I'm willing to bet that 99.9999% of people that copy cd's, dvd's, etc. are not doing it for "Backup" purposes
Ah, you need to take the long view.
Someday, the copyright on those works will expire, and it will be legal to do ANYTHING with those works. But DRM will still interfere with that.
This alone is a compelling reason to work to abolish DRM. It's like putting you in prison, then saying you've done your time, but refusing to open the gates.
As for being designed with stupid assumptions in mind, the assumption is that people are lazy, want to get something for nothing, and are willing to break the law to do it if they know they aren't likely to be caught. That assumption isn't stupid, it is a time tested fact.
Not the stupid assumption I'm talking about. In fact, I agree with you that those things are at least extremely likely. But I don't think that they're necessarily bad.
The problem is that it's not reasonable to assume we will be able to get rid of DRM altogether. There are such great sums of money and power behind it, that that may not be the proper approach to take.
Well, I think our chances are better by not compromising.
Also, from a tech/IT perspective, the point of having backups is to use the backup so that the master stays pristine. Not sure why you would make a backup then use the master... that seems counter-productive.
And yet, people do it all the time. If it can be reproduced exactly, who actually cares which copy you use and which you keep safe, so long as there are copies in safekeeping? It's not like the master copy has magical properties or something, from a working POV.
Well, which are the greedy ones? The musicians who decide to sell music, or their so-called fans who want it without paying the artists?
Both.
If musicians were not greedy, they would give away their music, rather than sell copies of it. If the public were not greedy, they wouldn't bother to pirate it, grant copyrights, etc.
The reason we have copyright is because people are greedy for new original and derivative works which aren't copyrighted. As it happens, the way which satisfies this greed the most (though not wholly) is a limited degree of copyright. Too much or too little won't satisfy as greatly.
The way copyright works is by exploiting the greed of artists; getting them to do what the public wants, much in the way that a farmer can get a donkey to pull a wagon of produce for sale at market by dangling a carrot in front of it.
The trick is to pay careful attention to what best serves the public. Following the analogy, if there are no carrots, some nice donkeys might pull carts anyway, but by and large, most won't. Too many carrots, and there's no point in the exercise -- the farmer wants to make a profit at the market, not feed everything to the donkey.
Right now we probably have too much copyright. We could reduce it somewhat, and make the public better off, and probably even make artists better off, or at least not significantly worse off. (E.g. it's very hard to be a musician right now and legally sample music. Why should we promote one kind of art but not another? Sampling is just the musical form of collage, after all.)
Choosing to sell your music (which may indeed result in no one thinking you're worth the trouble to spend $15) is a business venture. "Ripping" off that business (such an appropriate term) is just what it sounds like.
Except that the public has the power to determine what businesses are viable. I can sell you sunlight, or the breeze that goes across my land, but it won't work. We can determine whether or not, or to what degree, musicians have the ability to sell their music.
For example, right now, if someone wants to cover a song, the law says that they generally can, even if the musician being covered doesn't like it.
I agree that copyright is probably useful right now, and that there should be some degree of copyright. I also agree that there should be penalties for infringers. However, I think that it would also probably be a good idea to legalize some things that are currently infringing. This might diminish the prospects of artists somewhat (while enlarging those of other artists), but if it improves the public good, then I'm for it.
I've never quite been able to put myself into the shoes of the person that says... "I love this musician so much! Every time he comes out with a new recording I must show my admiration by getting a copy. It's just that I don't love him enough to actually do what he's asking and pay him for entertaining me. Too bad for him! Sucker! But I love him and his music!"
Odd. Most people like getting something for nothing, or at least something for the lowest possible price.
I suppose that if your neighbor had a really nice looking garden, you'd want to give him some money for making the street look nicer?
Fair use is an equitable doctrine, which the courts have created and slowly modified, with some minor input from Congress, during a period of over 150 years.
It really is meant to apply in situations where it is unfair to find infringement; where the policies of copyright are best served by not enforcing them.
Thus, there are no defined fair uses. Rather there is a test to see if any particular set of circumstances that goes before a court happens to be fair or not.
Any use that is not covered by the Fair Use provisions of the various copyright acts is infringing.
That is very wrong. Only some acts are potentially infringing to begin with; copyright doesn't cover everything, after all. Of those that are infringing, depending on the circumstances, various exceptions and defenses may apply.
There is only one fair use defense, and it is a catch all. It can always be raised in any case of copyright infringement, but it may not always work.
There are other judicial and statutory exceptions however. They are not fair use, but may apply anyway. Usually, they're more straightforward. But they're often so limited that only a few at best might apply in any given case.
I'm fairly certain that any commerical use is considered infringing.
Nope. The Acuff-Rose case answered that definitively, though it wasn't hard to arrive at the correct answer anyway.
Commercial acts which are otherwise infringing are fair uses if they satisfy the fair use test. They might, they might not -- that's why you have to check.
Fair use is an equitable doctrine, which the courts have created and slowly modified, with some minor input from Congress, during a period of over 150 years.
It really is meant to apply in situations where it is unfair to find infringement; where the policies of copyright are best served by not enforcing them.
Thus, there are no defined fair uses. Rather there is a test to see if any particular set of circumstances that goes before a court happens to be fair or not.
Any use that is not covered by the Fair Use provisions of the various copyright acts is infringing.
That is very wrong. Only some acts are potentially infringing to begin with; copyright doesn't cover everything, after all. Of those that are infringing, depending on the circumstances, various exceptions and defenses may apply.
There is only one fair use defense, and it is a catch all. It can always be raised in any case of copyright infringement, but it may not always work.
There are other judicial and statutory exceptions however. They are not fair use, but may apply anyway. Usually, they're more straightforward. But they're often so limited that only a few at best might apply in any given case.
I'm fairly certain that any commerical use is considered infringing.
Nope. The Acuff-Rose case answered that definitively, though it wasn't hard to arrive at the correct answer anyway.
Commercial acts which are otherwise infringing are fair uses if they satisfy the fair use test. They might, they might not -- that's why you have to check.
Frankly, the way I see it, this still allows for fair use under the law as it's written. Who cares if you can't copy a copy?
No, fair use allows for any use, so long as it is fair. There's some tests to check for fairness, but there is no kind of use that can never be fair (or that always is).
As for who cares, I care. The point of having backups is that you expect that eventually you'll lose the master. In such a case, you'd better be able to make further backups from backups.
But more significantly, what happens when the copyright expires? I can then lawfully make as many copies, from whatever source I have handy, for any purpose at all. Will this DRM magically evaporate? Or will it keep me from enjoying my rights?
That's the problem with DRM. It is inflexible, it is permanent, and it is designed with stupid assumptions in mind. We're better off getting rid of DRM altogether.
they are necessarily dissimilar in what they cover
And if they weren't, they'd just be the same thing. Of course there are some differences, but overall you won't find anything closer.
Patents are generally broader in practice. The copyright analog to the patent land grab would be finding all the permutations of notes and copyrighting them so that anyone seeking to use them would need a license.
No, the difference in breadth is essentially due to that patents do not permit for independent invention, whilst copyrights do permit for independent creation, both of which basically stem from the former having a novelty requirement, and the latter merely requiring originality, not novelty.
So your analogy doesn't really work all that well.
The other side of the coin is that the large companies of the world file broad patents and cross-license them with other large companies. The effect is such that a small business is unlikely to be able to produce a product without getting stuck in the patent web. The patent system has ironically created a barrier to the progress it was designed to create - unless that progress is made by large companies.
Not so much. Just because a patented invention of a small business might be subject to dominant patents of large businesses doesn't preclude them from entering into licensing arrangements as well. And they often do.
That's only when the infrigement has been found. Most rightsholders don't have the means to investigate infringement. Google may be an aid to finding some infringement, but it's by no means complete.
Well, most rightsholders don't care about infringement. Those that do are better at finding it than you seem to think. The various sectors of the artistic world are not all that big. It turns up.
Patents are an entirely different breed of animal. The only thing they have in common with copyrights is that they are grouped under the "intellectual property" umbrella. A copyright protects a specific work. A patent protects whole classes of works and (improperly) "protects" ideas rather than inventions.
Not at all. Patents protect inventions, are a negative right, granted by Congress under the same power as copyrights, and are relatively limited. Just as copyrights protect works, regardless of the medium in which they're fixed, patents protect inventions, regardless of where they're practiced. They are more similar to one another than either is to anything else.
Also, I wouldn't say the patent system has worked fine. Lately it's been counterproductive, even in the world of material goods. The small companies of the world are supposed to be protected by patents, but companies like Wal-Mart have so many lawyers that they look for the loophole in the patent to produce a product that is close enough to the original to subvert it, without having to pay for patent licenses.
No, inventing around a patent is part of the goal of the patent system. It provides additional inventive activity and competition. Given that the patent holder is responsible for any unprotected gaps -- being the author of the patent claims -- he can hardly blame someone else for taking advantage of the mistakes he's made. Additionally, patents are intended to benefit the public by protecting inventors; they're not meant to protect small businesses more than anyone else.
The system is generous to rightsholders with the resources to defend themselves.
Not in the least. If you have a good case, then it's not particularly difficult to get a lawyer to work on contingency, if you can't pay his regular fees. And courts may award reasonable attorney's fees even if you did pay up front, in some cases. As I said, the system is very favorable to all rightsholders.
If the burden of enforcement falls solely on the copyright holder, then there's no point to having copyright in the first place - it is easy to operate under the radar.
So then how do you explain why it is that most copyright infringement is still exclusively civil, why it took so long to adopt criminal penalties in the first place, and why patents have worked fine for over two centuries without criminal penalties?
Civil penalties are sufficient. The burden of enforcement is low, and the system is highly generous towards rightsholders.
constitutionally-guaranteed monopolies
They're not guaranteed by the constitution. The Constitution empowers Congress to grant copyrights. It doesn't require Congress to. It's their decision.
Leaving it to the realm of civil law is not enough...unless you're okay with copyright developing tools to scour the net for infringing content in an ever-more-invasive way.
Using google is hardly invasive. Copyright infringers have a habit of being public enough that they get caught, whether they realize it or not. Finding them is not that difficult. And there is no indication of unreasonable searching going on AFAIK.
Which goes back to my original point of Congress not protecting business models, but by producing legislation that protects copyrights.
Taken a look at copyright law recently? It's written by the industry, often in rather wierd ways, to protect their ad hoc business models. Copyright, ultimately, is a business model.
The FBI already has a charge to police copyrights.
And we can remove this. I believe we should completely decriminalize matters pertaining to copyright.
It is the FBI that polices software and music/film piracy in the physical world.
No, they actually don't do much as it happens. Copyright holders with various court orders actually do most of this. It's pretty simple -- you get the court order, which permits you to impound copies, and then you do this.
The point to it being in criminal law is to serve as a deterrent
It obviously has no effect, is overkill if it did, and it's a waste of the taxpayers' money. If copyright holders want people to stop infringing, let them do it themselves, through the appropriate legal methods.
Not if the only lawful method by which they can do so is going to court.
The only way to enforce patents is to go to court -- you don't see inventors running wild. I see no reason why copyrights can't be dealt with the same way. Which, as it happens, they were, in the 18th and 19th centuries, and most of the time even through to today.
Do you really want the copyright holders deciding how to police infringement? Do you want them having the authority to legally use tools that can disable P2P networks or your PC?
That's a big jump.
What I want is for copyright holders to be able to sue infringers for damages, injunctive relief, etc. They go to federal court, and file a civil suit. That's it.
I do not think copyright infringement should be a crime, and I do not think that law enforcement should care about copyright infringement.
Thus, the only people that would enforce copyrights would be copyright holders, and the manner by which they'd do so would ultimately be with legal action.
Why should our tax dollars go to policing copyright infringement? If copyright holders care, let them find and sue infringers themselves. If they don't, then let them ignore the issue. Law enforcement has better things to do. Copyright infringement, like patent infringement, should be a purely civil matter, not a crime.
You have to maintain copyright after death (as we currently do) or you reduce the incentive for publishers to accept works from at-risk creators; it'd be like mixing an insurance company with a publishing firm.
A fixed term of years is far better than tying the term to the author's life. A fixed term is predictable, does not require research, and doesn't vary, making it easy to have a standard. Plus it's traditional: only since 1978 have we varied from this, and even then not much.
Personally, I'd like to see a term of five years, which for some works could be renewed up to four times, in the final year of each term, and to not make the first term automatic. (A minor degree of automatic protection would be available, but would rapidly lapse -- manuscripts need some, but not too much, protection)
The point is to provide a period of useful protection for the creator to see a return on his or her creation.
No, the point is to give them the minimum that gets them to create something. I don't much care whether they see a return or not. In fact, most artists never do; most creative works are flops and most artists would make more money at regular jobs. (At least with regards to money derived from copyrights; I myself have made a respectable living from providing services as an artist)
Lucky for us that artists are so optimistic it's laughable.
One thing I hate about the USA is how the legal systems works. A friend of mine is from Denmark and she has mentioned this many times to me. According to her, in Denmark the loser pays the court fees. If we had "loser pays" here in the USA, it would make a huge difference in the legal system. Most big companies would be very leary to sue if they knew they would have to pay legal fees. As it is now. Big corps can just intimidate smaller companies with legal costs.
No, that's not what would happen. Instead you'd see people even more afraid to go to court against significantly better-funded opponents, since there would still be a good chance of the latter winning, and sticking the little guy with an even bigger bill.
If you care about art, you have to care about the creators.
No I don't. Copyright did not exist anywhere prior to 1710, and did not exist most places prior to the 20th century. This form of 'caring' about creators is quite absent from most of history. However, history is replete with art.
So no, I can quite easily care about art and not give a fig about artists, with respect to copyright.
That you're equating people with bees goes to illustrate your utter shallowness and selfishness.
Not in the least. Copyright is a utilitarian system; it relies on the public and artists having various desires which they pursue in a rational and self-interested manner.
The public is greedy for more unencumbered art. Artists are greedy for more profit. The greed of the latter is exploited in order to satisfy the greed of the former. It's as simple as that.
Pure idealistic idiocy.
At least one might think so, if he were foolish enough to not read the last sentence in the passage he quoted.
Explain how we would've gotten the LOTR movies for free, considering that each one cost over 100 million dollars to make?
We might not have. This is an acceptable outcome. Certainly I don't see anyone making 100 billion dollar movies these days. Does this mean we have too little copyright, or does it mean that the benefits of such movies are grossly outweighed by the costs of the copyright laws it would take to provide an incentive to make them? I think it's the latter.
Again, without copyright, or with less copyright, there is less incentive for artists. Thus some art might not be made. Nevertheless, incentive does not scale linearly. The vast majority of profits from a work (copyright is only concerned with the incentive of money; artists can be just as famous etc. without it) come immediately. Thus, if copyright were only a year or two long, we'd see significant reductions in incentive. If it's 56 years instead of the current life+70/95/120 then you're not going to see a noticable decline.
However, the public is harmed significantly by all copyright. This harm must never be borne unless it is outweighed by the good that stems from copyright. One sort of benefit is the creation of works. But an equal benefit is having those works in the public domain. Thus, if we can have just as many works, or nearly so, and have them in the public domain sooner, then we surely must do that.
Of course, I don't advocate abolishing copyright -- though it is a valid option that might someday be the best thing to do -- I do advocate reducing it significantly, in term and scope.
This might result in some things not getting made. But I doubt it would do much of that. Still, even so, provided that we reduce it in order to increase the overall public benefit, we are better off with some things not getting made.
As for whether copyright is a reward for artists or society, I see no difference. You can't dangle those carrots in front of artists and then not hand them over when the artists produce. That's the key - society wants the work, but has to be willing to pay (temporarily) in order to keep the work coming.
I'm not suggesting reneging as standard procedure (though at this point we are really going to need to retroactively reduce copyright scope and term to something sensible) but instead I am pointing out that the interests of artists and the public are not always happily aligned.
Artists would likely prefer ever-greater rewards. But the public has an upper threshold of copyright that it can tolerate. At a certain point, artists are simply not going to get any more. Given that most incentives to create are provided with very little copyright (i.e. there is a spike in incentives up front, and then diminishing or negative returns afterwards) this will likely have little impact, but may yet result in some artists not having a sufficient incentive. So be it.
However, parody does need to be "spelled-out" in law very clearly.
Really? Why?
Remember, fair use applies to fair uses. This often, but not always, encompasses parodies, which have never really been spelled out in any significant manner. Personally, for things like this, I'd trust the courts.
Buggy whips are physical property, and therefore irrelevant to this discussion.
Not at all. The point I'm making is that sometimes people engage in a lot of hard work to do something which is basically of no economic value.
Hard work alone doesn't deserve legal protection, but ingenuity, creativity, etc. do.
No, on their own merits those things deserve no protection either.
But if you consider the far more common scenario of a musician toiling over a piece of music for months, putting all his time and money into his art, it's easier to understand why copyrights should be protected. Not because people work hard, but because they achieve something and often lay everything on the line to do it. We encourage them to do this because their accomplishments help make a better society. In exchange, they get a temporary, limited monopoly on the work they create.
Still not good enough, I'm afraid.
I don't really care whether an artist works hard or not. In fact, I really don't even care about artists. I care about art. It's kind of like how people don't really like bees, but only put up with keeping them to get at the honey.
The works created by artists are indeed good for society. However, it is not good enough to just have them. We must also have the works for free, and be free to do what we like with them. It's unlikely that we'll have lots of artistic output without any protection, but in the end we only provide protection so as to get as close to this ideal as possible.
Copyright isn't a reward for artists. It's meant to help the public at large. Artists -- and relatively minor 'carrots' thrown their way to get them to be productive -- are just a means to an end.
So your comment about retiring in luxury is no more appropriate
I agree. If authors really wanted to make money, they'd get regular jobs like the rest of us. Instead they're often subject to other motivations, or are hopelessly optimistic. You probably have better odds of winning the lottery than of becoming rich from being an author.
No, the parent means protect as in "I work hard to put food on my table and this is how I do it."
Hard work is no justification for copyright. I might work hard making buggy whips -- that doesn't mean I have a leg to stand on in complaining about how people all drive cars these days.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm so tired of hearing this argument.
I'm willing to bet that 99.9999% of people that copy cd's, dvd's, etc. are not doing it for "Backup" purposes
Ah, you need to take the long view.
Someday, the copyright on those works will expire, and it will be legal to do ANYTHING with those works. But DRM will still interfere with that.
This alone is a compelling reason to work to abolish DRM. It's like putting you in prison, then saying you've done your time, but refusing to open the gates.
As for being designed with stupid assumptions in mind, the assumption is that people are lazy, want to get something for nothing, and are willing to break the law to do it if they know they aren't likely to be caught. That assumption isn't stupid, it is a time tested fact.
Not the stupid assumption I'm talking about. In fact, I agree with you that those things are at least extremely likely. But I don't think that they're necessarily bad.
The problem is that it's not reasonable to assume we will be able to get rid of DRM altogether. There are such great sums of money and power behind it, that that may not be the proper approach to take.
Well, I think our chances are better by not compromising.
Also, from a tech/IT perspective, the point of having backups is to use the backup so that the master stays pristine. Not sure why you would make a backup then use the master... that seems counter-productive.
And yet, people do it all the time. If it can be reproduced exactly, who actually cares which copy you use and which you keep safe, so long as there are copies in safekeeping? It's not like the master copy has magical properties or something, from a working POV.
But not all parodies are. Remember that the circuit court in that case had no problem with saying that it was not a fair use, despite being a parody.
Air Pirates is another good example of an unfair parody.
Well, which are the greedy ones? The musicians who decide to sell music, or their so-called fans who want it without paying the artists?
...
Both.
If musicians were not greedy, they would give away their music, rather than sell copies of it. If the public were not greedy, they wouldn't bother to pirate it, grant copyrights, etc.
The reason we have copyright is because people are greedy for new original and derivative works which aren't copyrighted. As it happens, the way which satisfies this greed the most (though not wholly) is a limited degree of copyright. Too much or too little won't satisfy as greatly.
The way copyright works is by exploiting the greed of artists; getting them to do what the public wants, much in the way that a farmer can get a donkey to pull a wagon of produce for sale at market by dangling a carrot in front of it.
The trick is to pay careful attention to what best serves the public. Following the analogy, if there are no carrots, some nice donkeys might pull carts anyway, but by and large, most won't. Too many carrots, and there's no point in the exercise -- the farmer wants to make a profit at the market, not feed everything to the donkey.
Right now we probably have too much copyright. We could reduce it somewhat, and make the public better off, and probably even make artists better off, or at least not significantly worse off. (E.g. it's very hard to be a musician right now and legally sample music. Why should we promote one kind of art but not another? Sampling is just the musical form of collage, after all.)
Choosing to sell your music (which may indeed result in no one thinking you're worth the trouble to spend $15) is a business venture. "Ripping" off that business (such an appropriate term) is just what it sounds like.
Except that the public has the power to determine what businesses are viable. I can sell you sunlight, or the breeze that goes across my land, but it won't work. We can determine whether or not, or to what degree, musicians have the ability to sell their music.
For example, right now, if someone wants to cover a song, the law says that they generally can, even if the musician being covered doesn't like it.
I agree that copyright is probably useful right now, and that there should be some degree of copyright. I also agree that there should be penalties for infringers. However, I think that it would also probably be a good idea to legalize some things that are currently infringing. This might diminish the prospects of artists somewhat (while enlarging those of other artists), but if it improves the public good, then I'm for it.
I've never quite been able to put myself into the shoes of the person that says
"I love this musician so much! Every time he comes out with a new recording I must show my admiration by getting a copy. It's just that I don't love him enough to actually do what he's asking and pay him for entertaining me. Too bad for him! Sucker! But I love him and his music!"
Odd. Most people like getting something for nothing, or at least something for the lowest possible price.
I suppose that if your neighbor had a really nice looking garden, you'd want to give him some money for making the street look nicer?
Damn unclosed italicize tag.
The comment should've read as below:
The Fair Use exceptions are quite well defined
No, they defy this.
Fair use is an equitable doctrine, which the courts have created and slowly modified, with some minor input from Congress, during a period of over 150 years.
It really is meant to apply in situations where it is unfair to find infringement; where the policies of copyright are best served by not enforcing them.
Thus, there are no defined fair uses. Rather there is a test to see if any particular set of circumstances that goes before a court happens to be fair or not.
Any use that is not covered by the Fair Use provisions of the various copyright acts is infringing.
That is very wrong. Only some acts are potentially infringing to begin with; copyright doesn't cover everything, after all. Of those that are infringing, depending on the circumstances, various exceptions and defenses may apply.
There is only one fair use defense, and it is a catch all. It can always be raised in any case of copyright infringement, but it may not always work.
There are other judicial and statutory exceptions however. They are not fair use, but may apply anyway. Usually, they're more straightforward. But they're often so limited that only a few at best might apply in any given case.
I'm fairly certain that any commerical use is considered infringing.
Nope. The Acuff-Rose case answered that definitively, though it wasn't hard to arrive at the correct answer anyway.
Commercial acts which are otherwise infringing are fair uses if they satisfy the fair use test. They might, they might not -- that's why you have to check.
The Fair Use exceptions are quite well defined
No, they defy this.
Fair use is an equitable doctrine, which the courts have created and slowly modified, with some minor input from Congress, during a period of over 150 years.
It really is meant to apply in situations where it is unfair to find infringement; where the policies of copyright are best served by not enforcing them.
Thus, there are no defined fair uses. Rather there is a test to see if any particular set of circumstances that goes before a court happens to be fair or not.
Any use that is not covered by the Fair Use provisions of the various copyright acts is infringing.
That is very wrong. Only some acts are potentially infringing to begin with; copyright doesn't cover everything, after all. Of those that are infringing, depending on the circumstances, various exceptions and defenses may apply.
There is only one fair use defense, and it is a catch all. It can always be raised in any case of copyright infringement, but it may not always work.
There are other judicial and statutory exceptions however. They are not fair use, but may apply anyway. Usually, they're more straightforward. But they're often so limited that only a few at best might apply in any given case.
I'm fairly certain that any commerical use is considered infringing.
Nope. The Acuff-Rose case answered that definitively, though it wasn't hard to arrive at the correct answer anyway.
Commercial acts which are otherwise infringing are fair uses if they satisfy the fair use test. They might, they might not -- that's why you have to check.
Frankly, the way I see it, this still allows for fair use under the law as it's written. Who cares if you can't copy a copy?
No, fair use allows for any use, so long as it is fair. There's some tests to check for fairness, but there is no kind of use that can never be fair (or that always is).
As for who cares, I care. The point of having backups is that you expect that eventually you'll lose the master. In such a case, you'd better be able to make further backups from backups.
But more significantly, what happens when the copyright expires? I can then lawfully make as many copies, from whatever source I have handy, for any purpose at all. Will this DRM magically evaporate? Or will it keep me from enjoying my rights?
That's the problem with DRM. It is inflexible, it is permanent, and it is designed with stupid assumptions in mind. We're better off getting rid of DRM altogether.
Naw, that one's been around for ages. I have one in my machine. It's big but not crazy big.
they are necessarily dissimilar in what they cover
And if they weren't, they'd just be the same thing. Of course there are some differences, but overall you won't find anything closer.
Patents are generally broader in practice. The copyright analog to the patent land grab would be finding all the permutations of notes and copyrighting them so that anyone seeking to use them would need a license.
No, the difference in breadth is essentially due to that patents do not permit for independent invention, whilst copyrights do permit for independent creation, both of which basically stem from the former having a novelty requirement, and the latter merely requiring originality, not novelty.
So your analogy doesn't really work all that well.
The other side of the coin is that the large companies of the world file broad patents and cross-license them with other large companies. The effect is such that a small business is unlikely to be able to produce a product without getting stuck in the patent web. The patent system has ironically created a barrier to the progress it was designed to create - unless that progress is made by large companies.
Not so much. Just because a patented invention of a small business might be subject to dominant patents of large businesses doesn't preclude them from entering into licensing arrangements as well. And they often do.
That's only when the infrigement has been found. Most rightsholders don't have the means to investigate infringement. Google may be an aid to finding some infringement, but it's by no means complete.
Well, most rightsholders don't care about infringement. Those that do are better at finding it than you seem to think. The various sectors of the artistic world are not all that big. It turns up.
Patents are an entirely different breed of animal. The only thing they have in common with copyrights is that they are grouped under the "intellectual property" umbrella. A copyright protects a specific work. A patent protects whole classes of works and (improperly) "protects" ideas rather than inventions.
Not at all. Patents protect inventions, are a negative right, granted by Congress under the same power as copyrights, and are relatively limited. Just as copyrights protect works, regardless of the medium in which they're fixed, patents protect inventions, regardless of where they're practiced. They are more similar to one another than either is to anything else.
Also, I wouldn't say the patent system has worked fine. Lately it's been counterproductive, even in the world of material goods. The small companies of the world are supposed to be protected by patents, but companies like Wal-Mart have so many lawyers that they look for the loophole in the patent to produce a product that is close enough to the original to subvert it, without having to pay for patent licenses.
No, inventing around a patent is part of the goal of the patent system. It provides additional inventive activity and competition. Given that the patent holder is responsible for any unprotected gaps -- being the author of the patent claims -- he can hardly blame someone else for taking advantage of the mistakes he's made. Additionally, patents are intended to benefit the public by protecting inventors; they're not meant to protect small businesses more than anyone else.
The system is generous to rightsholders with the resources to defend themselves.
Not in the least. If you have a good case, then it's not particularly difficult to get a lawyer to work on contingency, if you can't pay his regular fees. And courts may award reasonable attorney's fees even if you did pay up front, in some cases. As I said, the system is very favorable to all rightsholders.
If the burden of enforcement falls solely on the copyright holder, then there's no point to having copyright in the first place - it is easy to operate under the radar.
So then how do you explain why it is that most copyright infringement is still exclusively civil, why it took so long to adopt criminal penalties in the first place, and why patents have worked fine for over two centuries without criminal penalties?
Civil penalties are sufficient. The burden of enforcement is low, and the system is highly generous towards rightsholders.
constitutionally-guaranteed monopolies
They're not guaranteed by the constitution. The Constitution empowers Congress to grant copyrights. It doesn't require Congress to. It's their decision.
Leaving it to the realm of civil law is not enough...unless you're okay with copyright developing tools to scour the net for infringing content in an ever-more-invasive way.
Using google is hardly invasive. Copyright infringers have a habit of being public enough that they get caught, whether they realize it or not. Finding them is not that difficult. And there is no indication of unreasonable searching going on AFAIK.
That's not the end of the world. Maybe the script is a rip-off of Bubba Ho-tep.
Which goes back to my original point of Congress not protecting business models, but by producing legislation that protects copyrights.
Taken a look at copyright law recently? It's written by the industry, often in rather wierd ways, to protect their ad hoc business models. Copyright, ultimately, is a business model.
The FBI already has a charge to police copyrights.
And we can remove this. I believe we should completely decriminalize matters pertaining to copyright.
It is the FBI that polices software and music/film piracy in the physical world.
No, they actually don't do much as it happens. Copyright holders with various court orders actually do most of this. It's pretty simple -- you get the court order, which permits you to impound copies, and then you do this.
The point to it being in criminal law is to serve as a deterrent
It obviously has no effect, is overkill if it did, and it's a waste of the taxpayers' money. If copyright holders want people to stop infringing, let them do it themselves, through the appropriate legal methods.
Not if the only lawful method by which they can do so is going to court.
The only way to enforce patents is to go to court -- you don't see inventors running wild. I see no reason why copyrights can't be dealt with the same way. Which, as it happens, they were, in the 18th and 19th centuries, and most of the time even through to today.
Do you really want the copyright holders deciding how to police infringement? Do you want them having the authority to legally use tools that can disable P2P networks or your PC?
That's a big jump.
What I want is for copyright holders to be able to sue infringers for damages, injunctive relief, etc. They go to federal court, and file a civil suit. That's it.
I do not think copyright infringement should be a crime, and I do not think that law enforcement should care about copyright infringement.
Thus, the only people that would enforce copyrights would be copyright holders, and the manner by which they'd do so would ultimately be with legal action.
Same difference. The government should not pursue infringers. Copyright holders can use the rights they've been granted to take care of themselves.
Sure, try it sometime.
Why should our tax dollars go to policing copyright infringement? If copyright holders care, let them find and sue infringers themselves. If they don't, then let them ignore the issue. Law enforcement has better things to do. Copyright infringement, like patent infringement, should be a purely civil matter, not a crime.
You have to maintain copyright after death (as we currently do) or you reduce the incentive for publishers to accept works from at-risk creators; it'd be like mixing an insurance company with a publishing firm.
A fixed term of years is far better than tying the term to the author's life. A fixed term is predictable, does not require research, and doesn't vary, making it easy to have a standard. Plus it's traditional: only since 1978 have we varied from this, and even then not much.
Personally, I'd like to see a term of five years, which for some works could be renewed up to four times, in the final year of each term, and to not make the first term automatic. (A minor degree of automatic protection would be available, but would rapidly lapse -- manuscripts need some, but not too much, protection)
The point is to provide a period of useful protection for the creator to see a return on his or her creation.
No, the point is to give them the minimum that gets them to create something. I don't much care whether they see a return or not. In fact, most artists never do; most creative works are flops and most artists would make more money at regular jobs. (At least with regards to money derived from copyrights; I myself have made a respectable living from providing services as an artist)
Lucky for us that artists are so optimistic it's laughable.
One thing I hate about the USA is how the legal systems works. A friend of mine is from Denmark and she has mentioned this many times to me. According to her, in Denmark the loser pays the court fees. If we had "loser pays" here in the USA, it would make a huge difference in the legal system. Most big companies would be very leary to sue if they knew they would have to pay legal fees. As it is now. Big corps can just intimidate smaller companies with legal costs.
No, that's not what would happen. Instead you'd see people even more afraid to go to court against significantly better-funded opponents, since there would still be a good chance of the latter winning, and sticking the little guy with an even bigger bill.
A loser pays system is not a good idea.
If you care about art, you have to care about the creators.
No I don't. Copyright did not exist anywhere prior to 1710, and did not exist most places prior to the 20th century. This form of 'caring' about creators is quite absent from most of history. However, history is replete with art.
So no, I can quite easily care about art and not give a fig about artists, with respect to copyright.
That you're equating people with bees goes to illustrate your utter shallowness and selfishness.
Not in the least. Copyright is a utilitarian system; it relies on the public and artists having various desires which they pursue in a rational and self-interested manner.
The public is greedy for more unencumbered art. Artists are greedy for more profit. The greed of the latter is exploited in order to satisfy the greed of the former. It's as simple as that.
Pure idealistic idiocy.
At least one might think so, if he were foolish enough to not read the last sentence in the passage he quoted.
Explain how we would've gotten the LOTR movies for free, considering that each one cost over 100 million dollars to make?
We might not have. This is an acceptable outcome. Certainly I don't see anyone making 100 billion dollar movies these days. Does this mean we have too little copyright, or does it mean that the benefits of such movies are grossly outweighed by the costs of the copyright laws it would take to provide an incentive to make them? I think it's the latter.
Again, without copyright, or with less copyright, there is less incentive for artists. Thus some art might not be made. Nevertheless, incentive does not scale linearly. The vast majority of profits from a work (copyright is only concerned with the incentive of money; artists can be just as famous etc. without it) come immediately. Thus, if copyright were only a year or two long, we'd see significant reductions in incentive. If it's 56 years instead of the current life+70/95/120 then you're not going to see a noticable decline.
However, the public is harmed significantly by all copyright. This harm must never be borne unless it is outweighed by the good that stems from copyright. One sort of benefit is the creation of works. But an equal benefit is having those works in the public domain. Thus, if we can have just as many works, or nearly so, and have them in the public domain sooner, then we surely must do that.
Of course, I don't advocate abolishing copyright -- though it is a valid option that might someday be the best thing to do -- I do advocate reducing it significantly, in term and scope.
This might result in some things not getting made. But I doubt it would do much of that. Still, even so, provided that we reduce it in order to increase the overall public benefit, we are better off with some things not getting made.
As for whether copyright is a reward for artists or society, I see no difference. You can't dangle those carrots in front of artists and then not hand them over when the artists produce. That's the key - society wants the work, but has to be willing to pay (temporarily) in order to keep the work coming.
I'm not suggesting reneging as standard procedure (though at this point we are really going to need to retroactively reduce copyright scope and term to something sensible) but instead I am pointing out that the interests of artists and the public are not always happily aligned.
Artists would likely prefer ever-greater rewards. But the public has an upper threshold of copyright that it can tolerate. At a certain point, artists are simply not going to get any more. Given that most incentives to create are provided with very little copyright (i.e. there is a spike in incentives up front, and then diminishing or negative returns afterwards) this will likely have little impact, but may yet result in some artists not having a sufficient incentive. So be it.
However, parody does need to be "spelled-out" in law very clearly.
Really? Why?
Remember, fair use applies to fair uses. This often, but not always, encompasses parodies, which have never really been spelled out in any significant manner. Personally, for things like this, I'd trust the courts.
Buggy whips are physical property, and therefore irrelevant to this discussion.
Not at all. The point I'm making is that sometimes people engage in a lot of hard work to do something which is basically of no economic value.
Hard work alone doesn't deserve legal protection, but ingenuity, creativity, etc. do.
No, on their own merits those things deserve no protection either.
But if you consider the far more common scenario of a musician toiling over a piece of music for months, putting all his time and money into his art, it's easier to understand why copyrights should be protected. Not because people work hard, but because they achieve something and often lay everything on the line to do it. We encourage them to do this because their accomplishments help make a better society. In exchange, they get a temporary, limited monopoly on the work they create.
Still not good enough, I'm afraid.
I don't really care whether an artist works hard or not. In fact, I really don't even care about artists. I care about art. It's kind of like how people don't really like bees, but only put up with keeping them to get at the honey.
The works created by artists are indeed good for society. However, it is not good enough to just have them. We must also have the works for free, and be free to do what we like with them. It's unlikely that we'll have lots of artistic output without any protection, but in the end we only provide protection so as to get as close to this ideal as possible.
Copyright isn't a reward for artists. It's meant to help the public at large. Artists -- and relatively minor 'carrots' thrown their way to get them to be productive -- are just a means to an end.
So your comment about retiring in luxury is no more appropriate
I agree. If authors really wanted to make money, they'd get regular jobs like the rest of us. Instead they're often subject to other motivations, or are hopelessly optimistic. You probably have better odds of winning the lottery than of becoming rich from being an author.
No, the parent means protect as in "I work hard to put food on my table and this is how I do it."
Hard work is no justification for copyright. I might work hard making buggy whips -- that doesn't mean I have a leg to stand on in complaining about how people all drive cars these days.