You're right, of course, but it puts Congress in a precarious situation. It's embarassing and will hurt the credibility of the USA if the president signs international treaties which the nation then fails to comply with.
The idea of union was to integrate the german economy so tightly into those of the neighboring state to make sure it wouldn't be able to start another war.
If we go as far back as the European Coal and Steel Community formed shortly after WW2, yes... but after that, it evolved into the European Community, and only after that, we got the EU, which was based mostly on free trade from the start.
Personally, I think linking the EU to the coal/steel union is a way to style it as a "peace project", when in practice it's about economy.
The Commission sounds like a pointless organization.
Have you watched Futurama, and seen the Central Bureacracy mentioned?
That's essentially what the European Commission is. It concists of civil servants who gather data, draft legislation, and so on, which the elected representatives then act upon.
And believe me, when I say it's inherited most of its features from the French bureaucracy, it's not a compliment.
In the U.S. somebody signs the treaty (typically an ambassador or president), and then the Senate decides whether to ratify or reject it (reflecting the wishes of the States and the People). It's a very simple and straightforward process.
The EU member states are more independent than the USA member states. The central EU government has the power to pass laws for all member states on smaller issues, but the really big issues have to be approved by each state.
So in the case of ACTA, the treaty is signed by ambassadors from each country, and then both the EU parliament and the governments of the individual member states have to approve it.
In the case of the EMU (European Monetary Union), each country decides for themselves if they want to apply to the EMU and start using the Euro (and they may be rejected).
The EU is still a young union, and the member states are only gradually relinquishing their power to the central government.
But you're not alone in thinking it's complicated. Very few Europeans know how decision process works in the EU, and which part of the government decides on what issues. I suspect it's much more complicated and obscure than the American system.
Do Europeans still have the right to own guns? If I read that my government was bypassing my elected representatives to pass ACTA, I'd be visiting the local target shooting store to polish my skills. Passage of laws without representation is just 1 step short of tyranny.
You certainly have a point. We have lots of guns here in Sweden, because of the yearly moose hunt. They're safely locked away in weapons lockers, but the owners have the keys, not the state.
Until the situation gets even more fucked up, people are more likely to write a strongly worded letter, though.
To spread the guilt around, Scherr then handed the passwords over to other users. One of them — J.C.R. Licklieder — promptly started logging into the account of the computer lab's director Robert Fano, and leaving 'taunting messages' behind."
According to TFA, the man wasn't convicted just for downloading bomb and toxin recipes. There was also a letter where he said he had prepared himself for Jihad, and a shopping list with prices on items such as AK-47s, grenade launchers, ammunition and so on.
Of course, that's the prosecution's version, so it may still be biased, but one shouldn't pretend he was convicted just for downloading information off the Internet.
But he didn't try to infringe. He created the second picture so he wouldn't need to infringe. From the judge's summary:
10. It is quite obvious that in no sense has any photocopying style reproduction taken place. The defendants' work was created from photographs Mr Houghton took himself. It is also quite obvious that the point of the exercise was to avoid infringing. Mr Houghton was clearly trying to avoid infringing. His and his company's case is that the claimant cannot use copyright law in effect to give them a monopoly in a black and white image of the Houses of Parliament with a red bus in it. He clearly knew about the claimant's work when the second image was produced because the whole point of the exercise was to produce a non-infringing image given the complaint about the first image the defendants had used.
There's nothing illegal, immoral or suspicious about trying to avoid paying royalties.
Phew, the system is not as insane as I feared, then.
But it's still pretty bad that they view fines as a source of income. It discourages the government agency from educating people about the law, or to prevent the offense from being committed in the first place. Prevention should be viewed as a better solution than punishment.
It may even encourage legislators to write laws which are obscure and hard to follow...
This is why the ruling is actually a selective interpretation of the copyright law, at odds with the original intent of copyright. But then, it is a legal system, not a justice system.
In the judge's defense, he just followed established practice in the EU. It's not the first ruling of its kind. But, yeah, I doubt this kind of copyright has any benefit to society.
I think we agree that copyright should exist to benefit society as a whole, not to protect the interests of individual artists.
I see what you mean. I don't think the fact that the defendant tried to avoid licensing fees has any relevance, though, only that he had knowledge of the first picture and was referring to it when creating the second.
It was only well known to his customers because he used the first one without paying license fees. Say I download a copy of Windows 7 from some torrent site, and the BSA comes after me to pay for a license. If I hired a team of programmers to reverse engineer Windows 7 and write something that looks the same, so that I don't have to pay for that license to Microsoft, I can't very well claim that I'm justified in copying because I was so used to using Windows 7.
Of course you can. You haven't copied anything, you've independently created a lookalike. It's you who've hired the programmers, so the product of their labour is yours.
In fact, this is similar to what the Wine project is doing, although they're trying to create a software layer which is functionally equivalent to Windows, and are less concerned about the graphical look.
500 million is a huge windfall for the small agency that conducted the sting. Unfortunately it gives them the resources to setup and entrap other large companies. This happens all the time. Another example is the Michigan State agency that figured out how to go after people buying cigarettes over the internet and not paying state taxes - they got enough cash from the first round of lawsuits to triple the number of people working in that dept.
You mean the settlement goes directly into the pockets of the agency that set them up? That's bizarre.
There is, however, something illegal or immoral about commissioning a cheaper artist to duplicate the first artist's work.
Why?
I don't think it's substantially different from hiring a new clerk in a store and instruct him to do everything exactly like the old clerk did, because the customers are used to it.
The tea manufacturer didn't try to create a similar picture because the first one was so unique and original, but because it was well-known to his customers.
I don't interpret the Judge's summary that way. For example, he makes very clear that the defendants didn't intend to infringe copyright:
10. It is quite obvious that in no sense has any photocopying style reproduction taken place. The defendants' work was created from photographs Mr Houghton took himself. It is also quite obvious that the point of the exercise was to avoid infringing. Mr Houghton was clearly trying to avoid infringing. His and his company's case is that the claimant cannot use copyright law in effect to give them a monopoly in a black and white image of the Houses of Parliament with a red bus in it. He clearly knew about the claimant's work when the second image was produced because the whole point of the exercise was to produce a non-infringing image given the complaint about the first image the defendants had used.
You're right that it makes a difference whether the photographs were independently created (according to UK law), but that's a matter of knowing about the original work, not a matter of intent.
I also think it's a bad practice. The purpose of copyright is to encourage publication of works, the assumption being that publication is discouraged if someone else can come along and compete by publishing the same, or essentially the same, work. The discouraging effect on the first artist is the same, whether the second artist created his work independently or not, so we have just as much reason to treat the second artist's work as infringing in either case. If we treat independent creation as a valid defence, we also discourage the artist from looking for similar works before he creates his own, so he can claim to not have been influenced by them.
It's also worth noting that the touch stone of copyright is originality. It doesn't matter if your photograph looks exactly like another if you in fact had never seen that other photograph. But originality matters because copyright does extend to the "idea" of the work. In other words, when lawyers say that copyright covers "expression", they don't just mean the physical work, but the abstract, mental expression. The idea/expression dichotomy isn't about real versus conceptual. Both are conceptual. The different is fundamentally one of degree. If your mental expression derives from someone else's, and you fix that expression into a physical work, then you've violated the copyright. Right or wrong. This is very basic copyright law.
So you can basically copyright the idea of an artwork?
What if you derive an idea from someone else, but add a few elements of your own - is that sufficient to avoid infringing copyright?
If you read the article or judgement, rather than just looking at the actual shot, you'll find the judge discussed what you're calling "prior art", even going back to Schindler's List. And if the defendant had simply independently created the photo using that technique, having never seen the original, it wouldn't have been copyright infringement. However, he didn't. In this case, the defendant had used the plaintiff's original photograph without permission, got sued and refused to pay licensing fees, and had a look-alike photo created specifically to avoid those licensing fees. That's what makes it copyright infringement.
The fact that the defendant created the photo to avoid licensing fees has nothing to do with copyright violation. The only thing that has relevance to the copyright case is that he referred to the original picture when he created (or commissioned) the second one.
There's nothing illegal or immoral about switching to a cheaper artist if the first artist is too expensive, just like there's nothing illegal or immoral about switching the manufacturer for the tea jars if the first one can't do it cheaply enough. The second artist isn't mooching off the first artist's work; it takes just as much work to create a similar-looking picture as the original (with the possible exception of truly original, ground-breaking work).
Cover songs are, and have long been, covered by copyright law. Recording a cover song requires a mechanical license. The judge in this case seems to be extending that concept to the world of photography.
A cover song is different, because the elements you take from the original work - the melody and lyrics - were created by the copyright holder. In the case of this photograph, the parts they took from the original photograph were the images of Big Ben and a London bus, which were not created by the copyright holder.
It seems to me that what the second artist "copied", was merely the idea of making a picture of those objects from that angle in that style.
Strawman argument. You can copy an artwork, you just can't make a profit from copying if the original is still in copyright without the owners permission.
Only in private. If an art school used copyrighted pictures for their students to copy as practice, they'd quickly get a reminder from the copyright holder. Copyright law generally permits personal use, but not use by non-commercial organisations such as churches or the Girl Scouts.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a lot easier to choose to ignore someone sitting next to you watching porn, than to choose to ignore someone who's screaming, though.
No! No! Don't think of the children!
You're right, of course, but it puts Congress in a precarious situation. It's embarassing and will hurt the credibility of the USA if the president signs international treaties which the nation then fails to comply with.
What terrorist acts aren't illegal? Thinking about blowing something up?
The idea of union was to integrate the german economy so tightly into those of the neighboring state to make sure it wouldn't be able to start another war.
If we go as far back as the European Coal and Steel Community formed shortly after WW2, yes... but after that, it evolved into the European Community, and only after that, we got the EU, which was based mostly on free trade from the start.
Personally, I think linking the EU to the coal/steel union is a way to style it as a "peace project", when in practice it's about economy.
The Commission sounds like a pointless organization.
Have you watched Futurama, and seen the Central Bureacracy mentioned?
That's essentially what the European Commission is. It concists of civil servants who gather data, draft legislation, and so on, which the elected representatives then act upon.
And believe me, when I say it's inherited most of its features from the French bureaucracy, it's not a compliment.
I'm confused by EU procedure.
In the U.S. somebody signs the treaty (typically an ambassador or president), and then the Senate decides whether to ratify or reject it (reflecting the wishes of the States and the People). It's a very simple and straightforward process.
The EU member states are more independent than the USA member states. The central EU government has the power to pass laws for all member states on smaller issues, but the really big issues have to be approved by each state.
So in the case of ACTA, the treaty is signed by ambassadors from each country, and then both the EU parliament and the governments of the individual member states have to approve it.
In the case of the EMU (European Monetary Union), each country decides for themselves if they want to apply to the EMU and start using the Euro (and they may be rejected).
The EU is still a young union, and the member states are only gradually relinquishing their power to the central government.
But you're not alone in thinking it's complicated. Very few Europeans know how decision process works in the EU, and which part of the government decides on what issues. I suspect it's much more complicated and obscure than the American system.
What's your point? ;)
Do Europeans still have the right to own guns? If I read that my government was bypassing my elected representatives to pass ACTA, I'd be visiting the local target shooting store to polish my skills. Passage of laws without representation is just 1 step short of tyranny.
You certainly have a point. We have lots of guns here in Sweden, because of the yearly moose hunt. They're safely locked away in weapons lockers, but the owners have the keys, not the state.
Until the situation gets even more fucked up, people are more likely to write a strongly worded letter, though.
To spread the guilt around, Scherr then handed the passwords over to other users. One of them — J.C.R. Licklieder — promptly started logging into the account of the computer lab's director Robert Fano, and leaving 'taunting messages' behind."
And thus, the first trolling was born.
My point is that he tried to be legal, but misjudged how different he had to make the picture in order not to infringe.
According to TFA, the man wasn't convicted just for downloading bomb and toxin recipes. There was also a letter where he said he had prepared himself for Jihad, and a shopping list with prices on items such as AK-47s, grenade launchers, ammunition and so on.
Of course, that's the prosecution's version, so it may still be biased, but one shouldn't pretend he was convicted just for downloading information off the Internet.
But he didn't try to infringe. He created the second picture so he wouldn't need to infringe. From the judge's summary:
10. It is quite obvious that in no sense has any photocopying style reproduction taken place. The defendants' work was created from photographs Mr Houghton took himself. It is also quite obvious that the point of the exercise was to avoid infringing. Mr Houghton was clearly trying to avoid infringing. His and his company's case is that the claimant cannot use copyright law in effect to give them a monopoly in a black and white image of the Houses of Parliament with a red bus in it. He clearly knew about the claimant's work when the second image was produced because the whole point of the exercise was to produce a non-infringing image given the complaint about the first image the defendants had used.
There's nothing illegal, immoral or suspicious about trying to avoid paying royalties.
Phew, the system is not as insane as I feared, then.
But it's still pretty bad that they view fines as a source of income. It discourages the government agency from educating people about the law, or to prevent the offense from being committed in the first place. Prevention should be viewed as a better solution than punishment.
It may even encourage legislators to write laws which are obscure and hard to follow...
This is why the ruling is actually a selective interpretation of the copyright law, at odds with the original intent of copyright. But then, it is a legal system, not a justice system.
In the judge's defense, he just followed established practice in the EU. It's not the first ruling of its kind. But, yeah, I doubt this kind of copyright has any benefit to society.
I think we agree that copyright should exist to benefit society as a whole, not to protect the interests of individual artists.
I see what you mean. I don't think the fact that the defendant tried to avoid licensing fees has any relevance, though, only that he had knowledge of the first picture and was referring to it when creating the second.
It was only well known to his customers because he used the first one without paying license fees. Say I download a copy of Windows 7 from some torrent site, and the BSA comes after me to pay for a license. If I hired a team of programmers to reverse engineer Windows 7 and write something that looks the same, so that I don't have to pay for that license to Microsoft, I can't very well claim that I'm justified in copying because I was so used to using Windows 7.
Of course you can. You haven't copied anything, you've independently created a lookalike. It's you who've hired the programmers, so the product of their labour is yours.
In fact, this is similar to what the Wine project is doing, although they're trying to create a software layer which is functionally equivalent to Windows, and are less concerned about the graphical look.
500 million is a huge windfall for the small agency that conducted the sting. Unfortunately it gives them the resources to setup and entrap other large companies. This happens all the time. Another example is the Michigan State agency that figured out how to go after people buying cigarettes over the internet and not paying state taxes - they got enough cash from the first round of lawsuits to triple the number of people working in that dept.
You mean the settlement goes directly into the pockets of the agency that set them up? That's bizarre.
There is, however, something illegal or immoral about commissioning a cheaper artist to duplicate the first artist's work.
Why?
I don't think it's substantially different from hiring a new clerk in a store and instruct him to do everything exactly like the old clerk did, because the customers are used to it.
The tea manufacturer didn't try to create a similar picture because the first one was so unique and original, but because it was well-known to his customers.
I don't interpret the Judge's summary that way. For example, he makes very clear that the defendants didn't intend to infringe copyright:
10. It is quite obvious that in no sense has any photocopying style reproduction taken place. The defendants' work was created from photographs Mr Houghton took himself. It is also quite obvious that the point of the exercise was to avoid infringing. Mr Houghton was clearly trying to avoid infringing. His and his company's case is that the claimant cannot use copyright law in effect to give them a monopoly in a black and white image of the Houses of Parliament with a red bus in it. He clearly knew about the claimant's work when the second image was produced because the whole point of the exercise was to produce a non-infringing image given the complaint about the first image the defendants had used.
You're right that it makes a difference whether the photographs were independently created (according to UK law), but that's a matter of knowing about the original work, not a matter of intent.
I also think it's a bad practice. The purpose of copyright is to encourage publication of works, the assumption being that publication is discouraged if someone else can come along and compete by publishing the same, or essentially the same, work. The discouraging effect on the first artist is the same, whether the second artist created his work independently or not, so we have just as much reason to treat the second artist's work as infringing in either case. If we treat independent creation as a valid defence, we also discourage the artist from looking for similar works before he creates his own, so he can claim to not have been influenced by them.
It's also worth noting that the touch stone of copyright is originality. It doesn't matter if your photograph looks exactly like another if you in fact had never seen that other photograph. But originality matters because copyright does extend to the "idea" of the work. In other words, when lawyers say that copyright covers "expression", they don't just mean the physical work, but the abstract, mental expression. The idea/expression dichotomy isn't about real versus conceptual. Both are conceptual. The different is fundamentally one of degree. If your mental expression derives from someone else's, and you fix that expression into a physical work, then you've violated the copyright. Right or wrong. This is very basic copyright law.
So you can basically copyright the idea of an artwork?
What if you derive an idea from someone else, but add a few elements of your own - is that sufficient to avoid infringing copyright?
If you read the article or judgement, rather than just looking at the actual shot, you'll find the judge discussed what you're calling "prior art", even going back to Schindler's List. And if the defendant had simply independently created the photo using that technique, having never seen the original, it wouldn't have been copyright infringement. However, he didn't. In this case, the defendant had used the plaintiff's original photograph without permission, got sued and refused to pay licensing fees, and had a look-alike photo created specifically to avoid those licensing fees. That's what makes it copyright infringement.
The fact that the defendant created the photo to avoid licensing fees has nothing to do with copyright violation. The only thing that has relevance to the copyright case is that he referred to the original picture when he created (or commissioned) the second one.
There's nothing illegal or immoral about switching to a cheaper artist if the first artist is too expensive, just like there's nothing illegal or immoral about switching the manufacturer for the tea jars if the first one can't do it cheaply enough. The second artist isn't mooching off the first artist's work; it takes just as much work to create a similar-looking picture as the original (with the possible exception of truly original, ground-breaking work).
Cover songs are, and have long been, covered by copyright law. Recording a cover song requires a mechanical license. The judge in this case seems to be extending that concept to the world of photography.
A cover song is different, because the elements you take from the original work - the melody and lyrics - were created by the copyright holder. In the case of this photograph, the parts they took from the original photograph were the images of Big Ben and a London bus, which were not created by the copyright holder.
It seems to me that what the second artist "copied", was merely the idea of making a picture of those objects from that angle in that style.
Strawman argument. You can copy an artwork, you just can't make a profit from copying if the original is still in copyright without the owners permission.
Only in private. If an art school used copyrighted pictures for their students to copy as practice, they'd quickly get a reminder from the copyright holder. Copyright law generally permits personal use, but not use by non-commercial organisations such as churches or the Girl Scouts.
Then it's a good thing that artists give away their work for free, and spending money on patronage or merchandise is optional.