Please do. However, since most laptop/netbook designs have the case and motherboard designed for each other, I'd be amazed if they really are cobbling together laptops from spare parts. RAM, hard drives and optical drives maybe, but I suspect in general they're just shifting job lots of machines. Check out their flagship "Bing" laptop. Apart from giving the laptop the same name as the MS search engine (surely designed to attract controversy and hence publicity) if you click on the thumbnail you can see it's a rip-off of the polycarbonate MacBook, and not a very flattering photograph either. I can't help thinking this company is just a far-Eastern box shifter, maybe with some nice ideas at heart, but not a designer of original equipment. Maybe I'm just a cynic...
They're just a clearing house for unwanted older laptop stock. They even say in on their page: "...we buy access inventory, overcapacity, out-of-fashion shells, shells with minor cosmetic flaws, discounted limited batches, and other high quality though discounted components and systems...". It's a nice product concept, but you could do the same with a few days' careful browsing on eBay.
I'm not buying that this is a 'product' at all. They don't even guarantee what CPU architecture you will get. This isn't a frugal hardware company buying "odd lots" of components, this is a company taking $99 from people, then buying job lots of whatever cheap ready-built laptops they can get wholesale, kitting them out with an OS then shipping them. There's no way they're tooled out to build laptops with ARM, Intel, AMD, etc., different size screens (do they redesign the case each time??). It's a nice idea, but basically they're a computer reseller that guarantees low prices but not guaranteeing what you'll actually get.
I don't want to make money off music, and I don't want to abolish copyright. I want to be able to enjoy older works that have already had their commercial day, and use them as I see fit - give copies to friends, alter/sample/remix/re-record etc.. There's nothing screwed up about that, and nothing unethical.
I'm not saying that copyright alone is stifling my personal creativity, I'm saying that - in general - a more permissive attitude to the re-use of work (enabled in part by copyright law that is much more in keeping with its original intent) would increase the amount of creative works available to enrich culture.
OK.... so you've decided that 'several centuries' is long enough to be able to use another person's work, but 100 years-ish where copyright currently stands, isn't. So where would you place the cut-off?
You wouldn't be stealing if you wrote a story based on Jurassic Park (stealing is when you deprive someone of physical property or money), and simply re-stating the story wouldn't be creative. Writing a story based upon those characters, inspired by the original work, would be creative.
I'm not a fan of Jurassic Park but I'm a fan of Star Trek, and I have enjoyed fan fiction - but that market relies on the original "owner" allowing and licensing the franchise. To counter your example, given that Gene Rodenberry is dead, I would like to see the original Star Trek scripts/characters/concepts/footage available as public domain - partly for free enjoyment, and partly so that new works can be created from that basis, because I think there are a lot of people who are good at writing scripts but not good at coming up with wholly new concepts, and I would enjoy their creative output.
By the same token, I'm not good at writing wholly original songs. Although I've penned a few, I'm far far better at musical arrangement, but most of the ideas I have could never be recorded/released without a large investment for licensing that I can't afford.
You see, you're using the work 'punished' as if it was his divine right to profit exclusively from those works in the first place. There's any number of things he could do during the copyright time limit - sell the songs as advertising jingles, sell them to a more popular artist, make them into a blues guitar course. Just like the guy who made 10,000 t-shirts with the losing team on the front, he is out of luck, unless he can get creative and make something else out of it.
Because I'm not talented at writing songs, but I'm good at arranging and playing my instrument(s). Songwriting and recording and performing are different (and not always related) skills. Why should Dan Brown be able to [mis-]quote the Bible without paying royalties? The re-use, re-arrangement, re-imagining, etc. etc. of existing works is part of creativity, not its antithesis, and by making creative works virtually permanent 'property' of a select few corporations, creativity is being decreased.
The Bing isn't $99, it's $350. I confused the issue by referring to another laptop by the same manufacturer. Either way they look like a cheap fly-by-night operation. The picture of the Bing machine (which appears to be their flagship) has got the protective plastic coating still on the screen, but half peeled-off at the corner.
Sure, you must be right. Sorry. Obviously the point of granting "exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" in the Constitution was so that the "Authors and Inventors" could sit around feeling exclusive and rightful, and from those warm fuzzy feelings they would then produce more works, thus promoting the "Progress of Science and useful Arts". Thanks for clearing that up.
I think that's very interesting. The think that bothers me is the amount of music sitting in the back-catalogues of record companies, that could be out there for the general public to enjoy. I'm not talking about recordings here, I'm talking about compositions/songs/lyrics that never see the light of day. Putting a small piece-price on each copyright work would encourage corps to do clear-outs and release or sell on works, and I think that would stimulate creativity and 'enrich society' far more than the current model.
No. We're now in a situation where copyright extends well beyond the likely lifetime of the creator(s) of the work in questions. Endlessly extending copyright causes a net decrease in the amount of books/music/etc. available, here's why:
Long copyright terms have made music and literature into big business and concentrated the means of production and distribution into the hands of mega-corporations who get to decide what is published and what isn't. Long terms encourage companies to exploit their back catalogue ad nauseam rather than constantly seeking out new talent because they know that within [less than a decade | whatever short time period] all of their current catalogue would be valueless. Musicians only have to produce a couple of hit singles to be made for life, and then they can churn out mindless 'concept' albums that no-one really wants to hear. Conversely, manufactured bands can record covers of hits from 10 years ago, and because the big corps control the market, you end up with shops saturated with music that's already been sold ten times over (unless, apparently, you buy Rage Against the Machine).
If copyright terms were short, amateur musicians like me could record covers of hits from 10 years ago and enjoy the pleasure of recording and giving away music or distributing for free / cheap online. Why should I not be able to record a cover version of a song that's been sitting in a record label's back catalogue and hasn't seen the light of day for 40 years? Compare this to the software market, where software from as recently as the 1980s is being perceived as 'abandonware' and available for download online on the premise that the copyright is owned by companies that no longer exist and therefore no-one will challenge it.
The point is, copyright per se is a good thing, but the never-ending extension of its terms is definitely bad. It's now well over the the line from stimulating creativity to just lining the pockets of the already very-rich, and the way that the market is set up makes it very difficult for small-time artists to make a dent.
It's pretty obvious really. The whole point of copyright was to enable the creator to benefit commercially from their artwork for a limited period so that they would have an income and be able to continue producing works that enrich/entertain society. As distribution has become quicker and quicker, the time needed for an artist to commercially exploit their work has decreased and therefore the time period for which copyright applies ought to be shorter, not longer, than in the past.
What has happened instead is that time periods have been extended, more and more money has been made, which has concentrated the means of distribution into fewer hands, with the net effect of decreasing the amount of art (music, literature etc.) that is widely available. This is now starting to change with digital distribution, although it's quite clear that DRM is not about preventing the pirating of works (because it doesn't stop commercial pirates) but is about maintaining a barrier to entry into the market.
That was kind of my point! I think one of the reasons why this song was chosen by the group[think] was to derail the usual pattern (to mix metaphors slightly) because most mainstream radio stations, shopping malls etc. won't want to play it. Often when I have complained about song choices I've been told "you have to play the Christmas no. 1!", now many will be in the position of not wanting to play it, even though it is a protest song with a decent message, it just sounds bad. And it has swearing, which is apparently really bad in a song, even though people tolerate plenty in mainstream movies.
Why does it matter who wins the Superbowl? It's just a medium-/longstanding tradition to get excited about which song is the most popular at Christmas. Prior to the mid-1950s that was determined by sales on sheet music, since then by sales of recorded music, and most recently digitally downloaded music has formed parrt of those sales charts. It's the song you're going to hear ad nauseum in every supermarket, bar and living room for the next two weeks of holidays, so part of the aim of this campaign was to choose a song that most 'mainstream' people really wouldn't want to hear (and, interestingly, a song whose message is actually quite important if you understand it).
Actually, it has to cost the retailer at least 40p per copy, presumably so that the record labels can't give away thousands of singles to retailers to try to sway the result. There is no lower limit on the price to the consumer; presumably Amazon were making a loss on their sales of the single because they stated categorically in one of their online forums that their sales did count.
Yes, because you would be modifying a copyright work then reselling it, which would be a breach of copyright. Just like if I modified a music track and resold it, that would be breach of copyright. Just because you, I or anyone else might feel justified in making that modification, it is still illegal. 'Fair use' to make the software run on your own computer might be a different thing, this is about a company profiting from the resale of someone else's modified copyright work.
I think you'll find the doctrine of first sale applies to retail sales to private individuals. This is about one company purchasing another companies goods, which is a contract to which any terms can be applied (within the limits of applicable law). Plus, even if Psystar bought OSX, they still have to license to modify that copyright work and resell it. If this case had been the purchase, modification and reselling of a motion picture or music track, would you think that was OK?
No, Apple were arguing that it's illegal to modify someone else's software and resell the modified version, which it quite clearly is. This is nothing to do with the license and everything to do with copyright.
In your hypothetical scenario, Dell has a contract with Microsoft which allows them to resell Windows OEM. Presumably that contract details what Dell can and can't do with that installation prior to reselling it, such as installing updates and drivers (which, incidentally is what the whole antitrust thing is about MS was using that contract to prevent manufacturers from installing Netscape back in the day, which was deemed to be an abuse of monopoly powers, but would have been legal in a non-monopoly situation).
Anyway... Psystar had no such contract with Apple, they were altering the OS in order for it to run on their hardware and reselling that altered OS (which is a breach of copyright) then putting a retail copy of OSX in with the shipped machine.
Suppose I bought a million copies of the latest number 1 single, sampled it and produced a derivative work, then resold my derivative work along with a copy of the original single. Would that be legal? Absolutely not. This is no different.
But when Psystar bought those copies of OSX to resell to their customers, they weren't making a retail purchase, they were making a wholesale business purchase and entering into a binding contract with their supplier and ultimately Apple. When Psystar modified OSX and imaged it onto the PCs to sell on to customers, they broke that contract and therefore had no right to sell the version of OSX installed on the hard drive of those PCs.
This ruling is about Psystar making unauthorised derivative copies of OS X on their servers, imaging them onto machines which they sold to consumers, then chucking a retail copy of OS X in the box with the machine and presuming that would be OK. That's all. Yes, Apple doesn't want you to run OS X on machines they haven't supplied, but this lawsuit was about illegally making derivative works.
The hypothetical situation you described isn't parallel to this. What would be parallel would be for Dell to sell a Linux box, put some Windows DLLs on there to be used with Wine, create a custom Linux distro with those DLLs on their servers, image that onto PCs they sell, then chuck a retail copy of Windows in the box with the PC. Would that be illegal - YES. Would Microsoft take them to court and win - YES.
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Please do. However, since most laptop/netbook designs have the case and motherboard designed for each other, I'd be amazed if they really are cobbling together laptops from spare parts. RAM, hard drives and optical drives maybe, but I suspect in general they're just shifting job lots of machines. Check out their flagship "Bing" laptop. Apart from giving the laptop the same name as the MS search engine (surely designed to attract controversy and hence publicity) if you click on the thumbnail you can see it's a rip-off of the polycarbonate MacBook, and not a very flattering photograph either. I can't help thinking this company is just a far-Eastern box shifter, maybe with some nice ideas at heart, but not a designer of original equipment. Maybe I'm just a cynic...
They're just a clearing house for unwanted older laptop stock. They even say in on their page: "...we buy access inventory, overcapacity, out-of-fashion shells, shells with minor cosmetic flaws, discounted limited batches, and other high quality though discounted components and systems...". It's a nice product concept, but you could do the same with a few days' careful browsing on eBay.
I'm not buying that this is a 'product' at all. They don't even guarantee what CPU architecture you will get. This isn't a frugal hardware company buying "odd lots" of components, this is a company taking $99 from people, then buying job lots of whatever cheap ready-built laptops they can get wholesale, kitting them out with an OS then shipping them. There's no way they're tooled out to build laptops with ARM, Intel, AMD, etc., different size screens (do they redesign the case each time??). It's a nice idea, but basically they're a computer reseller that guarantees low prices but not guaranteeing what you'll actually get.
I don't want to make money off music, and I don't want to abolish copyright. I want to be able to enjoy older works that have already had their commercial day, and use them as I see fit - give copies to friends, alter/sample/remix/re-record etc.. There's nothing screwed up about that, and nothing unethical.
I'm not saying that copyright alone is stifling my personal creativity, I'm saying that - in general - a more permissive attitude to the re-use of work (enabled in part by copyright law that is much more in keeping with its original intent) would increase the amount of creative works available to enrich culture.
OK.... so you've decided that 'several centuries' is long enough to be able to use another person's work, but 100 years-ish where copyright currently stands, isn't. So where would you place the cut-off?
You wouldn't be stealing if you wrote a story based on Jurassic Park (stealing is when you deprive someone of physical property or money), and simply re-stating the story wouldn't be creative. Writing a story based upon those characters, inspired by the original work, would be creative.
I'm not a fan of Jurassic Park but I'm a fan of Star Trek, and I have enjoyed fan fiction - but that market relies on the original "owner" allowing and licensing the franchise. To counter your example, given that Gene Rodenberry is dead, I would like to see the original Star Trek scripts/characters/concepts/footage available as public domain - partly for free enjoyment, and partly so that new works can be created from that basis, because I think there are a lot of people who are good at writing scripts but not good at coming up with wholly new concepts, and I would enjoy their creative output.
By the same token, I'm not good at writing wholly original songs. Although I've penned a few, I'm far far better at musical arrangement, but most of the ideas I have could never be recorded/released without a large investment for licensing that I can't afford.
You see, you're using the work 'punished' as if it was his divine right to profit exclusively from those works in the first place. There's any number of things he could do during the copyright time limit - sell the songs as advertising jingles, sell them to a more popular artist, make them into a blues guitar course. Just like the guy who made 10,000 t-shirts with the losing team on the front, he is out of luck, unless he can get creative and make something else out of it.
Because I'm not talented at writing songs, but I'm good at arranging and playing my instrument(s). Songwriting and recording and performing are different (and not always related) skills. Why should Dan Brown be able to [mis-]quote the Bible without paying royalties? The re-use, re-arrangement, re-imagining, etc. etc. of existing works is part of creativity, not its antithesis, and by making creative works virtually permanent 'property' of a select few corporations, creativity is being decreased.
The Bing isn't $99, it's $350. I confused the issue by referring to another laptop by the same manufacturer. Either way they look like a cheap fly-by-night operation. The picture of the Bing machine (which appears to be their flagship) has got the protective plastic coating still on the screen, but half peeled-off at the corner.
I think you're arguing the same thing as me and just altering the order/precedence of the terms. But, then, you are a lawyer ;).
That's an interesting laptop. Looks like a rip-off of the polycarbonate MacBook, sounds like a rip-off of the Microsoft search engine. I predict FAIL.
Sure, you must be right. Sorry. Obviously the point of granting "exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" in the Constitution was so that the "Authors and Inventors" could sit around feeling exclusive and rightful, and from those warm fuzzy feelings they would then produce more works, thus promoting the "Progress of Science and useful Arts". Thanks for clearing that up.
I think that's very interesting. The think that bothers me is the amount of music sitting in the back-catalogues of record companies, that could be out there for the general public to enjoy. I'm not talking about recordings here, I'm talking about compositions/songs/lyrics that never see the light of day. Putting a small piece-price on each copyright work would encourage corps to do clear-outs and release or sell on works, and I think that would stimulate creativity and 'enrich society' far more than the current model.
No. We're now in a situation where copyright extends well beyond the likely lifetime of the creator(s) of the work in questions. Endlessly extending copyright causes a net decrease in the amount of books/music/etc. available, here's why:
Long copyright terms have made music and literature into big business and concentrated the means of production and distribution into the hands of mega-corporations who get to decide what is published and what isn't. Long terms encourage companies to exploit their back catalogue ad nauseam rather than constantly seeking out new talent because they know that within [less than a decade | whatever short time period] all of their current catalogue would be valueless. Musicians only have to produce a couple of hit singles to be made for life, and then they can churn out mindless 'concept' albums that no-one really wants to hear. Conversely, manufactured bands can record covers of hits from 10 years ago, and because the big corps control the market, you end up with shops saturated with music that's already been sold ten times over (unless, apparently, you buy Rage Against the Machine).
If copyright terms were short, amateur musicians like me could record covers of hits from 10 years ago and enjoy the pleasure of recording and giving away music or distributing for free / cheap online. Why should I not be able to record a cover version of a song that's been sitting in a record label's back catalogue and hasn't seen the light of day for 40 years? Compare this to the software market, where software from as recently as the 1980s is being perceived as 'abandonware' and available for download online on the premise that the copyright is owned by companies that no longer exist and therefore no-one will challenge it.
The point is, copyright per se is a good thing, but the never-ending extension of its terms is definitely bad. It's now well over the the line from stimulating creativity to just lining the pockets of the already very-rich, and the way that the market is set up makes it very difficult for small-time artists to make a dent.
It's pretty obvious really. The whole point of copyright was to enable the creator to benefit commercially from their artwork for a limited period so that they would have an income and be able to continue producing works that enrich/entertain society. As distribution has become quicker and quicker, the time needed for an artist to commercially exploit their work has decreased and therefore the time period for which copyright applies ought to be shorter, not longer, than in the past.
What has happened instead is that time periods have been extended, more and more money has been made, which has concentrated the means of distribution into fewer hands, with the net effect of decreasing the amount of art (music, literature etc.) that is widely available. This is now starting to change with digital distribution, although it's quite clear that DRM is not about preventing the pirating of works (because it doesn't stop commercial pirates) but is about maintaining a barrier to entry into the market.
That was kind of my point! I think one of the reasons why this song was chosen by the group[think] was to derail the usual pattern (to mix metaphors slightly) because most mainstream radio stations, shopping malls etc. won't want to play it. Often when I have complained about song choices I've been told "you have to play the Christmas no. 1!", now many will be in the position of not wanting to play it, even though it is a protest song with a decent message, it just sounds bad. And it has swearing, which is apparently really bad in a song, even though people tolerate plenty in mainstream movies.
Why does it matter who wins the Superbowl? It's just a medium-/longstanding tradition to get excited about which song is the most popular at Christmas. Prior to the mid-1950s that was determined by sales on sheet music, since then by sales of recorded music, and most recently digitally downloaded music has formed parrt of those sales charts. It's the song you're going to hear ad nauseum in every supermarket, bar and living room for the next two weeks of holidays, so part of the aim of this campaign was to choose a song that most 'mainstream' people really wouldn't want to hear (and, interestingly, a song whose message is actually quite important if you understand it).
Actually, it has to cost the retailer at least 40p per copy, presumably so that the record labels can't give away thousands of singles to retailers to try to sway the result. There is no lower limit on the price to the consumer; presumably Amazon were making a loss on their sales of the single because they stated categorically in one of their online forums that their sales did count.
Yes, because you would be modifying a copyright work then reselling it, which would be a breach of copyright. Just like if I modified a music track and resold it, that would be breach of copyright. Just because you, I or anyone else might feel justified in making that modification, it is still illegal. 'Fair use' to make the software run on your own computer might be a different thing, this is about a company profiting from the resale of someone else's modified copyright work.
I think all the shops that have it on their shelves would disagree with you on that one.
Tangible goods aren't subject to copyright. The design might be.
I think you'll find the doctrine of first sale applies to retail sales to private individuals. This is about one company purchasing another companies goods, which is a contract to which any terms can be applied (within the limits of applicable law). Plus, even if Psystar bought OSX, they still have to license to modify that copyright work and resell it. If this case had been the purchase, modification and reselling of a motion picture or music track, would you think that was OK?
No, Apple were arguing that it's illegal to modify someone else's software and resell the modified version, which it quite clearly is. This is nothing to do with the license and everything to do with copyright.
In your hypothetical scenario, Dell has a contract with Microsoft which allows them to resell Windows OEM. Presumably that contract details what Dell can and can't do with that installation prior to reselling it, such as installing updates and drivers (which, incidentally is what the whole antitrust thing is about MS was using that contract to prevent manufacturers from installing Netscape back in the day, which was deemed to be an abuse of monopoly powers, but would have been legal in a non-monopoly situation).
Anyway... Psystar had no such contract with Apple, they were altering the OS in order for it to run on their hardware and reselling that altered OS (which is a breach of copyright) then putting a retail copy of OSX in with the shipped machine.
Suppose I bought a million copies of the latest number 1 single, sampled it and produced a derivative work, then resold my derivative work along with a copy of the original single. Would that be legal? Absolutely not. This is no different.
But when Psystar bought those copies of OSX to resell to their customers, they weren't making a retail purchase, they were making a wholesale business purchase and entering into a binding contract with their supplier and ultimately Apple. When Psystar modified OSX and imaged it onto the PCs to sell on to customers, they broke that contract and therefore had no right to sell the version of OSX installed on the hard drive of those PCs.
*sigh*
This ruling is about Psystar making unauthorised derivative copies of OS X on their servers, imaging them onto machines which they sold to consumers, then chucking a retail copy of OS X in the box with the machine and presuming that would be OK. That's all. Yes, Apple doesn't want you to run OS X on machines they haven't supplied, but this lawsuit was about illegally making derivative works.
The hypothetical situation you described isn't parallel to this. What would be parallel would be for Dell to sell a Linux box, put some Windows DLLs on there to be used with Wine, create a custom Linux distro with those DLLs on their servers, image that onto PCs they sell, then chuck a retail copy of Windows in the box with the PC. Would that be illegal - YES. Would Microsoft take them to court and win - YES.