Well, I've seen a lot of the episodes. She wears the khaki uniform from time to time, she has full-body jumpsuit sorts of things (probably body armor), and that grey ensemble she wears in England.
But most of the time she goes to work, meets with important people, and has her ass hanging out. It's crazy. The only other people dressed as wierdly seem to be the two women that get in that fight in the hotel room in ep. 7 and I suspect they're just robots. (or possibly robot hookers which are just as good, and coin-operated)
And where can I get some of that sweet thermoptic camoflage?:)
Where the hell did Togusa get it? In the manga at least, he was totally human other than having a cyberbrain hookup, which is pretty universal. But he didn't wear a hood in the first episode, yet managed to be completely invisible. Even given the sheer number and variety of cyborgs in GITS, a head replacement is a relatively major piece of work.
The Tachikomas? I don't recall that they're experimental. They are hilariously fun though, and so are the Fuchikomas (which are similar) from the manga. And there's a lot more than three of them.
Personally, I'm still waiting on finding out why the GITS:TV Kusanagi insists on wearing that stupid one-piece all the time. Everyone else seems to just wear fairly normal clothing; why she dresses so bizarrely, I haven't a clue.
Last Exile is also quite good, though it can be rather slow-moving at times.
Re:And a third-party iPod battery costs... $50.
on
"iPod's Dirty Secret"
·
· Score: 1
I honestly can't say that I ever tried that -- but I do think it's neat that such a thing could be done. Not many subnotebooks around these days to which we could add full-sized desktop video cards or anything.
No, I was only talking about 80085 -- the others obviously have to be inverted, but 80085 works without inversion. I did grow up on seven-segment calculators, you know.
Seriously, think about it -- no more need for gender changers. All cables and jacks have the same ends, reducing the number of different parts needed for assembly. Special extension cables aren't needed, since you can just connect several ordinary cables without any additional hardware.
Plus of course, I have yet to see a well designed cable end -- USB is good, but it's too easy to accidently try to plug the cable in upside down since you really need to take a close look at the cable end and the jack, and it is possible to force it in wrong. So some attention would need to be paid there as well.
It's been released as a fansub. I know 'cos I've got a copy of it, and of MZ23 II. I think it was Kodocha that released it, but I don't really remember.
(I do remember that the fansubbers made an 'ad' of sorts for the project -- set to Duran Duran's 'Planet Earth' which I found rather funny)
Well, the lower courts in Sony seem to have felt it was fair use.
And anyway, the issue regarding Sony's liability ultimately required there to be substantial noninfringing uses.
To quote the Court:
The question is thus whether the Betamax is capable of commercially significant noninfringing uses. In order to resolve that question, we need not explore all the different potential uses of the machine and determine whether or not they would constitute infringement. Rather, we need only consider whether on the basis of the facts as found by the District Court a significant number of them would be noninfringing. Moreover, in order to resolve this case we need not give precise content to the question of how much use is commercially significant. For one potential use of the Betamax plainly satisfies this standard, however it is understood: private, noncommercial time-shifting in the home. It does so both (A) because respondents have no right to prevent other copyright holders from authorizing it for their programs, and (B) because the District Court's factual findings reveal that
even the unauthorized home time-shifting of respondents' programs is legitimate fair use.
The court gets into more detail in part IV B of the opinion, but nothing really quoteworthy jumped out at me.
Authorized time shifting was also considered, however, in IV A. But the opinion doesn't wholly rest on that.
The AHRA isn't as useful as you might think, though it does have some intriguing possibilities. And anyway, it's a statutory exception (technically to who can be sued -- it's nonactionable infringement, but infringement all the same) and not quite identical to fair use, though sometimes both might protect someone.
However, assuming that the song in question is a recently produced song, say, within the last 14 years or so, the original framers of copyright would certainly have wanted the person who created that song to get due compensation.
This is clearly untrue. Copyright didn't encompass musical compositions until 1831; copyrights date back to 1710. Nor just anyone; it took until 1891 for foreigners to be eligible to receive American copyrights.
The purpose of copyright was to allow the creator of a work to have sole control over its sale for a limited time, or something to that effect.
No. To quote from the Constitution, "Congress shall have Power... To Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing, for limited Times, to Authors and Inventors, the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Madison, in discussing this with Jefferson during the framing of the Constitution wrote that he believed that while monopolies such as this were wicked, it might yet prove useful, since in a democratic government, their perniciousness could be moderated. "Where the power is in the few it is natural for them to sacrifice the many to their own partialities and corruptions. Where the power, as with us, is in the many and not in the few, the danger can not be very great that the few will be thus favored. It is much more to be dreaded that the few will be unnecessarily sacrificed to the many." Sadly, he didn't foresee RIAA et al.
Even as far back as the Statute of Anne, we see that the Act was intended to promote public learning; not to help authors. Helping authors was merely a means to an end.
By way of analogy, think of public schools. We have public schools purely in order to educate children. They also happen to employ a lot of teachers, but they're not really intended to -- that employment is just a side effect, a means used to achieve the real goal. If we could educate kids without the teachers, we probably would; certainly we don't seem to be in any great hurry to pay teachers more money, or to get more of them.
Thus, the purpose of copyright was, and is still, to promote the progress of knowledge -- a goal that benefits the public. Since authors are members of the public, it benefits them too, but not especially more than others.
When you examine the issues, you quickly find that there are two public interests intertwined with creative works. First, the public wants to spur the creation of new works -- original, derivative, whatever. We want more. Second, to be wholly unrestricted in our enjoyment and use of these works; to use them, copy them, preserve them, distribute them, make new works based upon them, etc.
Authors are particularly benefited by that last, since by relying on the work of others, they reduce the amount of work that they themselves need to do. And since the public is interested in new derivative works, there'll be an audience. See, e.g. most Disney cartoons, which are mere retellings of age-old stories that come as no surprise to anyone who goes to watch them. But we watch them anyway, because we _like_ seeing their take on the familiar classic.
Copyright strives to fulfill all of these benefits by, ironically, denying most of them initially in order to focus effort by authors on new original works. But the restrictions aren't pervasive, and over time they go away and we can fully enjoy the works and base derivatives off of it, which themselves are partially eligible for protection.
If we are within the limited time, then why should the artist not get paid?
Because it might not suit the public interest. That's also the reason for whether we're even in the limited time -- we might reduce or expand it, in either case trying to best serve the public interest. The fortunes of authors will hinge upon it, but even were there no copyright (as was the case for most of history) there's always going to be artists. Nor do we merely want the most arti
No they do not. It is a perfectly viable option to say that the ability of rights holders to protect their interests will be curtailed, EVEN though it results in some artists not making money at this, and dropping out of the business.
What is important is looking at the big picture -- is it better to have DRM and lots of artists, or a good copyright system and fewer artists? Before answering, consider whether you'd want more draconian DRM than we have now if it merely meant that there'd be more artists than we have now.
Personally, I don't tolerate any DRM no matter how minimal; it's still a violation by the artist of the bargain made between him and the public in which he was given his copyright. There's little I can do about it other than advocate breaking DRM should he opt to go ahead without a copyright, but I'd rather strongly channel people into using a properly set up system than mistreating the public.
Really? They're not doing what I said. I said that DRM is utterly unacceptable. It should not exist. Certainly DRM and copyrights should not coexist with regards to a particular work.
What I've been saying is that Apple should distribute the music without any technical limitations on it (aside from those incidental to it's nature -- if it's AAC encoded, then of course it's not going to play via an mp3 codec, but this isn't a deliberate means of impeding users). If people infringe on the copyrights -- sue them.
Though of course, I've also questioned whether they should be able to be sued either; it might very well be that we should pare down copyrights significantly so that things like P2P are simply legal. I'm not saying it's necessarily the best choice, but given the insane route we've been going, it seems like it's better overall.
And when duplication of property has the same economic ramifications as theft of property, it should carry the same penalty.
Why? If you want the world to agree to bear some threat of a penalty, how do they benefit? You've got to remember that copyright is intended to help the public -- not artists. You don't seem too solicitous of the public right there, my lad.
Fair use is anything that, in light of the four factors listed in 17 USC 107 (or via judicial tests that predate that codification) is fair.
The examples given in 107 are NOT blanket allowances. They're illustrative of the sorts of things that might classically be fair use. That's why it says 'for purposes such as' and not 'only for purposes of.'
Reproducing and distributing otherwise infringing copies on street corners may not be infringement if it's fair per the four factor test. And yet there have certainly been educational and news reporting infringements that were not fair uses.
Then he declares bankruptcy and it gets discharged or reduced -- or even if he doesn't, nothing amazing happens. You can't get blood from a stone.
That's why the lawyers don't want to use the full penalties as anything more than a threat. Real money in the bank is better than a huge award of damages that will never materialize.
Yes, the stationer's copyright predates utilitarian copyrights. But the two were really only alike in name -- the current system owes nothing to the stationer's copyright, and hasn't for about 300 years. (also the stationer's copyright began under Queen Mary, IIRC, so that's roughly 450 years ago, not 400)
Firstly, this is a civil lawsuit, not a criminal lawsuit. There is no guilt or innocence in a civil lawsuit: instead there is liability or there is not liability.
Secondly: So if RIAA wins their suit and the girl is found to be liable, there are a couple of ways of calculating the damages.
One of these ways is known as statutory damages, and it's provided in 17 USC 504(c). Under 504(c)(1), for each work (not each copy of a work, mind) that is infringed, the court may award an amount it considers just, but which is no less than $750, and no more than $30,000. If there are 1,100 files, and we assume that each is from a seperate work (since we don't count duplicates), she would be liable for no less than $825,000, and no more than $33 million.
But, if the plaintiff (here RIAA) can prove that the infringement was willful, per 504(c)(2) the court can choose, if it would be just, to increase damages to up to $150,000 per work, making the maximum possible liability $165 million.
On the other hand, also per 504(c)(2), if the infringer can prove that she did not know she was infringing, AND had no reason to believe she was infringing, the damages can be decreased to no less than $200 per work, making the minimum possible liability a mere $220,000.
In rare cases, an 'innocent infringer' can get off the hook for damages altogether, but this won't be applicable here.
Since the plaintiff gets to make the decision as to whether to go for actual damages or the statutory damages described above, you can generally bet that they'll go for whichever gets them the largest award. Remember those kids earlier this year who were liable for literally billions of dollars each? -- well, they had a lot of files, and each one was estimated as incurring $150,000 in damages.
Well, in order for liability to attach by providing the computer, it means you're really trying to show contributory or vicarious infringement.
This means that you will have to prove that the parents: Knew or should have known that infringement was going on, or that there was a financial benefit directly tied to the infringement, and which varied according to the infringement.
These will be difficult to show. And it would make for an interesting case.
They ARE legally responsible for the illegal actions of their children.
No, parents usually are not responsible for their children's illegal actions.
If they're not, then why didn't we all spend our youth vandalizing everything we could?
Because a few things -- like vandalism -- parents are artificially made responsible for. But these exceptions are pretty rare, and have to be created out of whole cloth; they don't exist by default, and they vary from place to place. And I suspect that states might be prohibited in this area from doing anything to specifically make parents liable given 17 USC 301.
Well, the general point is that it can be difficult to make people do something they're disinclined to do.
If you like, consider speeding or jaywalking laws -- no one obeys them. In the latter case, no one even has any respect for them or anyone that would enforce those laws; at least people can understand the reason for speed limits, even if they like to speed. This has been the case for decades, frankly. There's no sign of anything changing. If we ramped up enforcement, we'd piss off a lot of people, but I don't think we'd get very far in 'stamping out the scourge' of people crossing the street as they pleased.
Copyright is not dissimilar; people have a set of norms. They'll do generally what they think is right, and they won't do anything they think is terribly bad. There are some exceptions, but I'm speaking generally. Nevertheless, the law has swept over them and prohibits with a heavy hand what is felt to be inoffensive behavior by the participants.
People won't change their ways easily. So do we either want to put the law first, and hurt a lot of people in forcing them to come to grips with it even though it doesn't make sense to them, or would it be better to relax the law so that it neatly meshes with what people themselves realize is wrong, but goes no further, and people naturally comply with it.
Now you and I may relish the idea of the RIAA going out of business, but just as I would argue that we have a fair use right to format-shift media, the RIAA has a right to the fruits of its labors.
Then you would be wrong.
The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
Known alternatively as "sweat of the brow" or "industrious collection," the underlying notion was that copyright was a reward for the hard work that went into compiling facts.... Without a doubt, the "sweat of the brow" doctrine flouted basic copyright principles.... [O]riginality, not "sweat of the brow," is the touchstone of copyright protection.... As this Court noted more than a century ago, "'great praise may be due to the plaintiffs for their industry and enterprise... yet the law does not contemplate their being rewarded in this way.'"
Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Svc., 499 U.S. 340 (1991).
In sum, authors do not have a right to the fruits of their labor; they have a right to whatever Congress, on behalf of the public, is able to give them and is in fact given to them.
Labor isn't enough to justify a copyright grant. There has to be more, and in fact we could always opt not to grant protection at all. Certainly we have a history of that -- it was a long time before art, music, performances, etc. could be copyrighted.
Those companies own the recordings to distribute. That's how they make their money. You seem to be implying it's a-okay to just take copies and not pay for it, for no reason. Would you say the same for warez? How about movies?
Sure. No one ever said that the laws had to be favorable towards their making money. There used to be a thriving industry in patent medicines in this country -- then we created the FDA and it ran all of those snake oil hucksters out of business. This was not a bad thing, despite destroying their ability to make money.
As for why we might want to do this, it's for the same reason. If we thought that the public would be better off being able to copy works (assume that we might merely alter, rather than outright abolish, copyright, e.g. by reducing term lengths) than we would be otherwise, even taking into account the effect that this might have on the creation of works, than frankly we'd be stupid to _not_ do it.
After all, why would you not want to be as best off as possible?
We only grant copyrights in the first place due to a belief that we're better off doing so than we would be if we didn't; certainly through most of history we didn't have copyrights and no one complained.
Given people's attitudes, the increased ease of publishing and creation (e.g. not every movie needs to have a zillion dollar budget -- those may be unsustainable with regards to the laws they need to be worth creating not being justified), etc. the time might be ripe for cutting back on copyright protection in order to make everyone better off than we are right now.
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Well, I've seen a lot of the episodes. She wears the khaki uniform from time to time, she has full-body jumpsuit sorts of things (probably body armor), and that grey ensemble she wears in England.
:)
But most of the time she goes to work, meets with important people, and has her ass hanging out. It's crazy. The only other people dressed as wierdly seem to be the two women that get in that fight in the hotel room in ep. 7 and I suspect they're just robots. (or possibly robot hookers which are just as good, and coin-operated)
And where can I get some of that sweet thermoptic camoflage?
Where the hell did Togusa get it? In the manga at least, he was totally human other than having a cyberbrain hookup, which is pretty universal. But he didn't wear a hood in the first episode, yet managed to be completely invisible. Even given the sheer number and variety of cyborgs in GITS, a head replacement is a relatively major piece of work.
The Tachikomas? I don't recall that they're experimental. They are hilariously fun though, and so are the Fuchikomas (which are similar) from the manga. And there's a lot more than three of them.
Personally, I'm still waiting on finding out why the GITS:TV Kusanagi insists on wearing that stupid one-piece all the time. Everyone else seems to just wear fairly normal clothing; why she dresses so bizarrely, I haven't a clue.
Last Exile is also quite good, though it can be rather slow-moving at times.
I honestly can't say that I ever tried that -- but I do think it's neat that such a thing could be done. Not many subnotebooks around these days to which we could add full-sized desktop video cards or anything.
We really need the Duc Dock concept back.
No, I was only talking about 80085 -- the others obviously have to be inverted, but 80085 works without inversion. I did grow up on seven-segment calculators, you know.
But you don't need to invert 80085 -- it _already_ says "BOOBS," you boob.
If you really want a fun time, look up the instructions for adding RAM to any of the Macintoshes based on the Quadra 800 case.
All of those numbers are symmetrical -- it works either way.
Hermaphroditic cable connectors.
Seriously, think about it -- no more need for gender changers. All cables and jacks have the same ends, reducing the number of different parts needed for assembly. Special extension cables aren't needed, since you can just connect several ordinary cables without any additional hardware.
Plus of course, I have yet to see a well designed cable end -- USB is good, but it's too easy to accidently try to plug the cable in upside down since you really need to take a close look at the cable end and the jack, and it is possible to force it in wrong. So some attention would need to be paid there as well.
It's been released as a fansub. I know 'cos I've got a copy of it, and of MZ23 II. I think it was Kodocha that released it, but I don't really remember.
(I do remember that the fansubbers made an 'ad' of sorts for the project -- set to Duran Duran's 'Planet Earth' which I found rather funny)
Of course (if I'm remembering MZ23 III well enough) both AIs were still based somehow on other people; they weren't created from the ground up.
And anyway, the issue regarding Sony's liability ultimately required there to be substantial noninfringing uses.
To quote the Court:
The court gets into more detail in part IV B of the opinion, but nothing really quoteworthy jumped out at me.
Authorized time shifting was also considered, however, in IV A. But the opinion doesn't wholly rest on that.
Well a cursed toad isn't good either, you know.
No you wouldn't.
The AHRA isn't as useful as you might think, though it does have some intriguing possibilities. And anyway, it's a statutory exception (technically to who can be sued -- it's nonactionable infringement, but infringement all the same) and not quite identical to fair use, though sometimes both might protect someone.
However, assuming that the song in question is a recently produced song, say, within the last 14 years or so, the original framers of copyright would certainly have wanted the person who created that song to get due compensation.
... To Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing, for limited Times, to Authors and Inventors, the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
This is clearly untrue. Copyright didn't encompass musical compositions until 1831; copyrights date back to 1710. Nor just anyone; it took until 1891 for foreigners to be eligible to receive American copyrights.
The purpose of copyright was to allow the creator of a work to have sole control over its sale for a limited time, or something to that effect.
No. To quote from the Constitution, "Congress shall have Power
Madison, in discussing this with Jefferson during the framing of the Constitution wrote that he believed that while monopolies such as this were wicked, it might yet prove useful, since in a democratic government, their perniciousness could be moderated. "Where the power is in the few it is natural for them to sacrifice the many to their own partialities and corruptions. Where the power, as with us, is in the many and not in the few, the danger can not be very great that the few will be thus favored. It is much more to be dreaded that the few will be unnecessarily sacrificed to the many." Sadly, he didn't foresee RIAA et al.
Even as far back as the Statute of Anne, we see that the Act was intended to promote public learning; not to help authors. Helping authors was merely a means to an end.
By way of analogy, think of public schools. We have public schools purely in order to educate children. They also happen to employ a lot of teachers, but they're not really intended to -- that employment is just a side effect, a means used to achieve the real goal. If we could educate kids without the teachers, we probably would; certainly we don't seem to be in any great hurry to pay teachers more money, or to get more of them.
Thus, the purpose of copyright was, and is still, to promote the progress of knowledge -- a goal that benefits the public. Since authors are members of the public, it benefits them too, but not especially more than others.
When you examine the issues, you quickly find that there are two public interests intertwined with creative works. First, the public wants to spur the creation of new works -- original, derivative, whatever. We want more. Second, to be wholly unrestricted in our enjoyment and use of these works; to use them, copy them, preserve them, distribute them, make new works based upon them, etc.
Authors are particularly benefited by that last, since by relying on the work of others, they reduce the amount of work that they themselves need to do. And since the public is interested in new derivative works, there'll be an audience. See, e.g. most Disney cartoons, which are mere retellings of age-old stories that come as no surprise to anyone who goes to watch them. But we watch them anyway, because we _like_ seeing their take on the familiar classic.
Copyright strives to fulfill all of these benefits by, ironically, denying most of them initially in order to focus effort by authors on new original works. But the restrictions aren't pervasive, and over time they go away and we can fully enjoy the works and base derivatives off of it, which themselves are partially eligible for protection.
If we are within the limited time, then why should the artist not get paid?
Because it might not suit the public interest. That's also the reason for whether we're even in the limited time -- we might reduce or expand it, in either case trying to best serve the public interest. The fortunes of authors will hinge upon it, but even were there no copyright (as was the case for most of history) there's always going to be artists. Nor do we merely want the most arti
People have to make money at this at some point
No they do not. It is a perfectly viable option to say that the ability of rights holders to protect their interests will be curtailed, EVEN though it results in some artists not making money at this, and dropping out of the business.
What is important is looking at the big picture -- is it better to have DRM and lots of artists, or a good copyright system and fewer artists? Before answering, consider whether you'd want more draconian DRM than we have now if it merely meant that there'd be more artists than we have now.
Personally, I don't tolerate any DRM no matter how minimal; it's still a violation by the artist of the bargain made between him and the public in which he was given his copyright. There's little I can do about it other than advocate breaking DRM should he opt to go ahead without a copyright, but I'd rather strongly channel people into using a properly set up system than mistreating the public.
Really? They're not doing what I said. I said that DRM is utterly unacceptable. It should not exist. Certainly DRM and copyrights should not coexist with regards to a particular work.
What I've been saying is that Apple should distribute the music without any technical limitations on it (aside from those incidental to it's nature -- if it's AAC encoded, then of course it's not going to play via an mp3 codec, but this isn't a deliberate means of impeding users). If people infringe on the copyrights -- sue them.
Though of course, I've also questioned whether they should be able to be sued either; it might very well be that we should pare down copyrights significantly so that things like P2P are simply legal. I'm not saying it's necessarily the best choice, but given the insane route we've been going, it seems like it's better overall.
And when duplication of property has the same economic ramifications as theft of property, it should carry the same penalty.
Why? If you want the world to agree to bear some threat of a penalty, how do they benefit? You've got to remember that copyright is intended to help the public -- not artists. You don't seem too solicitous of the public right there, my lad.
You also don't seem to know what fair use is.
Fair use is anything that, in light of the four factors listed in 17 USC 107 (or via judicial tests that predate that codification) is fair.
The examples given in 107 are NOT blanket allowances. They're illustrative of the sorts of things that might classically be fair use. That's why it says 'for purposes such as' and not 'only for purposes of.'
Reproducing and distributing otherwise infringing copies on street corners may not be infringement if it's fair per the four factor test. And yet there have certainly been educational and news reporting infringements that were not fair uses.
Then he declares bankruptcy and it gets discharged or reduced -- or even if he doesn't, nothing amazing happens. You can't get blood from a stone.
That's why the lawyers don't want to use the full penalties as anything more than a threat. Real money in the bank is better than a huge award of damages that will never materialize.
Yes, the stationer's copyright predates utilitarian copyrights. But the two were really only alike in name -- the current system owes nothing to the stationer's copyright, and hasn't for about 300 years. (also the stationer's copyright began under Queen Mary, IIRC, so that's roughly 450 years ago, not 400)
Okay.
Firstly, this is a civil lawsuit, not a criminal lawsuit. There is no guilt or innocence in a civil lawsuit: instead there is liability or there is not liability.
Secondly: So if RIAA wins their suit and the girl is found to be liable, there are a couple of ways of calculating the damages.
One of these ways is known as statutory damages, and it's provided in 17 USC 504(c). Under 504(c)(1), for each work (not each copy of a work, mind) that is infringed, the court may award an amount it considers just, but which is no less than $750, and no more than $30,000. If there are 1,100 files, and we assume that each is from a seperate work (since we don't count duplicates), she would be liable for no less than $825,000, and no more than $33 million.
But, if the plaintiff (here RIAA) can prove that the infringement was willful, per 504(c)(2) the court can choose, if it would be just, to increase damages to up to $150,000 per work, making the maximum possible liability $165 million.
On the other hand, also per 504(c)(2), if the infringer can prove that she did not know she was infringing, AND had no reason to believe she was infringing, the damages can be decreased to no less than $200 per work, making the minimum possible liability a mere $220,000.
In rare cases, an 'innocent infringer' can get off the hook for damages altogether, but this won't be applicable here.
Since the plaintiff gets to make the decision as to whether to go for actual damages or the statutory damages described above, you can generally bet that they'll go for whichever gets them the largest award. Remember those kids earlier this year who were liable for literally billions of dollars each? -- well, they had a lot of files, and each one was estimated as incurring $150,000 in damages.
Well, in order for liability to attach by providing the computer, it means you're really trying to show contributory or vicarious infringement.
This means that you will have to prove that the parents: Knew or should have known that infringement was going on, or that there was a financial benefit directly tied to the infringement, and which varied according to the infringement.
These will be difficult to show. And it would make for an interesting case.
They ARE legally responsible for the illegal actions of their children.
No, parents usually are not responsible for their children's illegal actions.
If they're not, then why didn't we all spend our youth vandalizing everything we could?
Because a few things -- like vandalism -- parents are artificially made responsible for. But these exceptions are pretty rare, and have to be created out of whole cloth; they don't exist by default, and they vary from place to place. And I suspect that states might be prohibited in this area from doing anything to specifically make parents liable given 17 USC 301.
Well, the general point is that it can be difficult to make people do something they're disinclined to do.
If you like, consider speeding or jaywalking laws -- no one obeys them. In the latter case, no one even has any respect for them or anyone that would enforce those laws; at least people can understand the reason for speed limits, even if they like to speed. This has been the case for decades, frankly. There's no sign of anything changing. If we ramped up enforcement, we'd piss off a lot of people, but I don't think we'd get very far in 'stamping out the scourge' of people crossing the street as they pleased.
Copyright is not dissimilar; people have a set of norms. They'll do generally what they think is right, and they won't do anything they think is terribly bad. There are some exceptions, but I'm speaking generally. Nevertheless, the law has swept over them and prohibits with a heavy hand what is felt to be inoffensive behavior by the participants.
People won't change their ways easily. So do we either want to put the law first, and hurt a lot of people in forcing them to come to grips with it even though it doesn't make sense to them, or would it be better to relax the law so that it neatly meshes with what people themselves realize is wrong, but goes no further, and people naturally comply with it.
Then you would be wrong.
Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Svc., 499 U.S. 340 (1991).
In sum, authors do not have a right to the fruits of their labor; they have a right to whatever Congress, on behalf of the public, is able to give them and is in fact given to them.
Labor isn't enough to justify a copyright grant. There has to be more, and in fact we could always opt not to grant protection at all. Certainly we have a history of that -- it was a long time before art, music, performances, etc. could be copyrighted.
Those companies own the recordings to distribute. That's how they make their money. You seem to be implying it's a-okay to just take copies and not pay for it, for no reason. Would you say the same for warez? How about movies?
Sure. No one ever said that the laws had to be favorable towards their making money. There used to be a thriving industry in patent medicines in this country -- then we created the FDA and it ran all of those snake oil hucksters out of business. This was not a bad thing, despite destroying their ability to make money.
As for why we might want to do this, it's for the same reason. If we thought that the public would be better off being able to copy works (assume that we might merely alter, rather than outright abolish, copyright, e.g. by reducing term lengths) than we would be otherwise, even taking into account the effect that this might have on the creation of works, than frankly we'd be stupid to _not_ do it.
After all, why would you not want to be as best off as possible?
We only grant copyrights in the first place due to a belief that we're better off doing so than we would be if we didn't; certainly through most of history we didn't have copyrights and no one complained.
Given people's attitudes, the increased ease of publishing and creation (e.g. not every movie needs to have a zillion dollar budget -- those may be unsustainable with regards to the laws they need to be worth creating not being justified), etc. the time might be ripe for cutting back on copyright protection in order to make everyone better off than we are right now.