You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a copyright is.
A copyright does not give you the right to copy and distribute a work. What a copyright gives you is the right to exclude others from copying and distributing a work. This is what is meant by the term exclusive right, and is very different from the concept of owning a work. Ownership of a work in the abstract is not recognized by copyright law. Copyright law defines two distinct types of ownership -- Ownership of a copyright over a work, and ownership of a copy of a work. There is no concept of ownership of a work.
For example:
Bob Writer writes and distributes a GPLed program.
Joe Patcher writes a patch for that program.
Bob Writer, having written the original program, has the right to exclude others, including Joe, from distributing the original program and any other derived works. Bob Writer offers the program to the world under the conditions of the GPL, thus agreeing to a limitation of his right to prevent others from copying and distributing his work, so long as those others adhere to the conditions of the GPL.
Joe Patcher accepts the program under the conditions of the GPL, writes a patch, and applies it to the original program, creating a derivative work.
Now there are TWO people who have the right to exclude others from copying and distributing the derivative work. Neither Bob nor Joe own the work. Each hold the right to exclude others, including each other, from distributing and copying the work, with the exception that Bob has already granted Joe the right to redistribute and copy the original program, or any derived works, but only under the conditions of the GPL.
Bob holds the copyright on his work, and Joe holds the copyright on his work. The GPL does NOT change the basic nature of copyright law. Specifically, Bob Writer has no right to use Joe Patcher's patches unless Joe Patcher agrees to permit Bob Writer to do so. The "original author" does NOT automatically "own" derivative works, as you claimed.
There are now a number of things that could happen.
Joe could decide to exercise his right, under the terms of the GPL, to release his patched version under the GPL. In this case Joe would retain ownership of the copyright on his patch.
Joe could also offer to sell or donate the copyright interest in his patch to Bob, in which case Bob would be the sole owner of the copyright over the derivative work.
Now let's say that Bob wants to sell his program to Microsoft, so they can integrate it into Windows and sell it without the source code. Bob is perfectly free to sell Microsoft the original program, but not Joe's derivative program, because Joe has the right to exclude others from copying and distributing his work; the patches, unless he agrees otherwise.
If Bob and Joe get together, they can both agree to sell the derivative work to Microsoft, but neither can do it alone, because each one has a copyright on the part of the work that they did.
This is no different then if Bob and Joe had collaborated on the program without using the GPL. Basic copyright law still applies to the ownership of copyrights over GPLed works!
Of course, when you have a major project, with dozens or even hundreds of contributors, it becomes effectively impossible for the original authors to distribute the program under any terms other than the GPL, unless the original authors are VERY careful to retain full ownership and/or control of the copyright on all contributions.
Which is either a defect or feature, depending on your point of view.
Re:The fundamental precept that MS seeks to obfusc
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It is not public domain. It is the fully copyrighted work of the author who *allows* you to use it *under license.*
Actually, the GPL places no restrictions on *use* of GPLed code:
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted...
o Ability to act as an authentication source for Windows 2000® and Windows NT® clients, allowing savings on the purchase of Microsoft® Client Access Licenses.
Can someone explain this? Does this version of Samba in essence emulate Microsoft's licensing agent, allowing free use of features that Microsoft wants you to pay for, or does this mean something else?
Sounds like something that could result in a tidal wave of lawsuits from Redmond.
If you re-type a printed document, you are making a perfect digital copy. The entire premise of copyright law is that duplicating works is easy. If it was impossible to reproduce a work, copyright law would be meaningless. Like a law forbidding the copying of the weather.
The fair use laws make sense in the context of a general public that is willing and able to exercise good judgement and make decisions accordingly. If you want to buy a CD, then listen to it on your RIO, you should have the right to make the value judgement that this application is justified under the doctrines of fair use & first sale. You have paid the author. If someone asked you to buy a CD duplicator, and make them 1000 copies of a Metallica album so they can sell them on the black market, you should be the one making the value judgement that this is not fair use, because it interferes with the author's commercial exploitation of his work.
The DMCA is designed on the assumption that the general public is just a pack of thieves who need to be locked away from digital works; an insulting justification of an unconstitutional law.
I like that part. You say that copyright originally started as an instrument of censorship. You couldn't be more wrong. Copyright protects the author and helps them continue producing their goods.
Copyright was originally invented to counter the threats of a new digital age -- the invention of movable type by Gutenberg. Before the invention of the printing press, there was no such thing as copyright. The powers-that-be at the time, specifically the British Crown, were worried that this new technology could be used against them, and they passed laws to ensure that it would be brought under royal control.
The new laws were called the "stationers copyright." In exchange to submitting to censorship by the crown, book publishers were given the exclusive right to publish books, and to suppress unauthorized publishers by destroying their presses and burning their books. Copyright had no requirement of originality -- a publisher could, for instance, publish an edition of an ancient work -- by Socrates, for example, and claim exclusive copyright over it. The copyright laws were unpopular, and the crisis came to a head around 1710. The Crown stood ready to completely abolish copyright, but the publishers came to the table with a new strategy.
The result was the Statute of Anne. In the new copyright regime, instead of the copyright benefit being assigned to publishers, the new copyright benefit would be assigned to authors. The term would also be time-limited; not a feature of the original censorship law.
The authors of the U.S. Constitution debated whether or not the United States should even have copyright. In the end, they authorized -- but did not require -- the government to establish copyright laws, but phrased the copyright clause to follow the principles of the Statute of Anne:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
Note that the purpose of the copyright clause is not to benefit authors. The purpose of the copyright clause -- and all legitimate copyright law -- is to promote progress. Benefiting authors is the means of the copyright clause, not the end.
The DMCA is in essence an end-run around the entire body of copyright law. Under copyright law, you are allowed to make fair use of works, and you are allowed to resell legitimate copies of works without the permission of the publisher. What the DMCA does is forbids one from having the means to exercise one's rights without the permission of the publisher. That is unconstitutional, wrong, and a violation of everything that copyright stands for.
But yes, copyright did originate as a system of pure censorship and government control. Good copyright law is a very delicate balance -- much like the other systems of checks and balances in the Constitution. All it takes is one bad law to wipe out 300 years of good copyright law, and revert to the original censorship law.
My argument stands. Copyright law has been so debased, that copyright itself has reverted to its original purpose of censorship and suppression. Except that instead of government doing the censoring and suppressing, now it is the corporate state, arguably more powerful and more dangerous than the government.
What the copyright industry is forgetting is that copyright has traditionally been a social contract.
In general, publishers agree to publish works, making them available to the public. The public gains two important benefits from this half of the bargain.
First, works are placed in the public domain in two ways. First off, the copyright is supposed to expire eventually, but there is another sense of the "public domain", which is "material available for public use." For instance, If you want to quote a paragraph from a copyrighted novel in your English paper, you are allowed to do so. This is fair use. It ensures that copyright serves the purpose of promoting learning and education.
If you want to sell your used book, you are allowed to. This is first sale. It ensures that works survive by placing copies of those works in private hands, and preventing the authors or publishers from reclaiming them or interfering with the public's use of them.
In exchange, citizens agree not to compete commercially with the publishers in exploiting their work.
This theme runs up and down through copyright law, with the notable exception of the DMCA. The DMCA is really anti-copyright. It is everything that copyright is not supposed to be. The DMCA was designed to allow publishers to renege on their half of the social contract.
Under the DMCA, the publisher is not obligated to place a work in the public domain in either sense of the word. Even after the copyright term expires, an encrypted work remains encrypted. There is no obligation, or provision, for an encrypted work to be unencrypted upon copyright expiration. And none of us will live long enough to see it happen. In the second sense of the "public domain", the DMCA allows publishers to use technological measures to prevent fair use. Want to quote a paragraph from an encrypted e-book by cutting and pasting? That's illegal if the publisher says so. Want to sell your copy of that e-book? That's also illegal if the publisher says so. not because it's illegal under copyright law, but because it's illegal under the DMCA, which is anti-copyright law.
There are probably three ways that the copyright crisis can resolve -- either:
1) The public learns to accept the fact that their rights to read, quote works, and own and trade copies of works has been permanently banished.
2) The courts strike down the DMCA.
3) Sensing that the publishing industry is no longer bound to the traditional obligations of the copyright social contract, the public abandons their half of the social contract. Copyright violation becomes like drinking during prohibition -- just another bad law waiting to be struck off the books.
Make no mistake, copyright is in crisis. When Congress wrote the DMCA, they completely got the problem backwards. The problem isn't that a thieving public is waiting breathlessly for the opportunity to strip copyright holders of all their rights. The problem is that a thieving copyright industry has been waiting breathlessly for the opportunity -- the DMCA -- to strip the public of all their rights.
The endgame is now in motion, and I predict that it will result in either the destruction of the DMCA, the destruction of consumer rights, or the destruction and abandonment of copyright itself.
Never forget that copyright originally arose as an instrument of censorship. It was a stroke of genius to transform an instrument of censorship into an instrument to promote progress, and all it took was an ignorant Congress, and an opportunistic publishing industry, to change it back.
And we used to buy used mainframe hard drives from a major used equipment vendor. The most fun part of receiving the new drives was looking to see what had been left unerased on the drives by the previous owner. We found railroad shipping manifests, parts databases, source code to scientific software, customer lists. Absolutely incredible stuff. Eventually, the vendor wised up and started clearing the drives before shipping them out.
... all of which damn well better be done before the software company tanks, because then it's too late.
It will be very interesting to see if the new "leased" version of Microsoft Windows contains a license key generator escrow clause in the user license, because Microsoft's business and licensing practices basically set the standard for the industry, for better or worse.
Should a law be required that if such a company goes under, they must either sell the rights to rent keys to another company, or provide non-terminating keys to the current subscribers?"
Let's call the failed company "FailedCo."
FailedCo "notified" their employees of the company shutdown by changing the lock on their door. (Common practice!) They immediately laid off their entire staff and cancelled their lease on their building. The entire contents of the office, including the computers containing the source code to the software as well as the license key generator -- were loaded up into a truck and piled in a non-climate controlled warehouse, pending Chapter 11 proceedings.
As the case drags through bankruptcy court, more and more customers are faced with license key expiration, which means that they are going to be forced to abandon using the software. This makes the "rights to issue new license keys" less and less valuable over time. When the last license key expires, and the last customer has to abandon their software, the "rights to issue new license keys" falls to a value of zero dollars.
Let's say, for argument's sake, that the judge orders FailedCo to "find a company to continue licensing the software to current customers."
No company in their right mind would agree to do so!
Why? Let's say, for the sake of argument, that a company, "ReceiverCo", agrees to do so.
First off, they are being asked to take on the business operations of a failed software company, and pay good money for the privilege!
Second, even though they have the rights to sell license keys and continue to maintain and develop the software, ReceiverCo is first faced with a daunting problem.
The problem is a warehouse filled with computers, huge boxes piled full of cryptically labelled or unlabelled floppy disks, 8mm tapes, and zip disks.
Before they can issue a single license key, they have to figure out:
1) Are all the computers intact? Have the hard drives crashed? Do they boot up? Do they have to be networked together in a certain way in order to work? Are some computers NFS servers? Do they have to be manually restarted when they come up? How much time and money is it going to take to figure this out?
2) Which are the important computers -- the ones with the source code and the license key generator, and which computers are unimportant -- the secretary's computer. The "important" computers are probably protected with unknown passwords. What are the passwords? Are the really important computers protected with encryption? How much money will it cost to hire "hackers" to break into all the machines, and sift through the 80 gig hard drives to find the valuable "assets" -- the source code & license key generator?
3) Was the source code left in a buildable state? Remember, all of the developers are gone, and with no warning. Their computers are probably filled with test builds, undebugged source code, obsolete source code, and probably even entire non-working, experimental build-trees. Parts of the program are in C++, parts are in undocumented assembly language, and the internal build scripts are written in an in-house written scripting language that no one outside of the company has ever seen before. What if FailedCo itself has been licensing code from another company, and that license has run out?
4) How do you run the license key generator? Odds are, it isn't a nice, well-written application. Most likely, it's an obscure command-line program, with a non-obvious, non-documented syntax. How do you even know when you've found the license key generator? Is it that binary called "lkg" in the home directory of an account called "lisa" on any one of 35 identical-looking computers? The "lkg" command just spits out "incorrect syntax" no matter what you type, so how do you know if you've even found the license key generator?
Remember, all of the people who staffed FailedCo are gone. They have new jobs. They've filled their heads with new information for their new job, and barely remember this stuff. And their getting laid off was such a bad experience that they have no interest whatsoever in helping ReceiverCo revive FailedCo's products. Or maybe one of them will do the job -- at an extortionate price.
It could literally take months to years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in manpower to conduct what would amount to an archeological dig through all those computers, and reconstruct the license-key granting program & procedure.
All this to secure an asset of unknown value, that is quickly free-falling towards worthlessness.
No company in their right mind would ever do it.
What will really happen is that FailedCo will fail to find a receiver, and the judge will order that the company's assets be liquidated. All the files and computer media -- floppys, backup tapes -- will be either sent to a landfill or bulk-erased and sold as used media, and the computers will have their hard drives either removed and destroyed, or reformatted, and the computers will be sold as "used computers, without windows", at auction.
And the source code and license key generator will cease to exist.
Liquidators are in the business of liquidating assets, not in the business of leasing software. Liquidators know absolutely nothing about running a software company. The idea that they would take over the business operations of a failed software company is sheer fantasy.
Here's what will really happen:
The software company ceases operations. It immediately lays off all of its employees and cancels its building lease. All of the physical assets of the company -- mostly computers, backup tapes, and office furniture -- are carted off and stored in a warehouse.
Within days or weeks, a liquidation company will be hired to dispose of the company's assets. They will receive a warehouse full of office supplies and desktop computers, and backup media, some of which happen to contain the only existing copies of the source code to not only the software, but also the program that generates the license keys.
The liquidation company will have orders to immediately liquidate all of the assets in order to pay outstanding bills -- such as unpaid rent on the office the company was based out of.
The liquidation company will know absolutely nothing about the contents of the computers. Most likely, they will have implemented a policy, for their own legal protection, not to sell computers and media without erasing them first. After all, those computers might contain other companies' trade secrets or licensed software, and the liquidation company would be exposing themselves to massive liability if it sold off the computers without erasing them first.
The liquidation company will degauss the backup tapes and label them as bulk-erased media, and they will format the hard drives on the computers and label them as "used computers", then they will place an auction advertisement in the newspaper, and sell off the media and computers.
As a result, the software source code -- and license key generator -- will cease to exist in any form whatsoever.
However, consider that the royalties are only collected on CDRs that have "Audio" printed on the label, so I would speculate that most people who buy CDRs to store data either buy bulk CDRs, or CDRs labelled for "Data".
True memories are unnecessary. That's what the congressional record and history books are for.
You overrate the intelligence and work ethic of the typical congressman. Jack Valenti was testifying before Congress in the 1960s, before most of our current congresspeople were even born.
With most things that are worthwhile monetarily to copyright the company can afford to use the profit from the product in question to renew the copyright and keep up with the latest legalese. That's why so many inventors ideas are rarely copyrighted even though they are mass produced and sold.
Since 1976, all works automatically receive copyright protection the moment they are fixed in some media. The only reason to register a work with the copyright office is so that you can begin to claim statutory damages from an infringer. Also, copyright renewal was abolished in 1976, so these conditions haven't existed for 25 years. You have a very long memory. Perhaps you should run for Congress.
What you are missing entirely is that presently the staff members and lobbyists ARE more powerful than the Senators and Reps simply because they've transformed from "I work for the people" to "I do what the powerful people who control the masses of sheep voters tell me to so I can stay in this cushy job."
Senators and Reps come and go, but staffers can stay forever. Most of what we consider to be "laws" are really regulations, written by staffers, not signed into law by Congress. Our Senators and Reps are too busy with political activities. Quite simply, our government has 1 president, 50 senators, 435 representatives, and thousands and thousands of unelected public servants who actually do the work, and write the regulations, and unofficially the real power of government.
Not that we are a democracy anyway.
True. The U.S. is a republic, not a democracy. The exception being those states with voter initiative laws.
If term limits were anti-democratic we'd have a King named Bill and a queen named Hillary.
If we had a king and queen, we wouldn't have the option of voting them out. Term limits are unnecessary because the public always has the option of imposing term limits on any president, senator or rep by voting him or her out.
That's an entirely different problem. Unfortunately, whatever "system" of paying musicians and songwriters is developed, it is going to involve some sort of intermediary, be it ASCAP, BMI, etc.
Right now, the way the royalties are divided up is based on frequency of record sales and radio play, and since the recording labels pretty much determine who gets the promotion and radio play, the actual effect is that the vast bulk of the royalties follow the small handful of most popular bands, and less powerful songwriters and artists get burned.
This is a big problem that needs to be fixed, but this problem will exist whether the money comes from Napster or from blank media royalties until it is independently fixed.
You are right. Anyone making their own recordings of their own work certainly has no moral obligation to pay royalties to the music industry to do so.
Translation: "I'll gladly pay next to nothing in exchange for access to an unlimtied amount of music, versus the $80+/mo. I used to spend."
There's no evidence that people are going to abandon prerecorded CDs, a visually artistic and desirable consumer product, in favor of downloading inferior MP3s. Quite the opposite -- CD sales are at an all-time high and are increasing annually. You'd think that it would be hard to claim that the sky is falling when sales are going through the roof, but the RIAA is doing a damn good job of it.
But I'm just getting started!
joy.
Funny how oh-so-very-Libertarian Slashdotters, who would of course oppose Big Governement's efforts to take information property from them, in the form of privacy violations, suddenly don't bat an eye when a bunch of morons walks onto Capitol Hill and says we must release all IP rights to the music, or the world will die
What are you talking about? I'm not talking about releasing IP rights. These are royalties, which, by definition, are compensation for the right to copy. Just like when a radio station broadcasts a song, and pays royalties to the record company. Do you think that congress has "released all IP rights to the music" because it allows them to broadcast songs without negotiating individual licenses with the record labels and music publisher? Are you going to start ranting that radio stations are pirates because they pay a fixed fee for the right to copy instead of negotiating three individual contracts for each performance of each song?
By the way, I didn't see any reluctance on the part of the music industry to accept these royalty payments. Seems to me that when the recording industry on one hand accepts payment as compensation for non-commercial recording, then goes to Congress and complains that non-commercial copying needs to be stopped because they aren't being paid, that is stealing. Or at least lying.
And I'll bet all those artists collecting piddling royalties will be ever so glad when their royalty checks go from s**t to none because Napster needs a new pair of shoes.
First off, the royalty system is completely screwed up. Artists aren't not being paid because of Napster. Artists aren't being paid because the organizations that are supposed to be representing them are ripping them off. That's an entirely different problem, and one that cannot be solved by legalizing, or abolishing Napster.
Now, back to your assumption that Napster is ruining the CD market. Where is the evidence? All the evidence out there is that people who use Napster are more likely to buy prerecorded music, just like people who listen to the radio are more likely to buy CDs.
Fact is, you just want your goddamn music for free, and don't give a rat's arse about anything else.
This is so funny. What makes you think I even use Napster? What I want is to get the recording industry out of the business of attempting to control what individuals do with their own computers in the privacy of their own home, and back into the business of recording music. That's why I favor statutory royalty payments. Ore are you saying that I'm in favor of payments because I don't want to pay for things?
Oh, and of course you're OKEY VERY MUCH SIR with the added cost on your CD-R's. After all, you've always been so much for attempts to spread costs around, be it taxes (oops, no), surcharges (no again), advertising (no again), ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
Actually, I was pretty pissed about the AHRA in 1992 when it was passed, because it looked like a consumer ripoff. Of course, in 1992, recording labels had no way of knowing what people did with the media, so the law didn't really help the public in any way. In 2001, things are very different. The record labels now have a way of monitoring individual users, via the internet, and the protections of the AHRA could become very important to the general public.
However, I'll give you this.
if the courts were to decide that paying the DART "royalty" does not actually give individuals the right to use the music, even though the record companies are getting paid, then I'd support abolishing it. In that case, it isn't really a royalty. More like "protection" money.
Yes, they pay piddling royalties as an ANTI-PIRACY measure. Note to embecile: the convenience stores do this too: mark up their merchandies to accomodate losses to theft."
Record labels sell prerecorded CDs, not blank CDRs. If they wanted to mark up the price of prerecorded CDs to compensate for infringement, they have every right to do that. What they don't have the right to do is use the government to mark up the price of other people's merchandise. How would you feel if every automobile you purchased included a 3% surcharge, established in 1910, to compensate the buggy whip manufacturers for their loss of business?
You would be a lot more credible if you'd learn the difference between stealing and infringement also.
Plus, the royalties aren't piddling. They're right in line with industry practice. All of the other statutory royalty rates, whether you're paying to put a song on the radio, or to put a "cover" song on your album, are on the order of pennies per minute. The 3% rate is actually a reasonable royalty rate.
Sorry about the rant, but 3 years of encounters with the pirates who temporarily subsume the 'information wants to be free' slogan to justify their downloading every song and movie they wanted to see and never, ever felt it necessary to send a dime to those who were making the stuff they were consuming.
If you buy a $3.00 audio CD, then fill it from Napster, you are sending about a dime to those who were making the stuff you were consuming.
I've designed plenty, had my shit pirated across the infobahn and end up having to piddle along in tech support.
I dislike pouring out all my demons anonymously like this, but if one more damned lawyer's son tells me this his unwillingness to spend a couple bucks (literally) for my heart and soul and that's I've no right to protest, I'll break out in huge, noxious boils from the sheer pile of bullshit I'm witness to.
So put your name on it. Or create a slashdot account without your name and use that. Posting as Anonymous Coward was entirely your choice. Funny that you assume I'm a lawyer's son. Did some lawyer's son hurt you in the past? Your bitterness about being stuck in a dead-end tech support job really shows, and it's affecting your ability to make arguments. Perhaps you should consider a career change, or therapy. Your ranting is unconvincing.
The problem with term limits is that they reduce the long-term memory of Congress.
For instance, in 1976, the copyright industry came to Congress, and wanted the copyright laws overhauled, which Congress did. They also said that they wanted the copyrights extended from 56 years to 75 years, and that would be the last time they would ask because 75 years was completely fair and that would be it.
Now, 20 years later, there are only a very few members of Congress who were part of that debate, so when the copyright industry comes to Congress and starts saying, "We need 20 years more copyright protection", there are very few members who are in a position to say, "You came to us before, and we remember what you said."
With term limits, lobbyists and congressional staff members become much more powerful then Representatives and Senators, because they have the ability to stay longer and accumulate more favors and power. Term limits are anti-democratic.
If you purchase digital audio media branded, that is, marketed and sold as for audio use, then the importer or manufacturer had to pay a 3% royalty at the time the CD was manufactured or imported. If you use bulk or data-branded CDRs, no royalty has been paid.
Make no mistake, the royalty amount is small. That's 3% of the wholesale price, not the retail price. Still, it's the principle of the thing. If Congress is going to consider a small statutory royalty to cover home digital recording, then they should be aware that not only is there already a functioning law on the books that does just that, but that there is strong evidence that this law is actually beginning to function as intended by Congress.
The AHRA was passed in 1992, when the only people who used DAT were industry professionals, and a handful of Grateful Dead tape traders. We know that there's been no surge in DAT sales in the last three years. The only explanation for the exponential growth in the royalty fund revenues in the last three years is that the royalty fund is tracking the explosive growth in music branded CDRs -- which even the RIAA has to admit is fueled almost entirely by the internet, the MP3 revolution, and ultimately, Napster.
Embracing the AHRA as sanctioning file sharing would be such a clean solution. On the one hand, instead of trying to re-educate the public into believing that sharing is wrong, the new message to the public would be that if you want musicians and songwriters to be paid when you download, the way you do it is by using royalty-paid media to store your music, whatever that media may be. Perhaps it's a minidisk, or a CDR, or some future technology.
Now THAT is something that the public could understand, agree with, and feel good about doing.
On the other hand, voluntary media royalty prepayment benefits the music industry because it automatically does what DRM is ultimately supposed to do -- capture royalties on all copying. The main thrust of DRM is to try and either prevent copying or collect royalties. With royalty-prepaid media, royalties are collected on serial copying as well, so there's no need to prevent copying. Royalties are always collected! In fact, the more copying -- the more "anarchy", as one of the industry spokespeople put it, the more royalties paid!
Of course, the system falls apart if people don't use audio-branded CDRs. But look at the numbers. They are, because that's what the royalties are collected on, and they're exponentiating! If the government, Napster, and the recording industry were to come together, accept the AHRA, and start a public relations campaign that the slight extra cost of buying digital media with the word "audio" on the shrink-wrap is how musicians and songwriters get paid, I'll bet people would do it in a heartbeat, and the recording industry, and artists and songwriters as well, would make more money on voluntary media royalties then they ever would on trying to corner the market on and strictly control downloading music. Without having to lift a finger.
The royalties are collected on all digital media branded for audio. In other words, if it says "audio", then it is covered. Data media, meaning DDS tapes (which can be used as DATs) and unbranded or "Data" branded CDs aren't.
Statutory royalties are already being collected by the music industry. Every time someone purchases a CDR to fill with music downloaded from Napster, they pay a 3% royalty, which is put in a fund. 100% of this fund (minus some 12 cents paid to two individuals who have been fighting the system and demanding their royalties directly) is paid directly to an organization called Copyright Management Inc (CMI), which distributes the fund to copyright holders, songwriters, music publishers, and artists. Well, they distribute the funds to the various organizations that claim to represent those parties, such as ASCAP, BMI, etc. In the words of the copyright office:
The Settling Parties [which received 99.999% of the funds] receive all remaining royalty fees because they represent the interests of the remaining copyright owners entitled to receive a portion of these funds.
These "royalties", collected by law, are intended to compensate the music industry for all non-commercial copying of music. These royalties have been collected since 1992, and represent a substantial amount of money. These royalties are compounding by the year as more and more people purchase CDR burners, and blank media, and use them.
It turns out to be fairly difficult to find out exactly how much money has been collected in blank media royalties. here is the copyright office's website describing how the royalties were divided up. The acronym is DART, for "Digital Audio Recording Technology" If you look over the documents, you'll find that for every year that blank media statutory royalties have been collected, over 99.99% have gone to an organization called "Copyright Management Inc", which is a blanket organization that covers ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, HFA, SGA, and others. It's almost as if they don't really want the public to know how much money is being collected. No matter how hard you look, you'll never find actual dollar amounts -- only percentages. I was able to find out the actual dollar amounts though, from one of those two individuals who filed individual claims, and here they are:
Royalties collected on consumer digital audio recording devices and blank media:
The royalties collected prior to 1997 mostly represent sales of DAT recorders and tapes. The introduction of CD recorders and blank CDRs caused a large jump in the collected royalties, and surely the introduction of Napster is largely responsible for the enormous growth in royalties collected in 1999 and 2000.
In other words, people are buying enormous numbers of blank CDRs. Most of these CDRs are probably being filled with music. Much of that music probably comes from Napster. So Napster is directly fueling the growth of the DART fund, which, I will remind you, is, by law, paid to artists and songwriters as well as copyright holders. So next time someone says that Napster users don't pay for their music, you have the real answer. They are. Congress needs to be made aware of this 13 million dollars in royalties, and decide what rights are purchased by those "royalties." Either admit that Napster users are paying royalties when they burn their downloaded MP3s to CDRs, and allow Napster to continue, or establish a new statutory royalty system based on downloads, and scrap the royalty system based on blank media, because under the current system, the people pay royalties to the music industry on the one hand when they purchase their media, yet are told that they are not paying the music industry when they fill that media. The music industry is talking out of both sides of their mouth on this issue, and no one seems to want to call them on it.
I saw this cool flash video based on an old video game called Zero Wing once, but I don't think anyone here has heard of it or mentioned it to date. Anyone remember this oldie?
People somehow think that open source was magically invented a few years ago. From the 1960s through the 1990s, IBM supplied the COMPLETE source code to their operating system, compilers, libraries, boot loaders, EVERYTHING, to their customers.
The reason that a company would spend millions of dollars on a mainframe was not only because the hardware was faster. It was because the software was completely customizable.
While the Unix community, as it was, was struggling with incompatable binary releases, bugs they couldn't fix, vendors who came and went, leaving object code wreckage in their wake, mainframe programmers had organizations like SHARE, specifically designed to allow people to trade and share mainframe source code.
It wasn't truly open source, because the source code was only available to those organizations who had purchased IBM hardware, but only IBM hardware would run IBM software, so for all practical purposes, it WAS an open community.
IBM had a disasterous change of management in the early 1990s, and some idiot made an "executive decision" that IBM would stop releasing their source code. This was a move that effectively destroyed the OS/390 and VM codebase, and caused customers to leave IBM in droves. Because customers were no longer to be trusted to modify their own system source code, IBM threw thousands of programmers at the source code, trying to make it everything to everyone, so that no one would ever need to modify anything. The result is that VM is no longer a lean, mean operating system. Instead, it's a bloated mess, filled with poorly thought out interfaces that very few people even use.
So, in essence, you have it backwards. One of the main reasons that IBM was so profitable in the 70s-90s was because they DID make the source code available for "geeks" to toy with -- except that the geeks had titles like "Systems Programmer" and "Systems Analyst". And most of the major mainframe applications -- air traffic, banking, insurance, finance, were written in house, by those same "geeks" who were only able to write the software that powered the mainframe generation because they had access to the source code and the ability to modify it.
This filter, when installed, will prevent a linux user from accessing certain noxious internet content. It appears to fully satisfy the criteria of the proposed law.
Say you have a 1-bit bitmap (black & white), and you want to superimpose, say a mouse arrow cursor over that bitmap. What programming technique do you use to make sure that you don't leave "mouse trails" when the cursor moves.
(1) Each time you draw the cursor, save a copy of whatever the cursor is overwriting. When the cursor moves, restore the screen data from your saved copy.
(2) Exclusive-or the cursor with the bitmap. By doing this, all of the black pixels in the shape of the cursor turn white, and all the white pixels turn black. The advantage to this is that you don't have to save any screen data. To restore the background bitmap to its original state, simply repeat the exclusive-or operation.
There was nothing inherently "record-only" about the medium
Except that recording an 8-track was a royal pain in the ass. An 8-track would typically consist of four channels, each of which held 12 minutes of music. So, in order to record onto an 8-track, you had to break your music into 12 minute segments, or you would get a track change (ker-chunk) in the middle of a song. You then had to get the recording started just right, because 8-tracks are not rewindable. It was just a royal pain in the butt to copy 8-tracks, although a few recording decks were made. I have one. Useless.
Slashdot Mirror
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a copyright is.
A copyright does not give you the right to copy and distribute a work. What a copyright gives you is the right to exclude others from copying and distributing a work. This is what is meant by the term exclusive right, and is very different from the concept of owning a work. Ownership of a work in the abstract is not recognized by copyright law. Copyright law defines two distinct types of ownership -- Ownership of a copyright over a work, and ownership of a copy of a work. There is no concept of ownership of a work.
For example:
Bob Writer writes and distributes a GPLed program.
Joe Patcher writes a patch for that program.
Bob Writer, having written the original program, has the right to exclude others, including Joe, from distributing the original program and any other derived works. Bob Writer offers the program to the world under the conditions of the GPL, thus agreeing to a limitation of his right to prevent others from copying and distributing his work, so long as those others adhere to the conditions of the GPL.
Joe Patcher accepts the program under the conditions of the GPL, writes a patch, and applies it to the original program, creating a derivative work.
Now there are TWO people who have the right to exclude others from copying and distributing the derivative work. Neither Bob nor Joe own the work. Each hold the right to exclude others, including each other, from distributing and copying the work, with the exception that Bob has already granted Joe the right to redistribute and copy the original program, or any derived works, but only under the conditions of the GPL.
Bob holds the copyright on his work, and Joe holds the copyright on his work. The GPL does NOT change the basic nature of copyright law. Specifically, Bob Writer has no right to use Joe Patcher's patches unless Joe Patcher agrees to permit Bob Writer to do so. The "original author" does NOT automatically "own" derivative works, as you claimed.
There are now a number of things that could happen.
Joe could decide to exercise his right, under the terms of the GPL, to release his patched version under the GPL. In this case Joe would retain ownership of the copyright on his patch.
Joe could also offer to sell or donate the copyright interest in his patch to Bob, in which case Bob would be the sole owner of the copyright over the derivative work.
Now let's say that Bob wants to sell his program to Microsoft, so they can integrate it into Windows and sell it without the source code. Bob is perfectly free to sell Microsoft the original program, but not Joe's derivative program, because Joe has the right to exclude others from copying and distributing his work; the patches, unless he agrees otherwise.
If Bob and Joe get together, they can both agree to sell the derivative work to Microsoft, but neither can do it alone, because each one has a copyright on the part of the work that they did.
This is no different then if Bob and Joe had collaborated on the program without using the GPL. Basic copyright law still applies to the ownership of copyrights over GPLed works!
Of course, when you have a major project, with dozens or even hundreds of contributors, it becomes effectively impossible for the original authors to distribute the program under any terms other than the GPL, unless the original authors are VERY careful to retain full ownership and/or control of the copyright on all contributions.
Which is either a defect or feature, depending on your point of view.
It is not public domain. It is the fully copyrighted work of the author who *allows* you to use it *under license.*
...
Actually, the GPL places no restrictions on *use* of GPLed code:
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted
Gemfire -- feel free to copy and use any and all of my slashdot postings for your site. It looks like a very nice start.
Someone needs to make an XBOX DVD with a ready-to-run SAMBA server on it. Pay $300.00, Plug XBOX into network, insert DVD, cancel
order for NT server.
o Ability to act as an authentication source for Windows 2000® and Windows NT® clients, allowing savings on the purchase of Microsoft® Client Access Licenses.
Can someone explain this? Does this version of Samba in essence emulate Microsoft's licensing agent, allowing free use of features that Microsoft wants you to pay for, or does this mean something else?
Sounds like something that could result in a tidal wave of lawsuits from Redmond.
If you re-type a printed document, you are making a perfect digital copy. The entire premise of copyright law is that duplicating works is easy. If it was impossible to reproduce a work, copyright law would be meaningless. Like a law forbidding the copying of the weather.
The fair use laws make sense in the context of a general public that is willing and able to exercise good judgement and make decisions accordingly. If you want to buy a CD, then listen to it on your RIO, you should have the right to make the value judgement that this application is justified under the doctrines of fair use & first sale. You have paid the author. If someone asked you to buy a CD duplicator, and make them 1000 copies of a Metallica album so they can sell them on the black market, you should be the one making the value judgement that this is not fair use, because it interferes with the author's commercial exploitation of his work.
The DMCA is designed on the assumption that the general public is just a pack of thieves who need to be locked away from digital works; an insulting justification of an unconstitutional law.
I like that part. You say that copyright originally started as an instrument of censorship. You couldn't be more wrong. Copyright protects the author and helps them continue producing their goods.
Copyright was originally invented to counter the threats of a new digital age -- the invention of movable type by Gutenberg. Before the invention of the printing press, there was no such thing as copyright. The powers-that-be at the time, specifically the British Crown, were worried that this new technology could be used against them, and they passed laws to ensure that it would be brought under royal control.
The new laws were called the "stationers copyright." In exchange to submitting to censorship by the crown, book publishers were given the exclusive right to publish books, and to suppress unauthorized publishers by destroying their presses and burning their books. Copyright had no requirement of originality -- a publisher could, for instance, publish an edition of an ancient work -- by Socrates, for example, and claim exclusive copyright over it. The copyright laws were unpopular, and the crisis came to a head around 1710. The Crown stood ready to completely abolish copyright, but the publishers came to the table with a new strategy.
The result was the Statute of Anne. In the new copyright regime, instead of the copyright benefit being assigned to publishers, the new copyright benefit would be assigned to authors. The term would also be time-limited; not a feature of the original censorship law.
The authors of the U.S. Constitution debated whether or not the United States should even have copyright. In the end, they authorized -- but did not require -- the government to establish copyright laws, but phrased the copyright clause to follow the principles of the Statute of Anne:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
Note that the purpose of the copyright clause is not to benefit authors. The purpose of the copyright clause -- and all legitimate copyright law -- is to promote progress. Benefiting authors is the means of the copyright clause, not the end.
The DMCA is in essence an end-run around the entire body of copyright law. Under copyright law, you are allowed to make fair use of works, and you are allowed to resell legitimate copies of works without the permission of the publisher. What the DMCA does is forbids one from having the means to exercise one's rights without the permission of the publisher. That is unconstitutional, wrong, and a violation of everything that copyright stands for.
But yes, copyright did originate as a system of pure censorship and government control. Good copyright law is a very delicate balance -- much like the other systems of checks and balances in the Constitution. All it takes is one bad law to wipe out 300 years of good copyright law, and revert to the original censorship law.
My argument stands. Copyright law has been so debased, that copyright itself has reverted to its original purpose of censorship and suppression. Except that instead of government doing the censoring and suppressing, now it is the corporate state, arguably more powerful and more dangerous than the government.
What the copyright industry is forgetting is that copyright has traditionally been a social contract.
In general, publishers agree to publish works, making them available to the public. The public gains two important benefits from this half of the bargain.
First, works are placed in the public domain in two ways. First off, the copyright is supposed to expire eventually, but there is another sense of the "public domain", which is "material available for public use." For instance, If you want to quote a paragraph from a copyrighted novel in your English paper, you are allowed to do so. This is fair use. It ensures that copyright serves the purpose of promoting learning and education.
If you want to sell your used book, you are allowed to. This is first sale. It ensures that works survive by placing copies of those works in private hands, and preventing the authors or publishers from reclaiming them or interfering with the public's use of them.
In exchange, citizens agree not to compete commercially with the publishers in exploiting their work.
This theme runs up and down through copyright law, with the notable exception of the DMCA. The DMCA is really anti-copyright. It is everything that copyright is not supposed to be. The DMCA was designed to allow publishers to renege on their half of the social contract.
Under the DMCA, the publisher is not obligated to place a work in the public domain in either sense of the word. Even after the copyright term expires, an encrypted work remains encrypted. There is no obligation, or provision, for an encrypted work to be unencrypted upon copyright expiration. And none of us will live long enough to see it happen. In the second sense of the "public domain", the DMCA allows publishers to use technological measures to prevent fair use. Want to quote a paragraph from an encrypted e-book by cutting and pasting? That's illegal if the publisher says so. Want to sell your copy of that e-book? That's also illegal if the publisher says so. not because it's illegal under copyright law, but because it's illegal under the DMCA, which is anti-copyright law.
There are probably three ways that the copyright crisis can resolve -- either:
1) The public learns to accept the fact that their rights to read, quote works, and own and trade copies of works has been permanently banished.
2) The courts strike down the DMCA.
3) Sensing that the publishing industry is no longer bound to the traditional obligations of the copyright social contract, the public abandons their half of the social contract. Copyright violation becomes like drinking during prohibition -- just another bad law waiting to be struck off the books.
Make no mistake, copyright is in crisis. When Congress wrote the DMCA, they completely got the problem backwards. The problem isn't that a thieving public is waiting breathlessly for the opportunity to strip copyright holders of all their rights. The problem is that a thieving copyright industry has been waiting breathlessly for the opportunity -- the DMCA -- to strip the public of all their rights.
The endgame is now in motion, and I predict that it will result in either the destruction of the DMCA, the destruction of consumer rights, or the destruction and abandonment of copyright itself.
Never forget that copyright originally arose as an instrument of censorship. It was a stroke of genius to transform an instrument of censorship into an instrument to promote progress, and all it took was an ignorant Congress, and an opportunistic publishing industry, to change it back.
And we used to buy used mainframe hard drives from a major used equipment vendor. The most fun part of receiving the new drives was looking to see what had been left unerased on the drives by the previous owner. We found railroad shipping manifests, parts databases, source code to scientific software, customer lists. Absolutely incredible stuff. Eventually, the vendor wised up and started clearing the drives before shipping them out.
... all of which damn well better be done before the software company tanks, because then it's too late.
It will be very interesting to see if the new "leased" version of Microsoft Windows contains a license key generator escrow clause in the user license, because Microsoft's business and licensing practices basically set the standard for the industry, for better or worse.
I'm not holding my breath though.
Should a law be required that if such a company goes under, they must either sell the rights to rent keys to another company, or provide non-terminating keys to the current subscribers?"
Let's call the failed company "FailedCo."
FailedCo "notified" their employees of the company shutdown by changing the lock on their door. (Common practice!) They immediately laid off their entire staff and cancelled their lease on their building. The entire contents of the office, including the computers containing the source code to the software as well as the license key generator -- were loaded up into a truck and piled in a non-climate controlled warehouse, pending Chapter 11 proceedings.
As the case drags through bankruptcy court, more and more customers are faced with license key expiration, which means that they are going to be forced to abandon using the software. This makes the "rights to issue new license keys" less and less valuable over time. When the last license key expires, and the last customer has to abandon their software, the "rights to issue new license keys" falls to a value of zero dollars.
Let's say, for argument's sake, that the judge orders FailedCo to "find a company to continue licensing the software to current customers."
No company in their right mind would agree to do so!
Why? Let's say, for the sake of argument, that a company, "ReceiverCo", agrees to do so.
First off, they are being asked to take on the business operations of a failed software company, and pay good money for the privilege!
Second, even though they have the rights to sell license keys and continue to maintain and develop the software, ReceiverCo is first faced with a daunting problem.
The problem is a warehouse filled with computers, huge boxes piled full of cryptically labelled or unlabelled floppy disks, 8mm tapes, and zip disks.
Before they can issue a single license key, they have to figure out:
1) Are all the computers intact? Have the hard drives crashed? Do they boot up? Do they have to be networked together in a certain way in order to work? Are some computers NFS servers? Do they have to be manually restarted when they come up? How much time and money is it going to take to figure this out?
2) Which are the important computers -- the ones with the source code and the license key generator, and which computers are unimportant -- the secretary's computer. The "important" computers are probably protected with unknown passwords. What are the passwords? Are the really important computers protected with encryption? How much money will it cost to hire "hackers" to break into all the machines, and sift through the 80 gig hard drives to find the valuable "assets" -- the source code & license key generator?
3) Was the source code left in a buildable state? Remember, all of the developers are gone, and with no warning. Their computers are probably filled with test builds, undebugged source code, obsolete source code, and probably even entire non-working, experimental build-trees. Parts of the program are in C++, parts are in undocumented assembly language, and the internal build scripts are written in an in-house written scripting language that no one outside of the company has ever seen before. What if FailedCo itself has been licensing code from another company, and that license has run out?
4) How do you run the license key generator? Odds are, it isn't a nice, well-written application. Most likely, it's an obscure command-line program, with a non-obvious, non-documented syntax. How do you even know when you've found the license key generator? Is it that binary called "lkg" in the home directory of an account called "lisa" on any one of 35 identical-looking computers? The "lkg" command just spits out "incorrect syntax" no matter what you type, so how do you know if you've even found the license key generator?
Remember, all of the people who staffed FailedCo are gone. They have new jobs. They've filled their heads with new information for their new job, and barely remember this stuff. And their getting laid off was such a bad experience that they have no interest whatsoever in helping ReceiverCo revive FailedCo's products. Or maybe one of them will do the job -- at an extortionate price.
It could literally take months to years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in manpower to conduct what would amount to an archeological dig through all those computers, and reconstruct the license-key granting program & procedure.
All this to secure an asset of unknown value, that is quickly free-falling towards worthlessness.
No company in their right mind would ever do it.
What will really happen is that FailedCo will fail to find a receiver, and the judge will order that the company's assets be liquidated. All the files and computer media -- floppys, backup tapes -- will be either sent to a landfill or bulk-erased and sold as used media, and the computers will have their hard drives either removed and destroyed, or reformatted, and the computers will be sold as "used computers, without windows", at auction.
And the source code and license key generator will cease to exist.
Liquidators are in the business of liquidating assets, not in the business of leasing software. Liquidators know absolutely nothing about running a software company. The idea that they would take over the business operations of a failed software company is sheer fantasy.
Here's what will really happen:
The software company ceases operations. It immediately lays off all of its employees and cancels its building lease. All of the physical assets of the company -- mostly computers, backup tapes, and office furniture -- are carted off and stored in a warehouse.
Within days or weeks, a liquidation company will be hired to dispose of the company's assets. They will receive a warehouse full of office supplies and desktop computers, and backup media, some of which happen to contain the only existing copies of the source code to not only the software, but also the program that generates the license keys.
The liquidation company will have orders to immediately liquidate all of the assets in order to pay outstanding bills -- such as unpaid rent on the office the company was based out of.
The liquidation company will know absolutely nothing about the contents of the computers. Most likely, they will have implemented a policy, for their own legal protection, not to sell computers and media without erasing them first. After all, those computers might contain other companies' trade secrets or licensed software, and the liquidation company would be exposing themselves to massive liability if it sold off the computers without erasing them first.
The liquidation company will degauss the backup tapes and label them as bulk-erased media, and they will format the hard drives on the computers and label them as "used computers", then they will place an auction advertisement in the newspaper, and sell off the media and computers.
As a result, the software source code -- and license key generator -- will cease to exist in any form whatsoever.
You're right, I have no data on that.
However, consider that the royalties are only collected on CDRs that have "Audio" printed on the label, so I would speculate that most people who buy CDRs to store data either buy bulk CDRs, or CDRs labelled for "Data".
True memories are unnecessary. That's what the congressional record and history books are for.
You overrate the intelligence and work ethic of the typical congressman. Jack Valenti was testifying before Congress in the 1960s, before most of our current congresspeople were even born.
With most things that are worthwhile monetarily to copyright the company can afford to use the profit from the product in question to renew the copyright and keep up with the latest legalese. That's why so many inventors ideas are rarely copyrighted even though they are mass produced and sold.
Since 1976, all works automatically receive copyright protection the moment they are fixed in some media. The only reason to register a work with the copyright office is so that you can begin to claim statutory damages from an infringer. Also, copyright renewal was abolished in 1976, so these conditions haven't existed for 25 years. You have a very long memory. Perhaps you should run for Congress.
What you are missing entirely is that presently the staff members and lobbyists ARE more powerful than the Senators and Reps simply because they've transformed from "I work for the people" to "I do what the powerful people who control the masses of sheep voters tell me to so I can stay in this cushy job."
Senators and Reps come and go, but staffers can stay forever. Most of what we consider to be "laws" are really regulations, written by staffers, not signed into law by Congress. Our Senators and Reps are too busy with political activities. Quite simply, our government has 1 president, 50 senators, 435 representatives, and thousands and thousands of unelected public servants who actually do the work, and write the regulations, and unofficially the real power of government.
Not that we are a democracy anyway.
True. The U.S. is a republic, not a democracy. The exception being those states with voter initiative laws.
If term limits were anti-democratic we'd have a King named Bill and a queen named Hillary.
If we had a king and queen, we wouldn't have the option of voting them out. Term limits are unnecessary because the public always has the option of imposing term limits on any president, senator or rep by voting him or her out.
That's an entirely different problem. Unfortunately, whatever "system" of paying musicians and songwriters is developed, it is going to involve some sort of intermediary, be it ASCAP, BMI, etc.
Right now, the way the royalties are divided up is based on frequency of record sales and radio play, and since the recording labels pretty much determine who gets the promotion and radio play, the actual effect is that the vast bulk of the royalties follow the small handful of most popular bands, and less powerful songwriters and artists get burned.
This is a big problem that needs to be fixed, but this problem will exist whether the money comes from Napster or from blank media royalties until it is independently fixed.
You are right. Anyone making their own recordings of their own work certainly has no moral obligation to pay royalties to the music industry to do so.
I suppose I shouldn't even bother, yet I will.
Translation: "I'll gladly pay next to nothing in exchange for access to an unlimtied amount of music, versus the $80+/mo. I used to spend."
There's no evidence that people are going to abandon prerecorded CDs, a visually artistic and desirable consumer product, in favor of downloading inferior MP3s. Quite the opposite -- CD sales are at an all-time high and are increasing annually. You'd think that it would be hard to claim that the sky is falling when sales are going through the roof, but the RIAA is doing a damn good job of it.
But I'm just getting started!
joy.
Funny how oh-so-very-Libertarian Slashdotters, who would of course oppose Big Governement's efforts to take information property from them, in the form of privacy violations, suddenly don't bat an eye when a bunch of morons walks onto Capitol Hill and says we must release all IP rights to the music, or the world will die
What are you talking about? I'm not talking about releasing IP rights. These are royalties, which, by definition, are compensation for the right to copy. Just like when a radio station broadcasts a song, and pays royalties to the record company. Do you think that congress has "released all IP rights to the music" because it allows them to broadcast songs without negotiating individual licenses with the record labels and music publisher? Are you going to start ranting that radio stations are pirates because they pay a fixed fee for the right to copy instead of negotiating three individual contracts for each performance of each song?
By the way, I didn't see any reluctance on the part of the music industry to accept these royalty payments. Seems to me that when the recording industry on one hand accepts payment as compensation for non-commercial recording, then goes to Congress and complains that non-commercial copying needs to be stopped because they aren't being paid, that is stealing. Or at least lying.
And I'll bet all those artists collecting piddling royalties will be ever so glad when their royalty checks go from s**t to none because Napster needs a new pair of shoes.
First off, the royalty system is completely screwed up. Artists aren't not being paid because of Napster. Artists aren't being paid because the organizations that are supposed to be representing them are ripping them off. That's an entirely different problem, and one that cannot be solved by legalizing, or abolishing Napster.
Now, back to your assumption that Napster is ruining the CD market. Where is the evidence? All the evidence out there is that people who use Napster are more likely to buy prerecorded music, just like people who listen to the radio are more likely to buy CDs.
Fact is, you just want your goddamn music for free, and don't give a rat's arse about anything else.
This is so funny. What makes you think I even use Napster? What I want is to get the recording industry out of the business of attempting to control what individuals do with their own computers in the privacy of their own home, and back into the business of recording music. That's why I favor statutory royalty payments. Ore are you saying that I'm in favor of payments because I don't want to pay for things?
Oh, and of course you're OKEY VERY MUCH SIR with the added cost on your CD-R's. After all, you've always been so much for attempts to spread costs around, be it taxes (oops, no), surcharges (no again), advertising (no again), ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
Actually, I was pretty pissed about the AHRA in 1992 when it was passed, because it looked like a consumer ripoff. Of course, in 1992, recording labels had no way of knowing what people did with the media, so the law didn't really help the public in any way. In 2001, things are very different. The record labels now have a way of monitoring individual users, via the internet, and the protections of the AHRA could become very important to the general public.
However, I'll give you this.
if the courts were to decide that paying the DART "royalty" does not actually give individuals the right to use the music, even though the record companies are getting paid, then I'd support abolishing it. In that case, it isn't really a royalty. More like "protection" money.
Yes, they pay piddling royalties as an ANTI-PIRACY measure. Note to embecile: the convenience stores do this too: mark up their merchandies to accomodate losses to theft."
Record labels sell prerecorded CDs, not blank CDRs. If they wanted to mark up the price of prerecorded CDs to compensate for infringement, they have every right to do that. What they don't have the right to do is use the government to mark up the price of other people's merchandise. How would you feel if every automobile you purchased included a 3% surcharge, established in 1910, to compensate the buggy whip manufacturers for their loss of business?
You would be a lot more credible if you'd learn the difference between stealing and infringement also.
Plus, the royalties aren't piddling. They're right in line with industry practice. All of the other statutory royalty rates, whether you're paying to put a song on the radio, or to put a "cover" song on your album, are on the order of pennies per minute. The 3% rate is actually a reasonable royalty rate.
Sorry about the rant, but 3 years of encounters with the pirates who temporarily subsume the 'information wants to be free' slogan to justify their downloading every song and movie they wanted to see and never, ever felt it necessary to send a dime to those who were making the stuff they were consuming.
If you buy a $3.00 audio CD, then fill it from Napster, you are sending about a dime to those who were making the stuff you were consuming.
I've designed plenty, had my shit pirated across the infobahn and end up having to piddle along in tech support.
I dislike pouring out all my demons anonymously like this, but if one more damned lawyer's son tells me this his unwillingness to spend a couple bucks (literally) for my heart and soul and that's I've no right to protest, I'll break out in huge, noxious boils from the sheer pile of bullshit I'm witness to.
So put your name on it. Or create a slashdot account without your name and use that. Posting as Anonymous Coward was entirely your choice. Funny that you assume I'm a lawyer's son. Did some lawyer's son hurt you in the past? Your bitterness about being stuck in a dead-end tech support job really shows, and it's affecting your ability to make arguments. Perhaps you should consider a career change, or therapy. Your ranting is unconvincing.
The problem with term limits is that they reduce the long-term memory of Congress.
For instance, in 1976, the copyright industry came to Congress, and wanted the copyright laws overhauled, which Congress did. They also said that they wanted the copyrights extended from 56 years to 75 years, and that would be the last time they would ask because 75 years was completely fair and that would be it.
Now, 20 years later, there are only a very few members of Congress who were part of that debate, so when the copyright industry comes to Congress and starts saying, "We need 20 years more copyright protection", there are very few members who are in a position to say, "You came to us before, and we remember what you said."
With term limits, lobbyists and congressional staff members become much more powerful then Representatives and Senators, because they have the ability to stay longer and accumulate more favors and power. Term limits are anti-democratic.
If you purchase digital audio media branded, that is, marketed and sold as for audio use, then the importer or manufacturer had to pay a 3% royalty at the time the CD was manufactured or imported. If you use bulk or data-branded CDRs, no royalty has been paid.
Make no mistake, the royalty amount is small. That's 3% of the wholesale price, not the retail price. Still, it's the principle of the thing. If Congress is going to consider a small statutory royalty to cover home digital recording, then they should be aware that not only is there already a functioning law on the books that does just that, but that there is strong evidence that this law is actually beginning to function as intended by Congress.
The AHRA was passed in 1992, when the only people who used DAT were industry professionals, and a handful of Grateful Dead tape traders. We know that there's been no surge in DAT sales in the last three years. The only explanation for the exponential growth in the royalty fund revenues in the last three years is that the royalty fund is tracking the explosive growth in music branded CDRs -- which even the RIAA has to admit is fueled almost entirely by the internet, the MP3 revolution, and ultimately, Napster.
Embracing the AHRA as sanctioning file sharing would be such a clean solution. On the one hand, instead of trying to re-educate the public into believing that sharing is wrong, the new message to the public would be that if you want musicians and songwriters to be paid when you download, the way you do it is by using royalty-paid media to store your music, whatever that media may be. Perhaps it's a minidisk, or a CDR, or some future technology.
Now THAT is something that the public could understand, agree with, and feel good about doing.
On the other hand, voluntary media royalty prepayment benefits the music industry because it automatically does what DRM is ultimately supposed to do -- capture royalties on all copying. The main thrust of DRM is to try and either prevent copying or collect royalties. With royalty-prepaid media, royalties are collected on serial copying as well, so there's no need to prevent copying. Royalties are always collected! In fact, the more copying -- the more "anarchy", as one of the industry spokespeople put it, the more royalties paid!
Of course, the system falls apart if people don't use audio-branded CDRs. But look at the numbers. They are, because that's what the royalties are collected on, and they're exponentiating! If the government, Napster, and the recording industry were to come together, accept the AHRA, and start a public relations campaign that the slight extra cost of buying digital media with the word "audio" on the shrink-wrap is how musicians and songwriters get paid, I'll bet people would do it in a heartbeat, and the recording industry, and artists and songwriters as well, would make more money on voluntary media royalties then they ever would on trying to corner the market on and strictly control downloading music. Without having to lift a finger.
The royalties are collected on all digital media branded for audio. In other words, if it says "audio", then it is covered. Data media, meaning DDS tapes (which can be used as DATs) and unbranded or "Data" branded CDs aren't.
Statutory royalties are already being collected by the music industry. Every time someone purchases a CDR to fill with music downloaded from Napster, they pay a 3% royalty, which is put in a fund. 100% of this fund (minus some 12 cents paid to two individuals who have been fighting the system and demanding their royalties directly) is paid directly to an organization called Copyright Management Inc (CMI), which distributes the fund to copyright holders, songwriters, music publishers, and artists. Well, they distribute the funds to the various organizations that claim to represent those parties, such as ASCAP, BMI, etc. In the words of the copyright office:
The Settling Parties [which received 99.999% of the funds] receive all remaining royalty fees because they represent the interests of the remaining copyright owners entitled to receive a portion of these funds.
These "royalties", collected by law, are intended to compensate the music industry for all non-commercial copying of music. These royalties have been collected since 1992, and represent a substantial amount of money. These royalties are compounding by the year as more and more people purchase CDR burners, and blank media, and use them.
It turns out to be fairly difficult to find out exactly how much money has been collected in blank media royalties. here is the copyright office's website describing how the royalties were divided up. The acronym is DART, for "Digital Audio Recording Technology" If you look over the documents, you'll find that for every year that blank media statutory royalties have been collected, over 99.99% have gone to an organization called "Copyright Management Inc", which is a blanket organization that covers ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, HFA, SGA, and others. It's almost as if they don't really want the public to know how much money is being collected. No matter how hard you look, you'll never find actual dollar amounts -- only percentages. I was able to find out the actual dollar amounts though, from one of those two individuals who filed individual claims, and here they are:
Royalties collected on consumer digital audio recording devices and blank media:
1992 $118,228.42
1993 $520,162.84
1994 $521,999.64
1995 $473,592.20
1996 $397,152.52
1997 $969,178.06
1998 $1,978,457.93
1999 $3,551,030.86
2000 $5,285,246.32
Total: over 13 Million dollars so far.
The royalties collected prior to 1997 mostly represent sales of DAT recorders and tapes. The introduction of CD recorders and blank CDRs caused a large jump in the collected royalties, and surely the introduction of Napster is largely responsible for the enormous growth in royalties collected in 1999 and 2000.
In other words, people are buying enormous numbers of blank CDRs. Most of these CDRs are probably being filled with music. Much of that music probably comes from Napster. So Napster is directly fueling the growth of the DART fund, which, I will remind you, is, by law, paid to artists and songwriters as well as copyright holders. So next time someone says that Napster users don't pay for their music, you have the real answer. They are. Congress needs to be made aware of this 13 million dollars in royalties, and decide what rights are purchased by those "royalties." Either admit that Napster users are paying royalties when they burn their downloaded MP3s to CDRs, and allow Napster to continue, or establish a new statutory royalty system based on downloads, and scrap the royalty system based on blank media, because under the current system, the people pay royalties to the music industry on the one hand when they purchase their media, yet are told that they are not paying the music industry when they fill that media. The music industry is talking out of both sides of their mouth on this issue, and no one seems to want to call them on it.
I saw this cool flash video based on an old video game called Zero Wing once, but I don't think anyone here has heard of it or mentioned it to date. Anyone remember this oldie?
People somehow think that open source was magically invented a few years ago. From the 1960s through the 1990s, IBM supplied the COMPLETE source code to their operating system, compilers, libraries, boot loaders, EVERYTHING, to their customers.
The reason that a company would spend millions of dollars on a mainframe was not only because the hardware was faster. It was because the software was completely customizable.
While the Unix community, as it was, was struggling with incompatable binary releases, bugs they couldn't fix, vendors who came and went, leaving object code wreckage in their wake, mainframe programmers had organizations like SHARE, specifically designed to allow people to trade and share mainframe source code.
It wasn't truly open source, because the source code was only available to those organizations who had purchased IBM hardware, but only IBM hardware would run IBM software, so for all practical purposes, it WAS an open community.
IBM had a disasterous change of management in the early 1990s, and some idiot made an "executive decision" that IBM would stop releasing their source code. This was a move that effectively destroyed the OS/390 and VM codebase, and caused customers to leave IBM in droves. Because customers were no longer to be trusted to modify their own system source code, IBM threw thousands of programmers at the source code, trying to make it everything to everyone, so that no one would ever need to modify anything. The result is that VM is no longer a lean, mean operating system. Instead, it's a bloated mess, filled with poorly thought out interfaces that very few people even use.
So, in essence, you have it backwards. One of the main reasons that IBM was so profitable in the 70s-90s was because they DID make the source code available for "geeks" to toy with -- except that the geeks had titles like "Systems Programmer" and "Systems Analyst". And most of the major mainframe applications -- air traffic, banking, insurance, finance, were written in house, by those same "geeks" who were only able to write the software that powered the mainframe generation because they had access to the source code and the ability to modify it.
The funny thing is that the law doesn't seem to specify what it is that the "filtering" software needs to censor.
/etc/hosts
For instance, here is a possible piece of filtering software for Linux:
#!/bin/ksh
echo "127.0.0.1 www.capitol.state.tx.us" >>
This filter, when installed, will prevent a linux user from accessing certain noxious internet content. It appears to fully satisfy the criteria of the proposed law.
Say you have a 1-bit bitmap (black & white), and you want to superimpose, say a mouse arrow cursor over that bitmap. What programming technique do you use to make sure that you don't leave "mouse trails" when the cursor moves.
(1) Each time you draw the cursor, save a copy of whatever the cursor is overwriting. When the cursor moves, restore the screen data from your saved copy.
(2) Exclusive-or the cursor with the bitmap. By doing this, all of the black pixels in the shape of the cursor turn white, and all the white pixels turn black. The advantage to this is that you don't have to save any screen data. To restore the background bitmap to its original state, simply repeat the exclusive-or operation.
There was nothing inherently "record-only" about the medium
Except that recording an 8-track was a royal pain in the ass. An 8-track would typically consist of four channels, each of which held 12 minutes of music. So, in order to record onto an 8-track, you had to break your music into 12 minute segments, or you would get a track change (ker-chunk) in the middle of a song. You then had to get the recording started just right, because 8-tracks are not rewindable. It was just a royal pain in the butt to copy 8-tracks, although a few recording decks were made. I have one. Useless.