You might like to read an article I wrote on this subject "Abandoned Intellectual Property" - you can find it on the links to articles section of my website.
If everything copyrighted had to be properly registered with the copyright office as was originally required, then the source code would be available from the copyright office once the work was declared PD.
One of the stupidest changes made in the 1976 revision to copyright law was the elimination of the registration requirement. Now everything in the world is automatically copyrighted, but no one is required to take any responsibility for their creations.
Tell me, what are you taking a picture of? Is it something you personally own that you created, on your own property, a house you built from your design, with every plant personally raised from a seed from genetics you designed as well? If it isn't, then you are using part of the Public Domain for your photograph. What makes you think you can take something that belongs to other people and own it yourself, forever?
Nobody creates from a vacuum and anyone who says they do is a liar or stupid. I've never seen a photograph (especially a photograph!) that was totally of the photographer's creativity. Most photography isn't creative hardly at all - it's skill, a good eye (the only creative aspect of unadulterated photos) and often simple blind luck. That isn't something to be rewarded with a lifetime (+70) monopoly.
And even if I could agree that YOU should have that monopoly, I certainly couldn't see giving it to your heirs to 4 generations. You want to provide for your heirs - start a trust fund.
Rant over.
Let's put the Constitution back into copyright: http://www.amfcc.org
Re:If he cares so much about ideas...
on
The Future of Ideas
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
>>why doesn't he publish his book under the public domain
Probably because he wouldn't be able to find a publisher with the kind of distribution he would want for his book. I talked with Jessica Litman a little bit about "Digital Copyright" and her choices when it came to publishing. She'd be perfectly happy to see the entire work available online, but her publisher wouldn't allow it.
I find it unlikely that Lessig would feel that much differently. He's a lawyer - can't be in too much need of the income. I'd think he would be trying to get the widest distribution possible, to have the greatest number of people exposed to the ideas he's presenting. GNU license for documents (or BSD) would be too limiting for most publishers who deal with mass publications.
OOOps! You're exactly right, and I guess I didn't really say what I meant. You don't own the copyright - i.e. the right to make and distribute copies. The AHRA does forgive personal copies as non-infringing.
Re:Barriers to Knowledge, and Business Models
on
The Future of Ideas
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
>>But the fact is that barriers to accessing information create wealth. So in order for those barriers to come down, alternative means to create wealth must be created.
Why?
The government, nor the people, are responsible for maintaing the viability of business. Others have used the example of buggy-whip manufacterers at the beginning of the 20th century - a doomed business. The Statute of Anne in 1710 was not about keeping the Stationers' Guild in business - it was about changing the way the English looked at literature. No longer was it something owned forever by a single printer; it became something the printer and author could make money from for a limited time, but was destined for a place in the public commons, where anyone could use it without prejudice.
To paraphrase Lessig - from where we stand today we have two choices. 1) we can move forward into a world where everyone can be creative, limited only by a sensible return to original authors or 2) we can move backward into a new dark ages, where a few people control the intellectual wealth and share it only for an ever higher price and ever more restrictive rules of use.
Like Lessig, I can see which way we are moving, and I don't like the view. The technology is nearly here that would allow ordinary people to create animated movies from their own stories, or favorite books. I would like to see people able to share these works, but copyright law, as currently practised, will stand in the way, might even prevent the technology from becoming available to the public.
I believe copyright to be a necessary evil, but it has gone far beyond any sensible limitations. It's time Americans got together and insisted on a change.
Help out - http://www.amfcc.org
http://www.eff.org
Please stop spreading Entertainment Industry propaganda. You DO own the music you purchase - but you don't own the right to copy it. Check out Judge Birch's decision on the Wind Done Gone case where he brings up the fact that the Mitchell estate doesn't own "Gone With the Wind" - they own the copyright to "Gone With the Wind."
This is an important difference and makes all of this Pay-per-View/Listen very clearly something that belongs at BlockBuster. You aren't buying anything with these services and I, for one, am not going to use them.
I can't remember where I saw it, but a recent Court case on whether or not you can resell software (First Sale Doctrine) was decided in favor of the reseller. The software was considered a product that was sold, not licensed, to the buyer.
"IMHO, Warner is entirely justified in attempting to stamp out unlicensed rental of retail prints, just as it already makes non-theatric hire licenses available at a lower price than that of theatric hire licenses (as would be required of a cinema or other commercial exhibitor). I say again, the cost of a print (for sale or rent) depends on the exhibition rights which are given to its owner."
Do you not believe in "First Sale Doctrine"? This is the part of the law that allows you to do things like sell (or rent) your purchase. A victory by Warner in this case is a loss for the people side of the equation. Right now (in the U.S. anyway) if you want to start renting out your VHS and DVD collections (it is illegal to rent CDs - the people lost in that lawsuit,) there is no law that says you can't. After obtaining the proper business permits, you're in business. Nor are you required to purchase any special versions of the material or pay any further royalties to the producers of that material. If Warner wins in this case that could change. You could lose your rights to sell or rent your property.
It must depend on the politician. I have had equal success with both snail-mail and e-mail. On both, the return letter said, basically, 'thanks for your interest, the law you are writing about is like this..., and I will keep your thoughts in mind should this issue come up before us again.'
They read just enough to get an idea of what you're writing about and which side you're on. Although, after a second letter to the local representative, I actually received a phone call from one of his staff. And he was the one who received only email from me.
Your writing about the founders of the United States and how they perceived intellectual property suggests you understand the issue. However, farther down you suggest DRM could support the same compromise between producers and users of IP. It cannot.
Digital Rights Management is about limiting access based on payment. The user of IP will have only the choice of paying or missing out. There can be no compromise between producers and users if DRM is functional.
The continuation of the current trends in copyright and related legislation will result in a world of repetition, old, privately owned ideas forked out to the public again and again (it is happening already) with the possibility of new ideas discouraged from birth (humans learn from copying - all creativity comes from copying and if children are taught never to copy, they will never create.) The risk of treading upon someone's copyright will be too strong and would-be creators will choose another line of work, keeping their creative endeavors to themselves and close friends only.
The enlightened period of the treatment of Intellectual Property was from 1710 until 1909. Since then copyright law has been regressing back into the old Stationer's copyright and, with DRM firmly in place, it will be like the control of intellectual works that the Church held prior to invention of the printing press, control of what was publicly available limited to a very few.
This kind of thing needs to be fought with every fiber of our being - NO DRM - at all. They've got more legal protection than should have ever been allowed and now they want physical protection backed by legal protection. Again, we should all stand up and raise our voices with a resounding "NO!"
Join AMFCC and learn how to spread the word, how to convince ordinary people that this is important. http://www.amfcc.org
If you are using 100% original code, you don't owe anything to the GPL. If you aren't using 100% original code, you are making a derivitive work.
Example: Mr. Lucas, I only used the Millenium Falcon in one battle scene and it was on the edge of the screen....
Copyright law does not give you the right to redistribute ANY significant portion of someone else's work. If you can't claim "Fair Use" and prove it, you are violating copyright.
It doesn't require an understanding of computers - what do you think the human mind does? All those years of schooling and people still don't seem to understand that the human brain is basically a system of software that takes what it sees/hears/tastes/feels/smells and copies that. That's input - for output the mind rearranges, blurs, sharpens (basic photoshop utilities) adds a bit from this other thing that was copied on a different day and turns it on its side. Humans don't create, they discover. And all of it originates with something that was copied into their brain at some point in their life.
Copying, then, is a fundamental operation of humanity - eliminating the RIGHT to make and alter copies changes imaginative, intelligent, creative humans in drone consumers.
As someone experienced with writing letters to Congressmen, I'm afraid I don't have much hope in making a change that way. But I am also with an organization - starting at least 3 years later than it should have, but hopefully it isn't too late - with the aim of changing American Consumers into American Citizens who have a stake in the laws governing them. With the entire nation (or even a significant portion) standing against these laws, no congressman who even contemplates another term would offer their vote.
The only way to get this thing ended it to arouse public opinion against it - to get Americans angry enough to override their apathy.
http://www.amfcc.org
Americans for Constitutional Copyright
The Constitution was written to protect us against government AND monopolies. Our legislators need to know that they ARE accountable to the Constitution and the American Citizenry will NOT allow those protections to be ignored - especially not for the sake of Entertainment Companies. Sorry, but I WON'T give up my liberties for the privilege of paying Disney for different uses of the Mouse (who should have been Public Domain in the 1980's.)
>>>Of course you don't own the music, any more than you own the text of a book. >>>
It may come as a surprise since current propaganda says exactly the opposite, but THEY don't own the music or the text of the book either. Publication involves a sale to the PUBLIC, not individuals, but the public at large. The public owns the music - the public owns the text of a book. The producer (or their agent) owns the COPYRIGHT, nothing more.
Simple concept here, if you want to maintain ownership of the work, don't publish. If you want to sell your ownership for a copyright, which may or may not earn you income, then, by all means, publish. But don't publish and then come back and say you still own the work, because it has never worked that way and it still does not work that way. Otherwise, why would copyrights expire?
It is precisely this kind of misunderstanding of the nature of copyright that has brought us to laws such as CTEA and the DMCA. Once you realize that the public has ownership of the works and that creators only own the copyright, copy protections, like they are putting on CDs, become criminal in themselves, limiting use of something belonging to the public and the individual purchaser. Making archive copies and space-shifting copies are legal, personal copies and do not infringe upon copyright. And these are the kind of copies that will be affected. Pirates will still be able to clone copies and sell them by the millions. Hackers will find a way to decrypt them and will purposefully distribute them across the internet to as wide an audience as they can - just because they can.
The best way to battle the small-time copier (the only people this kind of protection will stop) is to lower prices. I haven't bought a CD in more than a year and a half, because I don't think any of them are worth the price.
There is a war going on here that we have, so far, been on the losing side of. Anyone who has purchased a copy protected CD should rise up and do the same thing, band together, get a class action lawsuit started. Let's end this threat before all the CD's are copy protected.
>>The issue is about a company that saves your image and redistributes it while possibly making profits on banner ads, etc
If Google makes money with banner ads, that doesn't really have anything to do with posting thumbnails of images. They AREN'T making money from the images. They are providing a FREE service pointing out where to find these images. If the artist doesn't want visitors to his site, I don't know why he has a web page. If he does want visitors, I don't know why he has a problem with a search engine pointing people his direction.
You are making the assumption that something a person has SOLD still belongs to them. It doesn't. If I sell you a house that I put 10 long years into building, do I have the right to collect payment from you for the rest of my life? No, I decide what should be a fair price and if you pay that price, it becomes yours.
With copyright, it is Congress who is deciding the fair price to extract from the public (to whom the works have been sold) and they are reacting to the lobbying of corporations who aren't bound by human lifespan and wish to own these things forever. What makes you think the founding fathers would have used the words 'limited times' if they intended a period longer than human lifespan? Take a look at the various Statutes of Limitations if you want to see a real example of limits. Even murder is limited by the murderer's lifespan. Nobody deserves to live their entire life off of one creative work - it does not encourage the author to create more (the promote progress part of the Constitution,) nor does it benefit the public in any way (Copyright was sold to the people originally as a law to encourage learning.)
And I would be willing to bet that changing the copyright term to ten years would make very little difference in how many new works came out unless it actually increased. Since movie studios couldn't depend on income from their old copyrights and writers couldn't depend on income from their old novels and musicians couldn't depend on income from their old music, all of these would have to create more and more in order to maintain an income.
It's very egocentric to believe that one should continue to be compensated for something that took as little as a few minutes to produce.
And were I to arbitrarily choose the period of copyright term limits, it would be 20 years, the same as patents - is that absurd? Inventors only get to profit from their creations for twenty years! Let's make that life +70 too! Aren't they just as much of creators as a movie studio doing a remake (as so many 'new' movies are)?
The expiration of copyrights in ten years is NOT absurd. You list the fact that people live long lives now as a reason for copyrights to last longer as well. This reasoning is flawed. People do not live longer lives now. In fact, the longevity is actually less now than it was in the early days of our country.
For proof, take the first six presidents to die of natural causes, average their age - then take the last six presidents to die of natural causes and do the same. The first six presidents lived longer on the average.
The average lifespan of humankind has lengthened not because people are living longer, but because fewer infants and toddlers are dying. The maximum lifespan is roughly the same as it was 225 years ago.
Something Thomas Jefferson wrote argues for a shorter copyright term today than they had. To spread a book across the sparsely populated nation took weeks or months, sometimes even years. Now, a book is released nationwide on the same day. Instant availability to all potential buyers. 10 years is far more than necessary and, in fact, most books more than 10 years old aren't even in print anymore and earning their authors nothing anyway. There's no reason to keep these works from the Public Domain except a greedy thought that one day it might become valuable again.
>>As big corporations have both major parties in their pockets, the only way that this is going to change is if there's a mass voting out of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and frankly the public are sheep so that's never going to happen. I'm doing my bit (None of my guys got over 1% in the last election.) Are you?
In a different way than you - for one thing you don't need to vote democrats and republicans out of office, you only need to vote INCUMBENTS out of office and make sure they know why you are voting for their opposition (make sure their opposition knows why too.) That way, anyone with hopes of being re-elected will know that pleasing the people is necessary to that goal.
The other part of what needs to be done is to inform the public - in any and every way you can - about the erosion of rights for the benefit of ENTERTAINMENT corporations. That's an important point, let them know they are trading their Freedom of Speech for spoon fed entertainment (and they aren't allowed to complain about it either.)
"These are hypotheticals. We have no idea what he may or may not write," said RIAA spokesman Jano Cabrera.
That sentence says everything that is wrong with the attitudes of those wielding the DMCA as a weapon. It should not matter what Professor Felton or any other person (academic or not) should write - so long as it is not covered under the dangerous restrictions (i.e. national secrets, "Fire" in a crowded theater, etc.) Freedom of Speech is at issue here and someone's ENTERTAINMENT copyright does not deserve as much protection as an intellectual discourse. It appalls me that apparently, entertainment profits are more important than scientific knowledge.
Here's something else to consider - if you steal real property (like money from a bank) and wait a long time (like 7 years,) then you can come out of hiding, write a book about how you did it, admit to everyone that you did it, and the statute of limitations protects you from prosecution. Even if you murder someone (which has no statute of limitations) they cannot prosecute you after you're dead. But with copyright infringement (and copyright is for LIMITED TIMES, remember) you can still be prosecuted for criminal infringement if you wait 94 years before publishing the stolen IP.
How much more portable is a piece of electronic equipment that you have to put in a case, protect from water, dirt, being hit, etc?
My answer - I wasn't talking about e-book readers. I was talking about e-books themselves. Going on vacation - hotel rooms will soon, if they don't already, have internet connections in every room. Simply have your e-book accessible through your browser - password protected perhaps (to keep people from pirating it) and you can access your e-book from anywhere in the world without taking it along and risking damage. You can't do that with a paper book.
Actually, they shouldn't treat them the same way paper is treated. The potential of e-books (above and beyond uses of paper books) is
1. easy to search
2. easy to cut and paste favorite passages
3. does not require much storage space
4. is easily portable
And those are only a few of the potential advantages over paper books. Instead of using these things as a selling point, a fear of illicit trading (which would not happen if the e-books were priced reasonably - i.e. $1 per book maybe) they have not only locked out the potential advantages, but they also lock out many of the traditional uses.
Slashdot Mirror
You might like to read an article I wrote on this subject "Abandoned Intellectual Property" - you can find it on the links to articles section of my website.
If everything copyrighted had to be properly registered with the copyright office as was originally required, then the source code would be available from the copyright office once the work was declared PD.
One of the stupidest changes made in the 1976 revision to copyright law was the elimination of the registration requirement. Now everything in the world is automatically copyrighted, but no one is required to take any responsibility for their creations.
Tell me, what are you taking a picture of? Is it something you personally own that you created, on your own property, a house you built from your design, with every plant personally raised from a seed from genetics you designed as well? If it isn't, then you are using part of the Public Domain for your photograph. What makes you think you can take something that belongs to other people and own it yourself, forever?
Nobody creates from a vacuum and anyone who says they do is a liar or stupid. I've never seen a photograph (especially a photograph!) that was totally of the photographer's creativity. Most photography isn't creative hardly at all - it's skill, a good eye (the only creative aspect of unadulterated photos) and often simple blind luck. That isn't something to be rewarded with a lifetime (+70) monopoly.
And even if I could agree that YOU should have that monopoly, I certainly couldn't see giving it to your heirs to 4 generations. You want to provide for your heirs - start a trust fund.
Rant over.
Let's put the Constitution back into copyright: http://www.amfcc.org
>>why doesn't he publish his book under the public domain
Probably because he wouldn't be able to find a publisher with the kind of distribution he would want for his book. I talked with Jessica Litman a little bit about "Digital Copyright" and her choices when it came to publishing. She'd be perfectly happy to see the entire work available online, but her publisher wouldn't allow it.
I find it unlikely that Lessig would feel that much differently. He's a lawyer - can't be in too much need of the income. I'd think he would be trying to get the widest distribution possible, to have the greatest number of people exposed to the ideas he's presenting. GNU license for documents (or BSD) would be too limiting for most publishers who deal with mass publications.
OOOps! You're exactly right, and I guess I didn't really say what I meant. You don't own the copyright - i.e. the right to make and distribute copies. The AHRA does forgive personal copies as non-infringing.
>>But the fact is that barriers to accessing information create wealth. So in order for those barriers to come down, alternative means to create wealth must be created.
Why?
The government, nor the people, are responsible for maintaing the viability of business. Others have used the example of buggy-whip manufacterers at the beginning of the 20th century - a doomed business. The Statute of Anne in 1710 was not about keeping the Stationers' Guild in business - it was about changing the way the English looked at literature. No longer was it something owned forever by a single printer; it became something the printer and author could make money from for a limited time, but was destined for a place in the public commons, where anyone could use it without prejudice.
To paraphrase Lessig - from where we stand today we have two choices. 1) we can move forward into a world where everyone can be creative, limited only by a sensible return to original authors or 2) we can move backward into a new dark ages, where a few people control the intellectual wealth and share it only for an ever higher price and ever more restrictive rules of use.
Like Lessig, I can see which way we are moving, and I don't like the view. The technology is nearly here that would allow ordinary people to create animated movies from their own stories, or favorite books. I would like to see people able to share these works, but copyright law, as currently practised, will stand in the way, might even prevent the technology from becoming available to the public.
I believe copyright to be a necessary evil, but it has gone far beyond any sensible limitations. It's time Americans got together and insisted on a change.
Help out - http://www.amfcc.org
http://www.eff.org
Please stop spreading Entertainment Industry propaganda. You DO own the music you purchase - but you don't own the right to copy it. Check out Judge Birch's decision on the Wind Done Gone case where he brings up the fact that the Mitchell estate doesn't own "Gone With the Wind" - they own the copyright to "Gone With the Wind."
This is an important difference and makes all of this Pay-per-View/Listen very clearly something that belongs at BlockBuster. You aren't buying anything with these services and I, for one, am not going to use them.
http://www.amfcc.org
The case is Adobe vs. Softman and was run on /. yesterday - you can still find it in the Older Stuff section.
I can't remember where I saw it, but a recent Court case on whether or not you can resell software (First Sale Doctrine) was decided in favor of the reseller. The software was considered a product that was sold, not licensed, to the buyer.
"IMHO, Warner is entirely justified in attempting to stamp out unlicensed rental of retail prints, just as it already makes non-theatric hire licenses available at a lower price than that of theatric hire licenses (as would be required of a cinema or other commercial exhibitor). I say again, the cost of a print (for sale or rent) depends on the exhibition rights which are given to its owner."
Do you not believe in "First Sale Doctrine"? This is the part of the law that allows you to do things like sell (or rent) your purchase. A victory by Warner in this case is a loss for the people side of the equation. Right now (in the U.S. anyway) if you want to start renting out your VHS and DVD collections (it is illegal to rent CDs - the people lost in that lawsuit,) there is no law that says you can't. After obtaining the proper business permits, you're in business. Nor are you required to purchase any special versions of the material or pay any further royalties to the producers of that material. If Warner wins in this case that could change. You could lose your rights to sell or rent your property.
http://www.amfcc.org
It must depend on the politician. I have had equal success with both snail-mail and e-mail. On both, the return letter said, basically, 'thanks for your interest, the law you are writing about is like this..., and I will keep your thoughts in mind should this issue come up before us again.'
They read just enough to get an idea of what you're writing about and which side you're on. Although, after a second letter to the local representative, I actually received a phone call from one of his staff. And he was the one who received only email from me.
Your writing about the founders of the United States and how they perceived intellectual property suggests you understand the issue. However, farther down you suggest DRM could support the same compromise between producers and users of IP. It cannot.
Digital Rights Management is about limiting access based on payment. The user of IP will have only the choice of paying or missing out. There can be no compromise between producers and users if DRM is functional.
The continuation of the current trends in copyright and related legislation will result in a world of repetition, old, privately owned ideas forked out to the public again and again (it is happening already) with the possibility of new ideas discouraged from birth (humans learn from copying - all creativity comes from copying and if children are taught never to copy, they will never create.) The risk of treading upon someone's copyright will be too strong and would-be creators will choose another line of work, keeping their creative endeavors to themselves and close friends only.
The enlightened period of the treatment of Intellectual Property was from 1710 until 1909. Since then copyright law has been regressing back into the old Stationer's copyright and, with DRM firmly in place, it will be like the control of intellectual works that the Church held prior to invention of the printing press, control of what was publicly available limited to a very few.
This kind of thing needs to be fought with every fiber of our being - NO DRM - at all. They've got more legal protection than should have ever been allowed and now they want physical protection backed by legal protection. Again, we should all stand up and raise our voices with a resounding "NO!"
Join AMFCC and learn how to spread the word, how to convince ordinary people that this is important. http://www.amfcc.org
If you are using 100% original code, you don't owe anything to the GPL. If you aren't using 100% original code, you are making a derivitive work.
Example: Mr. Lucas, I only used the Millenium Falcon in one battle scene and it was on the edge of the screen....
Copyright law does not give you the right to redistribute ANY significant portion of someone else's work. If you can't claim "Fair Use" and prove it, you are violating copyright.
It doesn't require an understanding of computers - what do you think the human mind does? All those years of schooling and people still don't seem to understand that the human brain is basically a system of software that takes what it sees/hears/tastes/feels/smells and copies that. That's input - for output the mind rearranges, blurs, sharpens (basic photoshop utilities) adds a bit from this other thing that was copied on a different day and turns it on its side. Humans don't create, they discover. And all of it originates with something that was copied into their brain at some point in their life.
Copying, then, is a fundamental operation of humanity - eliminating the RIGHT to make and alter copies changes imaginative, intelligent, creative humans in drone consumers.
As someone experienced with writing letters to Congressmen, I'm afraid I don't have much hope in making a change that way. But I am also with an organization - starting at least 3 years later than it should have, but hopefully it isn't too late - with the aim of changing American Consumers into American Citizens who have a stake in the laws governing them. With the entire nation (or even a significant portion) standing against these laws, no congressman who even contemplates another term would offer their vote.
The only way to get this thing ended it to arouse public opinion against it - to get Americans angry enough to override their apathy.
http://www.amfcc.org
Americans for Constitutional Copyright
The Constitution was written to protect us against government AND monopolies. Our legislators need to know that they ARE accountable to the Constitution and the American Citizenry will NOT allow those protections to be ignored - especially not for the sake of Entertainment Companies. Sorry, but I WON'T give up my liberties for the privilege of paying Disney for different uses of the Mouse (who should have been Public Domain in the 1980's.)
EFF is another good group to join.
You've got it exactly right - nobody deserves compensation forever on something that took a few moments (or even a few years) to create.
Visit my website - send me an email. There's an organization starting up that needs people like you. http://www.amfcc.org
>>>Of course you don't own the music, any more than you own the text of a book. >>>
It may come as a surprise since current propaganda says exactly the opposite, but THEY don't own the music or the text of the book either. Publication involves a sale to the PUBLIC, not individuals, but the public at large. The public owns the music - the public owns the text of a book. The producer (or their agent) owns the COPYRIGHT, nothing more.
Simple concept here, if you want to maintain ownership of the work, don't publish. If you want to sell your ownership for a copyright, which may or may not earn you income, then, by all means, publish. But don't publish and then come back and say you still own the work, because it has never worked that way and it still does not work that way. Otherwise, why would copyrights expire?
It is precisely this kind of misunderstanding of the nature of copyright that has brought us to laws such as CTEA and the DMCA. Once you realize that the public has ownership of the works and that creators only own the copyright, copy protections, like they are putting on CDs, become criminal in themselves, limiting use of something belonging to the public and the individual purchaser. Making archive copies and space-shifting copies are legal, personal copies and do not infringe upon copyright. And these are the kind of copies that will be affected. Pirates will still be able to clone copies and sell them by the millions. Hackers will find a way to decrypt them and will purposefully distribute them across the internet to as wide an audience as they can - just because they can.
The best way to battle the small-time copier (the only people this kind of protection will stop) is to lower prices. I haven't bought a CD in more than a year and a half, because I don't think any of them are worth the price.
There is a war going on here that we have, so far, been on the losing side of. Anyone who has purchased a copy protected CD should rise up and do the same thing, band together, get a class action lawsuit started. Let's end this threat before all the CD's are copy protected.
>>The issue is about a company that saves your image and redistributes it while possibly making profits on banner ads, etc
If Google makes money with banner ads, that doesn't really have anything to do with posting thumbnails of images. They AREN'T making money from the images. They are providing a FREE service pointing out where to find these images. If the artist doesn't want visitors to his site, I don't know why he has a web page. If he does want visitors, I don't know why he has a problem with a search engine pointing people his direction.
You are making the assumption that something a person has SOLD still belongs to them. It doesn't. If I sell you a house that I put 10 long years into building, do I have the right to collect payment from you for the rest of my life? No, I decide what should be a fair price and if you pay that price, it becomes yours.
With copyright, it is Congress who is deciding the fair price to extract from the public (to whom the works have been sold) and they are reacting to the lobbying of corporations who aren't bound by human lifespan and wish to own these things forever. What makes you think the founding fathers would have used the words 'limited times' if they intended a period longer than human lifespan? Take a look at the various Statutes of Limitations if you want to see a real example of limits. Even murder is limited by the murderer's lifespan. Nobody deserves to live their entire life off of one creative work - it does not encourage the author to create more (the promote progress part of the Constitution,) nor does it benefit the public in any way (Copyright was sold to the people originally as a law to encourage learning.)
And I would be willing to bet that changing the copyright term to ten years would make very little difference in how many new works came out unless it actually increased. Since movie studios couldn't depend on income from their old copyrights and writers couldn't depend on income from their old novels and musicians couldn't depend on income from their old music, all of these would have to create more and more in order to maintain an income.
It's very egocentric to believe that one should continue to be compensated for something that took as little as a few minutes to produce.
And were I to arbitrarily choose the period of copyright term limits, it would be 20 years, the same as patents - is that absurd? Inventors only get to profit from their creations for twenty years! Let's make that life +70 too! Aren't they just as much of creators as a movie studio doing a remake (as so many 'new' movies are)?
The expiration of copyrights in ten years is NOT absurd. You list the fact that people live long lives now as a reason for copyrights to last longer as well. This reasoning is flawed. People do not live longer lives now. In fact, the longevity is actually less now than it was in the early days of our country.
For proof, take the first six presidents to die of natural causes, average their age - then take the last six presidents to die of natural causes and do the same. The first six presidents lived longer on the average.
The average lifespan of humankind has lengthened not because people are living longer, but because fewer infants and toddlers are dying. The maximum lifespan is roughly the same as it was 225 years ago.
Something Thomas Jefferson wrote argues for a shorter copyright term today than they had. To spread a book across the sparsely populated nation took weeks or months, sometimes even years. Now, a book is released nationwide on the same day. Instant availability to all potential buyers. 10 years is far more than necessary and, in fact, most books more than 10 years old aren't even in print anymore and earning their authors nothing anyway. There's no reason to keep these works from the Public Domain except a greedy thought that one day it might become valuable again.
>>As big corporations have both major parties in their pockets, the only way that this is going to change is if there's a mass voting out of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and frankly the public are sheep so that's never going to happen. I'm doing my bit (None of my guys got over 1% in the last election.) Are you?
In a different way than you - for one thing you don't need to vote democrats and republicans out of office, you only need to vote INCUMBENTS out of office and make sure they know why you are voting for their opposition (make sure their opposition knows why too.) That way, anyone with hopes of being re-elected will know that pleasing the people is necessary to that goal.
The other part of what needs to be done is to inform the public - in any and every way you can - about the erosion of rights for the benefit of ENTERTAINMENT corporations. That's an important point, let them know they are trading their Freedom of Speech for spoon fed entertainment (and they aren't allowed to complain about it either.)
"These are hypotheticals. We have no idea what he may or may not write," said RIAA spokesman Jano Cabrera.
That sentence says everything that is wrong with the attitudes of those wielding the DMCA as a weapon. It should not matter what Professor Felton or any other person (academic or not) should write - so long as it is not covered under the dangerous restrictions (i.e. national secrets, "Fire" in a crowded theater, etc.) Freedom of Speech is at issue here and someone's ENTERTAINMENT copyright does not deserve as much protection as an intellectual discourse. It appalls me that apparently, entertainment profits are more important than scientific knowledge.
Here's something else to consider - if you steal real property (like money from a bank) and wait a long time (like 7 years,) then you can come out of hiding, write a book about how you did it, admit to everyone that you did it, and the statute of limitations protects you from prosecution. Even if you murder someone (which has no statute of limitations) they cannot prosecute you after you're dead. But with copyright infringement (and copyright is for LIMITED TIMES, remember) you can still be prosecuted for criminal infringement if you wait 94 years before publishing the stolen IP.
4. is easily portable
How much more portable is a piece of electronic equipment that you have to put in a case, protect from water, dirt, being hit, etc?
My answer - I wasn't talking about e-book readers. I was talking about e-books themselves. Going on vacation - hotel rooms will soon, if they don't already, have internet connections in every room. Simply have your e-book accessible through your browser - password protected perhaps (to keep people from pirating it) and you can access your e-book from anywhere in the world without taking it along and risking damage. You can't do that with a paper book.
Actually, they shouldn't treat them the same way paper is treated. The potential of e-books (above and beyond uses of paper books) is
1. easy to search
2. easy to cut and paste favorite passages
3. does not require much storage space
4. is easily portable
And those are only a few of the potential advantages over paper books. Instead of using these things as a selling point, a fear of illicit trading (which would not happen if the e-books were priced reasonably - i.e. $1 per book maybe) they have not only locked out the potential advantages, but they also lock out many of the traditional uses.