The funny thing about the WMD issue in Iraq is that once somebody did figure it out, it turned out to be one of those things that was stranger than fiction.
After the end of the first stage of the Iraqi War, a group of American historians got their hands on Saddam's archives, and tried to work out what was happening on the Iraqi side of the war, and why no WMDs were found. The book they produced is available to the public as the Iraqi Perspectives Project: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/special/iraq/ipp.pdf
Essentially, Saddam had a bunch of WMDs in the first Gulf War and was preparing an active WMD program after that war ended, but the international scrutiny by the UN forced him to cancel it. However, he was afraid that if his neighbours ever believed that he had cancelled the WMD program, they would invade him. So, he didn't tell anybody he had cancelled the program, including his generals, and tried to give his neighbours the impression he still had an active program.
The smokescreen was so effective that Iraqi war plans drawn up by the Iraqi generals up to the end of the 2004 war were based on the deployment of WMDs that had been cancelled close to a decade earlier, and all of Saddam's legitimate efforts to obey the UN were interpreted as hiding evidence.
So, it is true that Saddam had no WMDs at the beginning of the Iraqi War. But thanks to his smokescreen, all of the intelligence analysis said that he did.
"When international summit [royalsociety.org] after international summit [pik-potsdam.de] after international summit [nationalacademies.org] all recognize global warming and the human influence how can you still deny it? When from every article [sciencemag.org] in a referred scientific journal about climate change from 1993 to 2003, there isn't even ONE that disagrees with the consensus that that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities, how is it not obvious? When even international panels like the InterAcademy Council [interacademycouncil.net] and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [bbc.co.uk] can agree on the human impact, what "controversy" is there?"
Because the statement of a scientific consensus is, among other things, propaganda. And furthermore, a number of climatologists have been caught making specious claims for what appears to be publicity's sake. The findings of the IPCC have also been called into question, in peer-reviewed journals.
So, let's go through some of the list here...
First, the "hockey stick" graph was discredited a few years ago when two Canadian mathematicians tried to reproduce it, and found that the data used had been cherry picked - only the lowest data points were used for the Medieval Warm Period, and only the highest data points were used for the 1980s onwards. For more information, see http://www.climateaudit.org/?page_id=354
The IPCC report itself was based on faulty mathematics. Christopher Monckton, a physicist, decided to examine the climate model used for the 2007 IPCC report, and found that the math was wrong, and that the impact of CO2 on climate had been overstated by anywhere from 500-2000%: http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm
Looking away from the science for a moment, why is it that Al Gore got a Nobel peace prize for a documentary that either misled or got a large part of its science wrong ( http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html )? Why is it that the skeptics who point at the problems with climate science suffer from ad hominem attacks, while the skeptics themselves are just looking at the science? Shouldn't the argument be in regards to the data - and for that matter, isn't the ad hominem attack usually used by the person whose argument is weakest?
The climate is changing - it always has been. In fact, the last eight years have been very abnormal due to the fact that the overall surface temperature of the Earth hasn't actually changed during them (the only measurement station noting an increase in temperature is from NASA, which relies on ground based thermometers which have been overrun by urban centers, which raises the local temperature anyway - sorry, but I don't have the link for this data on hand and I'm running out of time, so you'll have to google for this information yourself). And while CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it is a very minor one. Climate-wise, we have been on an upswing for some time. But how much of that is our fault?
I don't know. But so long as the "science" that is being spouted on this is based on discredited graphs, cherry-picked data, and faulty mathematics, I don't think I'm going to find out any time soon. This "scientific consensus" is propaganda double-speak, and what's needed is honest science where theory is based on data, and not the other way around.
"Eloquent as usual, Garwulf. You might try making a point."
I did - and you're still misusing words. You might try getting your facts right.
"Well, it would if it were not for the Berne Convention and automatic copyrights. If one had to apply for a copyright for a specific work and be granted a certificate, I would be in complete agreement with you, and in theory, that is how copyright is supposed to function."
First of all, the Berne Convention does protect the creation of derivative works, and on a related note, denies the copyrighting of information. Article 2, Clause 3 reads: "Translations, adaptations, arrangements of music and other alterations of a literary or artistic work shall be protected as original works without prejudice to the copyright in the original work."
And Article 2, Clause 8 reads: "The protection of this Convention shall not apply to news of the day or to miscellaneous facts having the character of mere items of press information."
"Automatic copyrights, however, force all speech that is stored for any length of time in any "tangible" medium to become "works". So, everything you "say" on the net -- even on Skype -- is copyrighted and could be used to sue someone else for infringement. Please do not give me any arguments about how "nobody would do that". People always say that, and then somebody does it a generation later."
You are correct - somebody could sue somebody else based on automatic copyright. What you're missing is that they'd probably lose. Anybody can claim a copyright on something - proving the date of creation is a very different matter.
There is only one form of proof of copyright that is fully recognized by courts of law, and that is a certificate from the Copyright Office. If you want to protect your copyright in court, you have to register it. Any other proof that the copyright is rightfully yours, from a timestamp on a file to a postmark from mailing an envelope to yourself, is too easily faked.
Would you like the URL for your country's Copyright Office?
"This would be costly for me, and large corporations with deep pockets can use this method to censor Free Speech by outspending their adversaries. If you do not believe this, consider the case of the "four file sharing students". The RIAA sued them for enabling file sharing when they each created search engines. In all four cases, they probably would have won in court, but none of them had the financial resources to go up against the RIAA."
First of all, that is a feature of the American court system that is not necessarily duplicated elsewhere. In my country (Canada), for example, in a civil case the loser is required to pay most of, if not all of, the winner's legal fees. If the court decides that the suit was frivolous, it will also fine the losing party. The situation you described is a trapping of the American court system, not copyright law, regardless of how corrupt the RIAA is, or how bad the DMCA is.
(And believe me, I have been very vocal to my government about how bad the proposed Canadian version is.)
"I also think that ideas cannot be property"
Copyright law agrees with you - it only protects exact implementation. American patent law, on the other hand, does not, but we aren't talking about that, regardless of how broken it has become.
"Copyright is a form of state control. It is the state claiming a set of speech belongs exclusively to a person to control. That is communism as information is an inexhaustible resource."
No, it isn't. When the government protects the ability of an individual or business to profit from their idea or implementation of an idea, that is called CAPITALISM. Communism would be if the state declared that, in the name of the people, the copyright either belonged to the state, or to the workers.
"Copyright also restricts a natural and universal right necessary for every Free Society: Free Speech. Copyright makes certain speech controllable, which makes it NOT Free. Liberal Democracies are literally inconceivable in the absence of Free Speech. In the absence of copyright, however, few things in our current world -- except for millionaire record execs -- are inconceivable."
Bullshit. That is just bullshit.
Free speech means that you can express any idea you want. Copyright only applies to a specific implementation of an idea. You CANNOT copyright an idea.
So, if I write an article saying that Gitmo is bad, you are free to write an article saying the same thing. The only time copyright would kick in is if your article is word for word what I have written.
And, for that matter, words MEAN things. "Free speech" means something, something very important I might add. It allows you to be free to express uncomfortable ideas, regardless of if it inconveniences the government. It is not a tool to be swung about because you want to copy music.
"Communism" means something too, by the way. It's a political system that is in direct opposition to the free market economy, one that involved taking rights and property away from people in the name of a greater good, and had an entire economy controlled by the state. I know people who grew up under Communism - I don't think they'd be happy with the way you're misusing the word as a prop.
So, do yourself a favour. Learn what "Copyright" and "Communism" MEAN. Read the Berne Convention, and do some reading about Soviet Russia and Communist China. The way you have misused these words, quite frankly, is offensive.
I can only speak for copyright law here - what I know of American Patent law suggests that it is quite out of control, but I'm no expert. Copyright law, on the other hand, I know something about.
Frankly, copyright law as it stands according to the Berne Convention is fine. It strikes a balance between the rights of the creator and the rights of consumer, and it also has safeguards to prevent ideas from being monopolized. DRM is being taken to some fairly silly lengths, but that's not a legal issue, and I'm going to stick to the law.
(VERY important point - you CANNOT copyright an idea, only the specific implementation of one. There IS protection for derivative works built in to the Berne Convention.)
The problem is that the law is being abused. The solution is to penalize those who abuse it. My understanding is that there is a charge of "malicious prosecution" which is designed for precisely this sort of thing.
A class action suit against those who abuse the law, such as the one that is already happening against the RIAA, is a big step in the right direction.
Frankly, copyright law is something that needs to be protected. It provides the legal framework that allows creative artists to deal with distributors, or distribute themselves (Open Source is make possible by copyright law in the first place). It also defines the public domain - a fact that "abolitionists" tend to forget.
And, sometimes copyright needs to be protected against those who would abuse it, the members of the RIAA being prime examples. The only way to really protect it is to nail the offenders. Let's just say I'm rooting for the class action suit against the RIAA right now.
I get the feeling that most people here have never faced one of their friends or loved ones committing suicide. Unfortunately, I have experienced the former, and I can't imagine what it must be like for the latter.
Suicide is the worst type of death to have to deal with, as it leaves everybody around the person in limbo. At least with an accidental death or a death by illness there is some comfort, either that the death was not intentional, or that the person went out fighting. But suicide, particularly when there is no note, leaves you none of that.
I can't speak from a legal standpoint - among other things, I don't know what country you're in. But from a moral standpoint, since you have the blessings of the family, opening up those files and passwords is exactly the right thing to do, not only for your friend's family, but for yourself as well.
In a very real way, regardless of how shocking what you might find may be, you can only make things better all round by doing this. It will bring everybody out of freefall.
"Question: Is Tolkien's fantasy qualitatively different from what came before it, in that it took place "somewhere else" and had nothing to do with the world that we know?"
Well, it is more detailed, but it's not that different. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about fantastic worlds on Mars, and William Morris was writing about an invented world based on mythology in the 1850s.
What Tolkien really did was legitimize the genre, more than anything else. His work made the rest of the literary world take note that something special was happening.
"So if you're going to promote copyrights as a boon for artists, please be realistic about it."
I was simply pointing out that pensions involve people getting paid long after the job was finished, which is what creative artists keep being damned for.
"For the specific case of copyright, it is the only business model on the face of the planet where employees (read: distributors+"Artists") are expecting to be paid decades or even centuries after they are finished the job."
The earliest fantasy as we would describe it appears in the 16th century, and was known at the time as an "Artificial Romance." Cervantes was spoofing these stories in Don Quixote, and they had wizards, and dragons, etc.
The genre reappears with a more horror-based theme in the 19th century, and an author named William Morris (if I have the name right) creates the first invented fantasy world in the 1850s. In the early twentieth century, you have fantasists like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lord Dunsany, Robert E. Howard (who arguably created Sword and Sorcery as a genre), and H.P. Lovecraft. And all of this takes place before The Hobbit was published, much less the Lord of the Rings.
(For more information, read Wizardry and Wild Romance, by Michael Moorcock.)
And, for the record, at one point Tolkien himself mentioned that he was very fond of the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard.
Intelligent, well spoken, pointing out issues without ignoring the facts at hand, and presenting a reasonable reply that both addressed my own points and maintained yours as well, without starting a flame war in the process.
So...what is this place, and where is the real Slashdot?
"They have ice core data that goes back over 100,000 years. I suppose it could be a coincidence that:
* The most dramatic CO2/Temperature increase in history just HAPPENS to coincide with mankind figuring out that they could burn shit from underground.
* Scientists have developed models that match this historic data quite well, and even when set to be as conservative as possible, STILL predict a warming trend based on CO2 input."
All of which is a wonderful waste of time, considering that in those ice core samples the CO2 content rises about 400-500 years AFTER the temperature rises - unless I miss my guess, that means that the rise in temperature causes a rise in CO2, not the other way around.
Frankly, I find the man-made global warming theory to be extremely arrogant for two reasons:
1. It assumes that climate change is not normal, and that it should be fixed in place for our benefit - I think a couple of ice ages and the periods in between might disagree with that.
2. That human beings with our industrialism are somehow powerful enough to impact the planet on a global level in a fundamental way, rewriting environmental laws (such as higher CO2 levels being caused by higher temperatures) in the process, when the sun and volcanoes are far more impressive and likely candidates for effecting climate change.
Seriously, the global warming nuts need to get over themselves in a really big way. All this arrogant fearmongering is drawing attention away from real environmental problems that need fixing, such as rivers becoming toxic, etc.
"Noce completely missing the point. Not just missing it but running from it screaming and crying. The point is that Jimi Hendrix's work should be in the public domain, whether or not his heirs want it to be. Most of Disney's stuff should be in the public domain despite the fact that they don't want it to be. The point is that COPYRIGHTS LAST WAY WAY WAY TOO LONG!"
That's your opinion. As somebody who wants to leave a literary legacy for his children and grandchildren, I think copyright lasts exactly the right amount of time.
"'It's an identification number used for books.'
"And you don't get one unless you register the work with the copyright office. When you register your copyright you get an ISBN number."
Um, sorry, but WRONG. The ISBN number is registered by the publisher, and has nothing to do with copyright, nor is it issued by the copyright office. In the United States, they are issued by the US ISBN Agency (http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/index.asp). I know - I run a small publishing company, and I HAVE two ISBNs. The second is for a book that is coming out next year, and hasn't had a draft sent in to me yet. The first predates the registration of its copyright by around two months.
"The two works are HRG (a computer program for a proprietary computer they stopped making in 1983, completely worthless now) and Artificial Insanity, which was originally written for the TS-1000, ported to the MC10, then the Apple IIe, then to DOS. I'll probably port that one to javascript eventually when I get less lazy.
"They should be in the public domain because they're over thirty fucking years old."
Then PUT THEM THERE. If you complain like this about the length of copyrights, but don't bother to actually do anything about your own when copyright law specifically allows you to do so, what does that make you other than a hypocrite?
Either lead by example with your own work, or shut up about it.
"PS- I hold copyrights. I have two ISBNs that should have already passed into the public doimain. I'm not against copyright law, only the INSANE copyright laws that are in effect now."
Right, I've got to call "ignorant bullshit" on this one...
There is so much wrong with this statement, it isn't funny:
1. The copyright holder can place something they own into the public domain at any time. So, if you own a copyright, the only thing keeping it out of the public domain is you.
2. I know what an ISBN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number) is, and it doesn't have anything to do with copyrights. It's an identification number used for books. In fact, the same book can have several different ISBNs over the course of its publication history.
So, perhaps you would like to tell us what these copyrights are that you hold, and why, if you think they should be in the public domain right now, you haven't released them yet.
"The idea that ideas can be owned and hoarded is dying,"
I don't know how many more times this has to be said before people here start listening to it.
You CANNOT copyright an idea. The inability to copyright an idea is PROTECTED in copyright law.
What you can copyright is the exact implementation of an idea.
Patent Law, on the other hand, is another matter, and in the United States, at least, very badly broken. But there is a difference, and please don't lump one in with the other, particularly when copyright provides the legal framework that allows content producers and distributors to deal with one another, guaranteeing that you actually have all that media at the tip of your fingers.
Sorry that I'm not replying in a specific thread, but I'm seeing a lot of misconceptions in this discussion, and I want to hit as many of them as possible with just one post. I am a published author, as well as an editor, and I am now also the owner of a small publishing company that recently put out its first book - so understanding the ins and outs of this is very important to what I do.
First of all - the issues with e-books and first sale doctrines. When it comes down to it, copyright law is in regards to how copies are made (while this does involve the public to some degree, it's far more about how creative artists deal with their distributors and keeping one group from ripping off the other). If you buy a print book, and then resell it, or give it away to somebody, you are not making a copy. However, that's not something you can do with an e-book - if you give a copy of a Kindle book you just bought to a friend, you are actually making a copy, and that does violate copyright law. So that's where the problem lies. It is not a conspiracy to take people's rights away.
(Think of it like this - it's the difference between buying a book and giving your friend a copy, and buying a book, photocopying it, and then giving your friend the photocopy.)
Second - where e-books are going. A few people here are talking about how DRM on e-books are going to wipe out libraries. This is complete garbage. It is absolute nonsense in part because libraries are protected under copyright law in most countries (even in the United States, the "Sonny Bono" act had special dispensation for libraries). But, it is mostly nonsense because in order for e-books to wipe out libraries, the e-book would first have to wipe out the print book, and that just isn't going to happen.
I'm speaking from experience here - e-books are really a lot like radio. They're great for getting samples out, but if somebody really likes what they're reading, they want a copy of it on paper. The last time people were talking about how books were going to go digital, I was there in the ranks of e-book authors in the great "e-book revolution." And I had absolutely everything going for me - I was the author of Diablo: Demonsbane, the e-book launching the entire official Diablo fiction line, and Diablo II had sold millions of copies, which back then was almost unheard of for computer games. Advertisements for Demonsbane were showing up on Battle.net, so pretty much every Diablo multiplayer fan had at least some inkling that the book existed.
To this day, eight years later, I don't think the book sold more than 1,000 copies. And I was one of the e-book authors who did WELL - about the only thing I didn't have going for me was that I wasn't Stephen King.
By 2001, the e-book revolution had fizzled, and a bunch of publishers, Pocket Books included, stopped releasing them. And Demonsbane was released in every read-only format you could get, including Acrobat Reader. And it wasn't DRM that killed it, believe me. I've had a lot of time to think about why the print book didn't even notice the e-book assault was happening.
Frankly, it all comes down to barriers to entry. If you think about it, most of the technology that has caught on has been reducing barriers to entry for something. Take music, for example. We started off with the record, and then moved to the tape, which was smaller and more compact. Then came the CD, which had no moving parts. And now there's the MP3, which doesn't require a CD. But there was always a barrier to entry in music. That's not the case with a print book.
A print book requires only the ability to read, your eyes, and a light source. An e-book requires more - you need a power source, and a reader of some sort, be it a computer or a Kindle, etc. The readers are subject to obsolescence, as are the file formats. So, instead of removing barriers to entry, an e-book raises them.
Now, an e-book does have its purposes, and if you're on a long trip, it is far more handy to
"The traditional distribution paradigm for things like movies, music and books is in transition and people will not continue to pay top dollar for something that costs virtually nothing to produce."
Costs nothing to produce? Really?
So what about the research materials and costs? What about the writing and editing time? What about travel expenses, image rights? And that's not even looking at the publisher end.
As a small publisher, it costs me somewhere around $3-500 just to get the book published and the basic marketing in place - and that's before any sales. You're not paying top dollar for something that costs virtually nothing to produce - that book whose price you took issue with cost thousands of dollars to produce when it was all said and done.
"Look, I understand your point, but you should reevaluate the copying = stealing line."
I don't think so - not because you didn't raise a point - you raised a couple of good ones. The problem is that there are people who would use that as a justification for feeling entitled to rip off whatever they want, regardless of if they are putting somebody into bankruptcy in the process, and the counterpoint needs to be made. You said that copying IP does not always cause a loss of sale, but there are plenty of times that it does. And at that point, it IS basically stealing.
"I am giving examples, not because the specific software is important. Think about 10 years ago when Photoshop was thousands of dollars. There was no GIMP or lower priced alternative. I would NEVER pay thousands of dollars for Photoshop. Therefore there is no sale lost, because I would not save for it, would NOT EVER buy it at that price."
But that's not the example you originally gave - the example you gave was of being able to afford it, not wanting to pay for it, and then just taking it. That's not a necessary evil - that actually is basically theft. If you want it and you've got the money, you really don't have an excuse for pirating it.
Let's take a more relevant example to your argument, though - it's fifteen years ago, and somebody starts a business. But, they don't really have a lot of seed money, so they make do with what they have. Then they find out that they need Photoshop. The problem is that he really can't afford it - but if he doesn't get it, he simply won't be able to make the money to ever afford it, or stay in business. So, he pirates it. Then, when he can afford to pay for it, he buys a legit copy.
It is morally right? No. Was it necessary? Yes. It was a necessary evil. Ten years down the road, can he be faulted for it? I think the answer would have to be "no," particularly since he set it right in the end.
Let's modify the example for a moment. Let's say that the business never really gets going, and that in the end, our businessman can't afford to buy Photoshop. Again, it was a necessary evil, and I don't think the guy can be faulted, since he would have set it right in the end if he had been able to. At the very least, our hypothetical businessman can be praised for taking the shot, even if he did have to pirate software.
Modifying it once more, let's say the business does well, but our businessman decides not to actually set it right. He makes millions, but doesn't send so much as a cent of it to Adobe. That does cross a line.
I would also point out that your claim that IP is not like physical property is not true at all. There are ways in which it is different, but as somebody who HAS written and published books, I can tell you from personal experience that IP is the fruits of one's labour, just like a hand-made chair would be. You may not be able to build a house on it - you can't do that on a chair either - but after you spend a year or two working on creating something, it doesn't make it any less yours - that's why there is a whole subset of law around it.
You are correct that there is a gray area, but there is a point where a line is crossed. Don't think for one minute that I actually endorse the RIAA's tactics (since that is what this entire discussion is really about), but abuse of the law notwithstanding, piracy IS wrong. Shades of gray may mitigate it, but they don't change the underlying fact of it.
You didn't read my argument, did you? Nor did you read the fact that I put up free samples of my latest book on file sharing sites and whatnot.
Borrowing a book from a library isn't theft. Neither is loaning a book to a friend. Photocopying a book and then giving it out for free to whoever wants it, on the other hand, is another matter.
Aside from which, when you borrow a book from a library, you have to return it.
Thought I'd point that out. I hope you actually read it.
"You see, intellectual "property" is really nothing like physical property. Physical property can be stolen, and then someone always loses something. With IP, making a copy does not always result in a loss of sale. Very, very different."
I always love this argument. The problem is that there is a truth there, and it is spun off into justifying doing something wrong. That one cannot realistically do something about a thing does not make it right.
It is true that if somebody who would never have bought your book/movie/software in the first place downloads it, you haven't lost a sale. But what happens when they share it? What about the people who download it who would have bought it, but now don't have to, and therefore don't? Those ARE lost sales.
And yes, it is like a physical property in a lot of ways. Besides the work that goes into creating the product (a book doesn't exist until somebody writes it, just like a chair doesn't exist until somebody makes it), a book is an actual item that can be sold, resold, borrowed and loaned. People feel that it is worthwhile to do this because of the contents, not the paper. When somebody starts sharing a copyrighted work across the internet, they are taking something away - they're taking away revenue from the creative artist (those who buy the legit copies of the things they download and like are, as far as I can tell, in the minority), and you're undermining that artist's wishes on how their work is to be distributed, as well as impacting what else they can do with it in the future.
Can anything be done about most piracy? Generally, no. Aside from which, the people you have to worry about are the ones who are setting themselves up as illegal distributors, not the ones who are downloading. Can it act as a sample? Absolutely - in my own business, I put out sample chapters of the book I just published, and any future ones, so that they can be shared and hopefully generate sales. Does it make piracy right? Absolutely not.
"For example, I would love to have a copy of Photshop CS 3. It is $650. I could afford that but would never spend that much money on it (i.e. I wouldn't ever buy it at that price). So, if I pirate it they have not lost a sale to me."
So, let me get this straight. You have the money for it, you want it, but you don't want to pay for it. So, you'll just take it. If this was a store, that would be called shoplifting. Last I checked, there were other options, like downloading an open source solution, or taking your business to a company that doesn't overprice their software.
There is one last thing I would add before the flames start flowing: when I was a kid, I was a computer game pirate. I grew out of it close to twenty years ago, but when I did it, I never had any thought in my mind that it was right. It was a bonus that I got away with it - any free thing is a bonus - but that I was able to do it made me lucky. I never, ever, felt entitled to do it.
The fact that people now feel entitled to do stuff like this, rather than just lucky that they can get away with it, scares the living shit out of me.
"Well, first off, the cops can respond if they choose. They can exercise their free speech as well."
Actually, they probably can't. And here's why: anything they say could be construed to be police policy.
I used to work as an office manager in a social housing office, and I ran into exactly the same problem, particularly since I'm also a professional writer, and have been for the last decade. While I was working there, the one thing I could not write about was social housing - simply because my position would make it look like anything I said, no matter how much it was my personal opinion, represented the policy of the organization.
And that's not even counting the privacy issues. Let's say that somebody complains that a policeman arrested them and was rude. If the policeman writes to correct that statement, they could be relaying private information about that individual, opening them up to a lawsuit. It's not like rating one's teacher, where you're talking about activities that happen in public with lots of people watching. And, then you have the risk of releasing information in an ongoing investigation, etc.
As I said - the cops probably can't respond. If they do, they're walking into a minefield without a map.
"It has been rewritten as well as reinterpreted. Things like Sony VHS, copies of programs in RAM, DMCA, etc., have all provided newer interpretations of how copyright and technology coexist."
Well, I've got to concede a couple of those. But the implication as I read it in the article was of change over the last couple of years - which has not really happened in a big way (the DMCA being the last big American one I've heard about - and I'm not counting discussion about possible changes in that), and in the most important ways, neither copyright nor the need for it has changed in close to a century.
(Sorry if I'm a bit grammatically incorrect here - I got kept up all night last night by freezing rain doing an impression of crinkling tinfoil at my window.)
I'm sorry, but with articles like these, it's no wonder that the copyright debate is so muddled. This is a very clueless article.
It all becomes clear with this statement: "The copyright system is currently undergoing rapid changes as technology undermines old business models and enforcement regimes."
Um, no, it isn't. The only way you can think this is if you don't understand what copyright is and does. And that's because copyright's primary purpose is to provide a legal framework between a creative artist and his/her distributor in regards to his/her art. So long as there is a legally binding agreement to do it - copyright provides the protection to the artist to allow negotiations - how the distributor distributes that art is inconsequential to the actual law.
Aside from which, last time I checked, change involved something, well, CHANGING. The law has not been rewritten, the Berne convention is still the international yardstick, and the necessity for a framework to allow a creative artist to submit work to a distributor without having to worry about being shafted before a contract is even signed is still there. The RIAA trying to abuse the law and failing does not mean that the law itself has been stricken down.
Slashdot Mirror
The funny thing about the WMD issue in Iraq is that once somebody did figure it out, it turned out to be one of those things that was stranger than fiction.
After the end of the first stage of the Iraqi War, a group of American historians got their hands on Saddam's archives, and tried to work out what was happening on the Iraqi side of the war, and why no WMDs were found. The book they produced is available to the public as the Iraqi Perspectives Project: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/special/iraq/ipp.pdf
Essentially, Saddam had a bunch of WMDs in the first Gulf War and was preparing an active WMD program after that war ended, but the international scrutiny by the UN forced him to cancel it. However, he was afraid that if his neighbours ever believed that he had cancelled the WMD program, they would invade him. So, he didn't tell anybody he had cancelled the program, including his generals, and tried to give his neighbours the impression he still had an active program.
The smokescreen was so effective that Iraqi war plans drawn up by the Iraqi generals up to the end of the 2004 war were based on the deployment of WMDs that had been cancelled close to a decade earlier, and all of Saddam's legitimate efforts to obey the UN were interpreted as hiding evidence.
So, it is true that Saddam had no WMDs at the beginning of the Iraqi War. But thanks to his smokescreen, all of the intelligence analysis said that he did.
"When international summit [royalsociety.org] after international summit [pik-potsdam.de] after international summit [nationalacademies.org] all recognize global warming and the human influence how can you still deny it? When from every article [sciencemag.org] in a referred scientific journal about climate change from 1993 to 2003, there isn't even ONE that disagrees with the consensus that that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities, how is it not obvious? When even international panels like the InterAcademy Council [interacademycouncil.net] and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [bbc.co.uk] can agree on the human impact, what "controversy" is there?"
Because the statement of a scientific consensus is, among other things, propaganda. And furthermore, a number of climatologists have been caught making specious claims for what appears to be publicity's sake. The findings of the IPCC have also been called into question, in peer-reviewed journals.
So, let's go through some of the list here...
First, the "hockey stick" graph was discredited a few years ago when two Canadian mathematicians tried to reproduce it, and found that the data used had been cherry picked - only the lowest data points were used for the Medieval Warm Period, and only the highest data points were used for the 1980s onwards. For more information, see http://www.climateaudit.org/?page_id=354
That, however, is nothing compared to how the "hockey stick" got into the 2007 IPCC report. That verged on fraud: http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
The IPCC report itself was based on faulty mathematics. Christopher Monckton, a physicist, decided to examine the climate model used for the 2007 IPCC report, and found that the math was wrong, and that the impact of CO2 on climate had been overstated by anywhere from 500-2000%: http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm
Looking away from the science for a moment, why is it that Al Gore got a Nobel peace prize for a documentary that either misled or got a large part of its science wrong ( http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html )? Why is it that the skeptics who point at the problems with climate science suffer from ad hominem attacks, while the skeptics themselves are just looking at the science? Shouldn't the argument be in regards to the data - and for that matter, isn't the ad hominem attack usually used by the person whose argument is weakest?
The climate is changing - it always has been. In fact, the last eight years have been very abnormal due to the fact that the overall surface temperature of the Earth hasn't actually changed during them (the only measurement station noting an increase in temperature is from NASA, which relies on ground based thermometers which have been overrun by urban centers, which raises the local temperature anyway - sorry, but I don't have the link for this data on hand and I'm running out of time, so you'll have to google for this information yourself). And while CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it is a very minor one. Climate-wise, we have been on an upswing for some time. But how much of that is our fault?
I don't know. But so long as the "science" that is being spouted on this is based on discredited graphs, cherry-picked data, and faulty mathematics, I don't think I'm going to find out any time soon. This "scientific consensus" is propaganda double-speak, and what's needed is honest science where theory is based on data, and not the other way around.
I'm afraid you're relying on the Hockey Stick graph, which has been pretty much demolished by mathematicians by now:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
"Eloquent as usual, Garwulf. You might try making a point."
I did - and you're still misusing words. You might try getting your facts right.
"Well, it would if it were not for the Berne Convention and automatic copyrights. If one had to apply for a copyright for a specific work and be granted a certificate, I would be in complete agreement with you, and in theory, that is how copyright is supposed to function."
First of all, the Berne Convention does protect the creation of derivative works, and on a related note, denies the copyrighting of information. Article 2, Clause 3 reads: "Translations, adaptations, arrangements of music and other alterations of a literary or artistic work shall be protected as original works without prejudice to the copyright in the original work."
And Article 2, Clause 8 reads: "The protection of this Convention shall not apply to news of the day or to miscellaneous facts having the character of mere items of press information."
You can look this up for yourself here: http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html
"Automatic copyrights, however, force all speech that is stored for any length of time in any "tangible" medium to become "works". So, everything you "say" on the net -- even on Skype -- is copyrighted and could be used to sue someone else for infringement. Please do not give me any arguments about how "nobody would do that". People always say that, and then somebody does it a generation later."
You are correct - somebody could sue somebody else based on automatic copyright. What you're missing is that they'd probably lose. Anybody can claim a copyright on something - proving the date of creation is a very different matter.
There is only one form of proof of copyright that is fully recognized by courts of law, and that is a certificate from the Copyright Office. If you want to protect your copyright in court, you have to register it. Any other proof that the copyright is rightfully yours, from a timestamp on a file to a postmark from mailing an envelope to yourself, is too easily faked.
Would you like the URL for your country's Copyright Office?
"This would be costly for me, and large corporations with deep pockets can use this method to censor Free Speech by outspending their adversaries. If you do not believe this, consider the case of the "four file sharing students". The RIAA sued them for enabling file sharing when they each created search engines. In all four cases, they probably would have won in court, but none of them had the financial resources to go up against the RIAA."
First of all, that is a feature of the American court system that is not necessarily duplicated elsewhere. In my country (Canada), for example, in a civil case the loser is required to pay most of, if not all of, the winner's legal fees. If the court decides that the suit was frivolous, it will also fine the losing party. The situation you described is a trapping of the American court system, not copyright law, regardless of how corrupt the RIAA is, or how bad the DMCA is.
(And believe me, I have been very vocal to my government about how bad the proposed Canadian version is.)
"I also think that ideas cannot be property"
Copyright law agrees with you - it only protects exact implementation. American patent law, on the other hand, does not, but we aren't talking about that, regardless of how broken it has become.
"Copyright is a form of state control. It is the state claiming a set of speech belongs exclusively to a person to control. That is communism as information is an inexhaustible resource."
No, it isn't. When the government protects the ability of an individual or business to profit from their idea or implementation of an idea, that is called CAPITALISM. Communism would be if the state declared that, in the name of the people, the copyright either belonged to the state, or to the workers.
"When copyri
"Copyright also restricts a natural and universal right necessary for every Free Society: Free Speech. Copyright makes certain speech controllable, which makes it NOT Free. Liberal Democracies are literally inconceivable in the absence of Free Speech. In the absence of copyright, however, few things in our current world -- except for millionaire record execs -- are inconceivable."
Bullshit. That is just bullshit.
Free speech means that you can express any idea you want. Copyright only applies to a specific implementation of an idea. You CANNOT copyright an idea.
So, if I write an article saying that Gitmo is bad, you are free to write an article saying the same thing. The only time copyright would kick in is if your article is word for word what I have written.
And, for that matter, words MEAN things. "Free speech" means something, something very important I might add. It allows you to be free to express uncomfortable ideas, regardless of if it inconveniences the government. It is not a tool to be swung about because you want to copy music.
"Communism" means something too, by the way. It's a political system that is in direct opposition to the free market economy, one that involved taking rights and property away from people in the name of a greater good, and had an entire economy controlled by the state. I know people who grew up under Communism - I don't think they'd be happy with the way you're misusing the word as a prop.
So, do yourself a favour. Learn what "Copyright" and "Communism" MEAN. Read the Berne Convention, and do some reading about Soviet Russia and Communist China. The way you have misused these words, quite frankly, is offensive.
I can only speak for copyright law here - what I know of American Patent law suggests that it is quite out of control, but I'm no expert. Copyright law, on the other hand, I know something about.
Frankly, copyright law as it stands according to the Berne Convention is fine. It strikes a balance between the rights of the creator and the rights of consumer, and it also has safeguards to prevent ideas from being monopolized. DRM is being taken to some fairly silly lengths, but that's not a legal issue, and I'm going to stick to the law.
(VERY important point - you CANNOT copyright an idea, only the specific implementation of one. There IS protection for derivative works built in to the Berne Convention.)
The problem is that the law is being abused. The solution is to penalize those who abuse it. My understanding is that there is a charge of "malicious prosecution" which is designed for precisely this sort of thing.
A class action suit against those who abuse the law, such as the one that is already happening against the RIAA, is a big step in the right direction.
Frankly, copyright law is something that needs to be protected. It provides the legal framework that allows creative artists to deal with distributors, or distribute themselves (Open Source is make possible by copyright law in the first place). It also defines the public domain - a fact that "abolitionists" tend to forget.
And, sometimes copyright needs to be protected against those who would abuse it, the members of the RIAA being prime examples. The only way to really protect it is to nail the offenders. Let's just say I'm rooting for the class action suit against the RIAA right now.
I get the feeling that most people here have never faced one of their friends or loved ones committing suicide. Unfortunately, I have experienced the former, and I can't imagine what it must be like for the latter.
Suicide is the worst type of death to have to deal with, as it leaves everybody around the person in limbo. At least with an accidental death or a death by illness there is some comfort, either that the death was not intentional, or that the person went out fighting. But suicide, particularly when there is no note, leaves you none of that.
I can't speak from a legal standpoint - among other things, I don't know what country you're in. But from a moral standpoint, since you have the blessings of the family, opening up those files and passwords is exactly the right thing to do, not only for your friend's family, but for yourself as well.
In a very real way, regardless of how shocking what you might find may be, you can only make things better all round by doing this. It will bring everybody out of freefall.
"Question: Is Tolkien's fantasy qualitatively different from what came before it, in that it took place "somewhere else" and had nothing to do with the world that we know?"
Well, it is more detailed, but it's not that different. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about fantastic worlds on Mars, and William Morris was writing about an invented world based on mythology in the 1850s.
What Tolkien really did was legitimize the genre, more than anything else. His work made the rest of the literary world take note that something special was happening.
"So if you're going to promote copyrights as a boon for artists, please be realistic about it."
I was simply pointing out that pensions involve people getting paid long after the job was finished, which is what creative artists keep being damned for.
"For the specific case of copyright, it is the only business model on the face of the planet where employees (read: distributors+"Artists") are expecting to be paid decades or even centuries after they are finished the job."
You mean, besides pensions?
Oh yes - creative artists don't get those...
Sorry, but that's wrong.
The earliest fantasy as we would describe it appears in the 16th century, and was known at the time as an "Artificial Romance." Cervantes was spoofing these stories in Don Quixote, and they had wizards, and dragons, etc.
The genre reappears with a more horror-based theme in the 19th century, and an author named William Morris (if I have the name right) creates the first invented fantasy world in the 1850s. In the early twentieth century, you have fantasists like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lord Dunsany, Robert E. Howard (who arguably created Sword and Sorcery as a genre), and H.P. Lovecraft. And all of this takes place before The Hobbit was published, much less the Lord of the Rings.
(For more information, read Wizardry and Wild Romance, by Michael Moorcock.)
And, for the record, at one point Tolkien himself mentioned that he was very fond of the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard.
Well, that was...
Intelligent, well spoken, pointing out issues without ignoring the facts at hand, and presenting a reasonable reply that both addressed my own points and maintained yours as well, without starting a flame war in the process.
So...what is this place, and where is the real Slashdot?
"They have ice core data that goes back over 100,000 years. I suppose it could be a coincidence that:
* The most dramatic CO2/Temperature increase in history just HAPPENS to coincide with mankind figuring out that they could burn shit from underground.
* Scientists have developed models that match this historic data quite well, and even when set to be as conservative as possible, STILL predict a warming trend based on CO2 input."
All of which is a wonderful waste of time, considering that in those ice core samples the CO2 content rises about 400-500 years AFTER the temperature rises - unless I miss my guess, that means that the rise in temperature causes a rise in CO2, not the other way around.
Frankly, I find the man-made global warming theory to be extremely arrogant for two reasons:
1. It assumes that climate change is not normal, and that it should be fixed in place for our benefit - I think a couple of ice ages and the periods in between might disagree with that.
2. That human beings with our industrialism are somehow powerful enough to impact the planet on a global level in a fundamental way, rewriting environmental laws (such as higher CO2 levels being caused by higher temperatures) in the process, when the sun and volcanoes are far more impressive and likely candidates for effecting climate change.
Seriously, the global warming nuts need to get over themselves in a really big way. All this arrogant fearmongering is drawing attention away from real environmental problems that need fixing, such as rivers becoming toxic, etc.
Let's see - I provide the LINK to the ISBN office in the Unites States, and you tell me that I'm wrong about where ISBNs come from.
This conversation just stopped being worth my time.
"Noce completely missing the point. Not just missing it but running from it screaming and crying. The point is that Jimi Hendrix's work should be in the public domain, whether or not his heirs want it to be. Most of Disney's stuff should be in the public domain despite the fact that they don't want it to be. The point is that COPYRIGHTS LAST WAY WAY WAY TOO LONG!"
That's your opinion. As somebody who wants to leave a literary legacy for his children and grandchildren, I think copyright lasts exactly the right amount of time.
"'It's an identification number used for books.'
"And you don't get one unless you register the work with the copyright office. When you register your copyright you get an ISBN number."
Um, sorry, but WRONG. The ISBN number is registered by the publisher, and has nothing to do with copyright, nor is it issued by the copyright office. In the United States, they are issued by the US ISBN Agency (http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/index.asp). I know - I run a small publishing company, and I HAVE two ISBNs. The second is for a book that is coming out next year, and hasn't had a draft sent in to me yet. The first predates the registration of its copyright by around two months.
"The two works are HRG (a computer program for a proprietary computer they stopped making in 1983, completely worthless now) and Artificial Insanity, which was originally written for the TS-1000, ported to the MC10, then the Apple IIe, then to DOS. I'll probably port that one to javascript eventually when I get less lazy.
"They should be in the public domain because they're over thirty fucking years old."
Then PUT THEM THERE. If you complain like this about the length of copyrights, but don't bother to actually do anything about your own when copyright law specifically allows you to do so, what does that make you other than a hypocrite?
Either lead by example with your own work, or shut up about it.
"PS- I hold copyrights. I have two ISBNs that should have already passed into the public doimain. I'm not against copyright law, only the INSANE copyright laws that are in effect now."
Right, I've got to call "ignorant bullshit" on this one...
There is so much wrong with this statement, it isn't funny:
1. The copyright holder can place something they own into the public domain at any time. So, if you own a copyright, the only thing keeping it out of the public domain is you.
2. I know what an ISBN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number) is, and it doesn't have anything to do with copyrights. It's an identification number used for books. In fact, the same book can have several different ISBNs over the course of its publication history.
So, perhaps you would like to tell us what these copyrights are that you hold, and why, if you think they should be in the public domain right now, you haven't released them yet.
"The idea that ideas can be owned and hoarded is dying,"
I don't know how many more times this has to be said before people here start listening to it.
You CANNOT copyright an idea. The inability to copyright an idea is PROTECTED in copyright law.
What you can copyright is the exact implementation of an idea.
Patent Law, on the other hand, is another matter, and in the United States, at least, very badly broken. But there is a difference, and please don't lump one in with the other, particularly when copyright provides the legal framework that allows content producers and distributors to deal with one another, guaranteeing that you actually have all that media at the tip of your fingers.
Sorry that I'm not replying in a specific thread, but I'm seeing a lot of misconceptions in this discussion, and I want to hit as many of them as possible with just one post. I am a published author, as well as an editor, and I am now also the owner of a small publishing company that recently put out its first book - so understanding the ins and outs of this is very important to what I do.
First of all - the issues with e-books and first sale doctrines. When it comes down to it, copyright law is in regards to how copies are made (while this does involve the public to some degree, it's far more about how creative artists deal with their distributors and keeping one group from ripping off the other). If you buy a print book, and then resell it, or give it away to somebody, you are not making a copy. However, that's not something you can do with an e-book - if you give a copy of a Kindle book you just bought to a friend, you are actually making a copy, and that does violate copyright law. So that's where the problem lies. It is not a conspiracy to take people's rights away.
(Think of it like this - it's the difference between buying a book and giving your friend a copy, and buying a book, photocopying it, and then giving your friend the photocopy.)
Second - where e-books are going. A few people here are talking about how DRM on e-books are going to wipe out libraries. This is complete garbage. It is absolute nonsense in part because libraries are protected under copyright law in most countries (even in the United States, the "Sonny Bono" act had special dispensation for libraries). But, it is mostly nonsense because in order for e-books to wipe out libraries, the e-book would first have to wipe out the print book, and that just isn't going to happen.
I'm speaking from experience here - e-books are really a lot like radio. They're great for getting samples out, but if somebody really likes what they're reading, they want a copy of it on paper. The last time people were talking about how books were going to go digital, I was there in the ranks of e-book authors in the great "e-book revolution." And I had absolutely everything going for me - I was the author of Diablo: Demonsbane, the e-book launching the entire official Diablo fiction line, and Diablo II had sold millions of copies, which back then was almost unheard of for computer games. Advertisements for Demonsbane were showing up on Battle.net, so pretty much every Diablo multiplayer fan had at least some inkling that the book existed.
To this day, eight years later, I don't think the book sold more than 1,000 copies. And I was one of the e-book authors who did WELL - about the only thing I didn't have going for me was that I wasn't Stephen King.
By 2001, the e-book revolution had fizzled, and a bunch of publishers, Pocket Books included, stopped releasing them. And Demonsbane was released in every read-only format you could get, including Acrobat Reader. And it wasn't DRM that killed it, believe me. I've had a lot of time to think about why the print book didn't even notice the e-book assault was happening.
Frankly, it all comes down to barriers to entry. If you think about it, most of the technology that has caught on has been reducing barriers to entry for something. Take music, for example. We started off with the record, and then moved to the tape, which was smaller and more compact. Then came the CD, which had no moving parts. And now there's the MP3, which doesn't require a CD. But there was always a barrier to entry in music. That's not the case with a print book.
A print book requires only the ability to read, your eyes, and a light source. An e-book requires more - you need a power source, and a reader of some sort, be it a computer or a Kindle, etc. The readers are subject to obsolescence, as are the file formats. So, instead of removing barriers to entry, an e-book raises them.
Now, an e-book does have its purposes, and if you're on a long trip, it is far more handy to
"The traditional distribution paradigm for things like movies, music and books is in transition and people will not continue to pay top dollar for something that costs virtually nothing to produce."
Costs nothing to produce? Really?
So what about the research materials and costs? What about the writing and editing time? What about travel expenses, image rights? And that's not even looking at the publisher end.
As a small publisher, it costs me somewhere around $3-500 just to get the book published and the basic marketing in place - and that's before any sales. You're not paying top dollar for something that costs virtually nothing to produce - that book whose price you took issue with cost thousands of dollars to produce when it was all said and done.
I think you need to do some more research here.
"Look, I understand your point, but you should reevaluate the copying = stealing line."
I don't think so - not because you didn't raise a point - you raised a couple of good ones. The problem is that there are people who would use that as a justification for feeling entitled to rip off whatever they want, regardless of if they are putting somebody into bankruptcy in the process, and the counterpoint needs to be made. You said that copying IP does not always cause a loss of sale, but there are plenty of times that it does. And at that point, it IS basically stealing.
"I am giving examples, not because the specific software is important. Think about 10 years ago when Photoshop was thousands of dollars. There was no GIMP or lower priced alternative. I would NEVER pay thousands of dollars for Photoshop. Therefore there is no sale lost, because I would not save for it, would NOT EVER buy it at that price."
But that's not the example you originally gave - the example you gave was of being able to afford it, not wanting to pay for it, and then just taking it. That's not a necessary evil - that actually is basically theft. If you want it and you've got the money, you really don't have an excuse for pirating it.
Let's take a more relevant example to your argument, though - it's fifteen years ago, and somebody starts a business. But, they don't really have a lot of seed money, so they make do with what they have. Then they find out that they need Photoshop. The problem is that he really can't afford it - but if he doesn't get it, he simply won't be able to make the money to ever afford it, or stay in business. So, he pirates it. Then, when he can afford to pay for it, he buys a legit copy.
It is morally right? No. Was it necessary? Yes. It was a necessary evil. Ten years down the road, can he be faulted for it? I think the answer would have to be "no," particularly since he set it right in the end.
Let's modify the example for a moment. Let's say that the business never really gets going, and that in the end, our businessman can't afford to buy Photoshop. Again, it was a necessary evil, and I don't think the guy can be faulted, since he would have set it right in the end if he had been able to. At the very least, our hypothetical businessman can be praised for taking the shot, even if he did have to pirate software.
Modifying it once more, let's say the business does well, but our businessman decides not to actually set it right. He makes millions, but doesn't send so much as a cent of it to Adobe. That does cross a line.
I would also point out that your claim that IP is not like physical property is not true at all. There are ways in which it is different, but as somebody who HAS written and published books, I can tell you from personal experience that IP is the fruits of one's labour, just like a hand-made chair would be. You may not be able to build a house on it - you can't do that on a chair either - but after you spend a year or two working on creating something, it doesn't make it any less yours - that's why there is a whole subset of law around it.
You are correct that there is a gray area, but there is a point where a line is crossed. Don't think for one minute that I actually endorse the RIAA's tactics (since that is what this entire discussion is really about), but abuse of the law notwithstanding, piracy IS wrong. Shades of gray may mitigate it, but they don't change the underlying fact of it.
You didn't read my argument, did you? Nor did you read the fact that I put up free samples of my latest book on file sharing sites and whatnot.
Borrowing a book from a library isn't theft. Neither is loaning a book to a friend. Photocopying a book and then giving it out for free to whoever wants it, on the other hand, is another matter.
Aside from which, when you borrow a book from a library, you have to return it.
Thought I'd point that out. I hope you actually read it.
"You see, intellectual "property" is really nothing like physical property. Physical property can be stolen, and then someone always loses something. With IP, making a copy does not always result in a loss of sale. Very, very different."
I always love this argument. The problem is that there is a truth there, and it is spun off into justifying doing something wrong. That one cannot realistically do something about a thing does not make it right.
It is true that if somebody who would never have bought your book/movie/software in the first place downloads it, you haven't lost a sale. But what happens when they share it? What about the people who download it who would have bought it, but now don't have to, and therefore don't? Those ARE lost sales.
And yes, it is like a physical property in a lot of ways. Besides the work that goes into creating the product (a book doesn't exist until somebody writes it, just like a chair doesn't exist until somebody makes it), a book is an actual item that can be sold, resold, borrowed and loaned. People feel that it is worthwhile to do this because of the contents, not the paper. When somebody starts sharing a copyrighted work across the internet, they are taking something away - they're taking away revenue from the creative artist (those who buy the legit copies of the things they download and like are, as far as I can tell, in the minority), and you're undermining that artist's wishes on how their work is to be distributed, as well as impacting what else they can do with it in the future.
Can anything be done about most piracy? Generally, no. Aside from which, the people you have to worry about are the ones who are setting themselves up as illegal distributors, not the ones who are downloading. Can it act as a sample? Absolutely - in my own business, I put out sample chapters of the book I just published, and any future ones, so that they can be shared and hopefully generate sales. Does it make piracy right? Absolutely not.
"For example, I would love to have a copy of Photshop CS 3. It is $650. I could afford that but would never spend that much money on it (i.e. I wouldn't ever buy it at that price). So, if I pirate it they have not lost a sale to me."
So, let me get this straight. You have the money for it, you want it, but you don't want to pay for it. So, you'll just take it. If this was a store, that would be called shoplifting. Last I checked, there were other options, like downloading an open source solution, or taking your business to a company that doesn't overprice their software.
There is one last thing I would add before the flames start flowing: when I was a kid, I was a computer game pirate. I grew out of it close to twenty years ago, but when I did it, I never had any thought in my mind that it was right. It was a bonus that I got away with it - any free thing is a bonus - but that I was able to do it made me lucky. I never, ever, felt entitled to do it.
The fact that people now feel entitled to do stuff like this, rather than just lucky that they can get away with it, scares the living shit out of me.
"Well, first off, the cops can respond if they choose. They can exercise their free speech as well."
Actually, they probably can't. And here's why: anything they say could be construed to be police policy.
I used to work as an office manager in a social housing office, and I ran into exactly the same problem, particularly since I'm also a professional writer, and have been for the last decade. While I was working there, the one thing I could not write about was social housing - simply because my position would make it look like anything I said, no matter how much it was my personal opinion, represented the policy of the organization.
And that's not even counting the privacy issues. Let's say that somebody complains that a policeman arrested them and was rude. If the policeman writes to correct that statement, they could be relaying private information about that individual, opening them up to a lawsuit. It's not like rating one's teacher, where you're talking about activities that happen in public with lots of people watching. And, then you have the risk of releasing information in an ongoing investigation, etc.
As I said - the cops probably can't respond. If they do, they're walking into a minefield without a map.
"It has been rewritten as well as reinterpreted. Things like Sony VHS, copies of programs in RAM, DMCA, etc., have all provided newer interpretations of how copyright and technology coexist."
Well, I've got to concede a couple of those. But the implication as I read it in the article was of change over the last couple of years - which has not really happened in a big way (the DMCA being the last big American one I've heard about - and I'm not counting discussion about possible changes in that), and in the most important ways, neither copyright nor the need for it has changed in close to a century.
(Sorry if I'm a bit grammatically incorrect here - I got kept up all night last night by freezing rain doing an impression of crinkling tinfoil at my window.)
I'm sorry, but with articles like these, it's no wonder that the copyright debate is so muddled. This is a very clueless article.
It all becomes clear with this statement: "The copyright system is currently undergoing rapid changes as technology undermines old business models and enforcement regimes."
Um, no, it isn't. The only way you can think this is if you don't understand what copyright is and does. And that's because copyright's primary purpose is to provide a legal framework between a creative artist and his/her distributor in regards to his/her art. So long as there is a legally binding agreement to do it - copyright provides the protection to the artist to allow negotiations - how the distributor distributes that art is inconsequential to the actual law.
Aside from which, last time I checked, change involved something, well, CHANGING. The law has not been rewritten, the Berne convention is still the international yardstick, and the necessity for a framework to allow a creative artist to submit work to a distributor without having to worry about being shafted before a contract is even signed is still there. The RIAA trying to abuse the law and failing does not mean that the law itself has been stricken down.
Who fact checks these things?