I sort of like the idea of instant runoff elections for a start.
"As to how we do either of those things when the entrenched power structure has no interest in changing the system that keeps them in power, I don't know. Education?"
One idea I have had on the education front is to get school governments, frats, clubs, and the like to use these different methods in their elections so that people can get familiar and comfortable with them.
"'it's paying as a punishment for illegally redistributing it, and as a deterrent to future piracy.'
Gotcha, so why exactly do we multiply the punishment times the number of songs that were simultaneously shared from a single computer as part of a single instance of a single crime?"
solve that problem by having the punishment damages go to public projects or in the case of death and health issues to help other victims.
give a person their actual damages. extra damages go to help society, not to a windfall for the person damaged. they are just made whole.
I hear that in my country you can get 3 years for a first offence of rape and something like 4 or 5 years for possession of a knock off CD or DVD disk. (I will try and confirm this.)
Well, my country just went through an election. The government of the day lost. They have taken things to the courts claiming basically that the opposition stole the election. (To use broad terms, check the specifics if you care.)
This was on their watch mind you... What are they claiming about their competence to run the country?
So too with your post, what does this say about the quality of his opposition in the two elections?
My point was as you mentioned that anything that you can get copyright for you get copyright for automatically in the US. It used to be that you didn't I think.
I think that at one time you needed to register or at least put a copyright notice on the work. Perhaps at one time you had to do the first and at a later time, the second. My memory is fuzzy on the matter.
"You have copyright on everything you create by default and you never lose it (unless you give it away)."
I have had people, I think on the Creative Commons mailing lists, tell me that this is not the case in their countries... That the work must be original or creative or something along those lines and that things like a recording of water cooler conversations and the like would likely fail this and not get copyright protection.
I don't claim to understand this at this point, but if so, there are some things you can create in some places which don't get automatic copyright. But in that case, I guess you wouldn't get a copyright even if you tried to register it...
Can anyone give any insight into this for the layman?
"That's an interesting idea, but it's a bit like the flat tax: the large-scale pirates would get off easy, and the little guys would get the rough end"
See this post by someone else for a possible way to answer that:
His complaint is that he doesn't like the "unfair" competition from video distributors that make use of P2P so they don't have to invest in a massive concentration of bandwidth that is capable of delivering video to all who want it, all from the several distribution points they would use.
Right, he doesn't like the Free Market. He likes monopoly plays. it is not enough that his large amounts of money already give him an advantage, he wants to rig the game to keep the little guy from playing even when he is at a disadvantage.
And let me just add this in closing...
I am far from an expert here, but I would venture that we could have a far better, less expensive, and more efficient internet if we could disregard copyright issues all together in the design of the protocols and such.
Indeed, it may not, but if not, I would lay the blame primarily on the copyright protections in the mix (or other monopoly plays) which prevent others from competing in the market.
I will tell you what p2p can mean from my perspective, it can mean you can get stuff from people who cannot afford to give it to you via more traditional methods.
"Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner, HDNet CEO, and noted gadfly is publishing on his blog that Comcast and other ISPs should block all P2P traffic,
In light of that perhaps we should conclude that all free thinking people should boycott his wonderful Dallas Mavericks and any of his other businesses.
It is a wonder he can't afford his own T3 or at least T1.
The big boys don't like it too much when the little boys get to play the game at all. They don't want the advantage their wealth brings them, they want the game all to themselves. No thanks.
"P2P allows a significant number of small-time content producers to get their content out to a lot of people. Otherwise, they could never afford it and only the big guys would get to play the game."
And this would make the big guys very happy. I wonder if our Mr. Cuban is a big guy or a small guy these days...
"I'm not quite sure he meant that it isn't a users right to use P2P if they chose... but instead he wishes to prevent companies from using your bandwidth for free, for their monetary gain."
Sure, but it is a bogus argument in any case.
What do the free market people tell you:
If you stop the companies from using p2p distribution, their costs will go up and they will pass them along to the consumer.
So, by letting the companies use my bandwidth, I get a better price. Wow.
Now if it doesn't work this way in practice, could that be because goods protected by the monopoly plays of copyright and patents do not behave according to Free Market principals?
all the best,
drew
I went down to the Free Market the other day but everyone was trying to sell me stuff!
"Instead of copyright law biased to the media companies, how about FAIR copyright?"
Yes, and how about having some counter proposals for laws. Ones that might scare the other side. Ones that we might be able to compromise on if necessary and still be better off than now after the compromise.
So, we need some ideas for laws to lobby for that will scare the pants off of these guys. And yet ones that are reasonable and even perhaps wildly beneficial for the actual creative people.
Hello! This is not off topic. It is specifically suggesting a counter tactic to counter act the tactics outlined in the main article. And this is OFF TOPIC? It may be something the person who modded the original post disagrees with, but it is hardly off topic.
This is the first time I have ever reposted in response to a moderation I disagreed with, but this was so blatant it was not even a second thought...
"For original works, copyright should be automatic and free of charge for the first 14 to 28 years. After that period, a tax of 5 to 10% of the gross recepits will be imposed."
This is a major problem from a subtle angle...
It means that everything you come across is suspect. It may be in the public domain and available for your use, but you have no way of knowing this.
So. Automatic copyleft unless you put on a copyright notice at a minimum. Then at least anything you find with no copyright notice is safe to use for copyleft purposes. Make the law reflect this. No criminal or civil penalties for taking unmarked works as copyleft and building on them. If they are foundto be copyright but maliciously distributed without a notice, the worst that can happen is to have the offending parts pulled.
All copyright works must be registered and deposited with a "named" library in all forms for which copyright is claimed. Expenses for storage of such during the duration of the copyright to be born by the copyright holder.
"Instead of copyright law biased to the media companies, how about FAIR copyright?"
Yes, and how about having some counter proposals for laws. Ones that might scare the other side. Ones that we might be able to compromise on if necessary and still be better off than now after the compromise.
Slashdot Mirror
I sort of like the idea of instant runoff elections for a start.
"As to how we do either of those things when the entrenched power structure has no interest in changing the system that keeps them in power, I don't know. Education?"
One idea I have had on the education front is to get school governments, frats, clubs, and the like to use these different methods in their elections so that people can get familiar and comfortable with them.
all the best,
drew
"Don't blame me, I wrote in Kucinich."
Well, there you go, the guy you felt was better didn't get any traction at all right?
So, what does that say about our systems?
How is that to be fixed?
all the best,
drew
"'it's paying as a punishment for illegally redistributing it, and as a deterrent to future piracy.'
Gotcha, so why exactly do we multiply the punishment times the number of songs that were simultaneously shared from a single computer as part of a single instance of a single crime?"
solve that problem by having the punishment damages go to public projects or in the case of death and health issues to help other victims.
give a person their actual damages. extra damages go to help society, not to a windfall for the person damaged. they are just made whole.
all the best,
drew
"Good thing we know our priorities."
I hear that in my country you can get 3 years for a first offence of rape and something like 4 or 5 years for possession of a knock off CD or DVD disk. (I will try and confirm this.)
Now that's priorities!
all the best,
drew
Well, my country just went through an election. The government of the day lost. They have taken things to the courts claiming basically that the opposition stole the election. (To use broad terms, check the specifics if you care.)
This was on their watch mind you... What are they claiming about their competence to run the country?
So too with your post, what does this say about the quality of his opposition in the two elections?
all the best,
drew
And here I thought everyone knew Video Killed The Radio Star.
all the best,
drew
Free the Art
Copyright drew Roberts, 2007
Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 US
Free the Art and
Free the Artists
Let's break loose and
Let's get started
Change the world and
Make it better
There may be crying but
We'll cry together
Tired of waiting on
Promised changes
Come together and
Let's rearrange it
drew
http://dangernovel.blogspot.com/
Danger - A Safe Bahamian Novel
I think that at one time you needed to register or at least put a copyright notice on the work. Perhaps at one time you had to do the first and at a later time, the second. My memory is fuzzy on the matter.
all the best,
drew
"You have copyright on everything you create by default and you never lose it (unless you give it away)."
I have had people, I think on the Creative Commons mailing lists, tell me that this is not the case in their countries... That the work must be original or creative or something along those lines and that things like a recording of water cooler conversations and the like would likely fail this and not get copyright protection.
I don't claim to understand this at this point, but if so, there are some things you can create in some places which don't get automatic copyright. But in that case, I guess you wouldn't get a copyright even if you tried to register it...
Can anyone give any insight into this for the layman?
all the best,
drew
"copyright infringement is a civil offence (in the UK, at least)"
If I understand things properly, here in the Bahamas we went from civil only to some criminal.
IIRC, 4 or 5 years and 20,000, 25000, or 30,000 dollar fine for each knockoff CD or DVD in your possession.
This is a country where, as I was just informed the other day, the penalty for a first offence of rape is 3 to 5 years.
I wonder what values we are trying to espouse?
So, watch your friends in the House(es) carefully.
And civil with huge statutory penalties can be seriously abusive as well due to the lesser "proof" needed to be found guilty/in violation.
all the best,
drew
"Is there precedent for different types of encouraging licenses similar to the software world? (Share only, derivatives allowed, etc.)"
Creative Commons has the Attribution-ShareAlike license. Which is sort of like the GPL for non-code.
There is also the Free Art License:
http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/
I put my stuff under CC BY-SA as well:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22drew%20Roberts%22
And people use it:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Peter%20Rodgers%22
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22drew%20Roberts%2C%20Thorsten%20Wilms%22
Plus, a group of people on the Linux Audio Users mailing list is starting up to make music together under a CC BY-SA license.
Does that help you at all?
all the best,
drew
Nice to see you here. I like you choice of Free and Copyleft for your music as well.
Perhaps we can do something together at some point.
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22drew%20Roberts%22
Check the related creators on the right for the musical works.
Oh, and I am sure we would appreciate links as well.
all the best,
drew
"That's an interesting idea, but it's a bit like the flat tax: the large-scale pirates would get off easy, and the little guys would get the rough end"
See this post by someone else for a possible way to answer that:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=371395&cid=21489371
For some thoughts on possible changes to the copyright laws that could benefit the people and the artists, check this link:
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html
all the best,
drew
"I'll still buy indie albums, or at least the ones that come from non RIAA affiliated labels, when I can be reasonably sure they aren't paying dues."
You might want to consider not buying any that are not under a Free license.
Anything else can still end up in the hands of the majors and continue the mess.
all the bestm
drew
I know how hard things can be. Sometimes we just do the best we can and look to improve as we go along.
all the best,
drew
Right, he doesn't like the Free Market. He likes monopoly plays. it is not enough that his large amounts of money already give him an advantage, he wants to rig the game to keep the little guy from playing even when he is at a disadvantage.
And let me just add this in closing...
I am far from an expert here, but I would venture that we could have a far better, less expensive, and more efficient internet if we could disregard copyright issues all together in the design of the protocols and such.
all the best,
drew
Indeed, it may not, but if not, I would lay the blame primarily on the copyright protections in the mix (or other monopoly plays) which prevent others from competing in the market.
I will tell you what p2p can mean from my perspective, it can mean you can get stuff from people who cannot afford to give it to you via more traditional methods.
all the best,
drew
Yes indeed. We need little guy technology. We need equality technology. If your extra money is not enough of an advantage for you...
all the best,
drew
In light of that perhaps we should conclude that all free thinking people should boycott his wonderful Dallas Mavericks and any of his other businesses.
It is a wonder he can't afford his own T3 or at least T1.
The big boys don't like it too much when the little boys get to play the game at all. They don't want the advantage their wealth brings them, they want the game all to themselves. No thanks.
all the best,
drew
"P2P allows a significant number of small-time content producers to get their content out to a lot of people. Otherwise, they could never afford it and only the big guys would get to play the game."
And this would make the big guys very happy. I wonder if our Mr. Cuban is a big guy or a small guy these days...
all the best,
drew
"I'm not quite sure he meant that it isn't a users right to use P2P if they chose... but instead he wishes to prevent companies from using your bandwidth for free, for their monetary gain."
Sure, but it is a bogus argument in any case.
What do the free market people tell you:
If you stop the companies from using p2p distribution, their costs will go up and they will pass them along to the consumer.
So, by letting the companies use my bandwidth, I get a better price. Wow.
Now if it doesn't work this way in practice, could that be because goods protected by the monopoly plays of copyright and patents do not behave according to Free Market principals?
all the best,
drew
I went down to the Free Market the other day but everyone was trying to sell me stuff!
"Instead of copyright law biased to the media companies, how about FAIR copyright?"
Yes, and how about having some counter proposals for laws. Ones that might scare the other side. Ones that we might be able to compromise on if necessary and still be better off than now after the compromise.
I invite your thoughts:
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html [blogspot.com]
Someone must not like these suggestions.
Two off topic mods for something that is right on topic. Way to go guys...
all the best,
drew
So, we need some ideas for laws to lobby for that will scare the pants off of these guys. And yet ones that are reasonable and even perhaps wildly beneficial for the actual creative people.
See for instance some ideas here:
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html
Hello! This is not off topic. It is specifically suggesting a counter tactic to counter act the tactics outlined in the main article. And this is OFF TOPIC? It may be something the person who modded the original post disagrees with, but it is hardly off topic.
This is the first time I have ever reposted in response to a moderation I disagreed with, but this was so blatant it was not even a second thought...
all the best,
drew
"For original works, copyright should be automatic and free of charge for the first 14 to 28 years. After that period, a tax of 5 to 10% of the gross recepits will be imposed."
This is a major problem from a subtle angle...
It means that everything you come across is suspect. It may be in the public domain and available for your use, but you have no way of knowing this.
So. Automatic copyleft unless you put on a copyright notice at a minimum. Then at least anything you find with no copyright notice is safe to use for copyleft purposes. Make the law reflect this. No criminal or civil penalties for taking unmarked works as copyleft and building on them. If they are foundto be copyright but maliciously distributed without a notice, the worst that can happen is to have the offending parts pulled.
All copyright works must be registered and deposited with a "named" library in all forms for which copyright is claimed. Expenses for storage of such during the duration of the copyright to be born by the copyright holder.
I don't get the second point.
I am cool with the third point.
all the best,
drew
"Instead of copyright law biased to the media companies, how about FAIR copyright?"
Yes, and how about having some counter proposals for laws. Ones that might scare the other side. Ones that we might be able to compromise on if necessary and still be better off than now after the compromise.
I invite your thoughts:
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html
all the best,
drew