Are you kidding? According to this page, Firefox right now has a market share of 27%, compared to 62% for MSIE. Can you imagine how differently things would have been if MSIE hadn't been bundled with Windows?
Not very. Unpopular as the truth is on Slashdot, IE gained market dominance because it was *better* than Navigator.
Even if it was distributed freely, people would still have had to find it, and would have had to decide to use it over Netscape, which was dominant at the time.
Which is exactly what they *did* to raise IE into its dominant market position. IE's largest growth in marketshare happened with the version that had to be sought out, downloaded and installed *before* it was integrated into Windows (IE4).[0]
Even now, Firefox is gaining, but many people still have reasons for keeping MSIE which stem from its integration with the OS.
Indeed. Heaven forbid people choose to stay with a certain product because it provides *better functionality* in some areas than its competitors. Those capitalist scum !
Firefox renders more quickly, but it sure takes a while to load.
It's been a while since I've seen any benchmarks, but I spend most of my time using Firefox and I am *always* impressed by the greater speed of IE whenever I use it. I can't say I'd agree that Firefox is faster.
What about big organizations that run Windows? MSIE is a hell of a lot easier to deploy. (Try making forced settings on Firefox. Even setting a default profile requires medium-level hackery.)
So again we have an example of something IE does better. Why is it a problem if people choose to use IE because of things it does better ?
[0]Not to mention, as the standard anti-Microsoft trolls like to remember, Windows 98 at its release was not exactly a rousing success, so IE4's continued dramatic marketshare increases in the period after Windows 98's release can hardly be attributed to that.
Somebody else has already said it, but I'll add this addendum. Unless it is critical functionality (like an eminent battery shutdown), there is no warning that should *ever* interrupt a Powerpoint presentation while it is in full screen mode, *ever*.
How do you propose the OS distinguish between a powerpoint presentation and malicious code written with the objective of suppressing informational status messages and reminders ?
How is XP not a slightly modified and colorized version of 2000?
Who claims it isn't ? XP has under the hood improvements to improve performance - particularly on higher end equipment - but fundamentally it is just a.1 release of the NT 5.x product line.
The colors aren't even an improvement; the layout of the "improved" Start menu is an unreadable mess.
Says you. As far as I'm concerned the "new" Start Menu is a vast improvement in usability over the "classic" Start Menu (the bright colours I can take or leave).
It's certainly not an even balance between the two. Some security mechanisms may require a slightly degraded user interface, but we're talking about all the terrible user interfaces that currently exist in Windows, and I doubt they are the way they are due to security considerations.
I'm not aware of any OSes that don't have significant UI problems, if UI utopia is your yardstick.
Over the last three decades, Microsoft has developed three 'real' operating systems; Xenix, OS/2, and Singularity. They have developed Windows NT, which is quite a nice OS buried under a pile of userspace crap written for backwards compatibility. The closest thing to a real OS that they have been able to sell is NT, and that's because of all the backwards compatibility junk, rather than the strength of the OS.
The mind boggles at how someone could describe Xenix and OS/2 as "real OSes", but not NT, given that NT's specifications and capabilities are significantly greater than both of them.
In a perfect world, you're right. Build a good product, and people will come running. Well, let me just begin the list of good software with bad marketing that have failed due to the lack of marketing:
One out of three doesn't even qualify as "not bad".
This is especially bad on a server. I can't figure out why they have to have a dialog pop up every 2 minutes asking if you want to reboot the server now or later, after an update has been run. I've already told it I'll reboot it later, now stop bugging me!
This is because your server is now potentially in an undefined, unstable transitional state that a reboot will fix (by completing the process).
I was going to wait until everyone went home to reboot the server. But I was making another change on the server, so I was still logged in and working. That Reboot now or later dialog popped up JUST as I was about to click on something. Guess which button had popped up under the mouse cursor?!? So in the middle of the day, the server rebooted, giving no chance for people to close their files, and taking out our DNS server while it rebooted [It's a small office, so it's a mutli-function server].
This is your fault. When you're applying a patch that requires a reboot, you shouldn't apply it until you are ready to reboot, and you should reboot immediately.
And it shouldn't be limited to PowerPoint. There needs to be a standardized API so that Windows can query each running program to ask it whether it's busy doing something that shouldn't be interrupted. So whether you're giving a PowerPoint presentation or taking a timed test online or playing a time-sensitive game, Windows should know enough to not interrupt you.
An icon on the task bar that changes appearance to indicate you have system messages.
Most people either won't see it, or will ignore it because it's not obviously important.
A list of messages pops up when you log on.
Won't be read because when people are logging on, they're usually doing it with the objective of completing real work *right now*.
Plus you're assuming they even log off/log on frequently enough for it to be meaningful. Personally, I actually log onto my PC maybe once a month.
A list of messages pops up when you come out of a period of inactivity.
Like, say, after clicking the mouse button for the next slide after talking about the previous one for half an hour ?
Your "check engine" light does not take over the windshield of your car, does it? Why should a less important message on your computer take over the monitor?
"Check engine" lights are *routinely* ignored by motorists. Hell, you'd be lucky if the average motorist gave the bright red "CHECK OIL" light more than a passing glance, and it usually only comes on when the self-destruction of the engine is imminent.
I still get the little hardware wizard that wants to help me when I plug in a new mouse, or Windows will still notify me that there is either a new network found or that my computer is at a security risk because of virus subscription expiration in the middle of a Powerpoint presentation!
Would some one please explain what exactly it wrong with DRM? If you have a problem with concept of copyrights in general, then I can understand. But is there anyone out there that is cool with copyrights, but thinks DRM is bad?
Well, I'll give you the third alternative. I think copyright is a broken concept, but I'm all for DRM on the proviso works protected by DRM are *not* protected by copyright (ie: it's DRM or copyright, but not both).
I do agree with your confusion, however. I cannot see how someone can be *for* the concept of copyright (ie: that the creator of "intellectual property" has an inherent right to restrict it in any way they see fit) but *against* DRM (which finally endows content creators with the inherent right copyright says they have).
OK. Got you now. So what you're saying is that while copyright expires only after death of the author (I imagine it would be some arbitrary number - 50 years or so - for corporations since they cannot die), the exclusive right of distribution expires after cost recovery.
Copyrights held by "non-people" are the fly in my ointment, I can't decide how to deal with it fairly. I really want to say that copyrights can only be held by "natural people", but I imagine that would have a massive negative economic affect on businesses that rely on copyright to be viable in the first place.
Additionally, as I've said elsewhere, I think any copyright law that has a specific, arbitrary timeframe written into it is too easy (relatively speaking) to have modified.
On the flipside, once a work has been "cost recovered", as you say, personal non-profit copying becomes legal, so as far as most people are concered it's irrelevant after that point.
I am open to suggestions on this front:).
Allowable transitions are 1->2->3 [Recover Costs; Profit; Die Rich] or 1->3 [Recover Costs; Die Poor]. Have I got this right?
Yep. I would also enshrine the "moral right" you refer to in law, such that a work could never be (legally) claimed by another to be theirs (hence criminalising both "plagiarism" and the registering of a work by someone who didn't create it). This is the only right I would confer automatically to all works from the instant of creation.
Fixed term copyright is not a bad idea as long as no copyrights can be extended after the fact. Indeed, as I see it, it should be unconstitutional to extend a copyright term beyond what was in effect at the time of creation (i.e., if a term can be extended after the fact, it can not be guarantted to be "limited" as the Contitution provides.
Well, I'm not American, so I'm not arguing this from a Constitutional perspective (and by my understanding of the US Constitution, copyright as it (conceptually) exists today would not be a requirement to meet the Constitutional definition).
IMHO, if a copyright period is enshrined in law as a specific, arbitrary period of time, then it is relatively easy to have that time period extended, ad infinitum. That's why I think any (new) form of copyright law *cannot* work from such a basis, or it is inherently vulnerable to abuse.
I think the term of copyright should be much shorter; the orignal 14 years is probably adequate.
Personally I think 14 years is way, way too long for most works. The average song or movie, for example, makes the vast bulk of its money in the first few years after release. Subsequently, it will generate a relatively small - albeit steady - stream of income, but that income is pure profit and, as such, provides little incentive for the creation of new works. Similarly, the longer a work stays under copyright, the less value it has from the perspective of providing inspiration to others.
Instead of creating a bureaucracy to police the development costs and reported income from a work, a more efficient and market oriented solution would be to simply auction the extension of copyright terms when the current term expires. Whatever value a given work may have after its initial (let's say 14 years) term, let the market decide what the value of that work over the next 14 years would be.
I like the theory, but I really do think any form of copyright law that has a specific time period stated will be vulnerable to the same kinds of abuses we have seen current copyright law suffer, with regards to continual extensions. Additionally, it seems to put valuable works at the mercy of corporations, who will effectively be unbeatable in any bidding wars with their endless financial resources and put an infinite copyright on works simply by extending the term every time it is up for renewal (I would expect the average "IP" company would look at it as a defensive strategy, keeping control of works not so much for the works themselves, but for any future derivative works).
a) Arbitrary extensions of copyright are fundamentally at odds with fixed length terms.
If a copyright term is "fixed" at some number, then that number can be changed relatively easily, extending copyright terms (an amendment to the law). That is the problem. Is the copyright term is, instead, a dynamic value relative to the success of the work, then increasing copyright terms with specific works in mind becomes a more difficult exercise because the whole law has to be changed.
b) So creators of useful/popular/money-making content should be punished?
Well, if your idea of "punished" is "has to keep working to derive an income" then yes, I suppose they are being "punished", just like most other workers are.
Copyrights endows an extraordinary set of privileges - a government approved and enforced monopoly - on the owner of a copyrighted work. These extraordinary privileges are granted on the proviso that the creator of the work will continue to develop additional works of similar - if not greater - value. What incentive is there for a creator to continue making new works when a single successful one can allow them to spend the rest of their lives on holiday ? No other "job" has that sort of payoff.
No matter how you choose to look at copyright - be it as a simple economic incentive for creating "intellectucal property", or some pie-in-the-sky ideals about "improving society" - it only makes sense for copyright terms on popular works to be shorter than average. In the former philosophy, to encourage "great" artists to create more works. In the latter philosophy, so other artists can garner inspiration from a "great" work - making a better one - sooner, without fear of infringing.
How would you even implement such a system? The instant someone shares the content online the copyright ceases to be?
See here for some rough ideas. The basic tenets are that a) (economic) copyright protection becomes an opt-in system and b) copyright term is tied to the market success of a work.
I neither said first-degree murder nor anything about downloading songs, and if I have given any impression otherwise, please tell me what made you think so.
In this post, you fairly unsubtly suggest that a copyright that expired on the creator's death would be a motivation to kill them to get the work into the public domain.
Now, killing a "creator" so their work is pushed into the public domain is a pretty clear example of premeditated murder - and since it would be well known that the work would be pushed into the public domain, profit could not be a motive, therefore the only possible reason would be so that the murderer could acquire the formerly-copyrighted work without breaking copyright law.
You might have been thinking something else when you wrote that first post, but I'm having trouble seeing any other interpretations.
I think you forgot to turn on your irony detector.
Sorry, but it's so commonly used by people as an attempt at serious argument (who obviously haven't thought it through), it's hard to tell when people are joking.
a) And that's different from the current situation?
No, which is my point. Currently copyright law is based on fixed-length terms and is - as has been demonstrated - vulnerable to extensions of those fixed terms. Winding back the clock to 14 years (which is still too long for the vast majority of cases, but I digress) would simply result in exactly the same situation playing itself out again over the subsequent century.
b) Are you arguing that popular works should be given longer or shorter copyright terms?
Shorter. Thus "encouraging" artists who are good[0] to create more works.
[0]"Good" here being a measure of what the market says, not what artistic snobs say.
Probably very few people, but there's no punishment if you don't get caught, and I would be very surprised if there is no person who thinks to be smart enough to get away with it.
Right. So your contention is that people who are unprepared to break *copyright law* today, would be prepared to commit *first degree murder*, just so they could download their favourite song without breaking new and improved copyright law ?
Fixed copyright terms of arbitrary length are inherently broken because:
a) they are vulnerable to extensions of that arbitrary length
b) they assume all works have the same intrinsic value by offering them all the same level of "protection". Thus, they do not allow the market to make a value judgement.
I can tell you're not someone who intends to make a living from producing anything creative.
No, I just don't think people who do want to make a living from creative works should have the system so ridiculously stacked in their favour as it is now. It should allow them to make a living, but it should require them to continue producing works to do so.
If you write a song, or a book, or a piece of software, and people want to hear/read/use it, then you should have the right to sell it.
Which in my system, you do. Indeed, up until you die, you are the *only* person who can sell it.
The idea that once you've recovered your production costs, people can legally file-share it for free is ludicrous.
Who would buy a copy?
Same people who buy it now despite being able to download it for free.
Most people would just wait for it to go public.
If no-one buys it, it won't go public.
Intellectual Property does have value.
Indeed it does. But not in the way property does, no matter how much the term "intellectual property" is abused.
Being a musician or a writer is a trade.
Exactly. And they shouldn't be given ridiculous advantages people in other trades are not.
If you think that the creative arts will flourish under your system, think again.
Of course they would. With its requirement for continuous creation of new material to assure income and a strong preference for individual creativity over corporate-sponsored cookie-cutter entertainment, I would expect it to usher in a new age of creative diversity.
Not only that, but an effective requirement for "content" purchases to include more than just the song or the movie to be worthwhile, consumers would receive far more for their dollar than they do now.
No one will be a professional artist, they will just be well-intentioned amateurs doing stuff in their spare time.
Why ? It's not like there wouldn't still be plenty of money to be made in live performances, product sponsorship and value-adding CDs, DVDs and the like.
It certainly would turn copyrighted material more into a service than a product, but that's mainly because it's the whole point of my guidelines.
Yes, DRM is unfairly prohibitive.
I am 100% for ridiculously strict hardware-enforced DRM - but only if it comes with the complete abolishment of copyright. If that were to happen, "content" might actually start having to bend to market forces (because then it would actually behave much more like physical property).
If you cheapen artistic endeavour, you cheapen society.
Current copyright law (and the basic concepts behind it, going back to its inception) do far more to "cheapen artistic endeavour" than anything my proposals might result in. Largely because it works under the assumption that all works have the same basic value and denies the market's ability to indicate its preferences.
Yes, the record companies take too big a cut. But don't take away the artist's rights to make a living from their skill.
I wouldn't. I would, however, make continual exercising of their skill a requirement to make a living. I fail to see how that is unreasonable, or unfair. I have to go to work every day to keep the money rolling in so I can sustain my lifestyle - why shouldn't artists ?
I sympathise with the goals, but think that the practice you're trying to implement would be extremely difficult.
I should have clarified, here, that there would be two distinct sets of requirements depending on whether the body registering the copyright is an individual or a corporation.
An individual would be allowed to put forth a "reasonable estimate". This would be, in effect, the cost of raw materials + (a "reasonable wage" * time of development)[0]. Corporations, OTOH, would have these reports folded into their standard accounting and taxation procedures (ie: if they make money out of selling copyrighted works, they must report that separately on their standard accounting/taxation forms).
My reasoning here is that the scope for copyright abuse by individuals is small, therefore to encourage individual creativity, the requirements for them vis-a-vis "copyright registration" requirements, would be much more lax.
The unintended consequence of such a regime would (I think) be the artificial inflation of ECDs (notwithstanding your next point). Noone would have the appropriate incentive to report true costs - you'd need an extremely rigorous copyright equivalent of the SEC and Sarbanes-Oxley.
Given the enormous privileges endowed to copyright holders to overrule normal market forces, this does not seem to me to be an unreasoanble tradeoff. A side benefit would be - by requirement - more transparency and accountability in corporate accounting practices.
Note that the money has to be documented going somewhere, particularly in publically traded corporations.
The reason I would insist the punishments be so harsh, is to discourage any serious attempts at fraud. Things like popular movies and music, for example, that make such phenomenally large amounts of money, will go out of copyright relatively quickly (as they should), even if the development cost is dramatically overstated. Additionally, one or two successfully prosecuted cases in a field where works are expensive to create (ie: where it's actually worth trying to fudge the figures) should result in sufficiently devestating losses for that period that any further attempts will be extremely unlikely.
The problem here is determining what is a fraudulent assessment of a works costs.
Well, the objective is only to stop trully outrageous inflations, which should be relatively easy to spot.
If everyone has an incentive to maximise their costs, then how does the appropriate copyright authority determine that they are all out of line - and by how much?
Ah, ok, I see where you're going...
The objective is not to assess whether or not, say, $500 million is an appropriate cost to make Mission Impossible 15, the objective is to make sure that if the studio says it cost that much, then the rest of their legally required accounting for the stated time period says that number is a reasonable amount - ie: that their reported expenses for goods, services, wages, etc in the (reported) timeframe the movies was being made, adds up to about the right number. In other words, that they're not just making up numbers and alleged expenses are disappearing off into the creative accounting ether.
So if, say, a studio reports it makes three movies in a year for a combined cost of $250 million, then their annual taxation report should show they spent $250 million on salaries, services and depreciating assets. If it says they only spent, say, $50 million, then it's time for some questions to be asked.
As I said, this sort of information would be rolled into the legally required accounting practices, making fraud (ie: money disappearing) much more difficult.
[0] I would expect this value to be calculated as some fixed multiplier of the average wage.
Fundamentally, I believe copyright to be a concept that is broken by design, but that it has taken the "digital age", with its inherently instantaneous, free reproduction capabilities and near-instantaneous, near-free distribution channels to make that obvious.
With that said, I recognise that copyright is here to stay.
So, my guidelines for a fair copyright regime:
* Copyright is recognised as fundamentally an economic tool for artificially assigning value to something that inherently has none (ie: none of this flowery "for the betterment of society" claptrap).
* Copyright protection for economic purposes becomes an opt-in process (eg: if you want to sell a book or song, you have to register it as a copyrighted work).
* Length of copyright is linked to a works "ECD". When a work is registered as copyrighted, it must include an "Estimated Cost of Development". Once the owner of the copyright has recorded income from selling the copyrighted work that meets or exceeds the "ECD", the work is no longer subject to protection from non-profit copyright infringement (ie: filesharing and the like). Note that for-profit reproduction (ie: someone else *selling* a copyrighted work) is still a crime (and would be harshly punished).
* Fraudulent reporting of "ECD" or copyright-related income would be *severely* punished. Upon confirmation of such fraud, the work would immediately enter the public domain and a fine would be issued to the registered copyright holder equal to the submitted "ROI" value PLUS any reported income from the work. Where possible (ie: with proof of purchase), refunds would be issued to anyone who had purchased the work.
* On the death of the copyright holder, all their copyrighted works enter the public domain.
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Are you kidding? According to this page, Firefox right now has a market share of 27%, compared to 62% for MSIE. Can you imagine how differently things would have been if MSIE hadn't been bundled with Windows?
Not very. Unpopular as the truth is on Slashdot, IE gained market dominance because it was *better* than Navigator.
Even if it was distributed freely, people would still have had to find it, and would have had to decide to use it over Netscape, which was dominant at the time.
Which is exactly what they *did* to raise IE into its dominant market position. IE's largest growth in marketshare happened with the version that had to be sought out, downloaded and installed *before* it was integrated into Windows (IE4).[0]
Even now, Firefox is gaining, but many people still have reasons for keeping MSIE which stem from its integration with the OS.
Indeed. Heaven forbid people choose to stay with a certain product because it provides *better functionality* in some areas than its competitors. Those capitalist scum !
Firefox renders more quickly, but it sure takes a while to load.
It's been a while since I've seen any benchmarks, but I spend most of my time using Firefox and I am *always* impressed by the greater speed of IE whenever I use it. I can't say I'd agree that Firefox is faster.
What about big organizations that run Windows? MSIE is a hell of a lot easier to deploy. (Try making forced settings on Firefox. Even setting a default profile requires medium-level hackery.)
So again we have an example of something IE does better. Why is it a problem if people choose to use IE because of things it does better ?
[0]Not to mention, as the standard anti-Microsoft trolls like to remember, Windows 98 at its release was not exactly a rousing success, so IE4's continued dramatic marketshare increases in the period after Windows 98's release can hardly be attributed to that.
How do you propose the OS distinguish between a powerpoint presentation and malicious code written with the objective of suppressing informational status messages and reminders ?
How is XP not a slightly modified and colorized version of 2000?
Who claims it isn't ? XP has under the hood improvements to improve performance - particularly on higher end equipment - but fundamentally it is just a .1 release of the NT 5.x product line.
The colors aren't even an improvement; the layout of the "improved" Start menu is an unreadable mess.
Says you. As far as I'm concerned the "new" Start Menu is a vast improvement in usability over the "classic" Start Menu (the bright colours I can take or leave).
It's certainly not an even balance between the two. Some security mechanisms may require a slightly degraded user interface, but we're talking about all the terrible user interfaces that currently exist in Windows, and I doubt they are the way they are due to security considerations.
I'm not aware of any OSes that don't have significant UI problems, if UI utopia is your yardstick.
The mind boggles at how someone could describe Xenix and OS/2 as "real OSes", but not NT, given that NT's specifications and capabilities are significantly greater than both of them.
As far as rm -rf /, I dearly hope you're not encouraging them to run as root. Because that defeats one of the main purposes of having Linux.
'rm -rf /' will damage just as much of the important data, whether you're running as root or your regular login.
In a perfect world, you're right. Build a good product, and people will come running. Well, let me just begin the list of good software with bad marketing that have failed due to the lack of marketing:
One out of three doesn't even qualify as "not bad".
This is especially bad on a server. I can't figure out why they have to have a dialog pop up every 2 minutes asking if you want to reboot the server now or later, after an update has been run. I've already told it I'll reboot it later, now stop bugging me!
This is because your server is now potentially in an undefined, unstable transitional state that a reboot will fix (by completing the process).
I was going to wait until everyone went home to reboot the server. But I was making another change on the server, so I was still logged in and working. That Reboot now or later dialog popped up JUST as I was about to click on something. Guess which button had popped up under the mouse cursor?!? So in the middle of the day, the server rebooted, giving no chance for people to close their files, and taking out our DNS server while it rebooted [It's a small office, so it's a mutli-function server].
This is your fault. When you're applying a patch that requires a reboot, you shouldn't apply it until you are ready to reboot, and you should reboot immediately.
And it shouldn't be limited to PowerPoint. There needs to be a standardized API so that Windows can query each running program to ask it whether it's busy doing something that shouldn't be interrupted. So whether you're giving a PowerPoint presentation or taking a timed test online or playing a time-sensitive game, Windows should know enough to not interrupt you.
This would fall into the we know it's insecure, but we want to do it anyway class of "solutions".
There are a lot of different solutions, most of them wrong. It's a significant challenge.
No, it's a "you can't win and trying will make the problem worse" challenge.
How unprofessional is it in the middle of a presentation to have something like that happen?
How is the computer supposed to know what you're doing ?
Before you answer, you might want to ponder the unintentional consequences of allowing such a warning to be programmatically suppressed.
An icon on the task bar that changes appearance to indicate you have system messages.
Most people either won't see it, or will ignore it because it's not obviously important.
A list of messages pops up when you log on.
Won't be read because when people are logging on, they're usually doing it with the objective of completing real work *right now*.
Plus you're assuming they even log off/log on frequently enough for it to be meaningful. Personally, I actually log onto my PC maybe once a month.
A list of messages pops up when you come out of a period of inactivity.
Like, say, after clicking the mouse button for the next slide after talking about the previous one for half an hour ?
Your "check engine" light does not take over the windshield of your car, does it? Why should a less important message on your computer take over the monitor?
"Check engine" lights are *routinely* ignored by motorists. Hell, you'd be lucky if the average motorist gave the bright red "CHECK OIL" light more than a passing glance, and it usually only comes on when the self-destruction of the engine is imminent.
I still get the little hardware wizard that wants to help me when I plug in a new mouse, or Windows will still notify me that there is either a new network found or that my computer is at a security risk because of virus subscription expiration in the middle of a Powerpoint presentation!
How do you propose they fix these "problems" ?
Would some one please explain what exactly it wrong with DRM? If you have a problem with concept of copyrights in general, then I can understand. But is there anyone out there that is cool with copyrights, but thinks DRM is bad?
Well, I'll give you the third alternative. I think copyright is a broken concept, but I'm all for DRM on the proviso works protected by DRM are *not* protected by copyright (ie: it's DRM or copyright, but not both).
I do agree with your confusion, however. I cannot see how someone can be *for* the concept of copyright (ie: that the creator of "intellectual property" has an inherent right to restrict it in any way they see fit) but *against* DRM (which finally endows content creators with the inherent right copyright says they have).
OK. Got you now. So what you're saying is that while copyright expires only after death of the author (I imagine it would be some arbitrary number - 50 years or so - for corporations since they cannot die), the exclusive right of distribution expires after cost recovery.
Copyrights held by "non-people" are the fly in my ointment, I can't decide how to deal with it fairly. I really want to say that copyrights can only be held by "natural people", but I imagine that would have a massive negative economic affect on businesses that rely on copyright to be viable in the first place.
Additionally, as I've said elsewhere, I think any copyright law that has a specific, arbitrary timeframe written into it is too easy (relatively speaking) to have modified.
On the flipside, once a work has been "cost recovered", as you say, personal non-profit copying becomes legal, so as far as most people are concered it's irrelevant after that point.
I am open to suggestions on this front :).
Allowable transitions are 1->2->3 [Recover Costs; Profit; Die Rich] or 1->3 [Recover Costs; Die Poor]. Have I got this right?
Yep. I would also enshrine the "moral right" you refer to in law, such that a work could never be (legally) claimed by another to be theirs (hence criminalising both "plagiarism" and the registering of a work by someone who didn't create it). This is the only right I would confer automatically to all works from the instant of creation.
Fixed term copyright is not a bad idea as long as no copyrights can be extended after the fact. Indeed, as I see it, it should be unconstitutional to extend a copyright term beyond what was in effect at the time of creation (i.e., if a term can be extended after the fact, it can not be guarantted to be "limited" as the Contitution provides.
Well, I'm not American, so I'm not arguing this from a Constitutional perspective (and by my understanding of the US Constitution, copyright as it (conceptually) exists today would not be a requirement to meet the Constitutional definition).
IMHO, if a copyright period is enshrined in law as a specific, arbitrary period of time, then it is relatively easy to have that time period extended, ad infinitum. That's why I think any (new) form of copyright law *cannot* work from such a basis, or it is inherently vulnerable to abuse.
I think the term of copyright should be much shorter; the orignal 14 years is probably adequate.
Personally I think 14 years is way, way too long for most works. The average song or movie, for example, makes the vast bulk of its money in the first few years after release. Subsequently, it will generate a relatively small - albeit steady - stream of income, but that income is pure profit and, as such, provides little incentive for the creation of new works. Similarly, the longer a work stays under copyright, the less value it has from the perspective of providing inspiration to others.
Instead of creating a bureaucracy to police the development costs and reported income from a work, a more efficient and market oriented solution would be to simply auction the extension of copyright terms when the current term expires. Whatever value a given work may have after its initial (let's say 14 years) term, let the market decide what the value of that work over the next 14 years would be.
I like the theory, but I really do think any form of copyright law that has a specific time period stated will be vulnerable to the same kinds of abuses we have seen current copyright law suffer, with regards to continual extensions. Additionally, it seems to put valuable works at the mercy of corporations, who will effectively be unbeatable in any bidding wars with their endless financial resources and put an infinite copyright on works simply by extending the term every time it is up for renewal (I would expect the average "IP" company would look at it as a defensive strategy, keeping control of works not so much for the works themselves, but for any future derivative works).
It's not, because your second example suffers the same problem as your first - specifically stated, arbitrary periods of time.
a) Arbitrary extensions of copyright are fundamentally at odds with fixed length terms.
If a copyright term is "fixed" at some number, then that number can be changed relatively easily, extending copyright terms (an amendment to the law). That is the problem. Is the copyright term is, instead, a dynamic value relative to the success of the work, then increasing copyright terms with specific works in mind becomes a more difficult exercise because the whole law has to be changed.
b) So creators of useful/popular/money-making content should be punished?
Well, if your idea of "punished" is "has to keep working to derive an income" then yes, I suppose they are being "punished", just like most other workers are.
Copyrights endows an extraordinary set of privileges - a government approved and enforced monopoly - on the owner of a copyrighted work. These extraordinary privileges are granted on the proviso that the creator of the work will continue to develop additional works of similar - if not greater - value. What incentive is there for a creator to continue making new works when a single successful one can allow them to spend the rest of their lives on holiday ? No other "job" has that sort of payoff.
No matter how you choose to look at copyright - be it as a simple economic incentive for creating "intellectucal property", or some pie-in-the-sky ideals about "improving society" - it only makes sense for copyright terms on popular works to be shorter than average. In the former philosophy, to encourage "great" artists to create more works. In the latter philosophy, so other artists can garner inspiration from a "great" work - making a better one - sooner, without fear of infringing.
How would you even implement such a system? The instant someone shares the content online the copyright ceases to be?
See here for some rough ideas. The basic tenets are that a) (economic) copyright protection becomes an opt-in system and b) copyright term is tied to the market success of a work.
I neither said first-degree murder nor anything about downloading songs, and if I have given any impression otherwise, please tell me what made you think so.
In this post, you fairly unsubtly suggest that a copyright that expired on the creator's death would be a motivation to kill them to get the work into the public domain.
Now, killing a "creator" so their work is pushed into the public domain is a pretty clear example of premeditated murder - and since it would be well known that the work would be pushed into the public domain, profit could not be a motive, therefore the only possible reason would be so that the murderer could acquire the formerly-copyrighted work without breaking copyright law.
You might have been thinking something else when you wrote that first post, but I'm having trouble seeing any other interpretations.
Sorry, but it's so commonly used by people as an attempt at serious argument (who obviously haven't thought it through), it's hard to tell when people are joking.
a) And that's different from the current situation?
No, which is my point. Currently copyright law is based on fixed-length terms and is - as has been demonstrated - vulnerable to extensions of those fixed terms. Winding back the clock to 14 years (which is still too long for the vast majority of cases, but I digress) would simply result in exactly the same situation playing itself out again over the subsequent century.
b) Are you arguing that popular works should be given longer or shorter copyright terms?
Shorter. Thus "encouraging" artists who are good[0] to create more works.
[0]"Good" here being a measure of what the market says, not what artistic snobs say.
Right. So your contention is that people who are unprepared to break *copyright law* today, would be prepared to commit *first degree murder*, just so they could download their favourite song without breaking new and improved copyright law ?
No, I am in favor of fixed copyright terms.
Fixed copyright terms of arbitrary length are inherently broken because:
a) they are vulnerable to extensions of that arbitrary length
b) they assume all works have the same intrinsic value by offering them all the same level of "protection". Thus, they do not allow the market to make a value judgement.
I can tell you're not someone who intends to make a living from producing anything creative.
No, I just don't think people who do want to make a living from creative works should have the system so ridiculously stacked in their favour as it is now. It should allow them to make a living, but it should require them to continue producing works to do so.
If you write a song, or a book, or a piece of software, and people want to hear/read/use it, then you should have the right to sell it.
Which in my system, you do. Indeed, up until you die, you are the *only* person who can sell it.
The idea that once you've recovered your production costs, people can legally file-share it for free is ludicrous.
Who would buy a copy?
Same people who buy it now despite being able to download it for free.
Most people would just wait for it to go public.
If no-one buys it, it won't go public.
Intellectual Property does have value.
Indeed it does. But not in the way property does, no matter how much the term "intellectual property" is abused.
Being a musician or a writer is a trade.
Exactly. And they shouldn't be given ridiculous advantages people in other trades are not.
If you think that the creative arts will flourish under your system, think again.
Of course they would. With its requirement for continuous creation of new material to assure income and a strong preference for individual creativity over corporate-sponsored cookie-cutter entertainment, I would expect it to usher in a new age of creative diversity.
Not only that, but an effective requirement for "content" purchases to include more than just the song or the movie to be worthwhile, consumers would receive far more for their dollar than they do now.
No one will be a professional artist, they will just be well-intentioned amateurs doing stuff in their spare time.
Why ? It's not like there wouldn't still be plenty of money to be made in live performances, product sponsorship and value-adding CDs, DVDs and the like.
It certainly would turn copyrighted material more into a service than a product, but that's mainly because it's the whole point of my guidelines.
Yes, DRM is unfairly prohibitive.
I am 100% for ridiculously strict hardware-enforced DRM - but only if it comes with the complete abolishment of copyright. If that were to happen, "content" might actually start having to bend to market forces (because then it would actually behave much more like physical property).
If you cheapen artistic endeavour, you cheapen society.
Current copyright law (and the basic concepts behind it, going back to its inception) do far more to "cheapen artistic endeavour" than anything my proposals might result in. Largely because it works under the assumption that all works have the same basic value and denies the market's ability to indicate its preferences.
Yes, the record companies take too big a cut. But don't take away the artist's rights to make a living from their skill.
I wouldn't. I would, however, make continual exercising of their skill a requirement to make a living. I fail to see how that is unreasonable, or unfair. I have to go to work every day to keep the money rolling in so I can sustain my lifestyle - why shouldn't artists ?
I sympathise with the goals, but think that the practice you're trying to implement would be extremely difficult.
I should have clarified, here, that there would be two distinct sets of requirements depending on whether the body registering the copyright is an individual or a corporation.
An individual would be allowed to put forth a "reasonable estimate". This would be, in effect, the cost of raw materials + (a "reasonable wage" * time of development)[0]. Corporations, OTOH, would have these reports folded into their standard accounting and taxation procedures (ie: if they make money out of selling copyrighted works, they must report that separately on their standard accounting/taxation forms).
My reasoning here is that the scope for copyright abuse by individuals is small, therefore to encourage individual creativity, the requirements for them vis-a-vis "copyright registration" requirements, would be much more lax.
The unintended consequence of such a regime would (I think) be the artificial inflation of ECDs (notwithstanding your next point). Noone would have the appropriate incentive to report true costs - you'd need an extremely rigorous copyright equivalent of the SEC and Sarbanes-Oxley.
Given the enormous privileges endowed to copyright holders to overrule normal market forces, this does not seem to me to be an unreasoanble tradeoff. A side benefit would be - by requirement - more transparency and accountability in corporate accounting practices.
Note that the money has to be documented going somewhere, particularly in publically traded corporations.
The reason I would insist the punishments be so harsh, is to discourage any serious attempts at fraud. Things like popular movies and music, for example, that make such phenomenally large amounts of money, will go out of copyright relatively quickly (as they should), even if the development cost is dramatically overstated. Additionally, one or two successfully prosecuted cases in a field where works are expensive to create (ie: where it's actually worth trying to fudge the figures) should result in sufficiently devestating losses for that period that any further attempts will be extremely unlikely.
The problem here is determining what is a fraudulent assessment of a works costs.
Well, the objective is only to stop trully outrageous inflations, which should be relatively easy to spot.
If everyone has an incentive to maximise their costs, then how does the appropriate copyright authority determine that they are all out of line - and by how much?
Ah, ok, I see where you're going...
The objective is not to assess whether or not, say, $500 million is an appropriate cost to make Mission Impossible 15, the objective is to make sure that if the studio says it cost that much, then the rest of their legally required accounting for the stated time period says that number is a reasonable amount - ie: that their reported expenses for goods, services, wages, etc in the (reported) timeframe the movies was being made, adds up to about the right number. In other words, that they're not just making up numbers and alleged expenses are disappearing off into the creative accounting ether.
So if, say, a studio reports it makes three movies in a year for a combined cost of $250 million, then their annual taxation report should show they spent $250 million on salaries, services and depreciating assets. If it says they only spent, say, $50 million, then it's time for some questions to be asked.
As I said, this sort of information would be rolled into the legally required accounting practices, making fraud (ie: money disappearing) much more difficult.
[0] I would expect this value to be calculated as some fixed multiplier of the average wage.
So you wouldn't violate copyright (ie: breal existing laws), but you *would* kill someone ?
Right....
Fundamentally, I believe copyright to be a concept that is broken by design, but that it has taken the "digital age", with its inherently instantaneous, free reproduction capabilities and near-instantaneous, near-free distribution channels to make that obvious.
With that said, I recognise that copyright is here to stay.
So, my guidelines for a fair copyright regime:
* Copyright is recognised as fundamentally an economic tool for artificially assigning value to something that inherently has none (ie: none of this flowery "for the betterment of society" claptrap).
* Copyright protection for economic purposes becomes an opt-in process (eg: if you want to sell a book or song, you have to register it as a copyrighted work).
* Length of copyright is linked to a works "ECD". When a work is registered as copyrighted, it must include an "Estimated Cost of Development". Once the owner of the copyright has recorded income from selling the copyrighted work that meets or exceeds the "ECD", the work is no longer subject to protection from non-profit copyright infringement (ie: filesharing and the like). Note that for-profit reproduction (ie: someone else *selling* a copyrighted work) is still a crime (and would be harshly punished).
* Fraudulent reporting of "ECD" or copyright-related income would be *severely* punished. Upon confirmation of such fraud, the work would immediately enter the public domain and a fine would be issued to the registered copyright holder equal to the submitted "ROI" value PLUS any reported income from the work. Where possible (ie: with proof of purchase), refunds would be issued to anyone who had purchased the work.
* On the death of the copyright holder, all their copyrighted works enter the public domain.