Then they probably get challenged and overturned. It's not like there's a huge amount of support for EULAs either. (or opposing cases -- it is difficult to find one that actually goes to court and has the right set of facts)
So far all EULAs have been good for (aside from a brief period of time when they were handy due to certain specific flaws in copyright that have since been corrected) is generating contraversy.
They did. It's the Bobbs-Merrill v. Strauss case. I forget the exact cite. It flopped because 1) there's a general rule that you cannot have binding contractual terms after agreement, 2) just because you have a copyright is no exception to this. And of course, there's the untried but interesting theory that at least for ordinary consumer transactions, it would be contrary to copyright policy EVEN if it were permissible elsewhere.
Re:Public Domain is too free for most creative wor
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What Is Public Domain?
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You are definately speaking only for yourself.
Because I can perfectly legally mess with your songs quite a lot, depending on the means by which I do so, and you would be left with no legal recourse.
If you just want to impotently shake your fist at me or something, I couldn't care less.
The policy is pretty strongly in favor of making it easy, however. Copyright is concerned ONLY with promoting the public use (inclusive of copying etc.) of works in the long term.
If, even in the long term, it is extremely difficult to accomplish this, then the constitutional requirements and policies of copyright are being left unfulfilled.
Frankly, if an unecessary obstacle is placed in the way of a use, I don't believe that the copyright is deserved. Let there be self-help OR statutory help, but they should never act in combination.
Re:Public Domain is too free for most creative wor
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What Is Public Domain?
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No they are not. Original in this context refers ONLY to the original medium in which the work was fixed. For example, the original statue of 'David' is a big block of marble on a pedestal in a museum in Florence, Italy and was carved hundreds of years ago by Michaelangelo.
A COPY is any other statue of David sufficiently closely based on that one, whether made out of marble, concrete, play-doh, or mashed potatoes. (which mean something;)
Each of these embodies the creative work -- which is the shape and appearance of the statue, but it is beyond meaningless to call a work an original. It isn't a tangible thing.
Musical notes are a work. The original song is just the first historical instance of them.
I strongly suggest you quit posting on this subject until you learn what the hell you're trying to talk about.
Re:Public Domain is too free for most creative wor
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What Is Public Domain?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
What you mean like the way that Marcel Duchamps painted a mustache and beard onto the Mona Lisa? He called it L.H.O.O.Q. It's somewhat funny, really.
Copyright is intended to get creative works out there so that people can do stuff with them. It is not intended to protect artistic integrity, in fact it is intended to prevent it. It is intended to get works into the public domain where people can change them, republish them, base other works off of them, etc. That's the _only_ purpose of copyright, in fact.
Re:Public Domain is too free for most creative wor
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What Is Public Domain?
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· Score: 2
Sadly, you've missed the entire point.
It is INTENDED that the KKK -- or absolutely anybody -- be able to utilize public domain works. Hell, they probably sing 'Dixie,' but the point is so can you. And of course, reputation is irrelevant as far as copyright is concerned, as can be seen since that particular song was written by a New Yorker who's reputation was tarnished when the Civil War came along a couple years later. But no one gives a damn. Having the song is beneficial, and in fact, whether you like it or not, it WILL be in the public domain sooner or later, all you can possibly do is delay it or not write songs at all.
Furthermore, your second point is in error. While other artists certainly could rerecord your music (Disney does this all the time with fairy tales) it doesn't prevent you from releasing the original. (and in fact, there are plenty of other cartoon adaptations of fairy tales that leech of off Disney's publicity for _their_ adaptation) It can't work the way you describe -- then the copyright would be secured originally to someone not the author, which is grossly unconstitutional.
The car chase at the end of the Blues Brothers was shot at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning to mimimize congestion.
Unfortunately, when Ghostbusters was shot in NYC, the large crowd scene outside the apartment building (as seen in wide angle shots -- they also built a set in LA for closer ones) required that they shut down part of Central Park West for a couple of days. This caused traffic jams city wide, as it turned out. There's some mention of this on the commentary on the DVD.
Shouldn't a $2 coin be Jefferson? Personally, I have nothing against pennies; and if we got rid of them, you can bet your last nickel that prices would merely increase.
Actually, until I decided to go back to school last year, I had been a self-supporting artist for years. So I have in fact created many many original things over the years, although I would like to point out that there are varying levels of originality. Something 100% original would probably be entirely alien and incomprehensible to people. Understanding requires a certain degree of reuse of pre-existing elements.
(e.g. if I wrote a book that didn't borrow anything, the language, grammar, letters, words, etc. would all have to be original; numerous other people created English as we presently know it, after all)
At any rate, your attempt to sum up my position succinctly has failed.
I am saying that if you create something, the only reason that the vast majority of people who stand to gain from freely using your creation have to sacrifice their ability to do so is an even greater benefit.
Thus, if I write a book, the mere fact that I have written it is not enough to convince the legions of people who want to read it, change it, copy it, etc. to refrain from doing so. My unaltered book isn't worth trading the ability to alter it.
However, it _may_ be worth trading that ability for a brief span of time, since, after all, the readers do want the book. Whether it definately is or not will depend on a lot of specific factors.
This is how copyright works, and it is why people can do certain things to a work (anything not forbidden by law, in fact)regardless of the feelings of the author, merely because those things benefit the public.
Many authors do not like having their books sold used, since they will not see any extra money from this transaction. Nevertheless, it is more important that we be able to do so than that authors profit. Likewise many authors do not like parodies being written of their works, but doing so promotes the public good, and is allowed anyway.
And of course, ultimately, the copyright expires, and the public regains legal exercise of their innate ability to do literally ANYTHING with the work that they please.
If you don't believe me, I suggest that you look up some Supreme Court decisions on the subject. They frequently reiterate that the whole purpose of copyright is to promote the arts, not to benefit authors.
If a work is created, never disseminated, and destroyed, then yes, we can conceive of the author effectively owning it, but as far as a discussion of copyright goes, such a work might as well have never existed. Secret works are actually a problem that copyright seeks to solve by providing strong incentives to release information publically.
But should even one other person come across the works, e.g. discovering the many unpublished poems of Emily Dickenson after her death, or an author publishing or publicly performing his work to an audience, the creation -> ownership thing flies right out the window.
This is the situation we're faced with 99.44% of the time, so please forgive my oversimplification in the earlier post. As a general rule though, I think it stands.
Particularly with regards to this: If I produce software, music, or writings, these are the results of my work and efforts, and nobody is entitled to steal them! Intellectual property is no less than private property.
That's not how it works. We have copyright laws in order to benefit the public. If this happens to satisfy artists, that's great, but not necessary. Benefits to artists are merely a 'carrot' used to extract useful works out of them. They didn't earn it merely by virtue of the act of creation. Were this so, the lack of copyright anywhere in the world prior to roughly 300 years ago would be entirely inexplicable.
The public benefit comes first and foremost. Anything else is merely happy chance.
That's not enough. It's not even the right discussion.
Above all else, any enlargement of copyright beyond none at all has to be justified in terms of an even greater benefit secured to the public than they would've enjoyed had the enlargement not occured. Benefits to the public must take the form of BOTH: the creation of more works, either original or derivative or some combination, and the ability to freely enjoy works in any sense, ranging from freely obtaining them, to being able to use them, modify them, copy them, republish them, etc.
Thus the mere act of creation of a work isn't sufficient to justify their 'owning' it.
I hate to break it to you, but Congress is explicitly empowered by the Constitution to decide whether there shall be copyrights and patents, and the extent of them. They've been restricted solely to Americans in the past; if they really wanted, they probably could do this.
Two things. First, the courts in the U.S. do not, as a rule, issue advisory opinions. There has to be a legitimate case brought before them. Mere legal questions don't work.
Second, there already have been decisions finding it legal to listen to mp3s that you rip from CDs etc that you own. The Diamond case in the 9th Circuit is one of the leading ones, in fact. I don't recall that there's any real dispute about this.
Why would I want to watch it two times? I'd be much happier not ever seeing a single advertisement. I have a proxy filter on my web browser that pretty much achieves this.
Now if I could just get something like 'They Live' glasses which I could use to filter my perceptions of reality so as to, I dunno, replace any instance of visual advertising with a nice looking painting or something, I'd be in pretty good shape.
Well, I disagree there. Mere copying can certainly be amoral or even virtuous.
For example, for many works we don't want originality; if I have a copy of the Koran or the Torah, there is not supposed to be ANY modification whatsoever.
Even translators labor quite a lot in making their work as accurate as possible despite the natural drift in translation. There's nothing that strikes me as wrong about that.
Historical scholars also like to see unaltered works so as to increase their understanding of what was in existance in the time period that they're studying. In fact, by comparing ancient and modern works, we can often discover new things -- the collection of fairy tales by the brothers Grimm was IIRC a linguistics study in fact, tracking how the various folk tales developed and diverged in different regions.
Additionally I suspect that it is morally upright to keep works in circulation (though not at any cost, such as impairing their use by later generations). I guess this would mean that Penguin is probably the most morally superior of publishers then.;)
It's probably no coincidence that the Eldred plaintiffs are largely publishers of out of term (and otherwise out of print) books.
As for freeloading, I don't think that this is a problem. After all, we all expect it to happen, we adjust our behavior accordingly, and we're tolerant of the fact that it will preclude some creative works. I mean, if we dramatically (and unconstitutionally) expanded copyright, we might be able to stimulate the creation of works that we would not otherwise see. But we will have also passed a point of diminishing returns, so it turns out that for the best results to society some things are just inevitably not going to be created. Que sera sera.
Not entirely. The Eldred case is going to be argued before the Supreme Court this fall. If successful, the Court will rule that Congress may NOT extend copyrights in certain ways.
You're correct, Congress' power is subject to the Constitution, but that very document may be found to mean that Congress cannot extend it any time they want.
The previous poster did use strong language, but I think that it's easy enough to understand his position as not being intended to be an accurate restatement of the law, but an argument about policy.
Again, I point you to parody. It's probably the easiest thing for me to defend, and I'd personally like to continue this debate.
If I use elements from a creative work to such an extent that they would plainly be a copyright infringement if not used in a parody, and if the parody is unauthorized, are you saying that by creating a new though derivative work without authorization that I have committed a moral wrong?
I simply cannot agree with that. Nor, as it turns out, does the law, which frequently protects parodies because they are seen as being quite valuable, regardless of the wishes of author of the work that is being parodied without permission.
Much as you'd like to cloak your position as being that of the majority, it is in fact not. Most people do not have a problem with parody, echoing this, our laws do not have a problem with parody. In fact, we encourage it. It's good.
I am afraid that you are occupying the insignificant role. I urge you to abandon it; it has ramifications that you are blind to but are definately detrimental to society.
As I noted in a fork of this thread, however, had you asked me a different question, namely with regards to the _legality_ of the examples you mention, you might have found some common ground.
Is it so strange that morality and legality should diverge? Wasn't slavery legal yet immoral? Doesn't a similar debate rage about abortion? (which I don't want to get off-track with)
You think that the two are intimately connected, but this is not so. Again, I'd like to continue this; I feel that it is possible to come to an understanding, and perhaps even to change people's minds with debate. Hopefully you'll agree.
No, I definately support copyright. I just feel that the entire scheme typically has little to do with morals. At best, the public good that is resultant from a proper copyright scheme is about the only moral good you're likely to see from it. At worst, an improper scheme will negatively impact the public, and that's immoral.
Of course, what I _want_ is free works. I just recognize that the best way to get them that is evident is to limit my free access etc. so as to encourage additional creation.
I wouldn't support copyright violations, but that doesn't make them immoral, nor is that an absolute! There are definately times when it is proper to make copies without authorization. Statutory exceptions to copyright, fair uses, etc. all qualify. E.g. SunTrust, which holds the copyright to 'Gone With the Wind' did not want the parody 'The Wind Done Gone' to be published. It was legally, however, because it promotes the public good to allow it, even if it is against the wishes of the copyright holder.
My answers certainly would've been different had the earlier poster asked me about the _legality_ of the acts described, or accountability.
So you are actually contending not only that I do not have a natural right to free speech and press, which is inclusive of repeating or reprinting what has come before, but that copyright, which did not exist until about 300 years ago in any form, is a natural right instead?
Where the hell did you come up with that?
1) Nope. I have nothing against people asking for money. Demanding money is different.
2) Nope. In fact, whether it was legally wrong depends entirely on the local laws. See for example Shakespeare, who would've been pretty pissed off if he saw the degree to which people used his works without paying for them. He himself never published any of them precisely to mimimize the extent to which people could. Yet I don't think a single person feels that staging or changing one of his plays is immoral.
3) Nope. It is a virtue to disseminate information widely. It preserves and improves our culture and knowledge of history. Patent laws which are intimately related to copyright laws, were created in order to eliminate the widespread practice of keeping secrets in the production of things. It's no good to anyone to lend support to secret formulas and techniques. The world isn't noticably improved by them. Where they are public, they can be improved and put to good use by very many people. Another narrow exception is to permit limited, non-permanent restrictions on that dissemination, but ONLY where it produces a net benefit to the public, i.e. by ultimately handing them more works than they'd have had otherwise, which they can change and republish.
4) Nope. See #3.
Of course, you misunderstand my position. I'm not saying that it's necessarily a good thing to pirate mp3s over the net. I'm saying that morals are largely irrelevant to the situation, though when they are brought in, they're typically in favor of copying. (where would we be today if legions of scriveners and students hadn't copied works? We'd have nothing from ancient Greece, nothing from ancient Rome, no Bible, no Koran, etc. Copying's great!)
The only legitimate reason to be down on copying is that it could result in there being fewer works to copy down the road. It is very similar to a tragedy of the commons argument. However, since the ultimate goal invariably remains to freely copy, no permanent copyright is acceptable; the only thing to work out is the duration and extent of the restriction. And any restriction must justify itself by resulting in a net public benefit. Harm to the public is right out.
Often by controlling, as a cartel, the means of distribution. Movie studios in the US used to own the movie theaters. You still see signs of this, e.g. the old Paramount theater in downtown Seattle.
This was found to be an illegal monopoly in what, the 40's? 60's? And they had to be split up.
It's entirely possible.
Additionally, copyrights are a monopoly on the ability to publish a movie, during the term, and liable to some exceptions. That it's legal doesn't make it less of a monopoly; ATT was a legal monopoly for a long time too. (or it would've been broken up a hundred years ago)
While you may be a happy little Vulcan, most societies thrive on the sharing of creative works. Look at the rich literary traditions world wide, either through written or oral language, from the age of antiquity. Philosophical tracts were disseminated widely in China, Greece and Rome. I can't think of a single culture that didn't have religious myths that were retold. (and you'd be pretty odd to think that at least some of them weren't human creations) Works of art are found dating back all the way to when people painted on cave walls!
And besides which, your position is thoroughly wrong EVEN NOW.
The only, and I mean literally ONLY reason we have copyrights today is to cause there to be more stuff to share freely than there would be if there were no copyright. That's why copyright is limited, and that's why it expires! Because people want free creative works, and like having free creative works. Even authors do, since they can reuse them in making MORE creative works. (e.g. Disney movies based on fairy tales, parodies of the Mona Lisa, new versions, sometimes changed, of Shakespeare's plays, themselves based on older works)
Creative effort is great, and I applaud it, and as an artist I enjoy performing it. But it doesn't count for a damn in justifying impairing the natural god-given ability of people to rely upon your work and better society with it.
Me, I feel sorry for you. You're a small minded, greedy little man. You can't see the big picture, nor the way the world really works, and that's a sad thing.
Interesting. I didn't know that Mozart put on 'The Magic Flute' as a one-man show. How did he play all the instruments at once?
Even back before copyright, it cost money to create art. No one's disputing that. But nevertheless it still got created! Christ -- check out the Vatican's art collection. Or all the art of classical civilizations. Copyright appeared in England around 1700, and didn't become common around the world until after WW2.
And yet there's just all this to you inexplicable art lying around.
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Then they probably get challenged and overturned. It's not like there's a huge amount of support for EULAs either. (or opposing cases -- it is difficult to find one that actually goes to court and has the right set of facts)
So far all EULAs have been good for (aside from a brief period of time when they were handy due to certain specific flaws in copyright that have since been corrected) is generating contraversy.
They did. It's the Bobbs-Merrill v. Strauss case. I forget the exact cite. It flopped because 1) there's a general rule that you cannot have binding contractual terms after agreement, 2) just because you have a copyright is no exception to this. And of course, there's the untried but interesting theory that at least for ordinary consumer transactions, it would be contrary to copyright policy EVEN if it were permissible elsewhere.
You are definately speaking only for yourself.
Because I can perfectly legally mess with your songs quite a lot, depending on the means by which I do so, and you would be left with no legal recourse.
If you just want to impotently shake your fist at me or something, I couldn't care less.
The policy is pretty strongly in favor of making it easy, however. Copyright is concerned ONLY with promoting the public use (inclusive of copying etc.) of works in the long term.
If, even in the long term, it is extremely difficult to accomplish this, then the constitutional requirements and policies of copyright are being left unfulfilled.
Frankly, if an unecessary obstacle is placed in the way of a use, I don't believe that the copyright is deserved. Let there be self-help OR statutory help, but they should never act in combination.
No they are not. Original in this context refers ONLY to the original medium in which the work was fixed. For example, the original statue of 'David' is a big block of marble on a pedestal in a museum in Florence, Italy and was carved hundreds of years ago by Michaelangelo.
;)
A COPY is any other statue of David sufficiently closely based on that one, whether made out of marble, concrete, play-doh, or mashed potatoes. (which mean something
Each of these embodies the creative work -- which is the shape and appearance of the statue, but it is beyond meaningless to call a work an original. It isn't a tangible thing.
Musical notes are a work. The original song is just the first historical instance of them.
I strongly suggest you quit posting on this subject until you learn what the hell you're trying to talk about.
What you mean like the way that Marcel Duchamps painted a mustache and beard onto the Mona Lisa? He called it L.H.O.O.Q. It's somewhat funny, really.
Copyright is intended to get creative works out there so that people can do stuff with them. It is not intended to protect artistic integrity, in fact it is intended to prevent it. It is intended to get works into the public domain where people can change them, republish them, base other works off of them, etc. That's the _only_ purpose of copyright, in fact.
Sadly, you've missed the entire point.
It is INTENDED that the KKK -- or absolutely anybody -- be able to utilize public domain works. Hell, they probably sing 'Dixie,' but the point is so can you. And of course, reputation is irrelevant as far as copyright is concerned, as can be seen since that particular song was written by a New Yorker who's reputation was tarnished when the Civil War came along a couple years later. But no one gives a damn. Having the song is beneficial, and in fact, whether you like it or not, it WILL be in the public domain sooner or later, all you can possibly do is delay it or not write songs at all.
Furthermore, your second point is in error. While other artists certainly could rerecord your music (Disney does this all the time with fairy tales) it doesn't prevent you from releasing the original. (and in fact, there are plenty of other cartoon adaptations of fairy tales that leech of off Disney's publicity for _their_ adaptation) It can't work the way you describe -- then the copyright would be secured originally to someone not the author, which is grossly unconstitutional.
Yeah, that's usually how it's done.
The car chase at the end of the Blues Brothers was shot at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning to mimimize congestion.
Unfortunately, when Ghostbusters was shot in NYC, the large crowd scene outside the apartment building (as seen in wide angle shots -- they also built a set in LA for closer ones) required that they shut down part of Central Park West for a couple of days. This caused traffic jams city wide, as it turned out. There's some mention of this on the commentary on the DVD.
Shouldn't a $2 coin be Jefferson? Personally, I have nothing against pennies; and if we got rid of them, you can bet your last nickel that prices would merely increase.
Actually, until I decided to go back to school last year, I had been a self-supporting artist for years. So I have in fact created many many original things over the years, although I would like to point out that there are varying levels of originality. Something 100% original would probably be entirely alien and incomprehensible to people. Understanding requires a certain degree of reuse of pre-existing elements.
(e.g. if I wrote a book that didn't borrow anything, the language, grammar, letters, words, etc. would all have to be original; numerous other people created English as we presently know it, after all)
At any rate, your attempt to sum up my position succinctly has failed.
I am saying that if you create something, the only reason that the vast majority of people who stand to gain from freely using your creation have to sacrifice their ability to do so is an even greater benefit.
Thus, if I write a book, the mere fact that I have written it is not enough to convince the legions of people who want to read it, change it, copy it, etc. to refrain from doing so. My unaltered book isn't worth trading the ability to alter it.
However, it _may_ be worth trading that ability for a brief span of time, since, after all, the readers do want the book. Whether it definately is or not will depend on a lot of specific factors.
This is how copyright works, and it is why people can do certain things to a work (anything not forbidden by law, in fact)regardless of the feelings of the author, merely because those things benefit the public.
Many authors do not like having their books sold used, since they will not see any extra money from this transaction. Nevertheless, it is more important that we be able to do so than that authors profit. Likewise many authors do not like parodies being written of their works, but doing so promotes the public good, and is allowed anyway.
And of course, ultimately, the copyright expires, and the public regains legal exercise of their innate ability to do literally ANYTHING with the work that they please.
If you don't believe me, I suggest that you look up some Supreme Court decisions on the subject. They frequently reiterate that the whole purpose of copyright is to promote the arts, not to benefit authors.
Only to a limited extent, I should think.
If a work is created, never disseminated, and destroyed, then yes, we can conceive of the author effectively owning it, but as far as a discussion of copyright goes, such a work might as well have never existed. Secret works are actually a problem that copyright seeks to solve by providing strong incentives to release information publically.
But should even one other person come across the works, e.g. discovering the many unpublished poems of Emily Dickenson after her death, or an author publishing or publicly performing his work to an audience, the creation -> ownership thing flies right out the window.
This is the situation we're faced with 99.44% of the time, so please forgive my oversimplification in the earlier post. As a general rule though, I think it stands.
Particularly with regards to this: If I produce software, music, or writings, these are the results of my work and efforts, and nobody is entitled to steal them! Intellectual property is no less than private property.
That's not how it works. We have copyright laws in order to benefit the public. If this happens to satisfy artists, that's great, but not necessary. Benefits to artists are merely a 'carrot' used to extract useful works out of them. They didn't earn it merely by virtue of the act of creation. Were this so, the lack of copyright anywhere in the world prior to roughly 300 years ago would be entirely inexplicable.
The public benefit comes first and foremost. Anything else is merely happy chance.
But that's not the whole story. Let me ask you, why do we want to provide an incentive to create works? What benefit do ordinary people see?
That's not enough. It's not even the right discussion.
Above all else, any enlargement of copyright beyond none at all has to be justified in terms of an even greater benefit secured to the public than they would've enjoyed had the enlargement not occured. Benefits to the public must take the form of BOTH: the creation of more works, either original or derivative or some combination, and the ability to freely enjoy works in any sense, ranging from freely obtaining them, to being able to use them, modify them, copy them, republish them, etc.
Thus the mere act of creation of a work isn't sufficient to justify their 'owning' it.
I hate to break it to you, but Congress is explicitly empowered by the Constitution to decide whether there shall be copyrights and patents, and the extent of them. They've been restricted solely to Americans in the past; if they really wanted, they probably could do this.
Two things. First, the courts in the U.S. do not, as a rule, issue advisory opinions. There has to be a legitimate case brought before them. Mere legal questions don't work.
Second, there already have been decisions finding it legal to listen to mp3s that you rip from CDs etc that you own. The Diamond case in the 9th Circuit is one of the leading ones, in fact. I don't recall that there's any real dispute about this.
Why would I want to watch it two times? I'd be much happier not ever seeing a single advertisement. I have a proxy filter on my web browser that pretty much achieves this.
Now if I could just get something like 'They Live' glasses which I could use to filter my perceptions of reality so as to, I dunno, replace any instance of visual advertising with a nice looking painting or something, I'd be in pretty good shape.
Well, I disagree there. Mere copying can certainly be amoral or even virtuous.
;)
For example, for many works we don't want originality; if I have a copy of the Koran or the Torah, there is not supposed to be ANY modification whatsoever.
Even translators labor quite a lot in making their work as accurate as possible despite the natural drift in translation. There's nothing that strikes me as wrong about that.
Historical scholars also like to see unaltered works so as to increase their understanding of what was in existance in the time period that they're studying. In fact, by comparing ancient and modern works, we can often discover new things -- the collection of fairy tales by the brothers Grimm was IIRC a linguistics study in fact, tracking how the various folk tales developed and diverged in different regions.
Additionally I suspect that it is morally upright to keep works in circulation (though not at any cost, such as impairing their use by later generations). I guess this would mean that Penguin is probably the most morally superior of publishers then.
It's probably no coincidence that the Eldred plaintiffs are largely publishers of out of term (and otherwise out of print) books.
As for freeloading, I don't think that this is a problem. After all, we all expect it to happen, we adjust our behavior accordingly, and we're tolerant of the fact that it will preclude some creative works. I mean, if we dramatically (and unconstitutionally) expanded copyright, we might be able to stimulate the creation of works that we would not otherwise see. But we will have also passed a point of diminishing returns, so it turns out that for the best results to society some things are just inevitably not going to be created. Que sera sera.
Not entirely. The Eldred case is going to be argued before the Supreme Court this fall. If successful, the Court will rule that Congress may NOT extend copyrights in certain ways.
You're correct, Congress' power is subject to the Constitution, but that very document may be found to mean that Congress cannot extend it any time they want.
The previous poster did use strong language, but I think that it's easy enough to understand his position as not being intended to be an accurate restatement of the law, but an argument about policy.
Thanks.
Again, I point you to parody. It's probably the easiest thing for me to defend, and I'd personally like to continue this debate.
If I use elements from a creative work to such an extent that they would plainly be a copyright infringement if not used in a parody, and if the parody is unauthorized, are you saying that by creating a new though derivative work without authorization that I have committed a moral wrong?
I simply cannot agree with that. Nor, as it turns out, does the law, which frequently protects parodies because they are seen as being quite valuable, regardless of the wishes of author of the work that is being parodied without permission.
Much as you'd like to cloak your position as being that of the majority, it is in fact not. Most people do not have a problem with parody, echoing this, our laws do not have a problem with parody. In fact, we encourage it. It's good.
I am afraid that you are occupying the insignificant role. I urge you to abandon it; it has ramifications that you are blind to but are definately detrimental to society.
As I noted in a fork of this thread, however, had you asked me a different question, namely with regards to the _legality_ of the examples you mention, you might have found some common ground.
Is it so strange that morality and legality should diverge? Wasn't slavery legal yet immoral? Doesn't a similar debate rage about abortion? (which I don't want to get off-track with)
You think that the two are intimately connected, but this is not so. Again, I'd like to continue this; I feel that it is possible to come to an understanding, and perhaps even to change people's minds with debate. Hopefully you'll agree.
No, I definately support copyright. I just feel that the entire scheme typically has little to do with morals. At best, the public good that is resultant from a proper copyright scheme is about the only moral good you're likely to see from it. At worst, an improper scheme will negatively impact the public, and that's immoral.
Of course, what I _want_ is free works. I just recognize that the best way to get them that is evident is to limit my free access etc. so as to encourage additional creation.
I wouldn't support copyright violations, but that doesn't make them immoral, nor is that an absolute! There are definately times when it is proper to make copies without authorization. Statutory exceptions to copyright, fair uses, etc. all qualify. E.g. SunTrust, which holds the copyright to 'Gone With the Wind' did not want the parody 'The Wind Done Gone' to be published. It was legally, however, because it promotes the public good to allow it, even if it is against the wishes of the copyright holder.
My answers certainly would've been different had the earlier poster asked me about the _legality_ of the acts described, or accountability.
So you are actually contending not only that I do not have a natural right to free speech and press, which is inclusive of repeating or reprinting what has come before, but that copyright, which did not exist until about 300 years ago in any form, is a natural right instead?
Where the hell did you come up with that?
1) Nope. I have nothing against people asking for money. Demanding money is different.
2) Nope. In fact, whether it was legally wrong depends entirely on the local laws. See for example Shakespeare, who would've been pretty pissed off if he saw the degree to which people used his works without paying for them. He himself never published any of them precisely to mimimize the extent to which people could. Yet I don't think a single person feels that staging or changing one of his plays is immoral.
3) Nope. It is a virtue to disseminate information widely. It preserves and improves our culture and knowledge of history. Patent laws which are intimately related to copyright laws, were created in order to eliminate the widespread practice of keeping secrets in the production of things. It's no good to anyone to lend support to secret formulas and techniques. The world isn't noticably improved by them. Where they are public, they can be improved and put to good use by very many people. Another narrow exception is to permit limited, non-permanent restrictions on that dissemination, but ONLY where it produces a net benefit to the public, i.e. by ultimately handing them more works than they'd have had otherwise, which they can change and republish.
4) Nope. See #3.
Of course, you misunderstand my position. I'm not saying that it's necessarily a good thing to pirate mp3s over the net. I'm saying that morals are largely irrelevant to the situation, though when they are brought in, they're typically in favor of copying. (where would we be today if legions of scriveners and students hadn't copied works? We'd have nothing from ancient Greece, nothing from ancient Rome, no Bible, no Koran, etc. Copying's great!)
The only legitimate reason to be down on copying is that it could result in there being fewer works to copy down the road. It is very similar to a tragedy of the commons argument. However, since the ultimate goal invariably remains to freely copy, no permanent copyright is acceptable; the only thing to work out is the duration and extent of the restriction. And any restriction must justify itself by resulting in a net public benefit. Harm to the public is right out.
Often by controlling, as a cartel, the means of distribution. Movie studios in the US used to own the movie theaters. You still see signs of this, e.g. the old Paramount theater in downtown Seattle.
This was found to be an illegal monopoly in what, the 40's? 60's? And they had to be split up.
It's entirely possible.
Additionally, copyrights are a monopoly on the ability to publish a movie, during the term, and liable to some exceptions. That it's legal doesn't make it less of a monopoly; ATT was a legal monopoly for a long time too. (or it would've been broken up a hundred years ago)
Oh, not just no, but hell no!
While you may be a happy little Vulcan, most societies thrive on the sharing of creative works. Look at the rich literary traditions world wide, either through written or oral language, from the age of antiquity. Philosophical tracts were disseminated widely in China, Greece and Rome. I can't think of a single culture that didn't have religious myths that were retold. (and you'd be pretty odd to think that at least some of them weren't human creations) Works of art are found dating back all the way to when people painted on cave walls!
And besides which, your position is thoroughly wrong EVEN NOW.
The only, and I mean literally ONLY reason we have copyrights today is to cause there to be more stuff to share freely than there would be if there were no copyright. That's why copyright is limited, and that's why it expires! Because people want free creative works, and like having free creative works. Even authors do, since they can reuse them in making MORE creative works. (e.g. Disney movies based on fairy tales, parodies of the Mona Lisa, new versions, sometimes changed, of Shakespeare's plays, themselves based on older works)
Creative effort is great, and I applaud it, and as an artist I enjoy performing it. But it doesn't count for a damn in justifying impairing the natural god-given ability of people to rely upon your work and better society with it.
Me, I feel sorry for you. You're a small minded, greedy little man. You can't see the big picture, nor the way the world really works, and that's a sad thing.
Interesting. I didn't know that Mozart put on 'The Magic Flute' as a one-man show. How did he play all the instruments at once?
Even back before copyright, it cost money to create art. No one's disputing that. But nevertheless it still got created! Christ -- check out the Vatican's art collection. Or all the art of classical civilizations. Copyright appeared in England around 1700, and didn't become common around the world until after WW2.
And yet there's just all this to you inexplicable art lying around.