I disagree with that. If an author writes a book and dies, I fully support that money going to the widow or family of that author.
If a regular old blue or white-collar worker dies, do you fully support their employer having to pay a continuing wage to their widow or family ?
(Although, not for decades and decades past the author's death.) Afterall, imagine a guy spending years writing a book in an effort to support his family, then just before it is published, he dies. Now his family gets none of the revenue from that book?
As I said "the value of a performance will be determined only by the demand to see a particular performer playing live". This does not necessarily compensate the composer in any way.
It does if he charges the groups he sells his composition to properly.
Who will pay for it?
Everyone who wants to go. Just like today.
If you are satisfied with a recording you can obtain a copy (and as the availability of copies grows their marginal value tends to zero). If you want a live performance you will pay to see the performance, but that means you are paying the performer rather than the composer.
Which is, again, why the composer needs to charge the group appropriately when he sells them his composition.
What this eventually comes back to, is that the Copyright lobby only wants copyrighted goods to be treated like real property when it suits them, but not when it suits the purchaser. They want all the benefits of their infinite-supply good, without any of the consequences, while still being able to charge the consumer like it was a scarce good.
The composer puts time and effort into creating a composition. The value of a composition derives from an audience paying for the performance of that composition, but (1) the composer may not be the performer, and (2) any audience member could be a performance or could record the performance and subsequently re-perform it (possibly for another audience).
Recorded music is cheaper than a live show of the same music. Were your conclusion valid, we would have already witnessed the death of live performances, as people would purchase the cheaper (and reusable !) recorded version instead.
Economics dictates that when the marginal cost of duplication approaches zero, the marginal value of the composition will tend towards zero, and the value of a performance will be determined only by the demand to see a particular performer playing live. The only economically sensible approach for the composer is to recover the entire compensation for his/her time and effort from the first audience, who are willing to pay for the novelty of being the first audience of a new composition.
Why ? What prevents another performance from occurring ?
The purpose of GPL is to enable the customer. And if there is no copyright on code, you can reverse engineer, decompile and then produce your own binaries.
Decompiled binaries are not the same as source code. Your premise is broken.
This is quite a leap. It presupposes that artistic (and other) works enter the world ready and able to be copied, while physical things come into the world with property rights already attached. This is not at all obvious to me. Then again, I don't believe that property rights are natural rights -- I think they are created by law to achieve policy goals (albiet very important ones, for the most part, and goals that history has shown to be very difficult to achieve through any other means). But even if I believed that they were natural rights, by way of, say, the labor theory of property, I think a good case could be made that copyright should be a natural right or, if you prefer, just a type of property right. Indeed, this is apparently an influential view, among copyright scholars.(In short, if one has a right to exclude others from the fruits of one's own labor, then you should be able to exclude others from enjoyment of your creative works just as you can exclude them from taking your stuff.
Property rights exist because you can prevent someone from taking your stuff. The same is not true of "artistic works". You can't make someone unhear that song you just played.
Obviously, at some point the fees will be so great they'll outweigh whatever profits the company continues to squeeze out of the work, so in reality the work will fall into the public domain before long, though highly profitable works will stay protected for longer.
This is backwards. Highly profitable works should fall out of Copyright sooner, rather than later. The (supposed) objective of Copyright is to incentivise more creation. Where's the incentive to create a new work while the existing one is still earning bucketloads of cash ?
That gives incentive for pirates to kill successful artists.
Right. Because obviously there's a tidal wave of people ready to commit pre-meditated murder, but for their fear of prosecution for Copyright infringement.
PDFs download just fine to my iPad and run in a PDF viewer. iBooks is my personal choice but there are many others.
I never said they wouldn't download just fine. I said trying to interact with multiple ones, along with other sources of information, on an iPad, is vastly more cumbersome than doing it on a laptop or PC. iPads don't multitask well.
Again, iPads can't cover all edge cases [...]
I don't think I've described anything that can reasonably be considered an "edge case" usage scenario.
That's also not to say a good laptop isn't a better tool for some people. If a student can comfortably afford an Air or a PC notebook, by all means, having the bigger screen is nice if you're willing to sacrifice portability. Where the iPad is really catching on is with students who would be using Netbooks (which were pretty large numbers.) An iPad is more portable than a netbook, and the software is better tuned for performance on lower end hardware (Windows 7 is still fat on a netbook.)
Again, I think you're describing its use as a complementary (iPad in the lecture theatre, laptop or desktop at home), rather than single, device. I would be very surprised if any significant number of students didn't have a laptop or desktop PC at home, weren't going into computer labs to use them, or something similar (I think the same thing about Netbooks as well, FWIW, they've never struck me as a good "single device").
Today, whether it's a book or song written by one person or a $200M movie, they are trivially easy and cheap to copy, and if the creators are not given at least some window of time before copying it were freely allowed, there is no way many of these works (especially movies) would make back the initial expense. Then again, that limitation could probably be more like 2-3 years (at which point most movies have made 95%+ of what they will ever make) instead of 120!
I doubt there are many movies that haven't - absent Hollywood Accounting - made a tidy profit before the end of their box office run, and even fewer that couldn't be made to by reducing the salaries of a handful of leading actors, producers, etc. That's not even accounting for merchandising and further (though obviously much reduced, relatively speaking) DVD/BR/etc sales.
Huge amounts of money are made by live music performances, not only from the performance itself but also from merchandising and sundries. Certainly enough to cover the studio time for a CD recording. Again, that's not account for merchandising and recording sales.
The only really big "problem" from the perspective of economic viability in the absence of Copyright is ebooks, and the best solution there IMHO is DRM.
Only for those on the corporate side of the copyright-based industries.
And even they wouldn't be going broke. I doubt there are many shortfalls in box office revenues that couldn't be solved by cutting the salaries of a handful of actors.
So? If you get rid of copyright, the GPL would have no purpose anyway. Like, in a good way.
Er, no.
The purpose of the GPL is to ensure the ongoing distribution of source code licensed under it and any other code derived thereof.
If you take Copyright away, the the GPL can no longer achieve this. That doesn't mean the _requirement_ to do so has disappeared, however.
Or, to use an example, Red Hat would no longer be required to provide the source code for their Linux distribution. Sure, you could copy the binaries far and wide - but if you wanted to see what their custom kernel patches were, you wouldn't be able to.
Again, I'm not sure I agree. For the average person, an iPad has all the functionality they would use in a laptop (including hardware keyboard) with more flexible mobility.
The average person probably uses a computer at work. The iPad is unlikely to be able to take over as a replacement for that. When I said "only computer" I wasn't just talking about leisure time.
Let's face it. Most people send email, browse the web, and check Facebook. The iPad is a champ at all those things. For college students who need to take notes or do presentations, the iPad has printing, HDMI/DVI/VGA out, and a fully functional version of iWork.
A rather significant part of any student's life is assignments, which generally involve some degree of "research" (lots of web pages, PDFs, other documents, images, copy/pasting, multitasking, etc). The iPad is horrendously bad in this sort of usage scenario, even compared to something as limited as a Netbook.
What this all boils down to is that tablets are first and foremost consumption devices, and fairly limited even at that (multiple web pages on the iPad are trying due to its limited performance and incessant page reloading - throw multiple informationj sources into the mix like videos or PDFs and it becomes an exercise in frustration). They start to falter (if not outright fail) once most types of non-trivial (say, much more than a facebook post or short email) information creation or interaction is required. This is not to say tablets *cannot* be used for creation, or even excel at some forms of it, merely that as a *general solution* they are inferior to laptops and desktop PCs.
Heck, I'm not even talking about coding. The majority of stuff I do on my computer these days (outside of work) is reading web pages(/PDFs, etc), watching videos and posting to discussion forums - hardly anything particularly intense. I've tried spending my typical leisure computing time using only my iPad, and lasted about an hour before giving up and grabbing one of my laptops.
It is a limited time. Pirate people just seem to want that limit to be about zero seconds, producers want as much as possible. Obviously both sides are foaming retards who shouldn't get what they want.
Timeframes measured in single-digit years would be a good start. Ideally it would be inversely related to the popularity of the work (so more popular works went out of copyright sooner). It also shouldn't persist past the death of the copyright holder.
Define real work. With just a keyboard, a tablet is extremely productive for note taking, email, and organization, which is pretty much all most college students do. Tablets can wirelessly print these days too. It's a great form factor for carrying with you, without the huge bulk of a laptop bag.
A MacBook Air is only marginally larger than an iPad+Keyboard and infinitely more capable. I'm pretty happy with my iPad, but if I had to choose one device between it and a MacBook Air, the iPad wouldn't have a chance.
Most of our great works were produced under a system of patronage or direct performance before there existed means of coping.
These sorts of "great works" or "direct performances" remain uncopyable today. You can bring up a picture of the Sistine Chapel on a great big TV if you want, but it pales to insignificance when compared with standing inside it.
Even Shakespeare worked for money.
Non-sequitur. I never suggested anyone should work for free.
The simple fact is vast quantities of creative works were produced before Copyright existed, and increasing quantities have been (and continue to be) created since without any thought given to Copyright. The implication that Copyright is an essential part of creative works doesn't stand up to even a cursory examination.
Proper attribution is a part of the moral rights due to an author (and is the only unquestionably valid and supportable aspect of Copyright, IMHO).
Is a TV set or Microwave oven that much different than a song or a book?
Yes.
Unless he proposes putting all authors and on the public teat, I am at a loss to see how anyone can keep writing books any more than I can see why anyone would stock more microwave's in a store from which anyone take anything they wanted.
Your implication is that without public funding or Copyright, creative works would no longer be produced. History demonstrates how ridiculous this is.
If everybody can consume arbitrary amounts of medical care at other people's expense, costs and premiums are going to continue to spiral out of control.
Your premise is broken. Not everybody has any need to "consume arbitrary amounts of medical care". Indeed, only a handful of people do.
to think highly of the British model. There was just a story hear about a custom iphone app for the PM that tells him the waiting list. I recall seeing lines for a dentist. I can't fathom either.
The difference is in the UK you are on a waiting list. While in the US you're simply foregoing treatment completely (or are maybe going to an emergency room).
If you're in the financial position to get care in the US, you'd be in the financial position not to have to wait in the UK.
What's sad is when I see people of all stripes who trot out straw men, assuming that there is no other way of paying for health care other than using the state to take the money from other people.
It's not an assumption, it's a conclusion based on evidence.
Countries with publicly-funded healthcare or mandatory private health insurance (with government assistance for the poor) consistently have the best outcomes and the lowest costs.
Slashdot Mirror
If a regular old blue or white-collar worker dies, do you fully support their employer having to pay a continuing wage to their widow or family ?
How is this different to anyone else ?
It does if he charges the groups he sells his composition to properly.
Everyone who wants to go. Just like today.
Which is, again, why the composer needs to charge the group appropriately when he sells them his composition.
What this eventually comes back to, is that the Copyright lobby only wants copyrighted goods to be treated like real property when it suits them, but not when it suits the purchaser. They want all the benefits of their infinite-supply good, without any of the consequences, while still being able to charge the consumer like it was a scarce good.
Recorded music is cheaper than a live show of the same music. Were your conclusion valid, we would have already witnessed the death of live performances, as people would purchase the cheaper (and reusable !) recorded version instead.
Why ? What prevents another performance from occurring ?
Decompiled binaries are not the same as source code. Your premise is broken.
Powerless to maintain access to source code and derivatives. That is to say, the whole reason it exists in the first place.
Think about the reasons you might prefer the GPL to the BSDL. Because without Copyright, those are the things the GPL can no longer do.
The farmer gets paid once for his eggs. Why should the composer get paid multiple times for the same composition ?
Property rights exist because you can prevent someone from taking your stuff. The same is not true of "artistic works". You can't make someone unhear that song you just played.
That is the crux of the difference.
This is backwards. Highly profitable works should fall out of Copyright sooner, rather than later. The (supposed) objective of Copyright is to incentivise more creation. Where's the incentive to create a new work while the existing one is still earning bucketloads of cash ?
Right. Because obviously someone prepared to commit pre-meditated murder would shy away from Copyright infringement.
Right. Because obviously there's a tidal wave of people ready to commit pre-meditated murder, but for their fear of prosecution for Copyright infringement.
I never said they wouldn't download just fine. I said trying to interact with multiple ones, along with other sources of information, on an iPad, is vastly more cumbersome than doing it on a laptop or PC. iPads don't multitask well.
I don't think I've described anything that can reasonably be considered an "edge case" usage scenario.
Again, I think you're describing its use as a complementary (iPad in the lecture theatre, laptop or desktop at home), rather than single, device. I would be very surprised if any significant number of students didn't have a laptop or desktop PC at home, weren't going into computer labs to use them, or something similar (I think the same thing about Netbooks as well, FWIW, they've never struck me as a good "single device").
I doubt there are many movies that haven't - absent Hollywood Accounting - made a tidy profit before the end of their box office run, and even fewer that couldn't be made to by reducing the salaries of a handful of leading actors, producers, etc. That's not even accounting for merchandising and further (though obviously much reduced, relatively speaking) DVD/BR/etc sales.
Huge amounts of money are made by live music performances, not only from the performance itself but also from merchandising and sundries. Certainly enough to cover the studio time for a CD recording. Again, that's not account for merchandising and recording sales.
The only really big "problem" from the perspective of economic viability in the absence of Copyright is ebooks, and the best solution there IMHO is DRM.
And even they wouldn't be going broke. I doubt there are many shortfalls in box office revenues that couldn't be solved by cutting the salaries of a handful of actors.
Er, no.
The purpose of the GPL is to ensure the ongoing distribution of source code licensed under it and any other code derived thereof.
If you take Copyright away, the the GPL can no longer achieve this. That doesn't mean the _requirement_ to do so has disappeared, however.
Or, to use an example, Red Hat would no longer be required to provide the source code for their Linux distribution. Sure, you could copy the binaries far and wide - but if you wanted to see what their custom kernel patches were, you wouldn't be able to.
The average person probably uses a computer at work. The iPad is unlikely to be able to take over as a replacement for that. When I said "only computer" I wasn't just talking about leisure time.
A rather significant part of any student's life is assignments, which generally involve some degree of "research" (lots of web pages, PDFs, other documents, images, copy/pasting, multitasking, etc). The iPad is horrendously bad in this sort of usage scenario, even compared to something as limited as a Netbook.
What this all boils down to is that tablets are first and foremost consumption devices, and fairly limited even at that (multiple web pages on the iPad are trying due to its limited performance and incessant page reloading - throw multiple informationj sources into the mix like videos or PDFs and it becomes an exercise in frustration). They start to falter (if not outright fail) once most types of non-trivial (say, much more than a facebook post or short email) information creation or interaction is required. This is not to say tablets *cannot* be used for creation, or even excel at some forms of it, merely that as a *general solution* they are inferior to laptops and desktop PCs.
Heck, I'm not even talking about coding. The majority of stuff I do on my computer these days (outside of work) is reading web pages(/PDFs, etc), watching videos and posting to discussion forums - hardly anything particularly intense. I've tried spending my typical leisure computing time using only my iPad, and lasted about an hour before giving up and grabbing one of my laptops.
Timeframes measured in single-digit years would be a good start. Ideally it would be inversely related to the popularity of the work (so more popular works went out of copyright sooner). It also shouldn't persist past the death of the copyright holder.
The point is that a tablet is a _complementary_ device. Few people would, if forced to choose, select a tablet as their *only* "computer".
A MacBook Air is only marginally larger than an iPad+Keyboard and infinitely more capable. I'm pretty happy with my iPad, but if I had to choose one device between it and a MacBook Air, the iPad wouldn't have a chance.
These sorts of "great works" or "direct performances" remain uncopyable today. You can bring up a picture of the Sistine Chapel on a great big TV if you want, but it pales to insignificance when compared with standing inside it.
Non-sequitur. I never suggested anyone should work for free.
The simple fact is vast quantities of creative works were produced before Copyright existed, and increasing quantities have been (and continue to be) created since without any thought given to Copyright. The implication that Copyright is an essential part of creative works doesn't stand up to even a cursory examination.
Proper attribution is a part of the moral rights due to an author (and is the only unquestionably valid and supportable aspect of Copyright, IMHO).
Yes.
Your implication is that without public funding or Copyright, creative works would no longer be produced. History demonstrates how ridiculous this is.
Your premise is broken. Not everybody has any need to "consume arbitrary amounts of medical care". Indeed, only a handful of people do.
The difference is in the UK you are on a waiting list. While in the US you're simply foregoing treatment completely (or are maybe going to an emergency room).
If you're in the financial position to get care in the US, you'd be in the financial position not to have to wait in the UK.
It's not an assumption, it's a conclusion based on evidence.
Countries with publicly-funded healthcare or mandatory private health insurance (with government assistance for the poor) consistently have the best outcomes and the lowest costs.
What sort of idiotic statement is this ? We "allow" protest for the same reason we "allow" elections.
Yes. Just like my solution to "needing a police force" is "forcing others at gunpoint to do it".