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Copyright Isn't Working, Says EU Technology Chief Neelie Kroes
superglaze writes "Against the backdrop of governments and courts around the world ordering ISPs to block file-sharing sites, European commissioner Neelie Kroes has said people have started to see copyright as 'a tool to punish and withhold, not a tool to recognise and reward. ... Citizens increasingly hear the word copyright and hate what is behind it,' the EU's digital chief said, adding that the copyright system also wasn't rewarding the vast majority of artists."
Every other country has noticed the same thing. What is now holding back is US. In fact, even the Russian Deputy Minister of Economic Development said it's impossible to police copyright and noted US's hypocrisy in the issue as US itself doesn't do anything about the blatant piracy of Russian films and music. However, I doubt US will change their views about it and if I were them, I would be worried too. Much of the US industry comes from immaterial things like copyrights, patents and artificial restrictions. This is true for both entertainment industry and things like drugs and medication.
But lets not forget that back in time, this is how US got its power - they blatantly ignored European copyrights. Now others are doing the same to US, and they're suffering. What goes around.. Comes around.
European commissioner Neelie Kroes has more brain cells that I had anticipated. That was indeed a Strong statement by European commissioner Kroes. A breath of fresh air.
While it may be good to hear it, there are laws behind the current situation. And that is what we live with. Copyrights, patents, trademarks etc have their use a long as they are not abused from either party.
It is good to hear a Commissioner express and put the facts on the table. But how do we move on? I have no quick answer to that.
One day a friend of mine went to the factory where CDs are made. He asked someone from the OSA (association for authors protection) what would he get, while beeing registered under OSA, if he composed song (music and lyrics) and someone else would play it e.g. at some concert. The guy from OSA replied that nothing because those money from artistic work usage are distributed according the frequency of appearance on radio or TV. This is clearly punishing those who pay, because they would like to give their money to the composer instead to some mainstream shitty composer. Think of this story when buying clean CD's.
You can tell you're wrong when attempts to follow a belief lead to obviously absurd/insane outcomes.
For the belief that data can be handled/restricted like physical objects, that absurdity became fully apparent with that new "resale your used digital music" service, and the MAFIAA (of course) suing it. Reading such nonsense forces you to ask at what point does it become impossible to deny the obvious: The existence of computers and networks between computers renders duplication of data so easy that the ideas of supply-limited economics can no longer meaningfully be applied to data?
Seriously... read that sentence again: "Resell your used digital music." And try to keep a straight face.
... are protectionism and corporate welfare of the 21st century. I think it's best to say that copyright/patents are anti-free market, anti-technology and anti-science IMHO. Not only that human beings just aren't smart enough to judge when something should be or should not be patented. It's a giant clusterfuck.
I think those who argue for them just don't want to find new business models, using the law as a business model has made one hell of a legal mess and created a ethically bankrupt legal system clogged with up with suits. I think someone should really figure out how much inefficiency this is creating and how much all this costs us in terms of the legal system. I imagine that whatever supposed 'gains' we are allegedly getting from these systems are wiped out by lawyers and the lack of free exchange/modification of ideas between products and industries.
Copyright doesn't protect the little guy, yes.
Copyright doesn't restrict much the amount of pirated material people swap, yes.
But that's not what the current laws on copyright are designed to prevent, they want to make it hard to compete with established media companies and rights holders in producing and distributing stuff.
The battle is about controlling the distribution channels, to decide what people will like. It is about criminalizing as many people as possible to justify examining every single packet out your network card.
Proof? proof is that you can't put a site which distribute links, while youtube and megaupload can distribute CONTENT.
If there is a bunch of popular sites instead of a world wide web, propaganda operations can easily make some topics hot and popular.
All the rest is smoke and mirrors. Art has always been at the service of power.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Here's where things go a bit wrong.
Those who approve of copyright make exactly the same mistake. They want the right to sell, lend and do anything they could with a physical copy. This doesn't make sense!. A digital copy is different. Trying to shoehorn rights that make sense for a physical copy becomes illogical. Why do I no longer have access to the copy that I clearly have? Because I "lent" it to someone. Except I didn't lend it. I still have my copy. It's just been blocked.
So, we need a completely new system. We need a way to reward artists to encourage creativity. People will create without the reward, but nowhere near as much! Nobody is going to make Avatar unless they can get a good return. I liked Avatar! But the system also needs to take into account the inherent rights that digital distribution gives us.
I have no solution. I simply want to point out that we need to understand the problem.
* If you think this is unfair, I should point out you're not "most"
Not because they could make a tiny amount of money from you, but because everything else, legal issues, tax issues, capital investments, required company resources, opportunity cost from not doing something else instead, even lower prices through increased competition, etc.Call that the inconvenience factor. That's the problem with capitalism. It isn't about trading with the most number of people, it is about maximizing profit.
Actually, it's not that they can make less money from certain markets, but rather they can make more in others thanks to rent-seeking
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Kroes is member of VVD.
Wikipedia: "The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) (Dutch: Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie) is a conservative-liberal[1][2] political party located in the Netherlands. The VVD supports private enterprise in the Netherlands and is often perceived as an economic liberal party"
Hmmm. That is why she didn't look like a long-haired smelly.
Wikipedia:
"The Commission differs from the other institutions in that it alone has legislative initiative in the European Union, meaning only the Commission can make formal proposals for legislation– legislative proposals cannot originate in the legislative branches. Under the Treaty of Lisbon, no legislative act is allowed in the field of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. In the other fields, however, Council and Parliament are able to request legislation; in most cases the Commission initiates the basis of these proposals, this monopoly is designed to ensure coordinated and coherent drafting of Union law. This monopoly has been challenged by some who claim the Parliament should also have the right, with most national parliaments holding the right in some respects. However, the Council and Parliament may request the Commission to draft legislation, though the Commission does have the power to refuse to do so as it did in 2008 over transnational collective conventions. Under the Lisbon Treaty, EU citizens are also able to request the Commission to legislate in an area via a petition carrying one million signatures, but this is not binding."
That is serious power.
We frequently buy DVDs and there is no chance to skip the copyright information. It's sometimes combined with the "would you steal a car?"-analogy, which suggests we are potential criminals. We frequently bought DVDs just out of curiosity but we lowered our expenses and only buy those we really, really want to have. No spontaneous visits to the DVD area anymore.
Microsoft did a campaign a decade ago, where they asked on every boot-up, if one would properly register and pay for the install. I eventually skipped my investment of several hundred Deutsche Mark (back then I earned less than 600 Deutsche Mark per month) and migrated to Linux. Until today I have a strong rejection against their products.
Yesterday I read an article on how to be successful in your job and to get ahead. By frequent contact others get familiar with you and their attitude against you stabilizes. So if you start with a good impression you win, otherwise you fail. It didn't say anything about changing attitude by repeated unfriendly behaviour, though.
cb
Copyright works perfectly. The aim of copyright is to prevent an individual or company from profiting from the works of others, in order to allow the creator to enjoy the profits of their works.
I'm sure Mr Walt Disney is really enjoying the profit he's getting from his 'still-in-copyright' works, even though he died in '66.
I have no trouble with people profiting off their works for a few years. What I have trouble with is:
1. Copyrights being extended long long long past 'a few years' (Mickey Mouse is still under copyright, since 1928).
2. Stupid enforcing of copyrights in regions where its not avaliable anyway.
3. Copyright as a purely money making process. "Happy Birthday to you" (written in the 1800s) still brings money for the copyright holder.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1111624 - who by the way is not the creator.
Yes, you did something clever. Yes enjoy it. But then let the rest of us enjoy it after you're done.
The recent successes of various pirate parties made it clear that people do not like the current IP system. Now politicians have no other choice than to listen to them.
Piracy is theft because piracy deevaluates the value of the digital product being pirated.
Ummmm, what does robbery and violence conducted on the seas have to do with binary digits?
Anyway. You are wrong. Here's why:
By arguing that there is a loss of value, you presume that a person obtaining an unauthorized copy would have spent money to buy the original in the first place. This is not universally true. Some might have bought it, whereas others surely wouldn't.
You cannot steal a digital product. You can make a perfect clone, and the original will still exist unchanged. There is an infinite supply of digital content: you make a music track, and you can make a 100 billion copies for basically no cost. If you price each track at $39.90, and someone buys that track from the store, then copies the track 100 billion times, it does not mean you've lost 3990000000000 dollars in sales. You've not lost anything, since you got paid for the original.
If you don't like the way things are, stop fighting the windmills. Change the way you're getting paid for the digital products. It's not that difficult. Ask the money up front before you release it to the world. After you get the 2 million dollars or whatever, then you release the product without DRM. This way you get paid and "piracy" will have no impact on you. On the contrary, making and releasing a good product would make it possible for you to raise the threshold for the next product, netting you more money. The marketing would be done by the people themselves. On the other hand, if you constantly produce shit, people will not support you anymore.
You can read more by googling up the "Street performer protocol".
That system is logical, obvious and elegant fix to the "piracy problem". It is being opposed because such a system will prevent: 1. distribution channel control (region coding etc.), 2. endless renting of the same content over and over again (selling the same thing to different TV stations, for example), 3. as a summary: it prevents maximizing profits but makes the system "piracy"-free and fair.
How would it make it fair? The creators would get paid the price they think is appropriate and there could not be a problem with unauthorized copying. Humanity as a whole would get access to the culture which belongs to all of them without waiting for 70 years after the original author died. If the price is set too high, no-one will buy but the content would still not be distributed around the world. Thus you could re-price and re-release. Also, the system would actually work by leveraging digital distribution, instead of trying to fight it on a futile way with various silly hacks.
I have a problem with that solution. It'll work for large companies with a lot of liquidity and a track record.
It won't work for startups or small companies with no track record.
To give a personal example. I have on-and-off for the last 4.5 years been working on a literary work. Assume I want to sell it. How would I do that using this system? I make a request for X thousand up front to release it to the world? Of course it wouldn't work for me. For a start nobody has heard of me. And if I don't get this amount, am I supposed to just destroy all this work or keep it permanently to myself? That's senseless.
In an ideal world where everyone knew everything about everyone it'd work. In this world it won't. Not for the small guy.
So does much of Europe's industry.
What a brilliant stroke of anti-Americanism: you hold the US responsible first for fighting draconian European copyrights, then for learning its lesson, building businesses around them, and enforcing them.
But in actual fact, the companies advocating copyright are international: companies like Bertelsmann and Sony are a big part of this. Europe just extended its copyright terms to "protect" the Beatles.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/14/european-union-extends-beatles-copyright-still-gonna-have-to-b/
Trying to change IP laws by blaming America for everything isn't just factually incorrect, it is ineffective because it misses the source of problem.
So you don't see them. I am against copyright (as it exists now) but at least I am aware that it isn't a human right to see them.
Why wouldn't it be? The world is divided in countries. And within countries (or groups of those like EU), people have the right to decide for themselves, what are their rights, and what not.
So suppose I come to the US, and record a TV show for personal use (allowed per US law I assume). Then go to country XYZ, bringing that recording with me (still okay I presume). And then copy that recording million-fold, selling it on streetcorners, IF that's allowed by country XYZ's laws (because people in country XYZ decided for themselves that should be okay). Would that be 'wrong'? Should I feel guilty there for 'ripping profits' from the TV show makers?
The way I see it, the problem is not one country (like the US) having too extreme copyright laws, it's in the US trying to force the same upon the rest of the world (through trade agreements or whatever means available). Sure US people should be allowed to have laws in place that seem ridiculous to other countries, but what right does the US have to prevent people elsewhere from using content they get their hands on, once it lands within that country's borders? IMHO: none. And other countries are really stupid to let this crap get shoveled into their face, acting like sheep in a US-led flock. Note that I'm not trying to bash the US here, it's just that the US seems to be the prime driving force behind 'intellectual property' at the moment. The same would hold true for any country trying to force similar things on other countries.
For example the Chinese seem to have a general lack of respect for 'intellectual property', does that make them 'bad'? I think not, they make their own decisions as a nation - and I'd say copying & reproducing things without 3rd country's permission seems to have worked well for them. Same argument goes for countries that are really poor, ignore patents & copy medicines to help a large swat of their population. Ignoring those patents isn't 'bad' - patent-holding medicine companies squeezing money for live-saving medicines out of those poor folks, is. Especially since that behavior doesn't affect their bottom line anyway - if the people are poor enough, they wouldn't be able to pay up. Even if priced friendly: any more than production-cost still causes people to not spend that money on other bare necessities. But since it might be a numbers game, every step to have that poor country respect the companies' patents, will cause (unnecessary) suffering / lost lives. I can't help to feel disgust towards those folks that have only profit in their mind...
Yes it's good content creators get rewarded if society benefits a lot from their work. But IMHO current copyright regimes simply aren't the way to do that (at least if that would be the primary purpose, it's obviously failing to do as intended). And to lawmakers pushing ever harder punishments because 'that would be good for society' : f**k off, you idiot. Only thing you are supporting is the ??AA mafia.
You know, lately, I have been having some issues with HDMI and conflicting implementations. It's really getting under my skin. Every time I see the copyright industry interfere with technology, they screw it up in some way. Macrovision in the old days of VHS and the things they wanted to do with digital TV and the crap they pull with HDMI -- it all pisses me off.
The EU was right about water -- it doesn't prevent the causes of dehydration. And the way copyright is being handled does not support the artists and certainly harms the public interest.
The VVD supports private enterprise in the Netherlands and is often perceived as an economic liberal party"
Hmmm. That is why she didn't look like a long-haired smelly.
Liberal outside the US typically refers to social and economic freedom, as in traditional liberalism. Less restriction on the market in the case of Kroes, Yanks might call them Libertarian, but they aren't complete whack jobs like US libertarians.
BTW, how does one "look" smelly?
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.