>>Taking another's property without permission. Intellectual property is property, thus the word "property" in the name.
Yes, Intellectual Property IS property. However, it is property that belongs to the Public - not the copyright holder. This is really a simple concept so I really don't know why so many people don't understand it (except of course, those greedy copyright holders who put out propaganda to the contrary.) When a work is PUBLISHED (see the word - its root is 'public') the work itself becomes the property of the public. (Read the Featured Article on http://www.limitingcopyright.com)
The copyright holder owns only the copyright. Yes, the Napster service allowed copyright infringement - but not theft. Since the property no longer belongs to the copyright holder it can't be stolen from them.
We should also remember - on the point of music - that the original copyright law did not include musical compositions, although, unlike computer programs, written music had been in existence nearly as long as the written word. Although I've seen nothing written as a record on the subject of music and copyright, no brilliant gems of wisdom from Jefferson, Madison, or Benjamin Franklin, the very point of its exclusion leaves the question of why. Was it deliberate, or did it merely slip beneath notice?
My personal view is that the exclusion was deliberate - that our founding fathers saw no reason to include music in copyright because music is so very much a social thing, belonging to every listener, theirs to hum or sing or modify to their own taste. I believe the men who founded the U.S. would be aghast that music could be locked under copyright law - music, more than information, demands to be free.
This bill does not even start on what is required to bring copyright law to a level back in line with the requirements of the Constitution.
What we need is something equivalent to the Statute of Anne (England 1710) where copyright for authors originated and the Public Domain was created. Prior to that, publishers owned all published material (sound familiar?) and authors, if paid at all, received only a pittance.
Ever since then, publishers have been working to regain their power and now that they have it, we need to yank it out from under their feet, not ply them with half-measures that will probably not even make it out of the House without Industry approval.
Politicians who tell you that changes need to come gradually are trying to maintain the status quo. It is the gradual changes that got us where we are today, an extension here, an addition to the rights included there, need another extension, oops - now we need to cover music, time for another extension and, while we're all here, lets make it against the law to break any encryption we might like to put on our digital offerings.
It wasn't a gradual change that created the United States - nor was it gradual when the old, very corrupt, spoils system of government was replaced with the civil service. Nor when the government instituted environmental restrictions (after Love Canal.)
Gradual changes are what they do when they want to ease into something that ISN'T good for the people overall - just to see if anybody notices. If they don't, another little change is made, and another after that.
When government actually gets off its tail and does something good for the nation, they do it quickly (so that the people will re-elect them come the next election.) If the people are so incensed that the politicians have no doubt of their collective anger, change happens nearly overnight.
We need to all write to our Congressmen - tell them the Boucher/Cannon bill is a start, but it isn't enough - not even close.
The copyright is on the original (once the work is fixed - it is protected by copyright.) Therefore, you would need the owner's permission to make the full copy. Okay, give yourself permission.
Now, you have the original and a copy. You hand over the copy to a publisher, keeping the original to yourself, and sell the copyright. Even though you still hold the original fixed copy, you have sold the right to make any more copies. If you Xerox another YOU have committed copyright infringement.
I hope this example makes you realize that copyrights shouldn't be for sale. As the constitution intended, copyright should be limited to those who created the works.
As an avid copyright researcher, I'd like to know where there is a provision that illegal works can't be covered under copyright. It isn't in Title 17 of the U.S. Code (Copyright Law) as I'm sure I would have noticed it during my 3 indepth treks through the murky twists and turns and redundancy of the law.
So far as I am aware, the legality of a work has nothing to do with whether or not it may enjoy copyright protection. If the work is illegal to publish (such as a computer virus or a photo-journal of child pornography,) then it may not be legally published and the copyright protection becomes moot. Publication and copyright are separate as of the 1976 copyright act and the work neither has to be registered nor carry a notice and it is still copyrighted. Interoffice memoes are copyrighted. Desktop doodles are copyrighted. Legality does not come into it at all. An illegal copyright is some claiming a copyright on something that's genuine copyright belongs to another, or a claim of copyright on a Public Domain work.
>>The problem is that copyright law are so horrible abused by huge amounts of people that the situation just has to be dealt with.
Yes, copyright is being abused by huge numbers of people, all at the behest of Congress - the Corporate entities who own copyrights.
Millions of copiers state that they aren't really stealing - that it's the RIAA (etc) who are the real thieves. If copyright law protected ONLY the author, this excuse would become nothing but a blatant lie, or they would not so readily make illegal copies.
With corporations owning the copyrights, and the copyrights lasting well beyond any reasonable 'limited times' as well as radio and television copying being permitted (even taxed in the case of tapes) it is easy to understand why people see nothing wrong with making copies. "If it's legal to tape off the radio and television - hey, the internet isn't really different."
We don't need draconian laws like the DMCA - we need to change the copyright law itself to something people can, without any recourse to saying they'll obey because it's the law, agree is the right thing to do.
People don't disobey laws they respect - that's why most people, even if they own guns, don't go around killing other people. That's why most people don't go around stealing other people's property even if they see a car door unlocked or a back door left open. It isn't right.
But people don't see any harm in driving faster than the speed limit, or changing lanes without using their flasher, or making their own copies of music and sharing them on the internet. Any harm, if there really is any harm, is invisible to them and they won't obey the law consistently as long as they don't respect it.
Take away the corporate ownership of copyrights and limit those copyrights to those who do the creating, and it might come a lot closer to being something people can respect.
You're exactly right. Where trust is not expected it is never found. Monitering, of any kind, makes an employee feel like they're in a fishbowl and that kind of feeling affects productivity. The knowledge that your boss can spy on you at any given moment becomes more restrictive the longer it goes on. I used to work under a camera and came home with stress headaches almost every day - not because I wasn't working, but that I knew I could be watched in everything I did.
As an employer, I would never spy on someone who worked for me. If the work is done in a timely fashion, and, of course, done correctly, nothing more is required.
You've provided a lot of links - tell me, are the dead tree news outlets saying the same? What about Television - where has the DMCA and the Sklyarov arrest been mentioned? CNN? NBC Nightly News? Or has it been mentioned anywhere other than the internet? Techies and Geeks and people like me get their news online, most of the rest of the world uses newspapers, news magazines, television and radio.
Comparing copyright infringement to breaking into a house is a bad analogy. In the United States, where the DMCA is active, the owners of the creative works are not the owners of the copyright. Creative works are sold to the public in exchange for the copyright - which makes copy protection a crime against the public.
An analogy I use in one of my articles on my own website is the payments you make on a car loan. The car is yours from the moment you purchase it, but the company who financed the car (the copyright owner) can demand payment for a certain period of time. The public makes payments on IP by individual purchases and those who acquire the material without paying for it are defaulting on the loan. But when the copyright owner takes that property and puts locks on it, demanding the public to pay for a key before they can use their own property - that's flat wrong.
Copyright analogy to a car already restricts what kind of gas you can use, how many people can ride before you must pay extra, and disallows any modifications. That's too much already.
The DMCA needs to go. CTEA needs to go. All copyright law from 1909 on is in question. (Industry wrote all copyright law from 1909 to the present day - Congress only rubber stamped it.)
This is an important issue and we all need to become active in getting some changes made.
Apathetic Americans have lost more than you know - they have even forgotten WHO those works REALLY belong to. You said, 'companies demand protection for their media.' Right there, you add yourself to one of those above mentioned Americans. Those companies DON'T own the material they are protecting so viligantly. WE DO. ALL they own is the copyright.
Read the copyright act (deadly boring, difficult to follow, downright confusing in places) and see what I mean. Not in the entire 150 or so pages is there even any mention of the work - only the copyright. In legalese - if it isn't mentioned, it isn't there.
The Public owns all copyrighted works as well as all material in the public domain. That's right, we own it all. From the moment of pulication, it's ours. The copyright is a payback method, much like your car payment, a length of time for the seller to collect on the sale of his work to the public.
Read the featured article on my website - it's about that comparison to car payments. Those works are ours and, while we should be required to pay a reasonable price for them, we shouldn't have to pay for the keys every time we want to go for a drive.
Politicians, Judges, lawyers, and, indeed, regular American citizens all need to share the blame for allowing ridiculous lawsuits to occur. Two excellent books on the subject were written by Philip Howard - "The Death of Common Sense" and "The Lost Art of Drawing the Line."
People don't want Judges to judge - that much power in a single pair of hands scares Americans. And everybody is out for himself, not caring how a decision might affect the rest of the people - only thinking of getting money from a settlement or judgement.
Lawyers only fall in the blame through the fact of the kind of cases they will take and argue. If no lawyer would take a frivolous case (like against Barney insults - an obvious Freedom of Speech issue) then frivolous cases would not exist.
Judges, even when they're allowed to exercise their authority (which isn't all the time) are unsure of how much authority they actually have and generally let the jury take responsibility for judgements.
Politicians get the blame for everything (of course) but here, since law originates in the political process, they have the capability to instill reason - not rules, but reason - and they don't. That's why laws keep getting longer and longer. Take those IP laws that these Barney proponents are using in their scare tactics - the original copyright law took less than a single page. Current copyright law is something like 150 pages, most of which is devoted to the details of how the rules work, precisely. Such laws do not easily move through time - old technologies fade away, making entire portions obsolete and new technologies require new additions.
Law is not supposed to be a cancerous growth that chokes the life out of a society. It is supposed to be a guideline, set out in generalities, reflective of the people agreeing to its tenents.
It's easy to understand your confusion, but here is why Disney will lose Mickey Mouse if the copyright to "Steamboat Willie" expires.
Mickey Mouse isn't a particular drawing that Disney can trademark - he's a character. Specific drawings of characters may be trademarked, but the character itself cannot be. And a character becomes Public Domain the moment the FIRST work it appeared in becomes Public Domain. Therefore, Mickey Mouse will become Public Domain when the movie "Steamboat Willie" becomes Public Domain.
You wrote: "If I spend a year writing a book, that book cost me a year. If you copy the book without just compensation, you're stealing some portion of my time, and my work, directly."
--Just compensation -- that is a loaded comment. Just what is 'just compensation' for a year of your time. My company pays me about $50,000 - and that is 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (at least - no overtime pay so more hours don't really count.) Let's change copyright law to read - copyright protection exists until the copyright owner has cleared $50,000 over cost of production at which time the work becomes public domain.
Sounds fair to me and every single movie released last weekend would be in the public domain next weekend - we wouldn't need DVD protection, because, by the time DVDs come out the movie would be public domain. Popular CDs over a year old would be public domain.
Maybe that would work - instead of time limits, change it to money limits (with a time limit for unpopular stuff, just in case someone might like to preserve it for posterity.) Take the average American income (for whatever length of time the work required to create) and when that point is reached, above and beyond expenses - PUBLIC DOMAIN.
Right now copyright protection expires - about a century down the road on those works by the Freelancers. Since they aren't going to be available in the archives (the publishers are going to remove them) where are they going to be in a century when their copyright expires and they become part of the Public Domain?
And that is assuming that Disney will allow copyright to expire. Expect them to be back in 2018 for another 20 year extension and in 2038 and in 2058 and in 2078.
Copyright is supposed to be for 'limited times.' Current copyright is only limited on a cosmic scale - 150 years is a drop in the bucket compared to infinity, but it isn't limited where a human lifespan is concerned. There is no realistic limit on anything created during your lifetime because you will NEVER see it in the Public Domain.
You can't count on copyright expiration to recover the articles that will likely be lost when removed from the archives.
There WILL be a memory hole - the Judgement says that the publishers must EITHER pay the freelancers for the use of their works online OR remove the works. If the publishers choose to remove the works they owe NOTHING to the freelancers. All they lose is however much it costs to have the works removed. And, of course, the fact of holes in their archives.
Copyright reformists are counting this as a victory, but I can't see it that way. EVERYBODY involved in this one loses. The publishers, the freelancers, and, most of all, any researchers that might want to use those archives.
They didn't even win anything for the Freelancers since the contracts have since been changed to allow for electronic publication.
Perhaps, if the Judgement demanded that the publishers pay up, then it might be a victory, but not when they have the choice of removing the works and paying nothing.
---Actually, the legal code is quite understandable if you actually bother to sit down and look at it. Maybe you should try. You are right, however, in that it is rather complex. However, that is not without reason. It needs that level of complexity to properly carry out its function and protect who and what it was designed to protect. The simple statement heard so often, "the law is far more complex than it needs to be", is one made out of incredible ignorance.---
I must disagree. Read a book called "The Death of Common Sense" by Philip Howard. Complexities in law are placed there to eliminate the requirement for the use of Judgement - an important part in any endeavor where variables are found (as in EVERYTHING!) The belief that having a rule for each possibility is, in the first place, impossible and, in the second place, it can be nothing except grossly unfair. Small variances make the same problem very different in separate locations/situations. The same rules cannot cover both fairly.
...in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Obviously, the men who have been elected to lead this country, those involved in the drafting of the proposed Hague Treaty (and, yes, the U.S. was involved in writing it - they did the same with the WIPO treaty) have either never read those words, do not understand their simple meaning, have forgotten they are supposed to support/defend the ideology of the Constitutioin, or else they no longer care about the duty and responsibility inherent in their position.
And I haven't even brought out the 1st Amendment. This proposed treaty violates the ideals of the Preamble.
Establish Justice - under OUR laws, not some other nation's (if the law should apply to us, it would already apply.)
Insure domestic Tranquility - I may be one of those rioting in protest over this one!
Secure the Blessings of Liberty - As signatories to the Hague Treaty, the only liberty would be to have no international dealings without fully understanding the pertinent laws of ALL affected nations.
--- How is it "illegal" to use any facility to acquire something you already have the right to "own." ---
Very simply - you don't "own" that copy. You own the copy you bought.
The NET act (which has the $1000 worth in 180 days) is NOT the difference between actionable copyright infringement and no liability. The NET act allows CRIMINAL prosecution for anyone involved in copyright infringement - profit or no-profit.
Personal copying has always been illegal except where it is "Fair Use." Sony vs. Universal decided time-shifting of television programs was 'Fair Use.' The AHRA decided that archival copies and space-shifting copies was 'Fair Use.'
The judge in the Napster case decided that copying from Napster was NOT 'Fair Use.'
With a proper voters digest - like they used to have in Washington State - your non-profit organizations wouldn't need to send out postcards saying 'vote for ----.' These pamphlets, received well ahead of election day, contained the candidates stand on major issues (all the candidates!) and any bills that were coming up for popular vote. Pros and cons were attached (mostly to the bills.) This allowed a registered voter to make an educated decision as to which candidate most closely fit their own beliefs and how the different bills might affect their lives.
And I really doubt McCain's idea of campaign finance reform is anything close to mine. For one thing, he probably isn't dead set against corporate donations - ever. Corporations aren't people, they don't have a vote and I don't want them voting with their money either!
The internet could be the way to change how people get to know their candidates. Web space is cheap - you don't need a lot of campaign funds to run a site. Place the voter's pamphlet there, too, with printed copies available for the asking at libraries. Your non-profit organizations could put their opinion in the pamphlet - I'd even allow corporations to do the same (vote for this republican - he wants to help build a pay-per-view world.)
And when Election day came, there's a copy there, too, to peruse while you're waiting in line!
Congress only consists of hundreds of people, not thousands - but that is really immaterial. The major problem with our election process is campaign finance. If all moneys offered by corporation had to be 'under the table' and the penalties for accepting these 'bribes' were severe enough (i.e. the end of the politician's career and maybe even jail time) then we might see a change in how our Congress works.
A candidate may accept up to $1000 from individuals, but PACs (special accounts set up by corporations) can donate $5000 each. A company like AOL/Time Warner probably has half a dozen different PACs (more than $30,000 potential to a candidate.) And that doesn't count the party contributions! This buys laws that favor corporations.
Candidates should have an even playing field - equal opportunity to present their qualifications - perhaps debates could be aired as news (costing the candidates nothing but time) - regional and including both Senate and House candidates, major parties, minor parties, and independents. Money should have nothing whatsoever to do with the choice of one candidate over another.
A position in Congress, or the White House, should be considered, not an opportunity, but a responsibility - a heavy one. The reaction of a candidate, upon hearing that they have been elected should not be "I won! I won!" but something more like "Oh, God, what have I gotten myself into?" Anybody who actually WANTS the job, shouldn't have it. We should be finding and electing people who have a natural sense of what is right and what is wrong, not just the slickest, silver-tongued former lawyer who has more bad things to say about his opponent than good things to say about himself.
If money were not an issue, maybe we could get more of those kind of people in office and maybe that would bring a bit more sanity to our Government.
Take a look at CIPA - the court declared it unconstitutional and it's back. Strike down the DMCA and the same thing could happen, Congress coming back with something that has been changed enough to allow Professors to publish papers, but still limiting everything else. We need to change Congress and Campaign Finance is a good place to start.
The problem is that Congress is no longer doing more than offering lip service to the Constitution. At least 4 amendments in the Bill of Rights are seriously challenged and Article 1 Section 8 Clause 8 (the copyright clause) has resulted in a law unrecognizable from what is written there.
The 1st Amendment, among other things, gives you the right to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Of course, with the number of petitions I've signed, it is painfully clear they aren't paying any attention to that one either.
---The same goes for Napster's ease-of-theft of music. (I'm not anti-napster, I used it many times as it is "legally" intended; for "personal backup" of CDs I own as well as checking out new music before I spend $20 on a CD.)---
If you have used Napster for personal backup of CDs you own or sampling new music before buying the CD, you have not used it in a LEGAL manner. If this were a legal use they would have gotten Sony's 'substantial non-infringing uses' defense.
While sampling and personal backup could both be considered "Fair Use," the RIAA does not see it that way. If you've used Napster to download anything the owner of the material did not approve for download, you are infringing upon copyrights.
I totally agree with the idea of this thread and I think Yoda said it best - "Stopped they must be, on this, all depends."
----We can't go jumping down everyone's throat just because their new products include "copy protection".----
YES, WE CAN -- AND SHOULD!!
Copy protection should be illegal. Copyright law already provides far, far more protection than any 'creative' work deserves. Putting copy protection on something takes away all sorts of Freedoms like 'Fair Use,' like making archive, personal, backup copies, like what happens when (if ever) something actually completes the journey to the Public Domain!! The companies surely will not distribute unprotected copies when this happens.
Give up your Freedoms if you like, but I'm going to fight for mine.
I believe in the Constitution of the United States. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 embodies my idea of copyright. When copyright law reflects what our founding fathers wrote down to prevent the kind of monopolies we are currently seeing, then I will once more have respect for copyright law.
Copyright is for Creators, not corporations.
Copyright is for only a limited time and then the work becomes elevated to the Public Domain.
Copyright is only an incentive to creators urging them to further effort, to promote the progress of the arts and sciences.
If all of these things were true (as were intended) then I think most people would respect copyright, but when all the money is going to the big corporations who use it to buy Congress - how do you respect that???
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>>Taking another's property without permission. Intellectual property is property, thus the word "property" in the name.
Yes, Intellectual Property IS property. However, it is property that belongs to the Public - not the copyright holder. This is really a simple concept so I really don't know why so many people don't understand it (except of course, those greedy copyright holders who put out propaganda to the contrary.) When a work is PUBLISHED (see the word - its root is 'public') the work itself becomes the property of the public. (Read the Featured Article on http://www.limitingcopyright.com)
The copyright holder owns only the copyright. Yes, the Napster service allowed copyright infringement - but not theft. Since the property no longer belongs to the copyright holder it can't be stolen from them.
We should also remember - on the point of music - that the original copyright law did not include musical compositions, although, unlike computer programs, written music had been in existence nearly as long as the written word. Although I've seen nothing written as a record on the subject of music and copyright, no brilliant gems of wisdom from Jefferson, Madison, or Benjamin Franklin, the very point of its exclusion leaves the question of why. Was it deliberate, or did it merely slip beneath notice?
My personal view is that the exclusion was deliberate - that our founding fathers saw no reason to include music in copyright because music is so very much a social thing, belonging to every listener, theirs to hum or sing or modify to their own taste. I believe the men who founded the U.S. would be aghast that music could be locked under copyright law - music, more than information, demands to be free.
This bill does not even start on what is required to bring copyright law to a level back in line with the requirements of the Constitution.
What we need is something equivalent to the Statute of Anne (England 1710) where copyright for authors originated and the Public Domain was created. Prior to that, publishers owned all published material (sound familiar?) and authors, if paid at all, received only a pittance.
Ever since then, publishers have been working to regain their power and now that they have it, we need to yank it out from under their feet, not ply them with half-measures that will probably not even make it out of the House without Industry approval.
Politicians who tell you that changes need to come gradually are trying to maintain the status quo. It is the gradual changes that got us where we are today, an extension here, an addition to the rights included there, need another extension, oops - now we need to cover music, time for another extension and, while we're all here, lets make it against the law to break any encryption we might like to put on our digital offerings.
It wasn't a gradual change that created the United States - nor was it gradual when the old, very corrupt, spoils system of government was replaced with the civil service. Nor when the government instituted environmental restrictions (after Love Canal.)
Gradual changes are what they do when they want to ease into something that ISN'T good for the people overall - just to see if anybody notices. If they don't, another little change is made, and another after that.
When government actually gets off its tail and does something good for the nation, they do it quickly (so that the people will re-elect them come the next election.) If the people are so incensed that the politicians have no doubt of their collective anger, change happens nearly overnight.
We need to all write to our Congressmen - tell them the Boucher/Cannon bill is a start, but it isn't enough - not even close.
If this is a serious question -
The copyright is on the original (once the work is fixed - it is protected by copyright.) Therefore, you would need the owner's permission to make the full copy. Okay, give yourself permission.
Now, you have the original and a copy. You hand over the copy to a publisher, keeping the original to yourself, and sell the copyright. Even though you still hold the original fixed copy, you have sold the right to make any more copies. If you Xerox another YOU have committed copyright infringement.
I hope this example makes you realize that copyrights shouldn't be for sale. As the constitution intended, copyright should be limited to those who created the works.
As an avid copyright researcher, I'd like to know where there is a provision that illegal works can't be covered under copyright. It isn't in Title 17 of the U.S. Code (Copyright Law) as I'm sure I would have noticed it during my 3 indepth treks through the murky twists and turns and redundancy of the law.
So far as I am aware, the legality of a work has nothing to do with whether or not it may enjoy copyright protection. If the work is illegal to publish (such as a computer virus or a photo-journal of child pornography,) then it may not be legally published and the copyright protection becomes moot. Publication and copyright are separate as of the 1976 copyright act and the work neither has to be registered nor carry a notice and it is still copyrighted. Interoffice memoes are copyrighted. Desktop doodles are copyrighted. Legality does not come into it at all. An illegal copyright is some claiming a copyright on something that's genuine copyright belongs to another, or a claim of copyright on a Public Domain work.
>>The problem is that copyright law are so horrible abused by huge amounts of people that the situation just has to be dealt with.
Yes, copyright is being abused by huge numbers of people, all at the behest of Congress - the Corporate entities who own copyrights.
Millions of copiers state that they aren't really stealing - that it's the RIAA (etc) who are the real thieves. If copyright law protected ONLY the author, this excuse would become nothing but a blatant lie, or they would not so readily make illegal copies.
With corporations owning the copyrights, and the copyrights lasting well beyond any reasonable 'limited times' as well as radio and television copying being permitted (even taxed in the case of tapes) it is easy to understand why people see nothing wrong with making copies. "If it's legal to tape off the radio and television - hey, the internet isn't really different."
We don't need draconian laws like the DMCA - we need to change the copyright law itself to something people can, without any recourse to saying they'll obey because it's the law, agree is the right thing to do.
People don't disobey laws they respect - that's why most people, even if they own guns, don't go around killing other people. That's why most people don't go around stealing other people's property even if they see a car door unlocked or a back door left open. It isn't right.
But people don't see any harm in driving faster than the speed limit, or changing lanes without using their flasher, or making their own copies of music and sharing them on the internet. Any harm, if there really is any harm, is invisible to them and they won't obey the law consistently as long as they don't respect it.
Take away the corporate ownership of copyrights and limit those copyrights to those who do the creating, and it might come a lot closer to being something people can respect.
You're exactly right. Where trust is not expected it is never found. Monitering, of any kind, makes an employee feel like they're in a fishbowl and that kind of feeling affects productivity. The knowledge that your boss can spy on you at any given moment becomes more restrictive the longer it goes on. I used to work under a camera and came home with stress headaches almost every day - not because I wasn't working, but that I knew I could be watched in everything I did.
As an employer, I would never spy on someone who worked for me. If the work is done in a timely fashion, and, of course, done correctly, nothing more is required.
You've provided a lot of links - tell me, are the dead tree news outlets saying the same? What about Television - where has the DMCA and the Sklyarov arrest been mentioned? CNN? NBC Nightly News? Or has it been mentioned anywhere other than the internet? Techies and Geeks and people like me get their news online, most of the rest of the world uses newspapers, news magazines, television and radio.
Comparing copyright infringement to breaking into a house is a bad analogy. In the United States, where the DMCA is active, the owners of the creative works are not the owners of the copyright. Creative works are sold to the public in exchange for the copyright - which makes copy protection a crime against the public.
An analogy I use in one of my articles on my own website is the payments you make on a car loan. The car is yours from the moment you purchase it, but the company who financed the car (the copyright owner) can demand payment for a certain period of time. The public makes payments on IP by individual purchases and those who acquire the material without paying for it are defaulting on the loan. But when the copyright owner takes that property and puts locks on it, demanding the public to pay for a key before they can use their own property - that's flat wrong.
Copyright analogy to a car already restricts what kind of gas you can use, how many people can ride before you must pay extra, and disallows any modifications. That's too much already.
The DMCA needs to go. CTEA needs to go. All copyright law from 1909 on is in question. (Industry wrote all copyright law from 1909 to the present day - Congress only rubber stamped it.)
This is an important issue and we all need to become active in getting some changes made.
Apathetic Americans have lost more than you know - they have even forgotten WHO those works REALLY belong to. You said, 'companies demand protection for their media.' Right there, you add yourself to one of those above mentioned Americans. Those companies DON'T own the material they are protecting so viligantly. WE DO. ALL they own is the copyright.
Read the copyright act (deadly boring, difficult to follow, downright confusing in places) and see what I mean. Not in the entire 150 or so pages is there even any mention of the work - only the copyright. In legalese - if it isn't mentioned, it isn't there.
The Public owns all copyrighted works as well as all material in the public domain. That's right, we own it all. From the moment of pulication, it's ours. The copyright is a payback method, much like your car payment, a length of time for the seller to collect on the sale of his work to the public.
Read the featured article on my website - it's about that comparison to car payments. Those works are ours and, while we should be required to pay a reasonable price for them, we shouldn't have to pay for the keys every time we want to go for a drive.
Politicians, Judges, lawyers, and, indeed, regular American citizens all need to share the blame for allowing ridiculous lawsuits to occur. Two excellent books on the subject were written by Philip Howard - "The Death of Common Sense" and "The Lost Art of Drawing the Line."
People don't want Judges to judge - that much power in a single pair of hands scares Americans. And everybody is out for himself, not caring how a decision might affect the rest of the people - only thinking of getting money from a settlement or judgement.
Lawyers only fall in the blame through the fact of the kind of cases they will take and argue. If no lawyer would take a frivolous case (like against Barney insults - an obvious Freedom of Speech issue) then frivolous cases would not exist.
Judges, even when they're allowed to exercise their authority (which isn't all the time) are unsure of how much authority they actually have and generally let the jury take responsibility for judgements.
Politicians get the blame for everything (of course) but here, since law originates in the political process, they have the capability to instill reason - not rules, but reason - and they don't. That's why laws keep getting longer and longer. Take those IP laws that these Barney proponents are using in their scare tactics - the original copyright law took less than a single page. Current copyright law is something like 150 pages, most of which is devoted to the details of how the rules work, precisely. Such laws do not easily move through time - old technologies fade away, making entire portions obsolete and new technologies require new additions.
Law is not supposed to be a cancerous growth that chokes the life out of a society. It is supposed to be a guideline, set out in generalities, reflective of the people agreeing to its tenents.
It's easy to understand your confusion, but here is why Disney will lose Mickey Mouse if the copyright to "Steamboat Willie" expires.
Mickey Mouse isn't a particular drawing that Disney can trademark - he's a character. Specific drawings of characters may be trademarked, but the character itself cannot be. And a character becomes Public Domain the moment the FIRST work it appeared in becomes Public Domain. Therefore, Mickey Mouse will become Public Domain when the movie "Steamboat Willie" becomes Public Domain.
You wrote: "If I spend a year writing a book, that book cost me a year. If you copy the book without just compensation, you're stealing some portion of my time, and my work, directly."
--Just compensation -- that is a loaded comment. Just what is 'just compensation' for a year of your time. My company pays me about $50,000 - and that is 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (at least - no overtime pay so more hours don't really count.) Let's change copyright law to read - copyright protection exists until the copyright owner has cleared $50,000 over cost of production at which time the work becomes public domain.
Sounds fair to me and every single movie released last weekend would be in the public domain next weekend - we wouldn't need DVD protection, because, by the time DVDs come out the movie would be public domain. Popular CDs over a year old would be public domain.
Maybe that would work - instead of time limits, change it to money limits (with a time limit for unpopular stuff, just in case someone might like to preserve it for posterity.) Take the average American income (for whatever length of time the work required to create) and when that point is reached, above and beyond expenses - PUBLIC DOMAIN.
That, I think, would be 'just compensation.'
Right now copyright protection expires - about a century down the road on those works by the Freelancers. Since they aren't going to be available in the archives (the publishers are going to remove them) where are they going to be in a century when their copyright expires and they become part of the Public Domain?
And that is assuming that Disney will allow copyright to expire. Expect them to be back in 2018 for another 20 year extension and in 2038 and in 2058 and in 2078.
Copyright is supposed to be for 'limited times.' Current copyright is only limited on a cosmic scale - 150 years is a drop in the bucket compared to infinity, but it isn't limited where a human lifespan is concerned. There is no realistic limit on anything created during your lifetime because you will NEVER see it in the Public Domain.
You can't count on copyright expiration to recover the articles that will likely be lost when removed from the archives.
There WILL be a memory hole - the Judgement says that the publishers must EITHER pay the freelancers for the use of their works online OR remove the works. If the publishers choose to remove the works they owe NOTHING to the freelancers. All they lose is however much it costs to have the works removed. And, of course, the fact of holes in their archives.
Copyright reformists are counting this as a victory, but I can't see it that way. EVERYBODY involved in this one loses. The publishers, the freelancers, and, most of all, any researchers that might want to use those archives.
They didn't even win anything for the Freelancers since the contracts have since been changed to allow for electronic publication.
Perhaps, if the Judgement demanded that the publishers pay up, then it might be a victory, but not when they have the choice of removing the works and paying nothing.
---Actually, the legal code is quite understandable if you actually bother to sit down and look at it. Maybe you should try. You are right, however, in that it is rather complex. However, that is not without reason. It needs that level of complexity to properly carry out its function and protect who and what it was designed to protect. The simple statement heard so often, "the law is far more complex than it needs to be", is one made out of incredible ignorance.---
I must disagree. Read a book called "The Death of Common Sense" by Philip Howard. Complexities in law are placed there to eliminate the requirement for the use of Judgement - an important part in any endeavor where variables are found (as in EVERYTHING!) The belief that having a rule for each possibility is, in the first place, impossible and, in the second place, it can be nothing except grossly unfair. Small variances make the same problem very different in separate locations/situations. The same rules cannot cover both fairly.
The law IS far more complex than it needs to be.
In 1886, Santa Clara county vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, it was decided that corporations were persons protected by the Constitution.
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Interesting perspective here: http://www.ratical.org/corporations/SCvSPR1886.ht
...in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Obviously, the men who have been elected to lead this country, those involved in the drafting of the proposed Hague Treaty (and, yes, the U.S. was involved in writing it - they did the same with the WIPO treaty) have either never read those words, do not understand their simple meaning, have forgotten they are supposed to support/defend the ideology of the Constitutioin, or else they no longer care about the duty and responsibility inherent in their position.
And I haven't even brought out the 1st Amendment. This proposed treaty violates the ideals of the Preamble.
Establish Justice - under OUR laws, not some other nation's (if the law should apply to us, it would already apply.)
Insure domestic Tranquility - I may be one of those rioting in protest over this one!
Secure the Blessings of Liberty - As signatories to the Hague Treaty, the only liberty would be to have no international dealings without fully understanding the pertinent laws of ALL affected nations.
--- How is it "illegal" to use any facility to acquire something you already have the right to "own." ---
Very simply - you don't "own" that copy. You own the copy you bought.
The NET act (which has the $1000 worth in 180 days) is NOT the difference between actionable copyright infringement and no liability. The NET act allows CRIMINAL prosecution for anyone involved in copyright infringement - profit or no-profit.
Personal copying has always been illegal except where it is "Fair Use." Sony vs. Universal decided time-shifting of television programs was 'Fair Use.' The AHRA decided that archival copies and space-shifting copies was 'Fair Use.'
The judge in the Napster case decided that copying from Napster was NOT 'Fair Use.'
With a proper voters digest - like they used to have in Washington State - your non-profit organizations wouldn't need to send out postcards saying 'vote for ----.' These pamphlets, received well ahead of election day, contained the candidates stand on major issues (all the candidates!) and any bills that were coming up for popular vote. Pros and cons were attached (mostly to the bills.) This allowed a registered voter to make an educated decision as to which candidate most closely fit their own beliefs and how the different bills might affect their lives.
And I really doubt McCain's idea of campaign finance reform is anything close to mine. For one thing, he probably isn't dead set against corporate donations - ever. Corporations aren't people, they don't have a vote and I don't want them voting with their money either!
The internet could be the way to change how people get to know their candidates. Web space is cheap - you don't need a lot of campaign funds to run a site. Place the voter's pamphlet there, too, with printed copies available for the asking at libraries. Your non-profit organizations could put their opinion in the pamphlet - I'd even allow corporations to do the same (vote for this republican - he wants to help build a pay-per-view world.)
And when Election day came, there's a copy there, too, to peruse while you're waiting in line!
Congress only consists of hundreds of people, not thousands - but that is really immaterial. The major problem with our election process is campaign finance. If all moneys offered by corporation had to be 'under the table' and the penalties for accepting these 'bribes' were severe enough (i.e. the end of the politician's career and maybe even jail time) then we might see a change in how our Congress works.
A candidate may accept up to $1000 from individuals, but PACs (special accounts set up by corporations) can donate $5000 each. A company like AOL/Time Warner probably has half a dozen different PACs (more than $30,000 potential to a candidate.) And that doesn't count the party contributions! This buys laws that favor corporations.
Candidates should have an even playing field - equal opportunity to present their qualifications - perhaps debates could be aired as news (costing the candidates nothing but time) - regional and including both Senate and House candidates, major parties, minor parties, and independents. Money should have nothing whatsoever to do with the choice of one candidate over another.
A position in Congress, or the White House, should be considered, not an opportunity, but a responsibility - a heavy one. The reaction of a candidate, upon hearing that they have been elected should not be "I won! I won!" but something more like "Oh, God, what have I gotten myself into?" Anybody who actually WANTS the job, shouldn't have it. We should be finding and electing people who have a natural sense of what is right and what is wrong, not just the slickest, silver-tongued former lawyer who has more bad things to say about his opponent than good things to say about himself.
If money were not an issue, maybe we could get more of those kind of people in office and maybe that would bring a bit more sanity to our Government.
Take a look at CIPA - the court declared it unconstitutional and it's back. Strike down the DMCA and the same thing could happen, Congress coming back with something that has been changed enough to allow Professors to publish papers, but still limiting everything else. We need to change Congress and Campaign Finance is a good place to start.
The problem is that Congress is no longer doing more than offering lip service to the Constitution. At least 4 amendments in the Bill of Rights are seriously challenged and Article 1 Section 8 Clause 8 (the copyright clause) has resulted in a law unrecognizable from what is written there.
The 1st Amendment, among other things, gives you the right to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Of course, with the number of petitions I've signed, it is painfully clear they aren't paying any attention to that one either.
---The same goes for Napster's ease-of-theft of music. (I'm not anti-napster, I used it many times as it is "legally" intended; for "personal backup" of CDs I own as well as checking out new music before I spend $20 on a CD.)---
If you have used Napster for personal backup of CDs you own or sampling new music before buying the CD, you have not used it in a LEGAL manner. If this were a legal use they would have gotten Sony's 'substantial non-infringing uses' defense.
While sampling and personal backup could both be considered "Fair Use," the RIAA does not see it that way. If you've used Napster to download anything the owner of the material did not approve for download, you are infringing upon copyrights.
I totally agree with the idea of this thread and I think Yoda said it best - "Stopped they must be, on this, all depends."
----We can't go jumping down everyone's throat just because their new products include "copy protection".----
YES, WE CAN -- AND SHOULD!!
Copy protection should be illegal. Copyright law already provides far, far more protection than any 'creative' work deserves. Putting copy protection on something takes away all sorts of Freedoms like 'Fair Use,' like making archive, personal, backup copies, like what happens when (if ever) something actually completes the journey to the Public Domain!! The companies surely will not distribute unprotected copies when this happens.
Give up your Freedoms if you like, but I'm going to fight for mine.
I believe in the Constitution of the United States. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 embodies my idea of copyright. When copyright law reflects what our founding fathers wrote down to prevent the kind of monopolies we are currently seeing, then I will once more have respect for copyright law.
Copyright is for Creators, not corporations.
Copyright is for only a limited time and then the work becomes elevated to the Public Domain.
Copyright is only an incentive to creators urging them to further effort, to promote the progress of the arts and sciences.
If all of these things were true (as were intended) then I think most people would respect copyright, but when all the money is going to the big corporations who use it to buy Congress - how do you respect that???