Instead of charging a fee, just make the maintainence of copyright time consuming. Make the owner fill out a long tedious form for each song every year, like doing taxes. Hire a team of vogons to create the forms.
A small artist who values his or her work will take the time to maintain their own copyrights. However, this would not be cost effective for large corporation that owns 1000s of copyrights. They would have to let the less-profitable copyrights lapse.
Woo hoo. Now only the wealthy can afford to maintain their copyrights for more than a few years. This will only encourage small artists to sell out as quickly as possible to a corporation who can wring as much out of their existing copyrights in the shortest time possible.
This is interesting, but it would mean make the duration of copyright proportional to how much money you have. Large corporations could afford to renew for a long time while small artists would lose their copyrights in a short period of time. Ideally I would like to see the opposite effect--one that discourages long-term corporate ownership and control of art in favor of encouraging smaller artists to manage their own works.
The Constitution does not say anything about originality, but it does grant congress the power "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
There is definitely a problem with orphaned works that are out-of-print and effectively lost for the next 100 years or so.
However, a blanket reduction of copyright term lengths is a blunt instrument.The problems of copyright can be more effectively be resolved by reducing the copyright terms of works that are out-of-print and are no longer actively being sold. 90 percent of copyrighted works are out-of-print and collecting dust. If the copyright holders can't be bothered to release them, these works should revert to public domain.
It doesn't deprive the original owner of anything, but modern cars do require a considerable amount of investment to design and test. By cloning a car, you are taking advantage of the work and investments of the company that builds them, while choosing not compensate them for it.
The logical conclusion of your analogy is not that it is OK to clone cars, but that the clones themselves would have to be sold in a manner that reflects the fact that copies are unlimited (even if the resources and time that goes into designing and testing a car is not unlimited).
This article brings out the common observation that copies of files are, in theory, unlimited. If this is true, it means that the way music (and movies, and books, etcs.) are sold must change.
BUT this does not mean that music should be free--it means that today's "a la carte" method of selling music is obsolete.
A rough comparision would be to the cable industry. When you subscribe to cable, you are not forced to pay for each television show that you watch (think iTunes), you simply pay a flat rate and watch as much as you want. This is how recorded music must now be "sold." Selling music one file at a time does not reflect the "fluid" nature of digital media and is rightfully held in low regard by filesharers.
So it would force copyright holders to make the works available again. This is an improvement over the current situation where some corporations have amassed a vault of copyrights to works that they are not making available.
Short copyright terms discourage independent music and art.
Sound backwards?
There are many artists who labor in obscurity for years before gaining recognition. Small musicians that slowly build up careers over time will be hurt by short copyrights. Major labels that can afford to aggressively promote their wares will not be as hurt because they will make most of their money in the first few months anyway.
It will not be to the public's benefit to have every author, musician and artist immediately selling their rights to their work to corporations instead of holding on to them.
A blanket reduction of copyright terms is a blunt instrument.The problems of copyright can be more effectively be resolved by reducing the copyright terms of works that are out-of-print and are no longer actively being sold. 90 percent of copyrighted works are out-of-print and collecting dust. If the copyright holders can't be bothered to release them, these works should revert to public domain. This would resolve the orphaned culture problem without discouraging independent art and music.
Reducing copyright terms will discourage independent music and art.
Sound backwards?
There are many artists who labor in obscurity for years before gaining recognition. Small musicians that slowly build up careers over time will be hurt by short copyrights. Major labels that can afford to aggressively promote their wares will not be as hurt because they will make most of their money in the first few months anyway.
It will not be to the public's benefit to have every author, musician and artist immediately selling their rights to their work to corporations instead of holding on to them.
A blanket reduction of copyright terms is a blunt instrument. The problems of copyright can be more effectively be resolved by reducing the copyright terms of works that are out-of-print and are no longer actively being sold. 90 percent of copyrighted works are out-of-print and collecting dust. If the copyright holders can't be bothered to release them, these works should revert to public domain. This would resolve the orphaned culture problem without discouraging independent art and music.
This is included to prevent people from posting their own material on the bbs and later making frivolous plagiarism claims. Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens often enough that a clause like this necessary.
I think a more sensible comparison would be with a hammer: the item itself is legal, but when you use it to smash somebody's skull you are breaking the law. The use of the hammer in this crime is just a minor point, and does not make the hammer itself illegal. The same ought to apply to a torrent tracker: teh tracker itself is legal, it is the uses you put it to that could be illegal.
The reason why hammer manufacturers have not been shut down is that %99.99 percent of hammers are used lawfully. If %90 of hammers were being used to "smash somebody's skull," it might be a different story.
Of course, this assumes that "smashing somebody's skull" is illegal in Sweden. As others have pointed out, I cannot speak for the land of the Vikings.
You might as well say that Google is guilty of infringement as well, since they index both legal and illegal material with a similar business model and are constantly defending their ability to do so.
A couple of other companies have used a similar argument, shortly before getting shut down. Napster and Grokster were basically search engines that could be used for both legal or illegal purposes, but the courts didn't buy it.
Google, or an ISP, can reasonably argue that they provide services that are mostly used for lawful purposes, even though some illegal activity takes place. The difficult argument that the pirate trackers are faced with is that when you are providing a service that is being used primarily to infringe copyrights, even if the service can be used to share Linux distributions, you're potentially liable.
I am a dummy when it comes to this stuff, but it sure seems like the term "search engine" is pretty broad and could apply to a lot of things.
Google: Provides an interface to search and display the contents of multiple computers.
Seeqpod: Provides an interface to search and display the contents of multiple computers.
Napster: Provides an interface to search and display the contents of multiple computers.
Grokster: Provides an interface to search and display the contents of multiple computers.
Does the DMCA Safe Harbor provision include ways to draw distinctions between these services? I was under the impression that the wording was rather broad.
While I'm not thrilled that the RIAA wants to Filter the Internet, I hope SeeqPod's defense amounts to more than:
"Supply and demand, friends. There's a near limitless supply of digital content, so the price falls to near zero." This does not mean that music should be free, it means that today's "a la carte" method of selling music is obsolete.
A rough comparision would be to the cable industry. When you subscribe to cable, you are not forced to pay for each television show that you watch, you simply pay a flat rate and watch as much as you want. This is how recorded music must now be "sold."
Musicians and labels should license their recordings to cell phone companies and ISPs for a flat rate and allow people to download as much as they want. In fact, this is already happening with Nokia's "Comes with Music" program.
How can an author be paid for writing a book if they are not paid per book? If no one buys a copy of the book, there is no money to pay them.
A system that allows an author to be paid per copy sold means that the author's compensation is proportional to the amount of people who have read the book. If an author spends a great deal of time writing a book, and no one buys it, he is much worse off than someone like you who does consulting. At least you will get paid for each gig. An author has no such guarantee.
JK Rowling probably makes about as much on interviews and book signings as she does on the actual books.
I doubt she even charges for for interviews and book signings. Are you saying that her publisher has pocketed all of her royalties?
An author only writes a book one time. Should he only be paid for the first copy sold?
The amount of effort that goes into writing a book or writing, arranging and recording an album far exceeds what any single person would be willing to pay for it. Allowing the same recording or book to be sold inexpensively to multiple people makes it possible for people to buy them while providing an economic incentive for musicians to make records and for authors to write books.
You cry for the libraries of antiquity, but you do not consider the works that were never created during this period, due to the lack of an economic incentive.
Copyright encourages authors to be productive and to spread their work--it is in their own benefit to do so (provided that they are paid for it). Abolishing copyright reduces the incentive for creating new works and reduces the financial incentive to disseminate it. The most efficient way to reduce the productivity of authors and musicians and to limit the reach of their works would be to abolish copyright laws.
When all is said and done you believe that people who make creative works should be allowed to try to make a profit from them. That is fine, but you believe they are entitled to special rights to that effect which allow them to be paid again and again for work they've already done. No other profession I'm aware of allows for such special rights. I don't get royalty checks for my previous consulting gig, even though they are still using the systems I set up for them. Why authors and inventors should get a special pass, I don't know.
Apples and oranges.
A musician is paid once for his recording, each time a person buys it. Once that person owns the CD, they can play it as much as they wish--they don't have to keep paying for it.
Nothing is preventing them from writing their own music. If anything, copyright only encourages innovation by providing a slight financial incentive to write new music instead of being a cover band.
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Instead of charging a fee, just make the maintainence of copyright time consuming. Make the owner fill out a long tedious form for each song every year, like doing taxes. Hire a team of vogons to create the forms.
A small artist who values his or her work will take the time to maintain their own copyrights. However, this would not be cost effective for large corporation that owns 1000s of copyrights. They would have to let the less-profitable copyrights lapse.
Woo hoo. Now only the wealthy can afford to maintain their copyrights for more than a few years. This will only encourage small artists to sell out as quickly as possible to a corporation who can wring as much out of their existing copyrights in the shortest time possible.
Is it not wrong to buy a used book because the author was (presumably) already compensated when the book was first purchased.
This is interesting, but it would mean make the duration of copyright proportional to how much money you have. Large corporations could afford to renew for a long time while small artists would lose their copyrights in a short period of time. Ideally I would like to see the opposite effect--one that discourages long-term corporate ownership and control of art in favor of encouraging smaller artists to manage their own works.
The Constitution does not say anything about originality, but it does grant congress the power "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
This isn't just about music. It's about anything that can be copied.
There is definitely a problem with orphaned works that are out-of-print and effectively lost for the next 100 years or so.
However, a blanket reduction of copyright term lengths is a blunt instrument.The problems of copyright can be more effectively be resolved by reducing the copyright terms of works that are out-of-print and are no longer actively being sold. 90 percent of copyrighted works are out-of-print and collecting dust. If the copyright holders can't be bothered to release them, these works should revert to public domain.
Apples and oranges.
Copyright does not prevent you from writing and distributing your own book, song or ideas.
Let's consider your analogy of cloning a car:
It doesn't deprive the original owner of anything, but modern cars do require a considerable amount of investment to design and test. By cloning a car, you are taking advantage of the work and investments of the company that builds them, while choosing not compensate them for it.
The logical conclusion of your analogy is not that it is OK to clone cars, but that the clones themselves would have to be sold in a manner that reflects the fact that copies are unlimited (even if the resources and time that goes into designing and testing a car is not unlimited).
This article brings out the common observation that copies of files are, in theory, unlimited. If this is true, it means that the way music (and movies, and books, etcs.) are sold must change.
BUT this does not mean that music should be free--it means that today's "a la carte" method of selling music is obsolete.
A rough comparision would be to the cable industry. When you subscribe to cable, you are not forced to pay for each television show that you watch (think iTunes), you simply pay a flat rate and watch as much as you want. This is how recorded music must now be "sold." Selling music one file at a time does not reflect the "fluid" nature of digital media and is rightfully held in low regard by filesharers.
So it would force copyright holders to make the works available again. This is an improvement over the current situation where some corporations have amassed a vault of copyrights to works that they are not making available.
Short copyright terms discourage independent music and art.
Sound backwards?
There are many artists who labor in obscurity for years before gaining recognition. Small musicians that slowly build up careers over time will be hurt by short copyrights. Major labels that can afford to aggressively promote their wares will not be as hurt because they will make most of their money in the first few months anyway.
It will not be to the public's benefit to have every author, musician and artist immediately selling their rights to their work to corporations instead of holding on to them.
A blanket reduction of copyright terms is a blunt instrument.The problems of copyright can be more effectively be resolved by reducing the copyright terms of works that are out-of-print and are no longer actively being sold. 90 percent of copyrighted works are out-of-print and collecting dust. If the copyright holders can't be bothered to release them, these works should revert to public domain. This would resolve the orphaned culture problem without discouraging independent art and music.
Reducing copyright terms will discourage independent music and art.
Sound backwards?
There are many artists who labor in obscurity for years before gaining recognition. Small musicians that slowly build up careers over time will be hurt by short copyrights. Major labels that can afford to aggressively promote their wares will not be as hurt because they will make most of their money in the first few months anyway.
It will not be to the public's benefit to have every author, musician and artist immediately selling their rights to their work to corporations instead of holding on to them.
A blanket reduction of copyright terms is a blunt instrument. The problems of copyright can be more effectively be resolved by reducing the copyright terms of works that are out-of-print and are no longer actively being sold. 90 percent of copyrighted works are out-of-print and collecting dust. If the copyright holders can't be bothered to release them, these works should revert to public domain. This would resolve the orphaned culture problem without discouraging independent art and music.
"A struggling musian who distributes his work via HTTP can easily be bankrupted if one of his songs suddenly becomes a hit."
You can easily distribute your music for free on sites like last.fm and myspace.
This is included to prevent people from posting their own material on the bbs and later making frivolous plagiarism claims. Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens often enough that a clause like this necessary.
The reason why hammer manufacturers have not been shut down is that %99.99 percent of hammers are used lawfully. If %90 of hammers were being used to "smash somebody's skull," it might be a different story.
Of course, this assumes that "smashing somebody's skull" is illegal in Sweden. As others have pointed out, I cannot speak for the land of the Vikings.
A couple of other companies have used a similar argument, shortly before getting shut down. Napster and Grokster were basically search engines that could be used for both legal or illegal purposes, but the courts didn't buy it.
Google, or an ISP, can reasonably argue that they provide services that are mostly used for lawful purposes, even though some illegal activity takes place. The difficult argument that the pirate trackers are faced with is that when you are providing a service that is being used primarily to infringe copyrights, even if the service can be used to share Linux distributions, you're potentially liable.
Does the DMCA Safe Harbor provision include ways to draw distinctions between these services? I was under the impression that the wording was rather broad.
While I'm not thrilled that the RIAA wants to Filter the Internet, I hope SeeqPod's defense amounts to more than:
A rough comparision would be to the cable industry. When you subscribe to cable, you are not forced to pay for each television show that you watch, you simply pay a flat rate and watch as much as you want. This is how recorded music must now be "sold."
Musicians and labels should license their recordings to cell phone companies and ISPs for a flat rate and allow people to download as much as they want. In fact, this is already happening with Nokia's "Comes with Music" program.
How can an author be paid for writing a book if they are not paid per book? If no one buys a copy of the book, there is no money to pay them.
A system that allows an author to be paid per copy sold means that the author's compensation is proportional to the amount of people who have read the book. If an author spends a great deal of time writing a book, and no one buys it, he is much worse off than someone like you who does consulting. At least you will get paid for each gig. An author has no such guarantee.
I doubt she even charges for for interviews and book signings. Are you saying that her publisher has pocketed all of her royalties?
An author only writes a book one time. Should he only be paid for the first copy sold?
The amount of effort that goes into writing a book or writing, arranging and recording an album far exceeds what any single person would be willing to pay for it. Allowing the same recording or book to be sold inexpensively to multiple people makes it possible for people to buy them while providing an economic incentive for musicians to make records and for authors to write books.
The comments are identical.
You cry for the libraries of antiquity, but you do not consider the works that were never created during this period, due to the lack of an economic incentive.
Copyright encourages authors to be productive and to spread their work--it is in their own benefit to do so (provided that they are paid for it). Abolishing copyright reduces the incentive for creating new works and reduces the financial incentive to disseminate it. The most efficient way to reduce the productivity of authors and musicians and to limit the reach of their works would be to abolish copyright laws.
Apples and oranges.
A musician is paid once for his recording, each time a person buys it. Once that person owns the CD, they can play it as much as they wish--they don't have to keep paying for it.
Nothing is preventing them from writing their own music. If anything, copyright only encourages innovation by providing a slight financial incentive to write new music instead of being a cover band.