It is not some other entities right to say what you can or can't do with your own creations.
You are interpretting the statement "it is the property of society" incorrectly. Nobody has suggested that somebody else can force you to do things with your creation that you don't want to do. The actual point is that nobody can own an idea or work of the imagination, only have limited control over how it is used publically.
Consider if you wrote a song. I might like the funky baseline you came up with, and it sparks in me some different lyrics or styling that I think makes it sound better, or is innovative. Now try to stop me from having that idea. Can't do it, can you? See, I didn't take your idea. You still have it. I built on your idea. You don't own it, and you can't own it. There's nothing you can do to stop me from modifying it, developing it, building on it, etc.
However, you can stop me from publically releasing any modifications I make, at least legally. That is, you don't own the idea, but you have limited control over how it is expressed publically, for a time.
Now, which is better for progress: (a) you keep me from ever expressing my modified idea so that you can profit off of your creation, or (b) I can express my idea. Clearly (b) is better for progress. However, why would you, or I, ever express our ideas publically if there wasn't some reward. For some, the expression is reward enough. But for the sake of progress, it is better to provide a reliable incentive, like profit (could be money, could be the exchange of other material, etc.).
So, putting all this reasoning together, the best thing for progress is to allow a limited time control over created works, and then allow them to be used freely by the public. The longer the control time, the slower progress. The shorter the control time, the less incentive for "profit" and hence reduced progress again. There is a proper balance, and indeed society, via the government, does indeed tell you how you can or cannot control your creation.
This strayed a little, but I hope it helps you to understand why you cannot ever own an idea or creative work, you can only control how it is used publically. And more to the point, I hope it clarifies why your idea is not a piece of property that you have "god-given" right to.
To be fair, I must say that Linus's piece is not very cogent, either.
It seems you aren't a very experienced debater or in logical argument construction. If your "opponent" has stated a list of bad premises and reached a bad conclusions, the worst thing you could do is attack all of the premises and conclusions at once. That confuses the issues.
What Linus has done here is pretty close to the right way to make the counter-argument. First, accept all of Darl's premises for the moment, that a "profit-motive" is required, and demonstrate how the GPL meets those premises. If Linus had explicitly attacked the "profit-motive" premise and his conclusions relied on this attack, the arguement would then turn into one about "profit-motive", not the validity of the GPL.
What Linus did was say, "OK, lets assume your premises are true, then the GPL meets all of your premise requirements and hence the proper conclusion is that the GPL is valid." This makes the argument very clear and concise and keeps it on the topic (validity of the GPL). If Darl can make a convincing argument about why the GPL does not meet his premises, then that's the time to attack the premises. You should always work backwards in an argument, starting from the conclusion.
That being said, Linus did partially attack Darl's premise on "profit-motive", using the public university example. (Essentially, the arguement is that profit is a possible motive for progress, but not a required one.) I think Linus' university argument would have been better if he had attacked the premises after the conclusion, and do it more thorougly that the simple example given or don't do it at all. It's a good example, but he doesn't explicitly state what is wrong with Darl's premise, just an example in which it does apply.
The better strategy from Darl's point of view will be to rebut something that is not Linus' argument at all.
...called a straw man argument, and that is exactly what Darl ('s PR team) did in the first letter. He misrepresented the open source community's beliefs and GPL principles, and then attacked those misrepresentations.
Mod this baby up!!! It's not like evolution, it is evolution. When software forks, only the fittest survives. And the "fittest" is the implementation that the market chooses as the best solution. It is the surest way to make efficient, useful software. It also brings direct competition into the equation. Captialists should embrace this model because it is a head-to-head competition where the best solution wins.
Really, the only difference in applying this concept to software or the natural world is a single vowel. Forking leads to software evolution. I'll leave it up to the reader to determine what vowel needs to be changed in that statement to determine what leads to natural evolution.
otherwise the "winner" in the global economy is the country most willing to exploit its citizens, fuck its environment and provide substandard or unsafre products.
You know, that sounds like a good reason to change the method of taxation. Right now we generally tax "good" things for the economy (income, interest, consumer purchases, etc.). Wouldn't it make more sense to tax "bad" things like energy usage, pollution, and waste? This would provide economic incentives for running clean operations rather than "cheap and dirty".
Following this principle, rich people would still pay more taxes (assuming they do now, which isn't necessarily true), because they have bigger houses that use more energy, less efficient cars (SUVs, big cars, limos), use more gas, travel more, have more electronic toys, etc. Poor people generally can't afford the things that use up all that energy or produce pollution, other than heating and lighting their homes, so won't be taxed as much.
Applying this to international trade, countries with poor environmental & labour conditions would have higher tariffs than countries that made the same products cleanly and safely.
Hmm. Probably won't work. I can't figure out why, but I'm sure somebody will point it out. I'm just rambling and wasting time right now anyway.
I think you've fallen into a common misconception. The U.S. Constitutions states that it gives powers to Congress to create copyright laws "...to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". This "limited time" was originally 14 years total. Going back even further, this concept was based on the English Statute of 1710, which secured to authors of books the sole right of publishing them for designated periods.
As you well point out, the current situation is extremely different. Copyrights extend many years past a persons death. That violates the principle of a "limited time" for the purposes of "progress of science and useful arts".
Also keep in mind that I was responding to the statement "Copyright Law takes its origin in the will to protect the revenues of authors", with my emphasis on the "origin" part. Your response specifies the current situation, not the "origin" or even the original intention, which I specify above.
No, but Michael Geist is, and he's also the Canadian research chair in Internet and e-commerce law, and he seems to think there is a good legal argument for saying it is legal.
But more to the point, the parent article here is not about the legality of downloading songs in Canada. It's about payment of royalties. In my own words, as I understand it, other broadcasters (radio, TV, etc.) have to play royalties to artists when they broadcast a copyrighted work. This case is trying to determine if ISPs, or anybody else, can be classified as "broadcasters" with respect to internet file trading for the purposes of collecting royalties.
In a sense, it's the other side of the coin from the downloading question. The Canadian Copyright Act appears to make downloading legal, but it seems quite clear that uploading (distributing) is not legal. While the levy on CD-R's legitimizes downloading in the Copyright Act, making ISPs (or somebody else) pay royalties for "broadcasting" may very well legitimize the distribution end of online sharing. After all, if you charge royalties to an ISP for songs that are distributed through it, you are creating a de facto license for the songs to be distributed through it. Might not be as clear cut as the CD-R levy, but I think it has legal merit.
Copyright Law takes its origin in the will to protect the revenues of authors / musicians / other artists, so that they have an incentive to create. Right ?
Only partly. It was actually created to balance the protection of the author with the rights of the consumers. Perpetual control by the author means they can keep the work from ever being expressed and keeping anyone from ever building from it, both which hinder progress. Essentially, any new creation would have to be revolutionary (unique), not evolutionary (modified). Limited time monopoly provides time for the author to exploit the work (money) without significantly restricting progress.
I don't think you have a very good argument here. As has been pointed out in other responses to you, Michael Geist, the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law, believes that there is a pretty good legal argument for individual downloaders. We do all seem to agree that this has not been tested in court, but it seems even the Canadian legal community thinks it is probably legal.
What hasn't been discussed much, though, is the principle that one cannot legally profit from illegal activity, especially third parties. I'm not aware if this is written in Canadian law, but the principle is generally established. The current levy on CD-Rs is specifically to compensate for copyrighted material. Therefore, it seems like a good legal argument that the recording industry cannot say on one hand that your copying is illegal on one hand, but that they profit from it on the other.
In short, under current Canadian copyright law, I think there are several good legal arguments about downloading being legal. Now uploading, or making songs available (shared) over P2P seems quite clearly to be illegal.
Free doesn't always win. In fact, it can't win in the end because it is not self-sustaining. If consumers always took the "free" route, the music industry would collapse and there'd be no product to consume. Most of us realize that, so we do support the artists we think are worth it.
Where the articles fail is in clarifying how the music industry actually works. Labels sign artists they think they can sell, not that they think people want to hear. This the article does hint at. Then, the labels act as high-risk loan agents, "lending" money to the artist for recoding and promotion. But unlike normal loans, the artist has little or no say in how the money is spent. Next, the label "sells" its services in recording and promoting. Finally, it partially controls how the product is played and rated (e.g., top 40 list).
There's little incentive to be efficient, and the wishes of the consumer and artist are not really in the loop.
That's a little presumptuous of you. I barely have enough time in the day to eat. In a couple of hours on P2P I can test out hundreds of songs and find many I like. By your method of finding music, that would take me days and require travel to all sorts of used or rare CD stores in the hopes of finding something I'm looking for. Much of the stuff I've found isn't available in any store around here or online, and sometimes isn't even available on an album. (For example, I love Dave Grohl's live acoustic version of "Everlong" on the Howard Stern show, which isn't on an album AFAIK.)
Lazy? No. Do you walk everywhere you go? No. Does that make you lazy? No, because there's not enough time and there's a better way to do it. Same thing with P2P. You can't beat it for efficiency. Getting rid of it is not an option. Figuring out how to make money from it is the only, and proper response for the industry.
It's not even close to what it's meant to stand for
Huh? Society Of Composers, Artists, and Music Publishers of CaNada. OK, the "N" doesn't quite fit, but I wouldn't call one letter "not even close". SOCAMP would probably be a better fit.
Cute. Joking aside, I see this as the opposite of the RIAA approach. It is an attempt to be reasonable and fair to both consumers and artists. Imagine that. Only in Canada you say? Pity.
That was my original thought, but the tradeoff for paying that levy is that it is legal to download songs in Canada. (Though this hasn't been tested in court, AFAIK.) I think that tradeoff is worth it.
It looks to me like this new proposal from SOCAN is essentially saying that the current situation is unfair and wasn't considered when the 1998 Copyright Act was introduced. On the one hand, I'd say tough for them. On the other hand, it would probably still be worth it if the levy was small enough, to keep downloading legal. If the industry is hurting, which hasn't been shown AFAIK, then this might be a reasonable compensation.
Imagine paying on the order of $1 per month (~75 cents $U.S.) to allow unlimited legal downloads. This approach certainly beats that taken by the RIAA in the U.S., and it's nice to see that SOCAN is at least trying to propose something reasonable, realistic, and fair to both consumers and artists.
Patents are monopolies on ideas. Copyrights are monopolies on information (data).
There's a problem of semantics here. A song is not "data" or "information". It is the structure of the song or written work that you have a copyright on, not the information in it. You can present the same information from a book without violating copyright if you present it in a different structure (i.e., put it in your own words). Similarly, writing down and selling a transcription of a song (without permission) still violates the copyright because it's the same "idea" in a different medium, even though the "data" is different.
By "idea", I meant the idea of how to structure or organize the information, which is what is really copyrighted.
The crazy idea that if I create something I own it.
That's the problem that most people don't realize. Nobody owns an idea. You might be the first to come up with it, but that doesn't mean you own it. However, if there was no protection of your idea, there's little incentive for you to make it public, hence hindering progress. On the other hand, if you had perpetual control of the idea then only you can decide how it's used and could (a) keep it from ever being used, or (b) keep others from developing it further. This also hinders progress.
The point of copyright law is to give you (most) control of your idea for a limited time so that you can exploit it if you wish, but then it must be made public so that others can develop it further. The "most" refers to the fact it's been recognized there is a need to allow some uses outside of your control, known as fair uses.
These goals have been violated by current copyright law. It now impedes progress, and in the case of the DMCA even is de facto removal of other public rights such as fair use.
So, sorry to burst your bubble, but it's generally not an issue of getting stuff for free. Your concept of idea ownership is the problem. It's the same concept that industry has, and unfortunately is the direction that the government is going. The other main problem is the propaganda that copyright infringement is "stealing", another poor concept you seem to have.
There are two things that will likely make the copyright infringements effectively disappear -- fix the copyright laws to be fair to artist and consumers, rather than for maximizing company profits, and change the business model for developing, marketing, and selling music. Right now the model is to sign artists, sell them services (recording, promoting, managing, etc.), and overcharge the consumer to make up for losses on these services for most artists.
Yes, that's what I meant by "perpetual". Not the literal sense, but the de facto sense. The point of copyright was (and should be) to allow the creator control for a short time. That allows them to be sufficiently compensated for their work, and allows the public to build from their work with minimal delay. As it stands now, copyright laws impede progress rather than promote it. Sure, there's incentives to create new works, but there's a huge barrier against developing someone else's ideas further.
I don't get why Slashdot advocates the piracy of music
I don't get why people think this. I haven't yet seen any Slashdot articles advocating piracy and only a small handful of comments that actual advocate it.
What you seem unable to differentiate is the advocation of piracy and the contempt people have for:
tactics used by the RIAA & MPAA to "enforce" their copyrights,
publicized lies, propaganda, and assumptions by the RIAA & MPAA claiming harm from P2P infringements WITHOUT EVIDENCE,
modification of laws by the RIAA/MPAA to remove rights or benefits from consumers/citizens (as in this article),
proposed tactics/laws for acting against P2P (such as destroying the contents of a computer they "find" in violation -- without trial or judicial oversight),
attacks on P2P to make them illegal or shut them down even though they have legitimate legal uses,
hypocrisy of arguing that P2P has no legally legitimate uses and then using P2P to (a) send messages to users and (b) purchasing the download statistics to rate songs for improved marketing,
issuing of supoenas without judicial oversight
attempts to enforce an ancient business model that has little relevence in the modern world,
copyright laws that violate the principle in which they were created (i.e.,limited exclusive right of creators followed by public domain to promote progress, not perpetual exclusive right which hinders progress).
There are possibly other complaints too, these are just off the top of my head. As you see from this list, it's not just a "I want free music" tirade. There are tons of legitimate complaints about copyrights and the RIAA & MPAA.
See, I don't really get this. I kept hearing about how everyone thought it sucked, then I went to see it. It wasn't really that bad. OK, so it was a little too commercial -- too long battle/fight and love scenes and too little plot. It also leaves some open questions that are important to the plot, like how Neo can "see" things and exactly what is it that he's seeing.
But overall it wasn't that bad. It fulfilled all the expected events forshadowed in the previous movies (e.g., battle for Zion, Neo saves the day, ultimate fight between Neo and Smith, etc.) There were even a few "cool" ideas thrown in (don't want to give away too much, so I won't mention any).
It might not have been all I hoped for, but I wouldn't say it sucked by any stretch.
Is it any wonder why people get confused, and pissed off. The whole specifications vs file format vs container vs codec referencing needs to be simplified or standardized. For instance, I can't tell how many times I've downloaded an AVI file that I didn't have the codec for. A friend bought a camera that records video to AVI's. I thought this was good until I found out it has a proprietary codec and will only play on the manufacturers software. Now the same thing with MPEG/AAC. I give up.
The reason there's no on/off switch is because if you wrap the vehicle around a telephone pole, you might not be able to reach the switch.
Likewise, if you fall in your shower you may not be able to call 911, therefore everyone should have cameras in their showers that 911 can access at any time.
It might be the reason, but it's a pretty lame one IMHO. I'd never get such as system where I didn't control when they could or couldn't listen in on me.
Slashdot Mirror
You are interpretting the statement "it is the property of society" incorrectly. Nobody has suggested that somebody else can force you to do things with your creation that you don't want to do. The actual point is that nobody can own an idea or work of the imagination, only have limited control over how it is used publically.
Consider if you wrote a song. I might like the funky baseline you came up with, and it sparks in me some different lyrics or styling that I think makes it sound better, or is innovative. Now try to stop me from having that idea. Can't do it, can you? See, I didn't take your idea. You still have it. I built on your idea. You don't own it, and you can't own it. There's nothing you can do to stop me from modifying it, developing it, building on it, etc.
However, you can stop me from publically releasing any modifications I make, at least legally. That is, you don't own the idea, but you have limited control over how it is expressed publically, for a time.
Now, which is better for progress: (a) you keep me from ever expressing my modified idea so that you can profit off of your creation, or (b) I can express my idea. Clearly (b) is better for progress. However, why would you, or I, ever express our ideas publically if there wasn't some reward. For some, the expression is reward enough. But for the sake of progress, it is better to provide a reliable incentive, like profit (could be money, could be the exchange of other material, etc.).
So, putting all this reasoning together, the best thing for progress is to allow a limited time control over created works, and then allow them to be used freely by the public. The longer the control time, the slower progress. The shorter the control time, the less incentive for "profit" and hence reduced progress again. There is a proper balance, and indeed society, via the government, does indeed tell you how you can or cannot control your creation.
This strayed a little, but I hope it helps you to understand why you cannot ever own an idea or creative work, you can only control how it is used publically. And more to the point, I hope it clarifies why your idea is not a piece of property that you have "god-given" right to.
It seems you aren't a very experienced debater or in logical argument construction. If your "opponent" has stated a list of bad premises and reached a bad conclusions, the worst thing you could do is attack all of the premises and conclusions at once. That confuses the issues.
What Linus has done here is pretty close to the right way to make the counter-argument. First, accept all of Darl's premises for the moment, that a "profit-motive" is required, and demonstrate how the GPL meets those premises. If Linus had explicitly attacked the "profit-motive" premise and his conclusions relied on this attack, the arguement would then turn into one about "profit-motive", not the validity of the GPL.
What Linus did was say, "OK, lets assume your premises are true, then the GPL meets all of your premise requirements and hence the proper conclusion is that the GPL is valid." This makes the argument very clear and concise and keeps it on the topic (validity of the GPL). If Darl can make a convincing argument about why the GPL does not meet his premises, then that's the time to attack the premises. You should always work backwards in an argument, starting from the conclusion.
That being said, Linus did partially attack Darl's premise on "profit-motive", using the public university example. (Essentially, the arguement is that profit is a possible motive for progress, but not a required one.) I think Linus' university argument would have been better if he had attacked the premises after the conclusion, and do it more thorougly that the simple example given or don't do it at all. It's a good example, but he doesn't explicitly state what is wrong with Darl's premise, just an example in which it does apply.
...called a straw man argument, and that is exactly what Darl ('s PR team) did in the first letter. He misrepresented the open source community's beliefs and GPL principles, and then attacked those misrepresentations.
Mod this baby up!!! It's not like evolution, it is evolution. When software forks, only the fittest survives. And the "fittest" is the implementation that the market chooses as the best solution. It is the surest way to make efficient, useful software. It also brings direct competition into the equation. Captialists should embrace this model because it is a head-to-head competition where the best solution wins.
Really, the only difference in applying this concept to software or the natural world is a single vowel. Forking leads to software evolution. I'll leave it up to the reader to determine what vowel needs to be changed in that statement to determine what leads to natural evolution.
You know, that sounds like a good reason to change the method of taxation. Right now we generally tax "good" things for the economy (income, interest, consumer purchases, etc.). Wouldn't it make more sense to tax "bad" things like energy usage, pollution, and waste? This would provide economic incentives for running clean operations rather than "cheap and dirty".
Following this principle, rich people would still pay more taxes (assuming they do now, which isn't necessarily true), because they have bigger houses that use more energy, less efficient cars (SUVs, big cars, limos), use more gas, travel more, have more electronic toys, etc. Poor people generally can't afford the things that use up all that energy or produce pollution, other than heating and lighting their homes, so won't be taxed as much.
Applying this to international trade, countries with poor environmental & labour conditions would have higher tariffs than countries that made the same products cleanly and safely.
Hmm. Probably won't work. I can't figure out why, but I'm sure somebody will point it out. I'm just rambling and wasting time right now anyway.
As you well point out, the current situation is extremely different. Copyrights extend many years past a persons death. That violates the principle of a "limited time" for the purposes of "progress of science and useful arts".
Also keep in mind that I was responding to the statement "Copyright Law takes its origin in the will to protect the revenues of authors", with my emphasis on the "origin" part. Your response specifies the current situation, not the "origin" or even the original intention, which I specify above.
No, but Michael Geist is, and he's also the Canadian research chair in Internet and e-commerce law, and he seems to think there is a good legal argument for saying it is legal.
But more to the point, the parent article here is not about the legality of downloading songs in Canada. It's about payment of royalties. In my own words, as I understand it, other broadcasters (radio, TV, etc.) have to play royalties to artists when they broadcast a copyrighted work. This case is trying to determine if ISPs, or anybody else, can be classified as "broadcasters" with respect to internet file trading for the purposes of collecting royalties.
In a sense, it's the other side of the coin from the downloading question. The Canadian Copyright Act appears to make downloading legal, but it seems quite clear that uploading (distributing) is not legal. While the levy on CD-R's legitimizes downloading in the Copyright Act, making ISPs (or somebody else) pay royalties for "broadcasting" may very well legitimize the distribution end of online sharing. After all, if you charge royalties to an ISP for songs that are distributed through it, you are creating a de facto license for the songs to be distributed through it. Might not be as clear cut as the CD-R levy, but I think it has legal merit.
Only partly. It was actually created to balance the protection of the author with the rights of the consumers. Perpetual control by the author means they can keep the work from ever being expressed and keeping anyone from ever building from it, both which hinder progress. Essentially, any new creation would have to be revolutionary (unique), not evolutionary (modified). Limited time monopoly provides time for the author to exploit the work (money) without significantly restricting progress.
I don't think you have a very good argument here. As has been pointed out in other responses to you, Michael Geist, the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law, believes that there is a pretty good legal argument for individual downloaders. We do all seem to agree that this has not been tested in court, but it seems even the Canadian legal community thinks it is probably legal.
What hasn't been discussed much, though, is the principle that one cannot legally profit from illegal activity, especially third parties. I'm not aware if this is written in Canadian law, but the principle is generally established. The current levy on CD-Rs is specifically to compensate for copyrighted material. Therefore, it seems like a good legal argument that the recording industry cannot say on one hand that your copying is illegal on one hand, but that they profit from it on the other. In short, under current Canadian copyright law, I think there are several good legal arguments about downloading being legal. Now uploading, or making songs available (shared) over P2P seems quite clearly to be illegal.
That's a scary statement, considering P2P networks have legitimate legal uses. Ever hear the saying, "Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater."?
Where the articles fail is in clarifying how the music industry actually works. Labels sign artists they think they can sell, not that they think people want to hear. This the article does hint at. Then, the labels act as high-risk loan agents, "lending" money to the artist for recoding and promotion. But unlike normal loans, the artist has little or no say in how the money is spent. Next, the label "sells" its services in recording and promoting. Finally, it partially controls how the product is played and rated (e.g., top 40 list).
There's little incentive to be efficient, and the wishes of the consumer and artist are not really in the loop.
That's a little presumptuous of you. I barely have enough time in the day to eat. In a couple of hours on P2P I can test out hundreds of songs and find many I like. By your method of finding music, that would take me days and require travel to all sorts of used or rare CD stores in the hopes of finding something I'm looking for. Much of the stuff I've found isn't available in any store around here or online, and sometimes isn't even available on an album. (For example, I love Dave Grohl's live acoustic version of "Everlong" on the Howard Stern show, which isn't on an album AFAIK.)
Lazy? No. Do you walk everywhere you go? No. Does that make you lazy? No, because there's not enough time and there's a better way to do it. Same thing with P2P. You can't beat it for efficiency. Getting rid of it is not an option. Figuring out how to make money from it is the only, and proper response for the industry.
Huh? Society Of Composers, Artists, and Music Publishers of CaNada. OK, the "N" doesn't quite fit, but I wouldn't call one letter "not even close". SOCAMP would probably be a better fit.
Newsflash! It already is legal in Canada, even before this proposed levy.
Cute. Joking aside, I see this as the opposite of the RIAA approach. It is an attempt to be reasonable and fair to both consumers and artists. Imagine that. Only in Canada you say? Pity.
It looks to me like this new proposal from SOCAN is essentially saying that the current situation is unfair and wasn't considered when the 1998 Copyright Act was introduced. On the one hand, I'd say tough for them. On the other hand, it would probably still be worth it if the levy was small enough, to keep downloading legal. If the industry is hurting, which hasn't been shown AFAIK, then this might be a reasonable compensation.
Imagine paying on the order of $1 per month (~75 cents $U.S.) to allow unlimited legal downloads. This approach certainly beats that taken by the RIAA in the U.S., and it's nice to see that SOCAN is at least trying to propose something reasonable, realistic, and fair to both consumers and artists.
There's a problem of semantics here. A song is not "data" or "information". It is the structure of the song or written work that you have a copyright on, not the information in it. You can present the same information from a book without violating copyright if you present it in a different structure (i.e., put it in your own words). Similarly, writing down and selling a transcription of a song (without permission) still violates the copyright because it's the same "idea" in a different medium, even though the "data" is different.
By "idea", I meant the idea of how to structure or organize the information, which is what is really copyrighted.
Can you write off your blow up doll as a business expense?
That's the problem that most people don't realize. Nobody owns an idea. You might be the first to come up with it, but that doesn't mean you own it. However, if there was no protection of your idea, there's little incentive for you to make it public, hence hindering progress. On the other hand, if you had perpetual control of the idea then only you can decide how it's used and could (a) keep it from ever being used, or (b) keep others from developing it further. This also hinders progress.
The point of copyright law is to give you (most) control of your idea for a limited time so that you can exploit it if you wish, but then it must be made public so that others can develop it further. The "most" refers to the fact it's been recognized there is a need to allow some uses outside of your control, known as fair uses.
These goals have been violated by current copyright law. It now impedes progress, and in the case of the DMCA even is de facto removal of other public rights such as fair use.
So, sorry to burst your bubble, but it's generally not an issue of getting stuff for free. Your concept of idea ownership is the problem. It's the same concept that industry has, and unfortunately is the direction that the government is going. The other main problem is the propaganda that copyright infringement is "stealing", another poor concept you seem to have.
There are two things that will likely make the copyright infringements effectively disappear -- fix the copyright laws to be fair to artist and consumers, rather than for maximizing company profits, and change the business model for developing, marketing, and selling music. Right now the model is to sign artists, sell them services (recording, promoting, managing, etc.), and overcharge the consumer to make up for losses on these services for most artists.
Yes, that's what I meant by "perpetual". Not the literal sense, but the de facto sense. The point of copyright was (and should be) to allow the creator control for a short time. That allows them to be sufficiently compensated for their work, and allows the public to build from their work with minimal delay. As it stands now, copyright laws impede progress rather than promote it. Sure, there's incentives to create new works, but there's a huge barrier against developing someone else's ideas further.
I don't get why people think this. I haven't yet seen any Slashdot articles advocating piracy and only a small handful of comments that actual advocate it.
What you seem unable to differentiate is the advocation of piracy and the contempt people have for:
tactics used by the RIAA & MPAA to "enforce" their copyrights,
publicized lies, propaganda, and assumptions by the RIAA & MPAA claiming harm from P2P infringements WITHOUT EVIDENCE,
modification of laws by the RIAA/MPAA to remove rights or benefits from consumers/citizens (as in this article),
proposed tactics/laws for acting against P2P (such as destroying the contents of a computer they "find" in violation -- without trial or judicial oversight),
attacks on P2P to make them illegal or shut them down even though they have legitimate legal uses,
hypocrisy of arguing that P2P has no legally legitimate uses and then using P2P to (a) send messages to users and (b) purchasing the download statistics to rate songs for improved marketing,
issuing of supoenas without judicial oversight
attempts to enforce an ancient business model that has little relevence in the modern world,
copyright laws that violate the principle in which they were created (i.e.,limited exclusive right of creators followed by public domain to promote progress, not perpetual exclusive right which hinders progress).
There are possibly other complaints too, these are just off the top of my head. As you see from this list, it's not just a "I want free music" tirade. There are tons of legitimate complaints about copyrights and the RIAA & MPAA.
See, I don't really get this. I kept hearing about how everyone thought it sucked, then I went to see it. It wasn't really that bad. OK, so it was a little too commercial -- too long battle/fight and love scenes and too little plot. It also leaves some open questions that are important to the plot, like how Neo can "see" things and exactly what is it that he's seeing.
But overall it wasn't that bad. It fulfilled all the expected events forshadowed in the previous movies (e.g., battle for Zion, Neo saves the day, ultimate fight between Neo and Smith, etc.) There were even a few "cool" ideas thrown in (don't want to give away too much, so I won't mention any).
It might not have been all I hoped for, but I wouldn't say it sucked by any stretch.
Is it any wonder why people get confused, and pissed off. The whole specifications vs file format vs container vs codec referencing needs to be simplified or standardized. For instance, I can't tell how many times I've downloaded an AVI file that I didn't have the codec for. A friend bought a camera that records video to AVI's. I thought this was good until I found out it has a proprietary codec and will only play on the manufacturers software. Now the same thing with MPEG/AAC. I give up.
Speak for yourself. I've never had a problem.
Likewise, if you fall in your shower you may not be able to call 911, therefore everyone should have cameras in their showers that 911 can access at any time.
It might be the reason, but it's a pretty lame one IMHO. I'd never get such as system where I didn't control when they could or couldn't listen in on me.