I don't think that's a good enough reason. I'd rather have generally good copyright laws even if it harmed the enforceability of software freeing licenses, rather than the craptastrophe we've got now, even if it means that no one can make a closed source fork of EMACS for the rest of my life. Look at the big picture, man.
(Plus, why not alter copyright further? For example that in order to get a copyright on software, the author would have to deposit a complete copy of the code written to produce the binary with the Library of Congress, plus whatever additional comments and supplemental information the LoC requested to facilitate the use of the code by third parties. The code could be closed but available for researchers to study during the copyright term, and then made fully public domain once the term expired.)
No, he could have the rules described to him. Copyright doesn't protect the game rules, just the creative elements that are not necessary for the game.
Look at how third party manufacturers developed a BIOS that was compatible with the IBM BIOS to facilitate the development of generic IBM PC-compatible computers. One team looked through the BIOS and developed a spec, and the second team implemented the spec without looking at the BIOS. Since nothing protectable was actually copied, copyright infringement was avoided. Re-implementation doesn't count.
While I'd agree with the court that the clone (Mino) infringes on the Tetris copyright, the analysis that the court used to get there suffers from some defects in its application. Some of this may be due to the parties in the suit, for not raising certain arguments or making them well, but that's really not much of an excuse.
The court is correct that the Tetris program is not protected in its entirety by copyright, and that one of the key issues in the case is to sort out what is and isn't protected. Basically, copyright protects certain expressions of an idea, but not the underlying idea itself. It does not protect procedures, processes, systems, or methods of operation. This includes the rules of a game, which constitute the procedure for playing it. Thus any part of Tetris that is present because the rules of the game -- however arbitrary those rules might be -- require it, isn't a matter of creative expression, but a necessary incident of implementing tetris. (Creativity in copyright law, you see, is all about making choices)
Where the court errs is in determining the rules:
Tetris is a puzzle game where a user manipulates pieces composed of square blocks, each made into a different geometric shape, that fall from the top of the game board to the bottom where the pieces accumulate. The user is given a new piece after the current one reaches the bottom of the available game space. While a piece is falling, the user rotates it in order to fit it in with the accumulated pieces. The object of the puzzle is to fill all spaces along a horizontal line. If that is accomplished, the line is erased, points are earned, and more of the game board is available for play. But if the pieces accumulate and reach the top of the screen, then the game is over. These then are the general, abstract ideas underlying Tetris and cannot be protected by copyright nor can expressive elements that are inseparable from them.
As a long-time tetris player, I think that the court left a few rules out. First, tetris blocks are tetrominos -- shapes that can be formed from an assemblage of four squares each of which abuts at least one other square, both along their edges. Tetris uses all seven possible tetrominos. This is a functional aspect of the game, just like an American football has a particular size, shape, and other qualities. If football were played with, say, a baseball, it would greatly change the game. So too with Tetris and its blocks.
Second, the size and shape of the playing field is functional. An analogy: While a baseball field's dimensions can vary due to local conditions (e.g. Fenway Park's left field is short because of an adjacent street), it should be about 300 to 400 feet. Imagine how different the game would be if you tried to play baseball at Mick Shrimpton Memorial Field, where due to a mistake in the blueprints the field is only 300 inches long. Could you play a decent game in a field where home runs only need to go 25 feet? You'd better have a hell of a pitcher. Who incidentally, is comfortable standing 5 feet in front of the batter. Fields that fall within a particular range are a part of the game of tetris.
It's true that a small variation in the dimensions of the tetris playing field might not matter much, at least not to casual players. (Experts are probably highly sensitive to this.) So perhaps an argument could be made that since it needn't be a particular size and shape, and thus they are creative, copyrightable material. However, there are probably only a few small variations possible before the effect does become noticeable and affects play. In copyright, when you have a feature of a work that is creative but there are only a few possible choices that express the same uncopyrightable idea (e.g. "It was a dark and stormy night" could be "It was a pitch-black and tempestuous night" but even with a good thesaurus, there's not a hell of a lot of ways of saying the same thing), the expression is deemed to have merged with the idea. This prevents people f
I disagree that the second paragraph is about trademark and publicity. It is soundly within U.S. copyright law, as it involves reproducing a copyrighted work.
If you're merely quoting, especially from such a short post, you're likely within the realm of fair use. But using a quote to serve as an endorsement of a product or political position -- especially in a misleading fashion -- doesn't sound like copyright is an issue at all. More likely publicity rights, maybe defamation, now that I think about it.
those uses might implicate moral rights in countries that recognize those
Moral rights are bullshit. Those other countries wouldn't know sensible copyright policy if it bit them in the face. My posts are solidly in the public domain as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't put it past some jurisdictions to protect it anyway out of paternalism, even though I know my own mind on this very well.
But under U.S. law, moral rights are a fuzzy concept at best.
VARA really, and it obviously wouldn't apply here.
If the originator of the comment continues to feel enough proprietary interest in the comment to want to exercise control over how it's used, then that person has attached value to intellectual property, even if he or she isn't interested in monetizing it.
I can see a desire in wanting to control (to some event) the use of one's identity, and to avoid misleading third parties, without having to support copyright.
(Also, I wonder if you would feel the same way if your most marketable skill was the creation of artistic works that can be digitally copied. Perhaps you would. It's at least a question worth asking.)
Before I went back to school, I was a professional artist. I made a comfortable living creating works that could be digitally copied. And because the particular way in which I made money had no relation, even indirectly, to copyright, I would not have cared if people copied my work for whatever purpose. I might care if people were led to wrongly attribute certain positions to me, personally, but works I create need not be involved for that to occur.
Agreed. As it exists today, copyright certainly may be abused in ways that are clearly unethical.
That's true, but what I meant was that there are many ways of implementing copyright. One copyright statute may itself be more ethical than another statute. And our current copyright law may very well be on the bad side as compared to other possible implementations.
is it ever ethical to restrict peoples' liberties?
Depends on your system of ethics. Just as there is no single, enshrined, 'correct' copyright law, so too is there no one 'correct' set of ethics, or at least no way of telling which it is. Things would've been a lot simpler if that weren't so.
In any case, you seem to be moving toward utilitarianism in your paragraph about ethics, which is handy for me, since that's what copyright is based in. You're stopping a little short, though: The goal of copyright is to incentivize the creation and publication of as many works as possible which otherwise would not be created and published, while imposing minimal (or no) restrictions on the public with regard to those works.
An ideal world would see everyone who could create and publish a work doing so for free, with no protections, so that the work could be copied, enjoyed, modified, etc. maximally. But we don't live in that world. Instead, in the absence of copyright (as was the case from the dawn of time to 1710 in England, and later elsewhere), there are some natural incentives to create and publish, e.g. selling creative labor; selling copies as objects, rather than as instances of a work; art for art's sake; fame; etc., and thus many works are created. We know this, because that's what happened. Some of those works survived to the present day, although many others were tragically lost. And in the absence of copyright, there are no restrictions at all on the public (save for despots limiting free speech, but that applies to authors too), and so the works could be copied (which was important -- most of the things that we have from antiquity only survive due to unauthorized copying), distributed, altered, etc. The lack of copyright had no effect on quality. Shakespeare, for example, had no copyright, and copied and made derivatives almost constantly, and it worked out nicely.
In order to provide an additional incentive -- the ability to monopolize certain actions with regard to eligible works and thus command monopolist prices -- we created copyright. But the downside is that it inherently reduces our satisfaction of the second half of the goal of copyright, since now the author can prohibit the free copying, modification, etc. of copyrighted works.
If and only if the benefit to the public of granting copyrights -- i.e. the quantity of works -- is great enough to make up for the harm to the public by granting copyrights -- i.e. the inability to legally do whatever you want with the works -- then the tradeoff is acceptable. Otherwise it's not. The incentive isn't itself the goal, though. It's just the means.
(And in case you were wondering, in practice, very little copyright, in both scope and duration, is needed to act as an incentive. Further, the incentivizing effect of copyright very quickly peaks and then falls, entering the land of diminishing returns. The harm, however, only increases the longer the copyright does. Thus terms must be limited, and really must be very short, with minimal protections even during the term. And ideally, there should be a way to only grant copyrights to authors who require it as an incentive. Authors who would've created regardless of copyright should not get one, as it would produce no benefit to counteract the inevitable harm, and basically be a great waste.)
However, society clearly values content, as can be witnessed by the effort people go through to obtain content. However, they are not willing to compensate those who have footed the bill (both in time and in real money) to provide that content.
You assumed that copyright is ethically good. This may not be true, however, certainly not for all possible permutations of copyright. I'd be very interested to know why you think it is good to restrict people's liberties so as to allow a subset of people to make a living in their chosen profession. I would like to make a profession out of sitting on my couch at home, playing video games and fapping about on the Internet. Should we control people in such a way that I can make a living at it? If not, why not?
I'm not the previous poster, but with regard to your first paragraph, that's fine with me. Check out my.sig, in fact. I wish you luck.
With regard to your second paragraph, that's a completely separate issue from copyright; now you're talking about trademarks and publicity rights. The only way it would be relevant here is if we're discussing a absolute right of free speech. While I am concerned about fraud, defamation, abusing the identies of others, etc., I will admit that the idea nevertheless holds a lot of appeal. I might prefer to proceed slowly toward that, dipping the toe, rather than jumping right in, but as an experiment, there may be merit in it. And even if not, that doesn't mean that we're currently in an ideal position. It may be that we're currently limiting speech more than we ought to, and should relax our rules somewhat. (Or vice versa, or it may vary depending on the particular facts of a given case)
What moral argument is there to support the idea that merely by virtue of having created and published something, that the author should have the right to censor anyone who dares to copy it? I can see a utilitarian argument, but not an ethical one. Surely, if we must consider ethics, the pirate who copies such works without a desire for compensation, and who spreads knowledge far and wide to anyone who wans it is more ethical.
Locke's wrong on this one, though. People have a right to property if they can personally defend it, and manage to do so when necessary. Beyond that, the right to property is a matter of consensus. If enough people think that you own something, then you do. If they think that you don't, they'll separate you and it. This is why I may own the clothes on my back, but I don't own the Brooklyn Bridge.
The purpose of government is certainly, in part, to protect this consensus, but also to enforce it against outliers who disagree. The same force that is used to defend property from trespassers is frequently used to take it from those too weak to resist.
Copyright is more clearly utilitarian, but at the end of the day, all property is, even if we didn't recognize this as we created laws about it and tried to explain it at the time.
This is why, if you look at the Declaration of Independence, when Jefferson cribs from Locke, he only mentions life and liberty, and adds his own 'pursuit of happiness', but ignores Locke's 'property.' Jefferson knew it wasn't a human right.
Yes, it's easy for us. In fact, IIRC, both the Predsident can do this (as he has power regarding international relations) and in effect Congress, by passing laws that override the treaty, even though it's still signed.
But don't most treaties have withdrawal clauses that permit parties to leave them after having given some notice?
No. Within the US, treaties are below the level of the constitution and at the same level as federal law. Congress could pass a law that conflicts with whatever treaty the ITU operates under, and the more recent of the two would win. All of those are above state constitutions and other state laws, however. Treaties are decidedly not on par or superior to the federal constitution (or it's amendments, which are just part of the constitution).
No they're not. At least not according to the US constitution. Rather, they're on the level below, equal to federal law (where the most recent will take priority, if there's a conflict). They are, however, superior to state constitutions and state laws, which may be what you're thinking of.
Grocery stores used to have all the food behind a counter, and the customers had to ask a clerk to get it for them. The self-service model in which the customers retrieve their own items and take them to a clerk at the exit has almost entirely taken over, however. The losses from people shoplifting (which is vastly easier with self-serv) are more than made up for from the increased bandwidth and customer satisfaction; if this were not the case, the stores wouldn't've changed.
Just because a business model carries with it an increased risk of free riding, that doesn't mean it isn't better than the alternative. See also mass transit networks that use the honor system for ticket taking.
Eh, for manned landing missions, I'd rather that the historical preservation zone extend to the horizon (inclusive of the skyline). The desolation they encountered is important, IMO. Otherwise you'd have something like the Eagle descent stage surrounded by the Tranquility Mall food court someday. The moon is big, and they never went very far, so this isn't a big deal.
Let the rule apply to anyone's first manned landing site (unless they waive it), and all manned landings prior to the beginning of real industrial development. Unmanned probes need only a small area around them, though, I think.
There is still a market for creative labor. There is still a market for some goods which happen to embody creativity, eg original works of art (as distinguished from copies; the original Mona Lisa is worth more than a poster of it). But it seems that the market for many creative goods that was enabled by copyright and certain technological advances in mass reproduction and transmission, is dying.
So be it. For most of human history that last market didn't exist, and yet there was art, and we got by. Copyright as we knew it may have been an aberration. I think we can save some of it, but we must remember that copyright isn't worthwhile on its own; rather, it's a means to an end. If our priorities change, so must copyright.
The implication here is that HBO owes everyone something (the content). ⦠Just because something is produced does not mean it automatically grants everyone the right to said thing.
Well, I don't think that they owe anyone anything. It would be immoral to compel an author to create a work, or distribute or perform a work. If HBO decided to cancel the series, we should not force them to resume it. (We can ask, we can put forth arguments that might convince them to reconsider, but we can't force them)
But that's not the situation here. Here, HBO has created and performed the work of their own volition. No one could rightly force them to put it on the Internet as a freely downloadable file. But if some third party did that without HBO's involvement, then it would be wrong for HBO to take action to prevent this. At least, insofar as we care about morality here, as opposed to utility, which is a lot better suited to this issue, I think.
And yes, if a creative work is created, everyone does have rights to it. This is an inherent part of free speech: the right to repeat verbatim what someone else has already said. Now, again, there is no right to force someone to create a work or to share it with you in some fashion. So if the work is kept secret, your right is moot; you don't have knowledge of the work or access to it. But once the author willingly grants you a look, you have the right to share it with anyone else, and you can see how it snowballs from there.
We put legal constraints on this for utilitarian -- not moral -- reasons. But they're artificial and ultimately optional. There is no right of an author to force none else to grant and respect copyrights. If we do so, it's because it suits us, and only to the extent that it suits us. (At least assuming the laws are not corrupt) In the absence of these laws, one may do as he pleases.
That's why there is a law that summons copyrights into being, and a law that dismisses them back again, but no law that grants rights in uncopyrighted works to the public, because there is no need for such a law; that is what happens automatically.
It is recognized as an artist/creators right to restrict access to what they have created.
In this context, you are describing a legal right, not a moral right. Don't confuse legality with morality; there are plenty of immoral things which are legal, moral things which are illegal, and laws -- such as copyright -- which are meant to follow other principles, and are merely expected to be amoral.
The reason, at least the alleged reason, why copyrights are granted (at least in the US, though it's the only sensible reason, anyway) is that it promotes the public interest. Not because authors are entitled to it, or because it's the right thing to do. Copyright is supposed to promote the progress of science by encouraging the creation and publication of certain creative works while minimizing the harm it necessarily causes the public, so as to produce a net public benefit. Nothing to do with morals; just utility.
Is HBO acting morally by denying people access to a what is effectively a published, creative work, unless they pay for it? It might be necessary for their business model, it might even be a reasonable and generally unobjectionable practice, but restricting the availability of culture for mere money doesn't strike me as being affirmatively moral.
Generally I regard copyright as an amoral field, governed mainly by utility. But if I had to look for a moral dimension, surely it would be on the side of the subset of pirates who, whatever their other failings, at least disseminate published creative works to anyone who wants them, for free, and often in a more useful form than the legitimate publisher. (This would exclude commercial pirates, ad-supported or ratio-supported pirates, etc., but it still leaves plenty)
Remember, just because HBO has the right, i.e. the legal authority, to control the distribution of the work, that doesn't make them right, i.e. morally justified, to do so.
Basically a 5 year film run is: 1 year for theater, 1 year for ppv, 1 year for dvd, 1 year for HBO, 1 year for network/basic cable.
Not that slow. Now movies are out on video within a few months (3-6 IME) of their initial theatrical release (with second run theaters in between). Tiered TV releases (PPV, premium cable, basic cable, network) over the course of a couple of years, slowing down as it goes along.
The best serious work I've seen on this is a paper by Rufus Pollock, which you can read here. IIRC he figures it at about 15 years. I can't follow it, unfortunately, but he seems to be using real math.
I'd love to see more analysis on the subject. I have a gut feeling that the term should be about 25 years, shorter for some classes of works (especially software), with some classes of works not eligible (e.g. architecture), and with annual or bi-annual renewals, along with a registration system. But I'd gladly yield to something more rigorously worked out. So long as it produces the greatest net public good, I'm on board.
If we grant too little protection for the creation of media, we become a bleak society lacking in culture.
Nobody granted any protection of that sort until 1710, and then only in England, and not in most of the world until well into the 19th and 20th centuries.
But I would not say that the vast majority of the history of the world is lacking in culture. Hell, we've certainly lost more culture in the past than we'll ever know, and we've still saved an amazing amount of great stuff.
We would be fine without copyright. The idea of copyright is that it can produce a better outcome than the no-copyright baseline, even accounting for the harm that copyright necessarily causes. If so, it's worth doing, but abandoning it is always a viable option.
If we grant too much, we become decadent; awash in media spectacle.
No, rent seeking behavior by copyright holders tends to prevent this. Why bother creating enough works to have us awash in them if you can just shut down any competition and not waste money improving anything you've done yourself?
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I don't think that's a good enough reason. I'd rather have generally good copyright laws even if it harmed the enforceability of software freeing licenses, rather than the craptastrophe we've got now, even if it means that no one can make a closed source fork of EMACS for the rest of my life. Look at the big picture, man.
(Plus, why not alter copyright further? For example that in order to get a copyright on software, the author would have to deposit a complete copy of the code written to produce the binary with the Library of Congress, plus whatever additional comments and supplemental information the LoC requested to facilitate the use of the code by third parties. The code could be closed but available for researchers to study during the copyright term, and then made fully public domain once the term expired.)
No, he could have the rules described to him. Copyright doesn't protect the game rules, just the creative elements that are not necessary for the game.
Look at how third party manufacturers developed a BIOS that was compatible with the IBM BIOS to facilitate the development of generic IBM PC-compatible computers. One team looked through the BIOS and developed a spec, and the second team implemented the spec without looking at the BIOS. Since nothing protectable was actually copied, copyright infringement was avoided. Re-implementation doesn't count.
While I'd agree with the court that the clone (Mino) infringes on the Tetris copyright, the analysis that the court used to get there suffers from some defects in its application. Some of this may be due to the parties in the suit, for not raising certain arguments or making them well, but that's really not much of an excuse.
The court is correct that the Tetris program is not protected in its entirety by copyright, and that one of the key issues in the case is to sort out what is and isn't protected. Basically, copyright protects certain expressions of an idea, but not the underlying idea itself. It does not protect procedures, processes, systems, or methods of operation. This includes the rules of a game, which constitute the procedure for playing it. Thus any part of Tetris that is present because the rules of the game -- however arbitrary those rules might be -- require it, isn't a matter of creative expression, but a necessary incident of implementing tetris. (Creativity in copyright law, you see, is all about making choices)
Where the court errs is in determining the rules:
Tetris is a puzzle game where a user manipulates pieces composed of square blocks, each made into a different geometric shape, that fall from the top of the game board to the bottom where the pieces accumulate. The user is given a new piece after the current one reaches the bottom of the available game space. While a piece is falling, the user rotates it in order to fit it in with the accumulated pieces. The object of the puzzle is to fill all spaces along a horizontal line. If that is accomplished, the line is erased, points are earned, and more of the game board is available for play. But if the pieces accumulate and reach the top of the screen, then the game is over. These then are the general, abstract ideas underlying Tetris and cannot be protected by copyright nor can expressive elements that are inseparable from them.
As a long-time tetris player, I think that the court left a few rules out. First, tetris blocks are tetrominos -- shapes that can be formed from an assemblage of four squares each of which abuts at least one other square, both along their edges. Tetris uses all seven possible tetrominos. This is a functional aspect of the game, just like an American football has a particular size, shape, and other qualities. If football were played with, say, a baseball, it would greatly change the game. So too with Tetris and its blocks.
Second, the size and shape of the playing field is functional. An analogy: While a baseball field's dimensions can vary due to local conditions (e.g. Fenway Park's left field is short because of an adjacent street), it should be about 300 to 400 feet. Imagine how different the game would be if you tried to play baseball at Mick Shrimpton Memorial Field, where due to a mistake in the blueprints the field is only 300 inches long. Could you play a decent game in a field where home runs only need to go 25 feet? You'd better have a hell of a pitcher. Who incidentally, is comfortable standing 5 feet in front of the batter. Fields that fall within a particular range are a part of the game of tetris.
It's true that a small variation in the dimensions of the tetris playing field might not matter much, at least not to casual players. (Experts are probably highly sensitive to this.) So perhaps an argument could be made that since it needn't be a particular size and shape, and thus they are creative, copyrightable material. However, there are probably only a few small variations possible before the effect does become noticeable and affects play. In copyright, when you have a feature of a work that is creative but there are only a few possible choices that express the same uncopyrightable idea (e.g. "It was a dark and stormy night" could be "It was a pitch-black and tempestuous night" but even with a good thesaurus, there's not a hell of a lot of ways of saying the same thing), the expression is deemed to have merged with the idea. This prevents people f
Do you have a source for this? I googled a bit and nothing I could find indicates that.
I disagree that the second paragraph is about trademark and publicity. It is soundly within U.S. copyright law, as it involves reproducing a copyrighted work.
If you're merely quoting, especially from such a short post, you're likely within the realm of fair use. But using a quote to serve as an endorsement of a product or political position -- especially in a misleading fashion -- doesn't sound like copyright is an issue at all. More likely publicity rights, maybe defamation, now that I think about it.
those uses might implicate moral rights in countries that recognize those
Moral rights are bullshit. Those other countries wouldn't know sensible copyright policy if it bit them in the face. My posts are solidly in the public domain as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't put it past some jurisdictions to protect it anyway out of paternalism, even though I know my own mind on this very well.
But under U.S. law, moral rights are a fuzzy concept at best.
VARA really, and it obviously wouldn't apply here.
If the originator of the comment continues to feel enough proprietary interest in the comment to want to exercise control over how it's used, then that person has attached value to intellectual property, even if he or she isn't interested in monetizing it.
I can see a desire in wanting to control (to some event) the use of one's identity, and to avoid misleading third parties, without having to support copyright.
(Also, I wonder if you would feel the same way if your most marketable skill was the creation of artistic works that can be digitally copied. Perhaps you would. It's at least a question worth asking.)
Before I went back to school, I was a professional artist. I made a comfortable living creating works that could be digitally copied. And because the particular way in which I made money had no relation, even indirectly, to copyright, I would not have cared if people copied my work for whatever purpose. I might care if people were led to wrongly attribute certain positions to me, personally, but works I create need not be involved for that to occur.
Agreed. As it exists today, copyright certainly may be abused in ways that are clearly unethical.
That's true, but what I meant was that there are many ways of implementing copyright. One copyright statute may itself be more ethical than another statute. And our current copyright law may very well be on the bad side as compared to other possible implementations.
is it ever ethical to restrict peoples' liberties?
Depends on your system of ethics. Just as there is no single, enshrined, 'correct' copyright law, so too is there no one 'correct' set of ethics, or at least no way of telling which it is. Things would've been a lot simpler if that weren't so.
In any case, you seem to be moving toward utilitarianism in your paragraph about ethics, which is handy for me, since that's what copyright is based in. You're stopping a little short, though: The goal of copyright is to incentivize the creation and publication of as many works as possible which otherwise would not be created and published, while imposing minimal (or no) restrictions on the public with regard to those works.
An ideal world would see everyone who could create and publish a work doing so for free, with no protections, so that the work could be copied, enjoyed, modified, etc. maximally. But we don't live in that world. Instead, in the absence of copyright (as was the case from the dawn of time to 1710 in England, and later elsewhere), there are some natural incentives to create and publish, e.g. selling creative labor; selling copies as objects, rather than as instances of a work; art for art's sake; fame; etc., and thus many works are created. We know this, because that's what happened. Some of those works survived to the present day, although many others were tragically lost. And in the absence of copyright, there are no restrictions at all on the public (save for despots limiting free speech, but that applies to authors too), and so the works could be copied (which was important -- most of the things that we have from antiquity only survive due to unauthorized copying), distributed, altered, etc. The lack of copyright had no effect on quality. Shakespeare, for example, had no copyright, and copied and made derivatives almost constantly, and it worked out nicely.
In order to provide an additional incentive -- the ability to monopolize certain actions with regard to eligible works and thus command monopolist prices -- we created copyright. But the downside is that it inherently reduces our satisfaction of the second half of the goal of copyright, since now the author can prohibit the free copying, modification, etc. of copyrighted works.
If and only if the benefit to the public of granting copyrights -- i.e. the quantity of works -- is great enough to make up for the harm to the public by granting copyrights -- i.e. the inability to legally do whatever you want with the works -- then the tradeoff is acceptable. Otherwise it's not. The incentive isn't itself the goal, though. It's just the means.
(And in case you were wondering, in practice, very little copyright, in both scope and duration, is needed to act as an incentive. Further, the incentivizing effect of copyright very quickly peaks and then falls, entering the land of diminishing returns. The harm, however, only increases the longer the copyright does. Thus terms must be limited, and really must be very short, with minimal protections even during the term. And ideally, there should be a way to only grant copyrights to authors who require it as an incentive. Authors who would've created regardless of copyright should not get one, as it would produce no benefit to counteract the inevitable harm, and basically be a great waste.)
However, society clearly values content, as can be witnessed by the effort people go through to obtain content. However, they are not willing to compensate those who have footed the bill (both in time and in real money) to provide that content.
You assumed that copyright is ethically good. This may not be true, however, certainly not for all possible permutations of copyright. I'd be very interested to know why you think it is good to restrict people's liberties so as to allow a subset of people to make a living in their chosen profession. I would like to make a profession out of sitting on my couch at home, playing video games and fapping about on the Internet. Should we control people in such a way that I can make a living at it? If not, why not?
I'm not the previous poster, but with regard to your first paragraph, that's fine with me. Check out my .sig, in fact. I wish you luck.
With regard to your second paragraph, that's a completely separate issue from copyright; now you're talking about trademarks and publicity rights. The only way it would be relevant here is if we're discussing a absolute right of free speech. While I am concerned about fraud, defamation, abusing the identies of others, etc., I will admit that the idea nevertheless holds a lot of appeal. I might prefer to proceed slowly toward that, dipping the toe, rather than jumping right in, but as an experiment, there may be merit in it. And even if not, that doesn't mean that we're currently in an ideal position. It may be that we're currently limiting speech more than we ought to, and should relax our rules somewhat. (Or vice versa, or it may vary depending on the particular facts of a given case)
What moral argument is there to support the idea that merely by virtue of having created and published something, that the author should have the right to censor anyone who dares to copy it? I can see a utilitarian argument, but not an ethical one. Surely, if we must consider ethics, the pirate who copies such works without a desire for compensation, and who spreads knowledge far and wide to anyone who wans it is more ethical.
Locke's wrong on this one, though. People have a right to property if they can personally defend it, and manage to do so when necessary. Beyond that, the right to property is a matter of consensus. If enough people think that you own something, then you do. If they think that you don't, they'll separate you and it. This is why I may own the clothes on my back, but I don't own the Brooklyn Bridge.
The purpose of government is certainly, in part, to protect this consensus, but also to enforce it against outliers who disagree. The same force that is used to defend property from trespassers is frequently used to take it from those too weak to resist.
Copyright is more clearly utilitarian, but at the end of the day, all property is, even if we didn't recognize this as we created laws about it and tried to explain it at the time.
This is why, if you look at the Declaration of Independence, when Jefferson cribs from Locke, he only mentions life and liberty, and adds his own 'pursuit of happiness', but ignores Locke's 'property.' Jefferson knew it wasn't a human right.
Yes, it's easy for us. In fact, IIRC, both the Predsident can do this (as he has power regarding international relations) and in effect Congress, by passing laws that override the treaty, even though it's still signed.
But don't most treaties have withdrawal clauses that permit parties to leave them after having given some notice?
No. Within the US, treaties are below the level of the constitution and at the same level as federal law. Congress could pass a law that conflicts with whatever treaty the ITU operates under, and the more recent of the two would win. All of those are above state constitutions and other state laws, however. Treaties are decidedly not on par or superior to the federal constitution (or it's amendments, which are just part of the constitution).
No they're not. At least not according to the US constitution. Rather, they're on the level below, equal to federal law (where the most recent will take priority, if there's a conflict). They are, however, superior to state constitutions and state laws, which may be what you're thinking of.
The movie you're thinking of is Song of the South.
Grocery stores used to have all the food behind a counter, and the customers had to ask a clerk to get it for them. The self-service model in which the customers retrieve their own items and take them to a clerk at the exit has almost entirely taken over, however. The losses from people shoplifting (which is vastly easier with self-serv) are more than made up for from the increased bandwidth and customer satisfaction; if this were not the case, the stores wouldn't've changed.
Just because a business model carries with it an increased risk of free riding, that doesn't mean it isn't better than the alternative. See also mass transit networks that use the honor system for ticket taking.
Just imagine if you could make an infinite number of free copies of the scotch. ;)
Eh, for manned landing missions, I'd rather that the historical preservation zone extend to the horizon (inclusive of the skyline). The desolation they encountered is important, IMO. Otherwise you'd have something like the Eagle descent stage surrounded by the Tranquility Mall food court someday. The moon is big, and they never went very far, so this isn't a big deal.
Let the rule apply to anyone's first manned landing site (unless they waive it), and all manned landings prior to the beginning of real industrial development. Unmanned probes need only a small area around them, though, I think.
There is still a market for creative labor. There is still a market for some goods which happen to embody creativity, eg original works of art (as distinguished from copies; the original Mona Lisa is worth more than a poster of it). But it seems that the market for many creative goods that was enabled by copyright and certain technological advances in mass reproduction and transmission, is dying.
So be it. For most of human history that last market didn't exist, and yet there was art, and we got by. Copyright as we knew it may have been an aberration. I think we can save some of it, but we must remember that copyright isn't worthwhile on its own; rather, it's a means to an end. If our priorities change, so must copyright.
What about an orange drink made out of Cheeto powder mixed with water?
The implication here is that HBO owes everyone something (the content). ⦠Just because something is produced does not mean it automatically grants everyone the right to said thing.
Well, I don't think that they owe anyone anything. It would be immoral to compel an author to create a work, or distribute or perform a work. If HBO decided to cancel the series, we should not force them to resume it. (We can ask, we can put forth arguments that might convince them to reconsider, but we can't force them)
But that's not the situation here. Here, HBO has created and performed the work of their own volition. No one could rightly force them to put it on the Internet as a freely downloadable file. But if some third party did that without HBO's involvement, then it would be wrong for HBO to take action to prevent this. At least, insofar as we care about morality here, as opposed to utility, which is a lot better suited to this issue, I think.
And yes, if a creative work is created, everyone does have rights to it. This is an inherent part of free speech: the right to repeat verbatim what someone else has already said. Now, again, there is no right to force someone to create a work or to share it with you in some fashion. So if the work is kept secret, your right is moot; you don't have knowledge of the work or access to it. But once the author willingly grants you a look, you have the right to share it with anyone else, and you can see how it snowballs from there.
We put legal constraints on this for utilitarian -- not moral -- reasons. But they're artificial and ultimately optional. There is no right of an author to force none else to grant and respect copyrights. If we do so, it's because it suits us, and only to the extent that it suits us. (At least assuming the laws are not corrupt) In the absence of these laws, one may do as he pleases.
That's why there is a law that summons copyrights into being, and a law that dismisses them back again, but no law that grants rights in uncopyrighted works to the public, because there is no need for such a law; that is what happens automatically.
It is recognized as an artist/creators right to restrict access to what they have created.
In this context, you are describing a legal right, not a moral right. Don't confuse legality with morality; there are plenty of immoral things which are legal, moral things which are illegal, and laws -- such as copyright -- which are meant to follow other principles, and are merely expected to be amoral.
The reason, at least the alleged reason, why copyrights are granted (at least in the US, though it's the only sensible reason, anyway) is that it promotes the public interest. Not because authors are entitled to it, or because it's the right thing to do. Copyright is supposed to promote the progress of science by encouraging the creation and publication of certain creative works while minimizing the harm it necessarily causes the public, so as to produce a net public benefit. Nothing to do with morals; just utility.
Is HBO acting morally by denying people access to a what is effectively a published, creative work, unless they pay for it? It might be necessary for their business model, it might even be a reasonable and generally unobjectionable practice, but restricting the availability of culture for mere money doesn't strike me as being affirmatively moral.
Generally I regard copyright as an amoral field, governed mainly by utility. But if I had to look for a moral dimension, surely it would be on the side of the subset of pirates who, whatever their other failings, at least disseminate published creative works to anyone who wants them, for free, and often in a more useful form than the legitimate publisher. (This would exclude commercial pirates, ad-supported or ratio-supported pirates, etc., but it still leaves plenty)
Remember, just because HBO has the right, i.e. the legal authority, to control the distribution of the work, that doesn't make them right, i.e. morally justified, to do so.
Basically a 5 year film run is: 1 year for theater, 1 year for ppv, 1 year for dvd, 1 year for HBO, 1 year for network/basic cable.
Not that slow. Now movies are out on video within a few months (3-6 IME) of their initial theatrical release (with second run theaters in between). Tiered TV releases (PPV, premium cable, basic cable, network) over the course of a couple of years, slowing down as it goes along.
The best serious work I've seen on this is a paper by Rufus Pollock, which you can read here. IIRC he figures it at about 15 years. I can't follow it, unfortunately, but he seems to be using real math.
I'd love to see more analysis on the subject. I have a gut feeling that the term should be about 25 years, shorter for some classes of works (especially software), with some classes of works not eligible (e.g. architecture), and with annual or bi-annual renewals, along with a registration system. But I'd gladly yield to something more rigorously worked out. So long as it produces the greatest net public good, I'm on board.
If we grant too little protection for the creation of media, we become a bleak society lacking in culture.
Nobody granted any protection of that sort until 1710, and then only in England, and not in most of the world until well into the 19th and 20th centuries.
But I would not say that the vast majority of the history of the world is lacking in culture. Hell, we've certainly lost more culture in the past than we'll ever know, and we've still saved an amazing amount of great stuff.
We would be fine without copyright. The idea of copyright is that it can produce a better outcome than the no-copyright baseline, even accounting for the harm that copyright necessarily causes. If so, it's worth doing, but abandoning it is always a viable option.
If we grant too much, we become decadent; awash in media spectacle.
No, rent seeking behavior by copyright holders tends to prevent this. Why bother creating enough works to have us awash in them if you can just shut down any competition and not waste money improving anything you've done yourself?