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Copyright!
A good example is a demand letter to a Swiss university, ETH Zurich, which demands that the school immediately terminate all web pages with illegal MP3 files (illegal is of course a judicial decision; the letter presumes that all MP3s are illegal); that the school provide names and home addresses of all students with MP3 files hosted on the school's servers; that the school provide the date that those MP3 files were first hosted (for every MP3 on every server); and that the school provide the IP address for every machine anywhere on the internet which downloaded a MP3 file from the school's servers.
The letter closes with a carrot: we'll adjust our monetary demands based on how well you comply with this letter. Better hope your IP address doesn't appear too many times in those web server logs.
We can probably assume that the demands to U.S. schools are much the same - far-reaching, extortionate letters which are not specific about any particular infringement alleged to be occurring, but which are intended nonetheless to scare the universities into cracking down on their students. The terms of the compromise of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act were that the RIAA and related groups would do the policing of their copyrights - if they found a specific file that they alleged was unlawfully infringing, they have a procedure to follow, specific information to provide about the specific infringing file, and the ISP (college or whatever) is supposed to "do their part" by deleting/removing said file if the paperwork is correct. ISPs and colleges are not supposed to do the grunt work themselves - that results in the kind of overbroad crackdowns that we've seen. This was the subject of specific negotiations during the process of creating this law.
But the RIAA, of course, would prefer that schools and ISPs do their cracking down for them. So they send these general scare letters, hoping to trigger a reaction.
Scare tactics work. Universities scan through student computers, trying passwords on protected directories. The new Rio players will incorporate all of the RIAA's desired protections against copying of MP3 files - the price of settling the RIAA's lawsuit. The next target is Napster.
RIAA will now be filing suit against Napster, an application which effectively functions like a single purpose IRC server, connecting people who want to share MP3 files, whether legally or not. (There's a linux port of Napster; better download it quick.) Some schools, like Oregon State University, are so scared they're blocking all access to Napster servers from school systems. In the ideal world, Napster should probably win - the RIAA could monitor their servers and demand that infringing users be eliminated, but the service equally provides people with an avenue to share legal MP3 files, and this significant non-infringing use is all that is needed under copyright law. The article I just linked to and a nice Wired story both show Napster feebly trying to insist on their duties under the DMCA, saying that the RIAA needs to tell them in writing about specific instances of infringement - but the RIAA doesn't care about the law.
Napster, of course, has no money to fight a lawsuit. This is exactly what happened to the Rio: they won in court, but since the RIAA planned to appeal the suit and drain more money out of Diamond Multimedia, they settled by promising that future Rio's would include the RIAA's copyright protections. Like the Dentist's extortion tactics in Cryptonomicon[1], RIAA lawsuits are equally powerful whether they are on solid legal grounds or not - Napster will lose this suit, whether they win or lose, because the RIAA can afford the money to fight it and Napster cannot. So presumably Napster and RIAA will come to some agreement, settle the lawsuit, and Napster's next generation will incorporate the RIAA's demanded copyright protection system.
Just remember, RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen says she loves the idea of Napster to build communities, "but not on the backs of huge mega-corporations with billions of dollars of revenue quarterly."[2]
The RIAA is hardly the only abuser. The Business Software Alliance, essentially a front group for protecting Microsoft's copyrights, does similar things with regard to "pirated" software. (What a PR genius it was who thought of describing all copying of software as piracy! Probably the same person behind the "cyber-squatter" label for anyone who owns a domain that a company covets.) The BSA is now raiding homes of people accused of copying software.
The idea behind copyright is to expand the amount of information available to the public by creating a government-mandated monopoly on reproducing it - for a limited time (28 years maximum, at the beginning - today the maximum copyright term could be over 150 years). Copyright has always has the inherent give-back to society - the work would pass out of protection, and then anyone could copy it and use it as they saw fit. But copyright is now essentially unlimited - over the last twenty years, the length of the copyright period has increased by forty years, so that essentially no materials produced since World War I have entered the public domain. In about 15-18 years, copyright holders will again be petitioning Congress to extend the copyright term, so that entities like Mickey Mouse never enter the public domain. The extension is now being challenged as unconstitutional, but the challengers lost in District Court and it's far from certain that this suit can succeed.
In today's world, it's customary to speak of copyright as some sort of innate right. It isn't. It's there for the betterment of society, but its functioning, today, contributes nothing to society - all it is is a government-sanctioned monopoly transferring money from your pocket to others, with nothing ever given back - and no possibility of give-backs until 2019, under current law.
We need to rethink copyright. It's not a fundamental right of corporations to receive a 95-year government monopoly. Businesses plan on a five-year cycle - if something isn't forecast to make a return on investment in five years, it doesn't get done. A five-year grant of copyright to corporate authors would serve just as well in promoting the development of new material, and would bring a tremendous amount of material into the public domain, which is copyright's true intent. With a much smaller amount of material actually under copyright, enforcement of it would be far simpler and more straightforward.
But naturally this would cost certain companies a lot of money - they're used to wallowing in their government-granted monopoly. Disney has made back their costs for creating Mickey Mouse billions of times over, but they're used to the cash flow now and would be willing to buy an entire Congress to protect it. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act was passed with the aid of a great deal of subterfuge, but most importantly, a great deal of campaign contributions. Now you can be a criminal not just for actually copying anything, but for making a "device" (hardware or software) which facilitates copying - we're talking five years in Federal prison. Imagine doing five years in Federal prison so that Congress can protect their campaign donations, errr, I mean, Disney's cash flow.
We're extremely close to the day when debuggers are illegal. Through threats, strategic campaign donations, and outright extortion practiced on upstart companies, copyright-holders like the RIAA are building copyright protection into the very infrastructure of computing.
Making changes in this system requires a fundamental commitment from the U.S. populace that it be changed. The commitment doesn't exist yet, but as more and more people experience the power of copyright to affect what they can and cannot publish online, and the abuses of the companies dedicated to protecting copyright beyond the terms of the increasingly-protective law, perhaps it will in the future.
Some slashdot readers will no doubt say, "Open source, you idiot!" Open source is a reaction to these problems, not a solution to them. Despite the open source phenomenon, the trend is toward more and more works being locked up, and locked up permanently, behind laws and cryptographic protocols. It shouldn't have to be a war between words, pictures and code that is always free to use and words, pictures and code that is locked up for all eternity - we should demand that the social contract envisioned in the Constitution be fulfilled by forcing copyright holders to give back to society, whether they want to or not.
-- Michael Sims
[1] Gratuitous Cryptonomicon reference provided free of charge.
[2] Quote may not reflect Rosen's exact words, but does reflect her intent.
Have any readers been affected by this? As a student at the Rochster Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, I've noticed more and more monitoring of potential warez and MP3z increase drastically over the past two years ...
I am, therefore you think.
It says that a Swiss University was contacted over breach of copyright, does this copyright law apply universally over the world or was it created for use by the good ol' US of A?
the changing slashdot colors? First the FreeBSD article and now this. I hardly find it becoming.
folks would be wanting to read this very fine text on the econ. of copyright, which msakes the same points as the article on copyright-as-monopoly, in a slightly more rigourous fashion.
jsm
Unfortunately, history also teaches us that many innocent lives will be destroyed in the process, and many people whose only qualifications are a complete willingness to destroy those lives will make themselves very rich.
To bad it's not realistically possible to hold lawmakers personally responsible for passing bad laws...
Why does this page have such a strange color scheme? Anyone else see it? Can explain it?
Recommended moderation: 0, Off-topic
NOTE: Any MP3, MP2 and GAME files not related to school and academic research will be deleted without advanced notice. If you need temporary disk space then type make_download and read the instructions.
Whether or not anyone is actively checking through accounts for MP3 files, I can't say (I haven't had any in mine.) It is tempting, as a friend suggested, to rename all files to *.MP3, just to see what happens. After a thorough backup, of course.
...that the school provide names and home addresses of all students with MP3 files hosted on the school's servers
So they're threatening that if the school doesn't furnish a list to which the RIAA isn't legally entitled, they'll have to pay money that they wouldn't otherwise have to fork over.
IANAL and my knowledge of US Law is limited to watching reruns of Night Court, but this sounds suspiciously like extortion to me. Which is illegal.
From my notebook of random thoughts:
(Yes, really. These are the unedited musings of me last night.)
Or perhaps consider the individual who has been granted a patent for a software engineering method in spite the existence of prior art. Most reports indicate that those being sued for patent infringement are likely to settle rather than litigate to have the patent invalidated because the accounting cost of a settlement is less. Regardless of the outcome, an injustice has been done because resources have been wasted. If litigation is pursued, some individuals will have assumed a financial burden that benefits their competitors...(absolutely and relatively)
In fact, there is another reason for a powerful corporation to settle this suit. If no one challenges the patent, then those corporations which are best able to assume the cost of settlement will gain an advantage over any rival which is not so able. If one of those lesser competitors should pursue patent invalidation, the larger corporations still gain the same relative advantage and may even recoup the cost of settlement and perhaps damages as well.
Perhaps a class action lawsuit should be brought to settle this case?
It will also be an injustice if this individual is allowed to accumulate wealth through this 'legal fraud'.
How should this have occurred? Simply put, the USPTO should not have granted the patent. But again they have every incentive to do so. Approving the patent incurs more fees. (?) The resulting litigation can only benefit them. (They will not be held accountable, there is really no penalty in this regard that does not get passed the the tax-payers.) It is in the interest of the largest corporations to permit this injustice in the USPTO because they can use similar tactics and the cost of settlement is always a relative benefit to them.
I'm both a student and a computer tech here at Drexel, and I'm seeing both sides of the issues. Everyone is having fun sharing their files, warez, etc on our campus network. Technically, we can bust them for the sharing of copyrighted software, as the usage policy we have everyone read before getting an account states that the sharing of copyrighted material is illegal. However, I don't think we've done anything against anyone in recent time, unless their server started taking obscene amounts of bandwidth, and just asked for the attention. Should the University be responsible for regularly scrubbing their network to see if any illegal activity is going on, or is this a case where it can wait until a complaint is raised by some other authority? It's always a mess, and frankly I'm not even sure if on a University level it's even feasable to constantly monitor the network for stuff like this. Any thoughts?
Why do people assume a company holding the rights to a particular creation is "wrong" or "unfair"?
If you take that right away from corporations, you also take it away from individuals, individuals who may have spent years creating or inventing something.
It's the Many ganging up on the Few to say, "We've decided you don't have the rights to your own creation anymore."
My school's had a couple run-ins with various agencies. One guy actually had the FBI looking at him last year. But, the admins aren't freaking out over this. They peruse the network, and see if anyone has any mp3's shared, yeah. But they don't go into any password protected folders. We just have one communal password that gets you into almost anybody's shared directories, and the admins leave us alone.
Also, at least in my experience, the admins do not want to shut down ports, and kick people off the network. They would much rather ask a student who knows the network (such as myself) to leak the word that they are about to start searching for things, and to make sure that everything is passworded. There still has been some locking down of ports & such, but as far as I know, nobody has been kicked off the network since that guy last year.
huh! apparently, the RIAA believes that if you link to pirated mp3's, that somehow gives you a magical right and ability to control the actions of the person who created that site.
/. shouldn't run ads from X10, but does it really want to associate itself with that kind of ad by having it's name on there? I think a bit less of 'em for it, and I doubt I'm the only one.
does anybody know where, exactly, they get this idea, or how they justify it?
on a related note (repost in part):
I just saw an add banner at the top of the page that "click here" over a picture of a woman's face. to the left of that was a banner that said "X10 and Slashdot" [invite you to visit the wired home of tomorrow , or something like that]. Yep, slashdot. Trademark logo and all.
That isn't the only one I've seen, either. I saw one at zdnet or something that showed an alternating picture of the midriff of a woman in a bathing suit and "Click Here" in big letters. They should probably be tied up and made to watch three years of Brady Bunch reruns just for using an annoying animated gif (much like the VA Linux one at the top of the screen now) which was so gaudy that I had to wear sunglasses just to look directly at it, but I'm concerned about something different.
Ya know, d00d, if I wuz a chick, those ad's'd kinda piss me off (TIC). Seriously, These ads seem rather denigrating to women. Not only do they implicitly exclude women from the target market, but they use women's bodies to sell friggin' home control electronics. That's just offensive.
I'm not saying
I remember visiting the home control home page before it was revamped, and it was kind of sexist and control-freaky. So, maybe I'm biased on this, but I don't think so.
-k. ^-^ ^D
Does anyone know of any organisations campaigning for better user rights. I saw an article at the ACLU complaining about much this same issue, but they don't seem to have made much of a fight out of it. Even a voluntary code as to what consitutes a reasonable conduct by service providers would be something.
Copyright Beats "They should sample this, my pitbull!" - Chuck D
It is not a problem since it's not from the government, right?
And since this is a free market, you have a right to choose your harasser, eh.
IOW: THERE ARE RIGHTS MORE IMPORTANT TO HUMANITY THAN THE PROPERTY OF BIG CORPORATIONS. Freedom, in particular.
The ironic thing is that the big companies make CDR discs and writers, which allows some people to collect massive amount of songs or illegal programs.
Also, there is another company that has fought and won. Bleem! won against Sony, and they seem to have stabilized into allowing them to sell it. Napster is quite iffy, but why doesn't the RIAA sue AOL for its ICQ and AIM network file trafficing, which is probably ten times worse due to the huge amount of people. Or maybe freedrive?
In a college network, ICQ is the way to transfer files between each other.
I got a good laugh out of the nopiracy.com site. 109,000 jobs are lost per year to piracy. Let's see... you are just selling more copies instead of hiring more programmers, etc. So that just means more profits in reality.
I think the inflection point is the growing hatred to corporations which is actually similiar to the Roman Catholic church in the Middle Ages. The church started going for pure profit through its "Buy your way to Heaven" plan and the Protestant movement started a major change in how people viewed the church. But this is just rambling.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - F. Voltaire.
Suppose a university was monitoring network traffic to try to weed out a potential mp3 ftp site and they found what they think to be an ftp site except all the files tranmittied are pgp encrypted. Can they legally demand that you hand over your pgp keys?
At our place we've recieved little pressure from the RIAA (granted we're not a big U. by any means.) We've gotten one letter this year targeting a specific student which we shutdown because it was a blatant violation. We're pretty forgiving here, and we tend to look the other way on some stuff as long as it doesn't affect other users by taking up bandwidth, etc.
I know for a fact that we have quite a few people using napter here because of nightly portscans and such. However at this point we have no plans to shut them down. We have no way to prove they are providing illegal mp3s without sniffing actual packets and getting some of the songs coming from their computers (or at least titles.)
We do delete any and all "illegal looking" mp3s on the public areas of our servers, but we tend to not look at user's home directories.
I guess our philosophy is that whatever they do, they are learning, and we don't want to interfere with that unless it is outright blatant copyright violations or it starts affecting other users on the system by hogging bandwidth.
-jay
IANAL, but my understanding is that it pretty much requires written permission of the student before the school is permitted to release anything to anybody. And since they are trying to coerce the university into breaking the law on that point, doesn't this open the door for student class-action RICO suits against the RIAA? (RICO, imnho, is an unconstitutionally strong law, itself, -- but is plenty strong to completely break up the RIAA, if if it loses!).
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
So what is the punishment? Who has the power to take away the rights? When (exactly)? What is the due process of prosecution for this violation?
I just would like to know.
Say for incompetence by allowing such and such a patent with obvious prior art, like Yahoo!. Sue them for your legal fees in both cases. Something like that.
Let me provide a quick summary of every YRO article ever written, and every one to be written until the end of time...
Giant impersonal corporation is trying to screw you. Nope, they never have a case or a legitmiate point, they are just trying to give you the bone.
Thank god for user preferences, I'm never reading another article of this crap again.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
As the article points out, the big corporates have been able, in practice, to make copyrights last as long as they want. They've been doing this for literally decades, and a system exists for perpetuating this process, and for silencing its critics (at least, the dangerous ones that seek legal action).
When an American is jailed, s/he often loses the right to vote (IANAL, so if someone could clarify this, please do); hence, s/he is no longer a constituent. For a politician with a strong "installed" constituency in groups not affected by this phenomenon, this is an enormous benefit -- potential naysayers are eliminated from the democratic process.
Given that political participation is higher among older age groups (most of which are ignorant of what software piracy is, let alone participate in it), it is safe to assume that a large percentage -- perhaps a majority -- of incumbents have more incentive to fill the jails with people who would either not vote, or vote against him. Hence the Drug war (which has similar demographics). Hence the defense of otherwise indefensible intellectual property laws. Hence a larger prison population per capita that many developing nations, and virtually all industrialized ones.
Of course, if the young in America were genuinely politically active, there might be politicians with their careers at stake over this. But we've forsaken them, so they'll forsake us. If there is no other incentive to elect people -- preferrably someone you believe in, no matter what their party affiliation or chance of winning -- let this be it.
phil
So let me get this straight: authors, artists, and other people with unique talents spend their lives sweating over typewriters or playing music in shitty bars, and you want to take the fruits of their labors without payment? After they sacrifice their lives to hone their skills and abilities, betting everything on the of chance that they could become successful in an unforgiving field? Bah. I guess you have never been in a situation where your next meal depends on the royalties from a novel... or a song... or a program.
A society based on your give-back principle would be a very gray society... No one would bother producing anything new. You can't say "give me" without giving back- in this case, paying the people who produce for you the things you enjoy.
Scudder
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
Once interesting place - in the middle ogf all this is myplay.com - they give you 250MB of disk space to upload mp3s. The main idea is that you can access your own stuff anywhere in the world with a network connection.
But the interesting thing is their new 'Share' feature where you can make up a playlist of music you own... and let anyone hear it.....
All very nice - make your own little radio stations - 2 years ago I had to write mp3serv if I wanted to do mp3 radio.
Anyway..... you still have to follow the DMCA rules on programming. So myplay are another company who are staying within the limits they see in the legislation.
I wonder how they see the legal action against napster?
I think you're preaching to the choir here.
The problem, as I see it, is that elected officials can't afford to turn their backs on corporate campaign contributors.
What legislator (or presidential candidate) is going to oppose copyright extension? Not only are the proponents of such legislation huge campaign donors, but they also provide the very advertising space the candidates want to buy!
Such a system guarantees that the interests of the IP barons will be protected abover nearly all else. Barring a complete rework of the electoral process (including campaign finance), this will not change. (And perversely, those in power have the most to lose if the system were to change, hence they've no interest in pursuing this course.)
At this point, with elected officials completely co-opted, the only hope for sanity rests in the appointed members of the judicial system, who are the only people who can afford to turn away from the Disneys of the world (without worry of retribution at the next election when Disney/GE/whomever will throw money at an opposition candidate to oust the incumbent).
And, of course, there are limits to what the judicial system can accomplish - it is merely reactive in nature. Existing laws can be struck down, but new regulations can not be drafted in the courtroom, except where existing law authorizes this explicitly (i.e. sentencing, antitrust remedies, etc).
IANAL, of course, but I'm not optimistic.
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
It strikes me that the RIAA behaves much the same way Microsoft does/did, and obviously those tactics lead to them being declared a monopoly. Is it possible for the DOJ to pursue the RIAA on anti-trust charges for the abuse of monopolistic powers?
The RIAA certainly does not act in the interest of the consumer (or the artist for that matter), and they abuse contractual, monetary, and legal barriers to keep new technologies, new recording startups, and even new artists from entering the market. Sure sounds like another monpoly.
I realize there is no single company here, but isn't there some kind of protection to stop an industrial group from abusing their powers?
Ooo! They tracked my IP to... my shell provider! Welp, there's only about 5000 of us here constantly logging on and off of the same IP address. And keeping tcpdump logs is cost prohibitive to the ISP so, oh... dang... I guess ther'll be no records to give the RIAA woodies. Heh heh!!!!
Rant:
;).
I couldn't agree more that the copyright system is in need of serious modification, if not outright elimination. The rabid libertarians (and believe me, I consider myself one) will scream at me about the right of an individual to profit from their labor. Blah Blah fucking Blah. I agree in principle, but:
We're moving into a new world here, ladies and gentlemen. To paraphrase Bill Hicks, it's time to evolve ideas. The reason our cherished institutions (religion, government, intellectual property, etc.) are crumbling around us is because They Are No Longer Relevant. It's as simple as that. The ideas just don't apply any more. They're outdated. The world has changed. It's time to move on.
Unfortunately, "moving on" (at least as us idealist type geeks have envisioned it) involves radical concepts like giving things away for free. Ideas like this are dangerous. They scare the living shit out of the entrenched power structure (which tells us over and over again about how it nailed this guy to a tree about 2000 years ago for daring to suggest ideas like that) If we were to start thinking in that direction, we might do something really radical like abandon our current concept of money (just an example, don't go there
So, keep buying those $18 CDs guys. You're supporting the artist you know.
Anthony
^X^X
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
I don't think organizations like the EFF actively pursue the issue of drasticly reducing copyright durations. ("Drasticly" may sound extreme, but that's only because they've already been drasticly increased, with no benefit to the consumer whatsoever.)
Are there any organizations which specifically advocate copy-right term reduction?
Maybe we should start one.
If the RIAA ever REALLY wanted to police the world themselves, all they would really need to do is raid one, single college campus. The same goes with other Pirated stuff....go to a college campus. The RIAA is just too incredibly lazy to do much of anything on their own and they, just like every bully on this plante, has to use scare tactics to accomplish their goals. If they were to happen to come up against a corporation larger than themselves they would surely lose, due to lack of funding and scare tactics. They, IMHO, ar ejust a bunch of overgrown sissies that can no longer function in today's society. They have proven over and over that they're nothing more than drugged-out, acid-tripping fools that can't find a better way to do things. If you want a monopoly look here. The RIAA has it. They've got control right now over the ENTIRE music industry....well...RIAA: FUCK YOU.
How can they be exorcising [sic] any powers from this act before it has gone into effect?
These types of articles only get me all fired up and them I'm left with a whole bunch of anger and frustration that I don't know what to do with. Do you know what happens when you motivate an idiot? You get a motivated idiot! Which does no good what-so-ever! So let's start working together to put an end to these kinds of imoral, and unethical practices in our government! You would think that the 200,000 people who read slashdot could come up with some type of solution to this problem!
END RANT
PS: Send responses to jburke@famvid.com
Do people with a photographic memory have to buy or pay for every book they see (or image they view)? Poor buggers...
:-)
Anyone wondered about that?
And who owns the light (or image contained in it) once it leaves the projector...
We own all rights to this work and any elctromagnetic particles that are reflected or refracted through,by or from it
As I understand it - the US government claims that you can only sue it if it decides to let itself be sued. (And yes, this is a Cooper pair of bogons.)
I wasn't thinking of a class-action suit against the USPTO however. I was thinking that any smaller corporations or individuals faced with such spurious IP suits should cooperate in the invalidation of said claims of IP. This will minimize their costs and perhaps even entice the larger corporations to join in.
I agree. This all reminds me of a novel or two written by Ayn Rand. Actually, a lot of Slashdot has reminded me of that. It's unfortunate that the world is still run by the parasites, but what can we do? I don't think a worldwide techie strike could ever happen. In the end, anonymity and encryption may be the best way to loose the grip of status-quo protecting, campaign money-driven government. When untraceable digital cash is perfected, we can all hire eachother and have an entirely separate economy that is untraceable, and therefore untaxable. With no tax revenue, the government will be forced to stop controlling everything and get back to providing services that are needed.
This is a period of major disinterest in American politics, because the general public feels it cannot affect the system. Links like these scare me, but they are not only online issues. People with no access to the internet feel the same disillusionment slashdot readers do, we are merely seeing a national trend reflected here, in discussions I have seen in the past few days, in fact the whole time I have been reading this site. Slashdot readers have no monopoly on cynicism, look at the voter turnouts in America.
Look at the comments on the Gore/Microsoft story. As long as politicians need money for campaigns, they will be, or be perceived to be, in the pockets of corporations whose pockets I can't match. They want to be reelected: they /can't/ change the laws because then they risk losing that source of money to get reelected. Each professional politician, in his hubris, believes that if only he can stay in office long enough, he can accomplish his idealistic goals. But he gets so caught up in staying in office that he never gets around to those goals.
This recursion can only be broken by term limits, finance reform, and getting the corporations out of politics. But these three things are necessary to produce these three things, and I personally have no idea where to start. I write my congressman: I get a form letter back, my letter gets listed on a statistical analysis of letters that came in that day, the man never sees it. I vote: I get caught in a twisty maze of politicians who all sound alike. I'm 20 and in college, I really can't afford the time or money to run for office myself, if there are even any open to 20-year-olds. Even if I won, I would need to stay in office long enough to cause change; spot that damn recursion? What else can I do?
Communication is only possible between equals
Simply being jailed doesn't remove your right to vote, you have to be convicted of a felony. There have been some interesting pieces on this phenomena with regard to a worsening situation where many demographics are becoming politically non-existant due to high felony rates, especially with low income, inner-city minorities where the charge is most often drug-related.
Now my ISP/Collegue/etc is a bit worried about the legal implications so the're looking out for '.mp3' files.
So I change the file suffix to '.bin' to hide them further. Then I zip them up and then encrypt them.
You probably get the idea by now. How can an ISP know that the files that the're serving are illegal, there must be a million ways to obsure a file's contents....
Surely it is impractical/impossible for a server to determine exactly what it is serving. Do the have to provide a record of ALL transfers??
As another note: Giving out student names/ addresses without a very good reason must be breaching privicy policy.
Mungewell
PS. Who chose brown???
Over the past twenty years or so, most (if not all) of L. Frank Baum's "Oz" books have entered the public domain.
There have been a variety of works based on the books; new books, graphic novels and comic books, even an animated movie. Those works have been unable to use certain characters from the books, until those characters' first appearances moved into the public domain.
Few works from 75-100 years ago have the staying power to maintain the public interest today, and to do so in a fashion that allows the copyright holders to continue to make a profit.
This (I believe) may not have been grandfathered into the "life plus 50" ruling, since all of the books would have entered the public domain at the same time.
Note that there have also been derivative works based on the MGM movie; that is not in the public domain, and presumably those works (including a (IMHO) fairly bad Saturday morning cartoon) have had to pay royalties.
R David Francis
Giant impersonal corporation is trying to screw you.
;) Either way, discussion forums like this are a great way for people to bring into the open and discuss/debate the relevant issues in the case.
I would say that this is a very defendable proposition. Wouldn't you? Maybe not all the time as you suggest, but my experience in the corporate sector has shown me that (for the most part) they don't give any more of a shit about you or me than they have to in order to get our money. The corporate world revolves around the bottom line. Keep that in mind at all times.
Nope, they never have a case or a legitmiate point, they are just trying to give you the bone.
I'm sure in many cases they do have legitimate points. We're just as wack as they are sometimes
Would you rather we just shut the fuck up about it? I'm sure they would.
Anthony
^X^X
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
According to this /. poll, only 5% of /. readers are female. (The demographics may have altered since last February, of course.) But the advertisers are probably aware that the readership here is primarily male, and make some assumptions as to what will get their attention! ;-)
/., so companies like X10 are losing a chance to get my business.) I don't think I care if /. runs the cheesecake ads ... but I won't be clicking on those ad banners!!!
Anyhow, as a chick, I ignore those ads. (ZDNet shows them all the time.) Certainly, they may be denigrating to women - but then again, how many women are going to buy from them? (I should mention I have bought from Copyleft and Thinkgeek, who have more tasteful banner ads on
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
I am not talking about putting MP3's on university servers. It is illegal and they should be deleted if they are freely accessible.
A campusnetwork is a different thing alltogether. At my university in Europe, we have the following arrangement. The University acts as a Telco provider (NOT as an ISP). They have handed all control of the network over to a student foundation. This foundation is only responsible for the network and support, not for what is on somebodies pc.
Through this arrangement it is impossible for a RIAA like organisation to demand that the university take action (or the foundation) for they have no control over the pc's. Just like AT&T cannot demand that AOL takes something of their servers.
This has worked perfectly for 4 years now. Whenever a student was identified to have done something illegal, the actions had to be directed against the student and the physical location of his PC. IANA(american)L. But maybe y'all could have your uni lawyers have a look at this setup and maybe it might just make life alot easier for you MP3 sharing peoples and uni sysadmins.
Just my two cents. BTW I am not naming my uni because it is better to let sleeping dogs lie.
Use Adsense for Charity
Anyone else see that Corporate Unions like RIAA and MPAA can be extremely dangerous.
They can have the same or worse affect on the consumer as a monopoly, but the government can do nothing.
Do copyrights still need to be renewed? I know they used to require renewal, and that even Disney and Warner Brothers allowed some old cartoons (mostly WWII-related US propaganda material) to enter the public domain. I've got some of the tapes, which were inexpensive to purchase.
The deal seemed to be that they could state that the tape contained a Daffy Duck or Donald Duck cartoon, but they had to be very careful not to look like an actual Disney/WB product.
So, are renewals still needed under current law?
R David Francis
Okay, so all this bad stuff is happening. What can we do about it?
We can't sue them, because RIAA has more money than most (any?) of us could ever dream of having, and to get your voice heard in a court of law takes bucks.
We can't ask our representives for changes in the law, since they only care about being bribed for their votes (hey, call "campaign contributions" what they are for a change).
In U.S. society today, there is no real way for individuals alone to fight against wrongs committed by these huge corporations. Sometimes convincing the press that an issue will get them ratings will get a huge number of people together to fight... but somehow I doubt "abuse of copyright" will gather a groundswell of support.
Usually what happens when there is no real way for people in society to seek out justice, they turn to violent terrorist methods. I suggest that's what we do. Perhaps by blowing up every RIAA office in the country, they'll have more important things to do with their money than pay their lawyers to write extortion letters all day.
You can even sing a little song while you place the explosives:
"Blow away the RIAA
Teach them they have to pay
They're just lawyers anyway
Send them back to hell today!"
Oh and put the song in an mp3... just to tick 'em off.
Copyright was invented to protect the commercial interests of authors/artists, but publishers/studios like those represented by RIAA are now the only ones being protected. We are all familiar with the difficulty that artists, musicians, performers, and authors have in getting published, maintaining legal and editorial control of their works, and getting adequately compensated.
Further, the "art" we do end up with *must* have commercial value to be distributed to the masses -- which is why we are subjected to vapid "entertainment" instead of art. How much real art has been ignored, or never performed, because commercial interests would not be served? How much garbage has been disseminated because commercial interests are being served?
Developers created the idea of Free Software because they wanted to perform good work, and were willing to forgo possible monetary gain to do so. RMS et al recognized that Bill Gates is a fluke, and that we shouldn't punish ourselves by allowing proprietary software to make us unproductive developers, in hopes that we would someday hit the lottery.
Artists need to make the same leap. Do you all *really* want to be the next Stephen King, or Jean-Claude Van Damme, or Milli Vanilli? Or are you interested in doing something meaningful?
For artists or developers, the lesson is the same: give up the dreams of mega-bucks, and do what makes you happy, and all the rest of us richer.
Put your works on the net. Make it clear that anyone can distribute them. Also make it clear that your authorship must be recognized, and no others can claim copyright. Your work will be enjoyed, and will be experienced by many more people than any studio or publisher could ever offer. That's what you really want.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
This is not about stopping people from copying music, proprietary
code, or movies. It is about stopping people from creating, Yes I said
CREATING. These industries are making money because they control the
tracks that information flows over from creator to consumer.
Stopping copying is just the excuse and a nice side effect of the real
intent. They will of course they will say that you can still make your
own CDs and DVDs and you may be able to. But think about this:
A future DVD player (FDVD)is created that will only read incrypted
disks. The FDVD is popular because it has better sound and picture and
all the big studios have said they will only make FDVD disks from now
on. The keys to incrypt FDVD disks are licensed so that only artists
with connections to a licensed production studio can make FDVDs. These
FDVDs would have access to the market. Artists without connections
would not have access to the FDVD market. So you could still make your
own FDVDs but they don't work most if not all of the players the
public is being sold.
With a system like this control over the creative process (and the
money it generates) is maintained. If you don't think this could
happen... well I hope not too but I am having trouble thinking that
this not happening already.
IMO, the patent office is harming the public good by their actions. Maybe the 'information technology community of users' should sue them as a class.
'Intellectual Properties' are uncontrollable in the wild. To base an economy on them is just stupid.
Last Friday we blocked all access to the napster domain; basically, NOC freaked out when they realized that >30GB of traffic in a single day were napster sends and recieves. This is a big problem for universities b/c people don't necessarily realize that they are sharing their files, and since the connection speed is very fast, the university network in effect becomes a target.
;)
Personally, I hate to see the 'net restricted like this, but bandwidth is $$$, and the traffic to napster had nowhere to go but up. University networks *are* supposed to be available for actual work to get done once and ahwile.
~Tiroth
Let's get real here: Universities know that their students are trading MP3's and warez illegally on their dorm ethernets. Some turn a blind eye to it, others devote some meager resources to fighting it. None consider it a top priority to investigate, because it would entail devoting a lot of resources.
These letters from the RIAA are in no way a summons or a subpoena. It's just a "warning" from the RIAA that states they're going to attempt to hold the universities accountable for their student's actions unless the servers in question are put to a stop. As best as I can tell, that's all the university is obligated to try and do (if that) from these letters.
Yes, all it is is a scare tactic. Since when is this worthy of a Slashdot article? These things happen all the time, and are perfectly legal. Paraphrased, their letter reads, "We will take you to court (ask a judge whether we are right or wrong and if you should be helping us) if you fail to help us remove MP3 redistributors from your network."
that the school immediately terminate all web pages with illegal MP3 files (illegal is of course a judicial decision; the letter presumes that all MP3s are illegal);
So in order to classify something as illegal, you have to have a judge order it so in your specific case? "Why yes, judge, I killed him, but it wasn't illegal!" Come on, every one of those kids knows what they're doing breaks copyright law. Every public web site/share that contains MP3 files of known artists/songs (at least) means that user is re-distributing MP3's illegally. You don't need a court case to see that. If I had a bunch of MP3's of my own private works or items not copyrighted by others, and the university came to me and told me to shut it down, all I should have to do is let the university know this fact and everything should be fine. And before you start going off about "guilty until proven innocent" remember this is a university we're talking about, not the government.
Better hope your IP address doesn't appear too many times in those web server logs.
Yah because I'm sure the RIAA is going to go to ever IP address that has ever downloaded an MP3 and track each and every person down via their ISP.
"Umm yah, hi, this is the RIAA. We have a list of 132 IP's from your ISP over the course of 18 months. We'd like you to go into your dialup logs and give us the names and addresses of the users that had these IP's at that time."
Let's be realistic here and avoid the biased slurs when reporting "news" to us.
ISPs and colleges are not supposed to do the grunt work themselves - that results in the kind of overbroad crackdowns that we've seen. This was the subject of specific negotiations during the process of creating this law.
Correct. But if the ISP's are *willing* to do so after a simple letter like this, then the RIAA has accomplished something. Granted, it's pretty evil of the RIAA, but it's all very legal.
Most major universities have a legal staff of their own that can see these letters for what they're worth. (In other words, they're not as clueless as you seem to think every corporation/non-human legal entity is.) This legal staff will no doubt become familiar with the laws in question and be able to report *factually* to the university as to what is required on their part. (Note: Factually does not include Slashdot articles or comments by 99.5% of its users.) Reasons a university might be willing to take the initiative on their own:
- PR. If a university steps up and proudly weeds out a bunch of evil MP3/warez-trading kids from their university network, they get a reputation for it. People start to see that university as one that doesn't tolerate these types of people and one that puts scholastic achievement ahead of a waste of university network resources. Universities that choose not to comply with the conditions might be viewed as a "warez kiddie university", a haven for kiddies that like to trade MP3's and warez.
- To avoid legal hassles. Granted, their liability is limited without specific instances of copyright violation, many small universities may not have the funds/resources with which to object to the RIAA's pleas. A handful of students can probably be much more efficiently investigated than a larger university might be able to do.
- Because they don't know any better. Some universities may just not have competant legal staff (or may not have legal folks at all), nor would they be willing to spend money on any (see previous).
- Because they honestly weren't aware of the problem on their networks, and generally make a huge effort to keep their students honest and legal.
The BSA is now raiding homes of people accused of copying software.They wouldn't be allowed to do so without a search warrant, and a search warrant would require convincing a judge that it's needed. They couldn't just do this on a whim, so I hardly see how this could be construed as an "abuse" of BSA's copyright "enforcement" abilities.
all it is is a government-sanctioned monopoly transferring money from your pocket to others
OH MY GOD! PEOPLE ARE MAKING MONEY OFF OF THEIR IDEAS AND/OR HARD WORK! LET'S KILL THEM!
If you have concerns about current copyright terms, write your congressman. Don't post some foolish Slashdot note, and PLEASE try to collect your facts before you do so. I shudder to think how many letters my congressmen get that are from just plain uneducated people that have no clue about the things they are vehemently opposed to (or in favor of).
copyright-holders like the RIAA are building copyright protection into the very infrastructure of computing.
I fail to see how this is a bad thing. If you don't want there to be such a thing as copyright and/or trademarks, just come out and say it. At least then we can be sure what it is you're fighting against. I too feel that copyright terms are a bit lengthy, but I don't think we should abolish copyrights entirely.
but as more and more people experience the power of copyright to affect what they can and cannot publish online
I'm sorry, but I cannot subscribe to your interpretation of this whole MP3 fiasco. The kids were KNOWINGLY breaking the law by redistributing MP3's illegally. I mean come on, realistically, how many of these people think they're acting legally by ripping their CD's and putting them up for download?
we should demand that the social contract envisioned in the Constitution be fulfilled by forcing copyright holders to give back to society, whether they want to or not.
If they were trying to make a statement against excessive copyright, even then I fail to see how redistributing MP3's of modern works would help that cause. If anything, it seems as though you're against excessive copyright terms. I think the new Metallica CD will still fall under whatever "new" copyright laws that come about, so it seems unfair to say that this latest MP3 thing has anything to do with limiting copyright terms. The bottom line is that these people are breaking the law, and in most all cases, they knew it. If you are successful in changing copyright law more to your liking, I seriously doubt trading MP3's like this will ever be legal.
We need Congress to enact a law spelling out a list of things consumers may do with copyrighted materials they purchase (CDs, software, video games, movies, etc) that are explicitly guranteed to be legal and to bar lawsuits filed directly against the consumer for exercising these rights. These rights would also preempt and override anything vendors try to write into the license.
With this in mind, I hereby propose the following "Consumer Fair Use Bill of Rights" that among these rights shall include:
(1) The RIGHT to convert copyrighted media [*] to a different format. e.g., copy CDs to to Cassette for the car or to copy a DVD to VHS for viewing in the bedroom (where a 2nd DVD player is not present).
(2) The RIGHT to make compilations of copyrighted media [*] for their own use. e.g., combine tracks from several CDs onto one CD.
(3) The RIGHT to make a backup copy of copyrighted media [*] for archival purposes. e.g., backup that PSX game, as kids are often burtal to delicate CDs and one scratch can too easily ruin a $70USD game.
(4) The RIGHT to rent copyrighted materials [*] to others for a fee. This is allowed by well entrenched precedent for movies but needs to be explicitly allowed for all copyrighted media (video games, audio CDs, and software).
(5) The RIGHT to record unowned copyrighted broadcast material (including Satellite and cable as well as over the air) for time-shift-viewing purposes. e.g., legally record a movie from your subscribed HBO channel while you're at work for viewing later that night or on the weekend.
(6) The RIGHT to allow certain other 3rd parties to view copyrighted materials you acquired [*]. e.g., explicitly allow for all residents of the household to view the DVD Dad bought or use the software Dad bought, and explicit allowance for other relatives and friends to view/use the copyrighted material in a non-commercial manner. e.g., make it explicitly legal to invite a friend or SO over to watch your DVD.
(7) The RIGHT of consumers to modify their own equipment and for the necessary parts and optional installation service to be legally available in order to carry out the above 6 rights. Additionally, the sale of already modified devices shall be explicitly allowed. e.g., I legally bought import PSX games and import DVDs and need my playstation/DVD player to play them and grant me access to what I paid for legitimately.
Write your representative and senator and copy them this message! Raise this issue on any wide-reaching media (TV, radio) you have access to. Get people talking about it.
[*] of course this refers to copyrighted material legally acquired by the consumer.
What's wrong with just going through periodically and deleting all MP3 files? If the student is stupid enough to name their thesis with a .mp3 extension (for whatever twisted reason), they deserve to get the file deleted..
I would argue that the company or individual has no "right" to their creation, other than property rights to the physical instances that they create.
Please do.
I would be interested in reasonable arguments as to why if I take a piece of clay and make a pot, I have a natural right to the pot, but if I take a pen and write a story, I don't have a natural right to the story.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
With no tax revenue, the government will be forced to stop controlling everything and get back to providing services that are needed.
Umm.. how do you propose the government do this without any tax revenue?
A society based on your give-back principle would be a very gray society... No one would bother producing anything new. Copyright law has always been based on the "give-back" principle, it's just a matter of when. The critical question is how long copyrights should last to maximize the public good. At one extreme is no copyright, which as you say would probably result in a pretty gray world. At the other extreme is what the big media companies are lobbying for, eternal copyright through constantly increasing the time limit. The longer the limit, the more incentive there is to create new works. Having a lot of new content created is in the public interest, but so is having free access to older works. Clearly there are rapidly diminishing returns on increasing the copyright length to increase the amount of new works. What is the shortest limit that would keep a significant number of artists from making a profit? Eternity? 75 years? 50? 20? 5? 2? The author of this article suggests that since companies are very unlikely to finance new works if they won't make a profit within 5 years, that a 5 year limit is reasonable. This seems to me much more defensible than the idea that eternal copyrights maximize the public good.
Don't have any links handy right now, so I'll do this off memory. Try Comicon.com's Splash Page had details, but a quick glance shows no info there now.
A few months ago, it came out that (due to the fact that Siegel and Shuster were not working under a work for hire contract, but had allowed what is now DC Comics to copyright their material), the family of Jerry Siegel (if memory serves; I don't think Shuster has any family left) has reclaimed the copyright on the original Superman stories.
Presumably, they and DC Comics will come to some sort of settlement on this; however, there has been speculation on what they can do based on this material, if they choose to do anything.
The general opinion is that they are limited in what they can do, in large part because DC Comics has a firmly established trademark on the Superman property. Marketing non-DC comic books, movies, etc. and labeling them as being about Superman could violate DC's trademark. That doesn't mean that it can't be done; simply that the material, while including the Superman character, couldn't be labeled using the Superman name, or the distinctive likeness of Superman.
Of course, they are also limited to the portion of the Superman history that is in the works in question. That would include Clark Kent, Lois Lane, maybe even Jimmy Olsen; but would not include, for example, kryptonite.
Anyway, my point is that trademarks are more powerful than copyrights, in that they only expire through lack of use, and that they protect the holder in a different way.
Most of the properties that corporations want to protect are source material for their trademarked characters; why doesn't that provide enough protection? No one can go out and make the Mickey Mouse Amusement Park, even if Steamboat Willie were public domain, without Disney's permission, because Mickey Mouse is their trademark. The amount of income that comes in from Steamboat Willie itself has to be neglible; the income from Mickey Mouse licensed products would not be reduced, as someone else producing anything not taken directly from Steamboat Willie would be violating Disney's trademark. Heck, I'm not sure that selling a shirt depicting a scene from Steamboat Willie wouldn't be a violation of Disney's trademark; the picture itself is in the public domain, but it still has Mickey(TM) on it....
R David Francis
while I didn't real the whole of your link, I think I got the jist of it. But unlike property, copyrights do not have natural limits in supply and demand, they are an artificial property right that has no natural law foundation (much like slavery). infact many of the arguments for slavery parallel copyright arguments very closely. eg: without copyrights busisnesses have no incentive to produce or without slavery plantaions would have no incentive to run...
If we copyright the stream of infromation from irc, basically so that the owner of the irc channel or server holds the copyright, any use of the data that is not according to their will is prohibited. If we copyright the transfer of information regarding urls, and their possible contents. I am not sure if it would be better for us to be vague or very specific about the contents that would be found on the site. If we are vague they can mask their use of the information by saying they found it out of courisity. If we are very specific than their going to the site is for a particular purpose (breaking our copyright). I cannot think of any law that would give them authorization to use our copyrighted information to hold the parties involved guilty of what they might consider to be an illegal act. Unless we had the owners of search engines agree with our general copyright (we authorize the use of this data with the exception of using it for the purpose of incrimination of those parties involved). If this copyright isn't used groups like RIAA could sue: the owner of the site, the owner of the server, bandwidth providers from the server to them, the power company since they provided electricity for all of them, the oil/coal/natural gas/nuclear providers who allow the electricity company to produce electricity, etc. With drugs or any other posession charge the officer must see the item which is illegally posessed. I would like to see the RIAA look at the 1's and 0's on my hard drive platter and recognize them as theirs. If I copied a CD they could verify that it is either the same or very close (allowing for a margin of error that would occur in their manufacturing process). Now lets see them compare their CD to my mp3 in the same manner using an all purpose mp3-CD extractor and have it meet their specs. Also we could show sufficent variance that our data is not the same (since one company can copyright the New York Symphony on one night, and another could copyright the same groups performance a few days later) how much difference would there be there (about the same as from the cd-wav-mp3 our format back to theirs mp3-wav-cd. Enough said.
This was never envisioned in the constitution. The constitution, in its very wording is to establish and enforce the rights of the individuals from undo governmental pressure.
If I create somethign others appreciate, I have an option. I can release that to the public domain, or I can choose to make money off of it.
I am not morally or socially obligated to help you ever. If I don't I might be seen as an ass, but so be it, if that is what I choose.
Philanthropic endeavors should not be mandated or legislated by the government. Philanthropy will sttill thrive. Especially if it is such a lucrative business model as you say it is.
But how will you give tech support to a book or music. Write a user manual? Then what, when that user manual is public domain? Wait for support calls to tell your listeners how to hit play on their RIO?
I agree that the copyright laws extend entirely too far. My children shouldn't necessarily benefit from my creativity, in the manner of having control over my works.
I think the choice is simple. My ideas, if I ever chose to publish them in the form of music, picture, verse, or code, should immediately, upon my demise, become public domain.
i believe that if copyright gets any more unfair, people will begin to pirate just to spite the copyright holders. Eventually, enough people will simply choose not to co-operate for the laws to be enforcable. I dont belive that the RIAA will even try to enforce the laws if they know that almost every consumer out there owns pirated material and is producing pirated material. I mean, isnt it illegal to tape a movie off the TV? everyone does it and no one gets hassled.
I can see protection for trademark being indefinite as long used and defended - it is reputation and has that value only.
But copyrights? Yes the work is (often) valuable, and should be defended - for a time. The original intent was to permit a LIVING AUTHOR a time to benefit. I doubt anyone here objects to that. Waht is shaky is corporate copyright and not so much that (let Disney keep Mickey as long as Disney chooses to use Mickey, fine) but excessive "enforcement" methods that call upon those who are neither in law enforcement nor copyright holders to do their bidding - unpaid and under threat.
Yes, "give back" - eventually. Would you like to also have patents have the lifespan of their owner, or longer? The idea is to permit the originator time to benefit. If the originator ceases to exist, s/he has no further benefit derivable from the copyright. Yes, this even permits corporate copyright as long as the corporation exists.
I can't say I see anything really wrong here... The owners are asking for help in catching people who abuse something that doesn't belong to them. This really just sounds like a pro-greed position on the part of SlashDot.
But in this case it was a security issue. It seems that Napster runs a sharing server on your machine if you tell it you have a T1 connection (which most dorm residents say they do). Unfortunately, when you quit Napster that server is still running, and while the U frowns upon MP3 trading, the huge amounts of traffic (somewhere in dozens of gigs a day) have been clogging up our system.
If you take a pen and write a story, arguably you do have rights to the 'story' that you wrote. However, if I pick up a pen and write the same story, or write the same story into a computer, why should YOU have the rights instead of ME?
Because of the difference between *creation* and *copying*. Different actions, different consequences, different rights.
The notion of coyright is a reasonable approach... [snip]
I agree. However, the post to which I was replying seemed to claim that no such thing as intellectual property should ever exist because there is no "natural" right to own a non-tangible -- as opposed to a physical thing -- that you have created. That didn't and doesn't seem to be very defensible to me (and yes, I know about RMS).
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
We have gotten several emails from RIAA requesting that mp3s be removed from people's publicly available web directories. Each email gave a specific URL to a file -- nothing from them ever came asking for "find / -name \*mp3|mail riaa".
Complaints that some universities have received lately from RIAA have included specific locations of material as well.
RIAA sucks, and the Songfile/ArtPass/Harry Fox cabal that wrecked the old-school www.lyrics.ch also sucks.
I remember hearing about how the street performer protocol would be a good way of ensuring artists get paid. Why doesn't someone form a group to advocate this method? I really don't see how the industry will be able to compete with companies using this protocol any more than microsoft can compete with linux. Eventually most companies will be forced into using it, simply because their products won't be able to compete with the 'free' products that were released using the street performer protocol to reimburse the author of the intellectual property. The worst that would happen is the RIAA and the recording industry in general would be forced to lower the prices of their media. I say we just do it, rather than waiting for copyright law to be changed. I don't think that conventional copyright law will be able to compete with this protocol, and companies using it will lose.
Make up a whole bunch of files that sound like the names of copyrighted MP3s. Then encrypt them and post them on a website or FTP site. Tell people in a README that if they e-mail you privately, you'll send them the decryption key. What will really be in the files is a whole bunch of images and text that make fun of the music industry. If they sue you, make a huge stink about it, then hand over the key. Then they'll get to figure out what you really have after having spent tons of money and lawyer time.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
If no computer professional would work for companies like the RIAA, they would quickly find themselves going out of business in a digital world. How might we go about arranging that? Hmm...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
don't go to terrorisim, you'll just be playing the riaa at their own game. they are the bullies in town, not us. don't panic over them, the real and physical world is on our side - and it will only be a matter of time before the riaa expires themselves out in futile bullying. a better solution is to out manuver and outsource them. by using crypto, anon remail, remote and offshore servers,digital cash, etc... you can still have all the peace of unrestrained freedom, without the price of overbearing institution. government is going down hill with the bullies at this time, not because freedom does not matter - but because we as creatures of finite resource can simply get a better bang for our buck - in terms of liberty - by working arround the system instead of within it.
It's not an objection to them owning it, it's an objection to them owning it for ETERNITY.
But why? Anything else you make you own for eternity. If I build a house it doesn't revert to the state or The People upon my death. It gets transferred to my next of kin and they can do what they want with it. If they decide to sell my house to GE that's their choice -- it's their property.
Someone sold the rights to some random publisher. And that someone is the person who owned them. Are you saying we shouldn't be able to sell things we own?
When you die you don't need your money anymore. We could take all of it and divide it up among all Americans and you wouldn't bat an eye.
There has been copyright in English common law since before the year 1000. The economic theories describing the free market are from the 19th century. I find it odd that you are using relatively recent theoretical construct to criticize a long standing matter of law.
Natural law arguments aside (since no one knows just what is natural law) copyright is a derived property right.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Of course, this comes as no surprise. The other day I posted a rant (yes, I'll proudly admit it) about the threats of legal action against the authors of DeCSS.
This is pretty typical behaviour, unfortunately. Take the example of the OnLine Guitar Archive. Here were a bunch of musicians manually transcribing music off of records (and CDs, etc.) and sharing the tabulature with each other, so we could learn to play songs for our own, non-commercial purposes. The Harry Fox Agency decided they didn't like this, and threatened legal action. OLGA has quit distributing to their mirror sites as a result. Keep in mind that these are HAND-TRANSCRIBED BY-EAR works that HFA is claiming copyright infringement over.
The real problem, I think, is that the industry is fat, lazy, powerful, and rich. They don't like people playing instruments because it'll cut into their album sales. (Although in a pinch, they'll sell you the sheet music for a good profit.) They don't like people writing DVD code, because they don't want us to play DVDs how and where we want. They REALLY don't like MP3s, because they give artists too much control over their own music. (Even more than, say, Ani DiFranco)
This is the crux: The industry (RIAA, agencies, and production companies) has utter control over 90% of the music, books, movies, and TV shows that get made; and as a consequence, over the artists and audiences. They don't want to lose that control, and they'll fight in any dirty manner they can to keep it.
Our job is to not let them.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I started reading this article from the perspective of someone who has personally witnessed RIAA scare tactics and the damage they can do. By the time I was halfway through, I realized the article was written by one of the people who give the RIAA their excuses to abuse the powers they've been granted.
The open source philosophy is a wonderful thing. If you're reading slashdot, you know all about how it can increase colaboration, speed up development time, and contribute to creating a more functional product. But this philosophy simply doesn't apply to art. The element that makes art such a beautiful thing is its unique expression of an individual's viewpoint. In art, collaboration is unnecessary (and potenetially harmful), devel time is irrelevant, and "a more functional product" equals the Backstreet Boys.
Sure, it sucks that most recording artists only receive a few pennies for every CD they sell and that "big, evil corporations" seem to control the record industry; that's what makes online distribution such a revolutionary thing. The Artist (FKAP) can sell albums directly from his website (either as MP3, another format, or by mail) and receive all the profit in return. Is there something wrong with that? Is there some reason that you, me, or anyone else should have the right (after 5 years or any other amount of time) to take his art and modify and distribute it as we see fit? Let Disney keep Mickey as long as they want; it's by far the lesser of two evils.
Don't give the RIAA an excuse to bully people who have done nothing wrong (see what happened to the Smashing Pumpkins Audio Archive for a case study), or to force out MP3's in favor of a format they can control. Respect the rights of artists - they don't owe you anything, but if you take pleasure in what they've created, you owe them a debt you'll probably never be able to repay.
I have nothing to declare except my own genius - Oscar Wilde
It seems fairly obvious who the X10 ads target. They target the perverts that want little cameras to put in restrooms, other people's bedrooms, etc. Small cameras plus ads with blatent usage of sex appeal, what other conclusion can be made?
> Something GIVEN has no value.
Tell that to all the teachers that GIVE their time and knowledge to all the students they teach, then tell me that has no value to the students.
Gifts DO have value.
Good post though.
It is interesting that the RIAA suit against the Napster folks is modeled on the silly legal theory behind lawsuits against gun manufacturers -- that a product manfucaturer can be held liable for the actions of those who use a legal product in an illegal way. The Napster folks, like the gun makers, argue there are legal uses for their product and they can't control the illegal activities, but that didn't make a lot of difference in the decision to allow the gun lawsuits to go forward.
Lawsuit proliferation appears to follow Moore's law as well.
Ever notice how we always seem to be getting upset with the RIAA or the MPAA when they throw their weight around? Where did they get the weight to push the MDCA into law anyway?
All the concerned parties banded together! They formed groups to persue common interests.
A group exists to protect the consumers rights under the Fair Use clause. It's the Home Recording Rights Coalition. Go join them! Do it now. As far as I know, it's the only group in Washington that is solely dedicated to preserving your right to make backups, record broadcasts, and make compilation disks.
Cheers,
Chris
(p.s. Remember your cartoons? Voltron got significantly more powerful when they united. The Wonder Twins were always combining their powers. There's a lesson in there somewhere. I'm sure of it...)
Hello, I'm Mark Twain's (Samuel Clemens) wife. My husband published "Huckleberry Finn" yesterday, and then was run over by a truck. Since he's dead and gone, you get to copy his book as much as you want now? How am I supposed to live?
(I think IP laws at least need to be revised a bit, but you're smoking crack if you think that nobody has a right to anything they've ever done. (same for their family))
Any time I sit down and create something on a recorded medium, be it an audio recording, a drawing, a website, or a printed manuscript, that work is copyrighted, whether I state so within the work or not. It does not matter whether I am an individual or a corporation.
Secondly, you do NOT have to file a coyright notice with the government in the United States to be protected by copyright law. It helps if you are trying to prove when the work was created in court, but it is a common misconception that a work is not copyrighted until it a copyright is filed.
While you are right in saying that copyright is not an "natural human right", you are overlooking the fact that in the United States, it is a legislated right that is automatically granted to any creator of a copyrightable work.
A work is copyrighted the moment it is created.
http://www.ssrn.com/update/lsn/cyberspace/lesson s/copyr02.html
IANAL, but I am a creator, and have received great advice from the lawyers I work for. They are all in agreement on these points.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
When untraceable digital cash is perfected, we can all hire each other and have an entirely separate economy that is untraceable, and therefore untaxable. With no tax revenue, the government will be forced to stop controlling everything and get back to providing services that are needed.
/. groupies would wake up and realize that governments play by much, much different rules than "my code is better than your code". Either grab your gun and fight, hide in a gulch somewhere, or pay them the damn protection money and enjoy the rest of your life.
When untraceable digital cash is perfected, a separate economy will begin to arise. Faced with such a threat to its tax revenues, the government will quickly ban untraceable digital cash, with harsh punishments for those who possess even one penny in that form. Those who possess the source code for such money units will be designated as terrorists (or pushers; whatever term is most useful at the time) and either imprisoned for life or killed. After a few silly coders are made examples of, most people will not go anywhere near untraceable digital cash and even be convinced by the continuous propaganda that this is a good thing. The few who persist in trying to use it will be tolerated, as they provide a token "illegal forged digital cash ring" for the cops to bust now and again, to justify their continued high annual budgets.
(sigh) I wish more
They want a war?! THEY GOT ONE! Seriously, how about a one month boycott of ALL music purchases? Say THIS DECEMBER? Hit the mofos where it hurts! This is the time of year that they make the MOST BUCKS! NOBODY GIVE OR ASK FOR MUSIC FOR X-MAS THIS YEAR! The sons-of-bitches cry they are loosing money from MP3s? We'll show them what lost revenue REALLY looks like! Yo, Rob, how about getting a December music boycott organized? I promise Slashdot will get LOTS of press coverage! Cpt_Kirks
As a songwriter, copyright is the fulcrum upon which my lever rests. Everything stems from copyright: publishing, performance royalties, mechanicals, practically the whole revenue stream flows from the protection I get from sending $20 and Form PA (or SR for recording, TX for lyrics) to the United States Copyright Office.
/. discussion I've read on the subject of intellectual properties seems to ignore the point-of-view of the copyright owner and the work involved in creating a work of art or a patentable invention. Artists are not salaried workers; piecework in a sweatshop is closer to the truth.
How am I supposed to deal with a multi-billion dollar recording industry without this basic protection? More lawyers? No thanks.
The artist always gets screwed. Such is Life in These United States. Take away copyright protection and screwed becomes sodomized repeatedly with a cordless drill[1].
Legacy is how I describe the echoes of my life and works after I'm dead; it's what I leave my family. My copyrights and royalty stream are my estate, my rice bowl. You don't want to mess with that.
Your Rights Online are conflicting with My Rights Offline. The ham-handed enforcement techniques of the RIAA reflect poorly on the RIAA[2], not the laws that they're ineptly trying to enforce. The bottom line is that MP3 kiddies are getting a free lunch. TANSTAAFL.
Granted, $15 of the $16 retail goes to the record company. Boo hoo for them. The band/writer(s) are still screwed out of their mythical $1. Practically every
k.
[1] Though in the case of {Hanson|Spice Girls|Ricky Martin|etc.} this might be fun to watch.
[2] I'm still pissed off over the Blank Tape Tax: that babyfucker Michael Jackson gets a few pennies from every blank tape I buy for the purposes of recording my own works. If I don't at least get a bit of the Elephant Man's skeleton at the end of my career, I'm going to make Jacko eat Bubbles the Chimp. Oh wait, he's already done that. Nevermind.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
I don't like having my taxes used to help enforce your strange 'right' to hoard information in this matter.
If what they wanted from the Swiss school is any indication, they're getting even more fiesty about the information required, although it would be harder to enforce, RIAA being an American organization. However, their strong-arm legal tactics are not going to be stood up to by anyone, as it's obvious that even with a strong case, the years in court and huge fees won't be worth it. It's impossible to stamp out MP3s, or even "pirate" music, but RIAA will continue to make examples of whoever it can and scare the rest out of even thinking about it.
(posting as AC because I'd rather not draw any more attention to myself from RIAA)
Or in a related strategy, record yourself saying "this audio file, created on [date] by [your name] is hereby released into the public domain", and then encode it as an mp3 file with an appropriately ambiguous name. Make many such files available on a public shared directory or even on a university web server. If anyone has a problem with it, simply protest that the file is in no way illegal and tell them to stop harrassing you immediately. If the threats continue or any action is taken, launch a civil suit.
Something like this is needed to teach the "enforcement" people that files with the extension ".mp3" are not inherently illegal. Of course, this requires serious legal resources...
PC3
Most administrators take a hands-off approach, waiting for specific complaints to enforce any AUP.
This isn't even an issue of lazy admins, it's an reality-check. You can't rely on filename, or whatever the data appears to be at first glance. To be sure, you've gotta interpret the data, meaning you'll need the software to do so.
For example: Luser X has copyrighted text reprinted in Word 9 format, and available for public download. Does that mean that I, as the admin, am responsible for buying a Word 9 license, just so I can view the file, so that *I personally* can decide it's legality??
As for this:
that the school provide names and home addresses of all students with MP3 files hosted on the school's servers; that the school provide the date that those MP3 files were first hosted (for every MP3 on every server); and that the school provide the IP address for every machine anywhere on the internet which downloaded a MP3 file from the school's servers.
I have 2 words: make me. Perhaps if you had any muscle to back this up, outside of a scary threat, it might be a consideration...as for any real legal action, the best they can do is try to nail the big fish. Just try to shut down every mp3 site out there, and bring legal action against them. By the time they've filed a single suit, the site will have been replaced a thousand-fold.
*sigh*
First they say the BSA loses a lot of money, and the Dutch are supposedly very good at copying (45% of the software). This shouldn't go on, so they introduce a campaign to stop it all. Because the copyers 'have never been told' to buy a license, the BSA is trying to change the mentality now. They used the agressive technique, but "Van die 'agressieve campagne' is Microsoft helemaal teruggekomen, bekent Hektor nu. 'Zoiets werkt alleen als je letterlijk met de politie aan de deur komt.'" Which means that it would only work if the police could come the your door (and we are not a policestate).
We have the right to spend our money any way we see fit. If it doesn't include any RIAA-affiliated entities, well, too bad.
The best part about this is that unlike pirating MP3's, it's perfectly legal, and, with enough support, it can bring the RIAA to its knees. But as long as people keep buying, the RIAA will continue on its merry way, and NOTHING WILL CHANGE.
Random rants about our rights:
1) Its becoming increasingly clear to me that the Constitution's achilles heel is the computer. The problem lies in both the politician and the masses in general. Although a lot of adults use the computer, only a handful are aware of its true deficiencies and in particular, its security hazzards. We happily email and word process on the surface, while lucrative corporations and the organizations to protect them lurk below to create the illusion of a serene computing surface while quietly assigning us a serial number and a monitoring thread to deal with us when we get out of line.
2) Organizations such as the RIAA are particularly dangerous; an organization of small entities results in a powerful group; an organization of already powerful financial giants, however, results in a political juggernaut that cannot and will not be stopped.
3) Companies and organizations are able to do in the virtual(computing) world, what they wouldn't dream of doing in the real world. Every act or intention of monitoring net traffic is synonymous with wire tapping: someone is monitoring the passage of information from one person or persons to another. I find it utterly ridiculous that the profits of corporations has somehow twisted its way into undermining the Constitution.
4) While I'm against software piracy, I detest anti piracy organizations. Why? Because anti-piracy advocates pretend to think that software piracy is worst crime against humanity possible, when in reality...lets think about it, its really about making more money. I'm a programmer at a large company. I will simply say...we are NOT hurting for money. What about the small software company? Piracy isn't whats hurting them. Every small company struggling to reach and surpass that critical mass point to become a large company has to deal with a myriad of issues that have nothing to with piracy. Marketing, established larger competition, competent management, etc...these are the issues plaguing the small software company. Anti-piracy organizations would raid your homes, your computers, monitor your bank accounts and transactions, every web site and ftp site you connect to and prosecute you further than the full extent of the law...and all for what, to make more money??? Damn it, I wouldn't sacrifice that much wholesale constitutional rights to fight all the drug lords in China...err Columbia, much less to fill the pockets of more companies!
5) I read a political cartoon in the newspaper recently regarding Microsoft. It was about a father explaining to his son how he(the son, like Gates) could one day work hard and sacrifice to be rich and successful...only to be crushed by the government. What a pathetically uninformed cartoonist. No one questions a person's right to work hard and be successful. Its HOW Bill led his company to that success. Yes, he did some things right, like cater to the masses with brainnumbingly simple GUIs. But he also did a lot of bad things to other hard working companies to get to that success. He coerced, cajoled and often killed off any who would not cooperate. I'm not *even* going to get into the built in software "incompatibilities"...
Let me first apologize. My question is going to sound like flame-bait, but that is not my intention. I am honestly curious to know people feel about this.
Many people here have called for eliminating copyright laws. Their arguments are often based on some variant of the "information wants to be free" philosophy. My question is : How do you resolve this philosophy with your desire for privacy?
There is a great deal of concern about corporations that gather information about their customers shopping habits and preferences. Last thursday's Circuit section of the New York Times had an article on the subject. Slashdot has recently run several articles on TRUSTe. However, TRUSTe's primary purpose is to guarantee that information is not free.
Every web site we visit and every purchase we make provides information about ourselves. We broadcast that information in thousands of ways every day, both on-line and off. If you subscribe to the philosophy that information should be free, how do you criticize companies that collect that information? Why aren't they free to use the information in order to better market their products?
I really don't understand why everyone is so caught up in the twenty-year extension. It's frustrating, it's creating an insidious and pervasive feeling that all words and images are owned by someone, yes, it's bad. However, the restrictions applied are pretty much the same as ever. The more compelling threat to civil rights, in my opinion, is the addition of restrictions against devices intended to copy.
In the words of the Digital Millenium Copyright act summary linked above,
Section 1201 proscribes devices or services that fall within any of the three following categories:
- They are primarily designed or produced to circumvent.
- They have only limited commercially significant use other than to circumvent; or
- They are marketed for use in circumventing.
Am I the only one who notes the striking similarity to the British law that allowed this bullying incident so recently discussed on slashdot? Am I the only one that thought they couldn't do that to us in America?
Please note the -or- clause, and consider that only one has to be shown. If you can show that far more people will use the device to break the law than will use it legitimately, the device (like, say, the DeCSS program) will become illegal.
Libraries, non-profit organizations and educational institutions are protected from criminal, but not civil, liability in these cases, but individuals have no such protection. If I'm putting the pieces of the summary together correctly, a successful lawsuit means you could be put in prison for up to five years for contributing to the DeCSS project. Hopefully, the developers would win, but I don't think (though IANAL) that they could get the case dismissed out of hand; it would go to trial, and cost lots of money to someone.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
More and more we read about this kind of stuff. I remember back in 1984 when the news media came out with all their "comparison stories". Really what they were doing is debunking the issue when infact, we were living the image, and more, that George Orwell's book portrayed.
I'm not at all the type to actually do it but crap like this makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better just to check out now and get it done with before they can do it for me.
I imagine that the people who are abusing laws (which they created in the first place for that exact purpose) want us to feel this way. Even a rat, when given no way out, will simply lay down and die before submitting to it's attacker. and thats what is going on more and more in the computer/software/internet industry today. You cannot do anything it seems without infringing on some copyright, or trademark, or patent. and being trapped into a corner with no way out but to submit or die.
We like to tout the fat that we are free when in fact, no one is really free. Every law in this country (USA) is ultimately backed by the threat of death. Break a traffic rule? ok pay a fine. Don't pay the fine? Ok go to prison. Escape from prison? they'll shoot you trying.
Fish! LipHo
and there's nothing we can do about it. Seriously. There's no way we geeks (or the rest of the population of the world) can do about this, since in order to fight these inane laws we have to have money, and unfortunately, we (the lower 90%) only control about 33% of the wealth. So the rich can continue to beat us down, and throw us bones (like TV, minimum wage, welfare, etc.) to pacify us, while they continue to solidify their position of power.
There's no hope.
youve got to be kidding, the first real implementations of copyright happened shortly after the invention of the printing press, where the king granted book publishers a monopoly on their works in return for not printing bad things about the king. Hardly a natural-law heritage, I would say
Thanks for your try on educating me, but I am plenty aware of copyright issues already. Let me try to clarify my point.
Of course copyrights are given automatic. When I write down what my chat with the supermarket cashier this evening, indeed I have a Copyrighted Work, and I don't have to register it, granted. My supermarket conversation is protected till 70 years after I die, sure. (Assuming of course, it is lengthy enough)
The original post was referring to something different: it specifically referred to the `right' for an individual person to harvest from years of hard work on copyrighted creations.
Now tell me,
(I) how many people do you know that 1. put in years work into copyrighted matter, and 2. harvest the rewards themselves?
(II) How many people do you know are make copyrighted matter (graphics, software, etc.) as an employee of a corporation that owns their creations?
Now, compare the numbers you find in (I) and (II).
I think that maintaining the rights of the people under (I) is not very important, given their small number.
"hard work of spirited artists must be protected"
is an often cited argument for maintaining copyright. This argument simply does not reflect the economic and artistic reality of copyright exploitation today.
Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond
Here's a question I've been wondering about. Libraries have been in existance since before the American Revolution. (I think Ben Franklin started one of the first in the US) Anyway, the purpose of these institutions is to allow the public to access works that are generally copyrighted.
Why are libraries not allowed to distribute this same information that their books hold digitally. I guess there must be some kind of fair use clause, but I can hardly imagine what writing a history term paper would be like if you had to purchase all of your sources.
Since the information in books and the music on Cd's is covered by basically the same laws, why are libraries not allowed to lend out copies popular CD's to the public. I've seen classical and jazz cd's available, but generally very old stuff that's probably in public domain.
So to boil it down I have two questions: Why can a library lend copyrighted works to other people and I can't? and Why can't a library distribute it's information online?
Sorry if this turned into a rant, I tried to be objective, but I feel pretty strongly on the subject.
Now I gotta upload some MP3s. My way of being civilly disobedient is to go against any shitty laws they make... check the meta tags on my index.html... notice the word "pez" a lot? :)
If you think you know what the hell is really going on you're probably full of shit.
If you think you know what the hell is really going on you're probably full of shit.
jdube is who I am.
It seems to me that all of the problems discussed in the article and many of the replies have to do with the concept of a corporation, and how different laws treat corporations vs. individuals.
/. that won't get read anyway because I didn't log on... such is life...
Few people commenting here seem to have a problem with copyrights protecting an individual from profiting from the rewards of his/her labors. People who create should be able to get compensated for their creation to the extent that other people find it valuable or worthwhile. This provides incentive for people to create in the first place, and all of us are better off by far for their inventions and creations.
When an individual creates something and makes it available to others in the expectation of profit, he or she is taking a risk. The risk is that the creation is judged by others as having little value for them, therefore they choose not to purchase/rent/lease, etc. the creation. So the creator loses the investment (of time, money, energy, opportunity cost, whatever) they placed in the act of both creation and making it available. Hey, you win some, you lose some. BUT the individual still has copyright on the creation, and there is still the potential for future profit if people change their minds later. However, if the creator is dead when they change their minds, he/she gains nothing. They're dead. At that point, releasing the creation to the "public domain" does not hurt the creator at all. The creator might have had family or relatives, so extending the copyright period to a few years after death would help potential creators' familes in case of sudden death, so most of us can agree with that one, too. Also acts as a disincentive to killing creators to get their creations for nothing.
This is a pretty good balance between rewarding creative people, letting them (at least partially) help their familes after their death, and keeping "society" from having to pay for their creations for the rest of time.
Corporations can create things too -- except that corporations do not die. There is no "natural" timelimit to a corporation's existance... they keep going and going and going. This is because a corporation is simply a "legal fiction". We made it up. It's all smoke and mirrors. The whole point of a corporation is to spread economic risk among the owners (shareholders) of the company, and allocate any profits in terms of ownership of the company. It is only through this "legal fiction" that the individual owners are permitted to pool their risk. There is no reason that a limit can not and should not be placed on the length of time that the profits from that pooled risk can be gained.
So corporations can legitimately be limited to a copyright protection of, say, 75 years -- about a human lifetime. Perhaps even less for certain things that society has a very great interest in seeing placed in the public domain, such as life-saving medicines. That, on the surface, may not seem too fair to the corporations -- but corporations exist ONLY because we permit them to do so. Without our permission to exist, the corporation could never have created anything at all (individuals would have to create whatever we have, and accept the risk in so doing).
It seems to me, IMO, that the balance between the gain to "society" in having corporations that create things that are difficult for individuals alone to create, and the cost of having those corporations warp our political structures for their own ends and thus force us to pay, forever, for the things they've created, is far out of whack. What I suggest is that either we greatly cut back the copyright protections given to corporations while still giving long-term protections to individuals, or that we revoke corporations' existance by voting to remove the laws that created corporations in the first place. The first will be vigorously opposed by the corporations, and they currently own the political process almost completely. The second is likely to happen peacefully a few days after the Sun expands and swallows the Earth.
In other words, I don't see a way to get there from here, short of a bloody revolution to topple the politicans who have been bought heart and soul by the corporations. I just see so many things wrong with the world, caused by the fact that "corporations" are said to do things, and not the individuals running those corporations.
Bill Gates could never have caused as much trouble as Microsoft has.
I had the germ of an idea here, but I think I lost it.... oh well. Just another meaningless rant on
Bull-puckey. If real money was lost due to piracy, the US publically traded companies would have to report to shareholders. Recall that SEC (Securities and Enchange Commission) rules require all gross profits, losses, and expenses to be put into a nifty annual report and given to the shareholders every year. I've seen dozens and dozens. I've never seen so much as one dollar reported lost due to piracy. So by the company's own written admission, there's no loss, right?
Perhaps someone should send a counter-letter out to all of these schools, letting them know what they really are required to do under the law, and what their options are.
Perhaps someone should also look into letting the powers that be (Justice Dept? Congress?) about the first appearances of abuse, if indeed these actions aren't waranted under the law.
Tweet, tweet.
Of course this is the answer - do what you will, and to hell with the law. The law has always represented a greedy minority of extortionists and always will.
I don't know why everyone, including the author, has skipped over the point in the message - OPEN SOURCE. If Napster server and client were open source, you could get lots of servers, just like you have lots of IRC servers.
Napster RULES. I think it is "of the future". I imagine it having the ability to share ZIP files too, etc. Need a program, just download it.
The idea that Napster can be held accountable for what users share is ridiculous. If it were open source, Napster would not be such a lonely target. I don't know if the author plans this, but he should certainly consider it. I applaud his standing up to the RIAA.
Really, I think it's too late for the RIAA either way. The idea has been shown - Napster is very slick.
IMO, intellectual property is a false construct. It doesn't reflect the 'law of nature'. That is why the RIAA has to impose it and attack everyone for it to work. And that is why the natural evolution of the internet is such a challenge to it. It is an outmoded concept. The internet shows that people don't need money - that they do in fact share and harmonize given the opportunity.
When I see issues like this, I wonder why organizations like the ACLU aren't all over this. Any guess?
Tweet, tweet.
Please tell me that an individual company owns the right to "MP3" as a Copyrighted piece of IP.
What we need to do is convince these people to hammer the fuck out of the RIAA for Copyright infringement everytime one of their minions mentions the Copyrighted term "MP3".
If this is possible, one can turn the tables on this bullshit assault on consumer rights.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I would have no argument with copyrights if they protected the people that you describe. The reality is very different. Since the first copyright law, copyrights have gone from 28 years (which was essentially the mean remaining lifespan for artists at the time) to the artist's death + 70 years. In the last 50 years copyrights have been continually and retroactively extended so that works like the original Mickey Mouse movies won't ever enter the public domain.
Copyright is a compact. It balances my natural right to express myself however I please and to do anything I want with what is in my possession, including copying it, with the need to provide an incentive for art. Copyright is a good idea, but the lengths of time in use now, and the unnerving idea that copyrights may be extended indefinitely are completely beyond the original intent of what is in the Constitution.
Furthermore, artists benefit very little from extending copyrights, since the vast majority of work is popular for only a short time, so the present value of royalties is hardly effected by changes beyond a few years. The only ones who benefit are the copyright holders of older material which still happens to be profitable. Clearly, protecting this older material has no bearing on promoting creativity, in fact it stifles it, since no one else can use that material as a basis of new art.
I strongly hope that the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (The Sonny Bono Copyright Act) will be declared unconstitutional and that some sense will be returned to copyright law.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
One Word: Organize
Lobbying: You alone can't affect your congressman, but if you get a group of people in your district to all sit down and write letters, to call his switchboard all day, then he'll realize he's dealing with a VOTING BLOCK.
Get yer people together and request a meeting. If you get the runaround, show up with a group of a few dozen friends and DEMAND a meeting. At first you'll probably end up talking to an aide, but stick with it until you talk to your representative face to face, express your concerns in rational terms, explain that this is important to you and why, and that if he supports your side he'll have your vote.
Media Activism: Most people actually believe what they read in the papers. But REMEMBER: the single most read page in any newspaper is the Letters to the Editor. Write eloquent (and accesible to the lay-person) letters, short enough to get printed. Try to tie it in with a recent story if you can. Get your friends to write letters. Write longer letters to let the paper know if a story or editorial covers the issue particularly well or poorly. (Editors pay attention to what their readers want)
Direct Action: Protest. I know it seems gauche, but get out in the streets and scream, wave signs, make speeches, hand out flyers. Civil disobedience works too... The key to Direct Action is to decide what course would best achieve your goals and pursue it as if there were no laws. Act as if all Copyrights expired after 20 years. Put up a website with bootleg Mickey Moose alloverit and trade MP3s like baseball cards. Break the law. Be prepared to go to jail. This will get people's attention!
Get People Involved: Where other people see Apathy, the Organizer sees Potential. People think they can't make a difference-- you must convince them otherwise.
Elected officials have NEVER been the impetus of social change... anybody who suggests otherwise is clueless. Change comes from popular movements...
And if you don't think this kind of thing actually happens any more, just watch Seattle next month.
------- St Crazy Bob (Cannonized by Wholly Ordinance of the SubGenius Church)
It's easy to be upset at copyright because the big corps are using it as a weapon, and overlook the consequences of getting rid of it. ;) I do studio projects and won't gig, so for me it'd be a question of making CDs to sell, maybe posters or shirts (I have a friend who runs a T-Shirt print shop), and of course if I got known enough I'd be able to sell recording time at my studio, and that would be a kick, helping other people do what I did and getting paid for it. ;P ) Why is this suddenly okay when it's being done in cyberspace? Is data not property?
Basically, the last thing you want to do is obliterate the few protections artists and authors _do_ have: get rid of copyright and what happens? Your buddy records a great song, and in two weeks the Spice Girls are flooding the market with it, followed by Hanson, Ricky Martin and Etc., and there's no recourse and nothing to be done about it. Weakening copyright itself will _not_ help the already very weak position of the modernday artist. Varese said "The present day composer refuses to die!" but he can sure be forced to starve, with a bit of work.
The problem here is not copyright: it is abuses by large corporations, in particular it is attempts by these industries to _establish_ a monopolistic 'trust' situation. They feel very strongly that no art, music, whatever _can_ occur outside of their control, so they see nothing wrong with cracking down on all the TECHNOLOGIES that could proliferate alternative distribution channels that would compete with them.
This is worsened by the fact that they are already exploiting their artists so badly (taking a cut away from the artist for typical rates of broken SHELLAC on CDs? It was already absurd to do this to artists when records had become vinyl and not so subject to cracking, but with CDs it's beyond ludicrous, it's insulting, a slap in the face), that the artists do NOT have a financial incentive to stick with the industry. It is genuinely a better risk to try being a cottage indie CD producer and distribute your own stuff with _no_ industry support or music store presence or radio play- that's not a claim of how great indie-land is, it's a withering indictment of just how bad the industry has become.
And yet that's the reality- so the problem is this: rather than attack copyright, you have to defend the ability of artists to get their works to their customers. I don't care how many people rip songs to mp3 (I don't), I want the ability to put MY music on it and distribute it. I want mp3 walkmen, a whole proliferation of technology that I as an independent can tap into. I don't even care if only one in a thousand of my listeners buys a CD from me- that's still better than I'd be doing with the mainstream industry, at least I'd have half a chance to _get_ that thousand listeners and sell a CD.
As an artist I would _cheerfully_ put up with my stuff being widely copied. Hell, I wouldn't expect to be able to charge for mp3s in the first place. The money is just where it is in the mainstream industry- gigging, merchandising, merchandising and merchandising
I'm still doing the legwork on all this. It's slow when you don't have a budget or a team of people. However, it's still a worthy dream- and it _requires_ that people have access to the media I'd have to use. If the industries kill mp3s they kill me as an artist, because I could use that media, given the chance, and get a fair hearing with things produced the way I wanted them. On the other hand, if the world killed copyright- I'd be hosed. I have a _book_ online, I have songs that are to be online when I have the tech to master them really _well_, and if you take copyright it's an open invitation for the wealthy industry to go cherry-picking, take anything they like, and build synthetic artists with lots of distribution and promotion on the back of MY creative work, if it's good enough to steal. That's not acceptable- I can't afford to fight that, and it'd be horribly destructive.
See the issue as access to tools! And fight to make sure the technologies remain available! It's OK if they want to make stupidly encrypted DVDs as long as we have the capacity to make NON encrypted DVDs that will play on consumer players. It's okay for the idiots to invent a new encrypted CD format as long as the consumer players still play the extant CD audio format that we have access to writing. It's okay if digital walkmen play some twisted encrypted MS format as long as they still play the mp3 format that indies can afford to use! This is the key point: access to tools. Don't even try to hit the industries directly, defend! Defend against the determined attempts to remove choice for the consumer, to make the consumer incapable of consuming the 'outlaw' media. That outlaw media is the last great hope of independent artists in a corporate-controlled world. There's not much money in it- this differs from record company exploitation how? It's access to tools, access to media- it must not be lost. Already there are blank tape taxes (as ktakki mentions), basically the music industry TAXING indies as if they were a government, on the grounds that no artists other than record company clients exist. How much more is in store if we don't defend against this? What would it have been like if blank tapes were simply outlawed? Throw the internet into the equation, and they might do the equivalent of outlawing blank tapes just because 'it's Internet', it's different. These crackdowns: imagine if the record industry insisted on doing spot checks, breaking into people's rooms and confiscating all their cassettes to see if any were taped off LPs. (That'd be real popular at the Berklee College of Music!
Even if copyright is not a natural right, it can be socially beneficial for society to grant copyright as a privilege. Intellectual property still exists, but only as a matter of social policy, not as a natural right of the creator. The same ends (promotion of the arts and sciences) could be achieved by other means.
Desktop Pictures (jpg) :) it's the sort of thing where I can vow to never restrict or limit it, because I'm not greedy- I can give some things and sell others, I don't need 'protection' in the form of mp3 encryption, I don't need to harass music listeners like a repo man- that sucks, it's stupid, it's bad business, and it's certainly not entertainment.
Tiling Background Library (gif/jpg/xpm)
Dithered Background Textures (gif/xpm)
Oddly enough, just last night I was doing an analysis of airwindows.com traffic, and found that although no specific weblog showed it, a huge amount of activity at my site had to do with people who were searching for art. They found it at airwindows, they downloaded it, they looked around to see what else was there.
I went and enhanced what I had. I made web gifs of the XPM tiles I'd originally meant for strictly Linux background purposes. Conversely, I went to the dithered GIFs I'd made, and I made XPM versions of all of them. I made all of it available, updated the links, tidied it up a bit, made sure it worked.
All of these are free downloads. I request that nobody try to take credit: that's it, that's the only condition. Anything else is fair game.
I can't do this with mp3s on my site- for the very simple reason that I have way too much music to store as mp3s on my site (by several orders of magnitude), some of which is very long format. However, I've been steadily building the needed mastering equipment to go into mp3 in a very big way, and when I do I anticipate loading really huge amounts of original music onto mp3.com or somewhere like that, somewhere that just yells, 'Bring it on! more megabytes please!' knowing that they get ad revenues for hosting good content.
At that point, my making money from that content is _my_ problem. If my engineering isn't good enough to be worth spending money on an uncompressed CD version, that's my problem- if my music isn't so cool that everybody buys T-Shirts and posters from me, that's my problem. MP3 will be my radio- it's the loss leader, it's what I give out like I give out the silly little webgifs
Entertainment is optional. It seems the big entertainment industries are forgetting that....
In his text, Mr. Michael Sims references this document (http://www.businesswire.com/webbox/bw.111299/1931 61385.htm) about the Business Software Alliance (BSA) searching people's homes for illegal software. That document says that, "Under the supervision of U.S. Marshals, BSA also carried out announced inspections of computer equipment at residences..."
Since when did a non-law enforcing agency have the power to search peoples' homes? If the BSA suspected the individuals of having pirated software, shouldn't it have filed a complaint? It would be then be up to the law enforcement agency investigating the case to obtain a search warrant and search the homes. What am I missing?
Okay, so I went to download Napster to see what it's all about.
Looks like a members-only IRC server that's seriously underpowered. Takes me a long time to connect, and that's only after several tries. Searches take as long as five minutes. And while I admit I only downloaded two things, neither went above 2.3kbps.
I think, if you're gonna leech mp3s, mIRC will do a much better job for you.
P.S. Is there anybody here who's been using Napster for a while, and can tell me if they've always been like this, or if it's due to media attention? I'd appreciate it.
--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
Correction: the artistic equivalent of OSS might well be commission or retainer. I've been commissioned for fiction writing- the story Passages was a commission for money, for which the client was well satisfied. I even got to use my own artistic judgement on how it came out and the points it made- it was a lot of work balancing that, but I did it. ;) ;) ;) )
However, with regard to music the money is in _merchandising_, not having people commission you to write songs for them. Yes, if you're amazing then maybe you might get commissioned- just as, if you're an amazing instrumentalist, you can be retained as a house musician somewhere. However, in the world of the net, where the art goes out there for free, the winning solution is to then sell posh versions, or shirts, or posters, that sort of thing. Hell, sell figurines
For example, I don't have stuff up at the moment, but my most recent mix was a long format rock instrumental with a 'live band feel' in which the low-end was absolutely phenomenal- we're talking low end authority to utterly show off any subwoofer no matter how expensive, or on the other hand to make any truck go 'boom'
Bearing that in mind, I have a definite outlet for 'audiophile' CDs (actually, I could omit the quotes- I mix _damn_ well and build my own equipment- but my point is that I'd have a big market in pure bass test stuff, which is not truly audiophile).
I have albums of pop/rock songs which I think are good songs. If I can deliver them well enough, really rock 'em and make great albums, then I'd have an extra outlet- besides selling audiophile CDs of the original sources for the mp3s (or custom mixes, for instance for more dynamic range or 'in your face' radio mix CDs), I would definitely be well advised to try and come up with a T-shirt or poster. How many techno bands would be well advised to do a _mouse_ pad? I use a fancy 3M mousepad, but even so I could easily see using a 'u4ia' mousepad if he made them (classic Amiga techno MOD artist, now goes by F8 and no he doesn't make mousepads
You've got to think merchandising, not trying to 'milk' the very music that you're trying to have _everybody_ listening to. Having it be free is a very good way to help 'everybody' be listening to it. If you can get that happening, if you're that good an artist, then other avenues begin to open up. And you won't make millions- but seriously, lots of 'industry' artists end up heavily in DEBT for their art. Bands that don't recoup royalties, artists signing away everything, pay-to-play just in order to get booked at gigs: it's an absolute snake pit, evil, if you want to make money you're better off giving away free mp3s and then trying to sell mousepads, CDs and figurines over your little website. Seriously...
Your Rights Online are conflicting with My Rights Offline. The ham-handed enforcement techniques of the RIAA reflect poorly on the RIAA[2], not the laws that they're ineptly trying to enforce. The bottom line is that MP3 kiddies are getting a free lunch.
I think you're missing the point.. instead of being pissed at people that pirate MP3's illegally, you should embrace the technology, and use it to better your situation...
You sound like a very bitter person (perhaps with reason).. you're caught between two groups of people, both of whom are taking advantage of you - but there is a way out - with MP3 - release your Music, market it directly to the people who will pay for you for it. Imaging an MP3 file as marketing tool - just like Radio - the more people who hear it, the more people will want to hear more - and many will pay for it (I am one of those - I've bought CD's after downloading a song...)
I don't think anybody is really serious about taking copyright away from an individual artist, but perhaps from big megacorps (you know, the ones you hate..)
It's obvious that companies are going to try to resist losing their copyrights. If it's worth enough, they will offer large amounts of money to protect them. Why not change the whole copyright thing so that it protects the author for x amount of time. Then after x time passes, it will cost the author (or the holder of the copyright) y dollars to renew the copyright for the next year. Each year the amount to renew the copyright will increase exponentially (say double the previous years cost)
An example, x = 30 yrs, y = $10,000. After 30yrs, if this copyright is worth more than $10,000 then the author will pay to have it renewed. The govt. is happy because now they begin to tap into another big pocket, and the author is happy because he gets to keep receiving royalties. The second year, the author will have to pay $20,000 to renew the copyright. After 10yrs, the author would have to pay 10,240,000. Or about 1,000 times the initial cost.
By using this process, the company will be weaned off the income it has been generating. Throughout this process, the company will look to other means of supporting itself. So new ideas will be spawned as its dependence on old ideas fades. This will also bring in a system of checks and balances since the govt. will want its portion of the profit. The only problem is that as the company is being weaned off, the govt. begins to depend on it's income, but I figure that it would be much more difficult to change the exponential increase for the renewal of the copyright compared to extending a date. If the exponential equations are changed then the government would make less money at other areas, so over all, the government's income wouldn't change much. The govt. would not push back the date it gets to begin taping companies profits. I think it would decrease the time so that it could get its hands into the pockets of the big companies. But the govt. would not let the time get too small because then the company doesn't have the time to make a profit for the govt. to leach.
Maybe we would have an easier case passing a bill like this through congress than trying to fight the big companies pockets in a court case.
Does anybody actually follow the constitution anymore, or do they just pick and choose the parts they want to pay attention to?
Sadly it looks as if people are not deserving of the freedoms that our country has fought so long for. The 2nd Amendment is totally ignored, only criminal defense attorneys give a shit about the 4th. Congress has run rough-shod over the basic tenants of this country for far too long. I agree that there should be some sort of organization to take care of this sort of thing. But why in the hell isn't the whole constitution being protected like it's supposed to be?
Sadly it seems that neither of the 2 major parties seem to give a damn about the Constitution. The closest thing right now are the Libertarian party. All we need to do is get involved. Things are not doomed, they can be un-done. At the very least I hope that everyone can respect the memory of the millions that fought and died for the freedoms that we take for granted today, and go excercise your right to vote. It is inexcusable that people can't take an hour to go vote once a year, but spend countless hours on the net ranting.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin
Oh, man, I wish more people realised how wickedly sarcastic you are being with that remark ;)
...well, then you wouldn't be as _subtle_ ;)
Of course, if you add "Except that the royalty they get on the CDs is diluted and taken away by every random charge up to and including charges for broken SHELLAC on CD pressings (I am not making this up), plus it only goes to pay back the advance which is only an advance on royalties but the artist does have to cover all promotion, recording costs etc. out of their own pocket, meaning that for most platinum sellers they are _paying_ a lot of money to be a rock and roll star, not making it, and if they're riding around in Caddys they're all the worse in debt to the record company, which will be expecting to be repaid, either in royalties recouped directly from the artist's cut, or just plain money from getting a day job..."
I bought a cd and bring it home, slam it in my cdrom to play it through winamp, and it wont play!
I look on the label, it says "enhanced cd", oh really, why is that so good?
what im doing now, if i want a cd, i buy it through a used cd shop. therefore, if i buy a $7.99 cd there, retail its $14.99. put the numbers together...
im probably going to get moderated down for babbling or something, oh well, im going back to my whatever i was doing...
icq:=22921393;
Sorry, you're _way_ out of the ballpark with that one, not that this conflicts with your opinions or anything ;) ;) ), it's more reasonable to include the actual costs of playing the game and say, "The average artist PAYS ten cents to the record company for each CD sold, due to having to cover promotion and pay their way the whole time, plus having to recoup recording expenses from advance royalties."
Virtually no artists get even that $1. You're totally overlooking the costs of recording, pay to play, and getting to the point of having the 16$ CD on sale. Being signed may well mean being given money by the record company to do these things- all that comes out of the royalty. The artist has to come up with their own money to promote, and is contractually bound to the record company.
On top of this, that 1$ is reduced to *estimate* I'd guess about 50 or 60 cents due to extensive commissions and cuts and charges every step of the way: exemplified by the 'shellac breakage' charge that artists are _still_ paying. It's a racket: this _is_ the industry busted for payola, after all. In the modern day, if there is payola, the artist has to come up with _that_ out of his remaining 50-60 cents, which also goes to paying off recording costs.
I would say if you want to average it out, and calculating only for the major labels, out of a $16 CD sale, your average artist also pays another 30 cents or so to the record company for the _privilege_ of being a rock and roll star. That's average: some will be further in debt, and some will manage to earn between ten to thirty cents on each $16 CD the record company sells. You might have the occasional superstar making $1 or more, but platinum != superstar, and some of the real chart toppers have ended up in the worst debt- it is the businessmen musicians who manage to actually earn anything, and most of them still do not recoup their recording costs and never see a royalty.
Again (with the dreaded boldface!
Read Steve Albini's rants if you want more relentless detail on all this. Yes, it's that bad. Another good resource is a man whom I took a music business course in the 80s, Peter Knickles, who is really gifted at getting this reality through musician's heads and then helping them learn how to turn enough of a profit that they can afford to survive doing music as a job (!), which involves a tremendous amount of work and the total abandonment of silly trust in record companies.
Given the abuses of lawyers covered in this and other stories, what kind of remedies exist or can we make exist by reporting them to the bar or changing it so they do not get to govern themselves?
-Robert
I would like to hear this poster's way of distinguishing between self-interest and greed. Because of the subjectivity of discussions of this nature, it can be hard to tell what the person means.
Anyway, adimarco raises some interesting points. Like a lot of people, he seems to think idealistically. I often wish that people were not so self-centered and self-interested (ahh...what subjective terms) and greedy, but human nature dictates that people will fight for themselves before others (survival of the fittest, in a way). This is what my friends and I refer to as "whoring down." The rare few who fight for the good of all should be seen in a different light, and often are. Donating one's efforts to humankind without a thought to how oneself will benefit is, in my opinion, one of the highest human achievements. It is unfortunate that more of us aren't like that (and I'm not saying that I'm not self-interested, but I make an whole-hearted effort to help others when possible).
Now, in terms of what the RIAA is doing, I would call that greed. I think we can all agree on that: twisting the truth and bending the laws for personal gain is greedy. RIAA pretends to represent every artist in the recording industry (that's my perception, although I don't know much about RIAA). In truth, they represent the executives who have, out of greed, made excessive amounts of money off of the efforts of artists.
Ideally, artists who want to get their music (and their message, if they have one) out into the world shouldn't care about the method of distribution. I agree that, to some extent, it is fair for artists to feel justified in making millions from their music. But where can we draw the line between self-interest and greed? So many artists have sold out, so to speak, so they can make more money. I call that greed.
Anyway, I'm a very idealistic person, like adimarco.
This sort of thing should be brought up with WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization) as well. It is one of the 16 specialized agencies of the United Nations system of organizations. This is exactly what WIPO is all about, and you can read this copy of the WIPO treaty which actually resides on the US Copyright Office's website.
This will allow not only the US, but other countries to be persuaded that things need to change. It sets the benchmark to follow.
Check out the treaty itself, and then check out the agreements the US made with it, and you'll see that there is still lacking by the US in what it agrees to. Note also that the treaty was created in 1996, and that things have changed dramatically in the last few years with respect to different types of media available, which now may or may not be covered by this treaty. (I haven't had the time to scour it myself).
The original idea behind 28 years as a copyright was that was a reasonable estimate of the remaining life expectancy of an artist. It was not intended to be extended beyond the artist's death and certainly not in perpetuity.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
Even more "illegal" copying seems to be a solution. If they loose enough money they might
not be able to manipulate the governments by their sheer force of money anymore!
They seem to want to learn it the hard way...
Businesses plan on a five-year cycle - if something isn't forecast to make a return on investment in five years, it doesn't get done.
Don't get me wrong; I'm very much a supporter of this. I may not know a huge amount about it, but I try, and I have my opinions anyway. :) But a question was brought up after I brought this topic up with some friends: What about the personal copyrights?
Now I know I said I don't know much about this, and the article said that copyright wasn't an innate right, and so maybe I'm missing something.. but if I were to make a comic, say (ignoring the fact that I can't draw worth a damn), and I wanted to continue to own my comic even after these five years, or the 28 years of the original copyrights -- or heck, say I wanted to own it when I was sixty, so I could keep working on it and control its progress -- where does that leave me?
Just hoping I could get some answers, cos I really do wonder about this, and I wanna get it figured out, cos it sorta pokes its head through my own little bit of cheering for this nice essay, and bothers me.
Where can we get:
:)
1. Lists of any companies/mutual funds that support the RIIA in any way
2. Funding for public service advertisements
How much money do the FSF and OSI have? Are they interested (I know RMS probably is)? Is RedHat likely to be of some help? We need money.
How can I get rich quickly, so I can undermine Microsoft while they're vulnerable, or perhaps possibly take control of them. They've got the budget and the strings to pull. Hmm...
Dwayne C. Litzenberger, CEO of Microsoft. I like it!
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
Pretty soon, schools (and therefore taxpayers/students) are going to have to start forking out more money for hard drives, because school-related media will no longer be compressed. We'll all have to store our long lecture soundtracks as WAV instead of mp3, for fear of having it deleted. The same thing will happen to better view compression, etc.
Most of us bitch, most of us complain, but nothing seems to happen. Why? Because the average Joe who doesn't even care about tech-related issues allows the government and large companies to do whatever they want. Whether we like it or not, we're a minority, and we should really organise, already - form an international union.
Many of us work in tech positions, and our employers, and thus big companies, could not run without us. If we threatened an international, national, to regional strike, things would change quite rapidly. Boycotts are not enough; we don't make up enough of the buying population. But we do make up much of the tech population, and we could use that to our advantage, if we could pull ourselves together and form a union.
This union would be different from many unions. Elections would be conducted over the internet (via GnuPG), and membership fees would not be mandatory, as this would limit the number of people willing to participate.
It's time to act, people. Someone should start a web page, and a discussion board to get this new Internet Union together. It is possible, but it will have to be done right. If anyone is interested, I will elaborate further on some of the difficulties we must overcome.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
We need a few far-fetched demands in our proposal, so when we "compromise", the results will be adequate.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."
If you didn't have anything to hide, you would answer our questions and provide us with the information we need to expose the other communists.
So let me get this straight. A 12 year old music addict is browsing the net and he stumbles on some illegal mp3 files.
:)
"ohhh neat i like this song. I will download it and see if it's real". And so he does.
Are you telling me that that 12 year old kid can be sued for DOWNLOADING an mp3 ??
Isn't that just a liiiiiiiitle bit out of control ?
I don't have anything against copyright laws but that is just going a bit far here.
As a matter of fact i buy most of the cd's i like cause i like the luxury of playing them in my car,or my portable cd-player on the plane/train/etc,without having to spend half a lifetime searching through web sites for a song and the other half of actually converting them to cd's.
Also in what countries do these rediculous rules apply ? Is it a global law or just a US law ? Do i have to worry if my son in canada is browsing the web looking for mp3's ? Do i have to worry and scan the Hard drive every day with the fear that i might find mp3's on the hard drive?
Just where EXACTLY do these rules apply ?
Best Regards
Anonymous Coward(sorry i am too bored to login right now
So, don't be to suprised when you start seeing commercial software that won't run with a debugger on the system!
A society based on your give-back principle would be a very gray society... No one would bother producing anything new.
Why, look! There it is, in its natural habitat! The elusive econodwarf!
You can't say "give me" without giving back- in this case, paying the people who produce for you the things you enjoy.
How much of the purchase price of a new CD do you think the artist gets? And how much goes to the record company and the various middle-men?
I've been looking for a reference that long prior to the invention of the printing press, a monk copied a manuscript and the owner of the original claimed ownership of the copy. The court ruled that, like the offspring of livestock, the copy belonged to the owner of the original. I'm thinking this was around the time of Columba of Iona (6th c.). Some of my research indicates that this story may be
apocryphal.
But, on the other hand, I have found some evidence for unlimited copyright in English Common Law
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Am I the only one who thinks that the title of this article (with the exclamation point of course) would be a great name for the worlds first Broadway musical about intellectual property.
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
This may seem ridiculous to some of you (given the comments I read), but I think Copyrights need to be protected. Most of you think of some big record getting upset over bootleg copies of Madonna. But what about struggling artists who need revenue from their product? What about software companies who are barely making it?
Often, highly specialized software needs protection because it is only made for a few companies--The software company has to protect its investment, or it will not be able to turn a profit.
For example, if a company make label printing software that prints bar codes, it would take forever and would cost a fortune for a small to mid-sized company to develop its own bar code software. On the other hand, the investment of development would be smart for a large business. If the software costs $1,000 per user but the development costs are $20,000, then that small company would do better buying a copy.
Now, if the small company just makes a copy of the software from a friend (or something), then the software company is out $1,000 in sales. If their development cost was $250,000 for a general-purpose system to sell, that $1,000 means a lot.
As far as threats to universities, if I were the university sysadmin, I would simply respond:
To whom it may concern,
Go fuck yourself.
Sincerely,
John Doe.
p.s. Because it is the copyright holder's responsibility to protect his/her intelectual property, not ours. Let us know if you find a potential legal infringement, and we will deal with the problem appropriately.
p.p.s.Have a nice day.
Get a job! (teehee)
--
"HORSE."
"HORSE."
-Flaming Carrot
How much of the purchase price of a new CD do you think the artist gets? And how much goes to the record company and the various middle-men?
Not nearly enough. Something like 40-50 cents... I am acutely aware of this because nearly all of my favorite bands have been royally screwed by their record companies in the past few years. If you get bored, look up what EMI records did to Marillion just in time for their 1997 US tour...
But realize I am not defending the middlemen. I am defending my ability to have the kind of music I like, made and produced by the few people who can do it. I have demanding musical tastes; perhaps a hundred virtuoso musicians in the entire world meet my rigorous standards. But since I take music so seriously, since my musical collection makes such a significant contribution to my happiness, a lot would be missing from my life if John Petrucci had not bothered to learn to play the guitar. Even if he had, I would never have heard him if 'Pull Me Under' wasn't played on KSHE-95; and I am sure that KSHE would not have played them if they hadn't recieved a free cd from the record company.
Still, I realize that the RIAA is an evil organization. My fiance' was a radio DJ for (several) Colorado rock stations, and tells stories about being forced to play only songs on the official playlists; simply an example of the RIAA misusing its powers to crush non-member recording groups by not allowing them airtime. I remember one particular instance she was literally forced to recite a list of good things about the new Green Day single, even though she hated it, so that it would sell well. If she didn't, the record company would have refused to pay "maintenance fees" to the station, and she would have lost her job. Any organization that would cause Green Day and the Spice Girls to become cultural icons obviously has serious issues.
Because I enjoy music that is not exactly popular in this country, I usually have to order CD's directly from bands I find in obscure clubs by word of mouth. If I get really lucky, CDNOW will help me. I hate this! I hate walking down the aisles at Best Buy and finding nothing of enough merit to pay for. But killing copyright laws won't solve that; instead of being filled with crap, the shelves would become empty. Or, more likely, RIAA would find starving musicians of mediocre talent and use their music anyway, thereby achieving the same dominance as today except royalty-free.
In a perfect world, every penny I spend to get my latest fix would go straight to the musicians. People who made good music would be rich then whether they sold 50,000 copies or 6 million copies... but the solution articulated in the article is comparable to industrial murder, regardless of what 'philosophical' viewpoint you take. You have to be very naive to believe that people who are forced to work day jobs because they give away their music, will make the same quality music as people who are allowed to concentrate on their art by copyrighting it, selling it and becoming as wealthy as possible.
Scudder
PS. good web page Greg- you might want to check out The Gathering, a Dutch prog metal band. Their female lead vocalist is tremendous, with strong, ethereal vocals, and the band itself is reminiscent of Rush/Yes... very powerful and deft guitar work. Start with Nighttime Birds or Mandylion.
And to the fifty people who replied to tell me that eternal copyright laws were bad: notice I never said that. My post was simply directed at the particular section of the article that discussed "giving back to society". Directed at what looked to me like a blatant appeal to get something for nothing...
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been