There could be thousands of photos in someone's photo album, and only a few that actually contain data too, so that it's hard to even find the files used, let alone to figure out how they're used.
Even then you'd still need to know which actually contain genuine information and which contain delibrate misinforation.
We need to return to the basic limited term of 20 years, the same as the current patent. It should start at the begining of filming, recording or other well defined point. If you change it, the original must still be released after the original term expires.
If we are going for a "back to basics" approach you require the copyright holder to deposit X copies with one or more "copyright libraries". With a fixed copyright term all a librarian needs to do is attach lable which says "public domain after..." With current copyright terms the concept of the copyright library is completly broken. The reason for having such libraries is that even if the work is a complete commercial failure and anyone involved in it vanishes into oblivian it will make it into the public domain.
Cable and Satellite companies have had Pay-Per-View movie distribution systems for years and they really haven't done all that well. Why? I'm going to guess that there was a readily available alternative (renting) that was considerably less restrictive even though it was less convenient to get the movies (you need to go to the store... etc).
PPV is closer to the cinema/movie theater approach. Thus it might work better if the same movies were available to both at the same time. An alternative to rental would be a video on demand system.
Then there's the amusement park scenario. You can use a pay-per-ride model, or you can use "all-you-can-eat" model. Most amusement parks now are using the latter. Why? Because if people buy ride tickets, they make damn sure they use them all because they have a finite number of them and want to get the most out of it (kind of like the guys with binders full of CDs). The guy who pays $40 or whatever to ride all day probably ends up riding fewer rides (the costs to the park are the same, and I can't imagine them intentionally using a less-profitable admission scheme).
Actually the costs are probably less. Since you don't need people to check tickets or take money on each ride.
Once you realize the whole IP issue is just an economic sleight-of-hand illusionist trick, you realize it isnt that hard to come up with a solution either.
The concept itself is a fiction. It's a fiction which actually made sense a few hundred years ago. The real question is if it still makes sense. In terms of human history it is a new idea.
In the case of infringement, the most the person is out is the potential of profit for each instance of infringement commited against them. There's a good distinction here- if you think the infringer is taking money away, that is not actually the case, they didn't walk up and take the money out of the possession of the person being infringed.
The likes of the RIAA/MPAA like to play "have your cake and eat it". By claiming that each infringement is some kind of a "loss" much greater than the retail price of the whatever, whilst their members certainly do not put these figures on their audited accounts. Often, for all the noise made, these actually appear to be highly profitable businesses.
If a large number of intelligent people don't have an immediate instinctive reaction to the moral outrage of copying a CD, then there are 2 courses of action we can take
Use stronger measures at an earlier age to reinforce to children the abhorrent nature that is replication of copyrighted material. Making analogies to other recognized Bad acts (such as "piracy") might work; perhaps adding an eleventh commandment might help.
This relys on the assumption that young people are stupid. Which can backfire very effectivly. There's also the problem that children can be more able to spot and less able to accept hypocracy.
They are? In what way? If I record something on Hi-8 and later want it on VHS, I can do that, and I have paid for it. I have paid for it with the fees I paid for blank media.
Anyway it's perfectly possible that you have the permission of the copyright holder. There is no way the machines can know that this is not the case. Nor is there any way to be sure that any levy on the media is going to the copyright holder. e.g. you might well be the copyright holder of the content you want to copy.
It is possible that the standard audio/mic jack in most cellphones could be phased out in favor of wireless (Bluetooth, or something else) headphones,
Would the reason for doing this be DRM or remove something which can break mechanically/admit foreign objects/electrical signals into the handset? As well as some phones being so small you'd have a hard time fitting one 3.5mm jack in.
Not quite; it can generate the low frequency audio by non-linear interaction of ultrasound with air; don't laugh--it's hot technology that lets you localize sound in a nice way, and it may well become the standard speaker system in the future.
How does such a system cope with people moving around?
You could still re-record with a microphone, but there would be no simple analog electrical signal to capture.
Or you could use a mannequin with microphones in the head. Something which isn't exactly that uncommon.
Put all the DRM you want on something, and yes, it might keep Joe Sixpack from being able to distribute his version, but as long as Joe Uber-nerd is out there somewhere stripping the DRM, it'll end up on P2P. And then Joe Sixpack will download the DRM-free version because he's sick of not being able to play it on [insert obscure device here], or because he doesn't want to pay for it, or whatever.
One rather significent "whatever" is that Joe Sixpack can only get the P2P version. Because they have lost the "geographic lottery" thus are expected to wait (in some cases up to years).
It'll spread, and finally be just as accessible as if the [RI|MP]AA had posted it on the internet themselves.
Most likely more accessible. Since Joe Uber-nerd knows that they are dealing with a global network (and market). Whereas the ??AA still appear to have not realised that the steam engine has been invented. There's even a chance that a couple of Aussies with a rowing boat could get the latest Hollywood release into their local cinema faster than is currently the norm:)
I've never understood this about the government. To solve the problem of people breaking the law, they pass more laws.
Maybe a side effect of having career politicans with an over-representation of lawyers... They think that more laws are the solution to everthing. What's probably needed is more engineers in government:)
If nothing else, I'm not quite sure what a magnetic signal is. These are radio-frequency chips, so they use electromagnetic signals. If they can't even get the basic physics terms right, I'm not to hopeful about the rest.
Maybe they are refering to induction as opposed to EM radiation.
Note two important things from that passage: Firstly, the purpose of copyrights is to promote the progress of science and art. (NOT the wealth of scientists and artists!)
Let alone the wealth of middlemen and the (great) grandchildren of scientists and authors.
Since copyright and patents by definition restrict sharing and reuse of information, which is necessary for progress in science and art, they also put in another provision: such restrictions must be for a limited time.
One thing that has been repeatedly overlooked is that whilst some measure of such exclusivity might be good this does not mean that adding more will be proportionatly better. In the same way that a small amount of a chemical might a useful drug, a larger quantity can be no more useful and a larger quantity still will do far more harm than good.
A period which someone born today will not outlive is not, for any intents or purposes, a "limited time," not in any meaningful sense. The "limited time" provision implies to me that it should be the minimum amount of time necessary to encourage creators to create-which is the time at which they can generally turn a profit. Since most copyrighted/patented material turns a profit within 5-10 years (or never will),
In many cases even less than that time period. Espcially with copyright, since you are unlikely to have to build a complete manufacturing system from scratch. Which is a distinct possibility with patents.
and creators would keep creating even if that's all the time they got, why have it longer?
An overlong time may actually discourage people motivated by the prospect of profit (which has never been all creative people anyway). A Short copyright term means they cannot continue to "flog a dead horse" or get paid for work they did years (even decades) ago.
They can stick all the DRM they want onto a CD - it doesn't force people who think it's poor value to buy it. I think DRMed "CDs" are poor value & refuse to buy them on principle;
Maybe these people will eventually get it into their heads that "DRM" just isn't going to work. No matter how much they try and no matter how much malware they bundle it with. If you want people to be able to listen to a CD they will be able to copy it (and convert it into another format).
so all they are doing is shrinking their potential market antagonizing their customers while the MP3s roam free on P2P.
Thing is that these, DRM free, MP3s might be of more value than DRM "CDs".
Put out something worth buying and I'll buy it.
Also, if your product isn't doing well try something else. Part of the problem here is that the RIAA/MPAA/etc appear to be more interested in trying to manipulate the publics taste than catering for what the public's tastes might actually be.
Video recorders that restrict use are poor value
The customer ends up paying for something added which reduces and impairs the basic function of the machine.
Before long, if you get 10 or 15 different toolkits which all try to change your system behaviour to ensure no cheating/copying/peeking is taking place, then absolutely NOTHING will keep working.
Or someone will come out with an "anti-junkware" program which will attempt to keep all these in their own virtual environment:)
1: Why are people celebrating victory because Sony announced they will remove the cloak, they're still leaving all the rest of the crap on your system - including the memory and cpu wasting scan that runs continually, even when you're not playing their DRM infested CD's.
It probably isn't necessary for their system to install anything anyway. Even removing the hiding the stuff they insert could have other consequences. e.g. what happens if different versions of this software attempt to install on the same machine?
Makes you wonder if you could use Sony's rootkit as a way to hide DRM breaking software. It seems to me that this rootkit might actually be more useful to everyone than it might have previously thought.
Another possibility would be to use the method the Sony DRM uses to "patch" the CDROM driver to create a method of defeating the "copy protection". After all these discs have to be able to play in regular CD players so they must have the standard audio data on them...
After all, we wouldn't want the software with bugs. It has to be as good as the rest of the airplane, bug free, nothing will fail, nothing has been overlooked, the design is PERFECT!!!
In the real world planes are complex machines with many possible failure modes some of which are considered "show stoppers" some of which are not. "Perfect software" has resulted in planes crashing because pilots didn't understand what the machine they were operating was doing.
If it's in moderation, alcohol and/or caffeine is alright. Maybe you're thinking of extreme cases, like the unemployed guy down the street drinking 10 beers before lunch time. I have met many smart people who drink alcohol socially. Caffeine has been around for centuries and again, within moderation, it isn't going to kill you or make you stupid.
The same is likely to apply to many other recreational drugs which have been around for a long time.
Moderated beer consumption doesn't make one a good or bad programmer....
Beer has actually had the effect of making some groups of people more able to tolerate alcohol. The reason being that for a long time it was the easiest way to produce safe drinking water.
The problem is this: where should you pay your income taxes? in the state where you are working, or in the state where your employers are paying you?
The latter would add up to three other variables. Where the employer has their HQ, where the employers bank has their HQ, where the employee's bank has their HQ.
The problem with this is that Managers, or even same-level code reviewers, cannot be expected to be able to trawl through code to check for open-sourced code. Once the licence text is removed (and perhaps the code is tweaked to look more like the in-house coding practices) it's incredibly difficult to check that some unethical coder isn't stealing GPLed code, although the consequences could affect the whole company.
There's nothing which makes GPL code special here. The only thing is that likely to be somewhat easier to spot where such incorporated code is open source. Since the original is freely available to check. Whereas if someone stuck some proprietary code in (either by accident or for blackmail purposes) how could anyone check...
Now: Big company tajes insurance and starts stealing open source code, because they feel there is no legal risk anymore.
Hopefully: Big company finds themself facing a criminal prosecution for their copyright infringement. Plus "statutory damages" for each action. With their insurance claim rejected, because they don't insure crooks.
And the flip-side is how much does it cost compared to similar insurance to cover "up to $10 million in damages, including profit losses related to noncompliance with a *closed*-source software license."
Or "accidental" software piracy in general.
An open source license not that different from a closed source license, in that it gives you certain rights and restrictions with what you do with the software you license.
Actually no, since open source licences are virtually always based the provisions of copyright law. Where as "closed source licencing" also includes the likes of EULA which perport to be contracts. As well as some which are a mixture of copyright, EULA and whatever.
It seems really odd that an insurance policy would protect against you illegally violating some licenses but not others - but if they're choosing to do so, I'd love to see how thier protection racket covering illegal activities around some licenses compares with their policies covering illegal activities around other licenses.
The penalties for copyright infrinement can be much greater if it is "wilfull", they can also change the action from civil to criminal. Thus taking out such insurance could be considered evidence of intent to infringe on someone elses copyright.
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There could be thousands of photos in someone's photo album, and only a few that actually contain data too, so that it's hard to even find the files used, let alone to figure out how they're used.
Even then you'd still need to know which actually contain genuine information and which contain delibrate misinforation.
We need to return to the basic limited term of 20 years, the same as the current patent. It should start at the begining of filming, recording or other well defined point. If you change it, the original must still be released after the original term expires.
..." With current copyright terms the concept of the copyright library is completly broken. The reason for having such libraries is that even if the work is a complete commercial failure and anyone involved in it vanishes into oblivian it will make it into the public domain.
If we are going for a "back to basics" approach you require the copyright holder to deposit X copies with one or more "copyright libraries". With a fixed copyright term all a librarian needs to do is attach lable which says "public domain after
Cable and Satellite companies have had Pay-Per-View movie distribution systems for years and they really haven't done all that well. Why? I'm going to guess that there was a readily available alternative (renting) that was considerably less restrictive even though it was less convenient to get the movies (you need to go to the store... etc).
PPV is closer to the cinema/movie theater approach. Thus it might work better if the same movies were available to both at the same time. An alternative to rental would be a video on demand system.
Then there's the amusement park scenario. You can use a pay-per-ride model, or you can use "all-you-can-eat" model. Most amusement parks now are using the latter. Why? Because if people buy ride tickets, they make damn sure they use them all because they have a finite number of them and want to get the most out of it (kind of like the guys with binders full of CDs). The guy who pays $40 or whatever to ride all day probably ends up riding fewer rides (the costs to the park are the same, and I can't imagine them intentionally using a less-profitable admission scheme).
Actually the costs are probably less. Since you don't need people to check tickets or take money on each ride.
Once you realize the whole IP issue is just an economic sleight-of-hand illusionist trick, you realize it isnt that hard to come up with a solution either.
The concept itself is a fiction. It's a fiction which actually made sense a few hundred years ago. The real question is if it still makes sense. In terms of human history it is a new idea.
In the case of infringement, the most the person is out is the potential of profit for each instance of infringement commited against them. There's a good distinction here- if you think the infringer is taking money away, that is not actually the case, they didn't walk up and take the money out of the possession of the person being infringed.
The likes of the RIAA/MPAA like to play "have your cake and eat it". By claiming that each infringement is some kind of a "loss" much greater than the retail price of the whatever, whilst their members certainly do not put these figures on their audited accounts.
Often, for all the noise made, these actually appear to be highly profitable businesses.
Yup, and the peace of mind that its not a trojan horse like so much on the p2p networks.
:)
Or it comes from Sony
If a large number of intelligent people don't have an immediate instinctive reaction to the moral outrage of copying a CD, then there are 2 courses of action we can take
Use stronger measures at an earlier age to reinforce to children the abhorrent nature that is replication of copyrighted material. Making analogies to other recognized Bad acts (such as "piracy") might work; perhaps adding an eleventh commandment might help.
This relys on the assumption that young people are stupid. Which can backfire very effectivly. There's also the problem that children can be more able to spot and less able to accept hypocracy.
They are? In what way? If I record something on Hi-8 and later want it on VHS, I can do that, and I have paid for it. I have paid for it with the fees I paid for blank media.
Anyway it's perfectly possible that you have the permission of the copyright holder. There is no way the machines can know that this is not the case. Nor is there any way to be sure that any levy on the media is going to the copyright holder. e.g. you might well be the copyright holder of the content you want to copy.
It is possible that the standard audio/mic jack in most cellphones could be phased out in favor of wireless (Bluetooth, or something else) headphones,
Would the reason for doing this be DRM or remove something which can break mechanically/admit foreign objects/electrical signals into the handset? As well as some phones being so small you'd have a hard time fitting one 3.5mm jack in.
Not quite; it can generate the low frequency audio by non-linear interaction of ultrasound with air; don't laugh--it's hot technology that lets you localize sound in a nice way, and it may well become the standard speaker system in the future.
How does such a system cope with people moving around?
You could still re-record with a microphone, but there would be no simple analog electrical signal to capture.
Or you could use a mannequin with microphones in the head. Something which isn't exactly that uncommon.
Put all the DRM you want on something, and yes, it might keep Joe Sixpack from being able to distribute his version, but as long as Joe Uber-nerd is out there somewhere stripping the DRM, it'll end up on P2P. And then Joe Sixpack will download the DRM-free version because he's sick of not being able to play it on [insert obscure device here], or because he doesn't want to pay for it, or whatever.
:)
One rather significent "whatever" is that Joe Sixpack can only get the P2P version. Because they have lost the "geographic lottery" thus are expected to wait (in some cases up to years).
It'll spread, and finally be just as accessible as if the [RI|MP]AA had posted it on the internet themselves.
Most likely more accessible. Since Joe Uber-nerd knows that they are dealing with a global network (and market). Whereas the ??AA still appear to have not realised that the steam engine has been invented. There's even a chance that a couple of Aussies with a rowing boat could get the latest Hollywood release into their local cinema faster than is currently the norm
I've never understood this about the government. To solve the problem of people breaking the law, they pass more laws.
:)
Maybe a side effect of having career politicans with an over-representation of lawyers... They think that more laws are the solution to everthing.
What's probably needed is more engineers in government
If nothing else, I'm not quite sure what a magnetic signal is. These are radio-frequency chips, so they use electromagnetic signals. If they can't even get the basic physics terms right, I'm not to hopeful about the rest.
Maybe they are refering to induction as opposed to EM radiation.
Note two important things from that passage: Firstly, the purpose of copyrights is to promote the progress of science and art. (NOT the wealth of scientists and artists!)
Let alone the wealth of middlemen and the (great) grandchildren of scientists and authors.
Since copyright and patents by definition restrict sharing and reuse of information, which is necessary for progress in science and art, they also put in another provision: such restrictions must be for a limited time.
One thing that has been repeatedly overlooked is that whilst some measure of such exclusivity might be good this does not mean that adding more will be proportionatly better. In the same way that a small amount of a chemical might a useful drug, a larger quantity can be no more useful and a larger quantity still will do far more harm than good.
A period which someone born today will not outlive is not, for any intents or purposes, a "limited time," not in any meaningful sense. The "limited time" provision implies to me that it should be the minimum amount of time necessary to encourage creators to create-which is the time at which they can generally turn a profit. Since most copyrighted/patented material turns a profit within 5-10 years (or never will),
In many cases even less than that time period. Espcially with copyright, since you are unlikely to have to build a complete manufacturing system from scratch. Which is a distinct possibility with patents.
and creators would keep creating even if that's all the time they got, why have it longer?
An overlong time may actually discourage people motivated by the prospect of profit (which has never been all creative people anyway). A Short copyright term means they cannot continue to "flog a dead horse" or get paid for work they did years (even decades) ago.
They can stick all the DRM they want onto a CD - it doesn't force people who think it's poor value to buy it. I think DRMed "CDs" are poor value & refuse to buy them on principle;
Maybe these people will eventually get it into their heads that "DRM" just isn't going to work. No matter how much they try and no matter how much malware they bundle it with. If you want people to be able to listen to a CD they will be able to copy it (and convert it into another format).
so all they are doing is shrinking their potential market antagonizing their customers while the MP3s roam free on P2P.
Thing is that these, DRM free, MP3s might be of more value than DRM "CDs".
Put out something worth buying and I'll buy it.
Also, if your product isn't doing well try something else. Part of the problem here is that the RIAA/MPAA/etc appear to be more interested in trying to manipulate the publics taste than catering for what the public's tastes might actually be.
Video recorders that restrict use are poor value
The customer ends up paying for something added which reduces and impairs the basic function of the machine.
Before long, if you get 10 or 15 different toolkits which all try to change your system behaviour to ensure no cheating/copying/peeking is taking place, then absolutely NOTHING will keep working.
:)
Or someone will come out with an "anti-junkware" program which will attempt to keep all these in their own virtual environment
1: Why are people celebrating victory because Sony announced they will remove the cloak, they're still leaving all the rest of the crap on your system - including the memory and cpu wasting scan that runs continually, even when you're not playing their DRM infested CD's.
It probably isn't necessary for their system to install anything anyway. Even removing the hiding the stuff they insert could have other consequences. e.g. what happens if different versions of this software attempt to install on the same machine?
Makes you wonder if you could use Sony's rootkit as a way to hide DRM breaking software. It seems to me that this rootkit might actually be more useful to everyone than it might have previously thought.
Another possibility would be to use the method the Sony DRM uses to "patch" the CDROM driver to create a method of defeating the "copy protection". After all these discs have to be able to play in regular CD players so they must have the standard audio data on them...
Then there's the small matter of re-writing the Warden so it can actually SEE the $sys$DRM files in the first place - not quite so trivial.
But probably quite trivial to change what the "magic" hidden prefix is.
After all, we wouldn't want the software with bugs. It has to be as good as the rest of the airplane, bug free, nothing will fail, nothing has been overlooked, the design is PERFECT!!!
In the real world planes are complex machines with many possible failure modes some of which are considered "show stoppers" some of which are not. "Perfect software" has resulted in planes crashing because pilots didn't understand what the machine they were operating was doing.
If it's in moderation, alcohol and/or caffeine is alright. Maybe you're thinking of extreme cases, like the unemployed guy down the street drinking 10 beers before lunch time. I have met many smart people who drink alcohol socially. Caffeine has been around for centuries and again, within moderation, it isn't going to kill you or make you stupid.
The same is likely to apply to many other recreational drugs which have been around for a long time.
Moderated beer consumption doesn't make one a good or bad programmer....
Beer has actually had the effect of making some groups of people more able to tolerate alcohol. The reason being that for a long time it was the easiest way to produce safe drinking water.
The problem is this: where should you pay your income taxes? in the state where you are working, or in the state where your employers are paying you?
The latter would add up to three other variables. Where the employer has their HQ, where the employers bank has their HQ, where the employee's bank has their HQ.
The problem with this is that Managers, or even same-level code reviewers, cannot be expected to be able to trawl through code to check for open-sourced code. Once the licence text is removed (and perhaps the code is tweaked to look more like the in-house coding practices) it's incredibly difficult to check that some unethical coder isn't stealing GPLed code, although the consequences could affect the whole company.
There's nothing which makes GPL code special here. The only thing is that likely to be somewhat easier to spot where such incorporated code is open source. Since the original is freely available to check. Whereas if someone stuck some proprietary code in (either by accident or for blackmail purposes) how could anyone check...
Now: Big company tajes insurance and starts stealing open source code, because they feel there is no legal risk anymore.
Hopefully: Big company finds themself facing a criminal prosecution for their copyright infringement. Plus "statutory damages" for each action. With their insurance claim rejected, because they don't insure crooks.
And the flip-side is how much does it cost compared to similar insurance to cover "up to $10 million in damages, including profit losses related to noncompliance with a *closed*-source software license."
Or "accidental" software piracy in general.
An open source license not that different from a closed source license, in that it gives you certain rights and restrictions with what you do with the software you license.
Actually no, since open source licences are virtually always based the provisions of copyright law. Where as "closed source licencing" also includes the likes of EULA which perport to be contracts. As well as some which are a mixture of copyright, EULA and whatever.
It seems really odd that an insurance policy would protect against you illegally violating some licenses but not others - but if they're choosing to do so, I'd love to see how thier protection racket covering illegal activities around some licenses compares with their policies covering illegal activities around other licenses.
The penalties for copyright infrinement can be much greater if it is "wilfull", they can also change the action from civil to criminal. Thus taking out such insurance could be considered evidence of intent to infringe on someone elses copyright.