A lot of times, people think Mormons (especially our missionaries) are out saying, "We're right; every one else is wrong." That's not really the case. I firmly believe all religious truth comes from one source.
But isn't that contradictory? If religious truth comes from one source, and that source is the Book of Mormon, then "We're right; every one else is wrong" is exactly what you're saying.
So, back to my original post, "Marriage is a religious institution between a man and a woman," regardless of who preforms the ceremony. I also believe those with the proper authority can bind a husband and wife beyond "death do us part."
Okay, but if the marriage is performed by someone who denies the one source of religious truth, then how do they have *any* authority to perform a marriage at all? How is a marriage performed by and for people who deny your one true source any less problematic when they're heterosexual than when they're homosexual? If you told me that you don't accept *any* marriage that's not conducted by your church, I'd understand, but I really don't get picking and choosing which unsanctified marriages to like or dislike....
Just out of curiosity, do you also have a problem with non-Mormon (or non-Christian, or non-Abrahamic religion) marriages in general? If "marriage" is specifically a religious descriptor, then isn't marriage of someone from outside the religion, such as an atheist, or a Wiccan, or a Hindu, just as much an affront to "God's" wishes as a gay marriage?
By the way, I'm not looking to beat up on you here, I really am curious as this always seemed like it should be a flaw in the "marriage is religious" argument and I wonder how people reconcile it.
Looks like I was mistaken about legal aid being mainly for criminal cases. It does still seem though that the chances of the average person getting any assistance from them is pretty slim in the case of an RIAA lawsuit though. More info available here
First of all, IANAL. Nothing in this post is intended to be taken as legal advice nor is there any implication of legal expertise on my part.
It's not even going to go that far. All a file with your name on it is going to do is say that you had it at one time. It's not like they will arrest you for the Qwik-E mart robbery because they found your wallet in the parking lot. They will need something else before it gets to court.
Who said anything about getting arrested? It's trivially easy for a company to start a civil action against you, and that's what this would be. There are no warrants or police involved, just their lawyers, who are more than happy to sue whomever they're told to sue.
No, the RIAA has had some pretty good evidence that says quite a bit. Their main problems have been attaching the evidence to the right people because of third part information and their lack of follow up.
No, you're confusing bringing the case with the outcome. The lawsuits happened, and in a good number of them they lost. That doesn't mean that the people named in the suits didn't have to defend against them. That's why quite a few people settled, especially early on in the campaign. They felt they would pay less to do that than to defend themselves in a suit with the possibility that they could lose.
Actually, many lawyers do work for free. It all depends on how much you make. Almost every state has a legal aid for the poor who can handle discovery and challenging the weight of the evidence without problem. There are also legal remedies for Frivolous lawsuits in which lawyers won't bring things to trial that they don't have a competent standing on. Look at Jack Thompson who was disbarred for his shenanigans.
No, not necessarily. While you *may* find an attorney that will work pro-bono, or who believes that they may be able to file for (and win) a countersuit for legal fees, I would *not* count on this. Legal Aid is typically for criminal cases, not civil. You are not generally presumed to have the *right* to an attorney in a civil action, and that is what an RIAA lawsuit is. As for Jack Tompson, he went to great and extraordinary lengths to get himself into the situation he found himself in. A standard RIAA lawsuit is highly unlikely to get an attorney disbarred.
You will have all of 10 lawsuits, 8 or 9 will be dropped before completion if your name and email address in a music file is the only evidence. It is more likely that the file will be used to demand people clean their computers of viruses and so on. The only real people who will suffer any unrecoverable damage from this file are the people who are actually sharing them. The name and information is probably only going to be used to cross reference P2P and Torrent servers when the file is discovered. Instead of making a University disclose the names of people at a series of IP's and having to fight a legal battle, they can cross check their detection and Cease and Desist letters. Apple will probably have an IP loged to the person who purchased the songs and instead of doing John doe supeana's they can do actually investigations.
I sincerely hope that nobody actually takes this as any kind of good advice. You have absolutely no reason to believe that these cases would be dropped at the ratio you mention, nor do you have any reason to believe there would be only 8 or 9 cases at all. In short, you're making up numbers, and guessing at what people will do, apparently due to a badly flawed understanding of civil litigation and a serious underestimation of what the record companies are capable of.
There already are virus's and trojans that target media files. It's just a matter of time.
And until that time actually comes, it's still a hypothetical and useless in defending against a lawsuit. Even if this hypothetical virus were to
I should have been more specific. The stereo in my car played MP3, AAC and WMA. As long as it's not an encrypted AAC, I probably wouldn't have bothered converting it...so yes, I could still see the same scenario happening to someone.
Nothing is going to happen until it goes to court.
Getting dragged into court isn't much fun to begin with....
They would have to collect enough evidence and present it and then either hope that the government picks it up or sue you directly.
The RIAA has already demonstrated plenty of willingness to do this.
Even then, your lawyer will probably get you off before it costs any money....
Whoa there cowboy, if you're talking to a lawyer, it's already cost you money. They don't work for free. Matter of fact, most of 'em are pretty damned expensive.
because you won't be the first person it happened to
Somebody has to be first, and since lawsuits take time, it won't just be the first, it could be the first few hundred before it's sorted out, depending on how many suits are filed and how quickly.
All it will take is one Virus going around that does something with these files and it would be completely pointless and worthless as evidence.
And until such a virus actually does this, and is proven to be in the wild, that's irrelevant. You can't base a legal argument on a hypothetical virus that hasn't actually been written yet.
About the most that can happen is Apple decides not to sell more music to you under that account.
I suspect this is the most likely outcome, but I wouldn't want to bet the farm on it. Personally, I think that Apple made some kind of agreement to blacklist users that share the files to make the record companies happy, but I'm just speculating. I have nothing solid to back this up.
True enough, although why bother tying files to a specific person in the first place then? If they have your IP from a file-sharing network, then they know *you* are the person sharing them and they come after you. If they don't intend to somehow go after the person who originally bought them as well though, why the identifier? If they just want to know how the files are spreading it'd probably be easier to just use a unique serial number instead.
As to them having a case, well I guess we won't know 'till they try. You can sue for anything, the question is will a judge or jury agree with them. I'd personally rather not go through the expense of defending myself in court to try it out, even if I was willing to bet that I'd win.
Then again, maybe their idea is that if they find files being traded they blacklist the person listed in the file-id from making further purchases. I don't know, but I do know that if they're putting the data in there they probably have some reason for it in mind. Whether the idea is actually practical or not is beside the point.
I think a police report about your stolen equipment would be enough.
Actually, I think he may be on the right track. I used to copy mp3's to CD to play in my car all the time. It doesn't seem that much of a stretch that I might put one of them down at work or something and just forget it, considering that it's not particularly valuable to me (I used to burn different mixes pretty regularly and I rarely went back to old discs). I could see one of these finding it's way into a filesharing network unintentionally (on my part, not the person doing the sharing). In the end, I can't think of how I'd prove this happened, as I certainly wouldn't think to call the police because I can't find a CD-R that I lost somewhere...
In several places during this thread I said I prefer that all those closely involved (such as immediate family) with a given work not be exposed to uses that the author would not have approved of. It's a courtesy, and also one of the reasons that I have said over and over is an arguable point. I'm firm on copyright lasting until the death of the creator. I support a period of 50 - 70 years after that person's death, but I concede that this is an arguable point. This is, I believe, the fourth time I have said this.
That would be nice, but they don't all have it in them. Stephen King is wildly prolific, but for someone who doesn't have it in them to keep that kind of pace copyright encourages them to do it at least once anyway. If it's no good, well then nobody cares anyway, but if it really is a great novel, aren't we better with it than without it?
No, for a limited tyme not for the rest of your life. Thomas Jefferson was originally.....
I generally admire Jefferson, but he wasn't infallible and who knows what his position would be now as the world is a vastly changed place from the one he knew. At best I think perhaps he was giving the right answer for his time, and at worst I think he was flat out wrong on the subject.
Who said publishers wouldn't have to pay anything? The work would still be under copyright even if for only 7 years. If one publisher won't print then another can, or the artist, writer, can publish him or herself. So publishers have the incentive because that work could be the next best seller but if they don't then they don't make money and publishers are in business to make money. While it may but probably won't be that does not mean it won't be a money maker. Redhat [google.com] made $442.36 million in gross profits in 2008.
Obviously I was talking about after the copyright expires. The example still stands. What I was saying there isn't that nobody will publish those works, it's that based on their popularity combined with the fact that they're royalty free they will be over-published, at the expense of new authors who are struggling for attention. Releasing a new edition of "The Stand" or "The Shining" is a far better bet for the publishers than releasing a new work by an unknown. We already see a similar effect now, with franchised fiction. Look at how much space is taken up by "Star Trek" novels. Personally, I don't find them to be very good (I've flipped through a few), but they're guaranteed to sell because they're based on a well known franchise. The amount of shelf-space they get at the booksellers is monstrous, and I am absolutely sure that compared with 20 years or so ago the amount of space for "riskier" fiction has been shrunk to make room for these.
Yet Shakespeare still wrote. I have an anthology of his, as well as an anthology of Chaucer. "Beowulf" [imdb.com], "The Mask" [imdb.com], and "The Man in the Iron Mask" [imdb.com] were all made into movies because any copyright expired long ago. Do you really think they would have been made if they were still under copyrights?
Why wouldn't they have been made into movies? Right now "Marley and Me" is in theaters, and the book is fairly new. "Harry Potter" movies were made without a problem, and "Twilight" was not only made, but is apparently on it's way to having sequels. Current copyright doesn't seem to interfere with the studios making movies at all. If the studios believe it's a moneymaker, they'll do it. And if the studios believe it's going to be a moneymaker, why on earth shouldn't the person who actually wrote it be paid? They have no problem throwing millions to the actors and directors, and those folks wouldn't have a movie to make without the author.
I couldn't be a wedding photographer myself, shooting a wedding occasionally is ok but not shooting only weddings. Me, I like nature and cultural photography. Ten or 15 minutes bike ride from me there's a lake which I can get shots of wind surfers on the ice during the winter or on the water in the summer. About a month ago I bought a telescope with a mount for my camera. Originally I got it to use as a telephoto lens however I want to find a place I can go to for astrophotography, away from light pollution. I would also like to try fine art photography.
Again, I've said on multiple occasions in this thread, that although I advocate 50 - 70 years after the author's death, I also believe it's an arguable point. At this point, all you're asking me to do is repeat the same points that I've made on multiple occasions. If you'd like to see my answers to the question of why I think they should survive the author, scroll up a bit, it's in there.
And I get irritated when someone does not answer a pertinent question in a discussion.
Then you have no beef with me. I believe I've answered the question, and I've told you where to find those answers. I realize this is Slashdot, but personally when I accuse someone of holding a position, and they point out that I'm wrong, I apologize for the mistake. I don't usually just change to a different accusation.
Most people have to work for a living and one hit wonders should too. They shouldn't get a free lunch the rest of their life just because they created one hit. If they can't write or perform more than one then they should get into another field of work.
First of all, a single "hit" novel is unlikely to result in a lifetime winfall and automatic retirement. It's possible you could find an example of this happening, but I've known a few authors in this situation, and they're nowhere near retiring on their riches. If you want to be a full-time author, except in very few cases, you need to keep writing and publishing. The money you make on your works will, with luck, add up to a decent income. More likely though, unless you're one of those rare exceptions, you'll keep your day job anyway.
I don't think anyone should get a free pass the rest of their life just because they created one hit. And that is not what copyrights are about, they are there to encourage creation.
And one of the ways that it encourages creation is by saying that nobody can take your work and profit for it while you're still around. Why are you so insistent on telling other people what should happen to their work? Write your own books, then give them away free whenever you like, nobody is stopping you. But just like nobody tells you that you *can't* give away your works for free, I don't feel you should be telling other people that they *must*.
I did not say abolish copyrights, perhaps you missed where I said I don't have problem with them, that my problem was the length of the term of copyright. Or perhaps you're trolling. A 7 year copyright term should be enough for many to make a living, if what they create people are willing to pay for.
I'm specifically addressing a short copyright term. Publishers who can print out unlimited Stephen King novels that cost them nothing are unlikely to then spend much effort, or more importantly money, on a new author. Why should they? Or let's take yet another example. With a seven year copyright, don't you think that movie companies will just wait seven years to do a film adaptation and get out of dealing with the author at all? They could use the author's work for free, and change it any way they like. Why exactly should the studios be rewarded for waiting seven years, and the author given nothing? How does this encourage creativity?
This overlooks a couple of facts, one that once the copyright expires anyone can print and sell a work.
No it doesn't. Loads of publishing houses print and sell books that are out of copyright. Shakespeare is a good market. The number of people who download or print their own doesn't seem to be seriously denting this market, and probably won't for some time to come.
Secondly people can self publish, heck right now people are using the web to publish. I could write a book and post it on my own website. To make money I could offer a downloadable pdf file of the book.
True, people can and do self-publish using the web. Typically this is met with fairly poor results though. I can't think of any examples off-hand of anyone that was a major success at it in the past 10 years or so that didn't already have a significant print background first. Doesn't mean there aren't any, but if they are they must be pretty thin on the ground.
I could also allow readers to order printed copies. This could actually be the beginning of the end for large publishing businesses.
Vanity presses have been around for ages, and I've yet to see a self-published title that's come out of one regarded very seriously. Usually they tend to carry a fair amount of scorn. One reason for this is that the publishers do provide one service that a vanity press doesn't, quality control. Granted not every book to come through a
Ok then, I'll stick to copyrights. Should Homer's "Iliad", Helen Keller's plays, and Ãdouard Manet's and Claude Monet's paintings still be under copyright?
The only reason for copyrights is to encourage the creation of arts, and copyright terms that last too long do not to this. You encourage creation by making artists continue to create, by having short copyright terms this will happen.
Why don't you admit it, you want artists, and their descents, to have a free pass forever
All I can say to that is you haven't been reading what I've been saying consistently throughout this thread: I do not support copyright in perpetuity. I have been specific that I support copyright that lasts until the author's death, plus about 50 - 70 years, which you can see in multiple posts that I've made on this subject in the past few days. I'm generally happy to discuss my views on a subject, but I think I have a right to be irritated if someone makes up a position, assigns it to me in the face of easily found statements I've made to the contrary, and then demands I defend that position.
"Life, and I don't suppose I'm the first to make this comparison, is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal." -- Death Talks About Life, Neil Gaiman
ah, that explains it then (I can't do video from here, but thanks for the description).
I'm looking forward to seeing this in person as well...I have Sprint and I've been sticking with them, but it seems they never get the phones I really want on their system.
Looking at the photos of this thing, it looks like the clock, signal strength and battery indicator are actually above the screen....are these just drawn in for a mock-up, or is the screen actually bigger than it looks?
Actually from what I heard most artists do make most of their money from performing and not from record sales. The media companies keep most of the money from cd or mp3 sales. Artist only get a few percent, if they're lucky.
I think that's both true and false, depending on the band and how big they are....all the more reason to support indie bands. Reward them a bit before the RIAA members get their hooks into them.
As I said before I don't have a problem with that, my problem is with the length of copyrights. Copyrights are granted to encourage creation but an artist can't create art if they're dead. If you want to encourage creation then you want copyrights short so they have to keep creating to make money.
That's actually an interesting take on it, but I don't think it'd work that way. Sure, Stephen King can churn out bestseller after bestseller, but I think that the "one hit wonder" is really more realistic for most authors. I'd rather see their work protected, not just the right to charge for it, but the right to control it's use at least until their death and as I've said before, for a bit longer. Also, have you considered the reverse? If Stephen King books were free, wouldn't that encourage publishers to simply churn out massive new editions of his work, and encourage bookstores to stock those new editions rather than taking any risk on a new author? Publishing is a hard business as it is. If a massive number of titles that are still popular with the public were suddenly free for the publishers to market and sell, they'd almost certainly continue their pattern of staying with only the safest investments. You see that now with them giving massive preference to known authors, give them those authors works for free and I suspect that that getting published as a new author would go from extremely difficult to virtually impossible.
Libel and slander laws wouldn't help you in the least. I'm not talking about the Aryans saying anything about you, just using your work. And as far as using those laws against anyone else, ask Richard Jewel how well that works. Many people still remember him as a bomber, lawsuits notwithstanding. I think you underestimate the effect that misuse of creative works has on an author. Perhaps you really wouldn't be bothered by it, in which case I say put your stuff out there and make it restriction free for all to use. I hope you don't find yourself in a situation where you have to find out you'll really react to that kind of misuse. I doubt it'd be any fun at all.
Do you also think Farnsworth's descendents should be getting royalties for his invention? Or Marconi? Or Edison? Tesla?
Apples and oranges. I'm not going to change to an argument on the merits of patents vs copyright at this point because honestly, this thread is too damn long already and I'm just wearing down. Anyway, if you want to discuss patent vs copyright, I'm sure there's plenty of people who'd like to do that, but I'm sticking to copyright and the length of time it lasts.
I'm sorry, you are unclear. You want me to come up with examples that support your argument? Its unclear because your examples jump to conclusions and ignore the first principles I was talking about like "all men are created equal" and "the right to a fair trial."
Um, noooo, I was asking you to provide examples of laws that are based purely on logic and devoid of any "human" motivations. You made the claim that I was ignoring the vast majority of law that is based this way, but you failed to provide even a single example. Perhaps you don't understand how this works....you made a claim, so it's up to you to provide facts to support it. I threw out a couple of examples to pick up the slack for you. Now, if you're seriously trying to use ""all men are created equal" and "the right to a fair trial" as examples of logic-based law that has nothing to do with human emotion as a base motivation, you're clearly not understanding your own claim. The idea that all men are created equal is almost completely based on an emotional idea. Logic dictates that all men are most certainly not created equal. Some are far stronger than others, some are far smarter than others, some are capable of being nearly entirely self-sufficient, and others are barely capable of looking after themselves inside of the support of modern society. The right to a speedy trial similarly is based on the feeling that people should be treated fairly. Hell, the idea of a trial at all as we understand it is based on our very human sense of fair-play, and is a relatively modern concept. If it was an inescapable conclusion of logical thought, it probably would have cropped up much earlier in human history than it did, and it would probably be far more universal in practice than it is.
You seem to lack an understanding of the word excludable. It isn't about the choice of the consumer, it is about the natural control of the creator. Its a common misunderstanding in such discussions, generally stemming from a lack of knowledge beyond econ 101. Seeing as how your entire argument is predicated on that error, I won't be replying any further.
Look, if you only want to talk to professional economists, why on earth are you on Slashdot? But then again, you aren't looking for that at all are you? You're getting trounced, your arguments are disjointed and badly formed, and now in a fit of pique, you're going to try to plead that you're too much of an expert for the conversation and hurry off. Then again, you probably will respond to this. It's not definite, but I give it better than a 70% chance, even though you "won't be replying any further".
I've seen the way these go, you will either try to dispute the indisputable, haggling about the definition of excludable like so: "copyright is enforced pretty well [lek.com] on a [macobserver.com] daily basis [informationweek.com]" or try to apply some sort of moral justification lacking any firm root in first principles that the current law, despite all its costs and poor enforceability is "right." Been there, done that, horse to water and all.
Ah, so since copyright laws are not 100% effective in protecting the rights of copyright owners, we should ditch copyright entirely? But hey, let's take a look at those links you provided. All three make the same obvious mistake. They count every pirate copy of a movie/software package/music album as a "lost sale". This is a fairly absurd statement, as it's one hell of a leap to assume that each one of these copies would have otherwise been purchased legitimately. Of course, it's not surprising that all three of the articles make this error, they're based on studies by the MPAA, the BSA and the "Institute for Policy Innovation", an organization that never seems to fail in finding exactly the results the industries it shills for want them to find.
Soooo, three articles, three examples of bad methodology, and you've proven wha
I think, those fears have to be taken for real. People who suffer from that, are really affected by it, I have heard of many cases, where people get really ill, although this may be not much more than the well-known placebo effect. Fears from the unconsciousness can very often not be calmed by logic. However, another irrational belief that culminates in some device called "Orgone Generator", seems to relieve people from that fear, thus the unconsciousness found it's own solution. Well, my personal suggestion in this case would be to sponsor these Orgon-Generators, maybe, even implement them in the Wifi-Device. If marketed the right way, those Wifi-Hotspots may be seen as something positive, something that people like to set up as they produce "positive energy".
You know, for some reason, when I read this post I kind of heard it as a William Shatner voice-over in my head.....
Um, yeah......the point of the discussion is how much time. My point in that example is that as long as Queen is still alive and kicking (and for a little longer), you should have to pay them to use their work. You ignored the bulk of the post, which is really, I think, the important parts. Why should you have the opportunity to make money from their work, while paying them nothing, after contributing nothing, while they are still around?
It is true that the law starts with a few basic principles. But do not make the nonsensical mistake of assuming that because a handful of principles are accepted on their own merit that the rest of the 99.999999% of the law is simply independent principles of "feeling" rather than logical derivatives of those original principles.
Okie dokie, so instead of just saying they exist, name a few. The logic of a great many of them rests on how we as humans feel about things though, so do try to keep that in mind. I'll get you started: Murder: My neighbor, who lives alone and has no dependents is constantly bullying me and vandalizing the neighborhood. I am a productive member of society, and he is on welfare and is actually a drain on society. I decide to simply kill him, removing the problem, and actually making society stronger by eliminating a non-functional member. Seems logical. What actually happens is that I'm convicted of murder, because we as a society feel that human life is valuable, even if the human in question doesn't function as a contributing member of that society.
Theft: Bob is loaded. Millions and millions of dollars, more than he could ever use. I have nothing. I work hard every day, unloading trucks, while Bob actually doesn't do anything, since he won that money on a lotto bet. I am actually starving, and I realize that Bob has been leaving a pile of sandwiches next to his open kitchen window. I take one, because logically, it doesn't harm him at all, he'd probably never even notice, where as I am in dire straights. I'm arrested for theft because we feel as a society that it's wrong to take things that don't belong to you, whether the victim of the crime is harmed by that loss or not.
Everything we do as a people is filtered through how we feel about what we're doing. If we evolved from sharks instead of apes, perhaps we'd think it's okay to eat each other. We didn't though, so we're not generally fond of that kind of thing.
I can just see you struggling to get this analogy out without invoking the blindingly obvious comparison to simply not publishing a creative work.
I'd say the comparison is just fine. If I want to, I can release my song to everyone without any restrictions (just like the oxygen from your trees right now). Or, I can release it with restrictions and you're free to take it or leave it (as would happen with your special bottled air). But you're right to a point, I wouldn't have chosen the whole tree thing myself in the first place, that was your call.
But, try as you might, you just could not figure out a way to word it to disguise the obvious, so you did the next best thing and admited up front that both air and creative works are non-excludable. But don't be so foolish as to think admitting the obvious lets you deny it.
Um, where did I do that? Air goes everywhere, and you have limited control over which air you're breathing at any given moment. Your mp3 player contains songs that you intentionally put there.
Your declaration of "epic fail" notwithstanding, it is essentially impossible to enforce claims of ownership to ideas just as much as it is impossible to enforce claims of ownership of air. Examples are rampant, so called "copyright orphans" are a serious problem with the current system precisely because copyright ownership is not as obvious as you make it out to be. Credit for creation is one thing, but ownership of copyright is completely distinction from it.
For something that you claim to be essentially impossible, copyright is enforced pretty well on a daily basis. As for orphans, they point out a flaw in how copyright is executed, but not necessarily a fatal flaw, it's perfectly fixable. Perhaps digital is the answer to this, and a provision should be made that some form the work must be made available during the entire time of it's copyright
Hey, sorry I never replied to you...you sort of got lost in the noise (I'm badly outnumbered here!). Anyway, if you're still interested in the topic, I think your points are addressed in other parts of the thread by now......
In any case, I just noticed that you were the only person I didn't reply to and it seemed rude to just let it lie that way.
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But isn't that contradictory? If religious truth comes from one source, and that source is the Book of Mormon, then "We're right; every one else is wrong" is exactly what you're saying.
Okay, but if the marriage is performed by someone who denies the one source of religious truth, then how do they have *any* authority to perform a marriage at all? How is a marriage performed by and for people who deny your one true source any less problematic when they're heterosexual than when they're homosexual? If you told me that you don't accept *any* marriage that's not conducted by your church, I'd understand, but I really don't get picking and choosing which unsanctified marriages to like or dislike....
Just out of curiosity, do you also have a problem with non-Mormon (or non-Christian, or non-Abrahamic religion) marriages in general? If "marriage" is specifically a religious descriptor, then isn't marriage of someone from outside the religion, such as an atheist, or a Wiccan, or a Hindu, just as much an affront to "God's" wishes as a gay marriage?
By the way, I'm not looking to beat up on you here, I really am curious as this always seemed like it should be a flaw in the "marriage is religious" argument and I wonder how people reconcile it.
Looks like I was mistaken about legal aid being mainly for criminal cases. It does still seem though that the chances of the average person getting any assistance from them is pretty slim in the case of an RIAA lawsuit though. More info available here
First of all, IANAL. Nothing in this post is intended to be taken as legal advice nor is there any implication of legal expertise on my part.
Who said anything about getting arrested? It's trivially easy for a company to start a civil action against you, and that's what this would be. There are no warrants or police involved, just their lawyers, who are more than happy to sue whomever they're told to sue.
No, you're confusing bringing the case with the outcome. The lawsuits happened, and in a good number of them they lost. That doesn't mean that the people named in the suits didn't have to defend against them. That's why quite a few people settled, especially early on in the campaign. They felt they would pay less to do that than to defend themselves in a suit with the possibility that they could lose.
No, not necessarily. While you *may* find an attorney that will work pro-bono, or who believes that they may be able to file for (and win) a countersuit for legal fees, I would *not* count on this. Legal Aid is typically for criminal cases, not civil. You are not generally presumed to have the *right* to an attorney in a civil action, and that is what an RIAA lawsuit is.
As for Jack Tompson, he went to great and extraordinary lengths to get himself into the situation he found himself in. A standard RIAA lawsuit is highly unlikely to get an attorney disbarred.
I sincerely hope that nobody actually takes this as any kind of good advice. You have absolutely no reason to believe that these cases would be dropped at the ratio you mention, nor do you have any reason to believe there would be only 8 or 9 cases at all. In short, you're making up numbers, and guessing at what people will do, apparently due to a badly flawed understanding of civil litigation and a serious underestimation of what the record companies are capable of.
And until that time actually comes, it's still a hypothetical and useless in defending against a lawsuit. Even if this hypothetical virus were to
I should have been more specific. The stereo in my car played MP3, AAC and WMA. As long as it's not an encrypted AAC, I probably wouldn't have bothered converting it...so yes, I could still see the same scenario happening to someone.
Getting dragged into court isn't much fun to begin with....
The RIAA has already demonstrated plenty of willingness to do this.
Whoa there cowboy, if you're talking to a lawyer, it's already cost you money. They don't work for free. Matter of fact, most of 'em are pretty damned expensive.
Somebody has to be first, and since lawsuits take time, it won't just be the first, it could be the first few hundred before it's sorted out, depending on how many suits are filed and how quickly.
And until such a virus actually does this, and is proven to be in the wild, that's irrelevant. You can't base a legal argument on a hypothetical virus that hasn't actually been written yet.
I suspect this is the most likely outcome, but I wouldn't want to bet the farm on it. Personally, I think that Apple made some kind of agreement to blacklist users that share the files to make the record companies happy, but I'm just speculating. I have nothing solid to back this up.
True enough, although why bother tying files to a specific person in the first place then? If they have your IP from a file-sharing network, then they know *you* are the person sharing them and they come after you. If they don't intend to somehow go after the person who originally bought them as well though, why the identifier? If they just want to know how the files are spreading it'd probably be easier to just use a unique serial number instead.
As to them having a case, well I guess we won't know 'till they try. You can sue for anything, the question is will a judge or jury agree with them. I'd personally rather not go through the expense of defending myself in court to try it out, even if I was willing to bet that I'd win.
Then again, maybe their idea is that if they find files being traded they blacklist the person listed in the file-id from making further purchases. I don't know, but I do know that if they're putting the data in there they probably have some reason for it in mind. Whether the idea is actually practical or not is beside the point.
Actually, I think he may be on the right track. I used to copy mp3's to CD to play in my car all the time. It doesn't seem that much of a stretch that I might put one of them down at work or something and just forget it, considering that it's not particularly valuable to me (I used to burn different mixes pretty regularly and I rarely went back to old discs). I could see one of these finding it's way into a filesharing network unintentionally (on my part, not the person doing the sharing). In the end, I can't think of how I'd prove this happened, as I certainly wouldn't think to call the police because I can't find a CD-R that I lost somewhere...
In several places during this thread I said I prefer that all those closely involved (such as immediate family) with a given work not be exposed to uses that the author would not have approved of. It's a courtesy, and also one of the reasons that I have said over and over is an arguable point. I'm firm on copyright lasting until the death of the creator. I support a period of 50 - 70 years after that person's death, but I concede that this is an arguable point. This is, I believe, the fourth time I have said this.
That would be nice, but they don't all have it in them. Stephen King is wildly prolific, but for someone who doesn't have it in them to keep that kind of pace copyright encourages them to do it at least once anyway. If it's no good, well then nobody cares anyway, but if it really is a great novel, aren't we better with it than without it?
I generally admire Jefferson, but he wasn't infallible and who knows what his position would be now as the world is a vastly changed place from the one he knew. At best I think perhaps he was giving the right answer for his time, and at worst I think he was flat out wrong on the subject.
Obviously I was talking about after the copyright expires. The example still stands. What I was saying there isn't that nobody will publish those works, it's that based on their popularity combined with the fact that they're royalty free they will be over-published, at the expense of new authors who are struggling for attention. Releasing a new edition of "The Stand" or "The Shining" is a far better bet for the publishers than releasing a new work by an unknown. We already see a similar effect now, with franchised fiction. Look at how much space is taken up by "Star Trek" novels. Personally, I don't find them to be very good (I've flipped through a few), but they're guaranteed to sell because they're based on a well known franchise. The amount of shelf-space they get at the booksellers is monstrous, and I am absolutely sure that compared with 20 years or so ago the amount of space for "riskier" fiction has been shrunk to make room for these.
Why wouldn't they have been made into movies? Right now "Marley and Me" is in theaters, and the book is fairly new. "Harry Potter" movies were made without a problem, and "Twilight" was not only made, but is apparently on it's way to having sequels. Current copyright doesn't seem to interfere with the studios making movies at all. If the studios believe it's a moneymaker, they'll do it. And if the studios believe it's going to be a moneymaker, why on earth shouldn't the person who actually wrote it be paid? They have no problem throwing millions to the actors and directors, and those folks wouldn't have a movie to make without the author.
Yeah, for weddings
Again, I've said on multiple occasions in this thread, that although I advocate 50 - 70 years after the author's death, I also believe it's an arguable point. At this point, all you're asking me to do is repeat the same points that I've made on multiple occasions. If you'd like to see my answers to the question of why I think they should survive the author, scroll up a bit, it's in there.
Then you have no beef with me. I believe I've answered the question, and I've told you where to find those answers. I realize this is Slashdot, but personally when I accuse someone of holding a position, and they point out that I'm wrong, I apologize for the mistake. I don't usually just change to a different accusation.
First of all, a single "hit" novel is unlikely to result in a lifetime winfall and automatic retirement. It's possible you could find an example of this happening, but I've known a few authors in this situation, and they're nowhere near retiring on their riches. If you want to be a full-time author, except in very few cases, you need to keep writing and publishing. The money you make on your works will, with luck, add up to a decent income. More likely though, unless you're one of those rare exceptions, you'll keep your day job anyway.
And one of the ways that it encourages creation is by saying that nobody can take your work and profit for it while you're still around. Why are you so insistent on telling other people what should happen to their work? Write your own books, then give them away free whenever you like, nobody is stopping you. But just like nobody tells you that you *can't* give away your works for free, I don't feel you should be telling other people that they *must*.
I'm specifically addressing a short copyright term. Publishers who can print out unlimited Stephen King novels that cost them nothing are unlikely to then spend much effort, or more importantly money, on a new author. Why should they?
Or let's take yet another example. With a seven year copyright, don't you think that movie companies will just wait seven years to do a film adaptation and get out of dealing with the author at all? They could use the author's work for free, and change it any way they like. Why exactly should the studios be rewarded for waiting seven years, and the author given nothing? How does this encourage creativity?
No it doesn't. Loads of publishing houses print and sell books that are out of copyright. Shakespeare is a good market. The number of people who download or print their own doesn't seem to be seriously denting this market, and probably won't for some time to come.
True, people can and do self-publish using the web. Typically this is met with fairly poor results though. I can't think of any examples off-hand of anyone that was a major success at it in the past 10 years or so that didn't already have a significant print background first. Doesn't mean there aren't any, but if they are they must be pretty thin on the ground.
Vanity presses have been around for ages, and I've yet to see a self-published title that's come out of one regarded very seriously. Usually they tend to carry a fair amount of scorn. One reason for this is that the publishers do provide one service that a vanity press doesn't, quality control. Granted not every book to come through a
All I can say to that is you haven't been reading what I've been saying consistently throughout this thread: I do not support copyright in perpetuity. I have been specific that I support copyright that lasts until the author's death, plus about 50 - 70 years, which you can see in multiple posts that I've made on this subject in the past few days.
I'm generally happy to discuss my views on a subject, but I think I have a right to be irritated if someone makes up a position, assigns it to me in the face of easily found statements I've made to the contrary, and then demands I defend that position.
I don't know about a named condition, but to paraphrase the (alleged) F.D.R. quote, he may have been a git, but he was our git.
R.I.P. Roland.
"Life, and I don't suppose I'm the first to make this comparison, is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal." -- Death Talks About Life, Neil Gaiman
ah, that explains it then (I can't do video from here, but thanks for the description).
I'm looking forward to seeing this in person as well...I have Sprint and I've been sticking with them, but it seems they never get the phones I really want on their system.
Looking at the photos of this thing, it looks like the clock, signal strength and battery indicator are actually above the screen....are these just drawn in for a mock-up, or is the screen actually bigger than it looks?
I think that's both true and false, depending on the band and how big they are....all the more reason to support indie bands. Reward them a bit before the RIAA members get their hooks into them.
That's actually an interesting take on it, but I don't think it'd work that way. Sure, Stephen King can churn out bestseller after bestseller, but I think that the "one hit wonder" is really more realistic for most authors. I'd rather see their work protected, not just the right to charge for it, but the right to control it's use at least until their death and as I've said before, for a bit longer.
Also, have you considered the reverse? If Stephen King books were free, wouldn't that encourage publishers to simply churn out massive new editions of his work, and encourage bookstores to stock those new editions rather than taking any risk on a new author? Publishing is a hard business as it is. If a massive number of titles that are still popular with the public were suddenly free for the publishers to market and sell, they'd almost certainly continue their pattern of staying with only the safest investments. You see that now with them giving massive preference to known authors, give them those authors works for free and I suspect that that getting published as a new author would go from extremely difficult to virtually impossible.
Libel and slander laws wouldn't help you in the least. I'm not talking about the Aryans saying anything about you, just using your work. And as far as using those laws against anyone else, ask Richard Jewel how well that works. Many people still remember him as a bomber, lawsuits notwithstanding.
I think you underestimate the effect that misuse of creative works has on an author. Perhaps you really wouldn't be bothered by it, in which case I say put your stuff out there and make it restriction free for all to use. I hope you don't find yourself in a situation where you have to find out you'll really react to that kind of misuse. I doubt it'd be any fun at all.
Apples and oranges. I'm not going to change to an argument on the merits of patents vs copyright at this point because honestly, this thread is too damn long already and I'm just wearing down. Anyway, if you want to discuss patent vs copyright, I'm sure there's plenty of people who'd like to do that, but I'm sticking to copyright and the length of time it lasts.
Um, noooo, I was asking you to provide examples of laws that are based purely on logic and devoid of any "human" motivations. You made the claim that I was ignoring the vast majority of law that is based this way, but you failed to provide even a single example. Perhaps you don't understand how this works....you made a claim, so it's up to you to provide facts to support it. I threw out a couple of examples to pick up the slack for you.
Now, if you're seriously trying to use ""all men are created equal" and "the right to a fair trial" as examples of logic-based law that has nothing to do with human emotion as a base motivation, you're clearly not understanding your own claim. The idea that all men are created equal is almost completely based on an emotional idea. Logic dictates that all men are most certainly not created equal. Some are far stronger than others, some are far smarter than others, some are capable of being nearly entirely self-sufficient, and others are barely capable of looking after themselves inside of the support of modern society. The right to a speedy trial similarly is based on the feeling that people should be treated fairly. Hell, the idea of a trial at all as we understand it is based on our very human sense of fair-play, and is a relatively modern concept. If it was an inescapable conclusion of logical thought, it probably would have cropped up much earlier in human history than it did, and it would probably be far more universal in practice than it is.
Look, if you only want to talk to professional economists, why on earth are you on Slashdot? But then again, you aren't looking for that at all are you? You're getting trounced, your arguments are disjointed and badly formed, and now in a fit of pique, you're going to try to plead that you're too much of an expert for the conversation and hurry off. Then again, you probably will respond to this. It's not definite, but I give it better than a 70% chance, even though you "won't be replying any further".
Ah, so since copyright laws are not 100% effective in protecting the rights of copyright owners, we should ditch copyright entirely? But hey, let's take a look at those links you provided.
All three make the same obvious mistake. They count every pirate copy of a movie/software package/music album as a "lost sale". This is a fairly absurd statement, as it's one hell of a leap to assume that each one of these copies would have otherwise been purchased legitimately. Of course, it's not surprising that all three of the articles make this error, they're based on studies by the MPAA, the BSA and the "Institute for Policy Innovation", an organization that never seems to fail in finding exactly the results the industries it shills for want them to find.
Soooo, three articles, three examples of bad methodology, and you've proven wha
You know, for some reason, when I read this post I kind of heard it as a William Shatner voice-over in my head.....
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a Faraday cage? - not quite Pink Floyd
Um, yeah......the point of the discussion is how much time. My point in that example is that as long as Queen is still alive and kicking (and for a little longer), you should have to pay them to use their work.
You ignored the bulk of the post, which is really, I think, the important parts. Why should you have the opportunity to make money from their work, while paying them nothing, after contributing nothing, while they are still around?
Okie dokie, so instead of just saying they exist, name a few. The logic of a great many of them rests on how we as humans feel about things though, so do try to keep that in mind. I'll get you started:
Murder: My neighbor, who lives alone and has no dependents is constantly bullying me and vandalizing the neighborhood. I am a productive member of society, and he is on welfare and is actually a drain on society. I decide to simply kill him, removing the problem, and actually making society stronger by eliminating a non-functional member. Seems logical. What actually happens is that I'm convicted of murder, because we as a society feel that human life is valuable, even if the human in question doesn't function as a contributing member of that society.
Theft: Bob is loaded. Millions and millions of dollars, more than he could ever use. I have nothing. I work hard every day, unloading trucks, while Bob actually doesn't do anything, since he won that money on a lotto bet. I am actually starving, and I realize that Bob has been leaving a pile of sandwiches next to his open kitchen window. I take one, because logically, it doesn't harm him at all, he'd probably never even notice, where as I am in dire straights. I'm arrested for theft because we feel as a society that it's wrong to take things that don't belong to you, whether the victim of the crime is harmed by that loss or not.
Everything we do as a people is filtered through how we feel about what we're doing. If we evolved from sharks instead of apes, perhaps we'd think it's okay to eat each other. We didn't though, so we're not generally fond of that kind of thing.
I'd say the comparison is just fine. If I want to, I can release my song to everyone without any restrictions (just like the oxygen from your trees right now). Or, I can release it with restrictions and you're free to take it or leave it (as would happen with your special bottled air). But you're right to a point, I wouldn't have chosen the whole tree thing myself in the first place, that was your call.
Um, where did I do that? Air goes everywhere, and you have limited control over which air you're breathing at any given moment. Your mp3 player contains songs that you intentionally put there.
For something that you claim to be essentially impossible, copyright is enforced pretty well on a daily basis. As for orphans, they point out a flaw in how copyright is executed, but not necessarily a fatal flaw, it's perfectly fixable. Perhaps digital is the answer to this, and a provision should be made that some form the work must be made available during the entire time of it's copyright
Hey, sorry I never replied to you...you sort of got lost in the noise (I'm badly outnumbered here!). Anyway, if you're still interested in the topic, I think your points are addressed in other parts of the thread by now......
In any case, I just noticed that you were the only person I didn't reply to and it seemed rude to just let it lie that way.