Your assumption is based on the idea that nobody cares about copyright laws and will do anything they want no matter what. We're all born kleptomaniacs. But if that were true, the entire CD industry should have vanished the night Napster fist came on-line. KaZaa should be making serious dents in movie ticket sales. But neither you nor Valenti and Rosen can come up with information that supports your argument.
no, my assumption is that you can't steal something by copying it, but rather copying is an inherent right.
ah ha, I did get moded out of exsistence for it, but at least I have enough karma for a repost:)......
Please resign now (Score:1)
by argoff (142580) on Monday January 06, @08:25PM (#5029794)
Phew, I might get moded out of exsistence on this, but IMHO he should resign now. His views on copyright monopolies are simply wrong. He reminds me of the people who thought that the free states could peacefully get along with the slave states, but in the information age. He simply refuses to understand that we are quickly entering into an age where either all information will be controlled or all information will be free. Information is so easy to copy, modify, and manipulate - there can be no middle ground.
There is an old saying, give me my tea hot or iced, but if it is lukewarm I will spit it out of my mouth. His position that intellectual property still has a place in the information age while decrying all it's problems is just that.
Right. So all your medical record will be free. And how many times you had a wank last week will be freely posted on Slashdot and be modded up or down. And any military or security information will be available for download. For Christ's sake, get a clue.
yes they will be once they're out there - it's something that can't even be helped now. your argument is a good one for using digital certificates rather than imposed centralized record keeping, but not a good one for copyrights. sorry.
IP has a more prominent place in the information age, not less. Without it there would be no information age. It's central to running an economy. Having cheap knock-offs of your designs or technology made by China or whoever is fine for consumers, but who put up the money to create the technology in the first place?
if I loose a million in IP rights but gain a trillion worth if IP from everywhere else in the world then that is not a net loss. ps necessity is the mother of all inovations not IP.
Even something like Linux is merly a knockoff of technology created by large corporations who rely on IP to make a profit.
you mean like how MS innovates by using all the FreeBSD code?
And no, the next big breakthrough will most likely not be created by some lone geek in his bedroom, but by groups of researchers being paid for what they do.
Uhh 90% of the utilities in your kitchen or anywhere else were not invented by a big corporation. not even 1% of the new innovation in music.
He should resign because he's in the way, that is an opinion too you know. He claims to be on our side, but all this time people are discussing it - copyrights and all their consequences are being beaten down our throats all the harder. It is simply time force it so society can get on with the information age.
Phew, I might get moded out of exsistence on this, but IMHO he should resign now. His views on copyright monopolies are simply wrong. He reminds me of the people who thought that the free states could peacefully get along with the slave states, but in the information age. He simply refuses to understand that we are quickly entering into an age where either all information will be controlled or all information will be free. Information is so easy to copy, modify, and manipulate - there can be no middle ground.
There is an old saying, give me my tea hot or iced, but if it is lukewarm I will spit it out of my mouth. His position that intellectual property still has a place in the information age while decrying all it's problems is just that.
I'm glad some people finally understand that the battle isn't about markets or choosing a software license, but freedom. All to often people think that free markets are about markets, and not freedom. But just the opposite is true, when a society has healthy freedoms - the markets tend to take care of themselves.
There is an old saying, a nation can't be half slave and half free - but only all slave or all free. Unfortunately, alot of people don't understand this about copyright controlls. They think that choosing a software license is like going to the store and choosing between pears and apples or between painting your room yellow or pink - that it's just about preference. Well, it is not, and it is so fusterating to see how people refuse to consider the long term consequences of their own belief systems.
The simple truth is copyright controlls are untenable without massive free speech restrictions like the DMC0A (and beyond), and information is so easy to manuipulate and change form - that it can't be controlled unless all of it is controlled.
I know I'm going to get nailed for this, but I get so sick and tired of the garbage people spew about copyrights.
If I said I didn't have an incentive to grow oranges unless I could plant a tree in your yard, or I said I didn't have an incentive to make cotton without owning slaves on the plantation, people would see it as the shallow and worthless arguments they are. But if I say I don't have an incentive to create and bring works into the public domain unless I have a copyright monopoly - people just take it on faith. They don't even question it. They just assume on faith that society would fall apart, and artists would be ruined without them. They ignore simle facts like that the entire renassance happened without them, and like how copyrights were originally created as a form of censorship and not a property nor an incentive to creators. They ignore and write off the consistent, dramatic, and often unpredicted success of non "owned" technologies - like Linux, tcp/ip, x86 compatable interfaces, etc...
Not only that, but they completey ignore, blow off, or sweet talk all the bad ancillatory effects of cpoyrights. Eg the failures of hollywood culture, the unethical effects of Microsoft and other companies that leverage intellectual property in a way that does not benefit society in the slightest, biases in the media, overpriced overly revised and modified college books and books of other educational means. And the things that copyright lead to like the DMCA. They ignore things like how the effective enforcement of copyrights is going to require centralized system of checks and enforcement that is costly, invades privacy, violates due-process, and is just plain big-brotherish. And even *if* such a systyem could be held up in the US, implementing that in other countries wiothout constitutional protections could be disasterous, even murderous (eg china).
They ignore simple physical facts. like the fact that normal property has natural limits in supply and demand - that imply markets and property law, but that information has no natural limits. If the government gave someone a monopoly on growing potatos, and then fradulently called that a market because someone could buy or sell that monopoly, they would call it big brotherish and overbearing government regulation. But when they do it with information, people just call it a right, an entitlement, they can't even see that if anything information should have less restrictions in government regulation - not more.
If the government called the right to beat people over the head a property right, would beople just take it that that's the way things should be because they called it *PROPERTY*. Just because government or institutions call something a property does not mean that it is. Think about it.
In this analogy, the physics is the exact same for EMF and sound, it uses the exact same mathematical equasions, and has the exact same kind of interference.
I am reasoning based on an understanding of radio technology and signal processing, including spread spectrum (call it wideband if you wish). The 50,000 people talking in a stadium can be quite enough to keep you from hearing a cricket chirping nearby, but if your particular need is to hear that cricket, you are screwed. And they have no incentive to stop talking so you can hear the cricket.
If the cricket is chirping at a different frequecny than everyone else, then you are saved. They can scream all they want, but it would be a cakewalk to hear the cricket.
There are always limits in communications. Furthermore, without rules, there are often incentives to keep yelling louder and louder. This is what caused the FCC to be created in the first place. It is also what happened to the Citizen Band frequencies when the FCC decided not to waste resources enforcing the rules.
The cicizen band problem is analgous to eveyone trying to yell to everyone at the same time. But that's just the real world, just because someone wants to broadcast to everyone with one voice doen't entitle them to do so by shutting everyone else up. That's their problem, not mine or societies. I'm sure we'd survive by finding more polite ways to communicate without locking everyone else out.
I think you're thinking of it wrong. You need to think of it like 50,000 people talking in a stadium. Yes it will be more hard to talk to your neighbor, yes you may half to yell a little louder, or talk directly torard his ear, but you can still do it and exchange information without regulating everyone in the stadium. Also, when talking, you likely have plenty of incentive to yell and direct just loud enough to make sure your neighbor gets your message without alot of wasted effort.
The FCC's attempt to regulate this is awfull. It is like no one is alowed to make a peep - accept the people with the FCC megaphones. If people did that with speech, we would see it like one of those pro fidel castro rallies, but when we do it with spectrum (which physics wise is the same) people just take it on faith that without the FCC - we would all be ruined. It is very disheartening.
This is a little off the theme, but since you mentioned it.
I honestly think that people have basic inherent rights (eg to own property, or exercise free speech) and to secure these rights people (being the sociable folks that we are) organize into forms of government. IMHO, an ideal government takes people who would otherwise fight to violate our rights, and pits them against each other in a perfict balance that keeps them out of the hair of everybody else.
Also, when battles are necissary it is often better when people engage in batels of words (polotics) rather than battles of blood because the latter is harder to undo and often has much more collateral damage.
Unfortunately, governments are all too imperfect - and unfortunately, people will often put up with it when a government violates peoples rights. This is very unacceptable because small violations are like a virus, that if not quickly dealt with, spread everywhere and become stronger and stronger at the expense of the host. This is what I think has happened with copyrights. IMHO, the right to copy is a basic moral right and copyrights have only led to more and more disaster as we let them violate us more and more. Soon something has to give, I personally hope it can be dealt with peacefully which is why I promote civil disobedience. However, with all the money at stake, i'm very afraid that all hell could break loose over this.
Look, I hate the DMCA as much as the next guy, but if we write or vote to solve this problem we are just jumping through the same hoops that got us here. This is exactly what they want us to do to distract us from doing much more productive things like blowing off copyrights in civil-disobedience whenever possible from now on.
Unlike the other options, civil-disobedience hits them right where it counts. And puts pressures in place to make sure that they are more and more limited from imposing further restrictions like the DMCA, and unlimited extensions of copyrights. If we only just wait arround for them to make the next move, next rule, or next law, and then react or comment on it - we are doomed to an endless ratrase that we will loose.
Well I reposted this here because I just cant understand why so many people had a problem with this point.
My argument is that without copyrights, goods that cost money won't get produced to begin with. How can you free a DVD that doesn't exist?
My reply: Look, your argument is based off a false premise: that people won't create without copyright monopolies, bullshit - the entire renissance happend without copyrights.
The simple fact is, no matter how you break it down is that people will create without copyrights, even if things can be coppied easier today, even if there were other systems for rewarding artists in those days. I think too many people are just bitter because they don't want to face this simple to see truth.
The problem is that all to often people come off with the attitude that free software is all the same as licensed software, it's just a matter of your choice. Many people don't seem to understand that many people who advocate free software consider this like a slap in the face.
You might want to recall 150 yrs ago when some were saying "if you don't like slavery - don't own slaves, otherwise mind your own business. it's all up to whoever chooses" , there problem was that there was no equivalency relationship back then and there is none now.
Copyrights are abusing peoples right to copy, and free software is a response to that. Mixing, matching, and choosing is not the answer, because people are using copyrights to controll me even if I don't wish to exercise them myself. It is very harmfull to try and promote some type of equivalency relationship, and IMHO this is a great example of why.
And there is the problem, people keep trying to coorlate intellectual property to real property. Look, if I make a copy of something - you're free to keep the original, you are not being deprived or violated. Would you feel violated if someone say stole your slaves and freed them?
as was already mentioned, the justification for copyrights is not protection but bringing works into the public domain. The fact that info can be copied and created more easially is more of a justification for getting rid of copyrights than keeping them.
btw, allmost all the innovations on the early internet were written with free software, without the expectation of a government granted monopoly. thankfully.
I have taken a course in economics, thats why I'm so libertarian. But cpoyrights are not free market, if the government restricted the natural supply and demand in any other market - it would be called what it is - overburdensome regulation and interference, but if they regulate the supply and demand of information then all of a sudden people think its some kinf of glorious market. it is a false market, just like other phony property right markets (eg slavery).
Economically, nature has no natural limits on the open supply and demand of information, just on the people who create and use it. Those are the limited resources, and those are the resource that need to be market valued. copyrights distort this.
Copyrights are not protection, they were designed to be an incentive to bring things into the public domain. That is the end justification in itself. The fact that copying and creating is easier nowdays reduces the justification for copyrights, not increases it.
If it can't be showen either way with massive copy restrictions or without, then why should we have them? The right to copy is a natural right, then nice things about rights is they don't exist just because important people, constitutions, or governments say so - they exist independently. I don't need to be a dictator to exercise my right to copy.
The GPL is a response to deal with the damage of copyright impositions, without them, we wouldn't need it.
If someone wants to create a contract scheme, or sale of first use scheme - then I really have no problem with that. But if someone sends me $100 in the mail, and attaches a note saying that by using this you owe me $200, then that is not a contract because it is not a 2 way binding agreement. You have every right to controll information in your posession, but this is not about that, but controlling others who have similar information no matter how they got it. That is wrong, and cant last as the information age spreads all over the globe.
Anyhow, people are coming off like creative works and new information would come to a dead halt if copyrights were cut off. That is simply incorrect, yet people swallow it hook line and syncer. Even without the renissance, there are plenty of examples of people creating without a granted monopoly.
I really didn't want to go off on the slavery tangent because slavery was so much more brutal than restricting someones ability to copy. But at the same time, this restricton is getting out of controll to the point of destroying freedom od speech. I think we seriously need to re-evaluate it.
Another thing about copyrights is that if people want to support them, then fine. But arguments like we have no incentive, I put money and effort into making them, how will such and such make money, the industry in America is good from it, etc.... were all hashed out about another false property right, slavery. I have no incentive to grow cotton.... look at the wealth in the south it created.... how will the plantation masters make the same.... they put so much money into buying and training them...
Cmon, I tired of the same BS logic PLEASE GIVE ME A REAL REASON FOR COPYRIGHTS
I hate to burst your bubble, but having people do their job for the benefit of society is a hallmark of socialism, and has been conclusively proven not to work, except under very special conditions. If there was no money to be made from writing books, very few would write them
Yes, but just because I can copy something does not mean that I advocate forcing people to create that something. By copying I am not forcing anybody to do anything.
.... However, abolishing copyrights is like killing the patient to cure the disease. If you do it, you kill off 98% of the industries that depend on copyrights. [Please, please, prove me and show how the *AA can continue to make anywhere near it's current money without copyrights] In this case, the way to prevent decay is to take the money out of congress, so that commercial interests like the *AA can't exert undue influence.
First off, copyrights place massive restrictions across all of society on what people can duplicate and make. IMHO, you should prove that imposing them is beneficial. I'm not asking to impose anything, just to copy freely without threat of harm or punishment. It goes back to the analogy... proove the plantation masters and America will be as well off without slavery? Well stop imposing it, and then we can talk about it
yes, slavery existed for forever, it even exists now in many parts of the world, but my point was that in America was just because it happened for forever, and just because it seemed nice in some forms, did not prevent us from falling into a major disaster.
No, that's not my point. With copyright terms allowed, things like Photoshop, 3D Studio Max, Blade Runner, The Matrix, and Dr. Strangelove get produced.
How do you know? My understanding is what motivated most the people in these ventures wasn't a guaranteed monopoly, but rather it's own value?
GPL software is good in addition but this will get produced either way. You can argue that there is GPL software that does the same things as many other goods, but without copyright virtually all movies created in the last century would not have been created, or at least not as well. They wouldn't have the money to support the budgets they have, to buy their expensive SteadyCams to shoot them with and the film (which is very expensive), and their video editing studios. The educational videos wouldn't be made without public money since companies wouldn't make a profit on them.
I like many of these movies too, and I honestly don't know what would happen, but I do know that movies are for the benefit of society. If the movies really did go away, your rent, cost of living, technology used, would likely be the same. But copyright impositions in the information age could affect all of these.
My argument is that without copyrights, goods that cost money won't get produced to begin with. How can you free a DVD that doesn't exist?
Look, your argument is based off a false premise: that people won't create without copyright monopolies, bullshit - the entire renissance happend without copyrights.
Without copyrights you'd force material to be free and thus keep lots from being created. With copyrights, creators have a financial incentive to create, and so their work will be created. How would you like if all the movies we had to watch were GPLed videos? All TV stations would be financed by public donations, and with public goods there is no way of excluding freeloaders.
Information and art has it's own value without a government granted monopoly, thats why it will happen either way. Freeloading with information isn't inherently harmfull, but inherently good. It doesn't doesn't deprive the maker of their original creation, but only of market share monopoly. Well market share monopoly isn't a right, and loosing it isn't a depravation but only a percieved depervation.
Ok, then explain this to me - if there were no copyrights, how would authors/musicians/artists/etc make money?
Perhaps through concerts or public display. But this point is part of the problem, the end goal is not to make money for XYZ, but rather to maximize benefit to society. It is an unfair question like in the past how do the poor cotton farm owners make money without slavery? Well, stop trying to exercise rights you don't have and we can discuss it.
The founders had envisioned a world were copyrights are a tradeoff - for a particular works, certain freedoms allowed under other parts of the constitution (suich as the 1st ammendment) do not apply, in order to encourage them to create. But after a time, they go into the public domain. It might be old, but it sounds like solid reasoning to me.
It might have looked reasonable at a time where an encyclopedia of knowledge couldn't be transfered and coppied to every point on the planet in less than 30 seconds, but not today
Now, I agree that it has since been distorted. What we need (IMO) is repeal of those unconstituional retroactive copyright extensions, a shorter term for future copyrights, and (similiar to Russia) a law on the books making it illegal to create fair-use proof works
Oh and another thing about slavery, is that it started out as short term indentured servitude for blacks and whites that could not be inherited. After the term you got freedom and your own property. Sounded like a good deal, accept there was one problem, it planted the seed for a system that was outright evil and caused a lot of damage in the long run for America.
Slashdot Mirror
no, my assumption is that you can't steal something by copying it, but rather copying is an inherent right.
Please resign now (Score:1) by argoff (142580) on Monday January 06, @08:25PM (#5029794)
Phew, I might get moded out of exsistence on this, but IMHO he should resign now. His views on copyright monopolies are simply wrong. He reminds me of the people who thought that the free states could peacefully get along with the slave states, but in the information age. He simply refuses to understand that we are quickly entering into an age where either all information will be controlled or all information will be free. Information is so easy to copy, modify, and manipulate - there can be no middle ground.
There is an old saying, give me my tea hot or iced, but if it is lukewarm I will spit it out of my mouth. His position that intellectual property still has a place in the information age while decrying all it's problems is just that.
yes they will be once they're out there - it's something that can't even be helped now. your argument is a good one for using digital certificates rather than imposed centralized record keeping, but not a good one for copyrights. sorry.
IP has a more prominent place in the information age, not less. Without it there would be no information age. It's central to running an economy. Having cheap knock-offs of your designs or technology made by China or whoever is fine for consumers, but who put up the money to create the technology in the first place?
if I loose a million in IP rights but gain a trillion worth if IP from everywhere else in the world then that is not a net loss. ps necessity is the mother of all inovations not IP.
Even something like Linux is merly a knockoff of technology created by large corporations who rely on IP to make a profit.
you mean like how MS innovates by using all the FreeBSD code?
And no, the next big breakthrough will most likely not be created by some lone geek in his bedroom, but by groups of researchers being paid for what they do.
Uhh 90% of the utilities in your kitchen or anywhere else were not invented by a big corporation. not even 1% of the new innovation in music.
He should resign because he's in the way, that is an opinion too you know. He claims to be on our side, but all this time people are discussing it - copyrights and all their consequences are being beaten down our throats all the harder. It is simply time force it so society can get on with the information age.
he he, :)
I can't win. If I put it there they think I'm a karma whore, if not they think I'm a troll. cant you just let me hate the guy in peace
Phew, I might get moded out of exsistence on this, but IMHO he should resign now. His views on copyright monopolies are simply wrong. He reminds me of the people who thought that the free states could peacefully get along with the slave states, but in the information age. He simply refuses to understand that we are quickly entering into an age where either all information will be controlled or all information will be free. Information is so easy to copy, modify, and manipulate - there can be no middle ground.
There is an old saying, give me my tea hot or iced, but if it is lukewarm I will spit it out of my mouth. His position that intellectual property still has a place in the information age while decrying all it's problems is just that.
I'm glad some people finally understand that the battle isn't about markets or choosing a software license, but freedom. All to often people think that free markets are about markets, and not freedom. But just the opposite is true, when a society has healthy freedoms - the markets tend to take care of themselves.
There is an old saying, a nation can't be half slave and half free - but only all slave or all free. Unfortunately, alot of people don't understand this about copyright controlls. They think that choosing a software license is like going to the store and choosing between pears and apples or between painting your room yellow or pink - that it's just about preference. Well, it is not, and it is so fusterating to see how people refuse to consider the long term consequences of their own belief systems.
The simple truth is copyright controlls are untenable without massive free speech restrictions like the DMC0A (and beyond), and information is so easy to manuipulate and change form - that it can't be controlled unless all of it is controlled.
I know I'm going to get nailed for this, but I get so sick and tired of the garbage people spew about copyrights.
If I said I didn't have an incentive to grow oranges unless I could plant a tree in your yard, or I said I didn't have an incentive to make cotton without owning slaves on the plantation, people would see it as the shallow and worthless arguments they are. But if I say I don't have an incentive to create and bring works into the public domain unless I have a copyright monopoly - people just take it on faith. They don't even question it. They just assume on faith that society would fall apart, and artists would be ruined without them. They ignore simle facts like that the entire renassance happened without them, and like how copyrights were originally created as a form of censorship and not a property nor an incentive to creators. They ignore and write off the consistent, dramatic, and often unpredicted success of non "owned" technologies - like Linux, tcp/ip, x86 compatable interfaces, etc...
Not only that, but they completey ignore, blow off, or sweet talk all the bad ancillatory effects of cpoyrights. Eg the failures of hollywood culture, the unethical effects of Microsoft and other companies that leverage intellectual property in a way that does not benefit society in the slightest, biases in the media, overpriced overly revised and modified college books and books of other educational means. And the things that copyright lead to like the DMCA. They ignore things like how the effective enforcement of copyrights is going to require centralized system of checks and enforcement that is costly, invades privacy, violates due-process, and is just plain big-brotherish. And even *if* such a systyem could be held up in the US, implementing that in other countries wiothout constitutional protections could be disasterous, even murderous (eg china).
They ignore simple physical facts. like the fact that normal property has natural limits in supply and demand - that imply markets and property law, but that information has no natural limits. If the government gave someone a monopoly on growing potatos, and then fradulently called that a market because someone could buy or sell that monopoly, they would call it big brotherish and overbearing government regulation. But when they do it with information, people just call it a right, an entitlement, they can't even see that if anything information should have less restrictions in government regulation - not more.
If the government called the right to beat people over the head a property right, would beople just take it that that's the way things should be because they called it *PROPERTY*. Just because government or institutions call something a property does not mean that it is. Think about it.
btw. Merry Christmas
No, you are reasoning by analogy.
In this analogy, the physics is the exact same for EMF and sound, it uses the exact same mathematical equasions, and has the exact same kind of interference.
I am reasoning based on an understanding of radio technology and signal processing, including spread spectrum (call it wideband if you wish). The 50,000 people talking in a stadium can be quite enough to keep you from hearing a cricket chirping nearby, but if your particular need is to hear that cricket, you are screwed. And they have no incentive to stop talking so you can hear the cricket.
If the cricket is chirping at a different frequecny than everyone else, then you are saved. They can scream all they want, but it would be a cakewalk to hear the cricket.
There are always limits in communications. Furthermore, without rules, there are often incentives to keep yelling louder and louder. This is what caused the FCC to be created in the first place. It is also what happened to the Citizen Band frequencies when the FCC decided not to waste resources enforcing the rules.
The cicizen band problem is analgous to eveyone trying to yell to everyone at the same time. But that's just the real world, just because someone wants to broadcast to everyone with one voice doen't entitle them to do so by shutting everyone else up. That's their problem, not mine or societies. I'm sure we'd survive by finding more polite ways to communicate without locking everyone else out.
I think you're thinking of it wrong. You need to think of it like 50,000 people talking in a stadium. Yes it will be more hard to talk to your neighbor, yes you may half to yell a little louder, or talk directly torard his ear, but you can still do it and exchange information without regulating everyone in the stadium. Also, when talking, you likely have plenty of incentive to yell and direct just loud enough to make sure your neighbor gets your message without alot of wasted effort.
The FCC's attempt to regulate this is awfull. It is like no one is alowed to make a peep - accept the people with the FCC megaphones. If people did that with speech, we would see it like one of those pro fidel castro rallies, but when we do it with spectrum (which physics wise is the same) people just take it on faith that without the FCC - we would all be ruined. It is very disheartening.
This is a little off the theme, but since you mentioned it.
I honestly think that people have basic inherent rights (eg to own property, or exercise free speech) and to secure these rights people (being the sociable folks that we are) organize into forms of government. IMHO, an ideal government takes people who would otherwise fight to violate our rights, and pits them against each other in a perfict balance that keeps them out of the hair of everybody else.
Also, when battles are necissary it is often better when people engage in batels of words (polotics) rather than battles of blood because the latter is harder to undo and often has much more collateral damage.
Unfortunately, governments are all too imperfect - and unfortunately, people will often put up with it when a government violates peoples rights. This is very unacceptable because small violations are like a virus, that if not quickly dealt with, spread everywhere and become stronger and stronger at the expense of the host. This is what I think has happened with copyrights. IMHO, the right to copy is a basic moral right and copyrights have only led to more and more disaster as we let them violate us more and more. Soon something has to give, I personally hope it can be dealt with peacefully which is why I promote civil disobedience. However, with all the money at stake, i'm very afraid that all hell could break loose over this.
Look, I hate the DMCA as much as the next guy, but if we write or vote to solve this problem we are just jumping through the same hoops that got us here. This is exactly what they want us to do to distract us from doing much more productive things like blowing off copyrights in civil-disobedience whenever possible from now on.
Unlike the other options, civil-disobedience hits them right where it counts. And puts pressures in place to make sure that they are more and more limited from imposing further restrictions like the DMCA, and unlimited extensions of copyrights. If we only just wait arround for them to make the next move, next rule, or next law, and then react or comment on it - we are doomed to an endless ratrase that we will loose.
Well I reposted this here because I just cant understand why so many people had a problem with this point.
My argument is that without copyrights, goods that cost money won't get produced to begin with. How can you free a DVD that doesn't exist?
My reply: Look, your argument is based off a false premise: that people won't create without copyright monopolies, bullshit - the entire renissance happend without copyrights.
The simple fact is, no matter how you break it down is that people will create without copyrights, even if things can be coppied easier today, even if there were other systems for rewarding artists in those days. I think too many people are just bitter because they don't want to face this simple to see truth.
The problem is that all to often people come off with the attitude that free software is all the same as licensed software, it's just a matter of your choice. Many people don't seem to understand that many people who advocate free software consider this like a slap in the face.
You might want to recall 150 yrs ago when some were saying "if you don't like slavery - don't own slaves, otherwise mind your own business. it's all up to whoever chooses" , there problem was that there was no equivalency relationship back then and there is none now.
Copyrights are abusing peoples right to copy, and free software is a response to that. Mixing, matching, and choosing is not the answer, because people are using copyrights to controll me even if I don't wish to exercise them myself. It is very harmfull to try and promote some type of equivalency relationship, and IMHO this is a great example of why.
And there is the problem, people keep trying to coorlate intellectual property to real property. Look, if I make a copy of something - you're free to keep the original, you are not being deprived or violated. Would you feel violated if someone say stole your slaves and freed them?
as was already mentioned, the justification for copyrights is not protection but bringing works into the public domain. The fact that info can be copied and created more easially is more of a justification for getting rid of copyrights than keeping them.
btw, allmost all the innovations on the early internet were written with free software, without the expectation of a government granted monopoly. thankfully.
I have taken a course in economics, thats why I'm so libertarian. But cpoyrights are not free market, if the government restricted the natural supply and demand in any other market - it would be called what it is - overburdensome regulation and interference, but if they regulate the supply and demand of information then all of a sudden people think its some kinf of glorious market. it is a false market, just like other phony property right markets (eg slavery).
Economically, nature has no natural limits on the open supply and demand of information, just on the people who create and use it. Those are the limited resources, and those are the resource that need to be market valued. copyrights distort this.
Copyrights are not protection, they were designed to be an incentive to bring things into the public domain. That is the end justification in itself. The fact that copying and creating is easier nowdays reduces the justification for copyrights, not increases it.
If it can't be showen either way with massive copy restrictions or without, then why should we have them? The right to copy is a natural right, then nice things about rights is they don't exist just because important people, constitutions, or governments say so - they exist independently. I don't need to be a dictator to exercise my right to copy.
The GPL is a response to deal with the damage of copyright impositions, without them, we wouldn't need it.
If someone wants to create a contract scheme, or sale of first use scheme - then I really have no problem with that. But if someone sends me $100 in the mail, and attaches a note saying that by using this you owe me $200, then that is not a contract because it is not a 2 way binding agreement. You have every right to controll information in your posession, but this is not about that, but controlling others who have similar information no matter how they got it. That is wrong, and cant last as the information age spreads all over the globe.
Anyhow, people are coming off like creative works and new information would come to a dead halt if copyrights were cut off. That is simply incorrect, yet people swallow it hook line and syncer. Even without the renissance, there are plenty of examples of people creating without a granted monopoly.
I really didn't want to go off on the slavery tangent because slavery was so much more brutal than restricting someones ability to copy. But at the same time, this restricton is getting out of controll to the point of destroying freedom od speech. I think we seriously need to re-evaluate it.
Another thing about copyrights is that if people want to support them, then fine. But arguments like we have no incentive, I put money and effort into making them, how will such and such make money, the industry in America is good from it, etc .... were all hashed out about another false property right, slavery. I have no incentive to grow cotton.... look at the wealth in the south it created .... how will the plantation masters make the same .... they put so much money into buying and training them...
Cmon, I tired of the same BS logic PLEASE GIVE ME A REAL REASON FOR COPYRIGHTS
I hate to burst your bubble, but having people do their job for the benefit of society is a hallmark of socialism, and has been conclusively proven not to work, except under very special conditions. If there was no money to be made from writing books, very few would write them
Yes, but just because I can copy something does not mean that I advocate forcing people to create that something. By copying I am not forcing anybody to do anything.
First off, copyrights place massive restrictions across all of society on what people can duplicate and make. IMHO, you should prove that imposing them is beneficial. I'm not asking to impose anything, just to copy freely without threat of harm or punishment. It goes back to the analogy ... proove the plantation masters and America will be as well off without slavery? Well stop imposing it, and then we can talk about it
yes, slavery existed for forever, it even exists now in many parts of the world, but my point was that in America was just because it happened for forever, and just because it seemed nice in some forms, did not prevent us from falling into a major disaster.
No, that's not my point. With copyright terms allowed, things like Photoshop, 3D Studio Max, Blade Runner, The Matrix, and Dr. Strangelove get produced.
How do you know? My understanding is what motivated most the people in these ventures wasn't a guaranteed monopoly, but rather it's own value?
GPL software is good in addition but this will get produced either way. You can argue that there is GPL software that does the same things as many other goods, but without copyright virtually all movies created in the last century would not have been created, or at least not as well. They wouldn't have the money to support the budgets they have, to buy their expensive SteadyCams to shoot them with and the film (which is very expensive), and their video editing studios. The educational videos wouldn't be made without public money since companies wouldn't make a profit on them.
I like many of these movies too, and I honestly don't know what would happen, but I do know that movies are for the benefit of society. If the movies really did go away, your rent, cost of living, technology used, would likely be the same. But copyright impositions in the information age could affect all of these.
My argument is that without copyrights, goods that cost money won't get produced to begin with. How can you free a DVD that doesn't exist?
Look, your argument is based off a false premise: that people won't create without copyright monopolies, bullshit - the entire renissance happend without copyrights.
Without copyrights you'd force material to be free and thus keep lots from being created. With copyrights, creators have a financial incentive to create, and so their work will be created. How would you like if all the movies we had to watch were GPLed videos? All TV stations would be financed by public donations, and with public goods there is no way of excluding freeloaders.
Information and art has it's own value without a government granted monopoly, thats why it will happen either way. Freeloading with information isn't inherently harmfull, but inherently good. It doesn't doesn't deprive the maker of their original creation, but only of market share monopoly. Well market share monopoly isn't a right, and loosing it isn't a depravation but only a percieved depervation.
Ok, then explain this to me - if there were no copyrights, how would authors/musicians/artists/etc make money?
Perhaps through concerts or public display. But this point is part of the problem, the end goal is not to make money for XYZ, but rather to maximize benefit to society. It is an unfair question like in the past how do the poor cotton farm owners make money without slavery? Well, stop trying to exercise rights you don't have and we can discuss it.
The founders had envisioned a world were copyrights are a tradeoff - for a particular works, certain freedoms allowed under other parts of the constitution (suich as the 1st ammendment) do not apply, in order to encourage them to create. But after a time, they go into the public domain. It might be old, but it sounds like solid reasoning to me.
It might have looked reasonable at a time where an encyclopedia of knowledge couldn't be transfered and coppied to every point on the planet in less than 30 seconds, but not today
Now, I agree that it has since been distorted. What we need (IMO) is repeal of those unconstituional retroactive copyright extensions, a shorter term for future copyrights, and (similiar to Russia) a law on the books making it illegal to create fair-use proof works
Oh and another thing about slavery, is that it started out as short term indentured servitude for blacks and whites that could not be inherited. After the term you got freedom and your own property. Sounded like a good deal, accept there was one problem, it planted the seed for a system that was outright evil and caused a lot of damage in the long run for America.