Yes, although here it would nevertheless probably be an infringement as a derivative work.
For example, the idea of traveling through time, or even of traveling through time in a car, is not protectable because it's an idea. Get too close to the specific details of the Back to the Future movies (the car being a nuclear-powered DeLorean invented by Doc Brown, etc.) and then you're treading on the copyright.
No, Fair Use was created by the courts in the mid 19th century, and remains a judicial doctrine today. In 1976 Congress enacted what was then (and presently still is) the judicial doctrine as law, but of course couldn't prevent the evolution of the judicial doctrine.
The basic gist of the idea is not rooted in the First Amendment, but in the Copyright Clause itself. Copyright that did not allow for fair use would be self-defeating, because the intent is to promote social goods -- and things like parody are considered to fall within that definition.
However, there are no strictly categorical forms of fair use -- it's all on a case by case basis.
This is a collection of points raised, mostly by you, elsewhere in the thread. Sorry they're not in any particular order.
Every response I've gotten all come down to people don't want to pay for music.
Well, duh.
If you had the option of paying for things or being able to get things for free, wouldn't you prefer the latter, all else being equal?
Basic economics, if not human nature, says that everyone wants everything for as little as possible. The only thing better than someone giving me a free house is giving me money to accept a free house.
Getting the house through improper means for free is a different kettle of fish. But a desire for free stuff shouldn't amaze you.
As to apples and oranges, is the basic theory blue collar labor has value but artist create nothing of value?
Well, that's apples and oranges. Manual labor has value and artistic labor has value. HOWEVER the PRODUCT of LABOR may or may not have value that is totally distinct from the value of the labor itself!
Artists who work on commission are laborers. Artists that sell copies of their work are producing things, albiet via the mechanism of labor. They're subtly different.
More than one writer in the past has chosen to keep his work from the public. Maybe they are they smart ones. Why let the public benefit from their work if their opinion is the artists shouldn't be paid for having access to it.
So you're saying that artists either: a) publish work and don't benefit b) don't publish work
It strikes me that if they don't publish work they don't benefit anyway. So aren't artists better off publishing and getting whatever benefit is possible than not publishing and definately never benefiting at all.
At least by publishing there is a CHANCE of profit.
Whether it'll be enough is a different matter.
Copyright is the right to restrict duplication of a work. I'm stunned that everyone thus far hasn't seen a problem with freely distributing an artist work.
Why? As I noted earlier, society has two interests with regards to creative work. Freely distributing work is one of them. Restricting distribution is NOT.
So unless restriction distribution helps out society, and promotes society's goals, it shouldn't happen. It CAN be pressed into service so as to provide a societal benefit, but it absolutely is not desirable in and of itself.
Picture all the farmers saying the same thing? We aren't going to grow food anymore.
If we were duplicating food via a Star Trek replicator, or a magical cornucopia or something... Sure, why not?
If putting all farmers out of work was a side effect of solving world hunger forever, I'd do it in a heartbeat. And hell -- it's not as though the farmers will starve to death.;)
And yet, I guarantee you that when someone does invent a way to do this, and tangible property loses virtually all value because it is no longer capable of being unique, people will fight it, regardless of the great social benefits. Because no one makes money off of feeding the world for free, but people do make money off of feeding only those few that can afford to pay.
No one has a god given right to what I create but me.
We do. It is free speech. Provided of course that you create something first, and then reveal it to others. Information is practically designed by nature to spread, and is virtually impossible to keep from spreading! God is not a fan of copyright, or he would have built the universe differently.
Runderwo said First of all, copyright is not a right; it is a privilege granted for a limited time and with a specific purpose in mind.
And you replied Having access to an artist work is a privilege. Copyright is a law.
Well, having access to an artist's work IS a privilege. No argument there. But so is copyright. It is a law, but it's wholly artificial in na
I can't believe our forefathers didn't see the evils of the patent, trademark, and copyright laws they laid down.
Trademarks (at least federally) are actually comparatively recent.
As for patents and copyrights, they did. But they also saw that they could be used for great benefit. And mostly they saw that states were fucking up the job, which is why it's a federal matter, like having a post office or an army.
Jefferson wrote quite a bit about this both at the time (corresponding with Madison, as J. was in France), and also later on, after having been Secretary of State, and therefore our nation's first patent examiner, and after being President.
Like many things, it's not inherently good or bad -- it comes down to how you use it. Right now, I agree. The power to establish copyrights and patents is being used to further great, harmful, and lasting mischief. But it need not be, which is why I support reform, and not abolishing the entire deal.
Read some of the Jefferson letters (easily findable online). They're pretty interesting.
No. Copyright infringement is when you make a copy without permission. End of story.
No, that's just part of it.
Infringement is when, given a copyrighted work, you without legal authority to do so (either granted by the copyright holder or by law or where the copyright is inapplicable for various reasons), do the following:
Copy it (in part or in full)
Distribute copies of it (but note that if the copyright holder has already distributed a copy, that specific copy is fair game)
Base derivative works off of it
Publicly perform it (for certain types of works)
Publicly display it (for certain types of works)
Digitally broadcast it if it is a sound recording
And there are some other things that are infringements as well, but those are the main ones
And also contributing to infringement, or instructing other people to infringe MAY be considered an infringement, if someone else thereby directly infringed. (which was what happened to Napster -- the users infringed but it was imputed to Napster)
I would like to thank you for not taking the cheap shot and saying that my decison to not publish is fine by you and good riddance. Others would have done as much, so thank you.
Well don't take my statement too far. I always want artists to publish, and I always want the arts to thrive. But I would place a limit on the degree to which I support such things in that I would not want the arts to thrive if it burdened society more than the arts provided society with a commensurate benefit.
For example a levy on any sort of media into which data can be fixed to protect artists who's copyrights _might_ be infringed by someone who uses such media, despite the same media having actual/potential legitimate uses, would be too much to ask of me. In a situation like that, I would not give in to artists and set such levies, even though it meant that some artists would stop creating art, which is regretful.
If you asked for the moon, I would tell you to take a hike -- your argument would then be remarkably similar to extortion, and I don't care for that.
Only REASONABLE accomodations for artists, that also benefit the public more than they burden the public, are the sort I'd be willing to accept. (and would in fact likely endorse since, after all, it's win-win) Not all artists or publishers are making reasonable, win-win proposals.
After hearing how much the public actually appreciates the effort I have to say I was a fool.
No, I don't think that it is a lack of appreciation for your effort. I think that it is based on a lack of desire for you to act in the way that you have IF you shift the burden to other people.
A 'friendly' business, for lack of a better description that leaps to mind, strikes me as a very good thing. If I had a business I'd probably try to act similarly.
BUT I would be unable to forget that it was my decision to do so. And that I should not expect the entire world to bend over backwards and encourage me to do so to their detriment.
We do live in a society that regards -- to an extent -- capitalism and self-reliance to be virtues. Though of course, I'd point out that any economic system should serve social goals insofar as it is possible for it to do so AND actually function.
Thus, there's little mourning for the wasteful companies of the dot-com boom around here. They were just crappy businesses. They wasted money. They didn't turn a profit. For them to succeed they had to spend other people's resources.
In the world of copyright, you are attempting to 'spend' the PUBLIC's resources. If it benefits the public for you to do so -- benefits them more than if nothing were done -- then that's fine.
But an overall loss shouldn't be tolerated. Artists that don't exploit their work fully, and therefore want the public to grant harmful protection to benefit just the artist alone are not the kinds of artists that society needs. It's nice to have them if they can work without the harm to society, but why should they get special treatment?
If one post had supported the artist I would have said at least there is one out there. There wasn't a single one. All I got was statements that "real artists" don't do it for the money and why should artists own their own work it belongs to the world.
No, I feel that there are real artists that are economically motivated. Otherwise copyright would be totally pointless.
HOWEVER, NOT ALL artists are economically motivated. Some would create art even if they didn't make money at it. AND others who are economically motivated can nevertheless create art without copyrights, by finding other sources of income related to their art. (e.g. public financing, patronage, being first-to-market, commissions, labor, selling individual pieces, performing, etc.)
It is entirely possible to support artists and not support copyrights, or only support copyrights to a limited extent.
It basically means you're supporting DIFFERENT artists, or FEWER arti
Saying that there will always be artists is very sad in a sense. You are saying that no matter how miss treated artists are they'll still keep producing.
I did not say that. I said that there will always be artists. Who the population of artists consists of may vary, and the overall number of artists may as well.
Certainly if an artist doesn't want to continue to produce art anymore that's not good. On the other hand, if the burden to the public that had to be incurred to keep that artist producing art was unduly high, no tears will be shed.
Yes we will but some of us may restrict our work from the public.... I have already determined that any of my work that I deem "important" I will not publish. Isn't it sad that a writer feels he should restrict work he considers to have real value because in part the public feels they already own it.
Absolutely. Which is why artists shouldn't get a copyright on works that they don't publish and meaningfully make available to the public.
Each copyright is a burden to the public. It can be borne -- but unless the public benefits by it, it shouldn't suffer the pains of allowing it.
This is kind of a Hobbson's Choice, to be sure, but it seems wholly appropriate given that copyrights are public largesse and are never inherently deserved by dint of authorship.
Thus, ideally, if you wanted protection, you'd either have to provide it yourself, which would be difficult at best, or have to accept legal protection with the strings attached that the public demands.
The public should benefit from contributions artists make but the artist should benefit as well.
I agree, provided that the artists' benefit is a necessary prerequisite for the public's benefit. If it is contra-public waste, then I don't see the point.
So please don't lump me in with the crowd that thinks that Napster should've been legal.
On the other hand, I'm not convinced that a public policy decision that file sharing is good, and if it reduces the number of new works available because artists don't get paid as much shouldn't be made.
If people are willing to accept that fewer artists will publish if things like Napster exist, than that is their perogative. There is nothing at all wrong with making the decision and living with the consequences.
Some art just costs society too much to be worth our having the framework that causes it to be created. Maybe yours is that kind of art. It's regretful that we can't spend an infinite amount of money on the arts, but that's what we're stuck with.
Heh. It's at about this time that I should mention that I am an artist (and supported myself as an artist for several years) and I am presently studying to be a copyright lawyer. I have a burning passion for art, I love the aims of copyright -- but I don't delude myself about it either.
My basic position is this:
The public created a copyright system to benefit themselves. The public (which includes artists) has two goals. First, for the largest number of original and derivative works to be published. Second, for all of those works to be freely obtainable, usable, modifiable, and recopyable. In sum, the goals are creation and enjoyment.
Without copyrights, some original works are still being created, more derivative works are being created (since it's arguably easier), and they're all in the public domain. Thus a decent amount of the first goal is fulfilled and the second goal is completely satisfied.
With copyrights, we trade the satisfaction of the derivative aspect of the first goal, and large parts of the second goal, temporarily, in exchange for increased satisfaction of the original aspect of the first goal.
If so many original works are created, and sufficiently quickly enter the public domain so that a proper number of derivative works are created, and the works are thoroughly enjoyed by the public -- then that degree of copyright was worthwhile!
Everyone benefitted, in the end. Authors had an opportunity to create original works that was more enticing than normally. Other authors eventually had the opportunity to create derivative works, which the public enjoyed. And the public enjoyed the work, and later managed to have unrestricted access over it to enjoy it all the more.
BUT it isn't hard to see that in other circumstances, too much copyright could be so harmful to the public and to authors that everyone is worse off than they would be with no copyrights in existence at all!
Are you saying that you want everyone -- minus a select few -- to be worse off than they were in 1710? I find that hard to believe, but your stated position seems to condone it because you are not placing a limit on the extent to which you want to protect authors.
Personally, I could care less for protecting authors. HOWEVER -- if that is the best method to help the public, I'm all for it. But it isn't much of a goal in and of itself, unless authors can be protected without otherwise harming the public (e.g. by giving authors federal grants or something, thus promoting the arts and the fortunes of artists without copyrights).
If the best way to help the public is to help artists to benefit, at least to some extent that doesn't act contrary to our publicly-minded goal here, then I have no problem with it. I'm not saying everyone should benefit but artists! I'm saying that everyone including artists should benefit from the system. You meanwhile appear to be saying that artists should benefit regardless of everyone else, which I simply cannot condone.
You mention prior to 1710. Well prior to 1710 artists were little more than slaves to patrons. I take you yearn for the good ole days.
Nope. I think that there should definately be a copyright system. Not because I don't want artists to not have to depend on patronage, which I don't care about except insofar as to say that all else being equal I'd be against it. But because with the _proper_ copyright system, the public is better off. So are artists as it happens. A rising tide lifts all boats and so forth.
Based on all the responses I definately say all artists should seriously consider throwing in the towel and saying to hell with an unapprecitive public. All the whinning about the rights of the public to take from an artist at will is sad and pathetic.
Never happen.
The people here who are the MOST "unappreciative" of artists, at least insofar as to propose that there not be any copyright system at all, are EXACTLY as "unappreciative" of artists as our anc
IIRC it was recently found that the page numbers aren't copyrightable.
Hell, why should they be? They're merely sequential; the phone book is more creative than that.
West's key numbers though, not needed for citation but damned useful, certainly might be. And headnotes likely are. Shepard's probably aren't, given that it's a fact that case 2 overruled case 1, that's not creative.
The $150 thousand are _statutory_ damages. If the copyright holder elects to sue for statutory damages, no jury will ever hear the question of how much they were actually injured; only, at best, whether there was infringement at all. If so, it's the judge that can decide how much to award between the statutory minimum and maximum.
(I would argue that a line like "beat until smooth" is probably not expressive enough to trigger copyright protection.)
Alternatively, I'd also argue that it was subject to the merger doctrine. Basically, where there are only a few ways of expressing something, copyrights aren't allowed because they'd in effect be controlling the underlying idea.
There's probably not many ways of saying 'beat until smooth' in a cooking context that would clearly get the idea across without being ridiculously careful not to tread on that particular way of expressing it.
Incidentally, how's the dressing? I may have to try it out. Here's a good dipping sauce for veggies:
In a saucepan combine 1/2 tsp brown sugar, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 cup orange juice, 1tbsp soy sauce, 2tbsps mustard, garlic to taste. Simmer until thick.
I'm still a bit confused with the pervasive attitude that there is nothing wrong with services like Napster and that trading music is okay.
Why not? For millennia copying any sort of information was considered okay, barring governments not liking sedition, treason, libel, etc. which are basically unrelated issues.
Even when the concept of copyrights appeared music and art were not considered worth protecting; just written materials. And not until extremely recently that software qualified.
It's entirely possible, you must admit, that people will decide that there's nothing wrong with copying stuff that is currently protected, and retract protection, or decide that something that we all currently think is okay to copy shouldn't be. It's happened countless times before.
Where does it say that all intellectual property should be free? Artist have a right to get paid for their work. Taking that work without compensation is stealing.
Where does it say that there should be copyrights? Congress has absolute discretion in the matter, and could eliminate the entire copyright system tomorrow if it chose.
Artists should indeed be paid for their _labor_. But I don't see why artists _must_ be paid for the intangible products of their labor as distinguished from the tangible media their works are embodied in.
In some instances I think that copyrights are a great idea -- but not ALL instances. That would suck for the public and authors alike.
And it certainly isn't stealing, because nothing is taken. If I illegally copied a book you had written, you don't stop having the book; I didn't take it. I made a copy, which is quite a different thing from stealing. It's an infringement on your right to decide who ought to make copies of it. Maybe, depending on circumstances.
Without the influx of money the record industry will have to downsize. It will be ten times harder for new bands to make it and the selection of music will be a fraction of what it is now.
Well, existing music won't go away. And some amount of new music will continue to be created, both by the industry and people who would do so even without copyrights at all.
If that would satisfy the public, then it sounds like a smashing idea, and we ought to do it. It's not as though we necessarily NEED legions of boy bands roaming the Earth, you know.
Second You contridicted yourself by saying "You can't own an idea." then mention copyright laws.
Copyrights do not include ownership of ideas. Never have, and it's pretty doubtful that they possibly could.
I agree copyright laws need revision. Coprights should be at least be for nature life and I personally think they should extend to children and possibly grandchildren.
Really? I think that most things that are copyrightable should probably not be copyrighted. This could be accomplished by placing hurdles in the path of the author so that he will only expend the effort to copyright something if he believes it's worthwhile to do so. (though some degree of minimal automatic protection would exist for the purpose of protecting works that are still in the process of being created and which are intended ultimately to be copyrighted, e.g. unfinished manuscripts, not grocery lists)
Then terms should be quite short. Maybe five to twenty-five years, tops. Authors shouldn't sit on their laurels; rather let's have them be productive. And given that an author has a better chance of winning the lottery than he does of producing a work with significant economic worth that will help support children or grandchildren, I propose that we abandon all notion of using copyright as the world's worst form of social security and instead just help support _everyone's_ children if it's important to us.
What if I were to say you could live in your house you built for 17 years then we get to take it away from you. An artist has
Well, fair use _could_ allow it. Fair use _could_ allow literally any sort of copyright infringement. A case-by-case analysis is needed -- there are simply NO blanket statements in fair use, although there are at least trends that we can take note of, e.g. parody, time shifting, etc.
HOWEVER, it is legal to copy music onto a tape for a friend and give it to them if it's non-commercial copying. See 17 USC 1008. Note that it has to be analog basically. Some digital audio systems also comply, but computers are not one of them, meaning Napster couldn't shield itself with this either.
Thus, the end result is basically not what you said it was, you horrible little man.
Sadly, these are not the same. Google at least is in compliance with the DMCA safe harbor for ISPs -- Napster claimed to be, but this was found not to be so.
Incidentally, I have doubts that Napster could have been held criminally liable -- I never really studied federal criminal law in great detail, but I don't think that vicarious or contributory copyright infringement are federal crimes. Direct copyright infringement is, and I'm sure that they have some laws regarding abetting other crimes, but they may not be sufficient for such an application. The contributory and vicarious doctrines are basically common law, and we don't have common law crimes anymore, really.
At any rate, Napster was in court over CIVIL infringement, so the whole crime angle seems to me to be a muddying of the waters by the earlier poster.
No, there are some similarities, but overall they're different things. In fact, in the patent information regarding piles (easily findable at uspto.gov) it points out how labels can be used internally within a pile to distinguish the items within it.
Piles are a spacial sorting mechanism with hierarchical implications.
Lables are a metadata sorting mechanism, but don't effect spaciality or hierarchy.
They aren't substitutes for each other in most cases. Read the patent documents -- they're really enlightening.
Piles are a rule -- A user put some number of files into a group. Those files should not be disassociated, nor other files associated with them, save by the user himself. Even if there are no common attributes to the grouped files, there is always still the fact that the user specifically selected them.
Human beings are _not_ computers. They differ in what they prefer, and what works best. Given that our minds are largely geared for working with things in the real world, it's not hard to see that the location of something (not in a hierarchy, but in a geographical meaning) would be usable by us.
Haven't you ever navigated someplace based on the feel of which way you ought to be going? I certainly never remember landmarks or road names, but I can always find my way back to someplace I've been. Why can't such amazing abilities be used on computers, at least if the user wants to do so?
So if a user is most comfortable with a seemingly disorganized schema, then they're right. It would be very wrong to force them to arrange files in any other way.
Which doesn't mean that additional tools cannot be made available to them. Sometimes people can't find things in all the clutter that normally works for them. Or they want things automatically organized for them insofar as possible. We can satisfy those desires _too_.
This is why I really hate the file organization on OS X. It is far too Unixy. MacOS was a lot better.
Besides which, the worst part of plagarism isn't that it is using someone else's work, it is that you are falsely misrepresenting yourself. That doesn't even require plagarism, frankly.
And besides which, I can't remember the last time that anyone said -- especially prior to copyright laws -- that plagarism was so wrong as to be illegal. It'll blow your academic credibility. If it's a falsity in a business transaction that's actionable as any sort of fraud there would be. But I can't think of when plagarism was so singled out.
At any rate, AFAIK plagarism had absolutely nothing to do with copyright law anyway.
Inherent rights, natural rights -- these things don't come from governments. But there are other rights, artificial rights, positive rights, which do.
Copyright is one of the latter. It has no basis in nature. In fact, it's impossible to reconcile the idea that there is a natural right to absolutely free speech AND a natural copyright, since it's a restriction on free speech.
Particularly since you don't understand what a copyright is. Properly speaking, a copyright is really a limit placed on everyone but the author from fully exerting their free speech. The author doesn't get anything new, he just happens to be the only person who can act freely.
I'd certainly encourage you to take a look at Jefferson's letter of 1813 regarding patents. The man wrote the Declaration, influenced the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and didn't believe that there was a natural right to property. (which is why he changed Locke's 'life, liberty and property' to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness') He certainly didn't think that there was an inherent right to copyrights or patents.
Nor is there any good reason for fhere to be. Why should _I_ respect that. It would severely burden me if that were so, so why would I ever agree to respect such an assertion unless I benefit from it more greatly than I am burdened?
It's easy to see why people might willingly limit their ability to go about killing one another. But not very many people overall benefit directly from copyrights, whereas very many people DO directly benefit from a lack thereof. That is, there's more people in the audience than on stage.
There are still good reasons to have copyrights, but they are WHOLLY artificial, and entirely OPTIONAL. Our society doesn't have to have them. And they were unknown anywhere until the early 18th century, so it's not as though we cannot survive in a civilized society without copyrights. History shows the opposite.
Well, IP is just a field of law. Copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. And some associated fields are important in regards to it.
But something like a trade secret isn't property. It's a limit on how businesses can compete with one another, i.e. a limit on the use of unfair business practices.
Lawyers use the term IP but it's a real misnomer. The law doesn't actually treat things in that manner.
As for compulsory licensing, no I don't mean CDR levies. I mean compulsory licensing as described in 17 USC 115 among other places. Basically it permits people to pay a fee fixed by law to cover songs.
For example, if I wanted to record "Cpt Kangarooski Rap-O-Rama" and include my rendition of "Baby Got Back" I would simply pay whatever the compulsory license fee was. I don't have to negotiate with Sir Mix-A-Lot, and he can't use his copyright to prevent me from recording the album, which is available on CD or casette.
This is more or less the same thing that the EFF author proposes, except rather than be limited to the musical composition and lyrics of a song, it would also include actual pre-existing sound recordings. I.e. then I could just make an anthology album that actually had Sir Mix-A-Lot's version on it, rather than recording my own cover of it. (though the cover license wouldn't disappear under this proposal)
The copyright holder still gets paid whatever the fee is, they just can't negotiate or prevent it. The license fees are set periodically, however, so it's not as though they're forever fixed.
Under the proposal we're all discussing here, the only real issue of contention is who pays. It's comparatively easy to have only the covering artist pay the cover license. When sound recordings or even live music is played however, fees are usually determined based on the income generated by it (e.g. when a cable company retransmits channels from broadcast stations, or a store plays the radio, or a bar has a live band).
This proposal would put a flat fee on ISP charges; pay it, and you could copy all the music you like. If so much music is copied that it tends to outweigh how much was actually paid, the fee would presumably increase to accomodate that the next year or two down the road, until a stable point was reached.
It's not even a tiny step beyond the current system, so you probably shouldn't look all shocked. I mean, how did you think musicians covered each others' songs?
at the end of the day, there is a very strong relationship between private interests and the public's ultimate interest, thus it makes the most sense to vigorously pursue private interests and make tale so-called public social interests (an abstract and hard to measure concept) into account later.
I disagree. For example, private interests HATE fair use, they HATE fixation requirements, they HATE first sale, they HATE creativity requirements, etc. But all of these things safeguard the public interest.
I could care less whether an artist makes money. What I care about is getting works created, and getting those works into the public domain. If the best way to do what I want is to pay artists than that's great. If the best way to do it is to not pay them, then that's equally as great.
As it happens the best thing to do is likely to grant a copyright that is limited in applicability only to certain works by certain artists for a limited time. To the extent that the artist gets ANYTHING in the form of the copyright it is purely in order to spur production, not benefit them. To the extent that the copyright is limited, it is in order to benefit the public and other artists.
How your parody example fits into that, I cannot imagine. Parody is something we seek to encourage, which is why it's a canonical fair use. (even though the original authors being parodied often hate this -- see The Wind Done Gone case, or the Pretty Woman case for examples)
I don't see why the fact that people are willing to listen to a topical s
There is no IP regime. And compulsory licensing of a different sort (basically fixing the fee that can be charged by artists) already exists.
Besides -- copyright exists to serve a social purpose, not a private one. I think that there are problems with this, but hardly to the extent that you're spouting off.
Could you perhaps clarify what you mean, maybe after taking a look at the current law?
Well, I think that an important question then is whether it's really worthwhile to sink so much into making the master CD.
I mean, I could make a movie about the Roman Empire that involved building a perfect replica of Rome... but the cost would be so high that the only POTENTIAL way I could ever make a profit would be to have a never-ending copyright.
I think that this would be too high a cost to the public. Even if it meant that without it the movie would never get made.
I'd be happy to have music have shorter copyrights, and be less expensive, even if it meant that less money could be involved with producing them, at least to a certain extent. Current production levels may simply be higher than is actually optimal in light of the _entire_ system.
So out of curiosity, if you were producing an album by the standards of previous eras, how much less in today's dollars would it have cost?
Artists don't inherently deserve copyrights. They are GRANTED by the beneficient and loving populace via the government. With strings attached.
One such string is that you have to comply with rules such as compulsory licensing. Which already exists for musical compositions and lyrics, which is how come anyone can cover (for a fee fixed by law) pretty much any other song.
If you don't like having such conditions attached, you certainly are not obligated to have a copyright on your works. HOWEVER, should that happen then it's not as though you're going to have much luck keeping people from doing as they like with a public domain song.
As for the associational thing, that's ridiculous. You are not your music. No reasonable person is going to assume that merely because I sing one of your songs that you endorse me and are associated with me. Rights of association simply are not that broad.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, admittedly it's confusing that there are totally unrelated Fair Use doctrines in copyright, trademark, and patent law.
But there are parody exceptions in trademark anyway -- there was that LLBean catalog notably.
Yes, although here it would nevertheless probably be an infringement as a derivative work.
For example, the idea of traveling through time, or even of traveling through time in a car, is not protectable because it's an idea. Get too close to the specific details of the Back to the Future movies (the car being a nuclear-powered DeLorean invented by Doc Brown, etc.) and then you're treading on the copyright.
No, Fair Use was created by the courts in the mid 19th century, and remains a judicial doctrine today. In 1976 Congress enacted what was then (and presently still is) the judicial doctrine as law, but of course couldn't prevent the evolution of the judicial doctrine.
The basic gist of the idea is not rooted in the First Amendment, but in the Copyright Clause itself. Copyright that did not allow for fair use would be self-defeating, because the intent is to promote social goods -- and things like parody are considered to fall within that definition.
However, there are no strictly categorical forms of fair use -- it's all on a case by case basis.
This is a collection of points raised, mostly by you, elsewhere in the thread. Sorry they're not in any particular order.
;)
Every response I've gotten all come down to people don't want to pay for music.
Well, duh.
If you had the option of paying for things or being able to get things for free, wouldn't you prefer the latter, all else being equal?
Basic economics, if not human nature, says that everyone wants everything for as little as possible. The only thing better than someone giving me a free house is giving me money to accept a free house.
Getting the house through improper means for free is a different kettle of fish. But a desire for free stuff shouldn't amaze you.
As to apples and oranges, is the basic theory blue collar labor has value but artist create nothing of value?
Well, that's apples and oranges. Manual labor has value and artistic labor has value. HOWEVER the PRODUCT of LABOR may or may not have value that is totally distinct from the value of the labor itself!
Artists who work on commission are laborers. Artists that sell copies of their work are producing things, albiet via the mechanism of labor. They're subtly different.
More than one writer in the past has chosen to keep his work from the public. Maybe they are they smart ones. Why let the public benefit from their work if their opinion is the artists shouldn't be paid for having access to it.
So you're saying that artists either:
a) publish work and don't benefit
b) don't publish work
It strikes me that if they don't publish work they don't benefit anyway. So aren't artists better off publishing and getting whatever benefit is possible than not publishing and definately never benefiting at all.
At least by publishing there is a CHANCE of profit.
Whether it'll be enough is a different matter.
Copyright is the right to restrict duplication of a work. I'm stunned that everyone thus far hasn't seen a problem with freely distributing an artist work.
Why? As I noted earlier, society has two interests with regards to creative work. Freely distributing work is one of them. Restricting distribution is NOT.
So unless restriction distribution helps out society, and promotes society's goals, it shouldn't happen. It CAN be pressed into service so as to provide a societal benefit, but it absolutely is not desirable in and of itself.
Picture all the farmers saying the same thing? We aren't going to grow food anymore.
If we were duplicating food via a Star Trek replicator, or a magical cornucopia or something... Sure, why not?
If putting all farmers out of work was a side effect of solving world hunger forever, I'd do it in a heartbeat. And hell -- it's not as though the farmers will starve to death.
And yet, I guarantee you that when someone does invent a way to do this, and tangible property loses virtually all value because it is no longer capable of being unique, people will fight it, regardless of the great social benefits. Because no one makes money off of feeding the world for free, but people do make money off of feeding only those few that can afford to pay.
No one has a god given right to what I create but me.
We do. It is free speech. Provided of course that you create something first, and then reveal it to others. Information is practically designed by nature to spread, and is virtually impossible to keep from spreading! God is not a fan of copyright, or he would have built the universe differently.
Runderwo said First of all, copyright is not a right; it is a privilege granted for a limited time and with a specific purpose in mind.
And you replied Having access to an artist work is a privilege. Copyright is a law.
Well, having access to an artist's work IS a privilege. No argument there. But so is copyright. It is a law, but it's wholly artificial in na
I can't believe our forefathers didn't see the evils of the patent, trademark, and copyright laws they laid down.
Trademarks (at least federally) are actually comparatively recent.
As for patents and copyrights, they did. But they also saw that they could be used for great benefit. And mostly they saw that states were fucking up the job, which is why it's a federal matter, like having a post office or an army.
Jefferson wrote quite a bit about this both at the time (corresponding with Madison, as J. was in France), and also later on, after having been Secretary of State, and therefore our nation's first patent examiner, and after being President.
Like many things, it's not inherently good or bad -- it comes down to how you use it. Right now, I agree. The power to establish copyrights and patents is being used to further great, harmful, and lasting mischief. But it need not be, which is why I support reform, and not abolishing the entire deal.
Read some of the Jefferson letters (easily findable online). They're pretty interesting.
No. Copyright infringement is when you make a copy without permission. End of story.
No, that's just part of it.
Infringement is when, given a copyrighted work, you without legal authority to do so (either granted by the copyright holder or by law or where the copyright is inapplicable for various reasons), do the following:
Copy it (in part or in full)
Distribute copies of it (but note that if the copyright holder has already distributed a copy, that specific copy is fair game)
Base derivative works off of it
Publicly perform it (for certain types of works)
Publicly display it (for certain types of works)
Digitally broadcast it if it is a sound recording
And there are some other things that are infringements as well, but those are the main ones
And also contributing to infringement, or instructing other people to infringe MAY be considered an infringement, if someone else thereby directly infringed. (which was what happened to Napster -- the users infringed but it was imputed to Napster)
I would like to thank you for not taking the cheap shot and saying that my decison to not publish is fine by you and good riddance. Others would have done as much, so thank you.
Well don't take my statement too far. I always want artists to publish, and I always want the arts to thrive. But I would place a limit on the degree to which I support such things in that I would not want the arts to thrive if it burdened society more than the arts provided society with a commensurate benefit.
For example a levy on any sort of media into which data can be fixed to protect artists who's copyrights _might_ be infringed by someone who uses such media, despite the same media having actual/potential legitimate uses, would be too much to ask of me. In a situation like that, I would not give in to artists and set such levies, even though it meant that some artists would stop creating art, which is regretful.
If you asked for the moon, I would tell you to take a hike -- your argument would then be remarkably similar to extortion, and I don't care for that.
Only REASONABLE accomodations for artists, that also benefit the public more than they burden the public, are the sort I'd be willing to accept. (and would in fact likely endorse since, after all, it's win-win) Not all artists or publishers are making reasonable, win-win proposals.
After hearing how much the public actually appreciates the effort I have to say I was a fool.
No, I don't think that it is a lack of appreciation for your effort. I think that it is based on a lack of desire for you to act in the way that you have IF you shift the burden to other people.
A 'friendly' business, for lack of a better description that leaps to mind, strikes me as a very good thing. If I had a business I'd probably try to act similarly.
BUT I would be unable to forget that it was my decision to do so. And that I should not expect the entire world to bend over backwards and encourage me to do so to their detriment.
We do live in a society that regards -- to an extent -- capitalism and self-reliance to be virtues. Though of course, I'd point out that any economic system should serve social goals insofar as it is possible for it to do so AND actually function.
Thus, there's little mourning for the wasteful companies of the dot-com boom around here. They were just crappy businesses. They wasted money. They didn't turn a profit. For them to succeed they had to spend other people's resources.
In the world of copyright, you are attempting to 'spend' the PUBLIC's resources. If it benefits the public for you to do so -- benefits them more than if nothing were done -- then that's fine.
But an overall loss shouldn't be tolerated. Artists that don't exploit their work fully, and therefore want the public to grant harmful protection to benefit just the artist alone are not the kinds of artists that society needs. It's nice to have them if they can work without the harm to society, but why should they get special treatment?
If one post had supported the artist I would have said at least there is one out there. There wasn't a single one. All I got was statements that "real artists" don't do it for the money and why should artists own their own work it belongs to the world.
No, I feel that there are real artists that are economically motivated. Otherwise copyright would be totally pointless.
HOWEVER, NOT ALL artists are economically motivated. Some would create art even if they didn't make money at it. AND others who are economically motivated can nevertheless create art without copyrights, by finding other sources of income related to their art. (e.g. public financing, patronage, being first-to-market, commissions, labor, selling individual pieces, performing, etc.)
It is entirely possible to support artists and not support copyrights, or only support copyrights to a limited extent.
It basically means you're supporting DIFFERENT artists, or FEWER arti
Saying that there will always be artists is very sad in a sense. You are saying that no matter how miss treated artists are they'll still keep producing.
... I have already determined that any of my work that I deem "important" I will not publish. Isn't it sad that a writer feels he should restrict work he considers to have real value because in part the public feels they already own it.
I did not say that. I said that there will always be artists. Who the population of artists consists of may vary, and the overall number of artists may as well.
Certainly if an artist doesn't want to continue to produce art anymore that's not good. On the other hand, if the burden to the public that had to be incurred to keep that artist producing art was unduly high, no tears will be shed.
Yes we will but some of us may restrict our work from the public.
Absolutely. Which is why artists shouldn't get a copyright on works that they don't publish and meaningfully make available to the public.
Each copyright is a burden to the public. It can be borne -- but unless the public benefits by it, it shouldn't suffer the pains of allowing it.
This is kind of a Hobbson's Choice, to be sure, but it seems wholly appropriate given that copyrights are public largesse and are never inherently deserved by dint of authorship.
Thus, ideally, if you wanted protection, you'd either have to provide it yourself, which would be difficult at best, or have to accept legal protection with the strings attached that the public demands.
The public should benefit from contributions artists make but the artist should benefit as well.
I agree, provided that the artists' benefit is a necessary prerequisite for the public's benefit. If it is contra-public waste, then I don't see the point.
So please don't lump me in with the crowd that thinks that Napster should've been legal.
On the other hand, I'm not convinced that a public policy decision that file sharing is good, and if it reduces the number of new works available because artists don't get paid as much shouldn't be made.
If people are willing to accept that fewer artists will publish if things like Napster exist, than that is their perogative. There is nothing at all wrong with making the decision and living with the consequences.
Some art just costs society too much to be worth our having the framework that causes it to be created. Maybe yours is that kind of art. It's regretful that we can't spend an infinite amount of money on the arts, but that's what we're stuck with.
Heh. It's at about this time that I should mention that I am an artist (and supported myself as an artist for several years) and I am presently studying to be a copyright lawyer. I have a burning passion for art, I love the aims of copyright -- but I don't delude myself about it either.
My basic position is this:
The public created a copyright system to benefit themselves. The public (which includes artists) has two goals. First, for the largest number of original and derivative works to be published. Second, for all of those works to be freely obtainable, usable, modifiable, and recopyable. In sum, the goals are creation and enjoyment.
Without copyrights, some original works are still being created, more derivative works are being created (since it's arguably easier), and they're all in the public domain. Thus a decent amount of the first goal is fulfilled and the second goal is completely satisfied.
With copyrights, we trade the satisfaction of the derivative aspect of the first goal, and large parts of the second goal, temporarily, in exchange for increased satisfaction of the original aspect of the first goal.
If so many original works are created, and sufficiently quickly enter the public domain so that a proper number of derivative works are created, and the works are thoroughly enjoyed by the public -- then that degree of copyright was worthwhile!
Everyone benefitted, in the end. Authors had an opportunity to create original works that was more enticing than normally. Other authors eventually had the opportunity to create derivative works, which the public enjoyed. And the public enjoyed the work, and later managed to have unrestricted access over it to enjoy it all the more.
BUT it isn't hard to see that in other circumstances, too much copyright could be so harmful to the public and to authors that everyone is worse off than they would be with no copyrights in existence at all!
Are you saying that you want everyone -- minus a select few -- to be worse off than they were in 1710? I find that hard to believe, but your stated position seems to condone it because you are not placing a limit on the extent to which you want to protect authors.
Personally, I could care less for protecting authors. HOWEVER -- if that is the best method to help the public, I'm all for it. But it isn't much of a goal in and of itself, unless authors can be protected without otherwise harming the public (e.g. by giving authors federal grants or something, thus promoting the arts and the fortunes of artists without copyrights).
If the best way to help the public is to help artists to benefit, at least to some extent that doesn't act contrary to our publicly-minded goal here, then I have no problem with it. I'm not saying everyone should benefit but artists! I'm saying that everyone including artists should benefit from the system. You meanwhile appear to be saying that artists should benefit regardless of everyone else, which I simply cannot condone.
You mention prior to 1710. Well prior to 1710 artists were little more than slaves to patrons. I take you yearn for the good ole days.
Nope. I think that there should definately be a copyright system. Not because I don't want artists to not have to depend on patronage, which I don't care about except insofar as to say that all else being equal I'd be against it. But because with the _proper_ copyright system, the public is better off. So are artists as it happens. A rising tide lifts all boats and so forth.
Based on all the responses I definately say all artists should seriously consider throwing in the towel and saying to hell with an unapprecitive public. All the whinning about the rights of the public to take from an artist at will is sad and pathetic.
Never happen.
The people here who are the MOST "unappreciative" of artists, at least insofar as to propose that there not be any copyright system at all, are EXACTLY as "unappreciative" of artists as our anc
IIRC it was recently found that the page numbers aren't copyrightable.
Hell, why should they be? They're merely sequential; the phone book is more creative than that.
West's key numbers though, not needed for citation but damned useful, certainly might be. And headnotes likely are. Shepard's probably aren't, given that it's a fact that case 2 overruled case 1, that's not creative.
The $150 thousand are _statutory_ damages. If the copyright holder elects to sue for statutory damages, no jury will ever hear the question of how much they were actually injured; only, at best, whether there was infringement at all. If so, it's the judge that can decide how much to award between the statutory minimum and maximum.
(I would argue that a line like "beat until smooth" is probably not expressive enough to trigger copyright protection.)
Alternatively, I'd also argue that it was subject to the merger doctrine. Basically, where there are only a few ways of expressing something, copyrights aren't allowed because they'd in effect be controlling the underlying idea.
There's probably not many ways of saying 'beat until smooth' in a cooking context that would clearly get the idea across without being ridiculously careful not to tread on that particular way of expressing it.
Incidentally, how's the dressing? I may have to try it out. Here's a good dipping sauce for veggies:
In a saucepan combine 1/2 tsp brown sugar, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 cup orange juice, 1tbsp soy sauce, 2tbsps mustard, garlic to taste. Simmer until thick.
(I have drawn quotes from several of your posts)
I'm still a bit confused with the pervasive attitude that there is nothing wrong with services like Napster and that trading music is okay.
Why not? For millennia copying any sort of information was considered okay, barring governments not liking sedition, treason, libel, etc. which are basically unrelated issues.
Even when the concept of copyrights appeared music and art were not considered worth protecting; just written materials. And not until extremely recently that software qualified.
It's entirely possible, you must admit, that people will decide that there's nothing wrong with copying stuff that is currently protected, and retract protection, or decide that something that we all currently think is okay to copy shouldn't be. It's happened countless times before.
Where does it say that all intellectual property should be free? Artist have a right to get paid for their work. Taking that work without compensation is stealing.
Where does it say that there should be copyrights? Congress has absolute discretion in the matter, and could eliminate the entire copyright system tomorrow if it chose.
Artists should indeed be paid for their _labor_. But I don't see why artists _must_ be paid for the intangible products of their labor as distinguished from the tangible media their works are embodied in.
In some instances I think that copyrights are a great idea -- but not ALL instances. That would suck for the public and authors alike.
And it certainly isn't stealing, because nothing is taken. If I illegally copied a book you had written, you don't stop having the book; I didn't take it. I made a copy, which is quite a different thing from stealing. It's an infringement on your right to decide who ought to make copies of it. Maybe, depending on circumstances.
Without the influx of money the record industry will have to downsize. It will be ten times harder for new bands to make it and the selection of music will be a fraction of what it is now.
Well, existing music won't go away. And some amount of new music will continue to be created, both by the industry and people who would do so even without copyrights at all.
If that would satisfy the public, then it sounds like a smashing idea, and we ought to do it. It's not as though we necessarily NEED legions of boy bands roaming the Earth, you know.
Second You contridicted yourself by saying "You can't own an idea." then mention copyright laws.
Copyrights do not include ownership of ideas. Never have, and it's pretty doubtful that they possibly could.
I agree copyright laws need revision. Coprights should be at least be for nature life and I personally think they should extend to children and possibly grandchildren.
Really? I think that most things that are copyrightable should probably not be copyrighted. This could be accomplished by placing hurdles in the path of the author so that he will only expend the effort to copyright something if he believes it's worthwhile to do so. (though some degree of minimal automatic protection would exist for the purpose of protecting works that are still in the process of being created and which are intended ultimately to be copyrighted, e.g. unfinished manuscripts, not grocery lists)
Then terms should be quite short. Maybe five to twenty-five years, tops. Authors shouldn't sit on their laurels; rather let's have them be productive. And given that an author has a better chance of winning the lottery than he does of producing a work with significant economic worth that will help support children or grandchildren, I propose that we abandon all notion of using copyright as the world's worst form of social security and instead just help support _everyone's_ children if it's important to us.
What if I were to say you could live in your house you built for 17 years then we get to take it away from you. An artist has
Well, fair use _could_ allow it. Fair use _could_ allow literally any sort of copyright infringement. A case-by-case analysis is needed -- there are simply NO blanket statements in fair use, although there are at least trends that we can take note of, e.g. parody, time shifting, etc.
HOWEVER, it is legal to copy music onto a tape for a friend and give it to them if it's non-commercial copying. See 17 USC 1008. Note that it has to be analog basically. Some digital audio systems also comply, but computers are not one of them, meaning Napster couldn't shield itself with this either.
Thus, the end result is basically not what you said it was, you horrible little man.
Sadly, these are not the same. Google at least is in compliance with the DMCA safe harbor for ISPs -- Napster claimed to be, but this was found not to be so.
Incidentally, I have doubts that Napster could have been held criminally liable -- I never really studied federal criminal law in great detail, but I don't think that vicarious or contributory copyright infringement are federal crimes. Direct copyright infringement is, and I'm sure that they have some laws regarding abetting other crimes, but they may not be sufficient for such an application. The contributory and vicarious doctrines are basically common law, and we don't have common law crimes anymore, really.
At any rate, Napster was in court over CIVIL infringement, so the whole crime angle seems to me to be a muddying of the waters by the earlier poster.
No, there are some similarities, but overall they're different things. In fact, in the patent information regarding piles (easily findable at uspto.gov) it points out how labels can be used internally within a pile to distinguish the items within it.
Piles are a spacial sorting mechanism with hierarchical implications.
Lables are a metadata sorting mechanism, but don't effect spaciality or hierarchy.
They aren't substitutes for each other in most cases. Read the patent documents -- they're really enlightening.
Piles are a rule -- A user put some number of files into a group. Those files should not be disassociated, nor other files associated with them, save by the user himself. Even if there are no common attributes to the grouped files, there is always still the fact that the user specifically selected them.
Human beings are _not_ computers. They differ in what they prefer, and what works best. Given that our minds are largely geared for working with things in the real world, it's not hard to see that the location of something (not in a hierarchy, but in a geographical meaning) would be usable by us.
Haven't you ever navigated someplace based on the feel of which way you ought to be going? I certainly never remember landmarks or road names, but I can always find my way back to someplace I've been. Why can't such amazing abilities be used on computers, at least if the user wants to do so?
So if a user is most comfortable with a seemingly disorganized schema, then they're right. It would be very wrong to force them to arrange files in any other way.
Which doesn't mean that additional tools cannot be made available to them. Sometimes people can't find things in all the clutter that normally works for them. Or they want things automatically organized for them insofar as possible. We can satisfy those desires _too_.
This is why I really hate the file organization on OS X. It is far too Unixy. MacOS was a lot better.
Well then let's just adjust the Earth instead. Seems easier to adjust one easy to find planet than a zillion inconvenient clocks.
OTOH, if you happen to have a web site, they can't stop you from using those trademarks to a limited extent.
Besides which, the worst part of plagarism isn't that it is using someone else's work, it is that you are falsely misrepresenting yourself. That doesn't even require plagarism, frankly.
And besides which, I can't remember the last time that anyone said -- especially prior to copyright laws -- that plagarism was so wrong as to be illegal. It'll blow your academic credibility. If it's a falsity in a business transaction that's actionable as any sort of fraud there would be. But I can't think of when plagarism was so singled out.
At any rate, AFAIK plagarism had absolutely nothing to do with copyright law anyway.
No, you're half wrong.
Inherent rights, natural rights -- these things don't come from governments. But there are other rights, artificial rights, positive rights, which do.
Copyright is one of the latter. It has no basis in nature. In fact, it's impossible to reconcile the idea that there is a natural right to absolutely free speech AND a natural copyright, since it's a restriction on free speech.
Particularly since you don't understand what a copyright is. Properly speaking, a copyright is really a limit placed on everyone but the author from fully exerting their free speech. The author doesn't get anything new, he just happens to be the only person who can act freely.
I'd certainly encourage you to take a look at Jefferson's letter of 1813 regarding patents. The man wrote the Declaration, influenced the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and didn't believe that there was a natural right to property. (which is why he changed Locke's 'life, liberty and property' to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness') He certainly didn't think that there was an inherent right to copyrights or patents.
Nor is there any good reason for fhere to be. Why should _I_ respect that. It would severely burden me if that were so, so why would I ever agree to respect such an assertion unless I benefit from it more greatly than I am burdened?
It's easy to see why people might willingly limit their ability to go about killing one another. But not very many people overall benefit directly from copyrights, whereas very many people DO directly benefit from a lack thereof. That is, there's more people in the audience than on stage.
There are still good reasons to have copyrights, but they are WHOLLY artificial, and entirely OPTIONAL. Our society doesn't have to have them. And they were unknown anywhere until the early 18th century, so it's not as though we cannot survive in a civilized society without copyrights. History shows the opposite.
Anyway, go read Jefferson's letter.
Well, IP is just a field of law. Copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. And some associated fields are important in regards to it.
But something like a trade secret isn't property. It's a limit on how businesses can compete with one another, i.e. a limit on the use of unfair business practices.
Lawyers use the term IP but it's a real misnomer. The law doesn't actually treat things in that manner.
As for compulsory licensing, no I don't mean CDR levies. I mean compulsory licensing as described in 17 USC 115 among other places. Basically it permits people to pay a fee fixed by law to cover songs.
For example, if I wanted to record "Cpt Kangarooski Rap-O-Rama" and include my rendition of "Baby Got Back" I would simply pay whatever the compulsory license fee was. I don't have to negotiate with Sir Mix-A-Lot, and he can't use his copyright to prevent me from recording the album, which is available on CD or casette.
This is more or less the same thing that the EFF author proposes, except rather than be limited to the musical composition and lyrics of a song, it would also include actual pre-existing sound recordings. I.e. then I could just make an anthology album that actually had Sir Mix-A-Lot's version on it, rather than recording my own cover of it. (though the cover license wouldn't disappear under this proposal)
The copyright holder still gets paid whatever the fee is, they just can't negotiate or prevent it. The license fees are set periodically, however, so it's not as though they're forever fixed.
Under the proposal we're all discussing here, the only real issue of contention is who pays. It's comparatively easy to have only the covering artist pay the cover license. When sound recordings or even live music is played however, fees are usually determined based on the income generated by it (e.g. when a cable company retransmits channels from broadcast stations, or a store plays the radio, or a bar has a live band).
This proposal would put a flat fee on ISP charges; pay it, and you could copy all the music you like. If so much music is copied that it tends to outweigh how much was actually paid, the fee would presumably increase to accomodate that the next year or two down the road, until a stable point was reached.
It's not even a tiny step beyond the current system, so you probably shouldn't look all shocked. I mean, how did you think musicians covered each others' songs?
at the end of the day, there is a very strong relationship between private interests and the public's ultimate interest, thus it makes the most sense to vigorously pursue private interests and make tale so-called public social interests (an abstract and hard to measure concept) into account later.
I disagree. For example, private interests HATE fair use, they HATE fixation requirements, they HATE first sale, they HATE creativity requirements, etc. But all of these things safeguard the public interest.
I could care less whether an artist makes money. What I care about is getting works created, and getting those works into the public domain. If the best way to do what I want is to pay artists than that's great. If the best way to do it is to not pay them, then that's equally as great.
As it happens the best thing to do is likely to grant a copyright that is limited in applicability only to certain works by certain artists for a limited time. To the extent that the artist gets ANYTHING in the form of the copyright it is purely in order to spur production, not benefit them. To the extent that the copyright is limited, it is in order to benefit the public and other artists.
How your parody example fits into that, I cannot imagine. Parody is something we seek to encourage, which is why it's a canonical fair use. (even though the original authors being parodied often hate this -- see The Wind Done Gone case, or the Pretty Woman case for examples)
I don't see why the fact that people are willing to listen to a topical s
What the hell are you talking about?
There is no IP regime. And compulsory licensing of a different sort (basically fixing the fee that can be charged by artists) already exists.
Besides -- copyright exists to serve a social purpose, not a private one. I think that there are problems with this, but hardly to the extent that you're spouting off.
Could you perhaps clarify what you mean, maybe after taking a look at the current law?
Well, I think that an important question then is whether it's really worthwhile to sink so much into making the master CD.
I mean, I could make a movie about the Roman Empire that involved building a perfect replica of Rome... but the cost would be so high that the only POTENTIAL way I could ever make a profit would be to have a never-ending copyright.
I think that this would be too high a cost to the public. Even if it meant that without it the movie would never get made.
I'd be happy to have music have shorter copyrights, and be less expensive, even if it meant that less money could be involved with producing them, at least to a certain extent. Current production levels may simply be higher than is actually optimal in light of the _entire_ system.
So out of curiosity, if you were producing an album by the standards of previous eras, how much less in today's dollars would it have cost?
No, this is a valid point. Just irrelevant.
Artists don't inherently deserve copyrights. They are GRANTED by the beneficient and loving populace via the government. With strings attached.
One such string is that you have to comply with rules such as compulsory licensing. Which already exists for musical compositions and lyrics, which is how come anyone can cover (for a fee fixed by law) pretty much any other song.
If you don't like having such conditions attached, you certainly are not obligated to have a copyright on your works. HOWEVER, should that happen then it's not as though you're going to have much luck keeping people from doing as they like with a public domain song.
As for the associational thing, that's ridiculous. You are not your music. No reasonable person is going to assume that merely because I sing one of your songs that you endorse me and are associated with me. Rights of association simply are not that broad.