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Copyright Common Sense From Telecom Ericsson
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from a story at Torrentfreak:
"Entertainment industry lobby groups often describe file-sharers as thieves who refuse to pay for any type of digital content. But not everyone agrees with this view. Swedish telecom giant Ericsson sees copyright abuse as the underlying cause of the piracy problem. In a brilliant article, Rene Summer, Director of Government and Industry Relations at Ericsson, explains how copyright holders themselves actually breed pirates by clinging to outdated business methods. The most vocal rightsholder groups would ideally turn the Internet into a virtual police state, and at the other end of the spectrum there are groups that want to abolish copyright entirely.'"
Sensible people?
I had a job producing copyrighted content (video games). Believe me, nobody would have invested in creating these in the first place without the guaranteed monopoly that copyright protection provides.
If you don't like copyright, then that's fine. I can point you to a whole load of games that are actually pretty good fun that would have been produced with or without copyright protection. The thing is, the existence of copyright in no way harmed these efforts, just like it doesn't harm fan produced films, free music or other types of free software.
The thing is, some of us like the media that's produced as a result of the industry that relies on copyright protection. I don't think it would be at all sensible from my point of view
This week the online community managed to get the attention of the lawmakers in Argentina and paused the approval of a law that would instate a private copy levy on MP3 players, CDs, DVDs and even hard drives. This law would be similar to the ones already in place in Europe and that are being contested by the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Those of us who got informed in time were able to watch the session of the Congress during which the proposed law was presented and different groups that represent copyright holders (record labels, filmmaking producers, etc) expressed their views about it. Many representatives of these groups were over 70 years old. By repeating phrases such as "artists have a right to make a living" they were continuously showing that they have no grasp of the current market. It was clear that most of them were there to be shown in camera and to be certain that their groups got included as recipients for the levy. There were no dissident voices, not one member of Congress or representative of technology groups that expressed arguments against the approval of the law. In fact, the only congressmen present were "ready to approve the law tomorrow" as one said.
Lobbying at its finest.
RIAA and friends are calling downloader thieves. I'm going to say something that might not be very popular with the holier-than-thou types: pirating music from labels are members of RIAA, MPAA and their equivalents is an ethical obligation. Here is why.
If I was born about 200 years ago, I could be reasonably certain that I could share art that I enjoyed as a teen with my own children, not to mention my grandchildren. My generation would have enjoyed this "privilege" as well. This has been stolen from us. They stole our public domain. Thanks to the lobbying of the movie and music industries and corrupt politicians, now we have a copyright extend beyond our own children's lifetime. Generations lost access to culture. And these people have the guts to call downloaders pirates?!
I want RIAA, MPAA and friends to die. As soon as possible. I'm refusing to buy any music or movies published under their label. I'm more than willing to pay for entertainment by the way. I will buy Mass Effect 3 as soon as it's out. I'd support musicians who are experimenting with self publishing or services like Jamendo. But I would never pay for music when I know that about 70% of my money goes to thieves. Thieves that did the public HUGE harm - depriving generations from access to culture, be it music, literature or whatever.
Not really. People who hold copyrights are not entitled to them, they are granted them by an Act of Congress. Resolving these problems in a way that is most beneficial for people (not the corporations pushing these laws) is only proper.
Which sound reasonable, but assumes that both parties' demands are equally extreme. If one party's demands embody a fair and ideal solution, while the other's are off-the-deep-end bat-shit-crazy, meeting mid-way is going to result in a less than ideal solution, skewed in favor of the extremist party. Simply meeting in the middle would result in an arms race of making the most absurd and extreme demands.
...As capacity on networks and hard drives increase exponentially , sharing is going to expand.... exponentially.
Once upon a time, it would have been idiotic to claim that anyone that might hear a song as they walk down the street should pay a fee to do so. Content is increasingly moving through the population much faster/easier/pervasively than the sound of a performance. How the heck can anyone expect every transfer of content to result in a payment to multiple parties?
Oh, you would like EVERY SONG EVER RECORDED in the 1900's? Indexed? With reviews? Here, make a copy of this [ some future tech memory flavor ] card. You don't think that will be possible? You are not paying attention.
Copyright NEEDS to go away. It only exists to promote the production of content, and there isn't a shred of evidence that content is promoted by copyright today. There is every evidence that content is HINDERED by copyright.
I would like to podcast my Church's services. Can't, Copyright
I would like to listen to any radio station in the world over the Internet. Can't, Copyright, Broadcast right
I would like to toss my cable subscription in favor of streaming shows. Can't, Copyright and License restrictions.
I would like to record the occasional HD broadcast (given I have to have cable). Can't, Copyright and License restrictions and broken DVR by AT&T
I would like to listen to a book read to me while I drive from my Kindle. Can't Copyright
And even as I say I can't have all these things, really I can by just downloading what I want into the appropriate application. Today. Without any permission to do so from anyone.
And it is just going to get easier.
Content will be produced even without copyright, because content drives attention, and attention drives sells. Sells of what? Anything. Everything.
And people will ALWAYS pay modest amounts for packaged content. Because they are buying "ease of use", and "time". Why spend hours collecting and organizing pirated content when I can buy content already collected and organized? But mostly we CAN'T get our content packaged the way we want because of copyright. Because Big Content wants the past to continue. We pirate because we can't buy content at prices we can afford, and can't get it in the form we want to consume it in.
Big content wants to swallow the reductions in cost provided by the Internet (Little distribution costs, no manufacturing costs, no retail costs) but collect the same level of revenue on every sell. They want NOBODY else to make a dime. They want it all, mailed to them with a kiss, without providing any value to the consumer. Sorry, but that isn't the way it works.
Big content wants to make us all criminals by making content effectively illegal in the ways we want to consume content, unless we pay, and pay big. Higher prices even as the magnitude of available content explodes? How does that work with Supply and Demand? Oh wait! Copyright ISN'T about Supply and Demand, but how much Government Granted Monopolies can make the population pay for their content!
If you dig conspiracies, then Government wants the consumption of content illegal so they can be bigger, and can selectively put people in jail they don't like, and to suppress free speech, and as an excuse to exert more and more control over the population as a whole. If you don't care for conspiracies, then our politicians just want the contributions from Hollywood. Either way is bad for the common man.
We need to vastly cut back copyright, or accept that any of our children will have their future selectively demolished over copyright should they cross someone that doesn't like them. We need to cut back copyright unless we accept a desert of legal content in an ocean of available content. We need to cut back on copyright unless it is okay to censor the Internet and censor free speech and silence the citizens because some copyright might be infringed upon.
This is a rant. Yes, but it is also the truth.
I'd like to share your paycheck with my children and grandchildren. It's SO unfair that I cant!
So, you're against the RIAA and friends as well then? Because this is exactly what they want to do. Copyrights have been extended far beyond the lifetime of the original artist - so that the paycheck winds up being delivered to their children and grandchildren. Or, in more cases than not, the faceless corporation that owns the rights.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Every solution to every problem forces sacrifices. Funny though how nobody wants a solution that makes THEM sacrifice.
Every efficiency gain in technology sacrifices the products without that efficiency. Tech has seen it so much they take it for granted. Had the recording industry had to deal with the rise in value and the fall in revenue that technology companies have lived with, we would be buying whole libraries of music for use any way we would like to use it for a dollar and a quarter.
Yes, tech HAS seen orders of value for price paid go up by a factor of 1,000,000 or more. I bought a computer for 1000 dollars in the 80's with 4K of memory, and I use a laptop today I bought for 600 dollars with 6 Gig of memory.
Content just HAS to price its product to compete with reality, and the reality is that it doesn't cost as much to produce content, package content, and distribute content.
It costs orders of magnitude less (how many, I don't know) to make their product and sell their product. Yet we haven't seen orders of magnitude cut from the price of content.
It seems the only one allowed to sacrifice in the content game is the consumer.
If you download the media you're still endorsing the RIAA and MPAA. You're demonstrating that they're the ones creating the content that people want and you're still legitimising what they produce.
False.
The MAFIAA are simply Promoters, Publicists, and Producers. They do not Create.
It only costs $200 million to produce when it involves Big Hollywood Stars. Hollywood is to blame for creating a system that puts a handful of "cool" people that *need* to be in a movie to make it attractive to the people. People demand Megan Fox. Megan Fox charges you a few million to appear in the movie, the price skyrockets. Fuck that, Megan Fox is just a hot girl among the other 3.something billion women out there in the world.
The RIAA method is the same. Just create a handful of Big Pop Idols and make shitloads out of their image, merchandise, endorsements, and maybe some of their music too. Pay a few million to shakira is less risky that pay a few hundred thousands to Nobodies, because promoting 1 shakira is easier than promoting 100 Nobodies.
Do I care? No, I don't live in a big city. I never went to a big concert in a stadium. I don't care how big U2's show is this year cause I won't see it. And those huge, ridiculous shows are what the music industry is about. Does it matter to me if RIAA dies along with Shakira, U2, Madonna or whoever is at the top today? No. It doesn't change MY life. The death of RIAA would mean more music variety in radios (no RIAAman forcing you to play specific songs N times a day), and some expensive sound engineers (I think the term is "producer" in the music industry) "downgraded" to... sound engineers that get paid the same as any other working class guy. House prices in Beverly Hills dropping and thrift stores in Rodeo Drive. Oh noes! The losses!
Who's to say the quality would decrease? If anything, it might actually increase...
Quantity would certainly decrease, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
There is a lot of shovelware media out there, garbage movies, poor quality software, poor music etc mostly written by people with no real love for their work, just wanting to make a quick buck... If there were no bucks to be made, then the only people who would create media are those who enjoy doing so.
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The article is written from a European perspective. I live in Sweden - if I want to watch a televised game of rugby from the UK - the only way that I can do this is to connect to an "illegal" p2p stream. There is no rugby at all on Swedish TV - not even 5 minutes a month. The reason is that the rights holders refuse to allow the distribution of the games outside of the traditional catchment pool that they know they can sell to. They are not interested in selling to a small expat audience in a foreign country. Its artificial border like restrictions like these that he's writing about. Ask why is the BBC restricted solely to the UK? - and everyone in the UK will answer - because we have to pay the licence. Why not allow a licence across Europe though? Why artificially control the audience without providing any legal means to view the content to those you chose to leave out? The result is that the BBC content is widely pirated.
Well, that's your problem - why should doing what you do be a protected method of living? Get a job like the rest of people and if you want, create stuff in your spare time..
Advances in industry made plenty other occupations redundant, or turned them into the public, after all
In the time that's coming it very well might be that professional content producers will lose it to the public, just like newspaper are slowly losing out to other information sources on the internet
The only way you can hold onto information is not to release it into the public. That's it.
And well, you are misstating it heavily with the 99 cents.. Perhaps get a paycheck for developing the app from the hardware manufacturer who after all needs apps for his platform (a very likely source of income for folk like you if copyrights and such are abolished)