>Would you have 6+ copys of the same (real paper) book?
No, but my one copy can end up on more than 6 different book shelves or other furnitures in my home (or in other peoples homes) over the years. I might read it in/on a whole lot more different furnitures, most of which might not even be mine. Now, what did paper books have to do with the original article?
>I guess I won't be able to drink coffee, take photos and work >on my ninja talents. > >Trademarks are ridiculous when they're normal, everyday words.
It is even more rediculous when people doesn't realize that trademarks is further grouped into categories and normally doesn't extend into other categories than what is registered (there are various exceptions though for very well globally established trademarks). Thus, nothing prevents for example "Diablo" to be registered seperatly for as a computer game and movies (I think the category is broader than my specific use) while another company register it for a cigarr and yet another for a car. All the while, nothing prevents you from using it as a name for your new shop selling icecream (unless it is allready registered in the applicable category). So what did your examples have to do with the case again?
>Really, use of any work that is licensed to one party to >another is subject to copyright law...
Copyright law only regulate and cover a few specific "rights" or actions you do. Licenses of interest are for those rights only. Nothing else needs a license. Specifically "license for use" is a non issue as far as copyright goes.
>... as well as any contract that exists between the two parties.
Contracts is of importance to the ones entering it only, no one else. Further if you don't agree to anything, it doesn't apply either. Since normal use doesn't require any license, you don't have to agree to one to use it and can thus ignore it.
>Copyright covers default rights and restrictions; >others may be placed into effect by the parties to a contract.
That has, however, NOTHING to do with copyright, you can apply and say the same thing about any goods that doesn't have anything to do with copyright. You can for example apply the same to a watch for example and argue that by contract you can limit the use of a watch someone bought.
If you want to go further onto consumer cases, there is a whole bunch of laws (varies a lot by country though) that limits what you can and can not contract about.
>The worst thing Google is doing is listing a small >excerpt from the article on their page, but isn't >that covered by fair use?
As far as I have seen, most of the time google has also made a copy and stored on its servers and in addition seems to feed it to anyone who wants it when someone clicks on "cached".
>On the other hand, I was under the strong impression >that "indexing" a site is completely legal, as you're >not violating any 1.copyright or 2.trademark laws, and >that really the issue is whether the reproduced blurb >about the page exceeds fair use.
Yes, as long as you don't make any infringing copies on the way or make public performances or make the work available to the public in an infringing way and so on. In many cases it seems Google for example actually makes complet copies of the page and provid through for example "cached page" options which probably would be copyright infringement in most countries. That is were they can go wrong, providing the content themselves. The indexing in itself and short quotes presented as part of the search results should probably be OK in basically every country.
>Copyright by itself is viral. If you modify someone elses >Work of Art (i.e. creating your own work based on the original), >you need her permission.
Not completely true. I assume you are thinking on the "derivative work". That whoever is a concept that doesn't exist in many copyright laws in the world. What you say in those cases applies for things like making a translation of say a book. However, you do not nessecarilly need the permission to do such a work and you do get copyright on it. However, the exclusive rights to it for the copyright holder is the same as that of the original. But you can still create it for yourself and if you are otherwise allowed, for example to make a copy to give to a close friend (which many countries allow) you can do that too.
Works that are simply based on someone elses work but are considered to be a new work on its own (and thus not copy or simple trasnlation or similar) are considered new works and copyright belong to the one creating them. This is of course different from those countries that has the stron derivative work concept that US has for example but as I said, many countries are different.
>>Buying a copyright program doesn't give you the right >>to use it? What a waste of money. > >Not necessarily. Particularly unlimited use. Hence EULAs.
Ehh, you can use it in basically ANY way you want except a few specific ways mentioned in copyright law. That is basically various forms of public performances and making it available to the public and to make copies. Copying still allowed without any special permision or contract includes in most countries of the world the copies needed to actually use the software to start with (as an end user) in case such use requires certain copying (for example to install it on the computer and thus copy it to the hard disc). For almost every user one can say that buying the software indeed give "unlimited use".
>"You can own an MP3 just as you can own a book."...but you don't own the content.
Nor does the copyright holder, no one do. You can however own the copyright TO the content. In addition someone (typically not the copyright holder) can own COPIES of the content. The ownership of copies is distinct and seperated from the ownership of the copyright to the content. One does not imply the other nor does a change in one mean a change in the other.
So, yes someone can own a MP3 file or a CD or a book (each a copy of a work) while yet someone else can own the copyright to the work. Copyright doesn't deal with the ownership of copies, it handles the copyright of the work and a few exclusive rights or actions you can do with the work (not specific the copies). Feel free to check up the copyright law of your own country for details.
>You are like a silly academic who argues about the meanings of words.
No, but it helps if people use the same terminology as everyone else. It further helps to use the same terminology and concepts that the law uses when you want to claim things tyo be legal or not. Otherwise you end up horribly wrong and no one understands you. If there are two different and seperate legal concepts (stealing and infringement) applying to two very different concepts (ownership and copyright) why not try to use the correct one?
The problem with your approach "lets call it whatever else I can think of" is that, apart from serving no purpose at all, it confuses people and it makes many, including yourself draw the wrong conclusions. That is why you end up claiming that I, because I like to call things for what tbey are, must thus think that "content should be free". What does that has to do with anything I try to explain? You end up doing such things since you like to attirbute infringement to stealing, and thus misstaking it for involving ownership and end up with free versus costing money and such things. It has nothing to do with it but you get there applying things from the theft world to the copyright world in an erroneous ways just because you call them the same. Right this day in another forum the person liking to call it "stealing" promptly claimed that one can thus make the same argument that "recieveing an infringing copy is the same as recieveing stolen goods and is thus illegal". That is what you get from not calling things by the proper terms.
>My livlihood depends on getting paid for my work.
WHat does that have to do with anything? Does that somehow mean you can't use the correct terminology and have to mix up issues?
>If you don't think software developers like myself should get paid for our work, then I >suggest you move to a communist country and fvck off for stealing my work.
Please, don't put words into my mouth that I have never said!!! Just because I don't like to call infringment stealing does in no way mean that I think copyright should not apply. I have never said any such thing so stop with your lies on what I say, believe or thinks.
>People like me and my wife create content like software and games.
Fine, that is great. Do realise you don't own those games or software though. You hold the copyright to them. That is very important to realize and THAT is your reality you need to come back to.
>Without license servers (for the software my company produces) and >things like Macrovision SafeDisc (for PC games), people steal software >and games.
No they don't, it is an impossinility. They can probably create infringing copies though which is very different (and of course also illegal). The ownership of those copies are not yours or any stores though (nor do they change owenrship or possesion as they would in a theft by the way). Do learn the differences, then you can come back and talk about reality.
>Do you believe content should be free?
What does that have to do with what I have commented about? I have commented on the ownership issue you propose apply which it doesn't. When you have leared the differences and reality I explained above, then we can continue discussion of other (perhaps related) topics, but until you grasp the fundamental laws it is quite pointelss.
>I'm not sure he's advocating breaking any law, including the DMCA.
Perhaps he was talking to most people in the world who does not have a DMCA law or another similar law that doesn't give use as an extra exclusive right to a copyright holder.
>Nobody is pointing a gun forcing you to pay for DRM-enabled media.
The main problem is not "buy or not buy" DRM media. The main problem is having laws set up to force you into having to buy DRM if you want anything at all.
>The modern digital era makes it way too easy for people to steal content...
You can't steal "content". Content is unstealable since it is untangible. You can create copies in a way the law doesn't allow though which is a completely different concept. Stealing is about ownership, while copyright is not. At least get the basics right before you start arguing about it.
>Their making undesirable changes to the product >is reason enough for you to steal it,
Why would you ever have to do that? It would be much easier to, for example, make a copy of of it instead. In many cases that would actually turn out to be legal (as oposed to stealing it).
>The RIAA's opinion is what is going to get you sued, hardley irrelavent.
I was not commenting on the "getting sued issue". I was commenting on what, in fact is, the law. If you can or will get sued has nothing to do with what the law says. You can get sued for anything regardless of what the law says. That was my point, about the law, not about wether people sue you or not. That might be relevant for other reassons, but not for what the law says. Read my posts please.
Were have I claimed that or even touched that subject of what has and has not been done in the courts? My comments was that what RIAA things of the issue, especially if they change their opinion of it, is quite irellevant from the point of view if it is allowed or not.
The issue was not what RIAA do or don't do. The issue was what constitues Fair Use. To figure that out, it is irellevant what RIAA things or not (or if they change their mind). What is important is what the law says.
Ehh, the point was that it is irellevant what, for example RIAA says or doesn't say regarding what is allowed and what is not alowed by copyright law. If they change their mind, that does not change the law automatically. That was my point.
>....neither of which actually address the basic issue that copying >and transformation is required to actually use the product.
Not all types of "copying" counts as actually copying by copyright laws. How this is set up in detail varies with country but in general, copies needed for use, transfered as part of use or which are very temporary, doesn't constitute infringement.
>"Derivative Work" has a specific (though maddeningly vague) legal definition.
Not in all countries, many countries does not have that concept as it is in the US copyright law. If I am not mistaken, the person in case was Russian, living in Israel, right?
> It is not the same as "dependency", a mistake all too many people make. Communicating >with a module via sockets does not constitute copyright derivation. Let me quote from Title 17:
That would only be relevant if you live or work in the US, not for any other country.
As allready mentioned, that is how it works, the buyer owns that copy. It is irellevant if it was created in an infringing way or not. Ownership has NOTHING to do with copyright. There is further, in most countries at least that I know of, no exclusive right for posession of works, so posession can never in itself be an infringement. Your babbling about "stolen goods" is a completely different issue, since that is indeed about ownership (as oposed to copyright), that is covered by very different laws and has to do with the fact that the goods has another owner than the owe selling it to you. That is not the case with copyright since copyright doesn't define ownership.
By the way, in addition to what I said above, someone importing single copies for private use can do so regardless as that type of import is excepted. it is always better to actually know the law than to make up your own. here is a relevant link:
This has nothing to do with the Bern convention. It has to do with US copyright law stating so. The Bern convention doesn't make that requirement at all.
Which doesn't change the fact that what the person you replied to says is correct. There is no similar section for books or other types of work. It only applies to copmuter programs nothing else.
> If the laws were changed as per your suggestion, all the >software vendors would do is beef up their EULAs a bit more.
Not if the law says it is not allowed to make such changes (or rather, put in the things needed for those "changes"). Many countries allready have laws that voids various contract terms when it comes to such things as limiting liability.
Slashdot Mirror
>Would you have 6+ copys of the same (real paper) book?
No, but my one copy can end up on more than 6 different book shelves or other furnitures in my home (or in other peoples homes) over the years. I might read it in/on a whole lot more different furnitures, most of which might not even be mine. Now, what did paper books have to do with the original article?
>I guess I won't be able to drink coffee, take photos and work
>on my ninja talents.
>
>Trademarks are ridiculous when they're normal, everyday words.
It is even more rediculous when people doesn't realize that trademarks is further grouped into categories and normally doesn't extend into other categories than what is registered (there are various exceptions though for very well globally established trademarks). Thus, nothing prevents for example "Diablo" to be registered seperatly for as a computer game and movies (I think the category is broader than my specific use) while another company register it for a cigarr and yet another for a car. All the while, nothing prevents you from using it as a name for your new shop selling icecream (unless it is allready registered in the applicable category). So what did your examples have to do with the case again?
>Really, use of any work that is licensed to one party to
>another is subject to copyright law...
Copyright law only regulate and cover a few specific "rights" or actions you do. Licenses of interest are for those rights only. Nothing else needs a license. Specifically "license for use" is a non issue as far as copyright goes.
>... as well as any contract that exists between the two parties.
Contracts is of importance to the ones entering it only, no one else. Further if you don't agree to anything, it doesn't apply either. Since normal use doesn't require any license, you don't have to agree to one to use it and can thus ignore it.
>Copyright covers default rights and restrictions;
>others may be placed into effect by the parties to a contract.
That has, however, NOTHING to do with copyright, you can apply and say the same thing about any goods that doesn't have anything to do with copyright. You can for example apply the same to a watch for example and argue that by contract you can limit the use of a watch someone bought.
If you want to go further onto consumer cases, there is a whole bunch of laws (varies a lot by country though) that limits what you can and can not contract about.
>The worst thing Google is doing is listing a small
>excerpt from the article on their page, but isn't
>that covered by fair use?
As far as I have seen, most of the time google has also made a copy and stored on its servers and in addition seems to feed it to anyone who wants it when someone clicks on "cached".
>On the other hand, I was under the strong impression
>that "indexing" a site is completely legal, as you're
>not violating any 1.copyright or 2.trademark laws, and
>that really the issue is whether the reproduced blurb
>about the page exceeds fair use.
Yes, as long as you don't make any infringing copies on the way or make public performances or make the work available to the public in an infringing way and so on. In many cases it seems Google for example actually makes complet copies of the page and provid through for example "cached page" options which probably would be copyright infringement in most countries. That is were they can go wrong, providing the content themselves. The indexing in itself and short quotes presented as part of the search results should probably be OK in basically every country.
>Copyright by itself is viral. If you modify someone elses
>Work of Art (i.e. creating your own work based on the original),
>you need her permission.
Not completely true. I assume you are thinking on the "derivative work". That whoever is a concept that doesn't exist in many copyright laws in the world. What you say in those cases applies for things like making a translation of say a book. However, you do not nessecarilly need the permission to do such a work and you do get copyright on it. However, the exclusive rights to it for the copyright holder is the same as that of the original. But you can still create it for yourself and if you are otherwise allowed, for example to make a copy to give to a close friend (which many countries allow) you can do that too.
Works that are simply based on someone elses work but are considered to be a new work on its own (and thus not copy or simple trasnlation or similar) are considered new works and copyright belong to the one creating them. This is of course different from those countries that has the stron derivative work concept that US has for example but as I said, many countries are different.
>>Buying a copyright program doesn't give you the right
>>to use it? What a waste of money.
>
>Not necessarily. Particularly unlimited use. Hence EULAs.
Ehh, you can use it in basically ANY way you want except a few specific ways mentioned in copyright law. That is basically various forms of public performances and making it available to the public and to make copies. Copying still allowed without any special permision or contract includes in most countries of the world the copies needed to actually use the software to start with (as an end user) in case such use requires certain copying (for example to install it on the computer and thus copy it to the hard disc). For almost every user one can say that buying the software indeed give "unlimited use".
>"You can own an MP3 just as you can own a book." ...but you don't own the content.
Nor does the copyright holder, no one do. You can however own the copyright TO the content. In addition someone (typically not the copyright holder) can own COPIES of the content. The ownership of copies is distinct and seperated from the ownership of the copyright to the content. One does not imply the other nor does a change in one mean a change in the other.
So, yes someone can own a MP3 file or a CD or a book (each a copy of a work) while yet someone else can own the copyright to the work. Copyright doesn't deal with the ownership of copies, it handles the copyright of the work and a few exclusive rights or actions you can do with the work (not specific the copies). Feel free to check up the copyright law of your own country for details.
>You are like a silly academic who argues about the meanings of words.
No, but it helps if people use the same terminology as everyone else. It further helps to use the same terminology and concepts that the law uses when you want to claim things tyo be legal or not. Otherwise you end up horribly wrong and no one understands you. If there are two different and seperate legal concepts (stealing and infringement) applying to two very different concepts (ownership and copyright) why not try to use the correct one?
The problem with your approach "lets call it whatever else I can think of" is that, apart from serving no purpose at all, it confuses people and it makes many, including yourself draw the wrong conclusions. That is why you end up claiming that I, because I like to call things for what tbey are, must thus think that "content should be free". What does that has to do with anything I try to explain? You end up doing such things since you like to attirbute infringement to stealing, and thus misstaking it for involving ownership and end up with free versus costing money and such things. It has nothing to do with it but you get there applying things from the theft world to the copyright world in an erroneous ways just because you call them the same. Right this day in another forum the person liking to call it "stealing" promptly claimed that one can thus make the same argument that "recieveing an infringing copy is the same as recieveing stolen goods and is thus illegal". That is what you get from not calling things by the proper terms.
>My livlihood depends on getting paid for my work.
WHat does that have to do with anything? Does that somehow mean you can't use the correct terminology and have to mix up issues?
>If you don't think software developers like myself should get paid for our work, then I
>suggest you move to a communist country and fvck off for stealing my work.
Please, don't put words into my mouth that I have never said!!! Just because I don't like to call infringment stealing does in no way mean that I think copyright should not apply. I have never said any such thing so stop with your lies on what I say, believe or thinks.
>People like me and my wife create content like software and games.
Fine, that is great. Do realise you don't own those games or software though. You hold the copyright to them. That is very important to realize and THAT is your reality you need to come back to.
>Without license servers (for the software my company produces) and
>things like Macrovision SafeDisc (for PC games), people steal software
>and games.
No they don't, it is an impossinility. They can probably create infringing copies though which is very different (and of course also illegal). The ownership of those copies are not yours or any stores though (nor do they change owenrship or possesion as they would in a theft by the way). Do learn the differences, then you can come back and talk about reality.
>Do you believe content should be free?
What does that have to do with what I have commented about? I have commented on the ownership issue you propose apply which it doesn't. When you have leared the differences and reality I explained above, then we can continue discussion of other (perhaps related) topics, but until you grasp the fundamental laws it is quite pointelss.
>I'm not sure he's advocating breaking any law, including the DMCA.
Perhaps he was talking to most people in the world who does not have a DMCA law or another similar law that doesn't give use as an extra exclusive right to a copyright holder.
>Nobody is pointing a gun forcing you to pay for DRM-enabled media.
The main problem is not "buy or not buy" DRM media. The main problem is having laws set up to force you into having to buy DRM if you want anything at all.
>The modern digital era makes it way too easy for people to steal content...
You can't steal "content". Content is unstealable since it is untangible. You can create copies in a way the law doesn't allow though which is a completely different concept. Stealing is about ownership, while copyright is not. At least get the basics right before you start arguing about it.
>Their making undesirable changes to the product
>is reason enough for you to steal it,
Why would you ever have to do that? It would be much easier to, for example, make a copy of of it instead. In many cases that would actually turn out to be legal (as oposed to stealing it).
>The RIAA's opinion is what is going to get you sued, hardley irrelavent.
I was not commenting on the "getting sued issue". I was commenting on what, in fact is, the law. If you can or will get sued has nothing to do with what the law says. You can get sued for anything regardless of what the law says. That was my point, about the law, not about wether people sue you or not. That might be relevant for other reassons, but not for what the law says. Read my posts please.
Were have I claimed that or even touched that subject of what has and has not been done in the courts? My comments was that what RIAA things of the issue, especially if they change their opinion of it, is quite irellevant from the point of view if it is allowed or not.
The issue was not what RIAA do or don't do. The issue was what constitues Fair Use. To figure that out, it is irellevant what RIAA things or not (or if they change their mind). What is important is what the law says.
Ehh, the point was that it is irellevant what, for example RIAA says or doesn't say regarding what is allowed and what is not alowed by copyright law. If they change their mind, that does not change the law automatically. That was my point.
>Glad you're so sure. But See EFF Article "RIAA Says Ripping CDs to Your iPod is NOT Fair Use"
So? One can find articles claiming the earth is flat. The important is what the law says.
>....neither of which actually address the basic issue that copying
>and transformation is required to actually use the product.
Not all types of "copying" counts as actually copying by copyright laws. How this is set up in detail varies with country but in general, copies needed for use, transfered as part of use or which are very temporary, doesn't constitute infringement.
>"Derivative Work" has a specific (though maddeningly vague) legal definition.
Not in all countries, many countries does not have that concept as it is in the US copyright law. If I am not mistaken, the person in case was Russian, living in Israel, right?
> It is not the same as "dependency", a mistake all too many people make. Communicating
>with a module via sockets does not constitute copyright derivation. Let me quote from Title 17:
That would only be relevant if you live or work in the US, not for any other country.
As allready mentioned, that is how it works, the buyer owns that copy. It is irellevant if it was created in an infringing way or not. Ownership has NOTHING to do with copyright. There is further, in most countries at least that I know of, no exclusive right for posession of works, so posession can never in itself be an infringement. Your babbling about "stolen goods" is a completely different issue, since that is indeed about ownership (as oposed to copyright), that is covered by very different laws and has to do with the fact that the goods has another owner than the owe selling it to you. That is not the case with copyright since copyright doesn't define ownership.
By the way, in addition to what I said above, someone importing single copies for private use can do so regardless as that type of import is excepted. it is always better to actually know the law than to make up your own. here is a relevant link:
s c_sec_17_00000602----000-.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/u
This has nothing to do with the Bern convention. It has to do with US copyright law stating so. The Bern convention doesn't make that requirement at all.
Which doesn't change the fact that what the person you replied to says is correct. There is no similar section for books or other types of work. It only applies to copmuter programs nothing else.
> If the laws were changed as per your suggestion, all the
>software vendors would do is beef up their EULAs a bit more.
Not if the law says it is not allowed to make such changes (or rather, put in the things needed for those "changes"). Many countries allready have laws that voids various contract terms when it comes to such things as limiting liability.