You do not have permission to distribute the song. Period. End of story
I bought the CD and I own it. Unless you want to mount a government agent in every home why can't you accept the fact that the product is easily copied? If you don't want people to share it then don't sell it. Move to live performance only.
you do not have the right to give it to 1000 of your closest 'friends'.
I agree that the limits are ridiculous but at what point do we tell the industry to get real? Everyone knows the product is easily copied. The transfer of goods is represented as a sale. Either raise the price or accept the lower profit margin. Hiring government thugs isn't socially responsible.
As far as the theft part is concerned, if you didn't pay it for it, it's theft
The product was legally paid for. Some people choose to obtain the product from a distributor who provides a better distribution model at a significantly reduced charge. This is called shopping around. Distribution rights, while encoded in the law, are grossly unrealistic. The product is easily copied. Deal with it. Refine the business model.
Agri companies had to do it with genetically engineered seed and Hallmark had to do it when people bought printers and greeting card software. Why is the music industry shielded from evolution?
If you don't consider it theft walk into any music store and grab the CD you want and walk out
That's theft. We're talking about unlicensed distribution. Does the supermarket sue people who take their plants home, trim cuttings, and grow new plants? Will they sue you for imitating their particular rye bread? Will the grocer sue you for taking apple seeds and growing your own tree? How about tomato plants or peppers which can be COPIED in less than a year?
Every other industry with a product which is easily copied after sale has had to evolve and refine their business model. Why is the media industry any different?
Even the law recognizes that it's not stealing. It's "copyright infringement". Yes it's illegal but it's not theft.
Did Hallmark sue the makers of home greeting card software? Do agricultural companies sue farmers if they happen to get a fertile plant from genetically engineered seed? No. These industries accept the FACT that their product may be easily copied and they adjust their business model to account for it. Back in the day desktop graphics software used to sell disks of clip art and were fierce about trying to protect it. Eventually they accepted the FACT that the product (especially in the 8-bit day) was easily copied. I could look at a 64x64 pixel bit of clip art and copy it visually without copying their product. The only people who sell clip art are people with a business model which guarantees they can turn a reasonable profit without suing normal citizens. The media industry cannot expect that level of clientele when they target 9-15 year olds.
The media industry is being stupid, socially irresponsible, greedy, dishonest, or all of the above.
Most crime is real. Intellectual property and copyright are intangible. Can you tell the difference between music which was purchased vs. music downloaded with only your ear? If someone tells you they have a "great idea" can you immediately swear that they didn't hear it from someone else two days earlier?
a musicians music isn't yours to take any more than a sculptur's sculpture would be
A musician's music isn't the musician's anymore. It belongs to some media conglomerate. You're attempting to arouse sympathy for a group of people who aren't even involved anymore.
not stealing just because there isn't a tangible decrease in a inventory somewhere
It's not stealing. The product was legally sold. Rights of ownership were transferred at the point of sale. Misrepresenting a rental as a sale is a poor way of defending business stupidity. If they feel they are losing profits they should reevaluate the worth of their product.
Take the agricultural industry. They produce genetically engineered crops. They only sell seed which produces sterile crops because they are intelligent and they know that otherwise the product would be EASILY COPIED. The agri industry could have lobbied for federal oversight and DNA testing of crops. They could have run down farmers for "stealing" their intellectual property. Instead they 1) subsidized, out of their own profit margin, engineered crops in order to put them in the marketplace and 2) invested in the research to produce seed which produced sterile crops.
The music industry should take a lesson. Making criminals out of customers is the wrong business model. Why not admit,"We're so stupid that we didn't realize our product was so easily copied."
The product was legally sold. The government is not their personal Guido.
I agree that theft is wrong. This isn't theft. It's not even prosecuted as theft. The warrants are not filled out to recover stolen property.
It's an artificial crime called "copyright infringement."
The greeting card industry did not tank just because greeting card makers appeared on PCs. If, however, stores sold greeting cards which were printed on plain paper, would you support prosecuting everyone that printed out a Christmas card modeled after one they saw in the store?
The agricultural industry produces genetically engineered seed. They did not sell this seed until they had seed which grew into sterile crops. They recognized that their product was EASILY COPIED. They could have saved themselves years of research by lobbying Congress to get federal oversight and DNA testing of crops. They didn't. It wasn't right to prosecute farmers for doing what farmers do: harvesting seed from crops.
It is not theft. Once LEGALLY sold the product is easily copied. Face it and refine the business model or accept that they suck as businessmen.
This guy is providiing a valuable service, and he does it all on his own, but I'm sure there will be 10 posts rationalizing why stealing his work is OK and he is worse than Bush for daring to charge to make the lives of other people easier
Accept change. Blacksmiths aren't in high demand anymore, keymakers aren't in high demand anymore. People who can sew aren't in high demand anymore.
It's reality. Nobody subsidizes the traditional bakery just because the supermarkets can make a million donuts/hour. Everyone must find their niche and pray because, unless you are wealthy enough to send attorneys screaming like banshees against anyone who can't afford a defense, that's the best life promises.
sharing music is considered copyright infringement in US law
Everyone supports copyrights because they believe it will benefit the artists. It doesn't. The companies own everything the artists produce as soon as a contract is signed.
Copyrights only benefit the corporate tag-alongs and, as such, need to be removed or revised.
"We need to enforce laws to protect the profit of CEOs, VPs, and executives who already have base salaries of multi-millions per year!" Who else agrees?
People that are old enough to be grandmothers are old enough to know that copyright infringement is illegal
That same grandmother wouldn't bat an eyelash if you gave her a CD with old big band music for Christmas. Non-smokers would have no problem if smoking became a felony. People who don't drink have no problem with prohibition.
Your subject group is skewed.
If your 12-year-old is pirating music, you aren't doing a good job as a parent and the lesson will be taught one way or another
There is no theft. This is an artificial crime called "copyright infringement". While the spirit of copyright is a starry-eyed ideal which everyone supports the implementation is flawed and anyone who actually lives under its sway knows that it rarely, if ever, benefits the original author in the way that you think it does.
Please continue turning a blind eye to reality. Please continue to pulverize youngsters for sharing music, which youngsters have done since anyone could copy a tune on a banjo or flute. Please continue to support corporations with broken business models. Please continue to encourage businessmen to neglect the physical realities of their product in favor of government backed enforcement of arbitrary laws.
Some day, all of these evil p2p sharing kiddies will come visit you in the nursing home. Enjoy your power while you've got it. It'll never substitute for intelligence.
I nixed a troll mod in m2 because I agree with you about the pyramid scheme style hype on internet companies.
At the same time you do remember Enron? Energy companies run the same type of business model. Leverage, marketing, take the money and run. Pharmaceutical companies only avoided getting caught with their pants down because they decided to go through a flurry of mergers between 1998 and 2004 which helped them hide, re-cook, obfuscate and shred the accounting ledgers.
your work is of a good standard and you don't want to give up that work to an employer (and receive the fringe benefits that come from that employment in exchange) then you are quite at liberty to go self-employed and start your own business
You're wrong. For scientists the hitch is in an employee agreement. For artists the hitch is in a signing contract. There is no leverage for the original author. All leverage is held by corporation which has a larger legal fund.
Without the artificial protections set up by copyright (and patents, too) these industries simply wouldn't be where they are today
You're right. Without the artificial protection of patents we'd be driving cars which run on hydrogen power, our televisions would be 3D holographic, and my PC would be running on a descendent of Alpha RISC and Windows would've been dumped for the crap it was back in '95.
About microwaves... those are pretty nice right now. What would happen to the microwave without patent protection? For 5 years there would've been a hundred different makers of crappy microwaves and then, as the public figured out which ones were quality and which ones were junk, the field would have been whittled down to three or four makers of quality microwaves.
Incidentally, without searching the USPTO or Google, do you know who invented the microwave? Did his invention make him wealthy? I doubt it. Most likely the patent is held by whatever company the researcher worked for, at a wage that barely pays the mortgage, and he signed the rights away the moment the patent was published for fear of losing his job.
I've always supported strong-arm leverage tactics. How about you?
That's true, but I think the simple fact that being a professional author, programmer, musician or artist would be near impossible otherwise is a fairly compelling argument!
It's compelling but it's not true.
without copyright to level out the playing fields
Copyright does not level a playing field. Copyright simply ensures that your employee agreement is all the legal buffer necessary for a large corporation to take everything you produce and pay you the minimum necessary to keep you from going postal. I don't particularly enjoy living on a shoestring held by an exec whose worried more about his stock price than my intellectual property.
the number of creative jobs available that would pay a living wage would be much lower
I don't see any usefulness in using big government legislation to subsidize people who produce a mediocre product.
when used appropriately
Appropriate use might include a few concessions to the people actually producing to protect them from one-sided and heavy-handed employee agreements.
Yeh it's called science, 2 negatives makes a positive. biatch
If you lose two apples each to two people who are paying you -$2 for each apple then you've lost $8 which is -$8 for you. In chemistry the combination of two negative charges implies that there are equal positive charges someplace else but certainly doesn't make a positive.
Fortunately, the law doesn't cater much to what people's sympathies are.
Which emphasizes the point that the law is a sham.
People request terms in contracts that they can't personally verify are being followed ALL THE TIME
Which further illustrates that only people who already have huge hoardes of available funding can afford to enforce or benefit from a contract in today's America.
When someone signs an NDA, the other doesn't assign them a monitor to make sure that they don't disclose the information they aren't allowed to
The ability to enforce that NDA is directly related to how much money you can contribute to legal funding and political maneuvers. If the funding isn't available to hire the legal team to enforce the NDA then the NDA is meaningless. It's obviously a one-sided agreement in favor of those who already have a financial upper hand.
That's what RESPONSIBILITY is for.
How about the industry takes responsibility for its own profits?
Prime example: genetically engineered crops. The major producers didn't introduce the engineered crops until they could engineer seed which produced sterile plants. Why? Because they recognized that no one will continue to buy engineered seed if they can pull the seed from their own crops. Their product also is EASILY COPIED. Surely the agri industry could have lobbied for political maneuvers and federal oversight. The DNA testing is quite simple to determine the strain of grain. Why didn't the agri industry go for the same policies as the media industry? I'll answer that: Because the agri industry rightly saw that there was no benefit in making criminals out of farmers doing what farmers do.
Maybe the media industry should take a lesson. There is no sense in making criminals out of people who do what normal people do.
Next you'll be saying that people who commit bribery shouldn't be arrested
That's a silly pot shot. A normal citizen may get busted for trying to bribe an agent or police officer but large corporations have figured out the legal loopholes in bribes ages ago. Once again we illustrate that the system is a sham set up to favor those who already have a financial advantage.
How is the media playing dumb by exercising their rights?
They're not exercising rights. They're deliberately ignoring the nature of their product. See the example of the agri industry.
Oh, so since they disagree with you, it's just because they've been "trained"?
Don't even start. I've rebuilt dozens of computers and everyone has mp3s that they don't own on CD. Everyone has software that they borrowed to install. Best Buy could probably furnish beautiful figures to back this up. In fact I'm surprised that the FBI hasn't begun auditing computers brought in for repair on a regular basis. There's a token story or two about some freak with bad pr0n, but not a single mp3 share has been busted because the Best Buy tech installing win2k didn't see the music. Please don't tell me it doesn't exist. It's the biggest front since Prohibition.
of course murder is wrong'
Using the most fringe example is a horrid debate tactic. Murder is violent, bloody, results in loss of life and much misery. Filesharing does none of this unless you're a really good actor and can put on a song and dance that would draw tears from a block of granite.
Well, I think that people have the right, as enumerated in our Constitution (implicitly by the granting of power to create such a right), of being able to prevent people from profiting off of the hard work of themselves if they so choose
I understand that sometimes I mix phonetics with "their/there/they're" and "its/it's"... but you have a horrible triple double inverse implied negative so I'll just have to assume that you're off the deep end again and you want to promote your right to prevent someone else from personally profitin
Um, they are distributing copyrighted works without the owner's permission... how is that not infringing?
I would have sympathy if these were private independent artists we're talking about. But it's not. The legal owner is now a big media conglomerate once the artist sells the rights. That big media conglomerate is more than capable of the market research to figure out what a fair and profitable price for a CD is. If they don't know the fair worth of their own product, given considerations of how that product can and will be sued, then maybe they just suck as businessmen? That's hardly the consumers' fault.
you had done it with the mutual agreement that if he were to pass on the secrets to others, he must cease using it
That's where we differ. I can't realistically demand that agreement because I'm intelligent and realize that I can't stand over his shoulder 24/7 to see what he does with the papers that I sold to him.
Why are music conglomerates allowed to play dumb just to stage a legal debacle? If their dollars are lagging and they feel its because too many people are sharing then they should face the natural reality of their product and raise the price. There is no sense in raiding the homes of private citizens. These people are not terrorists. For the greatest part their not even violent. We have corporate tax dodgers bilking us out of billions and we choose to concentrate on filesharing as a revenue source. It's plain silly.
I have a suspicion that in the general population you won't find much of a fuzziness
You're right. When asked the question people have been trained to rattle off the rote answer of,"Of course it's stealing" and then everyone goes home and does the same thing.
what other political system is there that is as stable, prosperous and as helpful to the general populace as the democratic republic? And second, why aren't we using it?
I don't know why we're not using a democratic republic. Last time I checked our government functions as a democratically elected socialist state.
Do you even know what a properly functioning democratic republic would look like? It sure wouldn't cost you 60% of your paycheck every year in hidden fees, taxes, regulatory charges, social security pyramid schemes, socialized medicine pyramid schemes, insurance pyramid schemes, and on.
Is it ethical to make a copy of someone else's creative or inventive ideas when their livelihood relies on the sale of those ideas -- and if so, why?
That's a simplistic question which ignores the realities of the world.
People who rely on copyright for income rarely have any contact with the product in today's world. Everything is controlled by large distributors. In the pharmaceutical industry, we sign over all rights to the company. The same happens in software. The same happens in music.
So, in that case, it's perfectly legal for the corporations to make copies of someone else's creative and inventive ideas because they've legally purchased the rights. In my opinion the corporation has more than enough resources to determine what a fair selling price is to the consumer and, if they feel they're losing profit, they are free to raise the price. Rather than whining about consumers why can't they face the reality that they deal in a product which is easily copied and easily redistributed? There's no great secret here. Instead they prefer to turn ordinary citizens into criminals.
On the other hand, why should a bunch of criminals who are infringing their copyright be able to dictate their policy?
I don't think they're criminals and I don't think they're infringing. If I sell the secret of nuclear fusion to you for $5 then it's my loss if I was stupid enough to sell it to you for $5. If I demand $500 then you and five friends chip in and I still think it's my loss for being stupid enough to give it away for $500. There's no doubt the amount of money that's poured into marketing by the big media corporations. Why should they be allowed to plead ignorance?
If they feel that they're not getting their proper fare for their product they are free to raise the price. There is no need to criminalize otherwise boring citizens.
There's nothing more hidden about this than, say, someone robbing someone and saying "I haven't read the statute prohibiting robbery".
That's silly. The concept of theft is as ingrained in humans as a child looking guilty for stealing a cookie. The very fact that people's consciences are fuzzy on the concept of "intellectual property" should be our first sign that there's really no wrongdoing here.
However, I certainly cannot blame any copyright holder from trying to exercise their rights
I don't blame the artists but they already signed their rights away to the distributors. I have no qualms holding the distributors responsible for their own underpricing if that's what they feel the problem is.
there really ought to be a general argument against the entire concept
I feel there should be a fundamental objection to holding people responsible for a document if it is popularly known that no one, similarly bound by the same document, reads the document.
There's also the misrepresentation of a sale, complete with transferral of ownership of the product, box, and everything inside, when they're really engaging in a rental which has terms which limit the transferral of ownership and terms of use.
There is also an argument about the legality of a one-sided agreement. There are laws in place to prevent the acceptance of a contract under a situation of duress. These laws, fundamentally, are to guard against opportunistic one-sided agreements. "Heads I win, tails you lose" and all that. A contract or an agreement over a product should describe obligations for both parties. Forfeiture of the contract typically results in one party or the other receiving full possession of the product. Yet there are no provisions in your home mortgage, car loan, or CD license which list ways that the COMPANY might violate its trust and the consumer would receive full ownership of their house, car, or CD. It seems like a perfect one-sided agreement if all those documents do is list the hundreds of ways by which the bank or industry can sue your butt into bankruptcy and beyond--not to mention being terrorized by the FBI gestapo pounding down the door.
Copyright violation becomes a criminal matter once the value crosses a fairly low threshold
What's the threshold for embezzlement? How many banks are they investigating? How many stock brokers or professional investors?
What's the threshold for graft? How many politicians are they investigating?
What's the threshold for false advertising? Are they thinking about staging another comic show against Microsoft any time soon?
What's the threshold for price-fixing or abusing a monopolistic position?
What's the threshold for tax evasion? How many wealthy folks are worried that the FBI is going to crash their doors? Didn't George Bush, jokingly, even admit that "rich people already have accountants to help them avoid taxes"?
Shouldn't we go after some real money rather than roughing up a few nobodys?
Slashdot Mirror
You do not have permission to distribute the song. Period. End of story
I bought the CD and I own it. Unless you want to mount a government agent in every home why can't you accept the fact that the product is easily copied? If you don't want people to share it then don't sell it. Move to live performance only.
you do not have the right to give it to 1000 of your closest 'friends'.
I agree that the limits are ridiculous but at what point do we tell the industry to get real? Everyone knows the product is easily copied. The transfer of goods is represented as a sale. Either raise the price or accept the lower profit margin. Hiring government thugs isn't socially responsible.
As far as the theft part is concerned, if you didn't pay it for it, it's theft
The product was legally paid for. Some people choose to obtain the product from a distributor who provides a better distribution model at a significantly reduced charge. This is called shopping around. Distribution rights, while encoded in the law, are grossly unrealistic. The product is easily copied. Deal with it. Refine the business model.
Agri companies had to do it with genetically engineered seed and Hallmark had to do it when people bought printers and greeting card software. Why is the music industry shielded from evolution?
If you don't consider it theft walk into any music store and grab the CD you want and walk out
That's theft. We're talking about unlicensed distribution. Does the supermarket sue people who take their plants home, trim cuttings, and grow new plants? Will they sue you for imitating their particular rye bread? Will the grocer sue you for taking apple seeds and growing your own tree? How about tomato plants or peppers which can be COPIED in less than a year?
Every other industry with a product which is easily copied after sale has had to evolve and refine their business model. Why is the media industry any different?
but if you STEAL
Even the law recognizes that it's not stealing. It's "copyright infringement". Yes it's illegal but it's not theft.
Did Hallmark sue the makers of home greeting card software? Do agricultural companies sue farmers if they happen to get a fertile plant from genetically engineered seed? No. These industries accept the FACT that their product may be easily copied and they adjust their business model to account for it. Back in the day desktop graphics software used to sell disks of clip art and were fierce about trying to protect it. Eventually they accepted the FACT that the product (especially in the 8-bit day) was easily copied. I could look at a 64x64 pixel bit of clip art and copy it visually without copying their product. The only people who sell clip art are people with a business model which guarantees they can turn a reasonable profit without suing normal citizens. The media industry cannot expect that level of clientele when they target 9-15 year olds.
The media industry is being stupid, socially irresponsible, greedy, dishonest, or all of the above.
All crime is artificial
Most crime is real. Intellectual property and copyright are intangible. Can you tell the difference between music which was purchased vs. music downloaded with only your ear? If someone tells you they have a "great idea" can you immediately swear that they didn't hear it from someone else two days earlier?
a musicians music isn't yours to take any more than a sculptur's sculpture would be
A musician's music isn't the musician's anymore. It belongs to some media conglomerate. You're attempting to arouse sympathy for a group of people who aren't even involved anymore.
not stealing just because there isn't a tangible decrease in a inventory somewhere
It's not stealing. The product was legally sold. Rights of ownership were transferred at the point of sale. Misrepresenting a rental as a sale is a poor way of defending business stupidity. If they feel they are losing profits they should reevaluate the worth of their product.
Take the agricultural industry. They produce genetically engineered crops. They only sell seed which produces sterile crops because they are intelligent and they know that otherwise the product would be EASILY COPIED. The agri industry could have lobbied for federal oversight and DNA testing of crops. They could have run down farmers for "stealing" their intellectual property. Instead they 1) subsidized, out of their own profit margin, engineered crops in order to put them in the marketplace and 2) invested in the research to produce seed which produced sterile crops.
The music industry should take a lesson. Making criminals out of customers is the wrong business model. Why not admit,"We're so stupid that we didn't realize our product was so easily copied."
The product was legally sold. The government is not their personal Guido.
I can't believe you placed laws against stealing music in the same category as Prohibition
I placed the resistance against one set of unjust laws in the same category as resistance against another set of unjust laws.
I'm continually amazed how the average person's sphere of awareness drops off dramatically roughly where his nose ends
Such as the common awareness that copyright laws actually benefit the original author/creator/researcher?
artists deserve their money
When losing a debate always invoke sympathy for people who will not benefit from the proposed plan of action.
CEOs, VPs, and execs may finally feel a pinch to make a real contribution to the product. Performers will continue to tour and perform.
Stealing other's work is wrong
I agree that theft is wrong. This isn't theft. It's not even prosecuted as theft. The warrants are not filled out to recover stolen property.
It's an artificial crime called "copyright infringement."
The greeting card industry did not tank just because greeting card makers appeared on PCs. If, however, stores sold greeting cards which were printed on plain paper, would you support prosecuting everyone that printed out a Christmas card modeled after one they saw in the store?
The agricultural industry produces genetically engineered seed. They did not sell this seed until they had seed which grew into sterile crops. They recognized that their product was EASILY COPIED. They could have saved themselves years of research by lobbying Congress to get federal oversight and DNA testing of crops. They didn't. It wasn't right to prosecute farmers for doing what farmers do: harvesting seed from crops.
It is not theft. Once LEGALLY sold the product is easily copied. Face it and refine the business model or accept that they suck as businessmen.
This guy is providiing a valuable service, and he does it all on his own, but I'm sure there will be 10 posts rationalizing why stealing his work is OK and he is worse than Bush for daring to charge to make the lives of other people easier
Accept change. Blacksmiths aren't in high demand anymore, keymakers aren't in high demand anymore. People who can sew aren't in high demand anymore.
It's reality. Nobody subsidizes the traditional bakery just because the supermarkets can make a million donuts/hour. Everyone must find their niche and pray because, unless you are wealthy enough to send attorneys screaming like banshees against anyone who can't afford a defense, that's the best life promises.
sharing music is considered copyright infringement in US law
Everyone supports copyrights because they believe it will benefit the artists. It doesn't. The companies own everything the artists produce as soon as a contract is signed.
Copyrights only benefit the corporate tag-alongs and, as such, need to be removed or revised.
"We need to enforce laws to protect the profit of CEOs, VPs, and executives who already have base salaries of multi-millions per year!" Who else agrees?
Breaking the law is never ok
In today's world it's impossible _NOT_ to be breaking a law at any given time unless you're already locked in a cave.
In the meantime, it is our civil duty as citizens to disobey laws which we feel are unjust. Examples of Prohibition and slavery and all that...
the ability to scan their machine for tradable files and then get them for sharing
Filenames are not directly indicative of content.
A suspicious government will imprison its people in the same manner that suspicious parents ground their children.
If you don't like the price of something, then don't buy it
If they feel they're not profitting from their product they can raise the price of the product.
Taking something offered for sale without rendering payment is UNJUST
I'll be sure to send McDonald's representatives to your next cookout.
People that are old enough to be grandmothers are old enough to know that copyright infringement is illegal
That same grandmother wouldn't bat an eyelash if you gave her a CD with old big band music for Christmas. Non-smokers would have no problem if smoking became a felony. People who don't drink have no problem with prohibition.
Your subject group is skewed.
If your 12-year-old is pirating music, you aren't doing a good job as a parent and the lesson will be taught one way or another
There is no theft. This is an artificial crime called "copyright infringement". While the spirit of copyright is a starry-eyed ideal which everyone supports the implementation is flawed and anyone who actually lives under its sway knows that it rarely, if ever, benefits the original author in the way that you think it does.
"RIAA Sues More People Who Habitually Break the Law"
We're charged as citizens to disobey laws which are unjust. Perhaps you'd rather people succumbed to Prohibition and slavery?
Dear Mr. Ashcroft,
Please continue turning a blind eye to reality. Please continue to pulverize youngsters for sharing music, which youngsters have done since anyone could copy a tune on a banjo or flute. Please continue to support corporations with broken business models. Please continue to encourage businessmen to neglect the physical realities of their product in favor of government backed enforcement of arbitrary laws.
Some day, all of these evil p2p sharing kiddies will come visit you in the nursing home. Enjoy your power while you've got it. It'll never substitute for intelligence.
Steven
I nixed a troll mod in m2 because I agree with you about the pyramid scheme style hype on internet companies.
At the same time you do remember Enron? Energy companies run the same type of business model. Leverage, marketing, take the money and run. Pharmaceutical companies only avoided getting caught with their pants down because they decided to go through a flurry of mergers between 1998 and 2004 which helped them hide, re-cook, obfuscate and shred the accounting ledgers.
your work is of a good standard and you don't want to give up that work to an employer (and receive the fringe benefits that come from that employment in exchange) then you are quite at liberty to go self-employed and start your own business
You're wrong. For scientists the hitch is in an employee agreement. For artists the hitch is in a signing contract. There is no leverage for the original author. All leverage is held by corporation which has a larger legal fund.
Without the artificial protections set up by copyright (and patents, too) these industries simply wouldn't be where they are today
You're right. Without the artificial protection of patents we'd be driving cars which run on hydrogen power, our televisions would be 3D holographic, and my PC would be running on a descendent of Alpha RISC and Windows would've been dumped for the crap it was back in '95.
About microwaves... those are pretty nice right now. What would happen to the microwave without patent protection? For 5 years there would've been a hundred different makers of crappy microwaves and then, as the public figured out which ones were quality and which ones were junk, the field would have been whittled down to three or four makers of quality microwaves.
Incidentally, without searching the USPTO or Google, do you know who invented the microwave? Did his invention make him wealthy? I doubt it. Most likely the patent is held by whatever company the researcher worked for, at a wage that barely pays the mortgage, and he signed the rights away the moment the patent was published for fear of losing his job.
I've always supported strong-arm leverage tactics. How about you?
That's true, but I think the simple fact that being a professional author, programmer, musician or artist would be near impossible otherwise is a fairly compelling argument!
It's compelling but it's not true.
without copyright to level out the playing fields
Copyright does not level a playing field. Copyright simply ensures that your employee agreement is all the legal buffer necessary for a large corporation to take everything you produce and pay you the minimum necessary to keep you from going postal. I don't particularly enjoy living on a shoestring held by an exec whose worried more about his stock price than my intellectual property.
the number of creative jobs available that would pay a living wage would be much lower
I don't see any usefulness in using big government legislation to subsidize people who produce a mediocre product.
when used appropriately
Appropriate use might include a few concessions to the people actually producing to protect them from one-sided and heavy-handed employee agreements.
Yeh it's called science, 2 negatives makes a positive. biatch
If you lose two apples each to two people who are paying you -$2 for each apple then you've lost $8 which is -$8 for you. In chemistry the combination of two negative charges implies that there are equal positive charges someplace else but certainly doesn't make a positive.
Fortunately, the law doesn't cater much to what people's sympathies are.
Which emphasizes the point that the law is a sham.
People request terms in contracts that they can't personally verify are being followed ALL THE TIME
Which further illustrates that only people who already have huge hoardes of available funding can afford to enforce or benefit from a contract in today's America.
When someone signs an NDA, the other doesn't assign them a monitor to make sure that they don't disclose the information they aren't allowed to
The ability to enforce that NDA is directly related to how much money you can contribute to legal funding and political maneuvers. If the funding isn't available to hire the legal team to enforce the NDA then the NDA is meaningless. It's obviously a one-sided agreement in favor of those who already have a financial upper hand.
That's what RESPONSIBILITY is for.
How about the industry takes responsibility for its own profits?
Prime example: genetically engineered crops. The major producers didn't introduce the engineered crops until they could engineer seed which produced sterile plants. Why? Because they recognized that no one will continue to buy engineered seed if they can pull the seed from their own crops. Their product also is EASILY COPIED. Surely the agri industry could have lobbied for political maneuvers and federal oversight. The DNA testing is quite simple to determine the strain of grain. Why didn't the agri industry go for the same policies as the media industry? I'll answer that: Because the agri industry rightly saw that there was no benefit in making criminals out of farmers doing what farmers do.
Maybe the media industry should take a lesson. There is no sense in making criminals out of people who do what normal people do.
Next you'll be saying that people who commit bribery shouldn't be arrested
That's a silly pot shot. A normal citizen may get busted for trying to bribe an agent or police officer but large corporations have figured out the legal loopholes in bribes ages ago. Once again we illustrate that the system is a sham set up to favor those who already have a financial advantage.
How is the media playing dumb by exercising their rights?
They're not exercising rights. They're deliberately ignoring the nature of their product. See the example of the agri industry.
Oh, so since they disagree with you, it's just because they've been "trained"?
Don't even start. I've rebuilt dozens of computers and everyone has mp3s that they don't own on CD. Everyone has software that they borrowed to install. Best Buy could probably furnish beautiful figures to back this up. In fact I'm surprised that the FBI hasn't begun auditing computers brought in for repair on a regular basis. There's a token story or two about some freak with bad pr0n, but not a single mp3 share has been busted because the Best Buy tech installing win2k didn't see the music. Please don't tell me it doesn't exist. It's the biggest front since Prohibition.
of course murder is wrong'
Using the most fringe example is a horrid debate tactic. Murder is violent, bloody, results in loss of life and much misery. Filesharing does none of this unless you're a really good actor and can put on a song and dance that would draw tears from a block of granite.
Well, I think that people have the right, as enumerated in our Constitution (implicitly by the granting of power to create such a right), of being able to prevent people from profiting off of the hard work of themselves if they so choose
I understand that sometimes I mix phonetics with "their/there/they're" and "its/it's"... but you have a horrible triple double inverse implied negative so I'll just have to assume that you're off the deep end again and you want to promote your right to prevent someone else from personally profitin
Um, they are distributing copyrighted works without the owner's permission... how is that not infringing?
I would have sympathy if these were private independent artists we're talking about. But it's not. The legal owner is now a big media conglomerate once the artist sells the rights. That big media conglomerate is more than capable of the market research to figure out what a fair and profitable price for a CD is. If they don't know the fair worth of their own product, given considerations of how that product can and will be sued, then maybe they just suck as businessmen? That's hardly the consumers' fault.
you had done it with the mutual agreement that if he were to pass on the secrets to others, he must cease using it
That's where we differ. I can't realistically demand that agreement because I'm intelligent and realize that I can't stand over his shoulder 24/7 to see what he does with the papers that I sold to him.
Why are music conglomerates allowed to play dumb just to stage a legal debacle? If their dollars are lagging and they feel its because too many people are sharing then they should face the natural reality of their product and raise the price. There is no sense in raiding the homes of private citizens. These people are not terrorists. For the greatest part their not even violent. We have corporate tax dodgers bilking us out of billions and we choose to concentrate on filesharing as a revenue source. It's plain silly.
I have a suspicion that in the general population you won't find much of a fuzziness
You're right. When asked the question people have been trained to rattle off the rote answer of,"Of course it's stealing" and then everyone goes home and does the same thing.
what other political system is there that is as stable, prosperous and as helpful to the general populace as the democratic republic? And second, why aren't we using it?
I don't know why we're not using a democratic republic. Last time I checked our government functions as a democratically elected socialist state.
Do you even know what a properly functioning democratic republic would look like? It sure wouldn't cost you 60% of your paycheck every year in hidden fees, taxes, regulatory charges, social security pyramid schemes, socialized medicine pyramid schemes, insurance pyramid schemes, and on.
Is it ethical to make a copy of someone else's creative or inventive ideas when their livelihood relies on the sale of those ideas -- and if so, why?
That's a simplistic question which ignores the realities of the world.
People who rely on copyright for income rarely have any contact with the product in today's world. Everything is controlled by large distributors. In the pharmaceutical industry, we sign over all rights to the company. The same happens in software. The same happens in music.
So, in that case, it's perfectly legal for the corporations to make copies of someone else's creative and inventive ideas because they've legally purchased the rights. In my opinion the corporation has more than enough resources to determine what a fair selling price is to the consumer and, if they feel they're losing profit, they are free to raise the price. Rather than whining about consumers why can't they face the reality that they deal in a product which is easily copied and easily redistributed? There's no great secret here. Instead they prefer to turn ordinary citizens into criminals.
On the other hand, why should a bunch of criminals who are infringing their copyright be able to dictate their policy?
I don't think they're criminals and I don't think they're infringing. If I sell the secret of nuclear fusion to you for $5 then it's my loss if I was stupid enough to sell it to you for $5. If I demand $500 then you and five friends chip in and I still think it's my loss for being stupid enough to give it away for $500. There's no doubt the amount of money that's poured into marketing by the big media corporations. Why should they be allowed to plead ignorance?
If they feel that they're not getting their proper fare for their product they are free to raise the price. There is no need to criminalize otherwise boring citizens.
There's nothing more hidden about this than, say, someone robbing someone and saying "I haven't read the statute prohibiting robbery".
That's silly. The concept of theft is as ingrained in humans as a child looking guilty for stealing a cookie. The very fact that people's consciences are fuzzy on the concept of "intellectual property" should be our first sign that there's really no wrongdoing here.
However, I certainly cannot blame any copyright holder from trying to exercise their rights
I don't blame the artists but they already signed their rights away to the distributors. I have no qualms holding the distributors responsible for their own underpricing if that's what they feel the problem is.
there really ought to be a general argument against the entire concept
I feel there should be a fundamental objection to holding people responsible for a document if it is popularly known that no one, similarly bound by the same document, reads the document.
There's also the misrepresentation of a sale, complete with transferral of ownership of the product, box, and everything inside, when they're really engaging in a rental which has terms which limit the transferral of ownership and terms of use.
There is also an argument about the legality of a one-sided agreement. There are laws in place to prevent the acceptance of a contract under a situation of duress. These laws, fundamentally, are to guard against opportunistic one-sided agreements. "Heads I win, tails you lose" and all that. A contract or an agreement over a product should describe obligations for both parties. Forfeiture of the contract typically results in one party or the other receiving full possession of the product. Yet there are no provisions in your home mortgage, car loan, or CD license which list ways that the COMPANY might violate its trust and the consumer would receive full ownership of their house, car, or CD. It seems like a perfect one-sided agreement if all those documents do is list the hundreds of ways by which the bank or industry can sue your butt into bankruptcy and beyond--not to mention being terrorized by the FBI gestapo pounding down the door.
Copyright violation becomes a criminal matter once the value crosses a fairly low threshold
What's the threshold for embezzlement? How many banks are they investigating? How many stock brokers or professional investors?
What's the threshold for graft? How many politicians are they investigating?
What's the threshold for false advertising? Are they thinking about staging another comic show against Microsoft any time soon?
What's the threshold for price-fixing or abusing a monopolistic position?
What's the threshold for tax evasion? How many wealthy folks are worried that the FBI is going to crash their doors? Didn't George Bush, jokingly, even admit that "rich people already have accountants to help them avoid taxes"?
Shouldn't we go after some real money rather than roughing up a few nobodys?