Choice irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that in both instances people can be charged criminally based merely on their expressed thoughts. That may sound OK to you, maybe locking up people who make you feel bad would give you some joy, but it scares the frick out of me.
"I'd still get copyright, even though nothing in the picture originated from me"
I think photography can be an artistic endeavor and the originality comes from the angle of the shot, the shutter speed, the focus, the lighting, use of shadow.... etc. None of which would exist in an accurate representation of a painting. Once again the purpose of the photograph of the painting is not to create something new, but to put what was already done in a new medium, without any modifications.
"The photographs of paintings did not exist until the photographer created them"
Yep, and the brick wall did not exist until the brick layer laid it. What's your point?
"Creating the first copy required a totally different level of skill, judgement and labour than creating the second (or a subsequent) copy."
You're at that again. You seem to be arguing that merely because something is hard to do, it is deserving of copyright. Which basically takes all music from the Ramones out of copyright.
"This means walls are not worthy of copyright."
I can read and understand English, but I have no idea how you pulled that conclusion out of the proceeding sentences. Once again, you're back on the "well, it's easy to do, so it's not deserving of copyright" argument. I don't get it.
"I mean that both A and B are worthy of copyright because creating the first, original, copy of each requires much more than efficiently creating any other copy of either."
Now you've got yourself in a hole. What was easier to perform? The photography of the great paintings or the actual creating of the paintings themselves. Obviously it was much more time consuming and took much more skill and judgment to create the original paintings.
To me, merely taking a photograph of them is not much different from me claiming a copyright on all the Beatles music merely because I recorded them from a CD to tape format. I had to put up microphones, and adjust the speakers, fiddle with the EQ, all to make sure that my copy of someone else's work was exactly the same as the original work. Based on your argument, I would have such copyrights. Even though I've done nothing original.
I'll summarize my argument one more time. The link provided stated that a work needs to be original before copyright can attach. That's what we're discussing. Where is the originality in these photographs?
"but that the work must not be copied from another work that it should originate from the author"
That's exactly what I've been saying. Any "thing" in the photographs did not originate from the photographer, but was copied from the painting and the painter.
"I don't think there's a reason to limit copyright to your notion of originality"
I never said what originality was or should be. I merely pointed out what it is not, i.e., the use of skill, judgment, and labour does not necessarily lead to originality.
"My opinion is that they shouldn't be because none of those things are expressions of an intellectual or artistic creation...nor are they something for which there is a great difference of required skill, judgement or labour between the first copy and the next"
Under that opinion, a whole lot of music would no longer be copyrightable. (I'm not saying that's a bad or good thing.)
The second half of your point is quite bizarre. Maybe I'm not understanding you, but I get the impression that something is not original merely because the amount of skill, judgment or labor that went into creating it was not different.
So a song writer such as Tom Petty (Do you guys know of him in the UK) who writes every song around 1/4/5 chords would not be able to obtain copyrights because there is not a "great difference" in the skill, judgment, or labor that went into each song. Under your theory, only songs where there is a "great difference" in skill/judgment/labor levels would there be "originality" leading to copyright protection. Maybe you can explain that to me.
"no utility in making them subject to copyright"
And that's my point. I think there is no utility in making identical photographs of paintings subject to copyright. There is no new work or originality, merely an exact reproduction of a prior work. Sure it takes skill, judgment, and labor. But as I've pointed out, brick laying takes skill, judgment or labor. And as I've also pointed out, skills, judgment, and labor alone do not lead to originality.
"a degree of skill, judgement or labour' requirement for originality"
The way I see it, when NPG decided to take photographs of these paintings, the intent was to get as accurate of photograph as possible, e.g. the exact same colour (when in rome!). The purpose was not to create or add any new originallity. Anything new, like adding a shadow which didn't exist or colours which didn't exist, would make the photographs inaccurate which would undermine the entire point of the photograph in the first place.
I have no doubt that it would take skill, judgment, labour to take a completely accurate photograph of a painting. I know I could not do it. However, merely because great skill, judgment, and labour was expended, does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that something original was created.
Under those interpretations of skill, judgment, and labour, a surgeon, a brick layer, and an automobile repairman, could all have their work copyrighted. All of those tasks take great skill, judgment, and labour. But in and of themselves, originality is not created.
To put it another way, originally may come from skill, judgment, and labour. However, skill, judgment, and labour does not necessarily create originality.
(1) Copyright is a property right which subsists in accordance with this Part in the following descriptions of work - (a) original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works...
Thanks for providing the link. According to the PDF, for copyright protection to attach, there has to be an "original" work. I'm an attorney in the US, so I'll admit I have no idea how the law works in the UK. But is there any law which holds that a photograph of a painting is protected by copyright, even when the photograph has no original content? Thanks.
Thanks for clearing that up. Unfortunately, you forgot to cite to the law which supports your assertion. I'm sure you'll get right on that. Thanks again.
Before I leave for the day, I want to add one thing.
Someone will say that the harm comes from the lost sale of new games. Guess what? That's not harm, that's competition. That's no different than my McDonalds/Burger King example.
Now of course if the competition is somehow unfair. Like if the Burger King ignores health and safety laws to keep their prices lower, then McDonalds would be harmed.
But as there is nothing illegal about reselling a copy of your game, there is no unfairness and no illegality.
To put it another way, if your industry is being harmed by legal and fair competition, it's about time to go out of business, because you have no clue how capitalism is supposed to work.
Used games do not hurt or harm the game industry. Why? Because the consumer has a first-sale right to sell the game and the game industry has no right to financially gain from that secondary (or tertiary, etc) sale.
So when some third party profits, and you have no rights to the profits, it necessary follows that you were not harmed.
Under the game industry's logic, because my fellow employees are being paid by my employer, I'm somehow losing out on that money, because for some bizarre reason, that money should be going to me.
Or under the same asinine logic, McDonald's deserves a cut from the local Burger King's profits because it's making money that, for some bizarre reason, McDonald's thinks it deserves, even thought it has absolutely no right whatsoever to those profits.
Of course someone is going to complain about my analogies. That the game industry produced the game so therefore it has a right over the game. In my first example I didn't do my coworkers' duties, so therefore I have no right to their pay. And McDonalds didn't serve the customers who went to Burger King so therefore they have no right to those profits.
But you're missing the point. It is completely irrelevant that a particular gaming company originally produced the game. The main issue is that once it sells a copy, It no longer has any resale rights to that copy. I'll say it again, it has no right to any resale money in the same way that I have no right to my coworkers pay or that McDonalds has no right to Burger King's profits. None. Nada. Zip.
The gaming industry certainly wants profits it is not entitled to. But that is not harm. That's jealously and blind greed.
"You can't plow them for snow removal. Michigan gets some big snow, so this means isolating people until a thaw."
It's one thing to be ignorant, it's another thing to blow crap out of your ass. Gravel roads get plowed without any difficulty in Michigan. I've lived on gravel roads since the 60s so I know this first hand.
"Even the Amish will laugh at Michigan if they do this"
We don't have Amish in Michigan. We have Mennonites.
I remember when Microsoft put a crappy 32-bit front-end on MS-DOS 7.0 to make it more useful. It completely sucked. It hogged memory and crashed all the time. Luckily you could boot directly into DOS to avoid the GUI and get real work done.
Seriously, is anyone actually shocked by this? Their code is protected by copyright, so it's not like anyone can simply take the source code and use it. And it's not like there's some sort of secret in the medical proven fact that, generally speaking, a certain percentage of alcohol in a person's breath indicates a corresponding percentage of alcohol in the same person's blood supply. So the only basis the company had to refuse to release the code was because they knew it was a mess.
The purpose of these stories, involving Apple refusing to sell apps, is not to debate the rights of Apple to do so. Everyone recognizes that Apple has a right to sell or not sell anything it so desires.
The purpose of these stories is to warn people to stay away from Apple, because Apple does not have your best interests in mind, only its bottom line.
The sentence "we discontinued initiating new lawsuits in August" really does not mean anything.
First, it doesn't say that the RIAA "stopped" doing anything. To "discontinue" does not mean to "stop," it means "to break the continuity of."
Second, anything it does say about the RIAA is limited to only the month of August. For example, if I say "Best Buy stopped having 10% off sales in August." That in no way means that Best Buy stopped having 10% off sales forever. It only means they stopped for a period, i.e., broke the continuity, for a single period of time, during the month of August.
Third, more ambiguity is added by the word "initiate." The use of "initiate" gives the RIAA a lot of wiggle room to start new lawsuits. If anyone complains, the RIAA can merely say, "this lawsuit was actually initiated sometime ago when we first started investigating it." And of course it gives the RIAA complete freedom to "initialize" new lawsuits after August.
What I don't understand is why the RIAA is conducting these lawsuits in a quasi-stealth mode. I thought the purpose of the lawsuits was to raise public awareness. But when they're "initialized" in secret, that defeats the entire educational purpose. So what really is going on with these reinitialized lawsuits?
So? No one is saying that anyone has to sell you anything. No one is saying that any service provider has to provide anyone a service. The reason why this story was posted because it was a complete dick move on the part of Dell. Do they have to sell parts? Nope. Do they have the right to treat potential customers like criminals? Yep. But on the other hand, if we don't want to be dicked around, we can simply avoid Dell buy not buying their products, even their used products. And that's the reason it was posted. This story is a warning to avoid Dell.
If you like being screwed over by corporations... go right ahead. If you like being accused of being a criminal... beg Dell to treat you as such. I choose not to.
Slashdot Mirror
Choice irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that in both instances people can be charged criminally based merely on their expressed thoughts. That may sound OK to you, maybe locking up people who make you feel bad would give you some joy, but it scares the frick out of me.
Or Scientology.
"how is this different than shielding from "hate speech" about"
There isn't any difference. Which is why so many people are against hate speech laws.
"I'd still get copyright, even though nothing in the picture originated from me"
I think photography can be an artistic endeavor and the originality comes from the angle of the shot, the shutter speed, the focus, the lighting, use of shadow.... etc. None of which would exist in an accurate representation of a painting. Once again the purpose of the photograph of the painting is not to create something new, but to put what was already done in a new medium, without any modifications.
"The photographs of paintings did not exist until the photographer created them"
Yep, and the brick wall did not exist until the brick layer laid it. What's your point?
"Creating the first copy required a totally different level of skill, judgement and labour than creating the second (or a subsequent) copy."
You're at that again. You seem to be arguing that merely because something is hard to do, it is deserving of copyright. Which basically takes all music from the Ramones out of copyright.
"This means walls are not worthy of copyright."
I can read and understand English, but I have no idea how you pulled that conclusion out of the proceeding sentences. Once again, you're back on the "well, it's easy to do, so it's not deserving of copyright" argument. I don't get it.
"I mean that both A and B are worthy of copyright because creating the first, original, copy of each requires much more than efficiently creating any other copy of either."
Now you've got yourself in a hole. What was easier to perform? The photography of the great paintings or the actual creating of the paintings themselves. Obviously it was much more time consuming and took much more skill and judgment to create the original paintings.
To me, merely taking a photograph of them is not much different from me claiming a copyright on all the Beatles music merely because I recorded them from a CD to tape format. I had to put up microphones, and adjust the speakers, fiddle with the EQ, all to make sure that my copy of someone else's work was exactly the same as the original work. Based on your argument, I would have such copyrights. Even though I've done nothing original.
I'll summarize my argument one more time. The link provided stated that a work needs to be original before copyright can attach. That's what we're discussing. Where is the originality in these photographs?
"but that the work must not be copied from another work that it should originate from the author"
That's exactly what I've been saying. Any "thing" in the photographs did not originate from the photographer, but was copied from the painting and the painter.
"I don't think there's a reason to limit copyright to your notion of originality"
I never said what originality was or should be. I merely pointed out what it is not, i.e., the use of skill, judgment, and labour does not necessarily lead to originality.
"My opinion is that they shouldn't be because none of those things are expressions of an intellectual or artistic creation...nor are they something for which there is a great difference of required skill, judgement or labour between the first copy and the next"
Under that opinion, a whole lot of music would no longer be copyrightable. (I'm not saying that's a bad or good thing.)
The second half of your point is quite bizarre. Maybe I'm not understanding you, but I get the impression that something is not original merely because the amount of skill, judgment or labor that went into creating it was not different.
So a song writer such as Tom Petty (Do you guys know of him in the UK) who writes every song around 1/4/5 chords would not be able to obtain copyrights because there is not a "great difference" in the skill, judgment, or labor that went into each song. Under your theory, only songs where there is a "great difference" in skill/judgment/labor levels would there be "originality" leading to copyright protection. Maybe you can explain that to me.
"no utility in making them subject to copyright"
And that's my point. I think there is no utility in making identical photographs of paintings subject to copyright. There is no new work or originality, merely an exact reproduction of a prior work. Sure it takes skill, judgment, and labor. But as I've pointed out, brick laying takes skill, judgment or labor. And as I've also pointed out, skills, judgment, and labor alone do not lead to originality.
"a degree of skill, judgement or labour' requirement for originality"
The way I see it, when NPG decided to take photographs of these paintings, the intent was to get as accurate of photograph as possible, e.g. the exact same colour (when in rome!). The purpose was not to create or add any new originallity. Anything new, like adding a shadow which didn't exist or colours which didn't exist, would make the photographs inaccurate which would undermine the entire point of the photograph in the first place.
I have no doubt that it would take skill, judgment, labour to take a completely accurate photograph of a painting. I know I could not do it. However, merely because great skill, judgment, and labour was expended, does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that something original was created.
Under those interpretations of skill, judgment, and labour, a surgeon, a brick layer, and an automobile repairman, could all have their work copyrighted. All of those tasks take great skill, judgment, and labour. But in and of themselves, originality is not created.
To put it another way, originally may come from skill, judgment, and labour. However, skill, judgment, and labour does not necessarily create originality.
Page 19, Copyright and copyright works
Thanks for providing the link. According to the PDF, for copyright protection to attach, there has to be an "original" work. I'm an attorney in the US, so I'll admit I have no idea how the law works in the UK. But is there any law which holds that a photograph of a painting is protected by copyright, even when the photograph has no original content? Thanks.
Thanks for clearing that up. Unfortunately, you forgot to cite to the law which supports your assertion. I'm sure you'll get right on that. Thanks again.
Before I leave for the day, I want to add one thing.
Someone will say that the harm comes from the lost sale of new games. Guess what? That's not harm, that's competition. That's no different than my McDonalds/Burger King example.
Now of course if the competition is somehow unfair. Like if the Burger King ignores health and safety laws to keep their prices lower, then McDonalds would be harmed.
But as there is nothing illegal about reselling a copy of your game, there is no unfairness and no illegality.
To put it another way, if your industry is being harmed by legal and fair competition, it's about time to go out of business, because you have no clue how capitalism is supposed to work.
Used games do not hurt or harm the game industry. Why? Because the consumer has a first-sale right to sell the game and the game industry has no right to financially gain from that secondary (or tertiary, etc) sale.
So when some third party profits, and you have no rights to the profits, it necessary follows that you were not harmed.
Under the game industry's logic, because my fellow employees are being paid by my employer, I'm somehow losing out on that money, because for some bizarre reason, that money should be going to me.
Or under the same asinine logic, McDonald's deserves a cut from the local Burger King's profits because it's making money that, for some bizarre reason, McDonald's thinks it deserves, even thought it has absolutely no right whatsoever to those profits.
Of course someone is going to complain about my analogies. That the game industry produced the game so therefore it has a right over the game. In my first example I didn't do my coworkers' duties, so therefore I have no right to their pay. And McDonalds didn't serve the customers who went to Burger King so therefore they have no right to those profits.
But you're missing the point. It is completely irrelevant that a particular gaming company originally produced the game. The main issue is that once it sells a copy, It no longer has any resale rights to that copy. I'll say it again, it has no right to any resale money in the same way that I have no right to my coworkers pay or that McDonalds has no right to Burger King's profits. None. Nada. Zip.
The gaming industry certainly wants profits it is not entitled to. But that is not harm. That's jealously and blind greed.
"gravel roads actualy have an advangage over paved in the winter because they are much less slippery when icy."
Agreed, I'd much rather drive on an icy gravel road versus an icy paved road any day!
"You can't plow them for snow removal. Michigan gets some big snow, so this means isolating people until a thaw."
It's one thing to be ignorant, it's another thing to blow crap out of your ass. Gravel roads get plowed without any difficulty in Michigan. I've lived on gravel roads since the 60s so I know this first hand.
"Even the Amish will laugh at Michigan if they do this"
We don't have Amish in Michigan. We have Mennonites.
...the title said, "Fail Release"?
I remember when Microsoft put a crappy 32-bit front-end on MS-DOS 7.0 to make it more useful. It completely sucked. It hogged memory and crashed all the time. Luckily you could boot directly into DOS to avoid the GUI and get real work done.
Seriously, is anyone actually shocked by this? Their code is protected by copyright, so it's not like anyone can simply take the source code and use it. And it's not like there's some sort of secret in the medical proven fact that, generally speaking, a certain percentage of alcohol in a person's breath indicates a corresponding percentage of alcohol in the same person's blood supply. So the only basis the company had to refuse to release the code was because they knew it was a mess.
Shoulda went with that optional AWD package.
The purpose of these stories, involving Apple refusing to sell apps, is not to debate the rights of Apple to do so. Everyone recognizes that Apple has a right to sell or not sell anything it so desires.
The purpose of these stories is to warn people to stay away from Apple, because Apple does not have your best interests in mind, only its bottom line.
Oh yes, from the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
Could "discontinue" be used as a replacement for "stop"? Sure. But does it necessarily mean "stop"? Nope.
The sentence "we discontinued initiating new lawsuits in August" really does not mean anything.
First, it doesn't say that the RIAA "stopped" doing anything. To "discontinue" does not mean to "stop," it means "to break the continuity of."
Second, anything it does say about the RIAA is limited to only the month of August. For example, if I say "Best Buy stopped having 10% off sales in August." That in no way means that Best Buy stopped having 10% off sales forever. It only means they stopped for a period, i.e., broke the continuity, for a single period of time, during the month of August.
Third, more ambiguity is added by the word "initiate." The use of "initiate" gives the RIAA a lot of wiggle room to start new lawsuits. If anyone complains, the RIAA can merely say, "this lawsuit was actually initiated sometime ago when we first started investigating it." And of course it gives the RIAA complete freedom to "initialize" new lawsuits after August.
What I don't understand is why the RIAA is conducting these lawsuits in a quasi-stealth mode. I thought the purpose of the lawsuits was to raise public awareness. But when they're "initialized" in secret, that defeats the entire educational purpose. So what really is going on with these reinitialized lawsuits?
So? No one is saying that anyone has to sell you anything. No one is saying that any service provider has to provide anyone a service. The reason why this story was posted because it was a complete dick move on the part of Dell. Do they have to sell parts? Nope. Do they have the right to treat potential customers like criminals? Yep. But on the other hand, if we don't want to be dicked around, we can simply avoid Dell buy not buying their products, even their used products. And that's the reason it was posted. This story is a warning to avoid Dell.
If you like being screwed over by corporations... go right ahead. If you like being accused of being a criminal... beg Dell to treat you as such. I choose not to.
He doesn't really want customer service, he wants to give Dell money and buy a "Smart Bay caddy." Why should it matter where he got the laptop?
It may be stolen, but that's not why Dell is refusing service. Dell is refusing service because it wants everyone to buy from them!
counterfeit software "delivers a poor experience and impacts customer satisfaction with our products
Obviously he hasn't tried Johnny's Ultimate version of XP. It's awesome! A great experience and it offers great satisfaction. MS should hire him.
It'll keep companies from implementing this utterly asinine idea!