I guarantee you that Shakespeare never copyrighted his work, so I don't see how your example applies to this discussion.
Previously you said: I don't see what the problem is unless you want to profit from slicing and dicing somebody else's work.
You didn't limit yourself to only copyrighted work. Shakespeare's work is not my own, therefore, you appear to think that were I to use it for profit, that ought to be problematical for me. Copyright never was your concern.
If you want to limit yourself to copyrighted works, then that is fine, but remember that copyright doesn't protect any and all uses of the works to which it applies; copyright permits numerous uses of protected works without authorization and for profit. Even if an author is hopping mad about such uses, and forbids them altogether, the uses can still continue, because the users have every legal right to engage in them.
So feel free to backtrack, but I don't think you'll gain anything by it.
I doubt that Google's staff deliberately chooses items to put on their page. Probably they have several search queries for the most recent, most important news, and people automatically get that when they go to the front page. Compare with a newspaper, which will often only change their page once a day, unless something astonishingly important happens.
It's probably like if Google's main page automatically displayed the most recent, most commonly searched for results to save people the time of having to think of what they wanted to search for themselves. It would be weird, but I don't see a big problem.
Also, and probably more importantly, you should know that courts look to precedents when there are similarities between that case and this in any relevant respect, and look away from cited precedents when they can be distinguished as dissimilar. An excellent and famous example is US v. Carolene Products, which forms the backbone of modern due process jurisprudence, and was instrumental in breaking down racial segregation laws, and which deals merely with the regulation of milk products. The Google News homepage doesn't have to be a search engine results page to enjoy the benefit of Kelly.
The problem for your argument is that Google has a strong precedent in their favor that their previous behavior was not only not questionable, but was perfectly legitimate. (In fact, IIRC, Google didn't have Image Search running until after the matter had already been litigated by another search engine) It would not be difficult to build upon this, if indeed, the two cases can be distinguished at all.
Plus, fair uses are never even so much as questionable. The question is merely whether or not the use is fair to begin with. If it is, it is completely protected by copyright law and guarantees of free speech, in exactly the same way that the original artists are protected when they create the work to begin with.
Well, the number one change I'd like to make to copyright is to make it opt in, rather than opt out.
That is, I'd like to undo the recent change to our copyright system that grants copyrights automatically. Instead, we'd return to the old system of only granting copyrights to published works upon request (with some of the new system of limiting the time and protection for unpublished works, to encourage the author to either publish or let it enter the public domain). All that would be necessary for any author, anywhere in the world, to get a US copyright, would be to fill out a very simple form, provide a few copies (possibly in specified formats) to the Library of Congress, to put a copyright notice on copies of the work, and to pay a nominal fee (I'd be happy with as low as $1). For published works, where publication is treated very broadly (e.g. including public performance) authors would have one year to register, or else the work is deemed to be retroactively in the public domain.
Since copyright is meant solely to promote the public interest by encouraging authors to create and publish works which otherwise would not have been created and published, which are minimally protected in scope and length, this would serve to get works where the author created them without needing the encouragement of copyright into the public domain faster (since such authors probably won't bother to seek a copyright), while allowing authors that do need that encouragement (who presumably will take such modest steps listed above to get a copyright) to get it.
Everyone ends up happy.
This is far better than granting copyrights to everyone willy-nilly, as we currently do. Under the current system there is a lot of waste, with works getting protection when authors don't need it, care about it, or even want it (but don't care about the issue so much as to take affirmative measures to place their works in the public domain), and thus being kept out of the hands of the public to use freely, while only helping a small number of artists who, history shows, would gladly jump through at least nominal hoops in order to get such rights. It's entirely backwards, what we've got now.
Lawsuits won't help to change this, but lobbying the President and Congress to make the necessary changes to our law and have the US withdraw from any treaties that would (stupidly) interfere with this reasonable and important reform. Of course, I'd be happy to see various copyright treaties implement something similar, but I'd prefer that the US take action on this quickly, rather than wait around for the rest of the world. After all, we didn't join the Berne Convention until the 1980's, so clearly both we, and the rest of the world, can get along fine without us participating, until they get their own house in order too.
Are you suggesting that I ought not to be allowed to, say, slice and dice Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet,' changing the script and setting as I see fit, adding new elements, and staging a performance for profit? I'm not Shakespeare, after all, and I guarantee you that Shakespeare never gave me permission to do so.
And indeed, that argument was made in Kelly v. Arriba Soft, back in 2002. The court in that case decided that image thumbnails produced as search results were a fair use.
The use was commercial, which counted against defendants, but transformative (instead of being pictures qua pictures, they were merely search result) which counted for. The pictures were creative works, but published, which counted against, but not so much against as it might. They copied the entire work, but this was no more than necessary for users to be able to identify the results, so it counted neither for nor against. And the use as thumbnails in search engine results didn't harm the market for the images themselves, so that counted for.
Which is like having your neighbor say it was OK to use your pool without your permission because they did the same thing to the guy down the street.
No, it's more like if your house is plainly visible from the sidewalk, with no tall hedges, or anything else obstructing the view, and your neighbor stands on the sidewalk and looks at it. The house may be your property, but he is perfectly within his rights to look at it, if you haven't concealed it in some fashion.
Remember: Copyright is defined by statute, and is limited; it does not cover absolutely anything regarding a work. An author's rights in his work stop at the border of fair use (among other things). Fairly using a work simply does not, and cannot infringe, by definition.
Of course, I'm not surprised to see the sort of rent-seeking behavior that you seem to condone. We just have to stand firm against those who would disparage fair use (which, because fair use is meant to promote public policy with regard to copyright, is really a disparagement of copyright as a whole).
Unfortunately, on the iPhone at least, a lot of programs that want a keypad wind up kludging it and using the telephone keypad (with the letters) when it would seem more sensible to have it be strictly numeric in appearance.
And it was centrists and conservatives who liked the health care bill (although perhaps not the President in office at the time). Liberals tend to prefer universal, single payer health care systems, which were never even seriously considered by those in power.
What the hell is wrong with you retards that any criticism of the current boondoggle must mean we don't want to change anything?
Fair enough. It's entirely possible that you might want to change things to make them even worse.
Seriously, though, while I'm not a fan of the current legislation, as I said, this is because I don't think it is sweeping enough, and I don't think it will accomplish everything we need. Most people who have been opposed to this reform, however, seem to have been opposed to any reform that is in line with the reforms I personally support.
If you'd like to discuss how we could set up a universal, single-payer system in the US, let's talk.
I would also add, no matter how poor you are, you don't have a right to your neighbors' money.
Well, there is, of course, a pragmatic argument to be made. People understand that it's wise to have a fire department to keep fires from spreading, growing out of control, and burning down entire towns as used to happen. A modest investment protects against possible catastrophic loss, which is even better than merely being compensated after the fact for such a loss.
Think of the cost of providing a decent minimum standard of living for your countrymen as being a way to protect against violent revolution. The US came close to this in the 1930's, and if we had not had the New Deal, we very well might have one that would be far worse for wealthy people than anything FDR did.
So if those neighbors would like to keep most of their money, a modest investment is not such a bad idea. Given that there's usually a whole lot more poor people than rich people, and given that a large enough group of people have a perfect right to reorganize their government and society as they see fit, but that contentment doesn't cost a lot (no one wants strawberries and cream here, just honest work, a decent living wage, a reasonable standard of living, including access to health care when needed, particularly preventative care), it's not a bad idea at all.
You might say that this sounds ugly, and if the problem is left to fester, it can be. But that's the reality of the situation. Ignoring it for whatever reason -- the 'let them eat cake' approach -- has predictably bad outcomes.
A high earning physician told me his tax load will increase by $100,000 per year when this bill is fully implemented. That has a nice populist sound to it--tax the rich, give it to the poor. But the people who won't see that money will be master carpenters and their assistants, automobile factory workers, boat builders, waiters and bus boys, and all those businesses that he would have spent the money on. Also, the money won't be invested into the stock market. Instead, it will go to a new bulked up government bureaucracy which will then redistribute some fraction of it to this new policy purpose.
So you're saying that we should not try to improve health care in the US, if it involves taxing wealthy people more, since it would interfere with trickle down economic policies?
I hate to break it to you, friend, but we've had ill-conceived forms of this since Reagan (and long before, in fact), and it never works unless the tax rate is absurdly high (and it isn't now, and won't be even after the bill takes effect). Even then it's somewhat dubious.
Personally, though, my complaint with the bill is not that it goes too far, but that it doesn't go too far enough. We need a single payer system.
However 1) Beethoven would probably have got paid an awful lot more for his work before it got copied
Probably not; everyone knew it would be copied if it was any good, so the only premium would be based on a first mover advantage, or being able to claim that it was an authorized edition. Beethoven did make some money by having copies of his music sold, but he also made money as a performer, and through patronage.
2) having the sheet music (which needs a skilled group to play it) is nowhere near the same as having a perfect copy of the artist's performance
Sure, but even Beethoven himself didn't have perfect copies of his own performances. Sound recording technology didn't exist at the time.
"Sensible" as in "completely short-sighted and self-serving", yes. But not "sensible" as in "has some kind of logical basis that isn't to the detriment of the people putting in the work".
Well, it's cleary not short-sighted. Copyright can yield a greater payoff to the public than not having copyright at all, but it forces you to wait, and it isn't a terribly obvious way of doing things (although it is fairly elegant). Copyright is self-serving on the part of the public, but this is to be expected, and is perfectly reasonable. Why should the public do something that would be utterly contrary to their self-interest, after all? Why should the government be in the business of doing things that are completely against the good of the people? That's not why we empower them to govern. Even the ludicrous financial industry bailout of late has had to be justified with claims that it would ultimately benefit everyone more than not doing it, and it's a pretty naked example of corruption, in the opinion of many people.
Authors aren't special little snowflakes who, merely by virtue of their existence, deserve special rights that can be exercised against the world. How arrogant and appalling that would be. We grant authors copyrights because it is a means of exploiting them for the overall public benefit, even after taking into account the cost of copyright borne by the public. Think of a farmer getting a donkey to pull a cart, by dangling a carrot in front of its nose. The farmer might spend the cost of a single carrot in the process, but he gets to sell the rest of the cartload once the donkey gets him to market. Both sides benefit, but the farmer benefits more; that's copyright.
So the pro-copying people say, but my wife is an amateur author and wouldn't want to try to publish her books if everyone was free to copy it
Okay, why? It can't be that she's afraid of how it might be received, as a book can be a success or a failure regardless of copyright. It can't be that her muse would leave her if she published her work; the creative impulse isn't lessened by sharing a work.
And copyright seeks to have authors publish their work. While some protection might be appropriate for an unfinished work, or unpublished work, provided that the author didn't abandon it, the ultimate goal of copyright is to increase the number of works in the public domain. If a work is kept under lock and key with no intention of ever being published, it is contrary to good copyright policy to grant the author a copyright. So while she could be concerned about it becoming published at all, there's no reason for us to enable her. In fact, the hunger for more works being what it is, having the MS pirated would be better in that case.
So why, if not for an economic reason?
'm a programmer with apps released under the GPL and I wouldn't bother with any of those projects if it wasn't for copyright. If I want to put in my time and effort to write a program to help people, and as 'payment' I want people to contribute changes back when they distribute (a requirement that can only really happen under copyright, since EULAs are void in many nations and dubious in others) but I can't guarantee that then I wouldn't bother with the apps and I'd just waste away my time on more private hobbie
Nevertheless, file sharing is rampant, and has been for over a decade (I can't believe how long it's been since Napster came out and was shut down). If it was so terrifically deadly to the industry, why haven't we seen various major companies go out of business as a direct result?
And, even if file sharing could bring down the likes of Sony, or EMI, and would reduce the number of works created and published, the question remains as to whether or not the public would be better off with fewer works, but more freedom as to those works, or more works, but less freedom as to them. My feeling is that the former is the way to go. I don't think there would be a significant reduction in the number of works, but there would be a far greater increase in our ability to enjoy works.
Plus, laws should generally reflect our social norms. If a law is contrary to how we generally behave when we feel we're doing the right thing, then it should be looked at critically. This is appropriate in a democratically-based country, where the government receives its legitimacy on the basis of the consent of the people. In some cases the law can be justified because it useful to society, even though it is not obviously so; in other cases, it might be important to protect unpopular minorities or civil liberties exercised in unpopular ways. For example, most people speed, and no one likes getting a speeding ticket, even if it is deserved, but most people would agree that posting and enforcing speed limits is important for safety. Prohibition was quite popular in its day, and people honestly thought it was for the best, but everyone flaunted it, and the disrespect for that law resulted in widespread corruption, violence, and strengthened organized crime. But as the federal government pursued desegregation, contrary to the wishes of very many people, they acted correctly.
If copyright laws are being widely ignored, we had better examine them. Do people think the laws are appropriate, but everyone hopes to get away with breaking them, as with speed limits? Do people lack respect for these particular laws (though perhaps not some alternative copyright law that was more in line with our norms), with the danger that such disrespect could bleed over into more important areas? Or is the law as it is more important than what people feel the law ought to be, leading to it being enforced on a society that largely rejects it?
Personally, I think that copyright ought to be respected, but it must first be deserving of respect. If it is going to be broken, it should be like speeding tickets, where people might try to sneak under the radar for their own convenience, but do sometimes get caught, and don't reject the concept behind the law, or the law itself. But right now it is like Prohibition, and is far stronger than it really ought to be. It's not like civil liberties, as it just isn't that important.
In the time of Beethoven then music couldn't easily be copied
Yes it could; there was a well-known system of notation, and plenty of printers who could print more copies of sheet music. It might not have been as easy as it is now, but there were pirate printers. (Although to be fair, the market for regular books was bigger, so it had more pirates) Sound recordings couldn't be made at all yet, but that only helped to keep performers in business, not composers. And Beethoven himself had to put up with pirates and such.
Ease of copying is really a red herring. You think copying is easy now, but I'm sure that someday there will be technologies that make it even more effortless, and the people living then will think that we had a hard time of it with our primitive Internet and puny computers.
At any point in time you care to name, legitimate and illegitimate publishers have enjoyed either a parity in technology (whether that technology is quill pens, or movable type, or CD presses), or the legitimate publishers have enjoyed an advantage due to their being able to operate more openly, being able to raise and spend more money, having first mover advantage, etc.
There is no technological reason why the RIAA, MPAA, etc. cannot use P2P file sharing in order to distribute their goods. Pirates have no advantage here. In fact, the industry could probably even get better equipment and network connections than people working out of their parents' basements.
They just can't figure out how to make money doing it. It's a business problem, not a technological one.
Now that it is easily copyable, people assume that they have some all-powerful right to take whatever they want for no particular reason and with no compensation, and I've yet to see any sensible reason why that doesn't devolve to "because I can and because I want everything for free".
People have always thought that. And frankly, you nailed the sensible reason. 'Because I can, and because I want things for free (i.e. I want to profit the most from the least investment)' is a perfectly sensible reason.
I mean, what did you think copyright was? Copyright attempts to encourage authors to create and publish works, by providing a purely economic incentive. A copyright won't confer fame, or help an artist create for art's sake. Rather, a copyright is a way for authors to prohibit other people from competing with them for identical, commodity goods. It only appeals to an author's desire to profit the most from the least investment.
Authors and pirates have exactly the same motives. Neither side is more righteous than the other. It's all just self-interest: The self-interest of the public is to get more creative works at the least cost. This is done by appealing to the self-interest of authors to get more money, which they'll do at the least cost to themselves. Frankly, if one or both sides were not so greedy, copyright either wouldn't be useful, or wouldn't function.
In a world with no copyright for "non commercial" distribution of work how is anyone who creates a non subscription fee based computer game or e-book supposed to make money given that the work will be freely available on file sharing sites?
But wait, we already have non-subscription fee-based computer games and e-books that are freely available on file sharing sites. That world you mention was Earth all along! You maniacs!
Really though, the trick is 1) making commercial resellers more attractive than their non-commercial competitors; 2) keeping a very close eye on the non-commercial sites, which presumably couldn't have ads, couldn't solicit donations, couldn't have upload/download ratios, etc.; 3) if all else fails, making different kinds of works or accepting that there will be less money flowing in. No one ever said that certain art forms would be permanently viable. Vaudeville should teach us that.
Also, what if they infringe upon the GPL and use works before it goes into public domain? It's difficult to tell if the company wrote the feature or if they used a patch illegally, and there's a good chance that the work will have gone to public domain before legal threat is over as long as it's not a really new feature.
1) Mandate that for all works that include software where a copyright is sought, the author has to deposit a complete copy of the software -- including such supplementary information as the Copyright Office deems necessary in order that other people having skill in the field can reasonably understand and make use of it -- at the Library of Congress.
In practice, this would mean commented source code, instructions as to the intended platform, compiler, etc. Like anything else, it would be available to read through at all times. But, during the copyright term, it would be infringing to copy it, etc. Basically, it'd be just like a book; being allowed to read it and learn from it doesn't allow you to start printing it yourself. Think 'inspectable source' rather than open source.
2) If an infringement occurs -- obviously before the copyright is terminated -- a lawsuit can still be brought even if the copyright expires during the course of litigation. No one is going to get thrown out of court for that, it just means that you probably wouldn't bother asking for a permanent injunction or anything. This is no big deal.
Author should receive all attribution and credit, and certainly has the right to that. He also should have the right to forbid this attribution if parts of this information are used inappropriately (e.g. pasting a face into a pornographic image, or farting a sonnet); he should, however, be able to forbid the public of composing and publicizing the inappropriacies.
Why? Would authors refuse to create and publish their works otherwise? If so, why has such a prediction never come to pass in the US?
I wouldn't go so far as to endorse actual fraud (e.g. if you want to buy a book advertised as being written by Alice, but it was actually written by Bob), which is harm caused to the audience more than the author, but otherwise I simply don't see any public benefit from giving authors these rights. If an author disapproves of how his work is used, the better solution is for him to add to the discussion and tell us of his opinion, and why he holds it, and why we should be cross with the other person, rather than to silence someone.
So if I use 3-4 years to learn an instrument, 1 year to write songs, 2 months and 10 000$ to rent a studio and record an album, I should only get paid 20$ for one CD which the buyer then can copy and sell as many times as he wants?
Of course, if you spend several years to learn how to play music, you spend a year writing music, you spend months and money recording music and making copies to sell, you very well might only sell one CD to a reviewer who tells everyone that you suck, and not sell any more copies beyond that.
The mere fact that you invested in an enterprise does not entitle you to make a return on that investment, or to have laws set up which even permit you to make a return on that investment.
What you need to do is to convince other people why it is in their best interest to set up laws that at least permit you to turn a profit, provided that your product is any good. It isn't hard, but the burden falls on you. And of course, there's a whole range of possible laws to choose from. It could be that the public at large would feel that their needs are best served by copyright laws which give authors some incentive to create and publish, but not as much as other laws, while restricting the public, but not as much as other laws (e.g. allowing non-commercial copying, etc., but not the scenario you describe).
It is important to separate copyright into commercial and moral rights. It is very possible to want to give copyright holders less commercial rights, while keeping or even strengthening the moral rights such as the right to be recognized as the creator of a work. In my opinion, moral rights should also not be for sale. (from my understanding, they aren't here in Sweden)
Sure. But the underlying utilitarian question doesn't change. Why is the public better off granting moral rights than not granting moral rights? In the US, we didn't even recognize the validity of the concept for ages, and even now we only grant them for treaty compliance, and do it in a carefully half-assed way so that they're essentially unavailable. But this has never seemed to harm our authors or industries. So what's in it for us? How would it result in having more works created, and published, with as few restrictions as possible, for as little time as possible?
It seems Pirate Party UK's one of the core policies is reformin copyright and patent law so that non-commercial file sharing would be legalized. While certainly a noble goal, shouldn't content producers, artists, programmers, and basically anyone producing something have a right to their work?
That's certainly possible, and I'm open to the idea. However, that raises additional questions: What rights should they have? Should these rights be subject to any exceptions or limitations? For how long should they last? Against whom should they be enforceable? What remedies should be available if the rights are infringed upon? Should there be any prerequisites in order to acquire and/or enforce these rights?
And above all else, is the public left better off under such a regime, as opposed to not granting such rights, and if so, are there any other rights regimes that would produce a still better public outcome? If not, why should such a regime be tolerated?
In this exact case copyright is used to allow the author to make sure he is attributed and his work isn't misused.
Well, reasonable people can differ over whether it is worthwhile to have such rights, but assuming that we were to have them, how does that conflict with allowing non-commercial file sharing without authorization or payment? So long as the torrent indicates that the mp3 is a song performed by Alice, and written by Bob, and given that mere file sharing doesn't 'misuse' a work (although I'm baffled as to how a work could ever be misused, given that it can't be used up in the process), there should be no problem.
Unless an article is very short, quoting 80% of it is not fair use.
Well, that depends on the circumstances. The amount of the work used, and the substantiality of the portion of the work used is a factor in determing if the use is fair, but there isn't a hard number.
Slashdot Mirror
I guarantee you that Shakespeare never copyrighted his work, so I don't see how your example applies to this discussion.
Previously you said: I don't see what the problem is unless you want to profit from slicing and dicing somebody else's work.
You didn't limit yourself to only copyrighted work. Shakespeare's work is not my own, therefore, you appear to think that were I to use it for profit, that ought to be problematical for me. Copyright never was your concern.
If you want to limit yourself to copyrighted works, then that is fine, but remember that copyright doesn't protect any and all uses of the works to which it applies; copyright permits numerous uses of protected works without authorization and for profit. Even if an author is hopping mad about such uses, and forbids them altogether, the uses can still continue, because the users have every legal right to engage in them.
So feel free to backtrack, but I don't think you'll gain anything by it.
Your reference, sir.
I doubt that Google's staff deliberately chooses items to put on their page. Probably they have several search queries for the most recent, most important news, and people automatically get that when they go to the front page. Compare with a newspaper, which will often only change their page once a day, unless something astonishingly important happens.
It's probably like if Google's main page automatically displayed the most recent, most commonly searched for results to save people the time of having to think of what they wanted to search for themselves. It would be weird, but I don't see a big problem.
Also, and probably more importantly, you should know that courts look to precedents when there are similarities between that case and this in any relevant respect, and look away from cited precedents when they can be distinguished as dissimilar. An excellent and famous example is US v. Carolene Products, which forms the backbone of modern due process jurisprudence, and was instrumental in breaking down racial segregation laws, and which deals merely with the regulation of milk products. The Google News homepage doesn't have to be a search engine results page to enjoy the benefit of Kelly.
The problem for your argument is that Google has a strong precedent in their favor that their previous behavior was not only not questionable, but was perfectly legitimate. (In fact, IIRC, Google didn't have Image Search running until after the matter had already been litigated by another search engine) It would not be difficult to build upon this, if indeed, the two cases can be distinguished at all.
Plus, fair uses are never even so much as questionable. The question is merely whether or not the use is fair to begin with. If it is, it is completely protected by copyright law and guarantees of free speech, in exactly the same way that the original artists are protected when they create the work to begin with.
Well, the number one change I'd like to make to copyright is to make it opt in, rather than opt out.
That is, I'd like to undo the recent change to our copyright system that grants copyrights automatically. Instead, we'd return to the old system of only granting copyrights to published works upon request (with some of the new system of limiting the time and protection for unpublished works, to encourage the author to either publish or let it enter the public domain). All that would be necessary for any author, anywhere in the world, to get a US copyright, would be to fill out a very simple form, provide a few copies (possibly in specified formats) to the Library of Congress, to put a copyright notice on copies of the work, and to pay a nominal fee (I'd be happy with as low as $1). For published works, where publication is treated very broadly (e.g. including public performance) authors would have one year to register, or else the work is deemed to be retroactively in the public domain.
Since copyright is meant solely to promote the public interest by encouraging authors to create and publish works which otherwise would not have been created and published, which are minimally protected in scope and length, this would serve to get works where the author created them without needing the encouragement of copyright into the public domain faster (since such authors probably won't bother to seek a copyright), while allowing authors that do need that encouragement (who presumably will take such modest steps listed above to get a copyright) to get it.
Everyone ends up happy.
This is far better than granting copyrights to everyone willy-nilly, as we currently do. Under the current system there is a lot of waste, with works getting protection when authors don't need it, care about it, or even want it (but don't care about the issue so much as to take affirmative measures to place their works in the public domain), and thus being kept out of the hands of the public to use freely, while only helping a small number of artists who, history shows, would gladly jump through at least nominal hoops in order to get such rights. It's entirely backwards, what we've got now.
Lawsuits won't help to change this, but lobbying the President and Congress to make the necessary changes to our law and have the US withdraw from any treaties that would (stupidly) interfere with this reasonable and important reform. Of course, I'd be happy to see various copyright treaties implement something similar, but I'd prefer that the US take action on this quickly, rather than wait around for the rest of the world. After all, we didn't join the Berne Convention until the 1980's, so clearly both we, and the rest of the world, can get along fine without us participating, until they get their own house in order too.
Are you suggesting that I ought not to be allowed to, say, slice and dice Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet,' changing the script and setting as I see fit, adding new elements, and staging a performance for profit? I'm not Shakespeare, after all, and I guarantee you that Shakespeare never gave me permission to do so.
And indeed, that argument was made in Kelly v. Arriba Soft, back in 2002. The court in that case decided that image thumbnails produced as search results were a fair use.
The use was commercial, which counted against defendants, but transformative (instead of being pictures qua pictures, they were merely search result) which counted for. The pictures were creative works, but published, which counted against, but not so much against as it might. They copied the entire work, but this was no more than necessary for users to be able to identify the results, so it counted neither for nor against. And the use as thumbnails in search engine results didn't harm the market for the images themselves, so that counted for.
Which is like having your neighbor say it was OK to use your pool without your permission because they did the same thing to the guy down the street.
No, it's more like if your house is plainly visible from the sidewalk, with no tall hedges, or anything else obstructing the view, and your neighbor stands on the sidewalk and looks at it. The house may be your property, but he is perfectly within his rights to look at it, if you haven't concealed it in some fashion.
Remember: Copyright is defined by statute, and is limited; it does not cover absolutely anything regarding a work. An author's rights in his work stop at the border of fair use (among other things). Fairly using a work simply does not, and cannot infringe, by definition.
Of course, I'm not surprised to see the sort of rent-seeking behavior that you seem to condone. We just have to stand firm against those who would disparage fair use (which, because fair use is meant to promote public policy with regard to copyright, is really a disparagement of copyright as a whole).
Unfortunately, on the iPhone at least, a lot of programs that want a keypad wind up kludging it and using the telephone keypad (with the letters) when it would seem more sensible to have it be strictly numeric in appearance.
Anyway, the new Tardis is kinda SteamPunk, and I can't argue with that.
Eh, it's not that good compared to the control room that the 8th Doctor had.
And it was centrists and conservatives who liked the health care bill (although perhaps not the President in office at the time). Liberals tend to prefer universal, single payer health care systems, which were never even seriously considered by those in power.
What the hell is wrong with you retards that any criticism of the current boondoggle must mean we don't want to change anything?
Fair enough. It's entirely possible that you might want to change things to make them even worse.
Seriously, though, while I'm not a fan of the current legislation, as I said, this is because I don't think it is sweeping enough, and I don't think it will accomplish everything we need. Most people who have been opposed to this reform, however, seem to have been opposed to any reform that is in line with the reforms I personally support.
If you'd like to discuss how we could set up a universal, single-payer system in the US, let's talk.
I would also add, no matter how poor you are, you don't have a right to your neighbors' money.
Well, there is, of course, a pragmatic argument to be made. People understand that it's wise to have a fire department to keep fires from spreading, growing out of control, and burning down entire towns as used to happen. A modest investment protects against possible catastrophic loss, which is even better than merely being compensated after the fact for such a loss.
Think of the cost of providing a decent minimum standard of living for your countrymen as being a way to protect against violent revolution. The US came close to this in the 1930's, and if we had not had the New Deal, we very well might have one that would be far worse for wealthy people than anything FDR did.
So if those neighbors would like to keep most of their money, a modest investment is not such a bad idea. Given that there's usually a whole lot more poor people than rich people, and given that a large enough group of people have a perfect right to reorganize their government and society as they see fit, but that contentment doesn't cost a lot (no one wants strawberries and cream here, just honest work, a decent living wage, a reasonable standard of living, including access to health care when needed, particularly preventative care), it's not a bad idea at all.
You might say that this sounds ugly, and if the problem is left to fester, it can be. But that's the reality of the situation. Ignoring it for whatever reason -- the 'let them eat cake' approach -- has predictably bad outcomes.
A high earning physician told me his tax load will increase by $100,000 per year when this bill is fully implemented. That has a nice populist sound to it--tax the rich, give it to the poor. But the people who won't see that money will be master carpenters and their assistants, automobile factory workers, boat builders, waiters and bus boys, and all those businesses that he would have spent the money on. Also, the money won't be invested into the stock market. Instead, it will go to a new bulked up government bureaucracy which will then redistribute some fraction of it to this new policy purpose.
So you're saying that we should not try to improve health care in the US, if it involves taxing wealthy people more, since it would interfere with trickle down economic policies?
I hate to break it to you, friend, but we've had ill-conceived forms of this since Reagan (and long before, in fact), and it never works unless the tax rate is absurdly high (and it isn't now, and won't be even after the bill takes effect). Even then it's somewhat dubious.
Personally, though, my complaint with the bill is not that it goes too far, but that it doesn't go too far enough. We need a single payer system.
Don't you mean Get off my LAN?
However 1) Beethoven would probably have got paid an awful lot more for his work before it got copied
Probably not; everyone knew it would be copied if it was any good, so the only premium would be based on a first mover advantage, or being able to claim that it was an authorized edition. Beethoven did make some money by having copies of his music sold, but he also made money as a performer, and through patronage.
2) having the sheet music (which needs a skilled group to play it) is nowhere near the same as having a perfect copy of the artist's performance
Sure, but even Beethoven himself didn't have perfect copies of his own performances. Sound recording technology didn't exist at the time.
"Sensible" as in "completely short-sighted and self-serving", yes. But not "sensible" as in "has some kind of logical basis that isn't to the detriment of the people putting in the work".
Well, it's cleary not short-sighted. Copyright can yield a greater payoff to the public than not having copyright at all, but it forces you to wait, and it isn't a terribly obvious way of doing things (although it is fairly elegant). Copyright is self-serving on the part of the public, but this is to be expected, and is perfectly reasonable. Why should the public do something that would be utterly contrary to their self-interest, after all? Why should the government be in the business of doing things that are completely against the good of the people? That's not why we empower them to govern. Even the ludicrous financial industry bailout of late has had to be justified with claims that it would ultimately benefit everyone more than not doing it, and it's a pretty naked example of corruption, in the opinion of many people.
Authors aren't special little snowflakes who, merely by virtue of their existence, deserve special rights that can be exercised against the world. How arrogant and appalling that would be. We grant authors copyrights because it is a means of exploiting them for the overall public benefit, even after taking into account the cost of copyright borne by the public. Think of a farmer getting a donkey to pull a cart, by dangling a carrot in front of its nose. The farmer might spend the cost of a single carrot in the process, but he gets to sell the rest of the cartload once the donkey gets him to market. Both sides benefit, but the farmer benefits more; that's copyright.
So the pro-copying people say, but my wife is an amateur author and wouldn't want to try to publish her books if everyone was free to copy it
Okay, why? It can't be that she's afraid of how it might be received, as a book can be a success or a failure regardless of copyright. It can't be that her muse would leave her if she published her work; the creative impulse isn't lessened by sharing a work.
And copyright seeks to have authors publish their work. While some protection might be appropriate for an unfinished work, or unpublished work, provided that the author didn't abandon it, the ultimate goal of copyright is to increase the number of works in the public domain. If a work is kept under lock and key with no intention of ever being published, it is contrary to good copyright policy to grant the author a copyright. So while she could be concerned about it becoming published at all, there's no reason for us to enable her. In fact, the hunger for more works being what it is, having the MS pirated would be better in that case.
So why, if not for an economic reason?
'm a programmer with apps released under the GPL and I wouldn't bother with any of those projects if it wasn't for copyright. If I want to put in my time and effort to write a program to help people, and as 'payment' I want people to contribute changes back when they distribute (a requirement that can only really happen under copyright, since EULAs are void in many nations and dubious in others) but I can't guarantee that then I wouldn't bother with the apps and I'd just waste away my time on more private hobbie
Nevertheless, file sharing is rampant, and has been for over a decade (I can't believe how long it's been since Napster came out and was shut down). If it was so terrifically deadly to the industry, why haven't we seen various major companies go out of business as a direct result?
And, even if file sharing could bring down the likes of Sony, or EMI, and would reduce the number of works created and published, the question remains as to whether or not the public would be better off with fewer works, but more freedom as to those works, or more works, but less freedom as to them. My feeling is that the former is the way to go. I don't think there would be a significant reduction in the number of works, but there would be a far greater increase in our ability to enjoy works.
Plus, laws should generally reflect our social norms. If a law is contrary to how we generally behave when we feel we're doing the right thing, then it should be looked at critically. This is appropriate in a democratically-based country, where the government receives its legitimacy on the basis of the consent of the people. In some cases the law can be justified because it useful to society, even though it is not obviously so; in other cases, it might be important to protect unpopular minorities or civil liberties exercised in unpopular ways. For example, most people speed, and no one likes getting a speeding ticket, even if it is deserved, but most people would agree that posting and enforcing speed limits is important for safety. Prohibition was quite popular in its day, and people honestly thought it was for the best, but everyone flaunted it, and the disrespect for that law resulted in widespread corruption, violence, and strengthened organized crime. But as the federal government pursued desegregation, contrary to the wishes of very many people, they acted correctly.
If copyright laws are being widely ignored, we had better examine them. Do people think the laws are appropriate, but everyone hopes to get away with breaking them, as with speed limits? Do people lack respect for these particular laws (though perhaps not some alternative copyright law that was more in line with our norms), with the danger that such disrespect could bleed over into more important areas? Or is the law as it is more important than what people feel the law ought to be, leading to it being enforced on a society that largely rejects it?
Personally, I think that copyright ought to be respected, but it must first be deserving of respect. If it is going to be broken, it should be like speeding tickets, where people might try to sneak under the radar for their own convenience, but do sometimes get caught, and don't reject the concept behind the law, or the law itself. But right now it is like Prohibition, and is far stronger than it really ought to be. It's not like civil liberties, as it just isn't that important.
In the time of Beethoven then music couldn't easily be copied
Yes it could; there was a well-known system of notation, and plenty of printers who could print more copies of sheet music. It might not have been as easy as it is now, but there were pirate printers. (Although to be fair, the market for regular books was bigger, so it had more pirates) Sound recordings couldn't be made at all yet, but that only helped to keep performers in business, not composers. And Beethoven himself had to put up with pirates and such.
Ease of copying is really a red herring. You think copying is easy now, but I'm sure that someday there will be technologies that make it even more effortless, and the people living then will think that we had a hard time of it with our primitive Internet and puny computers.
At any point in time you care to name, legitimate and illegitimate publishers have enjoyed either a parity in technology (whether that technology is quill pens, or movable type, or CD presses), or the legitimate publishers have enjoyed an advantage due to their being able to operate more openly, being able to raise and spend more money, having first mover advantage, etc.
There is no technological reason why the RIAA, MPAA, etc. cannot use P2P file sharing in order to distribute their goods. Pirates have no advantage here. In fact, the industry could probably even get better equipment and network connections than people working out of their parents' basements.
They just can't figure out how to make money doing it. It's a business problem, not a technological one.
Now that it is easily copyable, people assume that they have some all-powerful right to take whatever they want for no particular reason and with no compensation, and I've yet to see any sensible reason why that doesn't devolve to "because I can and because I want everything for free".
People have always thought that. And frankly, you nailed the sensible reason. 'Because I can, and because I want things for free (i.e. I want to profit the most from the least investment)' is a perfectly sensible reason.
I mean, what did you think copyright was? Copyright attempts to encourage authors to create and publish works, by providing a purely economic incentive. A copyright won't confer fame, or help an artist create for art's sake. Rather, a copyright is a way for authors to prohibit other people from competing with them for identical, commodity goods. It only appeals to an author's desire to profit the most from the least investment.
Authors and pirates have exactly the same motives. Neither side is more righteous than the other. It's all just self-interest: The self-interest of the public is to get more creative works at the least cost. This is done by appealing to the self-interest of authors to get more money, which they'll do at the least cost to themselves. Frankly, if one or both sides were not so greedy, copyright either wouldn't be useful, or wouldn't function.
In a world with no copyright for "non commercial" distribution of work how is anyone who creates a non subscription fee based computer game or e-book supposed to make money given that the work will be freely available on file sharing sites?
But wait, we already have non-subscription fee-based computer games and e-books that are freely available on file sharing sites. That world you mention was Earth all along! You maniacs!
Really though, the trick is 1) making commercial resellers more attractive than their non-commercial competitors; 2) keeping a very close eye on the non-commercial sites, which presumably couldn't have ads, couldn't solicit donations, couldn't have upload/download ratios, etc.; 3) if all else fails, making different kinds of works or accepting that there will be less money flowing in. No one ever said that certain art forms would be permanently viable. Vaudeville should teach us that.
Also, what if they infringe upon the GPL and use works before it goes into public domain? It's difficult to tell if the company wrote the feature or if they used a patch illegally, and there's a good chance that the work will have gone to public domain before legal threat is over as long as it's not a really new feature.
1) Mandate that for all works that include software where a copyright is sought, the author has to deposit a complete copy of the software -- including such supplementary information as the Copyright Office deems necessary in order that other people having skill in the field can reasonably understand and make use of it -- at the Library of Congress.
In practice, this would mean commented source code, instructions as to the intended platform, compiler, etc. Like anything else, it would be available to read through at all times. But, during the copyright term, it would be infringing to copy it, etc. Basically, it'd be just like a book; being allowed to read it and learn from it doesn't allow you to start printing it yourself. Think 'inspectable source' rather than open source.
2) If an infringement occurs -- obviously before the copyright is terminated -- a lawsuit can still be brought even if the copyright expires during the course of litigation. No one is going to get thrown out of court for that, it just means that you probably wouldn't bother asking for a permanent injunction or anything. This is no big deal.
Author should receive all attribution and credit, and certainly has the right to that. He also should have the right to forbid this attribution if parts of this information are used inappropriately (e.g. pasting a face into a pornographic image, or farting a sonnet); he should, however, be able to forbid the public of composing and publicizing the inappropriacies.
Why? Would authors refuse to create and publish their works otherwise? If so, why has such a prediction never come to pass in the US?
I wouldn't go so far as to endorse actual fraud (e.g. if you want to buy a book advertised as being written by Alice, but it was actually written by Bob), which is harm caused to the audience more than the author, but otherwise I simply don't see any public benefit from giving authors these rights. If an author disapproves of how his work is used, the better solution is for him to add to the discussion and tell us of his opinion, and why he holds it, and why we should be cross with the other person, rather than to silence someone.
So if I use 3-4 years to learn an instrument, 1 year to write songs, 2 months and 10 000$ to rent a studio and record an album, I should only get paid 20$ for one CD which the buyer then can copy and sell as many times as he wants?
Of course, if you spend several years to learn how to play music, you spend a year writing music, you spend months and money recording music and making copies to sell, you very well might only sell one CD to a reviewer who tells everyone that you suck, and not sell any more copies beyond that.
The mere fact that you invested in an enterprise does not entitle you to make a return on that investment, or to have laws set up which even permit you to make a return on that investment.
What you need to do is to convince other people why it is in their best interest to set up laws that at least permit you to turn a profit, provided that your product is any good. It isn't hard, but the burden falls on you. And of course, there's a whole range of possible laws to choose from. It could be that the public at large would feel that their needs are best served by copyright laws which give authors some incentive to create and publish, but not as much as other laws, while restricting the public, but not as much as other laws (e.g. allowing non-commercial copying, etc., but not the scenario you describe).
It is important to separate copyright into commercial and moral rights. It is very possible to want to give copyright holders less commercial rights, while keeping or even strengthening the moral rights such as the right to be recognized as the creator of a work. In my opinion, moral rights should also not be for sale. (from my understanding, they aren't here in Sweden)
Sure. But the underlying utilitarian question doesn't change. Why is the public better off granting moral rights than not granting moral rights? In the US, we didn't even recognize the validity of the concept for ages, and even now we only grant them for treaty compliance, and do it in a carefully half-assed way so that they're essentially unavailable. But this has never seemed to harm our authors or industries. So what's in it for us? How would it result in having more works created, and published, with as few restrictions as possible, for as little time as possible?
It seems Pirate Party UK's one of the core policies is reformin copyright and patent law so that non-commercial file sharing would be legalized. While certainly a noble goal, shouldn't content producers, artists, programmers, and basically anyone producing something have a right to their work?
That's certainly possible, and I'm open to the idea. However, that raises additional questions: What rights should they have? Should these rights be subject to any exceptions or limitations? For how long should they last? Against whom should they be enforceable? What remedies should be available if the rights are infringed upon? Should there be any prerequisites in order to acquire and/or enforce these rights?
And above all else, is the public left better off under such a regime, as opposed to not granting such rights, and if so, are there any other rights regimes that would produce a still better public outcome? If not, why should such a regime be tolerated?
In this exact case copyright is used to allow the author to make sure he is attributed and his work isn't misused.
Well, reasonable people can differ over whether it is worthwhile to have such rights, but assuming that we were to have them, how does that conflict with allowing non-commercial file sharing without authorization or payment? So long as the torrent indicates that the mp3 is a song performed by Alice, and written by Bob, and given that mere file sharing doesn't 'misuse' a work (although I'm baffled as to how a work could ever be misused, given that it can't be used up in the process), there should be no problem.
Unless an article is very short, quoting 80% of it is not fair use.
Well, that depends on the circumstances. The amount of the work used, and the substantiality of the portion of the work used is a factor in determing if the use is fair, but there isn't a hard number.