plenty of examples to cite where we have, and gladly. Just to name a few- Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, these are all names of people who led millions of people, and (according to most people) were assholes. I know what you're going to say- "But those people were eventually all removed from power! Nature wins again!" but it wasn't by their own people. Stalin wasn't removed at all and died in power. And what about other people in power who may be considered assholes by some, but aren't typically viewed in that light by the history books. Ask a Native American what they thought of Andrew Jackson and I bet you're get something roughly translating to "asshole." I'd also like to point out that plenty of rulers who were NOT assholes were not accepted, which further invalidates your theory.
Also, there is no need to resort to name calling.
The welfare queen myth is one of my favorite conservative ghost stories too! I love how it simultaneously suggests that poor people are poor because they want to be poor, hints that the key to solving their problem is to shove them deeper in to poverty, and leaves just a slight aftertaste of racism in your mouth. Really though, bringing up disproven conservative talking points from the 70's isn't a good way to be taken seriously. No one with a brain in their head believes that welfare fraud makes any meaningful impact on the nations economy any more because it never did. The entire concept was just an attempt to scapegoat poor people for economic problems thought up in a conservative think tank in the 60's as a way to focus economic anger downward toward the underclass, instead of upward towards the wealthy, the direction in which such anger had traditionally been focused since the dawn of time.
That's why it is fun to point out the socialist stuff in the constitution to these people.
A noble goal. Though I generally get blank or hostile looks everytime I mention the "general welfare" bits.
I figure the Constitution is a bit like the Bible. A document that lots of people find fundamental, but not many of its fans have ever read or took time to understand. To further the analogy; it also is mostly interpreted to mean whatever someone previously beleived and then used to present this opinion as some objective truth based on some cherry picked quotes.
Though, generally (and this might continue the Bible comparison), 90% of the interpretations are actually attempts to somehow glean the intentions of a bunch of people who have been dead for a very long time. Everytime someone says "the Founders wanted", I always want to ask them how long were they able to speak to ghosts.
"Well yes, the Constition doesn't cover this explicitly, but the Founders obviously wanted..." I've had this conversation before. To their credit they then bring in a bunch of other documents written by the Founder that most agrees with their point of view, completely ignoring the other Founders who wrote different opinions.
This also ignores the fact that saying "the Founders" is a bit silly and pointless, since they weren't a unified group who agreed with pretty much anything.
Sorry for the rant. Everytime someone uses the Constitution as a weapon I get a bit pissy.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I see what you're saying, however, I don't know that this is a problem with the idea of copyright so much as the modern (piss-poor) implementation of it. I think that copyright law (in the US, which is all I have any familiarity with) is a joke the way it is now. I think it needs serious reform, and I would never defend that status quo. What I'm defending is the concept, which I think can be implemented in a far more reasonable way than we have at the moment.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
It's basically a trade.
"You cough up some creativity, and we'll give you the exclusive rights to use it."
Indeed, that is what the wording in the constitution means.
Seems though that after coopting the federal government they get to find a loophole and avoid upholding their end of the bargain.
Getting the government to grant monopolies is quite capitalist if you consider politicians as a commodity.
That's a mighty big if when there are vested interests in monopolizing the market, erecting high barriers to entry, and other such things.
You generally have the right to enforce agreements.
Once you've made a deal, you've made a deal. If they don't cough up the cash they agreed to pay you, then they are in breach.
I'd say that both ideas and rain come from the same place.
It doesn't matter.
Corporate approved gatekeepers will keep everyone with a conscience from even making it to the primaries.
LOL! Best comment in the whole thread.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.