"another idea would be the life of the artist. when the artist dies, all their works enter the public domain."
Some idiot will probably suggest further down the thread that this is not fair in case an author dies just after writing his magnus opus. This is the exact sort of braindead reasoning that got us Life+X in the first place.
The only reasonable thing is Date of Publication + X Years. X depends on the type of work. Currently, it makes little sense to copyright computer games for more than 5 years for instance, because by then the platform to play it on will have died out.
"Hardware patents are different, in that the financial outlay to create, and the margins once created, are so represssive to the process itself that there needs to be a follow-on reward, especially for things like chip fab IP where the outlay for the next fab is in the billions at this point in time."
But why necessarily patents? Governments have many more instruments for giving financial incentives.
"It then occurred to me that many groups and institutions exhibit the reverse of emergence: you have complex, smart people making up your system, but when you get them together you get stupid decisions. In this case, the whole is less than the sum of its parts, sometimes less intelligent than any one individual. The obvious name for this phenomenon is "demergence"."
Could it be that you are comparing the intelligence of the group with that of individuals? Groups have completely different goals from individuals, and their intelligence is directed to achieving the groups' goals.
As an individual you are probably incapable of judging the effectiveness of the group's intelligence.
"including, but not limited to "MP3 is lossy compression - my copies are not copies but derivative works" - I can't be held responsible until the person who *ripped* the movie/mp3 is found and prosecuted (otherwise, how are we to know that he wasn't licenced to produce a derivative?)"
I may not know much about the legal system, but I am pretty sure judges just love to throw your sort into PMITAP.
As for why your defense does not work: copyright law forbids you to make a copy, whether it is a derivative or not. Unless you can come up with proof that you were allowed to make or download that derivative, you will lose.
"There's at least some logic here--if you shoplift a CD from a music store and get caught, do you think all you have to do is pay what the CD would have cost and you're home free? That implies there's no penalty for theft, which isn't the best of systems."
Do not conflate copyright infringement with theft. Theft is a crime--it is something that society would like you to stop doing.
"It's kinda weird it took so long, really. Didn't ANYONE think of doing this before?"
Copyright infringement is first and foremost a civil offence. There is a "price tag" attached of up to 250,000 US$ per "incident". Being sued means you cannot claim to be innocent until proven guilty; you have to prove you did not do it. Find a judge who got out of bed in a foul mood, and you will find yourself at the wrong end of the verdict.
As has been mentioned before: if you want music, you'd better steal in the form of CDs from the record store than download it in the form of MP3s from the P2P networks. (Which is of course exactly the way Big Copyright wants it.)
To the contrary, you are either a complete idiot or too lazy to breathe.
Your question has been answered so often at Slashdot before, that I am not even going to bother repeating the answer. Just read the comments to previous Slashdot stories about going after GPL infringers. Not to mention that anyone with more than two braincells could come up with the answer themselves.
There is no rule in any economy that hard work, talent or middlemen should be rewarded. This may seem counterintuitive, but really it is not. You either get a reward as the result of an agreement between you and another party, or between the government and its people. Other than that, you have no right to that reward.
"I am a programmer, so what I do can be stolen just as easily as music."
Stealing means taking away so that the original holder or owner can no longer use it. If I take your program or song, you can still use it.
If you want to participate in an adult conversation, you should act like an adult. Do not use cheap hyperboles such as "theft" and "piracy", because even an amoeba can understand that these are not the same as infringement.
"Serious development is a combination of programmers and other business people. I can't do it alone (if "it" means "what the client wants"), and in most cases neither can the artists."
"They play music, and that's wonderful. They do not (usually) know how to run a recording rig, mix & distribute the albums, etc."
Artists are in a tremendously powerful position: they own the copyrights to their work. If they believe their work is going to be a hit, they should hire experts at ripping, mixing and burning, and pay them beforehand.
As it is, a lot of artists will overestimate the quality of their work, and will gladly sign away everything they have for a three thousand dollar advance. (Which will be recouped by the first party the record company gives at the artist's expense.)
Copyright can be signed away, because the lawmakers (correctly) predicted that this could be done for a price, so that the promise of a copyright transfer would incentivize artists to create. The value of such transfers is lessened by anything that cannot be signed away, yet the world has vibrant music and software industries. I see no evidence that the middlemen need extra protection.
As for copyright on software, I think Richard Stallman has written enough smart stuff on that subject. I suggest you read some of his works.
"Look, I can understand the position of refusing to buy CDs because you think the RIAA is corrupt. That's fine and respectable. But to pick and choose whose work you deem worth of respect is the act of a common thief (with a mouse) and that's not respectable at all."
Copyright is a form of theft. Copyright is a form of monopoly. Copyright is a form of censorship. Most people understand that these are Bad Things. Sharing, on the other hand, is a Good Thing.
If society wants to trump this tremendously good value of sharing with the three evil pillars of copyright, it must A) have a damn good reason to do so (and I believe it does), and B) be damn careful with the way it implements this new form of ownership (and I believe it doesn't).
By overextending copyright, you are ultimately condemning it to its extinction. Your speech is therefore much more harmful to artists than the sharing of their songs is.
See, I do care about culture. The only thing you seem to care about is your own bottom line.
FWIW, since I left university nine years ago, most of my income has been generated from the creation of copyright encumbered works. If copyright had not existed, the sum of money that I would not have gotten would be around 50 euro. That's the money I got from levy collection agencies as a compensation for home copying. I don't know how much I have paid in such fees (which are added to library costs, price of CD-ROMs etc.), so my nett profit may as well be a nett loss.
When I bought my Palm Zire, I had the same question, but had trouble finding gratis ebooks. Most Google searches seemed to lead to commercial publishers who offered one free ebook as a teaser, often a public domain work they had probably plucked off of Project Gutenberg.
So I created a webpage, Free Palm ebooks, that tells owners of Palm Pilots where to find the free ebooks in native Palm formats, the reader software, and more.
"I love how geeks at this site are almost proud of the amount of money they waste on PDAs, cell phones, the newest videocard, high-end speakers, and other geek toys (not to mention donating to put Enterprise on for another season) but when it comes to spending money on something serious that facilitates learning, such as books, all of the sudden they feel the need to do whatever they can to get things for free. Here's a radical suggestion: cut down on buying electronic beeping gadgets (and using them when you drive!) and you'll be amazed at how much money you'll have to spend on books. I think you'll find that it's money well spent in the long run."
Hi there mister Dinosaur. I quoted you in full, because yours is one of the best examples of old-world, conservative, anal-retentive, vested-interests thinking I have seen in a long time.
OK, so you want to do the math? Lets do the math.
Geeks will buy gadgets. It's part of what defines them.
Now, geeks have gadgets and the internet has free books. Why not connect the two? You cannot give me a single reason for that, I am sure.
Oh, and as long as you spend your days looking back, please consider that those hallowed books you so revere were once considered a heresy. "Why buy books?" your ilk would cry in righteous indignation. "Wake up and smell the coffee! Live in the real world! Story tellers are not just much cheaper, they also enhance their stories by their telling. When you buy a book, you rob story tellers from their income. Why do you hate Greece?" ("Why do you hate America?" wasn't as popular in those days.)
Well, we know what happened to those people. They refused to read the pamflet that told them that the maximum speed for chariots had been raised from 15 to 30 kph, and got killed trying to cross the road.
"Don't mistake your ease at clicking "download" to mean that these folks you steal from don't do any work."
Where and when did theft enter the picture?
Anyway, hard work does not entitle you to a reward. If that were the case, the miners and factory workers of the world would all be billionaires by now.
Hi there, RIAA shill! I am here to give you your designated reply.
Please understand that I bear you no ill will. I understand that you are here on behalf of your masters, and that the words you projectile vomit onto these forums are not proof that you are a complete idiot, but are merely the result of a desire to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt. You must do your job, just as I must do mine.
Now, on to your remarks:
"I'm glad the artists are getting their money. So now you're only screwing the marketing, engineering and management. Is that acceptable?"
The people do not owe marketing, engineering and management anything. We reward artists in the hope that they will create more. There is no free ride for any other party in the production process.
Slashdot Mirror
"Copyright is supposed to be balanced between the growth of the public domain and allowing people to make a living creating art etc."
This is not true in the USA.
"The music industry and the film industry make billions. This is simply not necessary."
It is not necessary in a communist society. The promise to strike it big is what might actually incentivize some people to create.
"balancing the rights of authors to their works"
There is no such thing as "the rights of authors to their works", so no need to balance them either.
"another idea would be the life of the artist. when the artist dies, all their works enter the public domain."
Some idiot will probably suggest further down the thread that this is not fair in case an author dies just after writing his magnus opus. This is the exact sort of braindead reasoning that got us Life+X in the first place.
The only reasonable thing is Date of Publication + X Years. X depends on the type of work. Currently, it makes little sense to copyright computer games for more than 5 years for instance, because by then the platform to play it on will have died out.
"Rewarding creators and inventors of intellectual property"
Why would society want to do that?
"Additionally, they [sony] are making a hell of a lot more money from their film and entertainments branch than from their consumer electronics."
Have you got anything to back that up? I always understood that it was the other way around.
That is at least what Cory Doctorow suggests in Sony's entertainment business is killing its electronics business.
"Hardware patents are different, in that the financial outlay to create, and the margins once created, are so represssive to the process itself that there needs to be a follow-on reward, especially for things like chip fab IP where the outlay for the next fab is in the billions at this point in time."
But why necessarily patents? Governments have many more instruments for giving financial incentives.
"I guess conciseness is not a part of the style guide at your publishing house."
He said what he had to say, and he used no more words than necessary. That makes it concise.
Now go back to reading your e-mail.
"It then occurred to me that many groups and institutions exhibit the reverse of emergence: you have complex, smart people making up your system, but when you get them together you get stupid decisions. In this case, the whole is less than the sum of its parts, sometimes less intelligent than any one individual. The obvious name for this phenomenon is "demergence"."
Could it be that you are comparing the intelligence of the group with that of individuals? Groups have completely different goals from individuals, and their intelligence is directed to achieving the groups' goals.
As an individual you are probably incapable of judging the effectiveness of the group's intelligence.
"As simple as it gets: Hemp oil could be used to make gasoline."
Get this dude: you can grow hemp without THC. I don't even think hemp is outlawed in the US.
Nobody really knows why marihuana is outlawed in so many jurisdictions. My guess is that somehow it got a bad rep, and that was it.
Two explanations I have seen for the USA that somehow made sense:
1. Marihuana was banned for racist motives, and
2. Marihuana was banned because hemp provided a cheap alternative to wood pulp for producing paper.
(The latter would explain why it was outlawed originally, not why it stays outlawed.)
I agree, we did not invite these ads. We cannot break the contract, because the contract outlawed ads in the first place.
Advertisers are free to come up with their own internet.
"Only in America do you see guilty people sue when they get caught. Reminds me of when a burglar sues because he injured himself on your property."
Please stay on topic, your comment has nothing to do with this story. No one's been found guilty of anything.
"including, but not limited to "MP3 is lossy compression - my copies are not copies but derivative works" - I can't be held responsible until the person who *ripped* the movie/mp3 is found and prosecuted (otherwise, how are we to know that he wasn't licenced to produce a derivative?)"
I may not know much about the legal system, but I am pretty sure judges just love to throw your sort into PMITAP.
As for why your defense does not work: copyright law forbids you to make a copy, whether it is a derivative or not. Unless you can come up with proof that you were allowed to make or download that derivative, you will lose.
"There's at least some logic here--if you shoplift a CD from a music store and get caught, do you think all you have to do is pay what the CD would have cost and you're home free? That implies there's no penalty for theft, which isn't the best of systems."
Do not conflate copyright infringement with theft. Theft is a crime--it is something that society would like you to stop doing.
"This is not intended to be flamebait, but I'm not sure that the RIAA is guilty of any wrong doing."
I think you mean: "This is not intended to be flamebait, but I'm not sure that the RIAA is guilty of doing anything illegal."
"It's kinda weird it took so long, really.
Didn't ANYONE think of doing this before?"
Copyright infringement is first and foremost a civil offence. There is a "price tag" attached of up to 250,000 US$ per "incident". Being sued means you cannot claim to be innocent until proven guilty; you have to prove you did not do it. Find a judge who got out of bed in a foul mood, and you will find yourself at the wrong end of the verdict.
As has been mentioned before: if you want music, you'd better steal in the form of CDs from the record store than download it in the form of MP3s from the P2P networks. (Which is of course exactly the way Big Copyright wants it.)
"And when she's found guilty of downloading music...."
Do you really believe they want to sue her? What if they lose?
And prosecution is completely out of the question, since president Bush has been found out to be a filthy pirate (RIAA's words, not mine). If they prosecute her, he must be prosecuted too.
"It can't be properly called Champagne unless it's made in the Champagne region of France."
Who is going to stop me?
"we need some US court rulings 1st"
Who is this mysterious "we" you speak of? And why do they need some US court rulings first?
"Just playing devil's advocate here."
To the contrary, you are either a complete idiot or too lazy to breathe.
Your question has been answered so often at Slashdot before, that I am not even going to bother repeating the answer. Just read the comments to previous Slashdot stories about going after GPL infringers. Not to mention that anyone with more than two braincells could come up with the answer themselves.
"There are rules within an economy,"
This statement is true.
"and y'all want to break them because you can."
This statement is false.
There is no rule in any economy that hard work, talent or middlemen should be rewarded. This may seem counterintuitive, but really it is not. You either get a reward as the result of an agreement between you and another party, or between the government and its people. Other than that, you have no right to that reward.
"I am a programmer, so what I do can be stolen just as easily as music."
Stealing means taking away so that the original holder or owner can no longer use it. If I take your program or song, you can still use it.
If you want to participate in an adult conversation, you should act like an adult. Do not use cheap hyperboles such as "theft" and "piracy", because even an amoeba can understand that these are not the same as infringement.
"Serious development is a combination of programmers and other business people. I can't do it alone (if "it" means "what the client wants"), and in most cases neither can the artists."
"They play music, and that's wonderful. They do not (usually) know how to run a recording rig, mix & distribute the albums, etc."
Artists are in a tremendously powerful position: they own the copyrights to their work. If they believe their work is going to be a hit, they should hire experts at ripping, mixing and burning, and pay them beforehand.
As it is, a lot of artists will overestimate the quality of their work, and will gladly sign away everything they have for a three thousand dollar advance. (Which will be recouped by the first party the record company gives at the artist's expense.)
Copyright can be signed away, because the lawmakers (correctly) predicted that this could be done for a price, so that the promise of a copyright transfer would incentivize artists to create. The value of such transfers is lessened by anything that cannot be signed away, yet the world has vibrant music and software industries. I see no evidence that the middlemen need extra protection.
As for copyright on software, I think Richard Stallman has written enough smart stuff on that subject. I suggest you read some of his works.
"Look, I can understand the position of refusing to buy CDs because you think the RIAA is corrupt. That's fine and respectable. But to pick and choose whose work you deem worth of respect is the act of a common thief (with a mouse) and that's not respectable at all."
Copyright is a form of theft. Copyright is a form of monopoly. Copyright is a form of censorship. Most people understand that these are Bad Things. Sharing, on the other hand, is a Good Thing.
If society wants to trump this tremendously good value of sharing with the three evil pillars of copyright, it must A) have a damn good reason to do so (and I believe it does), and B) be damn careful with the way it implements this new form of ownership (and I believe it doesn't).
By overextending copyright, you are ultimately condemning it to its extinction. Your speech is therefore much more harmful to artists than the sharing of their songs is.
See, I do care about culture. The only thing you seem to care about is your own bottom line.
FWIW, since I left university nine years ago, most of my income has been generated from the creation of copyright encumbered works. If copyright had not existed, the sum of money that I would not have gotten would be around 50 euro. That's the money I got from levy collection agencies as a compensation for home copying. I don't know how much I have paid in such fees (which are added to library costs, price of CD-ROMs etc.), so my nett profit may as well be a nett loss.
When I bought my Palm Zire, I had the same question, but had trouble finding gratis ebooks. Most Google searches seemed to lead to commercial publishers who offered one free ebook as a teaser, often a public domain work they had probably plucked off of Project Gutenberg.
So I created a webpage, Free Palm ebooks, that tells owners of Palm Pilots where to find the free ebooks in native Palm formats, the reader software, and more.
"I love how geeks at this site are almost proud of the amount of money they waste on PDAs, cell phones, the newest videocard, high-end speakers, and other geek toys (not to mention donating to put Enterprise on for another season) but when it comes to spending money on something serious that facilitates learning, such as books, all of the sudden they feel the need to do whatever they can to get things for free. Here's a radical suggestion: cut down on buying electronic beeping gadgets (and using them when you drive!) and you'll be amazed at how much money you'll have to spend on books. I think you'll find that it's money well spent in the long run."
Hi there mister Dinosaur. I quoted you in full, because yours is one of the best examples of old-world, conservative, anal-retentive, vested-interests thinking I have seen in a long time.
OK, so you want to do the math? Lets do the math.
Geeks will buy gadgets. It's part of what defines them.
Now, geeks have gadgets and the internet has free books. Why not connect the two? You cannot give me a single reason for that, I am sure.
Oh, and as long as you spend your days looking back, please consider that those hallowed books you so revere were once considered a heresy. "Why buy books?" your ilk would cry in righteous indignation. "Wake up and smell the coffee! Live in the real world! Story tellers are not just much cheaper, they also enhance their stories by their telling. When you buy a book, you rob story tellers from their income. Why do you hate Greece?" ("Why do you hate America?" wasn't as popular in those days.)
Well, we know what happened to those people. They refused to read the pamflet that told them that the maximum speed for chariots had been raised from 15 to 30 kph, and got killed trying to cross the road.
"Don't mistake your ease at clicking "download" to mean that these folks you steal from don't do any work."
Where and when did theft enter the picture?
Anyway, hard work does not entitle you to a reward. If that were the case, the miners and factory workers of the world would all be billionaires by now.
Hi there, RIAA shill! I am here to give you your designated reply.
Please understand that I bear you no ill will. I understand that you are here on behalf of your masters, and that the words you projectile vomit onto these forums are not proof that you are a complete idiot, but are merely the result of a desire to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt. You must do your job, just as I must do mine.
Now, on to your remarks:
"I'm glad the artists are getting their money. So now you're only screwing the marketing, engineering and management. Is that acceptable?"
The people do not owe marketing, engineering and management anything. We reward artists in the hope that they will create more. There is no free ride for any other party in the production process.
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"I can't see why anyone would want to run Linux on the mini unless they're some kind of zealot"
(gasp!) Surely you're not suggesting that zealots would buy Apples?!