>If somebody thinks you have an illegaly copied file, they can trace back to the original buyer, who >spread the file.
No, that does not at all mean the original buyer have spread the file. Someone else might have copied the file from that person. I can for example copy a file while at a friends house (which can or can not be copyright infringement), I may in turn spread the file. The original buyer have done nothing wrong in such a case.
Lets try again, if a law says something is not allowed, then it is not allowed no matter how many contracts you sign that says otherwsie if the law doesn't allow that. The whole point of many such consumer laws is the prevent exactly situations like that and are thus NOT possible to sign away thorugh sales contracts.
A common content in consumer sales related laws is that what you sell should work and that the seller has to provinde whatever service was sold and so on. Hence they can't just "refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason it sees fit" since that is not allowed by the law, there need to be a valid (by the law's point of view) reason for it. Just one example of many things it doesn't matter if you put into a contract (and even agree to it) since the laws voids such provisions.
> I'm sure that's part of the Terms of Service you're *supposed* to read before installing the thing.
Which of course is irellevant if there is consumer sales laws that doesn't allow you to just "refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason it sees fit", which most countries has.
"It's not your property. You have a license to use it. It's the property of the copyright holder, usually not the artist."
Which clearly shows a complete missunderstanding of what the "property" in case is, what type of ownership is involved and so on. Which is what the replier commented on (and I agree with) and you seemed to have a problem with. There is a difference between the copyright to a work and copies of a work.
The original poster tried to claim that because someone doesn't own the copyright, one does not own the copy, a clear confusion and erronous statement. Believeing that one implies the other. There is no one arguing about copyright in itself, if it is bad or wrong and so on here, so no idea why you spend most of your entire post talking about that.
>If you don't own a license for what is on the storage media, you must >erase the storage device.
Why would you have to do that? There is no such law. Besides, possession is not an exclusive right of a copyright holder and hence can't be inringing either.
>Incidentally, intellectual property seems to capture the essence of the >concept, at least to me. What is your objection?
Depends on what you mean by "intellectual property". If we disregard that one typically use it to also include patents and trademarks and thus get total confusion, and just stick to it to cover copyright, we still have a problem. People tend to use it to cover both the copyright of the work itself and copies of the work. Those are two VERY different things. In addition, ownership of one does not imply or mean owenrship of the other. So while one would not "own" the copyright, one do own a copy. When people then mess it up by stating "it is not your property", it either makes no sense or is a completely wrong statement.
>Do what you want with it - but don't distribute it, because that right is >explicitly reserved for the copyright holder.
In almost every country that is a right that is consumed after the initial distribution. If I am not mistaken, the US has that in their copyright laws too, I believe it goes under the first sale doctrine or something like that.
>Yes, and doesn't that source automatically fall under copyright owned by >the author of that piece of information?
Not nessecarilly. Examples can be things that have had their copyright run out, or things like facts, ideas and others that you do not get copyright on.
>Anything you post becomes our property to be done with as we wish
Considering we talk about copyright here, I fail to see what this statement would do, basically nothing. It seems to talk about something about proprties, which doesn't have anything to do with copyright.
Even if such a thing would work out though, it would still fail in many ways, for exmaple, there is really no way to tell that the person who posted it to the forum is the creator and hence holds the copyright. If you don't hold the copyright, you can't of course transfer it or grant others the right to, for example, copy it.
I wonder if all game publisher always buy brand new cars instead of old, second hand ones. I hope they do so that they don't hurt the development of new cars.....
>The question is: what would the company do if the original purchaser of a > piece of their media called up and complained that their code was >already activated?
An alternative is of course to claim the product is faulty since it, by design amd at time it shiped, had a built in feature that made it stop working. SUch things are covered by law although never seen it tested, but imagine if a vacum cleaner would behave like that, suddenly stop working by the manufacturer simply disabling it because they felt you were not supposed to use it any more. That would never work or be allowed, for some reason, for software, many believes it is now ok and allowed.
Well, the books I buy second hand (or my own I re-read) tends to have the same quality, never noticed any change in the plot and so on. I even have books that are over 100 years old, again, no problem reading, no change in quality of the story and so on either.....
>Yes, correcting other people without contributing anything new is nitpicking.
So, do you feel it is better to NOT correct people that tell false and erroneous things? After all, THEY contribute eve less although might appear for all those who believes in the erroneous statement.
>First off, owning an mp3 is not illegal as long as you have the rights to >own it (i.e. you legally own the compact disc, cassette or record of it).
Ehh, owning an mp3 file is not illegal, period. Doesn't matter if you own for example a CD or cassette and so on. Possession is not part of copyright and hence you can't infringe on copyright for having or owning an mp3 file. What can be infringing is the act of copying a song into a mp3 file for example, but that is something else.
>If you really want me to name people charged with illegally acquiring mp3s
Exactly, aquiring, in the case of copying can typically be infringing in many cases, but simply possessing or owning is not. Very different.
>Yeah, it's called nitpicking and it contributes nothing to the conversation.
Nitpicking to correct an obvious erroneous statement? In such a case, there can't be a conversation to start with since one can't post anything without you calling it nitpicking.
>No. This is a thread of conversation. If you can't even be bothered to read the entire thread, don't >comment.
I have read it, I just commented on YOUR erroneous reply/statement in the thread. That's it. YOU said something that was wrong and I pointed it out, it really doesn't matter what earlier posters said since your reply was wrong no matter how you look at it.
>Modifying a copyrighted work is an action that falls under copyright law. >The fact that your government's copyright law says you are allowed to do it >and my government's copyright law says you are not allowed to do it in no >way negates the fact that the action is regulated under copyright law...
Again, I have not argued it is not covered by the law. Please, at least read the post you reply to.
>which is what the person I was arguing with was claiming was not the case. >Back in your box.
I was replying to what YOU wrote, if I wanted to comment on his post, I would have replied to that one instead. YOU stated that:
"Go ask any lawyer whether you are legally allowed to patch software you are not the copyright owner of and they will tell you it is creating a derivative work which is not permitted by copyright law. "
I simply pointed out that this is not true and that it depend on the country and that in some countries it IS permited by copyright law, while you claimed it is not.
>As I said, the EUCD has the exact same "effective techincal protection >measure" term.
Well, not really since the DMCA includes access while the EUCD does not. One can argue other minor differences as well but that is a fundamental difference. So for the EUCD something that control access is NOT an "effective technical protection measue" while it is so for the DMCA, hence they can't be the same.
>That's nice. It doesn't much matter that access itself is techncially legal
No idea why you put "technical" in there. It is quite simple, something that control access is NOT covered by the EUCD and hence there is nothing illegal about it, technical or non technical.
>while it *is* criminal for anyone to give you the product or service or >instructions to do it.
Ehh, no, the same applies there, it is only in regard to rights a copyright holder has, access is not such a thing and hence you can provide for example tools and services for access or instructions on how to access something since it is not circumvention since there is no protection to start with in the meaning of the directive.
>Oh, and by the way... the design for the car is encrypted.
Encryption for example is all about access and doesn't prevent, for example copying or making it available to the public or distribution. Hence, encrypting something is not covered and is not treated as an effective technical protection (not even a non effective) and you can circumvent it all you want, according to the EUCD, as I said, some countries have gone further.
>Doesn't matter. Any product or service or instructions would also enable >infringment, and therefore they are all illegal.
So no, only if they deal with corcumvention of an effective technical protechtion, if it is about access, there is no such thing and any such product or instruction and so on is perfectly legal.
>For example the EUCD (EU Copyright Directive) imposes DMCA-like laws on >all EU countries and imposes the exact same "effective techincal >protection measure" term.
This is not completely true. The EU directive only deals with protection of rights that exists under copyright. That is, the action protected against must itself basically be an infringement. The DMCA goes further in that it also includes access. This is something the EUCD does not include at all. Of course, some (or many, but not all) European countries has gione further and also included protection that control access but there are thus also those were access control is NOT covered. I would say that this is a huge difference.
>Go ask any lawyer whether you are legally allowed to patch software you >are not the copyright owner of and they will tell you it is creating a >derivative work which is not permitted by copyright law.
The reply you will get will probably vary greatly with what country you live in. For example in Sweden, you are specifically allowed to correct errors or bugs in the program or create ineroperability. in addition, the derivative work works a bit differently. When creating a derivative work (and just changing a few bits does not create a derivative work of course) you actually get the copyright to it (and can't be prevented by the original copyright holder to do it). The restriction on your work are still the same as on the original one though, so you can't distribute it for example if you can't distribute the original, but if you only use it for yourself, that is perfectly OK.
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>If somebody thinks you have an illegaly copied file, they can trace back to the original buyer, who
>spread the file.
No, that does not at all mean the original buyer have spread the file. Someone else might have copied the file from that person. I can for example copy a file while at a friends house (which can or can not be copyright infringement), I may in turn spread the file. The original buyer have done nothing wrong in such a case.
Lets try again, if a law says something is not allowed, then it is not allowed no matter how many contracts you sign that says otherwsie if the law doesn't allow that. The whole point of many such consumer laws is the prevent exactly situations like that and are thus NOT possible to sign away thorugh sales contracts.
A common content in consumer sales related laws is that what you sell should work and that the seller has to provinde whatever service was sold and so on. Hence they can't just "refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason it sees fit" since that is not allowed by the law, there need to be a valid (by the law's point of view) reason for it. Just one example of many things it doesn't matter if you put into a contract (and even agree to it) since the laws voids such provisions.
>You'll notice that sexual orientation is not constitutionally protected,
It is in many other countries in which Blizzard do bussiness though.
> I'm sure that's part of the Terms of Service you're *supposed* to read before installing the thing.
Which of course is irellevant if there is consumer sales laws that doesn't allow you to just "refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason it sees fit", which most countries has.
The initial statement was:
"It's not your property. You have a license to use it. It's the property of the copyright holder, usually not the artist."
Which clearly shows a complete missunderstanding of what the "property" in case is, what type of ownership is involved and so on. Which is what the replier commented on (and I agree with) and you seemed to have a problem with. There is a difference between the copyright to a work and copies of a work.
The original poster tried to claim that because someone doesn't own the copyright, one does not own the copy, a clear confusion and erronous statement. Believeing that one implies the other. There is no one arguing about copyright in itself, if it is bad or wrong and so on here, so no idea why you spend most of your entire post talking about that.
>If you don't own a license for what is on the storage media, you must
>erase the storage device.
Why would you have to do that? There is no such law. Besides, possession is not an exclusive right of a copyright holder and hence can't be inringing either.
>Should be legal if he can actually prove that he owns the music on the iPod.
No, it is illegal if someone can prove that he does NOT own the music. The same apply to anything else you sell as well.
>Incidentally, intellectual property seems to capture the essence of the
>concept, at least to me. What is your objection?
Depends on what you mean by "intellectual property". If we disregard that one typically use it to also include patents and trademarks and thus get total confusion, and just stick to it to cover copyright, we still have a problem. People tend to use it to cover both the copyright of the work itself and copies of the work. Those are two VERY different things. In addition, ownership of one does not imply or mean owenrship of the other. So while one would not "own" the copyright, one do own a copy. When people then mess it up by stating "it is not your property", it either makes no sense or is a completely wrong statement.
>Do what you want with it - but don't distribute it, because that right is
>explicitly reserved for the copyright holder.
In almost every country that is a right that is consumed after the initial distribution. If I am not mistaken, the US has that in their copyright laws too, I believe it goes under the first sale doctrine or something like that.
>The point being that they will just move to a rental model:
And they will make MUCH less money is my guess if they only rent games and don't sell it as well.
>So the disc you buy in the store won't be the game,
Either you sell or you rent, you can't have it both ways.
>And if legal, why shouldn't a software provider be able to rent you software
>under the same terms?
Sure they can rent you software, but that is not the case here, it is about sales and second hand sales.
If you don't attribute it you ARE passing it off as your own work. There is no way to see your intent.
>Yes, and doesn't that source automatically fall under copyright owned by
>the author of that piece of information?
Not nessecarilly. Examples can be things that have had their copyright run out, or things like facts, ideas and others that you do not get copyright on.
>Anything you post becomes our property to be done with as we wish
Considering we talk about copyright here, I fail to see what this statement would do, basically nothing. It seems to talk about something about proprties, which doesn't have anything to do with copyright.
Even if such a thing would work out though, it would still fail in many ways, for exmaple, there is really no way to tell that the person who posted it to the forum is the creator and hence holds the copyright. If you don't hold the copyright, you can't of course transfer it or grant others the right to, for example, copy it.
I wonder if all game publisher always buy brand new cars instead of old, second hand ones. I hope they do so that they don't hurt the development of new cars.....
>The question is: what would the company do if the original purchaser of a
> piece of their media called up and complained that their code was
>already activated?
An alternative is of course to claim the product is faulty since it, by design amd at time it shiped, had a built in feature that made it stop working. SUch things are covered by law although never seen it tested, but imagine if a vacum cleaner would behave like that, suddenly stop working by the manufacturer simply disabling it because they felt you were not supposed to use it any more. That would never work or be allowed, for some reason, for software, many believes it is now ok and allowed.
Well, the books I buy second hand (or my own I re-read) tends to have the same quality, never noticed any change in the plot and so on. I even have books that are over 100 years old, again, no problem reading, no change in quality of the story and so on either.....
>Yes, correcting other people without contributing anything new is nitpicking.
So, do you feel it is better to NOT correct people that tell false and erroneous things? After all, THEY contribute eve less although might appear for all those who believes in the erroneous statement.
>First off, owning an mp3 is not illegal as long as you have the rights to
>own it (i.e. you legally own the compact disc, cassette or record of it).
Ehh, owning an mp3 file is not illegal, period. Doesn't matter if you own for example a CD or cassette and so on. Possession is not part of copyright and hence you can't infringe on copyright for having or owning an mp3 file. What can be infringing is the act of copying a song into a mp3 file for example, but that is something else.
>If you really want me to name people charged with illegally acquiring mp3s
Exactly, aquiring, in the case of copying can typically be infringing in many cases, but simply possessing or owning is not. Very different.
>Yeah, it's called nitpicking and it contributes nothing to the conversation.
Nitpicking to correct an obvious erroneous statement? In such a case, there can't be a conversation to start with since one can't post anything without you calling it nitpicking.
>No. This is a thread of conversation. If you can't even be bothered to read the entire thread, don't
>comment.
I have read it, I just commented on YOUR erroneous reply/statement in the thread. That's it. YOU said something that was wrong and I pointed it out, it really doesn't matter what earlier posters said since your reply was wrong no matter how you look at it.
>These are all parts of copyright law.
Of course, I have never claimed anything else.
>Modifying a copyrighted work is an action that falls under copyright law.
>The fact that your government's copyright law says you are allowed to do it
>and my government's copyright law says you are not allowed to do it in no
>way negates the fact that the action is regulated under copyright law...
Again, I have not argued it is not covered by the law. Please, at least read the post you reply to.
>which is what the person I was arguing with was claiming was not the case.
>Back in your box.
I was replying to what YOU wrote, if I wanted to comment on his post, I would have replied to that one instead. YOU stated that:
"Go ask any lawyer whether you are legally allowed to patch software you are not the copyright owner of and they will tell you it is creating a derivative work which is not permitted by copyright law. "
I simply pointed out that this is not true and that it depend on the country and that in some countries it IS permited by copyright law, while you claimed it is not.
>As I said, the EUCD has the exact same "effective techincal protection
>measure" term.
Well, not really since the DMCA includes access while the EUCD does not. One can argue other minor differences as well but that is a fundamental difference. So for the EUCD something that control access is NOT an "effective technical protection measue" while it is so for the DMCA, hence they can't be the same.
>That's nice. It doesn't much matter that access itself is techncially legal
No idea why you put "technical" in there. It is quite simple, something that control access is NOT covered by the EUCD and hence there is nothing illegal about it, technical or non technical.
>while it *is* criminal for anyone to give you the product or service or
>instructions to do it.
Ehh, no, the same applies there, it is only in regard to rights a copyright holder has, access is not such a thing and hence you can provide for example tools and services for access or instructions on how to access something since it is not circumvention since there is no protection to start with in the meaning of the directive.
>Oh, and by the way... the design for the car is encrypted.
Encryption for example is all about access and doesn't prevent, for example copying or making it available to the public or distribution. Hence, encrypting something is not covered and is not treated as an effective technical protection (not even a non effective) and you can circumvent it all you want, according to the EUCD, as I said, some countries have gone further.
>Doesn't matter. Any product or service or instructions would also enable
>infringment, and therefore they are all illegal.
So no, only if they deal with corcumvention of an effective technical protechtion, if it is about access, there is no such thing and any such product or instruction and so on is perfectly legal.
>For example the EUCD (EU Copyright Directive) imposes DMCA-like laws on
>all EU countries and imposes the exact same "effective techincal
>protection measure" term.
This is not completely true. The EU directive only deals with protection of rights that exists under copyright. That is, the action protected against must itself basically be an infringement. The DMCA goes further in that it also includes access. This is something the EUCD does not include at all. Of course, some (or many, but not all) European countries has gione further and also included protection that control access but there are thus also those were access control is NOT covered. I would say that this is a huge difference.
>Go ask any lawyer whether you are legally allowed to patch software you
>are not the copyright owner of and they will tell you it is creating a
>derivative work which is not permitted by copyright law.
The reply you will get will probably vary greatly with what country you live in. For example in Sweden, you are specifically allowed to correct errors or bugs in the program or create ineroperability. in addition, the derivative work works a bit differently. When creating a derivative work (and just changing a few bits does not create a derivative work of course) you actually get the copyright to it (and can't be prevented by the original copyright holder to do it). The restriction on your work are still the same as on the original one though, so you can't distribute it for example if you can't distribute the original, but if you only use it for yourself, that is perfectly OK.
Just a few examples on how you are wrong.