Well, Cheap Trick has been around for a while (heck, even Homer prefers it, and his taste in music basically ran aground in the 70's), but generally copyright contracts are carefully worded so that new formats are covered. Likewise, the breakage fee probably is worded so it applies whether or not breakage is even possible.
And yeah, I think this is really just whining about a contract.
(Besides, RIAA does want to protect the interests of artists... since the artists sell those interests to the RIAA members;)
Well, the main service that publishers of any sort provide is money.
If you want to go from having a band all the way to having a CD in stores, you'll need money to live on, to rent any instruments you need, to rent a recording studio for the time it takes to make the recording, to hire engineers to run the studio equipment for the recording, to create the master, to press a run of CDs, to design the cover art, to package the CD, to ship it to stores, and to advertise it. If you want to promote it by going on tour, you'll need money to do that too.
You'll also probably want contacts in the industry. Sure, members of a band could take the time to learn what the best studio in their price range is, who to get as an engineer (and who to settle for if they can't have their first choice), where to get the best deal for making the CDs, who to convince to get chain stores to stock albums, how to get reviewers to actually listen to the CD, etc. But if there already is someone available who can do this, it may be more efficient to take them on as a hired gun.
Of course, publishers could spend these resources on a band, or they could just invest their time and money in stocks. They're going to treat the band as just another investment, ultimately, which means that they want to make the greatest profit, and have that profit be more than they'd get from their best alternative investment.
As it happens, most bands end up not selling enough to recoup costs, or don't sell enough to make a bigger profit than the best alternative. They are bad investments, and the labels lose money on them. The same is true elsewhere too; books, movies, whatever. The idea is that a rare handful of the works being created will be such spectacular success that it will not only yield a great profit, but that the profit will cover the money lost on all those other, failed bands. And just to make sure, the publisher might want a contract for several works, so that if there is a success, it can not only exploit it for all it's worth, but if the band has staying power and isn't a one-hit wonder, it can keep pulling in the money. While this isn't perhaps the most efficient way of doing things, the unpredictability of the market rather necessitates it, and it seems to work okay, if you're careful about watching your expenses.
Anyway, now we get to the main reason why some of your friends are, as the man said, already this fucked.
If you are a musician and you are offered a fairly ordinary record contract, you have the options of rejecting it, making a counter-offer, or accepting it.
If you reject it, then you just keep on doing what you're doing. The label will not give you the money you need to finance your career, and you probably either have to get a regular job, relegating music to a hobby, or live a rather poor life.
If you make a counter-offer, the label probably rejects it. After all, there are tons of musicians that would love to get a record label, and won't make waves. If you will not take the deal offered -- the deal that overwhelmingly favors the label -- then you'll get no deal at all.
In both cases, maybe you can scrape up some cash, or find a more amicable label to finance you, but it's not common.
Or you can accept, in which case, you get a lousy deal but a lot of money to make a go for the brass ring. Probably you flop, and your career is shot, at least for a spell. The label lost money on you, and while you don't have to repay it, you have the stigma of a bad investment. Or, maybe you become a hit -- a lasting hit -- and can quickly pop out a few albums to fulfill your lousy contract, and negotiate a new contract from an infinitely stronger bargaining position. For while there are plenty of untried musicians, there are not many proven successes. But the odds of this are actually quite low. Basically, the chances of becoming enough of a star to get rich are like winning enough in the lottery to get rich. Most people might fantasize about it, but in the end it's probably better
Well, elected officials differ from the ones you listed, in that pretty much the entire point of electing them is to have people in office that support your point of view. Many non-elected officials (such as federal judges) are not elected, in no small part, to isolate them from political concerns. We want them to act objectively, rather than in response to the wishes of the public.
Furthermore, the context of an election is different from that of simple bribery. If I want candidate A to be elected, in a race between A and B, then a major factor will be getting A's name and position out there so that people can make an informed decision. This generally takes money. You need money to print campaign literature, to finance travel, to pay non-volunteering staff, to rent office space, to buy ad time on radio or tv, etc. Trade in kind (e.g. free goods or services) are basically equivalents to the money that would otherwise be spent on them. Without money, the candidate won't be able to afford to engage in all that much speech.
While I could, as a supporter of candidate A, spend my own money, I may not have enough to pay for much. Furthermore, if each supporter uses the amount he'd otherwise contribute, it may not be used in an effective manner due to a lack of coordination between the numerous, often amateur, supporters. The most effective way for them to help their candidate is to let the candidate, who probably is the most informed as to the status and needs of his campaign, use the money directly. E.g. if candidate A feels that his campaign would best be served by getting a TV ad, he isn't being helped much if a thousand supporters each make $20 worth of xeroxes and put them up on telephone poles, especially if his supporters are geographically concentrated and would just be preaching to the choir.
Finally of course, giving money to someone can operate in a speech function all by itself. If I support candidate A, one way of my demonstrating this support is to donate money to his campaign. It's an expression of my support.
The best answer, I think, is to not regulate campaign spending, and to allow anonymous donations (since there's an important place in politics for anonymity), but to require as much disclosure as possible, and possibly to require the donations to be exhausted by the end of the campaign. This, I hope, would tend to divide campaign contributions, which are meant to be spent to get people into office, from bribes, which are meant to go directly into the pockets of the people in office.
It's never going to be perfect, but then, that tends to come with freedom. I don't like Illinois Nazis, but since I believe in free speech, I'm stuck with them.
I'd rather have the power myself, and with all of my fellow citizens. But since we all can't be congressmen (who has the time?) we select representatives to do it for us. The problem is - these fuckers won't do their jobs.
I agree, but that's why we need to select better fuckers.
No, not really - but the alternative seems to be letting them borrow and spend amounts with as many zeroes as they can cram onto a sheet of paper. How can we reign them in?
What makes you think a President would be any better? Bush evidently can't spell 'veto' much less use his veto power, and Congress is dominated by his own party.
Surely you wouldn't suggest campaign finance limits?
No, that would violate the First Amendment. I think that there is a big problem with all this, but we haven't found a good solution yet. And we also need to remember that we will probably never have all that good a government. I'd rather have late trains than a Mussolini.
But this new proposal (which again has NOT passed into law): H.R. 2391 The Intellectual Property Protection Act Includes elements from all the bills listed in the article, INCLUDING H.R.4077.
Sigh.
In the 108th Congress, there were several different pieces of legislation dealing with copyrights, patents, and trademarks. And the legislative history, if you look at it, is tangled up because parts would get combined, then separated. This is why you're seeing specific provisions pop up in several places.
But it doesn't matter, since the article is not about HR 2391 or 4077, both of which stopped being interesting back in 2004. Like I said, you are seriously behind the times.
The legislation that the original article is talking about is not any of the things you have mentioned. In fact, while a draft is circulating, AFAIK it hasn't even been introduced to the House yet, and so isn't numbered.
Furthermore, this new IPPA, which is unrelated to previous bills also called the IPPA, is in fact quite new, and doesn't really recycle old materal from a previous Congress.
And I'm mixing up nothing at all. I know what I'm talking about, which is why I derided you schmucks that were talking about 110(11) as though it was still just a bill. To wit:
At least not in reference to that portion of what I was actually talking about, which was the proposed legislation HR4077 that exempts ad skipping from being infringment.
110(11) is the law. You only think it is proposed legislation because you are reading old documents that predate it becoming a law. And it doesn't exempt ad skipping. In fact, I've yet to hear of a bill that specifically protected ad skipping; what you were all upset about was that it didn't protect ad skipping, not that it needed to, particularly.
Christ! You can't even keep straight what you were blathering on about. Obviously even Slashdot is too grown up for you. And I never thought I'd see anyone say that!
the sonicblue/replaytv lawsuit?
Good point, surprisingly enough. I knew about it at the time, actually, but since it never got anywhere, I had forgotten all about it.
Long story short, the half of the suit that dealt with ad skipping was never going to win. Paramount did not put up a serious argument. But I guess we'll never know, since nothing came of it. I stick by my previous statement: there is no copyright argument against ad skipping, and attempts are destined for failure, unless the law changes radically. Which even given FECA, it has not.
Are you aware that the text you so fondly claim to have read of the bill passed and signed also contains things like
And that's why I said that it was a bad law overall. The new 110 exception is okay, though not great, and I would support it, or something better, on its own. The 2319B provisions are really bad, OTOH, and that's why I was against the package as a whole. I'm not fond of preregistration either. In any event though, we're stuck with it.
In other words, a private person in thier home, and companies making such technology, are no longer exempt when they are skipping stuff, if they skip ads.
Congratulations, you're a dumbass.
Despite my previous post warning against not reading the law carefully, and that you appear to have actually looked at the text of the thing, you've still totally misunderstood it.
In order to understand how these laws work, think of a Venn diagram. We have a big field which represents what's not protected by copyright. Then we draw a circle over some of that area, indicating what is represented by copyright. Then we draw a circle inside the first circle, indicating what is not covered by copyright because it falls within an exception. And we can continue this by drawing a circle inside that, indicating material that is excepted from the exception, and which again falls under copyright, and so on.
For example: People are allowed to drive cars. But people aren't allowed to drive blue cars. But notwithstanding that, people are allowed to drive automatics. But that allowance for automatics only applies on Tuesdays.
So you can drive a blue car, but only if it's an automatic and it's Tuesday. If your car is red, only the first provision is applicable to you; the rest isn't.
The new 110(11) exception is NEW. It does not limit any other exception in any way whatosever, you moron. So if it was ever legal to skip ads, it is still equally as legal to do so.
But if you want to take advantage of the new 110(11) exception -- the one that doesn't reduce any preexisting exception -- then one of the conditions is that you don't skip ads. If you want to rely on a different exception, such as 107, then the no-ad-skipping provision is utterly irrelevant.
All that happened with this specific exception was that copyright shrank. There are no downsides to this, unless you're against people being able to edit movies, etc. There are plenty of huge downsides in the rest of the law that was passed, as I mentioned earlier, but not this specific part.
No, but now they are not exempt now.
If there is no applicable exception, and it falls within the scope of copyright, then it would always have been illegal to skip ads. Of course, that's stupid. Fair use is the obvious candidate for an applicable exception, and this law does not shrink fair use. And frankly, I don't think that ad skipping is even otherwise infringing behavior. Skipping an ad does not, by itself, constitute making a copy, or making a derivative, or engaging in a public performance, etc.
And being as the movie companies were already moving to sue the original companies that were working on this skipping stuff for copyright infringment, what makes you think that owners of copyrighted TV shows wont sue makers of technology that allows skipping ads? Lets see if we can figure out what technology allows skipping ads. Wow wait, isn't it VCR's and tivos? And any other recording device? Aren't TV studios complaining about how it should be illigal to skip ads? That its theft to do so? Why yes, they are. So what makes you think, that if this exemption were signed into law, they will be nice and not sue anyone for making ad skipping technology? I seem to recall lawsuits around commercial skip buttons previously on some home recording devices.
Wow. You are the stupidest person I've seen all month, I'm sure. I love the part where you said "if this exemption were signed into law" just a few paragraphs after you said "Ok thats all from
In other breaking news, the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series.
Honestly, where have you been? This bill was rewritten as part of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (which contains several other, unrelated items), passed through Congress, and was signed into law by the President last year.
Of course, you also have no clue as to what it actually says.
The relevant part of the law does not prohibit people from skipping ads. In fact, it doesn't prohibit anything at all. Rather, it has carved out a brand-new, but quite limited exception to copyright. That is, it is reducing existing prohibitions, to the extent that they exist.
Basically, some of the more puritanical types wanted to be able to edit movies to get rid of the good parts. The movie studios argued that this would be copyright infringement. But since apparently the only people more powerful than the copyright lobby are the religious nuts, the bill passed. What it does is, it makes it non-infringing to make an edited version of a movie, provided that certain conditions are met, one of which is that ads are not skipped.
Of course, it is only one of many exceptions to copyright law that we have. So if you wanted to skip ads as well, you could not rely on this exception (and that's all it is -- an exception, not a prohibition), but you might be able to find another exception that would apply. Or maybe you just wouldn't be doing anything that would be infringing in the first place, in which case you don't need an exception, since copyright law doesn't cover it anyhow.
While I understand that bills generally are a bit tricky to read since they don't contain the entire law they're related to, but instead only contain the changes and additions, you still are just making yourself look stupid by not reading it carefully so as to understand what the hell it is.
Frankly, while FECA was a bad law, this specific portion of it was good. It could be better, but there's nothing at all objectionable about it. And remember: I'm one of the people pushing to make copyright more reasonable by making it smaller in both length and scope.
A line item veto would seriously upset the balance of power within the government. Right now, the President has to either accept or reject what Congress gives him as a whole. If he can pick and choose, then he's likely to exercise this power to favor only his own political allies. At least now groups within Congress can make agreements amongst themselves in order to get things done.
Besides which, concentrating power is dangerous. I'd rather have power spread out amongst the members of Congress than putting it all in one man.
However, since the US is signatory to the Berne Convention, foreign font copyrights are enforceable in the US.
No they're not. Copyrights are not extraterritorial, and Berne, which is not self-executing, doesn't change this.
For example, if you are a British citizen, and you write a book in the UK, on which you get a UK copyright, Berne would require the US to grant you a US copyright on the book to go along with your UK one.
Since you cannot copyright a font in the US, having a foreign copyright on a font means absolutely nothing over here.
As I'm about to demonstrate, you probably should have paid more attention to what I said -- and didn't say -- instead of just dismissing it as 'lawyerese.'
what you're saying is companies like Linotype, Adobe, etc. that sell purported copyrighted fonts are in fact breaking the law?
No.
First, and I'm surprised to have to tell you this, since you said you were a 'fontographer,' there is a difference between a font and a typeface. A typeface is a group of letterforms. It exists in the air, as it were; a typeface is not an object so much as it's like a platonic ideal. A font, on the other hand, is traditionally a specific instance of a typeface. Where Helvetica is a typeface, no matter where you encounter it, a specific set of lead type for Helvetica Italic 12 is a font.
More recently, as computers entered the field of typesetting, we've wound up with little programs called fonts. These programs are capable of outputting type. Sometimes, quite like a traditional font, since they were bitmaps and each computer font file only output a specific face in a specific size. More commonly nowadays, the computer fonts can output type in a face in any size, and sometimes even several faces as well.
A typeface is uncopyrightable in the US because of the utility doctrine discussed earlier. A traditional lead font is uncopyrightable in the US for exactly the same reason (it's not a graphic work, but it is sculptural).
But a computer program is not a PGS work. And a computer program may be copyrightable even if the output of the program is not. Computer fonts are programs. They are literary works, rather than PGS works, so the utility doctrine doesn't apply. Of course, merger could be an issue, but there's so little caselaw for computer fonts to begin with that we haven't seen it come up in any significant way.
In any event, it's hardly against the law to sell something merely because it is uncopyrightable. I can go into any bookstore and find copies of poems, plays, and novels that have no copyright at all. I cannot imagine why you would think that it would be illegal to sell computer fonts even if they were not copyrightable.
How are text-based company logos trademarked every day if that's the case?
Trademarks and copyrights have absolutely nothing to do with one another. They apply to different subject matter, have different policy goals in mind, have different laws that function differently, etc.
Copyrightability of typefaces one way or another would have no bearing whatsoever on whether a logo consisting entirely of text could be a trademark.
I'm definitely not saying your wrong, your argument speaks for itself, but there are hundreds of cases where your argument seems to have fallen flat on its face in practice.
You probably shouldn't be saying I'm wrong, since it appears that you haven't understood a word I've been saying.
As for that other page, it's substantially correct, and echoes what I've been saying.
Actually, typefaces are copyrighted and copyrightable.
In the US, actually, they're not. Let me explain why.
Typefaces are a different animal in that the shape of the letters and how they are constructed can only be done one way. This is why they can be copyrighted.
Actually, that's two excellent arguments for why typefaces are uncopyrightable.
First, we have the utility doctrine.
17 USC 102(a) tells us that only original works of authorship are eligible for copyright. One general class of works in 102(a) are pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works (PGS works). A definition is provided in section 101:
"Pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works" include two-dimensional and three-dimensional works of fine, graphic, and applied art, photographs, prints and art reproductions, maps, globes, charts, diagrams, models, and technical drawings, including architectural plans. Such works shall include works of artistic craftsmanship insofar as their form but not their mechanical or utilitarian aspects are concerned; the design of a useful article, as defined in this section, shall be considered a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work only if, and only to the extent that, such design incorporates pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of, the utilitarian aspects of the article.
This definition results in PGS works being copyrightable only if they have no useful function, or if any useful function they have is independent and seperable from the copyrightable part of the work.
For example, imagine a bicycle rack that consists of a fairly ordinary rack that has been engraved with decorative elements. You couldn't copyright the entire thing, since the design of the rack portion is functional -- it has to function as a bike rack, and it was designed with that functionality in mind. The engraving could be protected, but nothing would stop someone from making an exact copy of the rack, minus the engraving, and selling them, etc.
Typeface is a graphic work, but it has a utilitarian function in that the letter 'A' in a typeface has to communicate to readers the idea of the letter 'A'. It has to be recognizably an 'A', as opposed to a random squiggle that no one will understand. This means the utility doctrine is in play. In order for there to be anything copyrightable about the typeface, there will have to be some part of it that is seperable from the shape of the letters corresponding to the alphabet, and which can exist independently of the letter shape.
The thing is, that's impossible. If you have the letter 'A' in Helvetica, let's say, you cannot strip out the 'A' part of it and have anything left! Since this is going to be true of everything in the typeface, there's simply no creative work on which to hang a copyright.
This goes a long way toward explaining why the Copyright Office will reject registrations for typeface copyrights.
The other reason is the merger doctrine. Caselaw and section 102(b) tell us that copyright is never allowed for an idea; rather, copyrights are only allowed for creative expressions. The idea/expression dichotomy basically tells us that you cannot copyright the idea of a murder mystery in which the butler did it. On the other hand, you could copyright a specific novel in which the butler did it; the copyright would not preclude anyone from going back to the underlying idea and writing another novel. Since the ideas are usually somewhat vague, it's assumed that there are many possible expressions. You could put a hundred mystery authors to the test, and get a hundred very different novels all involving how the butler did it. The dividing line between idea and expression is not a bright line, however. And in cases where there isn't literal infringement, courts often have to look into the similarities between works, and figure out whether it's due to them both using the same idea (which is okay) or wheth
What makes you think there's a misunderstanding? It's deliberate, and it's a good idea. Typefaces shouldn't be copyrightable. Design patents are sufficient, if not too much protection.
Really, no protection should be offered at all, unless it's pretty clear that doing so will yield a greater public benefit than the public cost of granting the protection. Just creating something isn't enough to warrant rights in the creation.
In the typeface field, it seems that there's plenty of creation going on with the natural incentives in the field. This means there's no need for us to add artificial incentives such as copyright; they wouldn't produce a benefit, and they would produce a harm. If typeface designers ever need more of an incentive, then we can reconsider the matter. It's the same reason why we should not grant copyrights for architectural works, or not grant patents for software and business methods.
As for fonts in the US, it is argued that software fonts are actually a computer program which happens to output noncopyrightable letter shapes, and that thus the program is copyrightable. Personally, I think there are serious merger issues to be considered, and in any event there's just the one case on the subject, IIRC. I wouldn't put money on either side.
The first RPG I played seriously was some early version of D&D. All we had was 3d or 4th generation xeroxes of about half of a couple of the books, so we added our own ideas and rules as needed, and played in a very freeform style. Eventually, though, I got into Palladium Robotech, and a couple of years later, GURPS. I've pretty much stuck with GURPS since then, though I still really haven't bothered with 4th ed. The 3d ed. works well enough if you trim out some of the slower rules (I hate combat in any system, since it just slows things down and is a lot of boring dice rolls; combat, when it happens, should be fast fast fast), avoid areas where it's weak (GURPS Cyberpunk is a joke), and I have a lot of the setting books for it already.
Haven't played Rolemaster. I'll have to look into it in my copious free time. Hopefully the PDFs are cheap, given the very low marginal cost.
DM (forget what the Rifts version of this role is)
In almost every system other than D&D, the term is Game Master (or GM). Sometimes you see 'referee' or very game specific terms, e.g. Toon used 'animator,' IIRC. But really, DM or GM, everyone knows what you mean.
They are not hardcover bound books with full color pages.
Meh. Hardbacks are nice, but I loathe color in RPGs. It's about as pointless as having a color dictionary. They're mostly text, and benefit little from color. I don't mind illustrations, but they should be of something useful, e.g. diagrams, rather than just being miscellaneous artwork. After all, when you're playing an RPG, you're mostly using your imagination. You don't need a picture book for that.
It's pretty rare that color is useful in an RPG, and so a few color plates in an otherwise black and white book seems like a more economical solution if color is needed at all.
What I'd really like would be more conveniently sized books, and more compact rule systems so that the books aren't very thick. The GURPS method of having a rulebook with no setting, and setting books with no rules is a good idea, since it lets you avoid having to buy things that are redundant or unnecessary.
I never cared for Rifts, but I enjoyed the Robotech setting. I agree about their game rules. They're just awful, awful crap. It should not take more than 15 minutes to make an awesome character, but with the wierd class system, the poor options for skills, and their combat mechanics, this is impossible in Palladium.
In any event, the pen and paper RPG companies have been declining for years. There's a small number of gamers who are big fans, but there's not a lot of them. And the books seem to cost a fortune, which is odd for how little you really get. Plus, the rule books are reference materials which are handier to have on the computer. When even actual customers often prefer to get pirated scans of the books, it doesn't take much for them to start wondering why they were buying the books at all.
Re:Some artists just want to be heard...
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CRIA Falling Apart?
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Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
You're right there - no treaty has *any* affect untill it's been ratified by the signatory. But I'm willing to bet that the USA *has* ratified the Berne Conventions. Whether or not it's "self-enacting", as you say, doesn't seem to have a lot to do with anything, and does nothing to counter my arguments. If it's been signed, and ratified, whether or not it's "self-enacting" is moot.
Actually, you're an idiot, while the previous poster was right on target.
A self-enacting treaty is one that becomes law upon ratification. If a treaty is not self-enacting, then the local legislature simply has an obligation to enact the appropriate laws so that the treaty is complied with. If they don't, they may not be in compliance with the treaty, but the treaty doesn't help anyone in that country.
Berne is not a self-enacting treaty. It has no legal force or authority in the United States. If you try to sue someone for violating your rights under Berne, you will simply be laughed out of court, because you have no case. The only copyright law in force here is that written and enacted by our own government. Berne may provide us with a set of (immensely awful) standards to meet, but that's basically all it does. To anyone other than Congress, it's basically irrelevant.
Congress was even quite clear on this issue, having written the following at 17 USC 104(c):
No right or interest in a work eligible for protection under this title may be claimed by virtue of, or in reliance upon, the provisions of the Berne Convention, or the adherence of the United States thereto. Any rights in a work eligible for protection under this title that derive from this title, other Federal or State statutes, or the common law, shall not be expanded or reduced by virtue of, or in reliance upon, the provisions of the Berne Convention, or the adherence of the United States thereto.
When the USA signed the conventions (and any other aplicable treaties, they don't sign it and say "..... when it's convenient".
Actually, that happens all the time, with lots of treaties. It isn't at all uncommon to see treaties entered into with various reservations and conditions tacked on.
Whether or not fashion designs are considered to be copyrightable in France and not in the USA is (IMHO) a legal detail, and not something that the Supreme Count is going to be likely to consider to be any different from any other form of copyrightable artistic work.
No. It's at the heart of the matter. Congress has said that these sorts of works are not copyrightable. This means that here, they are in the public domain. And if someone wants to publish them, in the total absence of any copyright issue (since there is no US copyright), it's entirely a free speech issue.
Duress is an interesting argument to make, but I haven't seen it argued seriously before. Generally the split has been between ProCD (which favors EULAs) and Klocek (which does not). But the recent Blizzard case somewhat undercut Klocek, so I'd generally say that you can rely on EULAs being enforcable. Of course, that's a general statement; whether or not a specific EULA is enforcable will depend on the details of what it says, what alternatives you have aside from agreeing to it, the circumstances under which it was formed, the nature of the parties, the applicable law, etc.
You know, I can't help but imagine what Boston would be like in a fantasy setting. There would be the city, towns surrounding it, petering out to villages and farms, and then wild, uncivilized lands about ten leagues from the heart of the city. Beyond that would be Worcester, the last bastion of civilization to the west. Beyond that, nothing but barren wilderness and some mightily thewed barbarians. (Plus a pestilential cesspool of hell about 70 leagues ESE.)
Yeah, seriously. Of course this 'Los Angeles' -- I don't think I've heard of it. I think it's somewhere past Needham, but if it isn't inside 495, I guess it isn't important.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, Cheap Trick has been around for a while (heck, even Homer prefers it, and his taste in music basically ran aground in the 70's), but generally copyright contracts are carefully worded so that new formats are covered. Likewise, the breakage fee probably is worded so it applies whether or not breakage is even possible.
;)
And yeah, I think this is really just whining about a contract.
(Besides, RIAA does want to protect the interests of artists... since the artists sell those interests to the RIAA members
Well, the main service that publishers of any sort provide is money.
If you want to go from having a band all the way to having a CD in stores, you'll need money to live on, to rent any instruments you need, to rent a recording studio for the time it takes to make the recording, to hire engineers to run the studio equipment for the recording, to create the master, to press a run of CDs, to design the cover art, to package the CD, to ship it to stores, and to advertise it. If you want to promote it by going on tour, you'll need money to do that too.
You'll also probably want contacts in the industry. Sure, members of a band could take the time to learn what the best studio in their price range is, who to get as an engineer (and who to settle for if they can't have their first choice), where to get the best deal for making the CDs, who to convince to get chain stores to stock albums, how to get reviewers to actually listen to the CD, etc. But if there already is someone available who can do this, it may be more efficient to take them on as a hired gun.
Of course, publishers could spend these resources on a band, or they could just invest their time and money in stocks. They're going to treat the band as just another investment, ultimately, which means that they want to make the greatest profit, and have that profit be more than they'd get from their best alternative investment.
As it happens, most bands end up not selling enough to recoup costs, or don't sell enough to make a bigger profit than the best alternative. They are bad investments, and the labels lose money on them. The same is true elsewhere too; books, movies, whatever. The idea is that a rare handful of the works being created will be such spectacular success that it will not only yield a great profit, but that the profit will cover the money lost on all those other, failed bands. And just to make sure, the publisher might want a contract for several works, so that if there is a success, it can not only exploit it for all it's worth, but if the band has staying power and isn't a one-hit wonder, it can keep pulling in the money. While this isn't perhaps the most efficient way of doing things, the unpredictability of the market rather necessitates it, and it seems to work okay, if you're careful about watching your expenses.
Anyway, now we get to the main reason why some of your friends are, as the man said, already this fucked.
If you are a musician and you are offered a fairly ordinary record contract, you have the options of rejecting it, making a counter-offer, or accepting it.
If you reject it, then you just keep on doing what you're doing. The label will not give you the money you need to finance your career, and you probably either have to get a regular job, relegating music to a hobby, or live a rather poor life.
If you make a counter-offer, the label probably rejects it. After all, there are tons of musicians that would love to get a record label, and won't make waves. If you will not take the deal offered -- the deal that overwhelmingly favors the label -- then you'll get no deal at all.
In both cases, maybe you can scrape up some cash, or find a more amicable label to finance you, but it's not common.
Or you can accept, in which case, you get a lousy deal but a lot of money to make a go for the brass ring. Probably you flop, and your career is shot, at least for a spell. The label lost money on you, and while you don't have to repay it, you have the stigma of a bad investment. Or, maybe you become a hit -- a lasting hit -- and can quickly pop out a few albums to fulfill your lousy contract, and negotiate a new contract from an infinitely stronger bargaining position. For while there are plenty of untried musicians, there are not many proven successes. But the odds of this are actually quite low. Basically, the chances of becoming enough of a star to get rich are like winning enough in the lottery to get rich. Most people might fantasize about it, but in the end it's probably better
Well, elected officials differ from the ones you listed, in that pretty much the entire point of electing them is to have people in office that support your point of view. Many non-elected officials (such as federal judges) are not elected, in no small part, to isolate them from political concerns. We want them to act objectively, rather than in response to the wishes of the public.
Furthermore, the context of an election is different from that of simple bribery. If I want candidate A to be elected, in a race between A and B, then a major factor will be getting A's name and position out there so that people can make an informed decision. This generally takes money. You need money to print campaign literature, to finance travel, to pay non-volunteering staff, to rent office space, to buy ad time on radio or tv, etc. Trade in kind (e.g. free goods or services) are basically equivalents to the money that would otherwise be spent on them. Without money, the candidate won't be able to afford to engage in all that much speech.
While I could, as a supporter of candidate A, spend my own money, I may not have enough to pay for much. Furthermore, if each supporter uses the amount he'd otherwise contribute, it may not be used in an effective manner due to a lack of coordination between the numerous, often amateur, supporters. The most effective way for them to help their candidate is to let the candidate, who probably is the most informed as to the status and needs of his campaign, use the money directly. E.g. if candidate A feels that his campaign would best be served by getting a TV ad, he isn't being helped much if a thousand supporters each make $20 worth of xeroxes and put them up on telephone poles, especially if his supporters are geographically concentrated and would just be preaching to the choir.
Finally of course, giving money to someone can operate in a speech function all by itself. If I support candidate A, one way of my demonstrating this support is to donate money to his campaign. It's an expression of my support.
The best answer, I think, is to not regulate campaign spending, and to allow anonymous donations (since there's an important place in politics for anonymity), but to require as much disclosure as possible, and possibly to require the donations to be exhausted by the end of the campaign. This, I hope, would tend to divide campaign contributions, which are meant to be spent to get people into office, from bribes, which are meant to go directly into the pockets of the people in office.
It's never going to be perfect, but then, that tends to come with freedom. I don't like Illinois Nazis, but since I believe in free speech, I'm stuck with them.
I'd rather have the power myself, and with all of my fellow citizens. But since we all can't be congressmen (who has the time?) we select representatives to do it for us. The problem is - these fuckers won't do their jobs.
I agree, but that's why we need to select better fuckers.
No, not really - but the alternative seems to be letting them borrow and spend amounts with as many zeroes as they can cram onto a sheet of paper. How can we reign them in?
What makes you think a President would be any better? Bush evidently can't spell 'veto' much less use his veto power, and Congress is dominated by his own party.
Surely you wouldn't suggest campaign finance limits?
No, that would violate the First Amendment. I think that there is a big problem with all this, but we haven't found a good solution yet. And we also need to remember that we will probably never have all that good a government. I'd rather have late trains than a Mussolini.
But this new proposal (which again has NOT passed into law):
H.R. 2391 The Intellectual Property Protection Act
Includes elements from all the bills listed in the article, INCLUDING H.R.4077.
Sigh.
In the 108th Congress, there were several different pieces of legislation dealing with copyrights, patents, and trademarks. And the legislative history, if you look at it, is tangled up because parts would get combined, then separated. This is why you're seeing specific provisions pop up in several places.
But it doesn't matter, since the article is not about HR 2391 or 4077, both of which stopped being interesting back in 2004. Like I said, you are seriously behind the times.
The legislation that the original article is talking about is not any of the things you have mentioned. In fact, while a draft is circulating, AFAIK it hasn't even been introduced to the House yet, and so isn't numbered.
Furthermore, this new IPPA, which is unrelated to previous bills also called the IPPA, is in fact quite new, and doesn't really recycle old materal from a previous Congress.
And I'm mixing up nothing at all. I know what I'm talking about, which is why I derided you schmucks that were talking about 110(11) as though it was still just a bill. To wit:
At least not in reference to that portion of what I was actually talking about, which was the proposed legislation HR4077 that exempts ad skipping from being infringment.
110(11) is the law. You only think it is proposed legislation because you are reading old documents that predate it becoming a law. And it doesn't exempt ad skipping. In fact, I've yet to hear of a bill that specifically protected ad skipping; what you were all upset about was that it didn't protect ad skipping, not that it needed to, particularly.
Christ! You can't even keep straight what you were blathering on about. Obviously even Slashdot is too grown up for you. And I never thought I'd see anyone say that!
the sonicblue/replaytv lawsuit?
Good point, surprisingly enough. I knew about it at the time, actually, but since it never got anywhere, I had forgotten all about it.
Long story short, the half of the suit that dealt with ad skipping was never going to win. Paramount did not put up a serious argument. But I guess we'll never know, since nothing came of it. I stick by my previous statement: there is no copyright argument against ad skipping, and attempts are destined for failure, unless the law changes radically. Which even given FECA, it has not.
Are you aware that the text you so fondly claim to have read of the bill passed and signed also contains things like
And that's why I said that it was a bad law overall. The new 110 exception is okay, though not great, and I would support it, or something better, on its own. The 2319B provisions are really bad, OTOH, and that's why I was against the package as a whole. I'm not fond of preregistration either. In any event though, we're stuck with it.
In other words, a private person in thier home, and companies making such technology, are no longer exempt when they are skipping stuff, if they skip ads.
Congratulations, you're a dumbass.
Despite my previous post warning against not reading the law carefully, and that you appear to have actually looked at the text of the thing, you've still totally misunderstood it.
In order to understand how these laws work, think of a Venn diagram. We have a big field which represents what's not protected by copyright. Then we draw a circle over some of that area, indicating what is represented by copyright. Then we draw a circle inside the first circle, indicating what is not covered by copyright because it falls within an exception. And we can continue this by drawing a circle inside that, indicating material that is excepted from the exception, and which again falls under copyright, and so on.
For example: People are allowed to drive cars. But people aren't allowed to drive blue cars. But notwithstanding that, people are allowed to drive automatics. But that allowance for automatics only applies on Tuesdays.
So you can drive a blue car, but only if it's an automatic and it's Tuesday. If your car is red, only the first provision is applicable to you; the rest isn't.
The new 110(11) exception is NEW. It does not limit any other exception in any way whatosever, you moron. So if it was ever legal to skip ads, it is still equally as legal to do so.
But if you want to take advantage of the new 110(11) exception -- the one that doesn't reduce any preexisting exception -- then one of the conditions is that you don't skip ads. If you want to rely on a different exception, such as 107, then the no-ad-skipping provision is utterly irrelevant.
All that happened with this specific exception was that copyright shrank. There are no downsides to this, unless you're against people being able to edit movies, etc. There are plenty of huge downsides in the rest of the law that was passed, as I mentioned earlier, but not this specific part.
No, but now they are not exempt now.
If there is no applicable exception, and it falls within the scope of copyright, then it would always have been illegal to skip ads. Of course, that's stupid. Fair use is the obvious candidate for an applicable exception, and this law does not shrink fair use. And frankly, I don't think that ad skipping is even otherwise infringing behavior. Skipping an ad does not, by itself, constitute making a copy, or making a derivative, or engaging in a public performance, etc.
And being as the movie companies were already moving to sue the original companies that were working on this skipping stuff for copyright infringment, what makes you think that owners of copyrighted TV shows wont sue makers of technology that allows skipping ads? Lets see if we can figure out what technology allows skipping ads.
Wow wait, isn't it VCR's and tivos? And any other recording device?
Aren't TV studios complaining about how it should be illigal to skip ads? That its theft to do so? Why yes, they are.
So what makes you think, that if this exemption were signed into law, they will be nice and not sue anyone for making ad skipping technology? I seem to recall lawsuits around commercial skip buttons previously on some home recording devices.
Wow. You are the stupidest person I've seen all month, I'm sure. I love the part where you said "if this exemption were signed into law" just a few paragraphs after you said "Ok thats all from
In other breaking news, the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series.
Honestly, where have you been? This bill was rewritten as part of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (which contains several other, unrelated items), passed through Congress, and was signed into law by the President last year.
Of course, you also have no clue as to what it actually says.
The relevant part of the law does not prohibit people from skipping ads. In fact, it doesn't prohibit anything at all. Rather, it has carved out a brand-new, but quite limited exception to copyright. That is, it is reducing existing prohibitions, to the extent that they exist.
Basically, some of the more puritanical types wanted to be able to edit movies to get rid of the good parts. The movie studios argued that this would be copyright infringement. But since apparently the only people more powerful than the copyright lobby are the religious nuts, the bill passed. What it does is, it makes it non-infringing to make an edited version of a movie, provided that certain conditions are met, one of which is that ads are not skipped.
Of course, it is only one of many exceptions to copyright law that we have. So if you wanted to skip ads as well, you could not rely on this exception (and that's all it is -- an exception, not a prohibition), but you might be able to find another exception that would apply. Or maybe you just wouldn't be doing anything that would be infringing in the first place, in which case you don't need an exception, since copyright law doesn't cover it anyhow.
While I understand that bills generally are a bit tricky to read since they don't contain the entire law they're related to, but instead only contain the changes and additions, you still are just making yourself look stupid by not reading it carefully so as to understand what the hell it is.
Frankly, while FECA was a bad law, this specific portion of it was good. It could be better, but there's nothing at all objectionable about it. And remember: I'm one of the people pushing to make copyright more reasonable by making it smaller in both length and scope.
Meh. Mark Twain was a copyright maximalist. He would have loved this bill, because, with regard to copyright, he was an ass.
A line item veto would seriously upset the balance of power within the government. Right now, the President has to either accept or reject what Congress gives him as a whole. If he can pick and choose, then he's likely to exercise this power to favor only his own political allies. At least now groups within Congress can make agreements amongst themselves in order to get things done.
Besides which, concentrating power is dangerous. I'd rather have power spread out amongst the members of Congress than putting it all in one man.
Local? Courts are either state or federal. The court that sits at your county courthouse is just at a low level in the state system, is all.
However, since the US is signatory to the Berne Convention, foreign font copyrights are enforceable in the US.
No they're not. Copyrights are not extraterritorial, and Berne, which is not self-executing, doesn't change this.
For example, if you are a British citizen, and you write a book in the UK, on which you get a UK copyright, Berne would require the US to grant you a US copyright on the book to go along with your UK one.
Since you cannot copyright a font in the US, having a foreign copyright on a font means absolutely nothing over here.
All the lawyerese aside
As I'm about to demonstrate, you probably should have paid more attention to what I said -- and didn't say -- instead of just dismissing it as 'lawyerese.'
what you're saying is companies like Linotype, Adobe, etc. that sell purported copyrighted fonts are in fact breaking the law?
No.
First, and I'm surprised to have to tell you this, since you said you were a 'fontographer,' there is a difference between a font and a typeface. A typeface is a group of letterforms. It exists in the air, as it were; a typeface is not an object so much as it's like a platonic ideal. A font, on the other hand, is traditionally a specific instance of a typeface. Where Helvetica is a typeface, no matter where you encounter it, a specific set of lead type for Helvetica Italic 12 is a font.
More recently, as computers entered the field of typesetting, we've wound up with little programs called fonts. These programs are capable of outputting type. Sometimes, quite like a traditional font, since they were bitmaps and each computer font file only output a specific face in a specific size. More commonly nowadays, the computer fonts can output type in a face in any size, and sometimes even several faces as well.
A typeface is uncopyrightable in the US because of the utility doctrine discussed earlier. A traditional lead font is uncopyrightable in the US for exactly the same reason (it's not a graphic work, but it is sculptural).
But a computer program is not a PGS work. And a computer program may be copyrightable even if the output of the program is not. Computer fonts are programs. They are literary works, rather than PGS works, so the utility doctrine doesn't apply. Of course, merger could be an issue, but there's so little caselaw for computer fonts to begin with that we haven't seen it come up in any significant way.
In any event, it's hardly against the law to sell something merely because it is uncopyrightable. I can go into any bookstore and find copies of poems, plays, and novels that have no copyright at all. I cannot imagine why you would think that it would be illegal to sell computer fonts even if they were not copyrightable.
How are text-based company logos trademarked every day if that's the case?
Trademarks and copyrights have absolutely nothing to do with one another. They apply to different subject matter, have different policy goals in mind, have different laws that function differently, etc.
Copyrightability of typefaces one way or another would have no bearing whatsoever on whether a logo consisting entirely of text could be a trademark.
I'm definitely not saying your wrong, your argument speaks for itself, but there are hundreds of cases where your argument seems to have fallen flat on its face in practice.
You probably shouldn't be saying I'm wrong, since it appears that you haven't understood a word I've been saying.
As for that other page, it's substantially correct, and echoes what I've been saying.
In the US, actually, they're not. Let me explain why.
Typefaces are a different animal in that the shape of the letters and how they are constructed can only be done one way. This is why they can be copyrighted.
Actually, that's two excellent arguments for why typefaces are uncopyrightable.
First, we have the utility doctrine.
17 USC 102(a) tells us that only original works of authorship are eligible for copyright. One general class of works in 102(a) are pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works (PGS works). A definition is provided in section 101:
This definition results in PGS works being copyrightable only if they have no useful function, or if any useful function they have is independent and seperable from the copyrightable part of the work.
For example, imagine a bicycle rack that consists of a fairly ordinary rack that has been engraved with decorative elements. You couldn't copyright the entire thing, since the design of the rack portion is functional -- it has to function as a bike rack, and it was designed with that functionality in mind. The engraving could be protected, but nothing would stop someone from making an exact copy of the rack, minus the engraving, and selling them, etc.
Typeface is a graphic work, but it has a utilitarian function in that the letter 'A' in a typeface has to communicate to readers the idea of the letter 'A'. It has to be recognizably an 'A', as opposed to a random squiggle that no one will understand. This means the utility doctrine is in play. In order for there to be anything copyrightable about the typeface, there will have to be some part of it that is seperable from the shape of the letters corresponding to the alphabet, and which can exist independently of the letter shape.
The thing is, that's impossible. If you have the letter 'A' in Helvetica, let's say, you cannot strip out the 'A' part of it and have anything left! Since this is going to be true of everything in the typeface, there's simply no creative work on which to hang a copyright.
This goes a long way toward explaining why the Copyright Office will reject registrations for typeface copyrights.
The other reason is the merger doctrine. Caselaw and section 102(b) tell us that copyright is never allowed for an idea; rather, copyrights are only allowed for creative expressions. The idea/expression dichotomy basically tells us that you cannot copyright the idea of a murder mystery in which the butler did it. On the other hand, you could copyright a specific novel in which the butler did it; the copyright would not preclude anyone from going back to the underlying idea and writing another novel. Since the ideas are usually somewhat vague, it's assumed that there are many possible expressions. You could put a hundred mystery authors to the test, and get a hundred very different novels all involving how the butler did it. The dividing line between idea and expression is not a bright line, however. And in cases where there isn't literal infringement, courts often have to look into the similarities between works, and figure out whether it's due to them both using the same idea (which is okay) or wheth
What makes you think there's a misunderstanding? It's deliberate, and it's a good idea. Typefaces shouldn't be copyrightable. Design patents are sufficient, if not too much protection.
Really, no protection should be offered at all, unless it's pretty clear that doing so will yield a greater public benefit than the public cost of granting the protection. Just creating something isn't enough to warrant rights in the creation.
In the typeface field, it seems that there's plenty of creation going on with the natural incentives in the field. This means there's no need for us to add artificial incentives such as copyright; they wouldn't produce a benefit, and they would produce a harm. If typeface designers ever need more of an incentive, then we can reconsider the matter. It's the same reason why we should not grant copyrights for architectural works, or not grant patents for software and business methods.
As for fonts in the US, it is argued that software fonts are actually a computer program which happens to output noncopyrightable letter shapes, and that thus the program is copyrightable. Personally, I think there are serious merger issues to be considered, and in any event there's just the one case on the subject, IIRC. I wouldn't put money on either side.
Fifty years? That's way too far off!
The first RPG I played seriously was some early version of D&D. All we had was 3d or 4th generation xeroxes of about half of a couple of the books, so we added our own ideas and rules as needed, and played in a very freeform style. Eventually, though, I got into Palladium Robotech, and a couple of years later, GURPS. I've pretty much stuck with GURPS since then, though I still really haven't bothered with 4th ed. The 3d ed. works well enough if you trim out some of the slower rules (I hate combat in any system, since it just slows things down and is a lot of boring dice rolls; combat, when it happens, should be fast fast fast), avoid areas where it's weak (GURPS Cyberpunk is a joke), and I have a lot of the setting books for it already.
Haven't played Rolemaster. I'll have to look into it in my copious free time. Hopefully the PDFs are cheap, given the very low marginal cost.
DM (forget what the Rifts version of this role is)
In almost every system other than D&D, the term is Game Master (or GM). Sometimes you see 'referee' or very game specific terms, e.g. Toon used 'animator,' IIRC. But really, DM or GM, everyone knows what you mean.
They are not hardcover bound books with full color pages.
Meh. Hardbacks are nice, but I loathe color in RPGs. It's about as pointless as having a color dictionary. They're mostly text, and benefit little from color. I don't mind illustrations, but they should be of something useful, e.g. diagrams, rather than just being miscellaneous artwork. After all, when you're playing an RPG, you're mostly using your imagination. You don't need a picture book for that.
It's pretty rare that color is useful in an RPG, and so a few color plates in an otherwise black and white book seems like a more economical solution if color is needed at all.
What I'd really like would be more conveniently sized books, and more compact rule systems so that the books aren't very thick. The GURPS method of having a rulebook with no setting, and setting books with no rules is a good idea, since it lets you avoid having to buy things that are redundant or unnecessary.
I never cared for Rifts, but I enjoyed the Robotech setting. I agree about their game rules. They're just awful, awful crap. It should not take more than 15 minutes to make an awesome character, but with the wierd class system, the poor options for skills, and their combat mechanics, this is impossible in Palladium.
In any event, the pen and paper RPG companies have been declining for years. There's a small number of gamers who are big fans, but there's not a lot of them. And the books seem to cost a fortune, which is odd for how little you really get. Plus, the rule books are reference materials which are handier to have on the computer. When even actual customers often prefer to get pirated scans of the books, it doesn't take much for them to start wondering why they were buying the books at all.
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Actually, you're an idiot, while the previous poster was right on target.
A self-enacting treaty is one that becomes law upon ratification. If a treaty is not self-enacting, then the local legislature simply has an obligation to enact the appropriate laws so that the treaty is complied with. If they don't, they may not be in compliance with the treaty, but the treaty doesn't help anyone in that country.
Berne is not a self-enacting treaty. It has no legal force or authority in the United States. If you try to sue someone for violating your rights under Berne, you will simply be laughed out of court, because you have no case. The only copyright law in force here is that written and enacted by our own government. Berne may provide us with a set of (immensely awful) standards to meet, but that's basically all it does. To anyone other than Congress, it's basically irrelevant.
Congress was even quite clear on this issue, having written the following at 17 USC 104(c):
When the USA signed the conventions (and any other aplicable treaties, they don't sign it and say "..... when it's convenient".
Actually, that happens all the time, with lots of treaties. It isn't at all uncommon to see treaties entered into with various reservations and conditions tacked on.
Whether or not fashion designs are considered to be copyrightable in France and not in the USA is (IMHO) a legal detail, and not something that the Supreme Count is going to be likely to consider to be any different from any other form of copyrightable artistic work.
No. It's at the heart of the matter. Congress has said that these sorts of works are not copyrightable. This means that here, they are in the public domain. And if someone wants to publish them, in the total absence of any copyright issue (since there is no US copyright), it's entirely a free speech issue.
What treaty? There's nothing applicable here.
Duress is an interesting argument to make, but I haven't seen it argued seriously before. Generally the split has been between ProCD (which favors EULAs) and Klocek (which does not). But the recent Blizzard case somewhat undercut Klocek, so I'd generally say that you can rely on EULAs being enforcable. Of course, that's a general statement; whether or not a specific EULA is enforcable will depend on the details of what it says, what alternatives you have aside from agreeing to it, the circumstances under which it was formed, the nature of the parties, the applicable law, etc.
Good man.
You know, I can't help but imagine what Boston would be like in a fantasy setting. There would be the city, towns surrounding it, petering out to villages and farms, and then wild, uncivilized lands about ten leagues from the heart of the city. Beyond that would be Worcester, the last bastion of civilization to the west. Beyond that, nothing but barren wilderness and some mightily thewed barbarians. (Plus a pestilential cesspool of hell about 70 leagues ESE.)
Yeah, seriously. Of course this 'Los Angeles' -- I don't think I've heard of it. I think it's somewhere past Needham, but if it isn't inside 495, I guess it isn't important.