With respect, while I don't doubt your explanation of your legal system, you ducked my question. I don't know what kind of evidence a court might reasonably require the RIAA to provide in order to decide that on balance (forgive me, I don't know the exact legal wording for the standard of proof required in your system) it is more likely that the infringement occurred, and to identify a reasonable level of damages to award if this is the case.
Put another way, given that:
copyright infringement is illegal and may cause damage
as you say, damages can't be based on speculation
it is inherently difficult for a plaintiff to access the kind of data that would show specific damage, because infringers have deliberately adopted tools and practices to make it so
how do you think a copyright holder who believes they are being damaged by infringement could reasonably go about demonstrating any specific damage done to them under your legal system, to a sufficient standard that the court would order those damages recovered?
Or do you believe that under your current legal system, this just isn't realistically possible?
I did read your article, and I did acknowledge that it's possible for lesser known artists to come out on top as a result of releasing material freely as was the case there.
Very few people dispute that copyright infringement is wrong, but that doesn't give the RIAA leave to rack up completely inappropriate fines by way of damages.
And nowhere in this thread have I intentionally said it does.
ultimately the purpose of copyright law is not to financially reward authors, but to encourage authors to create. by your argument then, filesharing is accomplishing what copyright was intended to accomplish, but more effectively.
I don't necessarily agree with your definition exactly as written, but sure, copyright is primarily used as an economic instrument to promote the creation and distribution of new works.
Whether filesharing does the same job but better depends on whether you think those better-selling artists got there purely through marketing pressure, or that not all art is created equal and they became more popular on merit. Personally, I don't think 100 Britneys could ever replace Mozart, or Queen, or Andrew Lloyd Webber. While I've seen some great amateur musical productions, none of them was as good as the last professional show I saw, Avenue Q. There are a million sci-fi fan-fic authors out there, but how many of them could really keep up with Asimov, or even plan out five years' worth of imaginative story arc before episode 1 went into production like JMS? The Open Source world is full of keen programmers, but hasn't yet produced anything to beat professional tools like Photoshop and InDesign. Basically, if you look at any creative field, you find that not all art is equal. If everyone's read a certain book, or listened to a certain song, or installed a certain bit of software, sure, it could just be marketing sometimes, but usually there's a better reason than that. I don't think promoting the alternatives at the expense of the best work is a step up.
So out of interest, Ray, and assuming your professional interests let you answer the question at this point: what would you consider a reasonable form of evidence in such a case? Much of the discussion here on Slashdot over the past day or so has hinged on whether it would be reasonable to have a system where it's difficult for a plaintiff to demonstrate specific damages, yet only a small amount is awarded in a successful case. I think most of us have agreed that the amount awarded here was too high, but how would you suggest people work out a more realistic figure, given the nature of the illegal activity?
The RIAA has yet to establish with any legal credibility that they have suffered ANY damage in the aggregate.
I'm sorry, but did you actually read the rest of the discussion before posting? We've been busily looking at several different independent studies where the most favourable claim is that it might break even, and most put the damage as the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars per year.
Moreover, this is a point of principle about copyright law and its effective enforcement generally. The fact that the RIAA aren't popular around here is irrelevant; it could just as well be someone whose illegal distribution of a software product threatens to put the small company who developed it out of business, undermining a small, independent movie studio, or any number of other examples.
If you'd read the rest of the discussion, you'd also know that I don't think the scale of the damages here is justified. I just don't accept that a slap on the wrist is acceptable either. She had the chance to settle for two orders of magnitude less than she's been ordered to pay up now, and instead she wasted the court's time and lied to them. I'm not overflowing with sympathy that they took a dim view of her at that point.
I choose the remedy of not buying anything from the RIAA.
So do I (well, the UK equivalent, anyway). I also won't buy DVDs with silly amounts of can't-skip content at the start, downloads that I can't immediately and legally burn to CD with no DRM rubbish, etc.
I feel that this change the rational ownership position; the ownership is partially with the originator of the thing (in this case represented by the RIAA or their members) and partially by society as part of culture.
Actually, I think a lot of the problem with copyright in practice today is that the "ownership" doesn't stay with either the originator or the people: it most often gets transferred to a middleman, who does precious little yet creams off most of the money, despite being by far the most expendable of the three interests.
I have previously suggested that one of the most useful copyright reforms would be to make the basic right non-transferable for the duration (as in fact one or two countries do), and instead develop a system of exclusive distribution rights that can, by statute, last only for a relatively short time. An appropriate period would inevitably depend on the nature of the work, whether a music track, film, computer software, book,..., but somewhere between a few months and a couple of years is likely to be sufficient in almost all cases.
That way, an artist may produce new material, and those who provide a valuable service to the artist by promoting and distributing that material in a way that brings in the gold can be assured of a reasonable return on their investment. However, any middlemen who don't turn out to get the artist good deals will be out of luck pretty fast, as they'll lose their distribution contracts to others who can. If something turns out to be a runaway success and the artist got a poor deal originally, they will be the ones who benefit from forced renegotiation later, not the middleman. On the other hand, if an artist got a big deal up-front but then produced rubbish, the middleman could minimise their losses and get out fast.
This way, artists always have an incentive to produce the best material they can, since they will be the long-term beneficiary of doing so. Middlemen who provide a useful service would still have a place, but only bringing returns commensurate to the inevitably limited value they add. Middlemen who basically abuse artists with lock-in contracts that mean they get the profits from successes but the failures have to pay for their own losses would just be SOL. And of course, all of this is in the best interests of society as a whole, since it actively promotes broader distribution of better material, which is, after all, the economic argument in favour of having copyright.
Lesser-known artists tend to benefit from the exposure they get through file-sharing, while established artists lose out (and in financial terms, their losses are greater than the increases felt by the others). This is pretty well-established by research to date.
Of course, there is nothing to stop those lesser-known artists from releasing some taster material, or even their entire collection, for free and legal file-sharing if they think it's in their interests (other than any agreements they have with uncooperative record labels, but that's a separate issue). But in doing so, I think they should then accept that they will not be guaranteed any income from the material afterwards. Leaking it for the exposure, but then screwing the people who copied the content when you get to court, is unethical.
And for what it's worth, as I noted elsewhere in this discussion, I don't think the amount of damages here is sensible. I just don't agree that the damage should have been zero, or only some token amount, either. You can take a position that in a civil court, only actual damages should be awarded, but then if you accept that the overriding interest of any legal system should be to achieve justice, you have to accept criminal court action as well to act as a deterrent and/or statutory damages in civil court cases where it is unrealistically difficult to identify the exact scale of the damage because of the nature of the illegal act.
What annoys me about these Slashdot discussions is when the slashbots whinge about the excessive damages in this sort of case, but every time a new one comes up they're all over it with clever legal trickery that is basically attempting to avoid liability in court for breaking the law. They think it's terribly unethical that the RIAA goes after people with settlement deals because defending themselves in court could be more expensive (and that is blatantly unethical) but they seem to have no qualms about making it unrealistically difficult for the RIAA to recover their losses through legitimate channels. That's just hypocrisy, pure and simple.
Some recent examples that come to mind, all related at least in part to DRM and similar consumer-unfriendly technology:
the commercial success of iTunes Plus, and now Amazon
the climbdown from DRM that the major labels are starting to join
the slow adoption of Vista
the slow adoption of HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.
Sure, some of these have other factors involved, particularly the last two, but no-one can claim all the problems with DRM and related control-freakery haven't hurt them in those cases. The first two are clear-cut examples of market forces in action.
People should not be punished for the incompetence of Dinosaurs.
No, they should be educated about why the law says what it says, and then punished for breaking the law for their own selfish advancement if they continue to do so.
A perfectly legitimate alternative if you don't agree with paying the asking price for physical media is simply not to buy at that price. The recording industry will soon get the message. Similarly, if you find legal on-line downloads useful and pay up accordingly, businesses will get the point and support them. Voting with your wallet is a highly effective tactic. But ripping stuff off just shows that it does have value to you but you're too cheap to pay for it, and frankly I have no problem with people who take that attitude and then take the piss out of the legal system getting their asses handed to them in court as a consequence.
I've read many such things before. I make a point of getting some basic background information straight before getting into these discussions. I have also read widely (and written in formal consultations) on the nature of copyright more generally. The fact that I did not have time to look up a poorly cited source from reference material of dozens of pages just to reply to one Slashdot post does not mean anything other than that I do not have infinite time. The studies I have seen before — some of which were cited in the literature survey mentioned — all say much the same thing.
Talking about democracy, it certainly doesn't help when economically naive and poorly informed people start thinking its OK to break the laws underpinning a major area of the modern economy, and then reason this away with vague "no damage was done" type arguments. If you believe strongly that the law is wrong, campaign to have it changed, support organisations that do so with your time and/or money, or vote for someone who agrees with you if you can. Everyone whinges about Big Media lobbying, but ultimately, Big Media doesn't have a vote, and it's a lot smaller than The People.
As you said, democracy will indeed die if people just go "Huh?", which appears to be as much as the average copyright infringer on Slashdot can muster by way of justification for their illegal actions. If people cared as much as you would like, we would long since have seen Big Media taken down a peg or three under anticompetition legislation, their price-fixing for physical media and lock-in techniques for electronic copies would have been ruled illegal, their abuse of the legal system as a threat mechanism against genuinely innocent parties would have been taken down as the protection racket that it is, and we would have a genuinely competitive market in which those who take advantage of the new opportunities presented by the Internet age will succeed, while those who rely on outdated business models will fail.
Incidentally, your change of emphasis in the quote doesn't defeat my point at all, which was that the earlier claim that on-line file-sharing boosts sales isn't supported by the literature nearly as clearly as the original poster implies. The fact that the quote does say that the effect appears to be quite small (if you count millions of dollars a week as "quite small") does not mean that the effect is in the other direction, which was the claim being challenged.
I'm sorry, perhaps you missed the part where I quoted statistics from your own study that seem to oppose your argument? As I said, I didn't have time to read the entire thing in detail, but there were several other sections that were not nearly as one-sided in their view as you're making out, either.
But since you don't seem to read your own links, here's another one for you from the summary you cited this time:
An explosion in research (mainly dependent on access to proprietary data) as a result of public interest in these issues means that we are now in a position to provide answers with some degree of certainty. The basic result is that online illegal file-sharing probably has some negative impact on traditional sales but the effect is appears to be quite small. The size of this effect is debated, and ranges from 0 to 100% of the sales decline in recent years, but a figure of between 0 and 30% would be a reasonable consensus value (i.e. that file-sharing accounted for 0-30% of the decline in sales not a 0-30% decline in sales). At the same time there is still substantial disagreement in the literature with the most impressive paper to date (Oberholzer and Strumpf 2005) estimating no impact from file-sharing.
I've even emphasized the important parts for the hard-of-reading. Clue: this clearly states that on the basis of all the studies to date, file-sharing is not an overall positive influence on sales. The only question is how much of a negative impact it has, and figures quoted in the literature cited work out to millions of dollars per week in some cases. And this is from a literature survey with a slight bias in its presentation!
Sorry, I don't have time to read an entire zillion-piece web site to find the context for the quote you mentioned. And it's dangerous to give quotes like that out of context. Here's another quote, from page 22 of part 7:
WII interviewed file-sharers how much music they buy now compared to earlier when they were not active as file-sharers. The answers were 3% buy much more, 7% a little more, 55% as before, 25% a little less and 10% much less.
I don't know about you, but that seems pretty consistent with my personal experience. Perhaps those 3% who buy much more really do buy more than 3x as much as each of the 10% who buy much less have stopped buying, and similarly for the "a little" categories, but I couldn't find anything in the report on a quick scan to back this up. It's not exactly reliable to conclude that when you asked illegal file sharers about their activities, and they said they really bought loads more than they ever used to, this means freebie file-sharing is an overall plus.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the explanation isn't plausible, and I certainly think that if the music industry gets its act together there are several business models created by on-line file-sharing that could make them more money and make music access easier for everyone. I have nothing against any of these ideas. But that's a far cry from claiming that today's freebie file-sharing culture is really a good thing for the music business and doesn't cost them anything, particularly if your only evidence for this is that you asked some file sharers and they told you so.
Copyright is not a right (despite its name). It is a legal privilege given to certain people for a finite amount of time.
There are different kinds of "right". There are legal rights: those things you may do, with the law protecting your freedom to do so. Copyright clearly is such a right. Then there are moral rights (sometimes called human rights, though this clouds the issue): those things that are widely recognised as being important freedoms that should be protected. Hopefully your legal rights include all of your moral rights, though of course this doesn't always work in practice and more than the occasional revolution has started when the gap became wide enough. And then, from a pragmatic standpoint, there is the classic argument that the only rights you truly have are those you are prepared to die defending, because anything else can be taken from you, and if it can be taken from you, is it really a right at all?
In any case, the question is far from the simplistic view you present, and cute sound-bites about the name of something do little to further the debate (whichever side is spouting them this five minutes).
How strange to see a reasoned, balanced post in such a discussion.
I personally am not convinced about the staggering amount of damages here. However, I do wonder how many of the people who argue that she should only have to pay for actual damages based on demonstration by the RIAA of specific downloads are the same people who object to having the authorities tracing their Internet use, want to preserve on-line anonymity at all costs, etc. If you're going to argue for a system where it's almost impossible for someone to bring a case, yet where it's pretty obvious that a substantial amount of damage is being done and the only question is where to draw the line, then you can't argue that in a successful prosecution only token damages should be awarded and maintain any credibility.
I'll admit my understanding of the UK system is a bit sketchy, but I was under the impression the position of Prime Minister was appointed by the Queen (typically the leader of the majority party) and Cabinet was then appointed by the Prime Minister (presumably under advisement from his senior Party members).
Technically, you're probably right, but as with much to do with Her Majesty, it hasn't really worked that way for a long time. The Prime Minister is always the leader of the party with the largest number of seats in Parliament. If the monarch ever appointed anyone else, we would be a republic by the following day.
Well they _do_ (apparently, I don't follow UK politics especially closely) have a mandate. That's the way the system works - people *don't* vote directly for certain individuals to be in specific positions (like Prime Minister).
No, they don't, except that in that case, they do: the position is so important that a significant number of people will elect a local MP based solely on which political party they represent, because that will decide the PM and therefore the nature of the administration.
In any case, as I noted before, the Labour Party ran on a platform that Tony Blair would serve a full third term as leader. There was an explicit promise that by voting Labour, people were not voting for Gordon Brown. When Blair stepped down, Brown became Leader of the Labour Party effectively via coronation within the party, and was duly appointed Prime Minister by the Queen. There isn't even a shred of democratic process in there.
For the avoidance of doubt, because if you're not from the UK you might not know this: the third Blair administration got in with the smallest majority of any party in recent history, didn't even win the popular vote in England, and if polling was even close to accurate, wouldn't have had a chance without TB. And then despite getting the support of only 22% of the electorate (and around 1/3 of those who actually voted), they got a clear absolute majority in Parliament, which has been used to further widely opposed proposals on everything from ID cards to congestion charging, often overcoming opposition from the other large parties who collectively received far, far more votes. The system is as crooked as they come.
The system here in Australia is basically the same, which is why I wonder about people who get so uptight about who is (or might be) Prime Minister. The point is that it doesn't matter because a) the Prime Minister could be (literally) anyone in parliament and b) individually, they don't hold any more power than anyone else there.
On the contrary. It will always be the leader of the largest party in Parliament, and anyone who watched the Blair presidency^Wprime ministership knows all too well that the PM has all the power if they really want it. That's one reason he was so widely disliked: he centralised power in 10 Downing Street like no-one who'd ever gone before, even to the extent of relying on these mysterious "special advisor" types rather than traditional Cabinet government. And from that position, he pushed through numerous reforms (and the occasional dubious war, obviously) without the support of the people or even, on occasion, much of his own government.
My argument was that it completely breaks economics because it introduces into the economy a property which can be duplicated essentially without any consumption of resources.
By that argument, every service industry in the world also completely breaks economics. After all, the only resources involved are the effort and overheads of those providing the service in each case, and they are still free to offer those same services to others later. I don't think that's happened, though, has it? Economics does not have to deal only with solid, physical products. In fact, it would be pretty pointless if it did, because it would ignore the fact that the services have value to consumers, and the time and effort required to provide the service has a cost to the provider.
This is only true if we "need" to have it at all. If we just kindda, sorta want it and don't really need it, then those who feel the imperetive to have it can pay for it and those who don't feel that imperetive don't have to pay for it. This is where the "all" argument breaks down again. Because there is plenty of people who listen to music not because they feel it essential part of their life but because they are willing to give it a try.
And what would they try, if no-one paid for the music? What if everyone decides they only want to try, and never to contribute to the cost of producing the music in the first place? How can you tell the difference, objectively and ahead of time, between someone who Really Wants(TM) the music, and someone who's Just Trying It Out(TM)? Again, your argument is based entirely on one group sponging off another. I just don't see how you can ever believe that is a fair deal, simply because not everyone gets the same deal under that system.
Another interesting question: would the results of votes be different if all laws had to be short enough and clearly enough written for people to understand, with the voters deciding to vote "no" on principle if asked to accept dozens of pages of legal weaselry?
Our democracies (I'm from the UK) aren't perfect, but its better than handing the lunatics the keys to the asylum.
Actually, I honestly don't think it is at the moment.
Today, we have a Prime Minister, complete with new Cabinet, who has never been voted into that office by the electorate, and indeed who just backed down from holding an election to get a mandate. (Anyone who is about to bleat about a party political system where the Labour Party was elected would do well to remember that they were elected after Blair said he would serve a full third term. There is no rational way you can argue that the Brown administration has a mandate based on party politics. And even if they had been elected without that promise, our first-past-the-post system is so broken that you could hardly call it representative.)
Many of the less popular acts of government in our country are now coming down from above. At national level, we have the unelected European Commission running the show, despite the presence of the directly elected European Parliament, and imposing legislation on national governments. I find it sadly ironic that the government is desperately trying to wriggle out of a referendum on the big European treaty on the basis that it has certain key safeguards for national sovereignty in place, when those "safeguards" basically mean they can ignore the few bits of European law that actually serve the interests of the people: human rights, protection for workers, etc. Meanwhile, the government imposes all sorts of unpopular nonsense on the basis that Europe told it that it had to. Remember that our own European Commissioner is serial ministerial resigner and locally politically uncredible screw-up Peter Mandelson — so when they say "Europe told us to", this is the sort of person they're taking orders from!
This happens at more local levels, too. I live in Cambridge, where right now our County Council are pretty obviously setting up a hugely unpopular congestion charge in the city. This is being done despite widespread opposition among city residents and their elected City Council, who aren't even being shown the models from the consultants. It's also being done by much the same crowd who are already screwing up local transport because of a pet scheme of theirs, which can't possibly be enough to solve the problems they claim we're going to have a few years down the line even according to their own laughably physics-defying models, yet which is being implemented right now at vast cost in both taxpayers' money and disruption to local residents and businesses, even after thousands of local residents opposed the scheme and basically no-one without a vested interest supported it.
In other words, right now the basic decisions that are going to affect me as an everyday guy, at local, national and international levels, are all being made by people I have had no chance to vote for or against. And a great many of the big decisions they are making are in the face of overwhelming popular opposition, which would probably be enough not just to get rid of the legislation but to outright finish political careers in some cases if any remotely democratic form of voting were in place.
I do not believe in a 100% "one adult, one vote" type of system for every little decision, for the simple, pragmatic reason that no-one has enough time to consider all the issues deeply enough to make a sensible, informed choice. I believe in a representative government elected according to the basic principles of the people, where those in the civil service can do the detailed investigation where appropriate and decisions are made by the elected representatives on the basis of the information and any expert advice available to them. I also believe in checks and balances, and in particular that if interest in a particular issue is sufficiently widespread, it should be possible for the people to override the government on that specific issue immediately, rather than waiting for anothe
Woah, someone got out of the humour bypass machine on the wrong side!
For what it's worth, Mr AC, if you search my posting history you will find plenty of specific, serious posts challenging the science of Gore and his film. This just wasn't one of them. I'll even admit to flip-flopping a bit on some of the specifics, as I came across better presentations of the data and clearer potential explanations consistent with it. Unfortunately, most of the threads start with something typically unconstructive like this:
Sceptic
An Inconvenient Truth is full of bad science! The "inconvenient documentary" highlighted several of them!
Supporter
But the "inconvenient documentary" has been debunked by many established scientists by now. So say the IPCC, and they have thousands of experts, while there are only a few critics!
Sceptic
You know that most of the IPCC's "scientists" aren't actually scientists, right? And that several of the prominent critics were also part of the IPCC, prior to various funding politics connected with whether they backed the "consensus" view?
Supporter
Well, OK, so the film presented some of the data poorly, but you can still use it to support the basic arguments. You just have to totally ignore the misleading timeline nonsense in the film, and think about the system as a feedback loop.
Sceptic
A feedback look that isn't consistently supported over the geological timeframes spanned by the data?
Supporter
Well, it's the most recent data that matters. Over the last few decades, as mankind's emissions have soared, we've seen several of the hottest years on record!
Sceptic
According to records that have only run for the past few decades, at least. Anyway, if we're talking about feedback loops that take decades to take effect, how can we possibly explain the recent hot years on the basis of man-made emissions that, relatively speaking, only just happened?
Supporter
Well, it's because the man-made emissions have increased so fast that they've upset the balance of the system.
Sceptic
Man-made emissions represent only a tiny fraction of the overall carbon content of the atmosphere, almost all of which occurs naturally. And in any case, since we've known about the carbon issues for decades and the big industrial changes that increased artificial output were in the early to mid 20th century, how come this is suddenly so much more serious an issue than it was a couple of years ago?
And somewhere around this point, a few people with a clue about science, or at least an understanding of the scientific method and a willingness to examine the data with an open mind, turn up and start a more interesting variation. I guess from now on, it's obligatory to use Gore's Nobel Prize as "evidence" that he knows what he's talking about, and the UK court judgement the same week about showing the film in schools as "evidence" that he doesn't, before we move along to any more enlightened discussion.:-(
So tell us, oh wise one, because we're all dying to know: given that you can't time the market, and that "low" and "high" are relative terms in this context, how do you tell when the market is low or high? Sure, you sometimes get strange anomalies where a company's shares are so cheap that if it sold up tomorrow you'd still make a profit, but usually there is a judgement call involved.
Incidentally, please make sure you indicate your credentials (or lack thereof) in posts where you might be seen as giving financial advice. A lot of impressionable young people read this forum, and the last thing they need is to go off on some wild investing spree because some guy who got lucky posted about how easy it is to make money on the stock market.
Naturally, this is wrong. Since it doesn't even explore the current economic model in which the government guarantees producers of content near-perpetual ownership of distribution rights. A system in which "the costs can be shared" as you put it is the one that exists for some blank media in the US but it is certainly not the prevailing system of compensating content producers.
On the contrary. I think one of the main advantages of the copyright idea, perhaps even the most important one, is precisely that it makes it commercially viable for an artist to produce a work that takes a lot of time, wouldn't be worth enough for any single patron to commission it, but is worth a small amount to many people. You can argue, very reasonably, that if copyright is an economic instrument and the value it is generating for the artist is far greater than what would be necessary for them to produce and distribute the work then the balance of the copyright bargain should be adjusted, but this isn't an argument against the principle, it's an argument against the specifics.
By the way, stating that I'm wrong, talking rubbish, and missing the "subtleties of the argument" doesn't really advance the discussion in any useful way. Proof-by-stating-as-fact is a very childlike debating tactic, and I guarantee you it won't cut any ice over here.
You've written quite a lot in reply to my second point, but as far as I can see you haven't said anything that actually counters the basic principle: if you're getting something for free, and others are paying for it, and the only reason you can get it for free is because those others are paying for it, then it is a logical fallacy to argue that because you can have it for free, no-one needs to pay for it. Economics just doesn't work like that. As you say, 'these arguments always fail when taken to the extreme of "what if everyone did it"'. But that is exactly the point! Your argument only works as long as only some people do it, and the work is supported in real financial terms by others. Now, you can call that whatever you like, but it's still taking advantage.
Slashdot Mirror
With respect, while I don't doubt your explanation of your legal system, you ducked my question. I don't know what kind of evidence a court might reasonably require the RIAA to provide in order to decide that on balance (forgive me, I don't know the exact legal wording for the standard of proof required in your system) it is more likely that the infringement occurred, and to identify a reasonable level of damages to award if this is the case.
Put another way, given that:
- copyright infringement is illegal and may cause damage
- as you say, damages can't be based on speculation
- it is inherently difficult for a plaintiff to access the kind of data that would show specific damage, because infringers have deliberately adopted tools and practices to make it so
how do you think a copyright holder who believes they are being damaged by infringement could reasonably go about demonstrating any specific damage done to them under your legal system, to a sufficient standard that the court would order those damages recovered?Or do you believe that under your current legal system, this just isn't realistically possible?
I did read your article, and I did acknowledge that it's possible for lesser known artists to come out on top as a result of releasing material freely as was the case there.
Very few people dispute that copyright infringement is wrong, but that doesn't give the RIAA leave to rack up completely inappropriate fines by way of damages.
And nowhere in this thread have I intentionally said it does.
ultimately the purpose of copyright law is not to financially reward authors, but to encourage authors to create. by your argument then, filesharing is accomplishing what copyright was intended to accomplish, but more effectively.
I don't necessarily agree with your definition exactly as written, but sure, copyright is primarily used as an economic instrument to promote the creation and distribution of new works.
Whether filesharing does the same job but better depends on whether you think those better-selling artists got there purely through marketing pressure, or that not all art is created equal and they became more popular on merit. Personally, I don't think 100 Britneys could ever replace Mozart, or Queen, or Andrew Lloyd Webber. While I've seen some great amateur musical productions, none of them was as good as the last professional show I saw, Avenue Q. There are a million sci-fi fan-fic authors out there, but how many of them could really keep up with Asimov, or even plan out five years' worth of imaginative story arc before episode 1 went into production like JMS? The Open Source world is full of keen programmers, but hasn't yet produced anything to beat professional tools like Photoshop and InDesign. Basically, if you look at any creative field, you find that not all art is equal. If everyone's read a certain book, or listened to a certain song, or installed a certain bit of software, sure, it could just be marketing sometimes, but usually there's a better reason than that. I don't think promoting the alternatives at the expense of the best work is a step up.
So out of interest, Ray, and assuming your professional interests let you answer the question at this point: what would you consider a reasonable form of evidence in such a case? Much of the discussion here on Slashdot over the past day or so has hinged on whether it would be reasonable to have a system where it's difficult for a plaintiff to demonstrate specific damages, yet only a small amount is awarded in a successful case. I think most of us have agreed that the amount awarded here was too high, but how would you suggest people work out a more realistic figure, given the nature of the illegal activity?
The RIAA has yet to establish with any legal credibility that they have suffered ANY damage in the aggregate.
I'm sorry, but did you actually read the rest of the discussion before posting? We've been busily looking at several different independent studies where the most favourable claim is that it might break even, and most put the damage as the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars per year.
Moreover, this is a point of principle about copyright law and its effective enforcement generally. The fact that the RIAA aren't popular around here is irrelevant; it could just as well be someone whose illegal distribution of a software product threatens to put the small company who developed it out of business, undermining a small, independent movie studio, or any number of other examples.
If you'd read the rest of the discussion, you'd also know that I don't think the scale of the damages here is justified. I just don't accept that a slap on the wrist is acceptable either. She had the chance to settle for two orders of magnitude less than she's been ordered to pay up now, and instead she wasted the court's time and lied to them. I'm not overflowing with sympathy that they took a dim view of her at that point.
I choose the remedy of not buying anything from the RIAA.
So do I (well, the UK equivalent, anyway). I also won't buy DVDs with silly amounts of can't-skip content at the start, downloads that I can't immediately and legally burn to CD with no DRM rubbish, etc.
I feel that this change the rational ownership position; the ownership is partially with the originator of the thing (in this case represented by the RIAA or their members) and partially by society as part of culture.
Actually, I think a lot of the problem with copyright in practice today is that the "ownership" doesn't stay with either the originator or the people: it most often gets transferred to a middleman, who does precious little yet creams off most of the money, despite being by far the most expendable of the three interests.
I have previously suggested that one of the most useful copyright reforms would be to make the basic right non-transferable for the duration (as in fact one or two countries do), and instead develop a system of exclusive distribution rights that can, by statute, last only for a relatively short time. An appropriate period would inevitably depend on the nature of the work, whether a music track, film, computer software, book, ..., but somewhere between a few months and a couple of years is likely to be sufficient in almost all cases.
That way, an artist may produce new material, and those who provide a valuable service to the artist by promoting and distributing that material in a way that brings in the gold can be assured of a reasonable return on their investment. However, any middlemen who don't turn out to get the artist good deals will be out of luck pretty fast, as they'll lose their distribution contracts to others who can. If something turns out to be a runaway success and the artist got a poor deal originally, they will be the ones who benefit from forced renegotiation later, not the middleman. On the other hand, if an artist got a big deal up-front but then produced rubbish, the middleman could minimise their losses and get out fast.
This way, artists always have an incentive to produce the best material they can, since they will be the long-term beneficiary of doing so. Middlemen who provide a useful service would still have a place, but only bringing returns commensurate to the inevitably limited value they add. Middlemen who basically abuse artists with lock-in contracts that mean they get the profits from successes but the failures have to pay for their own losses would just be SOL. And of course, all of this is in the best interests of society as a whole, since it actively promotes broader distribution of better material, which is, after all, the economic argument in favour of having copyright.
Lesser-known artists tend to benefit from the exposure they get through file-sharing, while established artists lose out (and in financial terms, their losses are greater than the increases felt by the others). This is pretty well-established by research to date.
Of course, there is nothing to stop those lesser-known artists from releasing some taster material, or even their entire collection, for free and legal file-sharing if they think it's in their interests (other than any agreements they have with uncooperative record labels, but that's a separate issue). But in doing so, I think they should then accept that they will not be guaranteed any income from the material afterwards. Leaking it for the exposure, but then screwing the people who copied the content when you get to court, is unethical.
And for what it's worth, as I noted elsewhere in this discussion, I don't think the amount of damages here is sensible. I just don't agree that the damage should have been zero, or only some token amount, either. You can take a position that in a civil court, only actual damages should be awarded, but then if you accept that the overriding interest of any legal system should be to achieve justice, you have to accept criminal court action as well to act as a deterrent and/or statutory damages in civil court cases where it is unrealistically difficult to identify the exact scale of the damage because of the nature of the illegal act.
What annoys me about these Slashdot discussions is when the slashbots whinge about the excessive damages in this sort of case, but every time a new one comes up they're all over it with clever legal trickery that is basically attempting to avoid liability in court for breaking the law. They think it's terribly unethical that the RIAA goes after people with settlement deals because defending themselves in court could be more expensive (and that is blatantly unethical) but they seem to have no qualms about making it unrealistically difficult for the RIAA to recover their losses through legitimate channels. That's just hypocrisy, pure and simple.
What is this assertion based on?
Some recent examples that come to mind, all related at least in part to DRM and similar consumer-unfriendly technology:
Sure, some of these have other factors involved, particularly the last two, but no-one can claim all the problems with DRM and related control-freakery haven't hurt them in those cases. The first two are clear-cut examples of market forces in action.
People should not be punished for the incompetence of Dinosaurs.
No, they should be educated about why the law says what it says, and then punished for breaking the law for their own selfish advancement if they continue to do so.
A perfectly legitimate alternative if you don't agree with paying the asking price for physical media is simply not to buy at that price. The recording industry will soon get the message. Similarly, if you find legal on-line downloads useful and pay up accordingly, businesses will get the point and support them. Voting with your wallet is a highly effective tactic. But ripping stuff off just shows that it does have value to you but you're too cheap to pay for it, and frankly I have no problem with people who take that attitude and then take the piss out of the legal system getting their asses handed to them in court as a consequence.
I've read many such things before. I make a point of getting some basic background information straight before getting into these discussions. I have also read widely (and written in formal consultations) on the nature of copyright more generally. The fact that I did not have time to look up a poorly cited source from reference material of dozens of pages just to reply to one Slashdot post does not mean anything other than that I do not have infinite time. The studies I have seen before — some of which were cited in the literature survey mentioned — all say much the same thing.
Talking about democracy, it certainly doesn't help when economically naive and poorly informed people start thinking its OK to break the laws underpinning a major area of the modern economy, and then reason this away with vague "no damage was done" type arguments. If you believe strongly that the law is wrong, campaign to have it changed, support organisations that do so with your time and/or money, or vote for someone who agrees with you if you can. Everyone whinges about Big Media lobbying, but ultimately, Big Media doesn't have a vote, and it's a lot smaller than The People.
As you said, democracy will indeed die if people just go "Huh?", which appears to be as much as the average copyright infringer on Slashdot can muster by way of justification for their illegal actions. If people cared as much as you would like, we would long since have seen Big Media taken down a peg or three under anticompetition legislation, their price-fixing for physical media and lock-in techniques for electronic copies would have been ruled illegal, their abuse of the legal system as a threat mechanism against genuinely innocent parties would have been taken down as the protection racket that it is, and we would have a genuinely competitive market in which those who take advantage of the new opportunities presented by the Internet age will succeed, while those who rely on outdated business models will fail.
Incidentally, your change of emphasis in the quote doesn't defeat my point at all, which was that the earlier claim that on-line file-sharing boosts sales isn't supported by the literature nearly as clearly as the original poster implies. The fact that the quote does say that the effect appears to be quite small (if you count millions of dollars a week as "quite small") does not mean that the effect is in the other direction, which was the claim being challenged.
I'm sorry, perhaps you missed the part where I quoted statistics from your own study that seem to oppose your argument? As I said, I didn't have time to read the entire thing in detail, but there were several other sections that were not nearly as one-sided in their view as you're making out, either.
But since you don't seem to read your own links, here's another one for you from the summary you cited this time:
An explosion in research (mainly dependent on access to proprietary data) as a result of public interest in these issues means that we are now in a position to provide answers with some degree of certainty. The basic result is that online illegal file-sharing probably has some negative impact on traditional sales but the effect is appears to be quite small. The size of this effect is debated, and ranges from 0 to 100% of the sales decline in recent years, but a figure of between 0 and 30% would be a reasonable consensus value (i.e. that file-sharing accounted for 0-30% of the decline in sales not a 0-30% decline in sales). At the same time there is still substantial disagreement in the literature with the most impressive paper to date (Oberholzer and Strumpf 2005) estimating no impact from file-sharing.
I've even emphasized the important parts for the hard-of-reading. Clue: this clearly states that on the basis of all the studies to date, file-sharing is not an overall positive influence on sales. The only question is how much of a negative impact it has, and figures quoted in the literature cited work out to millions of dollars per week in some cases. And this is from a literature survey with a slight bias in its presentation!
Sorry, I don't have time to read an entire zillion-piece web site to find the context for the quote you mentioned. And it's dangerous to give quotes like that out of context. Here's another quote, from page 22 of part 7:
WII interviewed file-sharers how much music they buy now compared to earlier when they were not active as file-sharers. The answers were 3% buy much more, 7% a little more, 55% as before, 25% a little less and 10% much less.
I don't know about you, but that seems pretty consistent with my personal experience. Perhaps those 3% who buy much more really do buy more than 3x as much as each of the 10% who buy much less have stopped buying, and similarly for the "a little" categories, but I couldn't find anything in the report on a quick scan to back this up. It's not exactly reliable to conclude that when you asked illegal file sharers about their activities, and they said they really bought loads more than they ever used to, this means freebie file-sharing is an overall plus.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the explanation isn't plausible, and I certainly think that if the music industry gets its act together there are several business models created by on-line file-sharing that could make them more money and make music access easier for everyone. I have nothing against any of these ideas. But that's a far cry from claiming that today's freebie file-sharing culture is really a good thing for the music business and doesn't cost them anything, particularly if your only evidence for this is that you asked some file sharers and they told you so.
But there is no evidence a substantial amount of damage is being done. No admissible or inadmissible evidence.
Oh, please. That line is about as credible as the RIAA claiming $150,000 per infringing track.
Your legal weaselry is as offensive as theirs, and as far from an honest attempt to see justice done.
Copyright is not a right (despite its name). It is a legal privilege given to certain people for a finite amount of time.
There are different kinds of "right". There are legal rights: those things you may do, with the law protecting your freedom to do so. Copyright clearly is such a right. Then there are moral rights (sometimes called human rights, though this clouds the issue): those things that are widely recognised as being important freedoms that should be protected. Hopefully your legal rights include all of your moral rights, though of course this doesn't always work in practice and more than the occasional revolution has started when the gap became wide enough. And then, from a pragmatic standpoint, there is the classic argument that the only rights you truly have are those you are prepared to die defending, because anything else can be taken from you, and if it can be taken from you, is it really a right at all?
In any case, the question is far from the simplistic view you present, and cute sound-bites about the name of something do little to further the debate (whichever side is spouting them this five minutes).
How strange to see a reasoned, balanced post in such a discussion.
I personally am not convinced about the staggering amount of damages here. However, I do wonder how many of the people who argue that she should only have to pay for actual damages based on demonstration by the RIAA of specific downloads are the same people who object to having the authorities tracing their Internet use, want to preserve on-line anonymity at all costs, etc. If you're going to argue for a system where it's almost impossible for someone to bring a case, yet where it's pretty obvious that a substantial amount of damage is being done and the only question is where to draw the line, then you can't argue that in a successful prosecution only token damages should be awarded and maintain any credibility.
I'll admit my understanding of the UK system is a bit sketchy, but I was under the impression the position of Prime Minister was appointed by the Queen (typically the leader of the majority party) and Cabinet was then appointed by the Prime Minister (presumably under advisement from his senior Party members).
Technically, you're probably right, but as with much to do with Her Majesty, it hasn't really worked that way for a long time. The Prime Minister is always the leader of the party with the largest number of seats in Parliament. If the monarch ever appointed anyone else, we would be a republic by the following day.
Well they _do_ (apparently, I don't follow UK politics especially closely) have a mandate. That's the way the system works - people *don't* vote directly for certain individuals to be in specific positions (like Prime Minister).
No, they don't, except that in that case, they do: the position is so important that a significant number of people will elect a local MP based solely on which political party they represent, because that will decide the PM and therefore the nature of the administration.
In any case, as I noted before, the Labour Party ran on a platform that Tony Blair would serve a full third term as leader. There was an explicit promise that by voting Labour, people were not voting for Gordon Brown. When Blair stepped down, Brown became Leader of the Labour Party effectively via coronation within the party, and was duly appointed Prime Minister by the Queen. There isn't even a shred of democratic process in there.
For the avoidance of doubt, because if you're not from the UK you might not know this: the third Blair administration got in with the smallest majority of any party in recent history, didn't even win the popular vote in England, and if polling was even close to accurate, wouldn't have had a chance without TB. And then despite getting the support of only 22% of the electorate (and around 1/3 of those who actually voted), they got a clear absolute majority in Parliament, which has been used to further widely opposed proposals on everything from ID cards to congestion charging, often overcoming opposition from the other large parties who collectively received far, far more votes. The system is as crooked as they come.
The system here in Australia is basically the same, which is why I wonder about people who get so uptight about who is (or might be) Prime Minister. The point is that it doesn't matter because a) the Prime Minister could be (literally) anyone in parliament and b) individually, they don't hold any more power than anyone else there.
On the contrary. It will always be the leader of the largest party in Parliament, and anyone who watched the Blair presidency^Wprime ministership knows all too well that the PM has all the power if they really want it. That's one reason he was so widely disliked: he centralised power in 10 Downing Street like no-one who'd ever gone before, even to the extent of relying on these mysterious "special advisor" types rather than traditional Cabinet government. And from that position, he pushed through numerous reforms (and the occasional dubious war, obviously) without the support of the people or even, on occasion, much of his own government.
My argument was that it completely breaks economics because it introduces into the economy a property which can be duplicated essentially without any consumption of resources.
By that argument, every service industry in the world also completely breaks economics. After all, the only resources involved are the effort and overheads of those providing the service in each case, and they are still free to offer those same services to others later. I don't think that's happened, though, has it? Economics does not have to deal only with solid, physical products. In fact, it would be pretty pointless if it did, because it would ignore the fact that the services have value to consumers, and the time and effort required to provide the service has a cost to the provider.
This is only true if we "need" to have it at all. If we just kindda, sorta want it and don't really need it, then those who feel the imperetive to have it can pay for it and those who don't feel that imperetive don't have to pay for it. This is where the "all" argument breaks down again. Because there is plenty of people who listen to music not because they feel it essential part of their life but because they are willing to give it a try.
And what would they try, if no-one paid for the music? What if everyone decides they only want to try, and never to contribute to the cost of producing the music in the first place? How can you tell the difference, objectively and ahead of time, between someone who Really Wants(TM) the music, and someone who's Just Trying It Out(TM)? Again, your argument is based entirely on one group sponging off another. I just don't see how you can ever believe that is a fair deal, simply because not everyone gets the same deal under that system.
Another interesting question: would the results of votes be different if all laws had to be short enough and clearly enough written for people to understand, with the voters deciding to vote "no" on principle if asked to accept dozens of pages of legal weaselry?
Hmm... Does Slashdotting an entire government constitute an act of war, I wonder? :-/
Our democracies (I'm from the UK) aren't perfect, but its better than handing the lunatics the keys to the asylum.
Actually, I honestly don't think it is at the moment.
Today, we have a Prime Minister, complete with new Cabinet, who has never been voted into that office by the electorate, and indeed who just backed down from holding an election to get a mandate. (Anyone who is about to bleat about a party political system where the Labour Party was elected would do well to remember that they were elected after Blair said he would serve a full third term. There is no rational way you can argue that the Brown administration has a mandate based on party politics. And even if they had been elected without that promise, our first-past-the-post system is so broken that you could hardly call it representative.)
Many of the less popular acts of government in our country are now coming down from above. At national level, we have the unelected European Commission running the show, despite the presence of the directly elected European Parliament, and imposing legislation on national governments. I find it sadly ironic that the government is desperately trying to wriggle out of a referendum on the big European treaty on the basis that it has certain key safeguards for national sovereignty in place, when those "safeguards" basically mean they can ignore the few bits of European law that actually serve the interests of the people: human rights, protection for workers, etc. Meanwhile, the government imposes all sorts of unpopular nonsense on the basis that Europe told it that it had to. Remember that our own European Commissioner is serial ministerial resigner and locally politically uncredible screw-up Peter Mandelson — so when they say "Europe told us to", this is the sort of person they're taking orders from!
This happens at more local levels, too. I live in Cambridge, where right now our County Council are pretty obviously setting up a hugely unpopular congestion charge in the city. This is being done despite widespread opposition among city residents and their elected City Council, who aren't even being shown the models from the consultants. It's also being done by much the same crowd who are already screwing up local transport because of a pet scheme of theirs, which can't possibly be enough to solve the problems they claim we're going to have a few years down the line even according to their own laughably physics-defying models, yet which is being implemented right now at vast cost in both taxpayers' money and disruption to local residents and businesses, even after thousands of local residents opposed the scheme and basically no-one without a vested interest supported it.
In other words, right now the basic decisions that are going to affect me as an everyday guy, at local, national and international levels, are all being made by people I have had no chance to vote for or against. And a great many of the big decisions they are making are in the face of overwhelming popular opposition, which would probably be enough not just to get rid of the legislation but to outright finish political careers in some cases if any remotely democratic form of voting were in place.
I do not believe in a 100% "one adult, one vote" type of system for every little decision, for the simple, pragmatic reason that no-one has enough time to consider all the issues deeply enough to make a sensible, informed choice. I believe in a representative government elected according to the basic principles of the people, where those in the civil service can do the detailed investigation where appropriate and decisions are made by the elected representatives on the basis of the information and any expert advice available to them. I also believe in checks and balances, and in particular that if interest in a particular issue is sufficiently widespread, it should be possible for the people to override the government on that specific issue immediately, rather than waiting for anothe
Woah, someone got out of the humour bypass machine on the wrong side!
For what it's worth, Mr AC, if you search my posting history you will find plenty of specific, serious posts challenging the science of Gore and his film. This just wasn't one of them. I'll even admit to flip-flopping a bit on some of the specifics, as I came across better presentations of the data and clearer potential explanations consistent with it. Unfortunately, most of the threads start with something typically unconstructive like this:
Sceptic An Inconvenient Truth is full of bad science! The "inconvenient documentary" highlighted several of them! Supporter But the "inconvenient documentary" has been debunked by many established scientists by now. So say the IPCC, and they have thousands of experts, while there are only a few critics! Sceptic You know that most of the IPCC's "scientists" aren't actually scientists, right? And that several of the prominent critics were also part of the IPCC, prior to various funding politics connected with whether they backed the "consensus" view? Supporter Well, OK, so the film presented some of the data poorly, but you can still use it to support the basic arguments. You just have to totally ignore the misleading timeline nonsense in the film, and think about the system as a feedback loop. Sceptic A feedback look that isn't consistently supported over the geological timeframes spanned by the data? Supporter Well, it's the most recent data that matters. Over the last few decades, as mankind's emissions have soared, we've seen several of the hottest years on record! Sceptic According to records that have only run for the past few decades, at least. Anyway, if we're talking about feedback loops that take decades to take effect, how can we possibly explain the recent hot years on the basis of man-made emissions that, relatively speaking, only just happened? Supporter Well, it's because the man-made emissions have increased so fast that they've upset the balance of the system. Sceptic Man-made emissions represent only a tiny fraction of the overall carbon content of the atmosphere, almost all of which occurs naturally. And in any case, since we've known about the carbon issues for decades and the big industrial changes that increased artificial output were in the early to mid 20th century, how come this is suddenly so much more serious an issue than it was a couple of years ago?And somewhere around this point, a few people with a clue about science, or at least an understanding of the scientific method and a willingness to examine the data with an open mind, turn up and start a more interesting variation. I guess from now on, it's obligatory to use Gore's Nobel Prize as "evidence" that he knows what he's talking about, and the UK court judgement the same week about showing the film in schools as "evidence" that he doesn't, before we move along to any more enlightened discussion. :-(
Hey, that's a Nobel Prize winner you're talking about. Mock not the mighty Gore, for all humanity depends on his benevolent leadership to survive!
Try that with a Ninja costume and you'll get maced, beaten, and jailed after a cop plants drugs on you
Surely if you were dressed as a ninja, you'd be effectively invisible and they wouldn't know what to mace/beat/frame? :-)
Still, knowing some ninjutsu is also recommended for those awkward "so you really can see me, huh?" moments...
So tell us, oh wise one, because we're all dying to know: given that you can't time the market, and that "low" and "high" are relative terms in this context, how do you tell when the market is low or high? Sure, you sometimes get strange anomalies where a company's shares are so cheap that if it sold up tomorrow you'd still make a profit, but usually there is a judgement call involved.
Incidentally, please make sure you indicate your credentials (or lack thereof) in posts where you might be seen as giving financial advice. A lot of impressionable young people read this forum, and the last thing they need is to go off on some wild investing spree because some guy who got lucky posted about how easy it is to make money on the stock market.
Naturally, this is wrong. Since it doesn't even explore the current economic model in which the government guarantees producers of content near-perpetual ownership of distribution rights. A system in which "the costs can be shared" as you put it is the one that exists for some blank media in the US but it is certainly not the prevailing system of compensating content producers.
On the contrary. I think one of the main advantages of the copyright idea, perhaps even the most important one, is precisely that it makes it commercially viable for an artist to produce a work that takes a lot of time, wouldn't be worth enough for any single patron to commission it, but is worth a small amount to many people. You can argue, very reasonably, that if copyright is an economic instrument and the value it is generating for the artist is far greater than what would be necessary for them to produce and distribute the work then the balance of the copyright bargain should be adjusted, but this isn't an argument against the principle, it's an argument against the specifics.
By the way, stating that I'm wrong, talking rubbish, and missing the "subtleties of the argument" doesn't really advance the discussion in any useful way. Proof-by-stating-as-fact is a very childlike debating tactic, and I guarantee you it won't cut any ice over here.
You've written quite a lot in reply to my second point, but as far as I can see you haven't said anything that actually counters the basic principle: if you're getting something for free, and others are paying for it, and the only reason you can get it for free is because those others are paying for it, then it is a logical fallacy to argue that because you can have it for free, no-one needs to pay for it. Economics just doesn't work like that. As you say, 'these arguments always fail when taken to the extreme of "what if everyone did it"'. But that is exactly the point! Your argument only works as long as only some people do it, and the work is supported in real financial terms by others. Now, you can call that whatever you like, but it's still taking advantage.