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and Industry Relations at Ericsson, explains how copyright holders themselves actually breed pirates by clinging to outdated business methods.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.'"

Comments

easy to judge others

[cheeks5965]

It seems that whenever someone has the solution for copyright problems, it always involves somebody else making sacrifices. no surprise, hmm?

Re:easy to judge others

[dyingtolive]

One man's "solution" resulting in someone else's "sacrifice" is hardly unique to copyright problems.

Re:easy to judge others

[softWare3ngineer]

its not even unique to 'solutions' in general.

Re:easy to judge others

[molnarcs]

Sacrifices?

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.

Re:easy to judge others

[Microlith]

it always involves somebody else making sacrifices

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.

Re:easy to judge others

[Opportunist]

It's no surprise that such a statement doesn't come from one of the big copyright holders, it would be self defeating. I'm also not really so sure that they don't know themselves that the whole copycrippling is at the very least part of the copying problem. I'm also not so convinced that the goal is money. The goal is control.

Having a resource that is abundant and easy to multiply is useless. Because the abundance and ease of multiplication makes the resource worthless. Supply and demand at work. Someone selling simple air (not something fancy like pure Oxygen or "clean" air, just the stuff that's all around us) won't make a big deal. And that's basically what the content industry has without artificial shortening of the supply: Thin air. With content protection and keeping it in artificial short supply (i.e. monopolizing the seller's position), they create value.

Now, this makes inherently very little sense. If the whole ordeal only serves the purpose of driving people away from legally buying and only drives them towards copying, where's the gain? Where's the profit? Fewer people buy their stuff if they keep up this scheme. And I am fairly sure they even know that but have no choice.

The reason is the shareholder value of their stocks. What's their "assets"? Basically, thin air. They have nothing. Nothing but content. Nothing but a commodity that is easily multiplied and hence worthless. If they now don't at least TRY to limit the supply, analysts might catch up.

Re:easy to judge others

[iksbob]

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.

Re:easy to judge others

[91degrees]

No! Don't buy, don't pirate!

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.

Re:easy to judge others

[houghi]

The person who designed your car wants to know where the check for his kids is.

Re:easy to judge others

[Ephemeriis]

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.

Re:easy to judge others

[VAElynx]

Really? I don't know about you, but when i do some work , i only get paid for it once, not for years to go.
Why should i support folk who are far more privileged than myself - they get paid for the same work for years!?
In other words, you can take all the paycheck i'll get in 20 years for work i do now - all of the zero bucks.

Re:easy to judge others

[Grave]

Nonsense. You're sacrificing the pleasure that children would derive from you smacking him upside the head. Won't someone please think of the children?

Re:easy to judge others

[paulsnx2]

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.

Re:easy to judge others

[jnpcl]

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.

Re:easy to judge others

[hjf]

Or, to put it another way, the "outdated business method" is to expect payment for something which cost $200 million to produce.

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!

Re:easy to judge others

[cpu6502]

I have a solution.

And it doesn't involve any real sacrifice - just a willingness for Media companies to operate like other companies. "Satisfaction guaranteed or 100% money back." That way we consumers would not be stuck buying shit like Transformers 2 and no way to return it.

Until that happens, I'll just keep downloading the DVDs illegally and screening-out the shit. I am sick and tired of throwing away my money on inferior crap, and the media companies laughing all the way to the bank.

Re:easy to judge others

[molnarcs]

No! Don't buy, don't pirate! 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.

I see your point, but most of the music I listen to are indies. Lounge music, nu-jazz, jazz, etc. I pay for that stuff whenever I can. Occasionally, I stumble upon something that's actually good and I want, but comes from a RIAA label. Look, RIAA is a fishing company. For every good artist they find they create nine crap ones - assembly-line celebrities, basically. And when you pay for that one good artist you are also supporting nine crap ones. That's a rotten business model - and choosing to pirate is still the more ethical choice.

Re:easy to judge others

[Bert64]

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.

Re:easy to judge others

[Volante3192]

Flag on the statement. ...the "outdated business method" is to expect payment for something which cost $200 million to produce... is not what the argument is.

Most people will pay for media, legitimately, if they have reasonable access to it.

In a global environment, there is a problem when the US gets Drama episode Season 1 Episode 7 June 1, and the EU gets it Sept 17. People would acquire it legally if they had a legal channel to it. Take me for example. I'd love to purchase DVD sets of Whose Line Is It Anyway? seasons 3 to 10, but they're not available for sale in the US. Nor is The Chaser's War on Everything. (The former isn't available at all...well, outside streaming from BBC4 which I'd have to proxy to get through; the latter would require a multi-region DVD player and possibly an NTSC-PAL conversion of some sort, hoops not worth jumping through.)

The other part of the argument is the time span. Why should we still pay through the nose for media made a half-century before I was born? Did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle intend for lawyers to be reaping the benefits of Holmes long after his death? Imagine if copyright extended farther back. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik still funding the estate of Mozart. Shakespeare. Homer. I'm not a fan of the slippery slope argument, but could, 500 years into the future, people still have to pay Disney (or whatever company it's mutated into) for the rights to Mickey?

The world isn't black or white, it's just shades of brown...

Re:easy to judge others

[AmazingRuss]

So I'm supposed to be content with the first 99 cent sale on an app, and then give it away for free forever? Some of us don't get paychecks. We get paid by selling what we dream up, invest time and money in, and create, all at considerable risk of not getting paid at all either because nobody wants what we make, or people steal it instead of paying. Not everybody turns their copyrights over to publishers. You guys are using RIAA's evil actions to justify ripping off all us independents.

It's incredible the logical knots you people twist yourselves into to justify theft. Yes, THEFT. I'm not buying any of that "but the guy I ripped off still has his property" horse shit. You don't want to pay for it, then don't use it. Nobody's holding a gun to your head. There is plenty of free content out there to amuse yourself with.

I made it. I get to decide who uses it. Period.

Re:easy to judge others

[VAElynx]

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)

Re:easy to judge others

[VAElynx]

Not really. Putting asides the fact that some of the best content in every form i know is distributed for free already, abolishing copyrights would force those megacorps to innovate too, as they wouldn't be able to milk one cow for ages and ages.

Re:easy to judge others

[Endo13]

With REAL property, once you've sold it you don't get to decide jack shit about it. That's the key difference between real property and Imaginary Property.

No one's saying you should be content with one sale on an app. That's the whole point of copyright. But you SHOULD be content with the sales you've generated after a few years (hell, in today's lightning-quick market you should probably be content with sales you've generated after a few MONTHS of releasing it). Instead though, that shitty app you made gets protected for 75 years after you're dead and gone.

So frankly, with your attitude about what you made, as far as I'm concerned you can just go right ahead and shove it right back up the ass you pooped it out of. And please, PLEASE let me know what crap you've released so I can avoid it like the plague.

Re:easy to judge others

[gottabeme]

"We'd be left with people that can't afford to invest the time into acquiring anywhere near the virtuosity we have come to expect, for the simple reason they're working 14 hours a day at Wendy's to try and keep themselves fed."

That's an unsubstantiated hypothesis. I could counter that by saying that most artists today already work long, hard hours to support themselves, because only a small minority make it big--and many of that small minority are pop artists who produce relatively unoriginal works intended to appeal to the lowest common denominator. And most, if not all, of those successful pop artists make huge profits for megacorps like RIAA publishers--without those publishers, they could keep a higher percentage of their works' revenue.

"I'd have more sympathy for the argument if it were about food or something else people can't live without, but I just can't think of any way to justify theft of something that is consumed only for entertainment."

It's not theft, because it doesn't steal anything, because it doesn't take anything away from anyone else. Theft is, e.g. breaking into a store or someone's car and taking CDs. Whether it's ethical or moral is another matter--but it's not theft. Stealing food would be worse, because it would deprive someone else of the food! You have your priorities reversed.

It's merely the idea of "copyright infringement", an idea created by the government and raised to unconscionable severity by lobbying by unfathomably-large corporations, who enjoy more legal protections than the citizens of the government which grants them such protections--a contradiction in itself. Since the average citizen is powerless to defend himself legally against these corporations, and since his attempts to influence policy are futile compared to the influence of the corporations' lobbyists, I submit that the very laws which grant these corporations' and their imaginary property such protections are unethical and immoral.

That leaves the question: is civil disobedience in this case justified? And: can a blanket answer be given, or should different situations be considered, depending on the author, whether one of these corporations holds rights to the work in question, etc? These are the deeper questions.

Finally someone talking sense.

[VAElynx]

Let's hope that if enough of those with different interests to RIAA-like scum, and with full wallets to actually persuade the important folks up there will hold opinions like this, the situation will begin to change
Telecoms are quite the profitable enterprise and copyrightists are slowly beginning to step on more and more toes in their mad race for more profits.

yup

[Anonymous Coward]

Far too often the pirated product is the superior product.

Re:yup

[mlts]

It is sad, but there are a lot of cases where this is the truth:

DVDs -- disabling the PUO crap, so one doesn't have to sit through 45 minutes of previews for movies that flopped.

Games -- playing games that will not activate because the activation servers have been taken offline, or continuing to play a game after a video card was changed out, and the game will not activate.

Applications -- being able to continue use of a program even after hardware has been changed (RAM upgrade).

The best DRM for games is the simplest -- have a serial number to access multiplayer servers. This worked for almost a decade for NWN1. It keeps the freeloaders at bay, while ensuring that legit users have as good a gaming experience as possible.

Re:yup

[betterunixthanunix]

How about the fact that copyrighted DVDs frequently come with "structure" DRM, in an attempt to discourage ripping (which is legitimate for personal use e.g. to play a movie on a tablet that doesn't have a DVD drive)? Or the fact that DVD players are designed to force people to watch certain tracks on the DVD before they can see the actual feature? Or the fact that DVD players refuse to play DVDs from different "regions?"

With DVDs alone, there are plenty of reasons that a person might opt to download "pirated" copies instead of dealing with the hassle themselves.

Re:yup

[JudgeFurious]

Indeed. There's a Blue Ray disc out there. It's got a movie on it I want to see and it comes with a bunch of features I don't care about and it's in a format (on this funky disc) that I find troublesome. So someone rips that movie off of that disc and turns it into an mkv file. Now I can watch that anywhere I can make an mkv file play. I can feed it to XBMC because it's only a few gigabytes in size (but still looks great to me) or I can feed it to Handbrake and turn it into an mp4 that my iPod likes. Blue Ray discs are cool but I consider a good quality mkv file to be the superior product based on what I can do with it.

Re:Groups

[91degrees]

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 might be fun to watch

[willoughby]

I'm eager to see if Sony (as in Sony/Ericsson) might have a response to this.

Situation this week in Argentina

[bmuon]

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.

Re:(c)

[betterunixthanunix]

is the ability to copy something an inaliable right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

if somebody else made something, they have a say over how it's used,

"Made something" -- you mean like, if I made a hammer and sold it to you, I could dictate how you use it? Oh, wait, we are not talking about making "something," we are talking about copyright law, which restricts the ability of people to speak freely (yeah, that does include repeating what someone else told you i.e. making a copy). The point of that restriction is to encourage artists and writers; nobody has a natural right to copyrights, it is just a compromise that was originally intended (in America) to ensure that people would have access to literature, art, and so forth.

Re:(c)

[cheekyjohnson]

is the ability to copy something an inaliable right?

Is anything an inalienable right?

if somebody else made something, they have a say over how it's used

According to current laws, yes.

Re:Groups

[Opportunist]

It's not sensible to abolish copyright. Content is no longer "art", the work of passion of a single person who might do it for the expression of their creativity. You have a lot of people involved in the process of creating what we today consider "good entertainment". From music to movies to games. Trust me, writing games ain't half the fun that playing is. It's a lot of crunch, a lot of stress, a lot of "why the fuck did I decide to get into this industry". These people want to get paid for what they do, and without copyright, there is very little chance that they can be.

What's wrong with copyright is not its existence. It's that copyright got out of control. It is no longer an incentive for the creative mind to create. It's an incentive to NOT create and live off a single cash cow to milk forever. Imagine I'm the greatest composer of all times. Mozart, Beethoven and Lennon rolled into one. And I create that ultimate, timeless and superawesome piece of music that EVERYONE loves. EVERYONE just wants to hear this style suddenly, and nobody can hit what people want as good as I can. But ... why should I keep working, why should I, the best person to ever write music in the history of mankind, write any more? I can milk that song forever. People will go ahead and remix it to get some breadcrumbs of the success, and I'll always cash in when they do. From now 'til I die. And beyond.

What's my incentive to create?
`
Copyright has to exist so people want to get together and create something special as a collective. If they can't reap the rewards for it, they most likely won't do it, or at least it will take a horribly long time since they can only do it in their spare time after they've done something to generate money so they can afford having a hobby. But it has to be limited so the best and brightest actually have a reason to continue creating. If I get more money from one creation than I could spend in a lifetime, why bother working anymore?

Physics....

[paulsnx2]

...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.

Re:Groups

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Ouch. I'm afraid "Richard Stallman" and "sensible people" are disjoint sets.

What's up with Ericsson of late?

[NBolander]

Sony Ericsson launches a boot loader unlocking program for their Android phones (and launches the pretty sweet xperia line). And now Ericsson takes a non facist stance on copyrights.
I don't know who kicked some sense into those companies, but whoever it was; thanks!

Re:What's up with Ericsson of late?

[gstrickler]

Given Sony's other actions, I would expect them to put an end to such "foolishness" from Ericsson soon.

Until then, keep up the good work Ericsson.

Re:Groups

[VAElynx]

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.
What kind of argument is that? I mean, there are a ton of far more useful jobs a programmer can do. In the same way, the invention of the refrigerator spelled death for the ice industry, and whoever worked on mining and storing ice had to find another job related to his skills.

Re:Groups

[Dishevel]

Please do not listen to the "Fucking Idiots".
AKA. Those who want to "Abolish" copyright.

Copyright is good. Limited copyright encourages creation of new content. Then the new content gets to move to the public domain
after a period of time. This is awesome. Tons of new stuff pouring into the public domain. Enriching all with its wonders.

What copyright has become though is never ending. Nothing flows into the public domain anymore.
Hell a story not to long ago about the courts pulling shit out of the public domain.

We have to go back to move forward.

Re:Groups

[blahplusplus]

" Believe me, nobody would have invested in creating these in the first place without the guaranteed monopoly that copyright protection provides."

What a bunch of garbage, piracy has been around since the beginning of time and games were still being made even when entire countries (china) pirate almost completely.

In the real world games would still be produced, it's this lying to ourselves that people aren't creative/industrious and hence we need the copyright nanny state to intervene. Other businesses would pick up the slack of their was no copyright, it's too lucrative.

You can copyright anything you like

[JudgeFurious]

I don't respect copyright any more than I worry about sodomy laws when I sleep with my wife or think of the sabbath when I buy alcohol on Sunday. At the very beginning of this "era" of copyright holders versus consumers I started with a simple idea. I want files. I don't want to buy anymore tapes, records, discs, mini-discs, or anything else the content owners can think of. I want files.I want to buy things once and be able to use that one purchased piece of music, television show, movie, e-book, whatever on any device I please. To me that's the whole point of this excercise. I can certainly see how the content owners don't want to give up their model of selling you the same shit every few years when your copy wears out or the technology changes but once we get to "files" that shit comes to a screeching halt. The way the content owners have fought to control what people do with the content has in my opinion created the environment we live in today. Now consumers resent that control to the point where they'll ignore the law without reservation to get out from under them. Appeal to us on the basis of "but you're stealing this artists work" and we don't care. The people accusing us if stealing from the content creators are themselves epically famous for fucking those creators out of every penny they could. I think the record labels, movie studios, game companys, and publishing houses have made things the way they are and I think that it all must eventually change if anyone is to continue to make money in these businesses. You can copyright something if you like. That doesn't mean you're assured of being able to profit from it. You need a market for it and you have to find a price point that market will accept. The $5 games you see in the iTunes store, the $1.29-.99 songs that are no longer tied to an album of material, and the $1.00 movie rentals of today could have probably headed off a lot of this if they'd appeared on the scene back when this all seemed to start with (roughly) the arrival of napster. I guess the tipping point was on them before they knew it but even today they fight to hold on to the kinds of profits they've come to expect. I'm sorry, they just aren't going to be there anymore.

Here's a possible explanation for you

[Mathinker]

> The copyright to your churches services are held by your church

Not necessarily so, at least in their entirety. Perhaps they sing Happy Birthday (or some other music under copyright) as part of their church service?

> As far as cable-subscriptions, why not watch hulu or hulu plus

Perhaps the poster doesn't live in the US?

> I've listened to plenty of audio books from the library - and I don't even have to drive
> to the library to get them; I just download them directly from the library website at a cost of zero dollars

Kind of curious, which library is that? Please post its URL?

Really, senor Troll?

[VAElynx]

I said you can have all the paychecks i'll get in 20 years for work i do now. Because that's just what these folk get - money for work done long in the past.

Re:Groups

[91degrees]

Oh no. Just some short term protection is needed. Honestly, I think a 2 year copyright term would probably be enough for the games industry. The main negative effect this would have would be to encourage a subset of gamers to run a constant 2 years behind the curve.

Re:Be careful of the echo chamber

[jools33]

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.

Re:Groups

[ksd1337]

The best copyright policy is the original one - "14+14" as the time limit.

Copyright should be registered - none of this "automatic copyright" nonsense.

It should only be 14 years, and should be able to be renewed once, for an additional 14 years.

Re:Groups

[Ihmhi]

14+14 might have made sense where it would take months for a shipment of books to get from Europe to America, but today honestly? Don't movies stop making decent money after 6 weeks? Same with games and music I believe - after the first 2 months or so the money only trickles in.

I'd rather see modern copyrighht be something more like 1+1, with a bitch of a filing fee for the second year.