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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.'"
I have to make the same point I always make in these articles (by the way, isn't this like the third Pirate Party submission in the last month?)--if you do away with copyright laws, you do away with the GPL. The GPL is a copyright license that requires copyright law to have any legal power over what people do with GPL code. Go ahead and take a look at how many times the term copyright appears in the GPL:
- "'The Program' refers to any copyrightable work licensed under this License. Each licensee is addressed as 'you'. 'Licensees' and 'recipients' may be individuals or organizations."
- "All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met."
- "However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so."
And so on. Without copyright laws, the GPL is powerless.
The purposes of the copyright monpoly vary between legislations, so there is not "one" purpose.
In the United States, it is "to promote the progress and the useful arts", nothing more, nothing less. That is a direct quote from the constitution.
Well, record labels do provide many services to artists, starting from financing them when they're starting up, their professional help, their experience and their marketing channels. This isn't exactly free either. Here is a list of costs for advertising related stuff:
Optional mailing labor for CD $1.00 each
Optional mailing labor for CD+vinyl $1.50 each
Optional BDS tracking $1000
Optional Mediabase tracking $1000
Optional R&R Indicator tracking $1000
Optional Quarterbacking $100 00
College Radio (8 weeks) .$ 2500 .$ 2500 .$ 6000 .$ 2000
Jazz, Blues, Folk, Americana, Piano (up to 100 stations)
CMJ charting for URBAN, metal, electronic, jazz, world, AAA, (250 stations), or non-
charting for alternative
CMJ Top200 Charting (up to 500 stns; incl extra phones) $ 4000
CMJ Top200 Charting (up to 700 stns; incl extra phones
and CMJ core stations)
Regional (non charting, any genre) (50 stations)
Commercial Specialty Mixshow (8 weeks)
National Mixshow (BDS Level - 100 stations) $15,000
Mixshow (up to 70 stations, college & commercial) $ 6000
Dance Mixshow Charting (100 stations) $ 4000
Regional (non-charting) (10 stations) $ 6000
Commercial Regular Rotation for AC, Pop, R&B (8 weeks) .$ 7000 .$20000 .$ 1500/station
75 stations (small markets) $ 4000
150 stations (small markets)
R&R indicator stage 1 (small markets - 10 stations) $15000
R&R indicator stage 2 (medium & small markets - 25 stations).$30000
BDS Promotion (7-10 stations) $15000
FMQB charting (100+ stations, medium and small) $20000
R&R CHR/Pop Indicator (medium and small markets - 50 stations) $40000
Regional (non-charting) (10-15 stations) $8000
FMQB AC tracking (optional) $ 400/mo
High-Level AC Promotion (includes field staff)
(additional)
High-Level Pop/Urban Promotion (includes field staff) $40000
(additional)
High-Level station giveaways or commercials (unrated mkt) $ 200/station
High-Level station giveaways or commercials (small mkt) $ 500/station
High-Level station giveaways or commercials (medium mkt)
Commercial Regular Rotation for Rock, Alt, Urban (8 weeks) .$ 15000 .$ 1500/station
R&R indicator stage 1 (small markets - 10 stations)
R&R indicator stage 2 (medium & small markets - 25 stations) $ 30000
Regional (non-charting) (10-15 stations) $8000
BDS Promotion (7-10 stations) $15000
High-Level Promotion Urban (includes field staff) $40000
(additional)
High-Level station giveaways or commercials (unrated mkt) $ 200/station
High-Level station giveaways or commercials (small mkt) $ 500/station
High-Level station giveaways or commercials (medium mkt)
Commercial Regular Rotation for AAA or Smooth Jazz (8 weeks) .$20,000 .$ 200/mo
50 station special (medium and small) $ 8,000
FMQB / R&R charting (75 stations, all sizes)
Regional (non-charting) (20 stations) $ 2500
FMQB AAA tracking (optional)
High-Level Promotion (includes field staff) $10000
(additional)
Commercial Regular Rotation for Country (8 weeks)
Small market non-charting (50 small stations)
Copyright laws are to preserve the right of copying the work for the copyright holder.
The point of copyrights (and patents) is to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for a limited time the exclusive right to use the work(s) to the person(s) who created them as they see fit.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Use the second link.
The original source of this message is the column on Techdirt named It is time to stop pretending to endorse the copyright monopoly. The ITWorld reporter (the first link in the story) muddles the message to some degree, and also introduces heavy bias into the story (see the headers over the comments section, for instance).
The original message is that yes, the copyright monopoly (or four/five monopolies) are ridiculous, but we should stop pretending to support them all while criticizing the draconian laws that are de facto needed to sustain them. IT World muddles this to that we should stop "following" the copyright monopoly laws. That is a different message (which I might have said too, but not in this particular article).
Just make it more reasonable and not oppressive. The idea of getting credit isn't bad, its just morphed over the decades into something evil.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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.
He sounds like a typical politician, making big bold lies that are more descriptive of how he sees the world than how it is.
People do, generally, follow copyright. Millions of people buy books or DVDs or music or software. Those that don't often give reasons like "I wanted to try it before buying it" or "It's not available for sale [where I live]/[in a format I want]" or "I can't afford it anyway", suggesting that they would follow the laws given the right circumstances.
It's good that people generally follow these laws, because the core idea of copyright (that creators have a right to be reimbursed for their hard work) is a good one.
Now, the statement that "Copyright laws are ridiculous" is unambiguously true. Any law that suggests the unauthorized download of MP3s causes trillions of dollars worth of damage to the economy is clearly insane. But suggesting that we should have no protection for creators at all is equally insane. It's just a nice fiery soundbite intended to get his supporters all worked up, so that they'll donate more or participate in get out the vote efforts, etc.
We need copyright reform, and hopefully the pirate parties draw attention to that fact. But copyright abolition is a cure worse than the disease.
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.
Let's not pretend that copyright doesn't have a good purpose. If I create a new product (w/o a patent), it can take time for other people to copy it. They have to reverse engineer it, and figure out how everything works. And their copy might not be as good as my version.
But with books, music, software... It can be copied the day it's released. And every copy is an exact perfect duplicate. My copy is just as good as another persons copy.
And that difference, means it would be nearly impossible to monetize anything except physical products. So copyrights are needed and are important.
BUT that doesn't mean it should be protected for a 100+ years. Is the phone from 1876 as important today as it was then? Is last decades music listened to as much as music that was released last week? Are books from 100 years ago as popular as today's bestsellers? Copyrighted material becomes worth less as time passes.
After 10 years or so, very few copyrighted works are worth more than a fraction of what they were originally.
So set a 10 year copyright. I would even go for 15 years.. but that's starting to become excessive.
Well, record labels do provide many services to artists
That's a hell of a way to spin it. Who do you think ultimately pays for the advertising, the studio time, the costs of live shows, etc.?
Allow any work to be copyrighted for 1 year without paying any fees. Let that be the "copyright from the moment your pen touches the paper".
Beyond Year 1, the cost of extending a copyright should be $0.01 * 2 ^ (Year #).
So, renewing the copyright for Year 2 costs $0.04.
Year 10 is $10.24
Copyright protection for a decade is affordable for anyone, and sometimes cheaper than coffee.
Year 20 is $10,485.76
Year 30 is $10,737,418.24
Year 40 is $10,995,116,277.76
So it provides everybody with a reasonable measure of copyright protection.
It provides corporate entities a way to keep copyrights on things that are very profitable.
It ensures that all works will eventually fall to the public domain.
Why not?
But having art also function as a profession that feeds you gets a lot more young artists into it. Alternatively, they would either go into STEM, one of the service fields, the military, or find no purpose in life. Most of the artistic people I know have no scientific inclination, and now this is my opinion, but I feel (personally) that if you are not making something useful (and art is useful, from a cultural perspective) you have diminished purpose.
So when the artist could have made a minimum wage living off selling paintings, if you can duplicate without reciprocation the works of art and he cant survive off just art anymore, he has to take on a menial job that detracts from an otherwise gifted individual.
I don't like copyright, but until you don't need to work to eat and sleep in a bed in your own home, you can't expect artists to work, and more importantly attract budding artists to pursue their talents, to take up the profession. We need to maintain a way for artists who make duplicate digital media to survive off what they make while acknowledging the cost of reproduction is less than a cent on most of this media and not distributing it for free is doing the opposite of what the constitution defines progress as.
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.
(Nitpicky edit)
"To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts..."
(/Nitpicky edit)
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
They can only be enforced in country they are passed in and internet in itself is its own country with no laws what so ever cause not 1 countries laws can apply to it.
Damnit, my strike tags on your "the" got edited out! Now I'M going to get nit-picked.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
Well, record labels do provide many services to artists
That's a hell of a way to spin it. Who do you think ultimately pays for the advertising, the studio time, the costs of live shows, etc.?
The customer, like in every business? Of course, record labels also take risk of the band not succeeding and them making a loss.
In the reality where I live, GNU/Linux and Wikipedia have been proven to exist despite explicitly renouncing the copyright monopoly and encouraging copying.
If you can't do it yourself, there's a book for that. Read Imagine There Is No Copyright and No Cultural Conglomorates Too.... PDF, 82 pages, free download -- obviously.
So yes, Falkvinge has a point.
Not much of a risk, if you ask me. They don't really accept anyone unless they're absolutely sure they have a >50% chance they'll make money off 'em.
Right you are, sir.
Means of coping? Do you mean means of copying?
There have always been means of copying. Long before Shakespeare's time, the primary enterprise of monks was the duplication of written works. It's just that back in the day, copying was less efficient and less accurate. (You could watch Hamlet and copy it, but you would only get an exact copy of the text if you happened to secure a written copy of it.)
You are right, at least as the US is involved, Copyright laws have nothing to do with giving credit. (That is the realm of trademark). Nevertheless, the introduction by Europe, specially the french, of so called "moral rights", have introduced "giving credit" into the equation.
Therefore Falkvinge is right when you look at the modern laws of copyright as written in Europe.
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.
NO, no and, let me say it again: NO.
Copyright is COMPROMISE between the interest of the society, and the individual. It was recognized that one needs to take credit for his innovation, but as every "innovator" is part of the society, and his/her invention is not PURE invention as he/she used the fruits of the same society (did even Steve Jobs made his iPhone out of thin air? From scratch? From the required math/physics/chemistry/etc. laws and rules? DID HE?), so it is STUPID to say the the before mentioned "inventor" is true "inventor" and should take all the credit for his work. Clear enough?
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.
It seems a tad self severing for the storefront owner who smashed in the manufacturers and window and slapped on their own label before putting it in their windows, to complain about looting on the grounds that when they do it it doesn't count.
Using your analogy, the people the current media barons are breaking into our homes and stealing our great grandmother's wedding rings. They are then swapping the diamonds between the bands, and declaring it their own.
before there existed means of coping.
Xanax is a relatively new invention. Good thing its available as a generic
When all else fails, try.
People don't make art just because they need a quick buck.
No, but a lot of people do. And those that can get paid to make art, generally create better art than those who do it as a hobby.
Still, it seems a tad self serving for those that smashed into storefronts to suggest repealing laws against looting on the grounds that everyone is doing it. Is a TV set or Microwave oven that much different than a song or a book? The basic premise that a work in digital form can be replicated without depleting the inventory of the author is simply mistaking the the form for the function. The form may be bits and bytes. The function is someone's work product. Unless he proposes putting all authors and on the public teat, I am at a loss to see how anyone can keep writing books any more than I can see why anyone would stock more microwave's in a store from which anyone take anything they wanted.
If you are going to make it illegal to deprive someone of a sale, but not necessarily of physical item, you are entering muddy waters, buddy. You as might as well hold Walmart legally responsible for all the small businesses they put out of business by "depriving them of sales." Please, do not make physical comparisons if it isn't appropriate. But Walmart didn't steal any physical items from them, now did they?
The thought of hanging myself at my student loan organization doesn't bug me as much when I think it might make a differ
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.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Copyright law has been largely unified via the Bern convention (USA signed on in the 1980s) and later WIPO.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Unless you reach a level of popularity that borders on lottery-winning luck, you will not see millions from your label contract. The labels may steal from the consumer's pockets, but they are also throttling the money out of the artists naive enough to sign to them.
"Useful Arts" actually refers to patentable handicraft; the consitution's motivation for the patent monopolies. This is the same word as you see in "artisan".
"Progress of Science" refers to knowledge subject to the copyright monopolies.
And yet Shakespeare did not do it via public funding or copyright. So, it would seem the if drsmithy needs a history lesson, it isn't because he is confused about copyright.
"dude, you're a barista" comes to mind...
there are more part time artists than there ever will be full time ones.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I was just reading about this in Lessig's book, "Free Culture" today. I can't recommend the book enough!
I never knew Walt Disney's Steamboat Mickey infringed on Steamboat Bill, Jr which infringed on the song Steamboat Bill. Ironic, isn't it? Too bad the madness isn't stopping anytime soon...
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
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.
Commercial Regular Rotation for Rock, Alt, Urban (8 weeks) R&R indicator stage 1 (small markets - 10 stations) .$ 15000
R&R indicator stage 2 (medium & small markets - 25 stations) $ 30000
Regional (non-charting) (10-15 stations) $8000
BDS Promotion (7-10 stations) $15000
This looks like it was cut and paste from some sort of official spreadsheet or list. Wasn't there a massive antitrust lawsuit back in the 1970s where the government came down down hard on Pay for Play radio stations? The snippet I pasted above looks to my untrained eye like prices for playing singles. Could you expand on where you got this info, DCTech?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
And patronage and admissions for a performance are not copyright and are not public funding. So what was wrong with GP's comment?
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.
I own a copy of some music. You like it? Let me MAKE you a copy! :-)
BTW, ideas are explicitly NOT granted any sort of legal protection.
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...
Depends on your definition of useful art I guess. If you find it useful for the art to drag you to a place of fantasy for 45 minutes (assuming you can block out the adverts every 5 minutes), then it's useful. If you lack the imagination that allows you to immerse yourself in someone else's story, then I guess it isn't useful - and you'd be a very boring person.
And they only loan the artists a bunch of money and won't give them a cent until it is paid back. link
This is why all the 'bands' these days sound the same. The labels are so risk averse, they are there to only make money - and that means using tried and tested methods/sounds
If the laws against stealing were repealed tomorrow, would you start robbing stores daily? I don't need a law against murder to not murder. The fact you do indicates you are mentally ill, not that laws are the only things keeping the population civilized.
Learn to love Alaska
It's about whether you own my thoughts. Copyright is thought police. If you invent something (a song, a program, whatever) and someone else think it is like theirs, then you are a criminal. The two solutions are to change the rules or never invent. Enough are picking the second option that the world would be better offf without any IP laws at all (though I like trademark, it's an anti-fraud law with squatters rights).
Learn to love Alaska
slashdot = stagnated
You are wrongly assuming that selling copies is the only way by which one can make a living off of their artistic creativity.
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.
I doubt there are many movies that haven't - absent Hollywood Accounting - made a tidy profit before the end of their box office run, and even fewer that couldn't be made to by reducing the salaries of a handful of leading actors, producers, etc. That's not even accounting for merchandising and further (though obviously much reduced, relatively speaking) DVD/BR/etc sales.
Huge amounts of money are made by live music performances, not only from the performance itself but also from merchandising and sundries. Certainly enough to cover the studio time for a CD recording. Again, that's not account for merchandising and recording sales.
The only really big "problem" from the perspective of economic viability in the absence of Copyright is ebooks, and the best solution there IMHO is DRM.
Any accountant of any form worth their salt is doing it because they geinuinely like the artform, and would do so pay or no pay.
Any software developer of any form worth their salt is doing it because they geinuinely like the artform, and would do so pay or no pay.
Any website designer of any form worth their salt is doing it because they geinuinely like the artform, and would do so pay or no pay.
Any scientist of any form worth their salt is doing it because they geinuinely like the artform, and would do so pay or no pay.
I'll sign up with your "let's make all copywritten works free" when you agree to do your own job for free too.
People aren't naturally compelled to put together microwaves, typically. While artists will always make art, whether copyright exists or not. Copyright requires art, not vice-versa. If the art is good, then there will always be demand, and there will always be natural scarcity of some kind that can be used by artists. Copyright is inhibiting culture today more than promoting it. Why should we keep laws that have become so outdated and irrelevant
Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you
And the fact that musicians are artists first and businessmen second is why the record labels get away with screwing them.
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).
there will always be natural scarcity of some kind that can be used by artists
No. That is precisely the point. There won't be a scarcity. The moment the art is sold, shown, exhibited, in the world you propose it could instantly be copied printed replicated by anyone who happens to get near it with a camer. This could happen before the artist makes a single thin dime off of it.
Yes you will still have those that do it for the love of the doing. But far fewer. Even artists have to put bread on the table.
Let me know when you are willing to work for free, but in the mean time the artists knowledge and skill is his only stock in trade. Don't take that from him.
You pay the farmer for the eggs, and seem to have no problem with that. Why should the composer get less?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Copyright laws are to preserve the right of copying the work for the copyright holder. Period.
Laws balance the rights of individuals to the rights of societies. You can't solely argue for the rights of the individual (in many cases, not even the actual author) without weighing the pros and cons to society. Otherwise, laws are meaningless and will ultimately fail. Current copyright law does not take into consideration the benefit of public domain and thus has become meaningless and will ultimately fail.
I'm not saying we should abolish copyright but extending it beyond the life span of most people doesn't even give benefits to the author and sacrifices a great deal to the public. Walt Disney is dead, opening Fantasia to the public domain would do more to encourage what it was originally intended to be than Disney owning it ever will.
I don't like copyright, but until you don't need to work to eat and sleep in a bed in your own home, you can't expect artists to work, and more importantly attract budding artists to pursue their talents, to take up the profession. We need to maintain a way for artists who make duplicate digital media to survive off what they make while acknowledging the cost of reproduction is less than a cent on most of this media and not distributing it for free is doing the opposite of what the constitution defines progress as.
Sounds like you've identified the systemic issue to be one with how the system itself is set up. Which is different from blaming any of the actors in the current system for their actions.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Please, I'm begging you: stop trying to negotiate as though the other side was rational and honorable, and would honor any agreement for the long term.
That's how they get us, every time. They pretend that they'll act like human beings, and then they push for more. Every time. Because that's what sociopaths do: they see the pie and they want it all. And they're willing to be patient if it gets them what they want. And make no mistake: what they want is the whole thing, forever, and every one of us paying them, regardless of how much we use or enjoy.
The only way to counter that is to act as irrationally, and in the other direction. It's not that there can't be a sane middle ground; it's that as long as we advocated for a sane middle ground, we got extended and renegotiated into the current situation. If we keep trying to negotiate for a sane middle ground, we're the ones to blame when the next Mickey Mouse preservation act passes. We're the ones to blame when the public domain starts to shrink. We're the ones to blame, until we start acting as sociopathic as corporations, including being so utterly charming that our point of view seems as reasonable as theirs, so the sane middle ground must be the right compromise.
Copyright laws evolved from the British crown outsourcing censorship.
Copyright has really always been about the powerful controlling the flow of information. Check out around 12min into Falkvinge's Google Tech Talk.
Originally copyright only applied to organizations because you needed money to own a printing press, but now that anybody can copy, they conveniently forget that disorganized copying cannot compete with institutionalized distribution, ala iTunes, and attack individual copying.
Is there any doubt why they're passing SOPA/PIPA this year? It's WikiLeaks, Hacktivism, the Arab Spring, the European Summer, OWS, the possible African Spring, and the coming stronger protests.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Laws balance the rights of individuals to the rights of societies. You can't solely argue for the rights of the individual
I don't disagree with anything you've said, and implicit in every definition of copyright is a time period, after which everything becomes public domain.
That part is so obvious I didn't thing it necessary to state it.
In fact I could make a case that Copyright should be knocked back to that it was originally, or maybe just to 10 years.
After all, if you can't sell enough in ten years to feed your family while you work on the next creation, you should probably take
up farming instead.
But that is not what the Pirate Party is proposing. They are proposing total abolition of copyright, (and by logical extension, patents too).
They are essentially saying that If I get a peek at your great manuscript, I can rush it out before you even get a chance to sell the leather
bound first editions. When you do soldier on and print a few copies for friends, I can scan that
and under cut your price, because there would be no legal protection at all.
Writing, composing, and recording become spare time projects for steel workers, farmers, and truck drivers, because without a source of income
the people who create can't make a living, unlike the performers.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Is a TV set or Microwave oven that much different than a song or a book?
Not at all, we just currently do not have the technology to be able to (easily) copy them, but I imagine if the replicator (as seen in Star Trek) is ever invented and can produce an item cheaper than buying it in the store, people will be downloading TVs and microwave ovens, as well as other items.
As for digital stuff - well, people still buy paper books because they want paper books (not a file), people still buy CDs and records with music, or BDs with movies. Also, even though the copyright laws do not work, people still buy digital downloads and software because they want to pay the creator. When I buy a game I do it because I want to support the creator (and the price is right), not because I am afraid to pirate it. Look at the humble indie bundle - you can pay as little (or as much) as you want and people still pay $5 on average. It would be interesting if a big company tried this with a good AAA game.
We need to ditch the "game == TV set" idea, because software (music/etc) is not like a physical product (even if you do not take the easiness of copying into account), as the authors themselves think so and the laws reflect it:
1. There is a huge used physical item (car/TV/etc) and a lot of people making money from the sales of used items (the people selling them and sites like ebay) and everything is OK, but game developers want to be paid each time a used game is sold? Why? Nobody paid Matsushita when I bought my used Technics tape deck.
2. You own the physical item and can do anything you want with it (take apart, modify, even copy if you are able to), but you do not own a game (or software) and can only do what the author allowed you to. When I modified the tape deck in my car to add a "line-in" option (so I can connect my MD recorder), I did not have to ask Clarion for permission.
3. Patents (that would prevent me from legally selling a copied physical item, but not copying for my own use or modifying) expire in 15-20 years, while copyrights (that prevent me from copying and modifying a game/song/etc) last for 120 or more years.
I honestly think this is what big content are fearful of, people distributing their work for free, at the moment free movie productions don't have a chance of competing with big block busters, but music is definitely moving in the direction of a real diverse mixture and a lot of the younger people, myself included, particularly when i was in high school not too long ago, the pop industry just couldn't cater to our tastes (be they what they may), it was largely underground or non mainstream music, and i've noticed now, the huge influence it has had on the pop industry, with all currently released music taking a lot of stylistic ques and motifs from underground electronic music of the 90's and 00's. I think that the record companies are now playing catch up rather than moving their weight around like the once did and told people more or less what to like by mass marketing it.
I think it's a testament to the times that you get attempts at laws to prevent the possibility of someone else being creative, since from what i read about SOPA, big content will be able to take down stuff which isn't even theirs, and i'm pretty sure, just like before, legitimately free things will be thrown in amongst the blatant piracy, but nevertheless, i for one am convinced that big content are trying to run the policies in such a way that guarantees their market more than their content.
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.
Whoah, buddy, you don't get to speak for all artists. I love doing art and I'd do it anyway, but if I'm going to spend 40+ hours a week doing it, I need to get paid. Feel free to make however much art you want and give it away, but just because that works for you doesn't mean that it works for everyone, or that it's the best way for art to be made.
Logic fail. Many others did NOT have patronage from the monarch and none had copyright, yet the works were produced. To properly refute GP, you would have to show that no art was produced outside of public funding and copyright protection. One example that did have such patronage (however well respected) doesn't even approach the burden of proof.
Beyond that, the monarch didn't even pretend to be a representative of the people, and so the patronage was as much personal as anything else.
Strange.. it has always been my take that this is waht usually deters budding artists, and it isn't the issue of being paid.
First: many kids in school start learning to draw all on their own. They cover the insides of their binders and notebooks in cute, sometimes inventive gaphiti. Teachers get angry with them for "wasting their time", when in reality the teachers want them to do homework rather than draw.
This denouncement of the activity sends a destructive message that these activities are not worthwhile, at a particularly important point in neural development. Specifically, the creation of neurons for skills honed later in life happens during childhood, with aggressive pruning happening in teenage to young adult years. "Motor memory" and other intrinsic manipulation abilities develop at this time. By distracting from artistic development and interest in childhood, we literally program people to avoid becoming artists, and sabotage the ones that still persist, despite this message and even being penalised for their persistence.
Second: people believe nobody will want their art. Since art supplies are expensive, lessons to "properly" use those supplies are expensive, and the prospect of producing crap that they can't even give away, people avoid dabbling with artwork.
Third: if they produce art, how do they share it? (Art is impotent unless shared with others.) Recent trends with things like deviant art and other internet art communities have made this easier, but so far only a handful of artforms are able to be shared this way. For example, sculpture is particularly hard to share online, unless created in a purely digital form.
So, if you want people to make art, the better way to incentivize them is to stop telling kids that they need to stop seeking artistic output, show people that even horrible dross has aesthetic followings, and to help artists find those followings.
Notice that nowhere was any money involved.
The best thing that money does, is provide a tangible measure of demand for a genre of artwork. That's all.
An "angel" offering fame and fortune but demanding complete ownership of the artist sounds more like a deal with the devil to me.
This guy wants to make money from selling movies. He can't make the movies himself. So he wants the right to sell other people's movies without compensating them for their work. Seems pretty straightforward.
This is quite a leap. It presupposes that artistic (and other) works enter the world ready and able to be copied, while physical things come into the world with property rights already attached. This is not at all obvious to me. Then again, I don't believe that property rights are natural rights -- I think they are created by law to achieve policy goals (albiet very important ones, for the most part, and goals that history has shown to be very difficult to achieve through any other means). But even if I believed that they were natural rights, by way of, say, the labor theory of property, I think a good case could be made that copyright should be a natural right or, if you prefer, just a type of property right. Indeed, this is apparently an influential view, among copyright scholars.(In short, if one has a right to exclude others from the fruits of one's own labor, then you should be able to exclude others from enjoyment of your creative works just as you can exclude them from taking your stuff.
Of course, you may have an argument to the contrary. I'd like to hear it. I might even agree. But hopefully we can at least agree that a lot of your claims are a little hasty, and that reasonable people might disagree with them.
caritj.org
I can see that your working on several assumptions that are just not true. The first is that theft is the same as copyright infringement. Different laws, different actions, different consequences. If I steal a tv, I have taken the materials from you. In order for you to sell that tv you need to buy more materials to make that tv and pay someone to assemble that tv and maybe ship it to your location to replace that tv. All of those things can easily be measured in how it directly harmed you financially. This has nothing to do with how much you can have made selling that tv. Which bring us to copying media. If I copy a song, you haven't lost a thing. You have to expend zero effort to re cope losses because nothing was lost. All of these losses big business whines about are potential sales. Potentially someone could have bought this but now they defiantly won't because that have a copy.
Next you think that everyone is wrong because laws must be followed. Laws are just a set of rules that determine how people want to live decided by the people. If the vast majority act in contrary to the law, then it is the law that is wrong, not the people. Downloading and sharing is something that happens all the time, every day by common every day people. Your riot example is no where near the same as what happens online every day. A Riot is a single event usually occurring in a single night by a small group.
The final assumption is that an author should be paid or there won't be anymore books. Frankly, if they can't make money writing with sharing going on, then they shouldn't write. Maybe there will be a few less books but that will only increase demand for good books and if the writing is good, people will always pay for good work.
And you wrongly are implying that therefore piracy of material is acceptable. If an artist, for whatever reason, decides to make money from selling copies of their work - then you, if you enjoy that work, have an obligation to help support them. That is the social contract you enter into when you gain the benefits of someone else's time.
Sounds like Disney.
If the laws against stealing were repealed tomorrow, would you start robbing stores daily? I don't need a law against murder to not murder.
You know, unfortunately, there are lots of people who would.
That's why we can't have nice things. >_<
Artistic works DO for the most part enter the world ready to be copied. Stories have always been told and retold. Artists have always copied others. If you tell me a story and I tell someone else, you don't suddenly become unable to tell it.
Physical objects have never had that characteristic, no matter how hard we wish. If I take an object from you, you don't have it any more.
That fundamental difference has always been there and that's why they have always been treated distinctly. It's why it's two entirely seperate areas of law. Even now with copyright law running amok, nobody has yet suggested that it might be coonsidered a perpetual right like property (where it can pass down generations forever). Any number of writers have shown that society cannot even function long if intellectual property is allowed to be treated as physical property.
Consider in our own culture to this day, oral story telling (everything from personal anecdotes to urban legends) still has no copyright. There is no legal right and few would grant you a moral right to the story you tell at dinner about the time your friend did X. Everyone laughs, and perhaps one or more later tell the story of when a friend of a friend did X with or without embellishments. Why does it suddenly gain some special privilege just because you scribble it down on a cocktail napkin?
If you look at the pre-socialized behavior of children or at various pre-civilized cultures throughout history, their behavior matches what I've said. They quickly develop a recognition of individual physical property rights, but rarely intellectual property rights other than a right of attribution (credit).
Your civil rights? Really, you have a civil right to enjoy someone else's works without paying them?
Methinks your diluting the term a bit...
The reality of this world is giving stuff away for free doesn't pay the gas bill or put food on the table. People that want to spend there lives devoted to their art need to pay the bills, if there art isn't paying the bills then they must do something else to pay the bills and hence there will be less art. Not sure whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, but the reality is you can't eat good will.
Well, the Devil is supposed to be a fallen angel...
I'm not sure Avatar is a very good example: I thought I read that it was largely financed by James Cameron himself, so it probably would never have been made if it weren't for him ponying up his own money, and he instead had tried to rely on getting some studio to finance it entirely.
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.
But then, that gets right at the heart at the problem. There's way too much supply and not enough demand. Lots of people are expecting to spend 40+ hours a week "making art" and get paid a sufficient wage to live on it.
See the thing is, your art is only worth what some generous (that's right) individual is willing to pay for it. No one needs your particular works. Whatever it is, someone else is almost certainly creating very similar works from their own creativity for a much lower price, and likely for free (or at least for only the cost of materials). That same individual is holding another job to pay the bills, and creating art because it's his/her passion. That is, has always been, and will always be the case. It's only in very recent history that more than a very very small percentage of the population is able to make an actual living doing nothing but creating art or entertaining.
Guess what's going to be one of the hardest-hit industries if we really do hit another real depression?
I'll give you a hint: a few hundreds of millions of would-be artists are going to find out what real work is.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
True enough. But I don't see MAFIAA cokeheads having the charm/allure generally attributed to Señor Diablo in most mythological accounts.
Its hard to take the social contract seriously when one side keeps altering the deal in their favor whilst giving up nothing in return......
Good-bye
Artists also have to eat, have housing, and pay the bills. If they have to work a normal full-time job to pay for those things and only do their art on the side, that leaves them much less time and energy to pursue their artwork. If they can make money with their art, they can concentrate on it full-time, producing more of it.
Of course, this doesn't mean they should continue to get profits on something 75 years after they made it; 5 or 10 years should really be sufficient.
The purposes of the copyright monpoly vary between legislations, so there is not "one" purpose.
In the United States, it is "to promote the progress and the useful arts", nothing more, nothing less. That is a direct quote from the constitution.
And yet out of the 33 comments currently at +3 at this time, 24 of them out right state the only purpose of copyright law is for people to make profit and money.
These comments then get modded up by others, who also mistakenly believe copyright only exists for profit.
Do you ever feel it get you down, like it's a losing battle? You never seem to, even in face of people like these.
For myself, it feels horribly depressing and futile even trying to get someone to click a provided link to the constitution, as they simply ignore it and continue to parrot this made up notion that art only exists to make money.
How do you do it?
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.
Any musician that I have been exposed to in the past few years was through jamendo. I typically browse to the category of music I am interested in listening to and then randomly play a few albums until I find something that I like.
The publicity given by the record label has certainly not reached me
To Share Is To care
One wonders how you learned to write at all with this philosophy, as I'm sure it wasn't your idea.
Has this even the slightest relation to the things copyright holders go to court these days? (ie: digital copies of of movies)
-- no sig today
"If the laws against stealing were repealed tomorrow, would you start robbing stores daily? I don't need a law against murder to not murder. The fact you do indicates you are mentally ill, not that laws are the only things keeping the population civilized." -- quote from Swilver, 2012
I hope it didn't hurt too much.
I though it was
"Raping Internet Authors Annually"
-- no sig today
Copyright laws are to preserve the right of copying the work for the copyright holder. Period.
Not true. In Europe, copyright also covers performances , the right to attribution, the right to not have your work used in an "insulting" context, and the right of the performing artist to receive economic compensation, just like TFA says. Some or all of these rights also apply to the USA.
Satire and remixes don't matter and are already protected anyway.
Remixes are not allowed under fair use. Satires are not allowed under fair use either, but parodies are, if they don't rely too heavily on the source material. (The difference between a parody and a satire is that a parody lampoons the source material, while a satire lampoons a third party.)
Is a TV set or Microwave oven that much different than a song or a book?
Yes. You can't steal a song. If you copy my song, I still have my copy left.
I am at a loss to see how anyone can keep writing books any more than I can see why anyone
would stock more microwave's in a store from which anyone take anything they wanted.
In the entire USA, at most a few hundred authors can live on their writing alone. The others derive their income from related work, such as holding lectures or writing courses, or having an ordinary day job. In other words, even if it became impossible to live on your writing, most authors wouldn't notice any difference. That's how it always has been, even in the good old days before the Internet.
The situation is similar for music artists - most artists have never been able to live on CD sales, but have had to rely on concerts and merchandise. The main difference the Internet has made, is that they don't have to rely on expensive CD pressing to attract people to their concerts and merchandise - they can just put their music up for free on the Internet.
Newspapers have also been in a similar situation long before the Internet - they've derived most of their income from advertising, not selling newspapers.
I'm an unpublished fiction writer myself, but I realise that even if I succeed and become reasonably famous, it's unlikely I'll receive any significant income from book sales, and I'm probably better off using my fame as a writer to get a more interestng day job.
Everyone else thinks nobody else is nice, yet they think they are the only one they trust. Seems pretty silly to me. If you wouldn't, why would you think everyone else would?
Learn to love Alaska
That's why many places separate out "author's rights" from "copyright" Copying is legal, fraud isn't. You aren't just copying, you are also lying, and that's a crime in most of Europe. Separate from just stealing the words is the fraud of lying to pretend you are not the ignorant prat you are.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
Property rights exist because you can prevent someone from taking your stuff. The same is not true of "artistic works". You can't make someone unhear that song you just played.
That is the crux of the difference.
In this case, the only thing worse than getting nit-picked is NOT getting nit-picked.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
The farmer gets paid once for his eggs. Why should the composer get paid multiple times for the same composition ?
So when the artist could have made a minimum wage living off selling paintings, if you can duplicate without reciprocation the works of art and he cant survive off just art anymore, he has to take on a menial job that detracts from an otherwise gifted individual.
But that's how the majority of painters already live. Precious few painters can make a living off their art, and most of those that do, do it through government hand-outs.
With or without copyright, the painter would still get paid for the original.
Those professions tend to get paid to produce work and once they stop working, they don't continue to get paid. The analogue would be paying artists/musicians to produce art - maybe get lots of people who would like to watch to turn up and pay to see them working.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Yeah fair enough, I wouldn't lose sleep over Disney either. Though this doesn't then legitimate the piracy of all artwork. Remember that for many artists, the people enjoying, but not paying for, their work will be better off than them.
Most of the well known musicians, artists, Writers etc had a job, struggled, took any work they could, got paid nothing or next to nothing for their art for years before they got lucky and got noticed ...copyright made no difference ....
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Psychological studies consistently show that being financially rewarded makes your work less creative. Money distracts from other motivations, such as the pleasure of doing a good job.
To motivate people to do a good job, you need to pay them enough to take the issue of money off their minds, but money should never be the primary motivation.
Actually... the current copyright system makes it profitable for corporations to market a few artists heavily, which makes it harder for the small artists to be seen in all the media buzz. In some respects, it's a zero-sum game: giving priveleges to some artists automatically makes the situation worse for the others.
Playing devil's advocate, but if my employers advanced me some money, then they'd take it out of the next paycheck. How is this different?
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
There's a difference between artists and other professions. Most artists do, as a matter of fact, produce art without getting paid. Most writers don't profit off their writing, most graphic artists don't profit off their graphic art, most musicians don't profit off their music, and so on. And that's how it always has been. If they earn any money at all on their art, it's usually far less than they would gain from taking a minimum-wage job. Often, they spend more money on supplies or self-publishing than they gain from sales. And yet, they're happy to do it.
And yes, I'm an unpublished writer myself. I've decided to release some of my writing under Creative Commons, and send some out to publishers, and see which is most succesful.
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.
Yes? Doesn't that demonstrate that public funding and copyright are not needed for artists to get paid?
Not only that, his works only came into existence because of "piracy". Shakespeare based almost all of his plays on older works. If he had lived today, and the works he copied were still in copyright, he'd been sued into oblivion.
+1
Your civil rights? Really, you have a civil right to enjoy someone else's works without paying them?
Of cource i have! I just "enjoyed" reading your work (your comment) without paying for it!
But you thing it is wrong? You thing you shall pay for using other's intelectual works? But what is exactly this work you are speaking of? One word, two words or whole sentence? I bet you said some copyrighted sentences in your life without paying anyone or without even noticing they were copyrighted. (Before you start to write that only longer unique combinations of words can be copyrighted let me say that i hear quite often about copyright court cases involving as little as 3 words or few seconds of complete silence!)
Rick, I'm glad you're saying this. We need to widen the Overton Window in this debate.
I tell my friends I simply don't believe in copyright, full stop. I don't have any qualms in ignoring it. I don't believe in trying for 'reasonable reform'. I only believe in the eradication of copyright monopolies of whatever duration.
The law in any country puts limitations on copyright, such as fair use. I.e, it balances the interests of the creator with the interests of the public.
There are still natural scarcities the artist can take advantage of. For example, his personal endorsement (many people are prepared to pay more for the "official" version). His personal labour (holding lectures, writing courses and workshops). Being first to market (many people are prepared to pay more to get the work just one day earlier).
Let me know when you are willing to work for free, but in the mean time the artists knowledge and skill is his only stock in trade. Don't take that from him.
Lots of people are willing to work for free. Like all the people who do fansubs and scanlations, or write fanfic, or put up their original art on the Internet. I've released one of my short stories under Creative Commons, and more are to follow.
It has always been the case that most artists can't live off their art. The problem with art is that it's so much fun, too many people want to do it. There just aren't enough job opportunities for them all.
Musicians have happily survived for vast swathes of time where reproduction was impossible. Hearing music meant listening to a musician play it for the vast majority of time that humans have been creating and listening to music.
Luckily humans still enjoy doing this: people like actually listening to live musicians and musicians still enjoy performing music for people.
The business model that made a lot of middlemen very rich by taking a recording of the live music and selling it to people who wanted to listen to the music outside of a live performance is dead, but that doesn't mean that there aren't other business models that work just as well for musicians and music fans. Note that this business model did not actually make the musicians any more money, on average (yes, a few musicians got very rich, but many many more got broken).
Unfortunately for the middlemen (but fortunately for everyone else involved) none of those other business models work nearly as well for the middlemen. Hence their struggles to remain relevant and destroy any other business models while the musicians and music fans slowly work out that the other business models do work and that there is more than one way to make a living from being a musician.
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
After all, if you can't sell enough in ten years to feed your family while you work on the next creation, you should probably take
up farming instead.
But that is not what the Pirate Party is proposing. They are proposing total abolition of copyright, (and by logical extension, patents too).
They are essentially saying that If I get a peek at your great manuscript, I can rush it out before you even get a chance to sell the leatherbound first editions.
No, the Pirate Party wants to reduce the copyright term to five years, while allowing non-commercial copying for private use, and retaining the creator's right to attribution.
The term five years is based on the fact that most commercial culture collects most of its revenue within five years of publication.
It's all on their web page.
Any accountant of any form worth their salt is doing it because they geinuinely like the artform, and would do so pay or no pay.
Any software developer of any form worth their salt is doing it because they geinuinely like the artform, and would do so pay or no pay.
Any website designer of any form worth their salt is doing it because they geinuinely like the artform, and would do so pay or no pay.
Any scientist of any form worth their salt is doing it because they geinuinely like the artform, and would do so pay or no pay.
I'll sign up with your "let's make all copywritten works free" when you agree to do your own job for free too.
Nobody wants you to work for free. You can sign any contract with any employer you want.
Just stop saying others what they can do with information they legaly acquired.
These are the costs record labels charge for their own services. The problem is that record labels are just part of the Big Media conglomaration that owns studios, radios, TVs etc. And it's very hard to get around them, an artist trying to freelance will not get any radio or TV time because they are owned by the same cartel that owns the record companies. Now with online stores and radios starting to gain popularity, there is a way to circumvent them, and this is what makes these companies really afraid, not piracy. Piracy has been there for generations, but now there is a new business model that could turn the whole market upside down. This is why the media cartel tries to outlaw any technology that could be used to compete them.
(Also, couldn't you just post a link instead of this monstrous wall of numerical data?)
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.
They may like it, but if it doesn't pay the bills they will have to find some real work, degrading art to only a hobby.
I think it's no surprise that after the radicalization of the copyright lobby the Pirate Parties that appeared to counter it also became very radical. The problem is, if they want to win the public that is infuriated by the overreaching copyright laws, they have to offer a viable alternative. But that would require more thinking and intelligence than the "abolish all copyright laws!" mantra.
I am under no obligation to support anyone simply because I enjoy something. I can enjoy a tune that I've incidentally heard, and hum to it even, but whether or not I choose to purchase goods from an artist who chooses to sell those goods is something entirely different. I am obliged, by law, to respect a copyright (i.e. not make copies) if it is the intention of the copyright holder to enforce that copyright, but I have no legal obligation to financially "support" the copyright holder in order to respect their copyright in accordance to the law.
You seem to think that copyright is some form of artist welfare, which isn't the purpose of copyright. A limited monopoly on the reproduction and performance rights of a creative work is all that the copyright holder is entitled to. Whether or not a copyright hold is able and willing to financially support themselves through the production of copies and performances during that limited time is not at all within the scope of copyright.
You might not, but there are many people who already do. Imagine what would happen if all of them were let out of prisons tomorrow.
Decompiled binaries are not the same as source code. Your premise is broken.
Invalid analogy. Eggs have integrated DRM.
The farmer puts time and effort into rearing and maintaining a hen. The hen can produce physical resources (eggs), each of which may be disposed of (sold, consumed or destroyed) by the farmer exactly once. Once the purchaser has used/consumer or disposed of the egg, it is gone (*). The farmer could also opt to sell the hen, albeit at a much higher price to compensate for the loss of expected income from the sale of eggs.
(*) In general it is not possible for a buyer to produce a chicken from an egg, as the eggs are unfertilised. A farmer may sell you a fertilised egg at a higher price, mindful of future competition; the buyer would still face a relatively large investment to rear the hen.
The composer puts time and effort into creating a composition. The value of a composition derives from an audience paying for the performance of that composition, but (1) the composer may not be the performer, and (2) any audience member could be a performance or could record the performance and subsequently re-perform it (possibly for another audience). In effect any performer, or audience member with technological support, can duplicate eggs with no need for a hen, or can recreate the hen from the egg. The composer, who has created a unique and original "immortal hen", stands to gain no benefit from this creation.
Economics dictates that when the marginal cost of duplication approaches zero, the marginal value of the composition will tend towards zero, and the value of a performance will be determined only by the demand to see a particular performer playing live. The only economically sensible approach for the composer is to recover the entire compensation for his/her time and effort from the first audience, who are willing to pay for the novelty of being the first audience of a new composition.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
No. That is precisely the point. There won't be a scarcity. The moment the art is sold, shown, exhibited, in the world you propose it could instantly be copied printed replicated by anyone who happens to get near it with a camer.
This is a good thing! The more culture is shared, the greater benefit for society as whole.
Let me know when you are willing to work for free
Nobody want's you to work for free. This just shows that current copyright is broken because it cannot stop copying and without this control of distribution it cannot provide compensations to artist. We clearly need new model of artist compensation, which won't limit distribution of information! Artist are shooting themself into foot if they support current form of copyright.
Infringing on copyright is economic theft because it increases the supply of a product beyond what the author desired, resulting in the devaluation of said product.
According to the law of supply and demand, the more supply increases, the cheaper the product becomes. This is no problem if done by the creator of a product, because it would be intentional; but if done by others without the consent of the author, then it violates the author's right to make the product available in a way that maximizes their profits.
The right of an individual or enterprise to sell their product as they see fit is a fundamental human right that relates to economic freedom. If there is no copyright, or if copyright is infringed, this freedom no longer exists.
Recorded music is cheaper than a live show of the same music. Were your conclusion valid, we would have already witnessed the death of live performances, as people would purchase the cheaper (and reusable !) recorded version instead.
Why ? What prevents another performance from occurring ?
I really, really hate to use this, but I can't think of a better way of putting it.
[Citation needed]. Yes, it looks like a copypaste of a website, but a source is always welcome.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
As I said "the value of a performance will be determined only by the demand to see a particular performer playing live". This does not necessarily compensate the composer in any way. Many composers are not themselves performers, and any performer could perform the composition - live - with no compensation offered to the composer.
Who will pay for it? If you are satisfied with a recording you can obtain a copy (and as the availability of copies grows their marginal value tends to zero). If you want a live performance you will pay to see the performance, but that means you are paying the performer rather than the composer.
In the case where the performer is the composer, and is reasonably desired by audiences, then the composer gets to make money from additional performances. Contrary to popular belief there are relatively few live gigs where the face of the band (the performer who will draw audiences, irrespective of who the other band members are) is the composer of both the music and the lyrics.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
I'm actually having difficulty deciding which side you mean....
I'm just going to hang my comment off this one.
Personally, it wouldn't affect me much if copyright were completely nulled all of a sudden. And yes, my main activities are in all sorts of copyrightable stuff: 3D art, code and music. Still, the only time the copyright laws have directly affected me were when a group I used to work with tried to steal my creations using one of our copyright laws here in the netherlands, and prevent me from using them anymore. In a world where everything can be freely copied, I'd still have work since someone would need to -make- the stuff first and people would just pay me to be the one making it. Yes, sometimes people don't want something generic floating around on the internet; they want something specific.
Of course, it would affect me if the disappearance of these laws were to completely eridicate all software companies and the like. I'm not sure how that would work. But I could imagine they'd be able to live on as well, even if they'd have to change things around a lot. Maybe a donation pool funded style of development?
He is refering to the side who is altering existing copyright LAW in their favor. (i.e. the copyright holders)
It does if he charges the groups he sells his composition to properly.
Everyone who wants to go. Just like today.
Which is, again, why the composer needs to charge the group appropriately when he sells them his composition.
What this eventually comes back to, is that the Copyright lobby only wants copyrighted goods to be treated like real property when it suits them, but not when it suits the purchaser. They want all the benefits of their infinite-supply good, without any of the consequences, while still being able to charge the consumer like it was a scarce good.
This gives me something to ponder...
If breaking copyright laws is now a criminal offence, is increasing the duration of copyrights a form of retroactive/retrospective legislation?
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
How about the basic premise that copyright laws are to preserve the right of the copyright holder FOR A SHORT TIME. Don't forget about that. It was written in the beginning and defined as 4 years so the holder could profit then release what is held to the world to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.
Well that 4 years turned into 14 with a 14 year renewal, then 28 with 14, then 28 with 28 renewal, but that took more than 100 years for corruption to wear down.
Then in 1976, corruption finally screwed a bad copyright system to death, lifetime plus 50 . It's gotten worse since, so bad in fact that even Nature jumped to the aid of good and right by assassinating Senator Bono, an evil scientologist , transexual raising, Hollywood has-been who would sell his country out for Xenu. Thank God for pine trees!
My point, copyright didn't work as it is subject to creeping corruption , it doesn't work today in any of its capacities. In a world, changing ever faster and creating new demands of mankind, ideas and inventions are needed in the public domain far quicker than the original 4 years, let alone this modern garbage.
Since we couldn't handle the concept of copyright, it DOESN"T WORK! When crap doesn't work we throw it away so it doesn't continually get in the way and draw vermin. Is that simple enough for you or do we need to redistill it into one syllable words?
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Group, singular. Once the composition has been performed it can be recreated from the performance, and there is no need for any performer or group beyond the first to pay (to anyone) more than the cost of "reverse engineering" the performance (which many musicians can do quite easily). Given that a second group intending to perform the composition will either reverse engineer it or pay (someone), it is economically sensible for the first group to undercut any price requested by the composer, as this maximizes the first group's profit. In a very short time the marginal value of the composition tends to zero, and all profits are derived exclusively by the performers.
Which means, in your view, a composer's market is performers, and the value of a composition is determined by the amount which a performer is prepared to pay for the novelty of being the first to perform the composition (and the expectation that said novelty will cause audiences to choose to see that performer live, both initially and in future by virtue of being the seminal performer)?
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
Eliminate laws against stealing, and you can do anything you want! Genius!
Reality: do that and NO ONE will create much of anything. Only fucking douchebag communists think people are that generous with their lives. Usually by force.
Like free software authors. Those douchebag communists!
But the GGP suggested that nobody would bother to create anything if it could be freely copied... which is demonstrably false by example of Wikipedia and GNU.
Who do you think ultimately pays for the advertising, the studio time, the costs of live shows, etc.?
As someone who worked in a recording studio for many years, I can say that very often it's the artist who pays for a lot of that stuff. The days of the 80s and label-funded month-long coke-binge-cum-recording-sessions are long, long gone. Any artist who isn't established enough to be a near-certain money maker for the label is probably paying for studio time, production, and tour costs out of pocket. Even mid-tier artists will only get an advance on the order of $10,000 to $20,000 which doesn't go very far when there are four of five people in the band who need to eat and sleep somewhere on top of hiring a studio.
I certainly know artists who don't want their work shared for free, and I think that copyright of a reasonable term is important to protect their preference, but the system we have now is pretty much built to let corporations steal from the commons and then sell their taking back to the public for ever.
Your eployer won't ask for the money back, with interest, plus participation on what you brought with the money.
It is either a loan or an investiment. RIAA has it both ways. (With also some accounting tricks.)
Rethinking email
There seems to be some disagreement about the accounting for the costs of services provided. The advance is easy to account, but all the promotional hoo-ha also needs to be paid back, and some artists think that the record companies overcharge for that. Sort of like buying your groceries at the company store on credit.
Now, if we could only get people to trade the pictures of said child rapes on the Internet, the profit would go out of the industry, and all child pornography producers would be forced to shut down, thus eliminating child pornography.
Or at least, that's how it works according to the proponents of copyright.
You are upset because the expenses of releasing a record are charged against the record sales before there is any "profit" to distribute? How is this unfair? Is there any other business sector in which the founders inject no cash, yet expect to take home a large slice of sales before the investors have even received their investment back? And in what sense do record labels demand 100% ownership? The band still has the right to royalties, don't they?
That's not how it works, though. The label gets their cut of profit out of the very first copy sold. After that, all running expenses (pressing, distribution, promotion, 'breakage') also get taken out of each copy sold. Out of what's left, the artist's share, nothing gets distributed until the advance is paid back. Because of this, almost nobody makes any money off of record sales. However, they do get songwriting royalties, which can be a good amount of money if you are getting a lot of radio play. (This is why Pete Townshend is the only super-wealth member of The Who, because he wrote all the songs.)
No. That is precisely the point. There won't be a scarcity. The moment the art is sold, shown, exhibited, in the world you propose it could instantly be copied printed replicated by anyone who happens to get near it with a camer. This could happen before the artist makes a single thin dime off of it.
If that were the case original paintings wouldn't sell for many times the cost of prints of the painting. In fact people perceive huge value in owning the original work, whereas for a print they will generally pay the cost of the materials plus some small markup for the retailer.
Yes you will still have those that do it for the love of the doing. But far fewer. Even artists have to put bread on the table.
This is art. Surely quality is far more important than quantity. Why do you assume having a fewer number of people doing it for the love of it will someone be worse for society than a large number of people doing it out of a mercenary desire for money?
Let me know when you are willing to work for free, but in the mean time the artists knowledge and skill is his only stock in trade. Don't take that from him. You pay the farmer for the eggs, and seem to have no problem with that. Why should the composer get less?
It's never been about working for free. It's about the artist being able to have exclusive rights for long enough that he can make a reasonable living, not multi-millionaires being able to hold onto their rights for the duration of their entire lives plus 70 years or whatever so they can continue to milk the same piece of work over and over.
These comments then get modded up by others, who also mistakenly believe copyright only exists for profit.
Do you ever feel it get you down, like it's a losing battle? You never seem to, even in face of people like these.
For myself, it feels horribly depressing and futile even trying to get someone to click a provided link to the constitution, as they simply ignore it and continue to parrot this made up notion that art only exists to make money.
How do you do it?
I can't speak for the GP, but I feel good every time I go to the Pirate Bay and look at how many downloaders my torrents have. That's a battle I'm winning every day.
I can't be sure, but I think the current copyright system is so unsustainable it will collapse sooner or later. If the politicians don't change the law, it'll just be ignored and circumvented until it becomes irrelevant.
Or as it's been known since 1980: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Does your employer charge you rent for the desk where you do your job?
Labels charge musicians for studio time.
That is how it is different.
More importantly: it's a well know fact today that their exists certain 'recipes' to make a successful work of art if what you are aiming for is money.
Oh dear God, is that why so American movies tend to have such stereotypical characters and story lines?
Bankrupting Hollywood would in itself be a good reason to abolish copyright... but unfortunately, I don't think abolishing copyright will affect their profits that much. There are many other ways to make a profit from commercial film.
Not a bad thought - but I think of it more like a speculative investment. You might be funding the next Facebook, or you might be funding ILoveClippy.com. But I think there's some risk management, as someone else pointed out.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
I think that is spot on. Add to that the available means for both recording (home computers) and distribution (the interwebs) saturating the musicspace, and I think you have a pretty decent explanation of the chaotic state of the music scene today.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
It has always angered me that Neil Innes surrendered all of his rights to the Rutles soundtrack because the owners of the Beatles catalog at the time decided it was infringement. It was OBVIOUSLY parody but Neil just didn't have the finances to defend his work.
There is no such thing is intellectual property.
I repeat: There is no such thing as intellectual property.
Information ceases to be your sole property the second that it leaves your head, and since the invention of language, once broadcast in any way a piece of information becomes infinitely reproducible, and by their very nature all recordings of any kind, be it written words, pictures, or sounds, are also infinitely reproducible. Improvements in recording and publishing technologies, from woodblock printing, to the phonograph and typewriters, all the way to cassette tapes and networked computers, have made producing and duplicating information increasingly trivial. No form of information is technically scarce.
However, copyright laws and patents achieve their desired ends by attempting to create an artificial scarcity of information through legislative fiat. They in effect commoditize information which is inherently unlike a commodity, giving it scarcity and therefore market value. In the process of doing this however, much of the information's value is lost because its maximum potential utility is curtailed by limiting the number of parties which can use it, and by giving exclusive rights to a certain party over who can retain, utilize, and duplicate a piece of information, information access is effectively monopolized.
This is harmful to the value of information and those who use it, the creation of privileged monopolies over pieces of information practically ensures that they will be abused, and it fails to address the original problem of compensating authors. On the other hand, it confers extraordinary rights and privileges to rights holders who own copyrights and patents, frequently for information which was never created by them personally. Additionally, how is it just that someone should continue receiving compensation for work that they are no longer performing? How is it just that someone should be compensated for work that they never did? The absurdities of patent and copyright law immediately begin compounding on one another after even cursory examination.
Having said that, the act of producing original information and original records of that information can be readily commoditized. It is scarce - only so many people can produce a desired piece of information or a desired record, and from them only so many hours of work can be extracted. It is valuable - the production of new information benefits society, and maximally benefits society when information can be freely utilized by any party. Intellectual property is imaginary, but intellectual labor is a very real service which is the sole property of the intellectual laborer. Its value can be decided, it can be quantified, and it can be sold. Ensuring that intellectual laborers are adequately compensated for their work is of paramount importance to society.
In the case of patentable products which can be produced by industry, or for the processes used to create those products, wherever a patent is applicable, the intellectual laborers working for an industrial company or consortium of companies should negotiate their own pay. If they don't get paid enough, they don't produce work. Auctioning of services, prize competitions, and so on could be used to compensate the inventors for the production of inventions alongside regular contracts. As for the companies themselves, which use the monopolization of inventions to protect themselves from competition, any one industrial company does not have unlimited resources and is therefore incapable of using or producing every available invention. Those companies will still be tasked with producing products as efficiently and effectively as possible, without the purely artificial constraint of copyrights and patents applying to them. They will still have to decide how to best reach the market. The competition will simply be more fierce, and this is entirely desirable.
In the case of cultural artifacts and the recorded arts which can be copyrighted, the above still applies, and
Sooooo....isn't that the definition of an investment? Because you're expecting to get some profit? I think what you're proposing would simply discourage people from investing.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
I don't have an account on either, but do have a LinkedIn account.
Honestly, both services seem a little immature.
Do people like me not get loans?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
And having an entire party circling around breaking certain laws isn't?
Oh wait, no, that's pretty much all political parties, never mind.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Actually, copyright doesn't even do that. See Boldrin & Levine's "Against Intellectual Monopoly".
Is he? Consumers seem hell bent on altering the deal as well...
From the tone of this thread, I doesn't sound like there are many artists involved in the discussion. It's not all about making $$ - yes, you want people to hear what you've made. BUT, an important (maybe the most important) aspect of being an artist is originality. I am an artist that happens to have a nice tech job, so it's not the end of the world if I don't get royalties. But I would be extremely upset if I found out someone had copied my idea and taken full credit for it. What makes you a worthwhile artist is what sets you aside from the crowd and makes you an original. That's why I want my material copyrighted.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
But then, that gets right at the heart at the problem. There's way too much supply and not enough demand. Lots of people are expecting to spend 40+ hours a week "making art" and get paid a sufficient wage to live on it.
See the thing is, your art is only worth what some generous (that's right) individual is willing to pay for it. No one needs your particular works. Whatever it is, someone else is almost certainly creating very similar works from their own creativity for a much lower price, and likely for free (or at least for only the cost of materials). That same individual is holding another job to pay the bills, and creating art because it's his/her passion. That is, has always been, and will always be the case. It's only in very recent history that more than a very very small percentage of the population is able to make an actual living doing nothing but creating art or entertaining.
Guess what's going to be one of the hardest-hit industries if we really do hit another real depression?
I'll give you a hint: a few hundreds of millions of would-be artists are going to find out what real work is.
There's actually a huge demand for artwork, and we we can make it faster and get it to more customers, faster, than ever before. You're right that a lot of people want to make art for a living, and yes, some of those will be weeded out, just like any job. I am all for someone sitting in their bedroom, making art of whatever kind, and releasing it for free. But those people simply cannot keep up the pace with people who do it full time. Those people cannot keep up with industry trends as well. Those people cannot improve as quickly. And though it's possible, it's damn hard for them to make anything large like a feature film. The only film I worked on used limited animation (think late night Cartoon Network) and it still took dozens of animators thousands of hours- and that's just part of making the film, even if you take out all of the business and advertising stuff. Take a look at your ipod. Take a look at your DVD shelf. Take a look at the art on your walls. How much of that was done by independent artists who did their work for free? Maybe you're an exception, but probably little or none.
How am I supposed to know if I enjoy the work before having access to it? I once decided to get some music to listen and bought 12 CDs of groups whose names I could recognize -- all of them ended up as coasters, except a couple which I already had bootleg copies of and knew what it was beforehand. (This was before the Internet age)
They're actually charges against only the artist's royalties. It's your call if that's upsetting or not, but you can't really call something a contribution if it is billed at full price.
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.
Sooooo....isn't that the definition of an investment? Because you're expecting to get some profit? I think what you're proposing would simply discourage people from investing.
Your comment on its own sounds like you're talking just about investing, in a somewhat disjointed way. However, in the context of dbet's preceding comment, it sounds more like you're advocating any law that props up any profit model, which would be horribly destructive to society -- and which many could (and some already do) argue is already much of what's wrong with US lawmaking these days.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Ever since we developed the ability to make copies that have no intrinsic value -- an ability that has never before existed in the history of mankind, I should point out -- copyright, as originally conceived, has been on borrowed time.
Copyright has always been dependent[1] on the intrinsic value of copies, and digital copies have NO intrinsic value. No discussion of copyright, or "intellectual property", or the advance of sciences and useful arts, can be reasonably conducted without addressing this fundamental[2] issue.
1. I don't mean "dependent on" in the hyperbolic way most people do when they mean "the thing following this phrase is kind of important to thing preceding it", but rather in the full meaning of "absolutely cannot function without." ...and I'm not using "fundamental" as hyperbole here, either -- this has really changed things in a way at least as deeply as the invention of the printing press, and hardly anybody seems to understand that.
2.
Your civil rights? Really, you have a civil right to enjoy someone else's works without paying them?
Yes. Absolutely.
The civil right to enjoy someone else's works without paying them existed BEFORE copyright. Copyright is the civil AGREEMENT that we made to partially abridge that civil RIGHT in the interest of promoting the production of creative works.
Don't sweat it though -- creators still enjoy the one perfect right to restrict access to their works that they always have, which is not to create, release, or perform the work until payment is made or a contractural agreement for payment is made.
Seriously: you've never heard a song performed by someone in public, never watched a DVD at a friend's house, heard a movie quote repeated by someone, never been inspired to create something new based on something you've seen, never even once purchased anything used, that had so much as a brand logo on it? Do you have ANY moral standing whatsoever to argue that the free exchange of ideas is ANYTHING BUT a civil right?
spoken as a true troll. good job!
Jack of all trades,master of none
Sooooo....isn't that the definition of an investment? Because you're expecting to get some profit?
You invest because you expect a profit. That does not mean that if you invest, you deserve a profit, because that implies that your expectation cannot be incorrect, which is stupid.
People should definitely be discouraged from expecting profits from investments in unprofitable things.
the exceptions that prove the rule
Ok, pet peave of mine. That's a terrible phrase, and Cecil will tell you why. Basically it boils down to this example: If you see a no U-Turn sign that means that everywhere you do NOT see explicitly prohibiting you from making U-turns, U-turns are legal/OK. The exception proves the counter-rule.
How is the parent of this post a troll? Seems like a valid argument to me. I'm not saying I agree with it 100% ,but it's still valid.
I'm not complaining.
The copyright laws as they stand have gotten out of hand in terms of duration, and the hatred of that has tainted the slashdot mind.
This is Slashdot. You get marked troll instantly if you
1) badmouth Apple in any way
2) support Microsoft in any way
3) support any part of copyright and or patents.
You just have to accept that 98% of the users on Slashdot have never created anything that could be covered by copyright or patents,
want everything for free, and are part of the entitlement generation. It goes with the territory. You take your lumps. If you weren't
posting as AC you would get marked troll by the copyright liberation army as well.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
It was sad when the buggy drivers were driven out of business by the car. Artists may just have to go back a few hundred years to doing it as a hobby and a few lucky ones being able to make it their job. (Not far off from what we have today, only a minority can make a living; without the machine there will be fewer rich artists and more professional artists.)
Shakespeare didn't need I.P. law to survive or crazy high budget productions to give good plays or a massive distribution chain to spread his work. The real need is the endless growth of share price which is what will drive the sociopaths until they can erase "copies" from our brains... (and that won't keep investors happy for long until they can wipe investor memories too.)
If artists get famious they can do quite well off the fame alone-- look at the no-talent morons who are celebrities today due to reality TV! Never ending line of desperate people wanting to be another celebrity.
We have "starving artists" either way and far more hobby artists; how does our system change that??
Isn't that always the case? The ones who benefit from the status quo fight hard against any changes which are perceived as a risk to their self interests... The needs of the many outweigh... sure its not a 'need' but no less of one than their 'need' to make a living with that specific career (hint: horse buggy drivers.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Hmmmm...well, not to mince words,but I said "expect", and you said "deserve" a profit. I don't know of any investors that think they *deserve* a profit. Investing, almost by definition, implies a level of risk and gambling. I definitely agree with your statement that people should be discouraged from expecting profits from unprofitable things. Kinda reminds me of the real-estate bubble fiasco we just went through.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
The RIAA does not have it both ways. They lose a lot of money on bands who didn't make it successful. Do you really think they go after bands who didn't earn-back the money they advanced?
That and international box office/DVD sales/TV licensing, which can often take a movie that underperformed in US box office to profitability...
Huge amounts of money are made by live music performances
Yeah, can't wait for "Avatar Live".
But seriously, why should that matter? If an artist records a song, he should be able to profit from selling the recording and not be forced to tour live if he doesn't want to. Jesus Christ, people. Paying $1 for a damn song isn't going to kill you, and if it's not worth it to you, I'm sure you can live without it. "It's too expensive, so I have the right to steal it" is just a stupid argument. There are valid reasons for patents and copyrights, they should just be used for those reasons and not to create permanent monopolies...
Why ? Why should someone be able to spend a day recording a song and then sit on their arse for the rest of their life making money from it just because they're an "artist" ? Why shouldn't they have to go out and _work_ every day for an income like most other people do ?
What is the justification for creating arbitrary laws to extend this extraordinary privilege to *entertainers* ?
I didn't say there wasn't demand. What I said is the supply far exceeds the demand.
The only film I worked on used limited animation (think late night Cartoon Network) and it still took dozens of animators thousands of hours- and that's just part of making the film, even if you take out all of the business and advertising stuff.
Doesn't change the nature of art: It's still only ever worth what someone is willing to pay for it. It won't make my job more efficient, won't feed my kids, won't fix my car, won't make my life more convenient, or any of the myriads of other things that non-art products provide. If you choose to spend that time making that art, that's your choice. But don't go crying to the government for a handout when your art didn't make you the money you thought it would.
Take a look at your ipod.
Don't have one. Music isn't really a big deal to me. If I listen to music, it's generally FM radio in my car (rare), Pandora, or indie music streamed online.
Take a look at your DVD shelf.
Also not too much here. Nothing I couldn't live without. Plenty of stuff on Youtube and other free sites that's sufficiently entertaining to get the job done if the DVDs didn't exist.
Take a look at the art on your walls.
The handful of artsy things that will be on my walls if I ever get around to hanging them were all made by relatives or close friends, and given as gifts.
It's now relatively easy to live with all your art and entertainment provided for free (legally!). The internet has changed everything. Welcome to the 21st century.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
$200 million movies are too expensive and they contribute little of value to society. We don't need to reorganise our society (copyright, DRM) around the notion that people should be able make such movies and expect the government to protect their investment.
If the "work" and "effort" are so large that they can't be funded without specially designed laws being enacted, then society doesn't really need the product. Big budget movies aren't generally particularly good, and cheaply produced movies are often excellent. So, if you want a $200 million movie, pay for it out of your own pocket money. If you don't have that much money, make a movie with less special effects and more frigging acting--- just don't expect me to help you make money out of it.
As you note, the vast majority of movie profits are made very early, and people watch them in theatres for the experience, despite the fact that they are easily able to download them. That market should probably be protected, to encourage the creation of reasonably cheap, high quality movies.
I already answered your question in the post...
Paying $1 for a damn song isn't going to kill you, and if it's not worth it to you, I'm sure you can live without it. "It's too expensive, so I have the right to steal it" is just a stupid argument.
If it's so easy and artists are so lazy, go make your own art and entertain yourself! What is the justification for copying it then? I swear, the only people in this acting more entitled than the copyright owners are the pirates...
And I also already answered your other question - copyrights do serve a purpise, for a movie 2-3 years is probably plenty, for a musician maybe a bit longer; but "70 years after death" is absurd, and 120 years for a corporation is insane.
No, you didn't. You gave a particular example using a small amount of money and dismissed it as insignificant. You in no way addressed the actual question, which is why should Copyright holders be extended these extraordinarily generous legal privileges. "It's only a dollar" is no more a defense of Copyright than "it's only a pat down" is a defense of the TSA.
I said neither of these things.
Why is a justification necessary ? Copying things is normal and natural human behaviour that has been going on since the beginning of time (and is also demonstrated by other animals). It's the basis of all culture, learning and progress.
Do you really think they don't?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
While true, do be aware of the small independents - the same ones that people on this very site tout as being the alternative to big-name label music/movies. They have precisely zero control over what the big label lobbyists do, and have as much input into and control over the legislature as you do - yet it seems you would advocate treating them with the same disdain as you would the big labels.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
While valid, that doesn't address the issue of P2P. If it's not OK to sell it, then why should it be OK to give it away to literally everyone?
I personally believe that while small-scale personal copying (i.e giving a mix CD to a single friend) should be decriminalised (I'm still not sure about legalised, but definitely decriminalised), sharing large scale on a P2P network should not be. It has the same net effect on the creator as a person mass-producing dodgy copies and selling it.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Unless the composer, say, negotiates with multiple groups simultaneously. Or contractually binds the first one not to perform until he has sold the work to other groups.
It is also economically sensible for the composer to only sell the work for enough to support him while he creates and sells the next one.
So it appears we have a standoff.
BTW, ideas are explicitly NOT granted any sort of legal protection.
Really? Than what are intellectual property rights?
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
Either of which reduce the value of the right of first performance.
According to what theory of economics? There is undoubtedly both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the production of creative works, but there exist at least some potential creators who are rational, self-interested actors who will pursue alternatives that have a higher expected return than the maximum recognisable value of their creation.
An economic incentive such as copyright monopoly raises the maximum recognisable value of a creation. In its absence there will be some actors that choose an alternative vocation, and society/culture will never receive those potential creations.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
Protections for a particular embodiment. That's why you can copyright a murder mystery, but you can't copyright the butler being guilty. You can patent an idea as reduced to practice, but not the idea itself (supposedly, USPTO hasn't don a good job upholding any of the requirements lately).
And ?
Uh, the same one that states the performer will try and maximise *his* gain out of the transaction. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and all that.
So without special privileges they'll be just like any other "economic actor" then ? Why is removing an arbitrary and behaviour-distorting incentive a bad thing ?
The only place that argument leads is perpetual Copyright, since with anything less there will always be "some actors that choose an alternative vocation, and society/culture will never receive [their] potential creations".
Sorry, but pretty much nothing you said makes any sense...
1) value to society has nothing to do with "a right to steal something"...
2) no special laws need be enacted to fund anything, copyright has protected this for over 200 years.
3) If you want to WATCH a $200M movie, pay for THAT out of your own "pocket money". Why in hell do you feel like you should be able to take their work for free??
4) see #1 - special effects, acting abilities, etc have nothing to do with the argument, another straw man. You aren't obligated to help anyone make money if it's a bad movie - just don't watch it if you think it's a bad movie, jeez.
5) back again to *your* definition of worthwhile art that should be "protected". How arrogant.
Most digital graphic designers are almost always slaves to their customers' requirements.
Musicians also. Some musicians are trend setters, but many of them, even 'indie' ones, go to other shows and consider that part of the job: to learn about what others are doing, what crowds like, etc... you almost have to if you want to replace your real day job with music full time. Especially if you are at the small club / bar level.
If we consider the supply to be infinite digital copies, then yes, the supply is effectively more than the demand. If we consider the supply to be the relatively small amount of new work that most people spend their time watching and listening to, then the supply is limited and the demand is effectively unlimited. Yes, digital things can be infinitely reproduced. Does that mean that content creators shouldn't get paid? I say no. Are you saying that copyright laws are a handout? Though the current system is broken, at their core they are just laws that allow people to distribute a product and have a chance at making a profit. There are laws in place to protect all kinds of occupations. I don't see how artists deserve any less. You don't like art too much. Okay. I don't have any problem with any of the ways you listed that you get your tiny art fix. That "free" stuff you mention is mostly paid for by advertising, and still protected by copyright. But let me get this right. You are perfectly satisfied with all of the art in your life and the way in which you receive it. You're against copyright... why? Or were you just complaining about artists getting paid to do work that isn't "real" or vital to the survival of the human species?
If we consider the supply to be infinite digital copies, then yes, the supply is effectively more than the demand. If we consider the supply to be the insanely huge amount of new work that "artists" are cranking out for money these days, supply is still virtually unlimited.
FTFY.
Are you saying that copyright laws are a handout? Though the current system is broken, at their core they are just laws that allow people to distribute a product and have a chance at making a profit.
Copyright laws now allow someone to spend a few hours creating "art" and reaping profit from it for the rest of their life, and allow the next person in line to profit for the next 75 years. Given that a lot of this crap is stuff that wasn't even original to begin with, YES it is most definitely a handout.
There are laws in place to protect all kinds of occupations. I don't see how artists deserve any less.
Currently, they're getting about 100x more. Profiting from the same work for the next 150 years? Having the feds go after replicas of stuff because it might maybe perhaps reduce the potential profit by 1%? Asking border crossing security to search electronic storage for infringing material? And the list goes on and on.
We're still paying royalties on "Happy Birthday", ffs, and the person who originally got the copyright didn't even write the damn music, she stole it from someone else. [sarcasm] Oh, but of course the words! They're so novel and creative! [/sarcasm]
That's just one example among hundreds of millions of how copyright law is insanely excessive and is being heavily abused.
I have no problem with artists making a fair amount of profit from their work. I have a huge problem with the current system today. And the worst part of all is, it isn't even the artists making most of the profits. It's the media cartels. Fuck them.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
I'm not arguing that the overall supply of art isn't far greater than the overall demand. But that's not important because not all art is worth the same amount. An ounce of gold is an ounce of gold, and once it's been refined one bar of it is worth no more than another. That's not so with art. The demand for some art is higher than the demand for other art.
As I said, the current laws are broken. They last far too long and media companies have gone about protecting their assets in a stupid way. But throwing them out completely is an overreaction. There's no reason that we can't have copyrights last for a reasonable amount of time. The fact that some art may not take much time to create isn't relevant. Sure, you are free to take into account the time it takes to make art. Most people don't.
I have no problem with businesses owning copyrights and/or paying artists to work for hire. If a business hires an artist and the artist agrees to give up the copyright, then both parties have agreed to the terms and there's no problem. Artists are free to make their own business, or just sell their work outright, keeping all the profit for themselves. The reason that most don't is because they'd rather be making art than running a business.