Your right to throw your fist ends at the tip of my nose. When your decisions have a demonstrable [effect] on me, then your decision becomes a public matter that may, under the right circumstances, justifiably lead to you being compelled to do something.
The former is common sense. The latter is not an elaboration of the former, but tyranny.
Personally, I'd much rather give my children toys that don't contain PVC at all. It's not a big deal to avoid this issue.
Yeah, none of this modern plastic junk. Broken glass, rusty nails, and bone were good enough for my great-nth grandpappy, and they're good enough for you.
Wrong opposite. He's looking for the term for someone who gets the disease, becomes symptomatic and recovers, but is not at any time contagious. I don't know that there is such a term.
Putin also cautioned the US against using military Keynesianism to lift its economy out of recession, saying, "in the longer run, militarization won't solve the problem but will rather quell it temporarily.
He's either a complete hypocrite or has a finely honed sense of irony.
...Red Cigar Linux
And given Cuba's respect for intellectual property, I assume that Tux wearing a green cap and smoking a Havana would be a perfectly acceptable logo.
I thought that by ignoring all that crap I was being my usual antisocial self. But it turns out, I'm actually like a naturally immune member of the population.
However, what about the seller the device? Does selling a device to the public specifically designed to read books count as a performance of the work?
Hmm. Let's see:
(From 17 USC 101) To "perform" a work means to recite, render, play, dance, or act it, either directly or by means of any device or process or, in the case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to show its images in any sequence or to make the sounds accompanying it audible.
Nope, nothing there about selling the devices; using the device is a performance ("to recite...by means of any device"), but not selling them. Besides, which work would have its copyrights infringed by the sale of the device?
That leaves you with contributory infringement, which falls badly to the Betamax test of substantial noninfringing use -- since most uses of Kindle text-to-speech would be nonpublic, there's certainly substantial noninfringing use.
If this is not upheld, I don't see any possibility for audio books in the future. You might be able to sell very specialized such books by having either famous personalities or the author doing the reading but that would be about it.
Audiobooks are often sold now based on the reputation of the reader. Few want to listen to a robotic overlord (or George W. Bush, for that matter) read a novel. So there's no immediate danger. However, it wouldn't matter if there was.
Think about it. If Amazon has the right to sell a book in a format which can be played as an audio book, then they can directly make an "audio book" and sell that. Period. The two are identical.
No, they aren't. Amazon certainly has the technical capacity to make an "audio book" with the Kindle and sell it, but that would be a violation of copyright law. The fact that they could use prohibited means to achieve the same situation that they can achieve with non-prohibited means does not make the latter means prohibited.
Putting he audio information on a cassette or CD is the same as enabling audio playback through a device which does it. I don't see any possible way to separate the two legally.
Fortunately, the writers of copyright law were a little better at this stuff, and did manage to separate the two legally. Copyright law distinguishes between a "copy", a "phonorecord", and a "performance". Making a "copy" or a "phonorecord" of a literary work is an exclusive right of the copyright holder. However, "performing" said work is a violation only if done publicly.
Any argument about first sale and control of the product after the sale is silly. Because you buy a book you do not have the right to distribute in any form that book. Including reading it into a recorder and distributing that recording. Under very special conditions you have the right to read the book aloud while others are listening and these have been spelled out for a long time in copyright law.
You have it backwards. Under very special conditions (public performance) I do _not_ have the right to read the book aloud. Under most conditions, I do. I may use a device to read the book aloud, without the permission of the copyright holder, under exactly the same circumstances that I may do it myself (See the definitions in 17 USC 101).
You're right that "first sale" doesn't apply -- "first sale" comprises a number of exceptions to the exclusive rights provided by copyright. In this case, there simply isn't an exclusive right covering the situation.
If I'm not mistaken, is not one of the yardsticks in these situations the impact? If sales of Kindle 2s and their "free" audio play of books has an impact on the sale of actual AudioBooks, would that not indicate an issue?
If you're arguing fair use, impact on the marketplace is a factor. However, IMO (again, IANAL), fair use isn't an issue. The Kindle text-to-speech software simply does not infringe on any of the rights of the copyright holder. Even if the Kindle text-to-speech was so good that it completely destroyed the market for conventional audio books, it wouldn't be infringing.
Or, maybe, they are actually guilty. It looks to me like if you're not guilty you're far better off pleading not-guilty. Look at the conviction rate: 30%!!
You have to consider the stakes. The persecutor is going to come to your defense attorney and say something like
"Here's the deal. You can plead guilty to relatively minor included Offense A, we'll let you off with a fine, 1 year probation, and time served. You can go home tomorrow. If you want to go to trial, we're going for a conviction for Offense B, and a sentence of 5 years in pound-you-in-the-ass prison. And we're going to ask for bail to be denied/raised/revoked so you'll spend a few months in jail waiting for trial in any case."
So going to trial you have an a priori 70% chance of eventually getting off with a clean record -- but a 30% chance of ending up doing hard time, and some chance of spending extra time in jail waiting for trial. The odds favor going to trial, but the odds-to-payoff ratio likely favors not doing so.
The authors do not a problem with the reader translating a book aloud, but they have a problem with someone they have a contract with to sell text-only versions of a work (and with whom they have separate audio version contracts) selling text plus audio versions. It is a contract issue.
There's no issue. If I have a contract which allows me to sell frozen burritos, but not ready-to-eat burritos, selling frozen burritos along with a microwave (which turns them into ready-to-eat burritos) doesn't violate the contract.
The creepy guy sitting behind you on the train reading your book over your shoulder is breaking federal copyright law? Or is that your fault for enjoying your book in a public place where it could be considered a public performance?
That would be the public DISPLAY right. Which is a very odd one, as the first sale right almost boots it out of existence.
17 USC 109 (c) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 (5), the owner of a particular copy lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to display that copy publicly, either directly or by the projection of no more than one image at a time, to viewers present at the place where the copy is located.
The key words here are "sell" and "Amazon." The article doesn't say, and the Author's Guild certainly wouldn't say, that you don't have a right to read a book out loud. They are arguing that Amazon doesn't have that right to sell one without contracting with the owner first. Does anybody here think they have a right to sell an audio performance of a book for which they don't own the copyright without the copy-holder's permission?
You can't sell a performance; you can sell admission to a performance, but a performance itself is intangible. In the case where the performance is a book read out loud, you can sell a phonorecord (the term copyright law uses for sound recordings) of a performance; ordinarily, the performer would hold a copyright over the recording, but the recording would be a derivative work of the book.
Text to speech software is not a performance, any more than a DVD player is. It can be used to perform a work, but since the act of performing a work privately is not restricted, it passes the "substantial non-infringing use" test.
Courts have repeatedly held up that once you are sold a copy of a product, you are entititled to privately do whatever you want with it. That includes space and time shifting. Text to speech is just another type of space shifting. i.e. Moving from one medium to another.
The Guild is not saying "if you use text-to-speech programs, YOU are a criminal", but rather "Amazon broke the law in providing you a text-to-speech system in the Kindle".
The latter implies the former. If there is a substantial non-infringing use of the text to speech system (the Betamax test), then there is no secondary infringement. If using the text-to-speech system isn't copyright violation, then providing it isn't contributory copyright infringement.
The Kindle 2, by making text to speech a foundation part of how the book is sold, while perhaps an interesting idea for some users, may in fact be problematic from a contract standpoint.
Which is a problem for the parties to the contract. Not to third parties such as Amazon, or Amazon's customers. If Eric Flint sells the novel _1840_ to Baen, and someone pissed in his cheerios that morning so he decided to be a bastard about it and specify that while Baen does have the right to publish the work electronically, they don't have the right to run text-to-speech on it, that binds Baen only. It could only bind Baen's customers if those customers contracted with Baen that they wouldn't run text-to-speech on it. And it can't bind makers of text-to-speech programs at all. Only the operation of copyright law could bind third parties, and copyright law doesn't do so. (IMO, IANAL)
The statements made by Paul Aiken as quoted are factual. The statements made in the remainder of the summary are unsupported assertions and demonstrably false and/or irrelevant.
Statement 1: "They don't have the right to read a book out loud," That's not true. Public performance is covered by copyright law. Private performance is not.
Statement 2: "That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law." Also false. The audio right covers reading the book out loud _and recording said reading, and reproducing and distributing the recording_. Without the recording, no derivative work is produced, and it's just a performance.
Furthermore, your claim that the public performance right covers "multiple single readings" doesn't appear to be supported.
By their reasoning, all of my elementary school teachers are criminals. Then again, so are most of us. How many students were asked to "read aloud" parts of the story in class?
There's actually a stronger case for that than for this. Reading aloud to a class could be considered a "public performance". Using one's own Kindle to read a book aloud to oneself doesn't infringe any of the author's exclusive rights provided by copyright.
The only response to this sort of thing is a good hearty belly-laugh. When you finally calm down, you can point out the history of successful open-source Unix worms and viruses (one, the Morris worm which affected BSD among others), and the ongoing history of successful Windows worms and viruses (a recent Wall Street Journal should mention at least one).
I couldn't agree more. A $500 box would free me from cable, at the price of about 18 months worth of cable.
You have cheap cable. "Standard" cable in my area was $50/month and rising when I dropped it over a year ago. "Basic" is cheaper but I can get all of basic over the air anyway.
Also, why do you never see these set top boxes with the over the air tuners? I would love one that acted as my digital TV tuner too
It can be done, it just costs money. The only way to do it cheaply is to design your own hardware based on set top box components and sell enough units to cover development costs.
I have a MythTV box I built for about $800. It could be done more cheaply. But below $500 is pushing it, unless component prices have dropped a lot. An ATSC tuner is still around $80, and you're probably going to want two. Then you need all the regular computer stuff. For HD playback, you need a reasonably powerful CPU and decent video. And you'll probably want to put some effort into making it quiet, so you can't just grab the cheapest crap around.
Of the 78,042 defendants convicted, 74,226 (or 95%) pleaded guilty or no-contest.
That's because the prosecutors convince (with the help of the defense attorneys, who know it is true) the defendant that there's a damn good chance they'll lose even if they are 100% innocent, and the consquences of losing are intolerable.
"An assault is an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another. An assault is punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or by both the fine and imprisonment." Cal. Pen. Code. 240-241 available at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=240-248
Tell me exactly how you figure you have to spend "hours per line" figuring out what that says?
First of all, it's self-referential. That word "unlawful" in there means you have to figure out when such attempts are lawful in order to figure out that that means. Then the term "present ability" has loads of case law defining it. And then "commit a violent injury"... exactly what does that mean? Is shoving someone an "assault"? No injury is meant, but I'm pretty sure there have been cases of assault convictions for a shove.
Re:You fell victim to one of the classic blunders
on
You Are Not a Lawyer
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Smart people make mistakes too. More often in areas where they lack expertise. Even though in an abstract way you know all these things, in practice, they elude many people who really ought to know better. Just ask Hans Reiser how well his cunning plan worked out in practice.
Hans's plan: 1) Kill wife 2) Hide body where cops can't find it 3) Throw up smokescreen in court 4) Don't testify at trial in such a way that makes me look like a murdering loon.
You'd have thought 1, 2 and 3 were the hard ones, but sometimes the simplest things trip you up...
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The former is common sense. The latter is not an elaboration of the former, but tyranny.
Yeah, none of this modern plastic junk. Broken glass, rusty nails, and bone were good enough for my great-nth grandpappy, and they're good enough for you.
Wrong opposite. He's looking for the term for someone who gets the disease, becomes symptomatic and recovers, but is not at any time contagious. I don't know that there is such a term.
From the same article:
He's either a complete hypocrite or has a finely honed sense of irony.
Yeah, because DRM has always held up to attack in the past.
And because there's no chance hardware, say, 20 years from now, will have the power to emulate stuff which is state of the art today.
...Red Cigar Linux And given Cuba's respect for intellectual property, I assume that Tux wearing a green cap and smoking a Havana would be a perfectly acceptable logo.
I thought that by ignoring all that crap I was being my usual antisocial self. But it turns out, I'm actually like a naturally immune member of the population.
Turns out the cure is smallpox, with ebola for the survivors. So we're good.
Hmm. Let's see:
Nope, nothing there about selling the devices; using the device is a performance ("to recite...by means of any device"), but not selling them. Besides, which work would have its copyrights infringed by the sale of the device?
That leaves you with contributory infringement, which falls badly to the Betamax test of substantial noninfringing use -- since most uses of Kindle text-to-speech would be nonpublic, there's certainly substantial noninfringing use.
Audiobooks are often sold now based on the reputation of the reader. Few want to listen to a robotic overlord (or George W. Bush, for that matter) read a novel. So there's no immediate danger. However, it wouldn't matter if there was.
No, they aren't. Amazon certainly has the technical capacity to make an "audio book" with the Kindle and sell it, but that would be a violation of copyright law. The fact that they could use prohibited means to achieve the same situation that they can achieve with non-prohibited means does not make the latter means prohibited.
Fortunately, the writers of copyright law were a little better at this stuff, and did manage to separate the two legally. Copyright law distinguishes between a "copy", a "phonorecord", and a "performance". Making a "copy" or a "phonorecord" of a literary work is an exclusive right of the copyright holder. However, "performing" said work is a violation only if done publicly.
You have it backwards. Under very special conditions (public performance) I do _not_ have the right to read the book aloud. Under most conditions, I do. I may use a device to read the book aloud, without the permission of the copyright holder, under exactly the same circumstances that I may do it myself (See the definitions in 17 USC 101).
You're right that "first sale" doesn't apply -- "first sale" comprises a number of exceptions to the exclusive rights provided by copyright. In this case, there simply isn't an exclusive right covering the situation.
If you're arguing fair use, impact on the marketplace is a factor. However, IMO (again, IANAL), fair use isn't an issue. The Kindle text-to-speech software simply does not infringe on any of the rights of the copyright holder. Even if the Kindle text-to-speech was so good that it completely destroyed the market for conventional audio books, it wouldn't be infringing.
You have to consider the stakes. The persecutor is going to come to your defense attorney and say something like
"Here's the deal. You can plead guilty to relatively minor included Offense A, we'll let you off with a fine, 1 year probation, and time served. You can go home tomorrow. If you want to go to trial, we're going for a conviction for Offense B, and a sentence of 5 years in pound-you-in-the-ass prison. And we're going to ask for bail to be denied/raised/revoked so you'll spend a few months in jail waiting for trial in any case."
So going to trial you have an a priori 70% chance of eventually getting off with a clean record -- but a 30% chance of ending up doing hard time, and some chance of spending extra time in jail waiting for trial. The odds favor going to trial, but the odds-to-payoff ratio likely favors not doing so.
Which they are not doing. So what's the problem?
There's no issue. If I have a contract which allows me to sell frozen burritos, but not ready-to-eat burritos, selling frozen burritos along with a microwave (which turns them into ready-to-eat burritos) doesn't violate the contract.
That would be the public DISPLAY right. Which is a very odd one, as the first sale right almost boots it out of existence.
You can't sell a performance; you can sell admission to a performance, but a performance itself is intangible. In the case where the performance is a book read out loud, you can sell a phonorecord (the term copyright law uses for sound recordings) of a performance; ordinarily, the performer would hold a copyright over the recording, but the recording would be a derivative work of the book.
Text to speech software is not a performance, any more than a DVD player is. It can be used to perform a work, but since the act of performing a work privately is not restricted, it passes the "substantial non-infringing use" test.
The latter implies the former. If there is a substantial non-infringing use of the text to speech system (the Betamax test), then there is no secondary infringement. If using the text-to-speech system isn't copyright violation, then providing it isn't contributory copyright infringement.
Which is a problem for the parties to the contract. Not to third parties such as Amazon, or Amazon's customers. If Eric Flint sells the novel _1840_ to Baen, and someone pissed in his cheerios that morning so he decided to be a bastard about it and specify that while Baen does have the right to publish the work electronically, they don't have the right to run text-to-speech on it, that binds Baen only. It could only bind Baen's customers if those customers contracted with Baen that they wouldn't run text-to-speech on it. And it can't bind makers of text-to-speech programs at all. Only the operation of copyright law could bind third parties, and copyright law doesn't do so. (IMO, IANAL)
Statement 1: "They don't have the right to read a book out loud,"
That's not true. Public performance is covered by copyright law. Private performance is not.
Statement 2: "That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law."
Also false. The audio right covers reading the book out loud _and recording said reading, and reproducing and distributing the recording_. Without the recording, no derivative work is produced, and it's just a performance.
Furthermore, your claim that the public performance right covers "multiple single readings" doesn't appear to be supported.
(IANAL either)
There's actually a stronger case for that than for this. Reading aloud to a class could be considered a "public performance". Using one's own Kindle to read a book aloud to oneself doesn't infringe any of the author's exclusive rights provided by copyright.
The only response to this sort of thing is a good hearty belly-laugh. When you finally calm down, you can point out the history of successful open-source Unix worms and viruses (one, the Morris worm which affected BSD among others), and the ongoing history of successful Windows worms and viruses (a recent Wall Street Journal should mention at least one).
You have cheap cable. "Standard" cable in my area was $50/month and rising when I dropped it over a year ago. "Basic" is cheaper but I can get all of basic over the air anyway.
It can be done, it just costs money. The only way to do it cheaply is to design your own hardware based on set top box components and sell enough units to cover development costs.
I have a MythTV box I built for about $800. It could be done more cheaply. But below $500 is pushing it, unless component prices have dropped a lot. An ATSC tuner is still around $80, and you're probably going to want two. Then you need all the regular computer stuff. For HD playback, you need a reasonably powerful CPU and decent video. And you'll probably want to put some effort into making it quiet, so you can't just grab the cheapest crap around.
That's because the prosecutors convince (with the help of the defense attorneys, who know it is true) the defendant that there's a damn good chance they'll lose even if they are 100% innocent, and the consquences of losing are intolerable.
First of all, it's self-referential. That word "unlawful" in there means you have to figure out when such attempts are lawful in order to figure out that that means. Then the term "present ability" has loads of case law defining it. And then "commit a violent injury"... exactly what does that mean? Is shoving someone an "assault"? No injury is meant, but I'm pretty sure there have been cases of assault convictions for a shove.
Hans's plan:
1) Kill wife
2) Hide body where cops can't find it
3) Throw up smokescreen in court
4) Don't testify at trial in such a way that makes me look like a murdering loon.
You'd have thought 1, 2 and 3 were the hard ones, but sometimes the simplest things trip you up...