"The transfer to a publisher is a matter of contract."
Yes.
"The publisher cannot transfer to you any rights it did not acquire from the work's creator."
In the absence of copyright law, it is not the publisher who would grant me any rights exactly. It is the act of publishing. And since you gave him the right to publish...
If you didn;t like that outcome, you would be free to insist that a printer get a signed contract with each book transfer that would bind the purchaser or some such.
"The purpose of copyright law is to encourage the production of creative works by guaranteeing that a work's creator has a chance to derive financial benefit from his work"
Yes.
"It is not a grant of monoploy."
Oh, but it is. I am not saying it is a particularly bad example if done right, but it is one none the less.
"It's a recognition of, and protection of, the existence of rights that occur naturally when we create something."
This is not so and most of human history bears this out.
"Very few people could devote a career to, say, writing novels, if anyone could grab the first copy off the printing press, start copying it and compete with them for sales."
Any yet many people are now making careers writing Free Software under just such conditions. I think we are going to start seeing the same thing in other fields as time goes on. People are already writing the licenses in anticipation of this and some are writing the works and using the licenses.
"E.g., if it wasn;t for copyright law, you could copy Picasso print, slap your name on them, and sell them as yours."
No, we could easily have a law against plagiarism to stop that. You don't need to mix the two concepts to make your point.
Copyright law only needs to stop you from copying a Picasso print with his name on it and selling the copies.
"Or, I could grab all off Slashdot's code, open a site called Slashdot, start selling ads, and the current proprietors could do nothing to stop me."
"In those circumstance, I doubt Picasso would have painted or that Slashdot would exist."
Who knows what any particular individual would have done? Certainly copyright law is premised (in some places at least) on the thought that more will create in the presence of copyright pretections afforded them by law, and I do not need to argue for or against that.
Still you ignore history as there still exist in this world many works of art from the days before there was nay copyright law.
Also, look into the fashion industry today. I hear that in many countries if not all, they operate without the benefit of copyright protections.
"Repeating or reciting something you've read is not copying the physical object on which language encoding that joke was originally placed."
So what, all we have to do to be cool in your view with respect to copyright is to pull a Fahrenheit 451?
Just get everyone to memorise a chapter of any book we want to copy. Have them recite it while another person copies it down. Publish the new "version" and all is ok? Certainly not with any copyright law I am aware of today. What is your take on this?
"Your reference to "public domain" presupposes the notion that, in the absence of law, anything that anyone makes would be owned by everyone else, not by the person who made the thing."
You are incorrect here. It maintains that anything anyone publishes becomes "public domain" in the absence of copyright law. Not anything anyone makes... anything they publish...
"Being in the "public domain" is a status granted and regulated by the law of man, not of nature."
"In every instance, someone will possess the very first, original, version of such a work. That person -- barring prior legal arrangements -- owns that work and possess all rights inherent in it."
OK, and this is so as long as they keep it private or secret as it were.
I think your theory breaks down when you get to publishing as we do it today.
Now, if at every step in the chain, transfers were made with negotiated contracts, the original author might be able to retain those rights except as released via contract. Sort of like trade secrets are handled these days perhaps.
Other than that, once published and in the hands of the public, while the author might still have control over that original physical copy, the work itself is now out in the public domain in the absence of copyright law.
Copyright law is the government stepping into the free market and granting monopolies to the authors. I think this is thought to make the market better as it takes away the need to have a contract with every person you sell a book to for instance.
Now, to go back to your views and ask a question:
If it shouldn't be like I write but should be like you write, wouldn't that mean that something like the joke police at the office water cooler would be warranted? That people would have no legal right to tell jokes they heard on the radio last night? (Or are jokes one of those things that we do not grant copyright monopolies on?)
Hmm. Your post convinced me to start this off even though I don't think I am ready to.
I have been thinking lately about "copyright pollution" where the copyrighted works of others gets in our heads and pollutes them to to point where what then comes out of us is "tainted" as it were.
Now this should not really be that much of an issue in a sensible legal environment, but I think we may not be in such an environment now and I also think that those forces causing that environment to deteriorate for a good while now are still at work trying to make it worse.
Are we getting to the point, or will we get there in our lifetimes, where an artist cannot afford to pay attention to, watch, look at, read, etc. any works that are not in the public domain or that carry a free license of some sort? Sort of like where people say we are today with respect to software patents.
"However, another way of interpreting copyright might be not to regard it as a right of use, but a standard we hold ourselves to before we call something a contribution."
I did not want to quote your whole post, but this comment applies in general to it.
We need to keep the concepts of plagarism and copyright seperate in our thinking.
I have been going back and forth with Dabido in this thread:
If someone tries to pass their work off as yours, you can use copyright law to try and put a stop to it. Now you might be quite happy not to have a copyright and would not care if people made and sold copies of your work, etc. but not like they fact that someone wants to take credit for your work.
(Somewhat like people who use BSD or GPL for software or BY or BY-SA for works in general or who place their works inthe public domain.)
I am ignorant here. If I were to place my work in the public domain and someone claimed it as their own, could I bring some sort of action based on plagarism? Are there laws in any of your countries that you are aware of that specifically deal with plagarism outside of copyright? (If no, perhaps we need them?)
As to calling things contributions, perhaps it might help to name the contributions we claim where we can. We should not denigrate even the smallest honest contributions. And a small contributor today may be a large contributor next year.
"what if you took a photo of a person looking in the location of an ad, then put the photo infront of the camera at the proper scale?"
I was just thinking along similar lines...
A mask made to look like you. A robot head made to look like you. (A new twist on the turing test perhaps? - Can your robot head fool their face recognition software?) A program to feed the yes data back. (DMCA violation?)
Seriously though, perhaps governments would want to participate and get free computers for their workforce... Hmmm. ~;-)
"In practice, DRM manages whatever the content vendor believes or wishes its rights were, not what those right may actually be."
This caused an interesting thought to pop into my head. What if we tweaked the law such that anyone protecting more rights than they have with DRM technology has all their copyrights convert to copyleft?
That might give them an incentive not to overreach.
"_You_ don't define how much something should cost. The market does. What you call greed is called "capitalism" here in the US, Chavez."
Hmm, since you mention "capitalism" I am going to guess that you mean the free market when you say that the market defines how much something should cost.
The problem is that we are not talking about free market goods here. No, we are talking goods protected by Government Granted Monopolies. I think a lot of people would be just fine if the free market were actually in operation here and setting the prices without that monopoly play.
"The most ridiculous kinds of arguments are the ones where someone makes an assertion that a company would be better off if they did things my way, because then they'll make even more money"
I must have missed that part in my perusal. Actually, I am not sure if they would make more money. The money might just be going out of the industry and the big bucks may never be there again. On the other hand, we may only just be seeing peanuts today and bigger things may be ahead.
But I tend to agree, in a free market, people should be allowed to follow their own lawful business plans. However, one of the costs of doing business in a free society is having to listen to and perhaps deal with the opinions of others in the market.
In a non-free market, where the government has stepped in and skewed things, the government should either get out of the market or listen to calls to fix their meddling to better serve the citizens.
{'Well, perhaps it could. If trademark law was taken overboard,'
Well, there is a reason TradeMark and Copyright are different.}
You forget that this is all in the absence of any copyright law (from my point of thinking for this excercise) except where explicitly talking of copyright law.
{'This is just what people say about GPL code / Free Software and yet people do make money from it.'
Yes, but they have other streams in order to make money from [such as Red Hat having a support line and Asterik selling hardware to go with their PABX software]. People who are solely songwriters don't have other means to make money from their songwriting effort.}
I know, but the same hold for people who are exclusively code writers. I am about in that position of being only a songwriter myself (mostly lyrics actually as I can't really sing and don't play an instrument well enough either. I do work sometimes with a friend and sing to him and he tries to figure out from what I am singing what I am trying to sing!!!)
One problem is though is that the idea is out there, the licenses are out there in the wild and people are using them and experimenting with them.
{So, unless there is some other means for them to make money, I don't have a problem with paying copyright royalties to perform their songs. [It's only one cent per performance, and most performers can afford that, even if they perform a concert with thirty to fifty songs, they should be making enough profit off each performance to afford 50 cents or so]. }
The trick is to find that some other means.
Is that how it is were you are? I need to look into it down here. Not that I need to know at this time personally. I do think that in some places it is a percentage of revenue though.
{Like I said, Copyright laws are consistent in what can and can't be copied.}
Perhaps by fiat, but not by some grand ste of consistent principles that anyone has ever pointed out to me or that I have found in all my searching.
Could you copyright a landscaped garden? Why is a cars coachwork not art? After all, at least in bygone days, sculptures of the designs were made before the actual cars were ever produced. This may all be done on computer now.
{The difference here is really in what is considered 'Performance art' and what is static art. It's not an inconsistancy as much as it is a differentiation as to the 'type of art'. }
But in the case of music or video which is recorded and not live, it is not in fact a performance. Not like a band playing a cover is a performance.
BTW - as an odd aside, I wrote a novel in november last year as performance art. I wrote in in an IRC channel on freenode. Some people even dropped in to watch the struggle at times.
{It's not legal to claim you wrote something in public domain, but that would result in a plagiarism case. The copying of the work wouldn't consist of a crime, only the claiming it as your own work. }
Gotcha, so you say there is overlap and cases are brought under copyright as it is simpler. In the absence of copyright law though (remember) cases of plagerism could still be brought under the plagersim laws. (I have no reason to doubt you, I have just never read any plagersim laws.)
{If my memory of the 'fake' group of books is correct, they dumbed down the songs to have easier chords/melodies than the original songs.}
So they would be claiming a copyright in the arrangement? What about the original words?
{I think they dumbed down the chords for easier playing. Often they transpose everything for guitar into the key of 'C' as well.}
"In short, though, yes. The brain can be ed digitally. It is much more complex than most people initially think."
I was unsure. But I would imagine it to be much more complex. The last I looked at that stuff was sometime in high school and that was a good many years ago now.
I have always wondered if they were hiding the funding for other secret projects in those crazy costs. Any thoughts? I know you gave an explanation for this instance. I mean in general.
"I'll be performing in Perth,(Australia) on the 24th of February."
Cool.
"Yes, as some companies Trade Mark things like 'slogans' and stuff." etc.
Right.
"No, it can't be Trademark, as the Trademark laws are totally different."
Well, perhaps it could. If trademark law was taken overboard, and your name was a trademark, I could not say that this song was by you as I would be using your name/trademark. What I am saying is that I don't think trademark should be able to be used for such a purpose.
"For instance, I don't see how you would expect a songwriter to make a living from this. I write a song, if there is no copyright on it, then anyone can record it and I get nothing for my efforts."
Don't worry, I don't think we are likely to see copyright law done away with in our lifetimes. That said. This is just what people say about GPL code / Free Software and yet people do make money from it. I, myself am experimenting with releasing some workd under a Creative Commons BY-SA license. Feel free to record my song lyrics if you like them. While if you make large bucks from them, I wouldn't mind you sharing the bounty, there is no legal requirement put on you to do so once you follow the license terms.
"It doesn't matter if I place a trademark on it, that doesn't even prove I wrote it. Trademark doesn't actually stop people from claiming they wrote my song. That's why Henry the Eighth once added a bar to the end of a song and then put his name on it. Copyright is the part of the law which stops people doing that sort of thing."
A king in those days could do a lot that a normal man couldn't and can't today. I think you may be mixing plagerism and copyright thoughts and even the law may. In the absence of copyright law, copying someone's work and claiming that it is your work would still be two different things. We could easily have a no-plagerism law without a copyright law if everyone in the world wanted things that way.
"Copyright laws are pretty consistent with what can and can't be copyrighted."
Well, if I put up a statue of mine in my front yard, you can't take a picture of it from the public road and sell copies of your picture of my statue. If I design a car and the coachwork and have that in my driveway, it is my understanding that you could take a picture of it from the public road and sell pictures of it for a proft. Without my permission and compensation. (At least that is what I have been lead to believe in reading things over the years.)
In the US, at least, there are compulsary licenses for music but not for pictures or plays. (I think.)
If you are a store and you play music in your shop, you must pay performance royalties, If you hang my pictures in your shop, you don't have to pay performance royalties. (I think.)
I could probably go on and on.
"Without copyright laws anyone can make a copy of those photos and claim they took them."
Either that is not the case, or copyright incorporates elements of plagerism as well as copying, or copyright law negates the need for plagerism law and so we haven't written any. So, is it legal then to claim that you wrote something in the public domain? After all, those works are not under copyright.
"You're selling your photo's for $1. In a world without copyright someone could buy that photo and then copy it and sell it as many times as they like."
"No, actually you can't do that at all. If a piece of sheet music is in public domain, then you can't claim a copyright on it. You can however, do research into different versions of the music and create your own version of sh
First, let me say that I really appreciate this response and the trouble you went to to research it.
"Many a real person is very different than their 'brand'. So, the record buying public really doesn't know Madonna at all, not as a person, only as her 'public personnae'/'brand'. They may think they know her as a person, but they don't. That's all i was trying to point out [which, as you said, you undestand, so hopefully we're on the same page]."
I think we are, except that you may have lost track of this all being premised on copyright law not existing.
"it was a 'Protection of Business name' case. [Which I would assume is similar to a Trade Mark protection case.] It's basically to stop the buying public from being defrauded into buying something they think is from another band / company etc."
And to me, this is basically all trademarks should be about in the first place. Are they about anything else these days from a legal standpoint? I have a vague feeling they might be, but I can't recall why.
It is good for the public to be able to know who they are dealing with.
"Copyright covers the right to copy songs etc. So, anyone selling her music isn't stopped from saying they are her songs. They just get in trouble for selling copies they're not allowed to make."
Here we go. Right, but if copyright law did not exist, everyone would be allowed to make any copies they wanted to except if something else was in play. Could that something be trademark?
I am saying that trademark law should not be able to stop me from copying artists CDs and saying they are copies of the great new album by Barry an da Cudas, SomeYoungDumbTing. Trademarks should not prevent me from giving this truthful information.
What they should be able to prevent is my making the jewel case and the physical cd from looking like the one that Barry an da Cudas put out. They might have their logo on there which I would not be allowd to use, etc.
The public should be ableto tell if they are getting an officially artist blessed cd or some knockoff. Then they can make an informed decision.
Your example of the 7-11 cds is in the context of existing copyright law. Again, I was postulating how things might be without such law. I don't expect we will ever see such a situation come about though.
Copyright is a very odd thing. Some things qualify for copyright, some don't. Things move from one set to the other at times. (At least one way.)
Some things has special twists, some don't. You can claim a copyright on a printed copy of sheet music of a public domain lyric and melody and not say exactly what you are claiming a copyright on. The fun goes on and on.
What did you do as a musician? Do you still dabble?
[Of course, that would require uniquely identifying IP created by that company as opposed to being licensed from somewhere else, virtually impossible without good records. A nasty situation.]
It wouldn't be nearly the nasty problem if copyright still only lasted for 14 years or whatever the original length was. And if copies had to be deposited in the library of congress. And if the library was tasked with making works available on the net as they passed out of copyright and from then on.
I know what you are saying. I am not arguing with that. But I am saying in a more basic sense that she is not, she is a person.
Basically, using trademarks, she should be able to stop people using her trademarks and from saying that things are hers when they are not.
But if there were no copyrights, I think she should not be able to stop people selling copies of her songs from saying they are copies of her songs. That is, identifying her as the artist. Regardless of whether she has "branded herself." (Fat chance of that happening in my lifetime - no copyrights thet is.)
"[I'm pretty sure it was a copyright case and not a Trade Mark case... "
I seriously don't see how it could have been a copyright case. Can you check into it some? I can see how it could be a trademark case.
"but in any case each band is considered a sort of 'Brand' and bands can produce trademarks like Mick Jaggers Lips for the Rolling Stones or even just their logos etc]"
And I make no claim that someone else should be able to use the trademarks of others. Buyers should be able to use trademarks to know who makes the products they buy. This is an issue of quality and trust.
"Artists do keep the copyright for the words and music. The record company has the copyright on a particular sound recording of the work. With rare exception, the production of the sound recording was financed by the record company."
Financed yes. But as I understand it, as a loan which the artist pays back out of the artists cut of the earnings but even after paying it back, the record company (or whomever, not generally the artist) still owns the copyright.
"One quirk though, even without copyright, there is still only one source in the first instance for the work of a particular artist."
Without copyright, there's only one source for the initial creation of the content, but multiple sources for purchasing it once it's released. The only thing preventing me from being able to legally burn a Madonna CD and sell it to you for cheaper than the official distributor is copyright law.
Pretty much yes. Trademarks, if used properly, could make it plain to buyers if your CD was officially approved by the artist or not though. This would matter to some.
Slashdot Mirror
I use
I use BY-SA for a lot of my stuff as well... What do you think of the idea of granting interviews under copyleft terms?all the best,
drew
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zotzb
"The transfer to a publisher is a matter of contract."
Yes.
"The publisher cannot transfer to you any rights it did not acquire from the work's creator."
In the absence of copyright law, it is not the publisher who would grant me any rights exactly. It is the act of publishing. And since you gave him the right to publish...
If you didn;t like that outcome, you would be free to insist that a printer get a signed contract with each book transfer that would bind the purchaser or some such.
"The purpose of copyright law is to encourage the production of creative works by guaranteeing that a work's creator has a chance to derive financial benefit from his work"
Yes.
"It is not a grant of monoploy."
Oh, but it is. I am not saying it is a particularly bad example if done right, but it is one none the less.
"It's a recognition of, and protection of, the existence of rights that occur naturally when we create something."
This is not so and most of human history bears this out.
"Very few people could devote a career to, say, writing novels, if anyone could grab the first copy off the printing press, start copying it and compete with them for sales."
Any yet many people are now making careers writing Free Software under just such conditions. I think we are going to start seeing the same thing in other fields as time goes on. People are already writing the licenses in anticipation of this and some are writing the works and using the licenses.
"E.g., if it wasn;t for copyright law, you could copy Picasso print, slap your name on them, and sell them as yours."
No, we could easily have a law against plagiarism to stop that. You don't need to mix the two concepts to make your point.
Copyright law only needs to stop you from copying a Picasso print with his name on it and selling the copies.
"Or, I could grab all off Slashdot's code, open a site called Slashdot, start selling ads, and the current proprietors could do nothing to stop me."
Sort of like what you can get from here:
http://www.slashcode.com/about.shtml
you mean?
"In those circumstance, I doubt Picasso would have painted or that Slashdot would exist."
Who knows what any particular individual would have done? Certainly copyright law is premised (in some places at least) on the thought that more will create in the presence of copyright pretections afforded them by law, and I do not need to argue for or against that.
Still you ignore history as there still exist in this world many works of art from the days before there was nay copyright law.
Also, look into the fashion industry today. I hear that in many countries if not all, they operate without the benefit of copyright protections.
"Repeating or reciting something you've read is not copying the physical object on which language encoding that joke was originally placed."
So what, all we have to do to be cool in your view with respect to copyright is to pull a Fahrenheit 451?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451
Just get everyone to memorise a chapter of any book we want to copy. Have them recite it while another person copies it down. Publish the new "version" and all is ok? Certainly not with any copyright law I am aware of today. What is your take on this?
"Your reference to "public domain" presupposes the notion that, in the absence of law, anything that anyone makes would be owned by everyone else, not by the person who made the thing."
You are incorrect here. It maintains that anything anyone publishes becomes "public domain" in the absence of copyright law. Not anything anyone makes... anything they publish...
"Being in the "public domain" is a status granted and regulated by the law of man, not of nature."
We obviously disagree on this point big time.
all the best,
drew
"In every instance, someone will possess the very first, original, version of such a work. That person -- barring prior legal arrangements -- owns that work and possess all rights inherent in it."
r o&search=Search
OK, and this is so as long as they keep it private or secret as it were.
I think your theory breaks down when you get to publishing as we do it today.
Now, if at every step in the chain, transfers were made with negotiated contracts, the original author might be able to retain those rights except as released via contract. Sort of like trade secrets are handled these days perhaps.
Other than that, once published and in the hands of the public, while the author might still have control over that original physical copy, the work itself is now out in the public domain in the absence of copyright law.
Copyright law is the government stepping into the free market and granting monopolies to the authors. I think this is thought to make the market better as it takes away the need to have a contract with every person you sell a book to for instance.
Now, to go back to your views and ask a question:
If it shouldn't be like I write but should be like you write, wouldn't that mean that something like the joke police at the office water cooler would be warranted? That people would have no legal right to tell jokes they heard on the radio last night? (Or are jokes one of those things that we do not grant copyright monopolies on?)
all the best,
drew
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zotzb
So as far as you know, there are no laws in your country against plagiarism?
r o&search=Search
Which country are you from? Would people from other countries please chime in here?
all the best,
drew
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zotzb
"I write docs with a very liberal creative commons license..."
r o&search=Search
Which license do you use? Links to your work?
Speaking of things like that...
I have ponderd only granting interviews under a copyleft type license, say something like Creative Commons BY-SA.
That might be interesting.
all the best,
drew
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zotzb
Thought you didn't mind? I think his problem might have been one of minding plagiarism and not copying.
Copyright wise, couldn't you take a Shakespeare sonnet and claim it as your own and sell copies?
all the best,
drew
Hmm. Your post convinced me to start this off even though I don't think I am ready to.
I have been thinking lately about "copyright pollution" where the copyrighted works of others gets in our heads and pollutes them to to point where what then comes out of us is "tainted" as it were.
Now this should not really be that much of an issue in a sensible legal environment, but I think we may not be in such an environment now and I also think that those forces causing that environment to deteriorate for a good while now are still at work trying to make it worse.
Are we getting to the point, or will we get there in our lifetimes, where an artist cannot afford to pay attention to, watch, look at, read, etc. any works that are not in the public domain or that carry a free license of some sort? Sort of like where people say we are today with respect to software patents.
all the best,
drew
http://musicians.opensrc.org/DrewRoberts
"However, another way of interpreting copyright might be not to regard it as a right of use, but a standard we hold ourselves to before we call something a contribution."
d =17920100
r o&search=Search
I did not want to quote your whole post, but this comment applies in general to it.
We need to keep the concepts of plagarism and copyright seperate in our thinking.
I have been going back and forth with Dabido in this thread:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=221042&ci
and this has come up.
If someone tries to pass their work off as yours, you can use copyright law to try and put a stop to it. Now you might be quite happy not to have a copyright and would not care if people made and sold copies of your work, etc. but not like they fact that someone wants to take credit for your work.
(Somewhat like people who use BSD or GPL for software or BY or BY-SA for works in general or who place their works inthe public domain.)
I am ignorant here. If I were to place my work in the public domain and someone claimed it as their own, could I bring some sort of action based on plagarism? Are there laws in any of your countries that you are aware of that specifically deal with plagarism outside of copyright? (If no, perhaps we need them?)
As to calling things contributions, perhaps it might help to name the contributions we claim where we can. We should not denigrate even the smallest honest contributions. And a small contributor today may be a large contributor next year.
all the best,
drew
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zotzb
"what if you took a photo of a person looking in the location of an ad, then put the photo infront of the camera at the proper scale?"
I was just thinking along similar lines...
A mask made to look like you.
A robot head made to look like you. (A new twist on the turing test perhaps? - Can your robot head fool their face recognition software?)
A program to feed the yes data back. (DMCA violation?)
Seriously though, perhaps governments would want to participate and get free computers for their workforce... Hmmm. ~;-)
all the best,
drew
all the best,
drew
"One of the noblest actions a man can take is not take a public stand against something he knows nothing about."
Cut some of us at least a little slack sometimes...
Often I comment on the concepts of the summary or even on the concepts of the posts themselves. Not on the veracity of the article or summary. ~;-)
(I think this is my first comment for this summary for instance.)
all the best,
drew
"In practice, DRM manages whatever the content vendor believes or wishes its rights were, not what those right may actually be."
This caused an interesting thought to pop into my head. What if we tweaked the law such that anyone protecting more rights than they have with DRM technology has all their copyrights convert to copyleft?
That might give them an incentive not to overreach.
all the best,
drew
"_You_ don't define how much something should cost. The market does. What you call greed is called "capitalism" here in the US, Chavez."
Hmm, since you mention "capitalism" I am going to guess that you mean the free market when you say that the market defines how much something should cost.
The problem is that we are not talking about free market goods here. No, we are talking goods protected by Government Granted Monopolies. I think a lot of people would be just fine if the free market were actually in operation here and setting the prices without that monopoly play.
"The most ridiculous kinds of arguments are the ones where someone makes an assertion that a company would be better off if they did things my way, because then they'll make even more money"
I must have missed that part in my perusal. Actually, I am not sure if they would make more money. The money might just be going out of the industry and the big bucks may never be there again. On the other hand, we may only just be seeing peanuts today and bigger things may be ahead.
But I tend to agree, in a free market, people should be allowed to follow their own lawful business plans. However, one of the costs of doing business in a free society is having to listen to and perhaps deal with the opinions of others in the market.
In a non-free market, where the government has stepped in and skewed things, the government should either get out of the market or listen to calls to fix their meddling to better serve the citizens.
all the best,
drew
{'Well, perhaps it could. If trademark law was taken overboard,'
Well, there is a reason TradeMark and Copyright are different.}
You forget that this is all in the absence of any copyright law (from my point of thinking for this excercise) except where explicitly talking of copyright law.
{'This is just what people say about GPL code / Free Software and yet people do make money from it.'
Yes, but they have other streams in order to make money from [such as Red Hat having a support line and Asterik selling hardware to go with their PABX software]. People who are solely songwriters don't have other means to make money from their songwriting effort.}
I know, but the same hold for people who are exclusively code writers. I am about in that position of being only a songwriter myself (mostly lyrics actually as I can't really sing and don't play an instrument well enough either. I do work sometimes with a friend and sing to him and he tries to figure out from what I am singing what I am trying to sing!!!)
One problem is though is that the idea is out there, the licenses are out there in the wild and people are using them and experimenting with them.
http://musicians.opensrc.org/DrewRoberts
http://ccmixter.org/media/tags/attribution
Look around, there are more.
{So, unless there is some other means for them to make money, I don't have a problem with paying copyright royalties to perform their songs. [It's only one cent per performance, and most performers can afford that, even if they perform a concert with thirty to fifty songs, they should be making enough profit off each performance to afford 50 cents or so]. }
The trick is to find that some other means.
Is that how it is were you are? I need to look into it down here. Not that I need to know at this time personally. I do think that in some places it is a percentage of revenue though.
{Like I said, Copyright laws are consistent in what can and can't be copied.}
Perhaps by fiat, but not by some grand ste of consistent principles that anyone has ever pointed out to me or that I have found in all my searching.
Could you copyright a landscaped garden? Why is a cars coachwork not art? After all, at least in bygone days, sculptures of the designs were made before the actual cars were ever produced. This may all be done on computer now.
{The difference here is really in what is considered 'Performance art' and what is static art. It's not an inconsistancy as much as it is a differentiation as to the 'type of art'. }
But in the case of music or video which is recorded and not live, it is not in fact a performance. Not like a band playing a cover is a performance.
BTW - as an odd aside, I wrote a novel in november last year as performance art. I wrote in in an IRC channel on freenode. Some people even dropped in to watch the struggle at times.
The final unedited mess is here:
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/262954
{It's not legal to claim you wrote something in public domain, but that would result in a plagiarism case. The copying of the work wouldn't consist of a crime, only the claiming it as your own work. }
Gotcha, so you say there is overlap and cases are brought under copyright as it is simpler. In the absence of copyright law though (remember) cases of plagerism could still be brought under the plagersim laws. (I have no reason to doubt you, I have just never read any plagersim laws.)
{If my memory of the 'fake' group of books is correct, they dumbed down the songs to have easier chords/melodies than the original songs.}
So they would be claiming a copyright in the arrangement? What about the original words?
{I think they dumbed down the chords for easier playing. Often they transpose everything for guitar into the key of 'C' as well.}
Dumbing dow
"In short, though, yes. The brain can be ed digitally. It is much more complex than most people initially think."
I was unsure. But I would imagine it to be much more complex. The last I looked at that stuff was sometime in high school and that was a good many years ago now.
all the best,
drew
"Take the $600 toilet seat example."
I have always wondered if they were hiding the funding for other secret projects in those crazy costs. Any thoughts? I know you gave an explanation for this instance. I mean in general.
all the best,
drew
"I'll be performing in Perth,(Australia) on the 24th of February."
Cool.
"Yes, as some companies Trade Mark things like 'slogans' and stuff." etc.
Right.
"No, it can't be Trademark, as the Trademark laws are totally different."
Well, perhaps it could. If trademark law was taken overboard, and your name was a trademark, I could not say that this song was by you as I would be using your name/trademark. What I am saying is that I don't think trademark should be able to be used for such a purpose.
"For instance, I don't see how you would expect a songwriter to make a living from this. I write a song, if there is no copyright on it, then anyone can record it and I get nothing for my efforts."
Don't worry, I don't think we are likely to see copyright law done away with in our lifetimes. That said. This is just what people say about GPL code / Free Software and yet people do make money from it. I, myself am experimenting with releasing some workd under a Creative Commons BY-SA license. Feel free to record my song lyrics if you like them. While if you make large bucks from them, I wouldn't mind you sharing the bounty, there is no legal requirement put on you to do so once you follow the license terms.
"It doesn't matter if I place a trademark on it, that doesn't even prove I wrote it. Trademark doesn't actually stop people from claiming they wrote my song. That's why Henry the Eighth once added a bar to the end of a song and then put his name on it. Copyright is the part of the law which stops people doing that sort of thing."
A king in those days could do a lot that a normal man couldn't and can't today. I think you may be mixing plagerism and copyright thoughts and even the law may. In the absence of copyright law, copying someone's work and claiming that it is your work would still be two different things. We could easily have a no-plagerism law without a copyright law if everyone in the world wanted things that way.
"Copyright laws are pretty consistent with what can and can't be copyrighted."
Well, if I put up a statue of mine in my front yard, you can't take a picture of it from the public road and sell copies of your picture of my statue. If I design a car and the coachwork and have that in my driveway, it is my understanding that you could take a picture of it from the public road and sell pictures of it for a proft. Without my permission and compensation. (At least that is what I have been lead to believe in reading things over the years.)
In the US, at least, there are compulsary licenses for music but not for pictures or plays. (I think.)
If you are a store and you play music in your shop, you must pay performance royalties, If you hang my pictures in your shop, you don't have to pay performance royalties. (I think.)
I could probably go on and on.
"Without copyright laws anyone can make a copy of those photos and claim they took them."
Either that is not the case, or copyright incorporates elements of plagerism as well as copying, or copyright law negates the need for plagerism law and so we haven't written any. So, is it legal then to claim that you wrote something in the public domain? After all, those works are not under copyright.
"You're selling your photo's for $1. In a world without copyright someone could buy that photo and then copy it and sell it as many times as they like."
Check this page:
http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145
They can already do that with what they get from there. The license I put on those works permits it.
This is the experiment I was running between that site and the lulu site:
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/42417
"No, actually you can't do that at all. If a piece of sheet music is in public domain, then you can't claim a copyright on it. You can however, do research into different versions of the music and create your own version of sh
Surely we could try and make the case that synapse firing is digital. It either fires or it doesn't... ???You brain's all analog. DRM doesn't apply.
Still, where does the rights/restrictions management come in? Enquiring minds (be they analog or digital) want to know...
all the best,
drew
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zotzb
First, let me say that I really appreciate this response and the trouble you went to to research it.
"Many a real person is very different than their 'brand'. So, the record buying public really doesn't know Madonna at all, not as a person, only as her 'public personnae'/'brand'. They may think they know her as a person, but they don't. That's all i was trying to point out [which, as you said, you undestand, so hopefully we're on the same page]."
I think we are, except that you may have lost track of this all being premised on copyright law not existing.
"it was a 'Protection of Business name' case. [Which I would assume is similar to a Trade Mark protection case.] It's basically to stop the buying public from being defrauded into buying something they think is from another band / company etc."
And to me, this is basically all trademarks should be about in the first place. Are they about anything else these days from a legal standpoint? I have a vague feeling they might be, but I can't recall why.
It is good for the public to be able to know who they are dealing with.
"Copyright covers the right to copy songs etc. So, anyone selling her music isn't stopped from saying they are her songs. They just get in trouble for selling copies they're not allowed to make."
Here we go. Right, but if copyright law did not exist, everyone would be allowed to make any copies they wanted to except if something else was in play. Could that something be trademark?
I am saying that trademark law should not be able to stop me from copying artists CDs and saying they are copies of the great new album by Barry an da Cudas, SomeYoungDumbTing. Trademarks should not prevent me from giving this truthful information.
What they should be able to prevent is my making the jewel case and the physical cd from looking like the one that Barry an da Cudas put out. They might have their logo on there which I would not be allowd to use, etc.
The public should be ableto tell if they are getting an officially artist blessed cd or some knockoff. Then they can make an informed decision.
Your example of the 7-11 cds is in the context of existing copyright law. Again, I was postulating how things might be without such law. I don't expect we will ever see such a situation come about though.
Copyright is a very odd thing. Some things qualify for copyright, some don't. Things move from one set to the other at times. (At least one way.)
Some things has special twists, some don't. You can claim a copyright on a printed copy of sheet music of a public domain lyric and melody and not say exactly what you are claiming a copyright on. The fun goes on and on.
What did you do as a musician? Do you still dabble?
all the best,
drew
This should be the case in every digital IP field:
music, video games, television, movies, etc., etc., etc.
If it's not worth enough to an organization to continue making an item available for sale, then how can the item have enough value to protect?
While I agree with you, I think the value the big boys see is in the old stuff not competing with the new.all the best,
drew
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zotzb
[Of course, that would require uniquely identifying IP created by that company as opposed to being licensed from somewhere else, virtually impossible without good records. A nasty situation.]
It wouldn't be nearly the nasty problem if copyright still only lasted for 14 years or whatever the original length was. And if copies had to be deposited in the library of congress. And if the library was tasked with making works available on the net as they passed out of copyright and from then on.
The last two options could be requirements again.
all the best,
drew
"She is both."
... "
I know what you are saying. I am not arguing with that. But I am saying in a more basic sense that she is not, she is a person.
Basically, using trademarks, she should be able to stop people using her trademarks and from saying that things are hers when they are not.
But if there were no copyrights, I think she should not be able to stop people selling copies of her songs from saying they are copies of her songs. That is, identifying her as the artist. Regardless of whether she has "branded herself." (Fat chance of that happening in my lifetime - no copyrights thet is.)
"[I'm pretty sure it was a copyright case and not a Trade Mark case
I seriously don't see how it could have been a copyright case. Can you check into it some? I can see how it could be a trademark case.
"but in any case each band is considered a sort of 'Brand' and bands can produce trademarks like Mick Jaggers Lips for the Rolling Stones or even just their logos etc]"
And I make no claim that someone else should be able to use the trademarks of others. Buyers should be able to use trademarks to know who makes the products they buy. This is an issue of quality and trust.
all the best,
drew
"Artists do keep the copyright for the words and music. The record company has the copyright on a particular sound recording of the work. With rare exception, the production of the sound recording was financed by the record company."
Financed yes. But as I understand it, as a loan which the artist pays back out of the artists cut of the earnings but even after paying it back, the record company (or whomever, not generally the artist) still owns the copyright.
http://slashdot.org/~zotz/journal/118803
all the best,
drew
"One quirk though, even without copyright, there is still only one source in the first instance for the work of a particular artist."
Without copyright, there's only one source for the initial creation of the content, but multiple sources for purchasing it once it's released.
Exactly, hence the phrase: "in the first instance"all the best,
drew
"One quirk though, even without copyright, there is still only one source in the first instance for the work of a particular artist."
Without copyright, there's only one source for the initial creation of the content, but multiple sources for purchasing it once it's released. The only thing preventing me from being able to legally burn a Madonna CD and sell it to you for cheaper than the official distributor is copyright law.
Pretty much yes. Trademarks, if used properly, could make it plain to buyers if your CD was officially approved by the artist or not though. This would matter to some.all the best,
drew
"I'm not sure exactly why that is, but I'm pretty sure that it isn't due to trademarks."
There are also trade secrets. Depending on how well you can keep a secret...
Trade secrets are supposedly one of the things patents were meant to improve on.
all the best,
drew