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Pirate Party Leader: Copyright Laws Ridiculous
smitty777 writes "Rick Falkvinge, better known as the leader for Sweden's Pirate Party, recommends doing away with copyright laws since no one is following them anyway. FTA: '...he uses examples from the buttonmakers guild in 1600s France to justify eliminating the five major parts of copyright law today. The first two are cover duplication and public performance, and piracy today has ruined those. The next two cover rights of the creator to get credit and prevent other performances, satires, remixes, etc they don't like. Falkvinge says giving credit is important, but not worthy of a law. Finally, "neighboring rights" are used by the music industry to block duplication, which Falkvinge rejects.'"
People don't make art just because they need a quick buck.
Any artist of any form worth their salt is doing it because they geinuinely like the artform, and would do so pay or no pay.
This coming from a musician who uploads his music for free download on the internet.
Proper attribution is a part of the moral rights due to an author (and is the only unquestionably valid and supportable aspect of Copyright, IMHO).
Yes.
Your implication is that without public funding or Copyright, creative works would no longer be produced. History demonstrates how ridiculous this is.
Your implication is that without public funding or Copyright, creative works would no longer be produced. History demonstrates how ridiculous this is.
You need a history lesson.
Most of our great works were produced under a system of patronage or direct performance before there existed means of coping.
Even Shakespeare worked for money.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
It is a limited time. Pirate people just seem to want that limit to be about zero seconds, producers want as much as possible. Obviously both sides are foaming retards who shouldn't get what they want.
Actually, this comes off the royalties paid to Artists. No wonder many of them do not see a cent of royalties because they are still "in the red".
For the record company it is easy to get a better price than what you see here, but the artist will not see it, the record company lives off the arbitrage.
In the end, many successful modern artist go direct to the Internet and bypass this sinkhole.
So....our civil rights are being forfeited so the music and movie industries to subsidise musicians/movies?
What was the ratio between cost and profit on Avatar again? Somehow I don't think cost comes in to it - they are rolling in it.
This is one thing that confuses me: at what point did casual entertainment become a useful art?
These sorts of "great works" or "direct performances" remain uncopyable today. You can bring up a picture of the Sistine Chapel on a great big TV if you want, but it pales to insignificance when compared with standing inside it.
Non-sequitur. I never suggested anyone should work for free.
The simple fact is vast quantities of creative works were produced before Copyright existed, and increasing quantities have been (and continue to be) created since without any thought given to Copyright. The implication that Copyright is an essential part of creative works doesn't stand up to even a cursory examination.
All completely unnecessary. Look at the punk scene for a practical demonstration of a modern distribution network. Dozens of small labels each supporting a handful of bands feed into a few larger distros focused on a few similar subgenres (Robotic Empire, Plan-It-X, etc.). More popular albums hit shops like Interpunk or All That's Heavy, and the biggest sellers are available on mainstream shops like Amazon or CDUniverse.
If advertising money is all the big labels bring to the table, then they can be readily eliminated. Music will continue to be made and distributed to fans without them. Add in the fact that they demand ownership of the music in return for that money and they are doing more harm than good.
Actually, copyright laws GRANT, not preserve, the exclusive right of copying the work to the copyright holder. More correctly, the copyright laws curtail the rights of everyone but the copyright holder to make copies for a limited time.
This is a considerably different from laws against theft which simply prescribe legal penalties for violating the rights of property that exist independently of those laws.
That is, copyright legislates against a right for a limited time as part of a bargain to cause more works to exist. Property laws support rights that exist independently of the laws.
Given that, the looters are doing a very different thing than the copiers.
The assumption that no one respects copyright laws is wishful thinking, extrapolating from "none of my friends" or "no one I know" to assume that everyone thinks that way. It's incorrect.
I respect copyright, for one. So do many people I know, including - not coincidentally - a lot of musicians, writers, artists, and actors. Not just as it applies to their own work, but as it applies to others' work. It isn't just faceless corporations on one side of the debate, and people on the other.
I used to ignore copyright... until I started producing works of my own, and realized that the effort that goes into creating a really great song, an entertaining movie, a well-crafted story, or a well-rendered illustration deserves compensation. I also happen to think that copyright terms are ridiculously long, and often too restrictive. But those problems don't negate the worthwhile goal outlined in the US Constitution: to promote the arts by giving creators temporary control over their work.
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It might be a "limited time" if they didn't keep extending it whenever the material of large companies starts to get close said limit. I'm pretty sure the Founding Fathers didn't put this provision in the Constitution so that Mickey Mouse was still "a protected work of art" 200 years from now...
That's the one thing remaining that the labels actually do, they front the band money much like an angel investor would for a company, but unlike the angel, they demand 100% ownership.
The rest of it isn't actually things the label contributes since 100% of it is charged against the band's paltry royalties. That's how a band can have an album go double platinum and never get a check from the label.
I doubt it. Consider the last few Metallica and Red Hot Chili Pepper albums. They get paid bigger bucks than ever and they aren't even trying.
The best, most unique art I've seen was painted by community college students with good grades and recognition in the gallery being their only motivation.
Being paid for the work only encourages pandering to the preferred styles of those who have enough money to pay $100 or more for a small painting. Most digital graphic designers are almost always slaves to their customers' requirements.
The simple fact is vast quantities of creative works were produced before Copyright existed, and increasing quantities have been (and continue to be) created since without any thought given to Copyright. The implication that Copyright is an essential part of creative works doesn't stand up to even a cursory examination.
The big difference is that historically the larger the effort and cost of the work, the larger the effort and cost to copy it. No one is going to pay to copy the Sistine Chapel. And to copy a painting required a skilled artist and almost as much effort as making the original. Even a book would have to be copied by hand with a fountain pen or typeset by hand with a primitive printing press.
Today, whether it's a book or song written by one person or a $200M movie, they are trivially easy and cheap to copy, and if the creators are not given at least some window of time before copying it were freely allowed, there is no way many of these works (especially movies) would make back the initial expense. Then again, that limitation could probably be more like 2-3 years (at which point most movies have made 95%+ of what they will ever make) instead of 120!
The original purpose of Copyright law was very fair - to allow someone to cover their production expenses and make a living before becoming part of the public domain. Now it's been perverted to allow giant media corporations a near permanent dynastic protection to anything they do...
Because you don't want Disney causing runaway inflation just to keep Mickey out of the public domain.
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all the grandstanding bold wordage in your post, pales in the face of the fact that your senator and congressman doesnt give two shits about what you think.
they wont change anything. even if 99,999% of the society wants it. and there is no way to elect those who will change it. as evidenced by how the very basic first rule of the modern society, habeas corpus - that was there since magna carta - has gone to cinders with the recent legislation those people have produced. let me stress this again :
they dont give shit about what you think and they wont change that law of the land. and you cant elect or be elected without being filthy rich. only 1-3% of society is filthy rich. system works for them regardless of what you desire or wish
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You mean many modern artists who have used previous record company contracts to build a substantial nation-/worldwide fan base. Although there are a few counterexamples (the exceptions that prove the rule), they are fairly few in number.
Does this mean that artists get screwed? Yes and no. The artists may not make a lot (if any) money, but their expenses can be covered and it's a good opportunity, due to the nationwide promotion and touring, even if the recording doesn't pan out. If you are in the right place at the right time with the right amount of business savvy and right mindset, you can parlay this promotion into a successful music career, even if you don't make a lot of money on the record company deal itself.
Even better, the record company may drop you after the first couple albums, freeing you with your (now) national contacts to make decent money afterward (at least more money faster than if you played struggling regional artist for years).
The main issue is to go into the process with your eyes wide open - they will try to screw you. But you can screw back and take any advantages you get. Chances are you won't make money on the record contract, but you can use the contacts and fan base gained in the process to promote your career long afterward and, if you're smart enough, "fail successfully".
That is all.
No one's forcing them to do any of those things. I think we need to get past the idea that if you invest money that you deserve a profit, and any laws that protect that profit are good ones.
Actually, the copyright monopoly is a balance between the public's interest in availability of culture, and the SAME public's interest in having new culture created.
Individuals and creators and the copyright industry are not stakeholders in that balance, but beneficiaries of the monopoly (just like Blackwater Security or whatever their name is this week is a beneficiary of United States foreign policy, without that meaning that they get a seat at the drafting table).
Right. Because obviously someone prepared to commit pre-meditated murder would shy away from Copyright infringement.
I'm pretty sure the founding father's opinions on pretty much everything in modern society would have been "HOLY SHIT, DID WE DO THIS?"
An "angel" offering fame and fortune but demanding complete ownership of the artist sounds more like a deal with the devil to me.
Well, the Devil is supposed to be a fallen angel...
Suppose a person had memorized a book or a passage from it, or learned to play a song on their own instrument. Copyright can prevent a person from being free to speak or otherwise offer their own knowledge to a willing listener. There's no more important right a person can have than that.
We all had that right till some asshole came along and invented Intellectual Property. There isn't exactly a natural right to be paid for you work either you know, especially for a REPRODUCTION of your work. We all just play a legal fiction in the name of progress.
There's the problem. The copyright section from the U.S. Constitution has been quoted many times in this discussion and on others with emphasis added but here's a new emphasis: "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."
Most of today's "rights holders" are not the creators. Instead of quibbling over duration of copyright, just make the rights non-transferable. That would really get fought tooth and nail by big media, but it strikes at the heart of the matter.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Your civil rights? Really, you have a civil right to enjoy someone else's works without paying them?
I assume the GP meant that our rights to privacy, free speech and a fair trial are being sacrificed in the name of hunting "pirates".
The DMCA can be (and is) used to suppress free speech. A corporation can issue a take-down notice to a third-party hosting provider such as YouTube, and since the third party has no interest in contesting the take-down notice in court, the corporation gets its way even if the material is legal.
The proposed SOPA bill is even worse, since it'll allow courts to shut down entire sites if one of their users upload infringning content. Since it's impossible for a site such as YouTube to check every clip users upload, the RIAA and MPAA will have the legal right to shut them down any time the want. The hosting providers will survive only as long as they please the copyright holders and do everything they say, including banning perfectly legal content.
You keep saying it. It keeps being inaccurate. I will not go into great depth as I already have several times and you choose to ignore what I say. However, I will summarize for the benefit of others.
Using the GPL does not mean you support copyright as an idea, or support the GPL as an end. Using and supporting the GPL only requires that you think it is currently the best option. Using copyright to remove powers from other copyright holders (and by releasing what you create into the public domain, you are simply feeding them) does not imply any sort of conflict of interest or lack of coherency. It simply means you are being pragmatic.
Copyright will not be abolished or even lessened any time soon; it is going to get worse before it gets better. Until that changes, the GPL is going to be posed as an option as how to try to regain some semblance of sanity. It does not matter if you, Linus, Stallman, etc. seek to apply it that way or not, some people will, and I am behind it. Those you complain about are also behind it. The fact you cannot see that other people might have more nuanced views of the matter than seeing copyright as an end, seeing the GPL as an end, or seeing abolition as an end, and simply acting in the most impulsive way towards whatever end they choose, is not a problem with those you complain about: it is a problem with you.
Great Intellect...
So this has turned into an argument between two straw men?
Strawman #1: People don't follow the copyright laws anyway so what harm can come from simply abolish them?
Well evidence does show that the majority of the public do respect the current copyright laws. They don't do it because they're scared of the movie/record/software industry lawyers; They do it because they think they are paying what the work is worth and support the idea of the creative artist/programmer getting paid for the effort. Sure it looks like a lot of people pirate but that could simply be because the squeaky wheel gets the grease meaning that people who do buy songs from iTunes/Amazon or purchase software don't go around making a big deal out of it.
Let me put it another way. People shoplift. A lot of shop keeps experience revenue loss from "shrinkage" which is the term they use for inventory that left the store without payment. Does this mean that we should abolish our current system of commerce? No. I find the Pirate Party's argument just as ridiculous.
Strawman #2: Copyright are only for those on the corporate side of the copyright-based industries.
This looks like an attempt to engage in a fictional class war where only the wealthy evil corporations have copyrights and the common man is being oppressed by them. Give me a break. There are many independent artists/programmers that depend on copyright laws to protect their interests, and unlike the other forms of intellectual property protections (patents), copyright doesn't require a substantial investment in legal fees just to make your work public. Not to mention, most of our favorite open source licenses depend on copyright laws to give there terms legal protection. What you thought corporations followed the GPL out of the kindness of their hearts and to protect their honor?
If you need something to fight against then please take up the cause to abolish software only patents. Now that does nothing but to serve corporate interests, venture capitalists, and their lawyers.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...