That is their decision. The law does not exist for the purpose of protecting copyright holders from their own mistakes.
If it makes a noticeable dent, they are free to release their own bowdlerized versions as they feel free subject to contractural obligations. They're free not to, as well.
Courts are supposed to interpret the law, not make it... and copyright law has neither expiration date nor stipulations that it applies only to old technologies.
If the law is ancient, it's the legislature's job to fix it; until then, the courts must rule as the law reads, even if there are unanticipated consequences.
Yes... but it should be noted that those who hold the licensing rights for the DVD decoding schemes such as CSS could block this by refusing to authorize such players unless some form of compulsory licensing is forced. Then the players would either be incompatible with such encoded content, or would be violating the DMCA.
The money issue is only solved if you assume that the offering of the 'edited' version was going to be offered as a replacement at the same price. This is not necessarily the case -- one could envision an 'enhanced' version being planned for sale at a premium, for instance.
It is also potentially very disruptive of certain revenue models. For instance, consider the concept of paid placement of products. One could envision an attempt to edit a movie to remove brand names, perhaps replacing them with generics or even rivals. While original distributor may receive the normal price for -that- run, the decline in eyeballs viewing the intended placements may mean that the future market for such placements would be negatively impacted. (Not that is this necessarily a bad thing, but...)
More directly, imagine the editing of the currently available ad-supported television episodes and other downloadable content, where the revenue is either from ads in the original downloading platform or pages, or in the downloaded video files themselves. Permitting the unlicensed creation and redistribution of derivative content where the transformation constitutes removing a non-trivial amount of those ads directly harms this model.
I could see people objecting to the occasional completely gratuituous content that appears to be thrown in for the sole purpose of showing some skin to randy viewers. If showing some ultra-photogenic stars getting hot and bothered at the drop of a hat means more profit for the investors in a movie, then it might be done even if it makes little sense from an artistic point of view -- just like any other formulaic bits.
It's creating, marketing, and distributing a derivative work for commercial purposes without authorization, and completely absent any editorial or educational grounds.
The 'harm' is that, by law, it's the copyright owner's right to be the exclusive provider of such derivative works. Whether or not they actually choose to produce them is irrelevant to the question of whether or not they can prohibit others from doing so. Furthermore, in these cases the 'derivative' works may be remarkly similar to the original...
Do you think it should be legal for one movie studio to copy a currently-in-theatres blockbuster that cost some other studio $100M to produce and market, and then to sell a trivially edited version to theatres at a fraction of the normal price? If you give a blanket exemption to derivative works, this is really a logical consequence.
How is it EA's problem if -you- get the media scratched, when your average person knows that compact discs are vulnerable to damage by scratching? You can't claim negligence on their part.
If you damage part of your car through your own carelessness, when the car is functioning as designed, is it the manufacturer's problem?
Strange. I've seen college students complain about money, and then turn around and spend lots of money on X-Boxes, cell phones, pizza delivery, and beer.
Once software infringement has reached endemic levels, it is probably about as difficult to reverse as just about any other severely ingrained cultural practice. After all, if a perfect copy is available for $1 on any street corner, and the culture refuses to enforce against this, there is no rational reason to pay even $50 for it.
In a world in which people switch cell phones just to be fashionable, cable television is ubiquituous, and taking a family of four to see two movies with popcorn and drinks can easily reach $100 -- I don't see $100 as an unsurpassable expense for anybody who's spending any amount of time editing digital photographs.
After all, he probably spends two to three times that every couple of years, treating his camera as disposable as the cell phone and worrying more about the megapixels than his technique.
What if the choice is between unlawfully duplicating a $700 program, buying the $700 program, unlawfully duplicating a $70 program, or buying the $70 program?
The cheaper, perhaps less-feature heavy but perhaps perfectly adequate program might genuinely be losing sales and market share to unauthorized copies of the more expensive program. After all, how many people infringe Photoshop vs. infringe Paint Shop Pro, even though most people can perfectly make do with the latter?
That's a nice leap of faith. Contributions, after all, do not necessarily involve a quid pro quo -- and that's what bribery is about.
What it IS about is helping to fund a campaign, because you agree with that campaign sufficiently (or dislike all others that much). You're not going to want to contribute to a campaign which DISAGREES with what's most important to you, are you -- unless you've got either priorities than policies, like insisting on a candidate with two X chromosomes or whatever. Unless you actually make a request, however, that's linked to the money -- there's no bribery.
I contribute to public radio stations. That doesn't mean that I'm writing them and trying to sway their programming -- even though they do run programs that I find not worth listening to (a slight excess of quiz shows, rambling from Garrison Keillor, shows broadcast thrice a week and artist interviews, say). All they get from me is a little bit o' funding, no strings attached, primarily because of the breadth and depth of their news programming with relatively little advertising -- and the endorsements that they do run, at least usually do not treat the listeners as utter morons. If there were candidates whom I actually agreed with and respected, and whom had a reasonable chance, I might back them. *shrug*
"Free speech" does not include a right to the medium. You cannot force a newspaper to publish your Letter to the Editor, unless it is explicitly under some obligation to do so.
If the ads bother you, you're free to attempt to convince others that the ads are wrong. Since political ads are frequently chock-full of distortions through selective presentation of facts (outright slander being somewhat rare), this shouldn't be too difficult.
At that point, you get to realize that it's not the lack of money that matters, but the lack of attention and rationality from the voters.
After all, incumbents get more publicity from exercising the powers of their office, and more free publicity from media members. Try getting the equivalent of a State of the Union address, for instance, without being POTUS.
Merely disagreeing with somebody or speaking more often does NOT infringe the rights of others.
There is no right to have your viewpoint equally represented. None. You do have the same right to vote, assuming that you're a citizen and are registered. You have the same right to use your resources as you'd like, within the content-neutral rules, as anybody else does.
But if you're a fringe candidate whom nobody wants to listen to, and whose ideas are so unpopular that nobody else wants to back them, you have no right to demand that everybody else be so, either.
* Publishing house A releases a record expected to be a top seller. * Publishing house B buys one copy, and openly makes it downloadable without charge, in order to reduce the sales of publishing house A.
And now, every potential employer gets to find out not only about her willingness to publicly violate the DMCA while working at a law firm concerned with such matters, but ALSO about her whining about the obvious consequences thereof and her inane excuses.
She may find employment with somebody aligned with the EFF, if they feel her beliefs make up for her lack of judgment. But other firms are really going to have to wonder.
Second time, Mr. Smart Guy might code a surprise for the rest, such as code that checks the UID of who's running it and complains about the others if it's a TA or the prof.:o
Slashdot Mirror
That is their decision. The law does not exist for the purpose of protecting copyright holders from their own mistakes.
If it makes a noticeable dent, they are free to release their own bowdlerized versions as they feel free subject to contractural obligations. They're free not to, as well.
Courts are supposed to interpret the law, not make it... and copyright law has neither expiration date nor stipulations that it applies only to old technologies.
If the law is ancient, it's the legislature's job to fix it; until then, the courts must rule as the law reads, even if there are unanticipated consequences.
Yes... but it should be noted that those who hold the licensing rights for the DVD decoding schemes such as CSS could block this by refusing to authorize such players unless some form of compulsory licensing is forced. Then the players would either be incompatible with such encoded content, or would be violating the DMCA.
The money issue is only solved if you assume that the offering of the 'edited' version was going to be offered as a replacement at the same price. This is not necessarily the case -- one could envision an 'enhanced' version being planned for sale at a premium, for instance.
It is also potentially very disruptive of certain revenue models. For instance, consider the concept of paid placement of products. One could envision an attempt to edit a movie to remove brand names, perhaps replacing them with generics or even rivals. While original distributor may receive the normal price for -that- run, the decline in eyeballs viewing the intended placements may mean that the future market for such placements would be negatively impacted. (Not that is this necessarily a bad thing, but...)
More directly, imagine the editing of the currently available ad-supported television episodes and other downloadable content, where the revenue is either from ads in the original downloading platform or pages, or in the downloaded video files themselves. Permitting the unlicensed creation and redistribution of derivative content where the transformation constitutes removing a non-trivial amount of those ads directly harms this model.
See http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use _Overview/chapter9/9-b.html
for a dicussion of the criteria regarding 'fair use'.
Music sampling is a fairly dangerous area, and likely relies primarily on the first factor -- the transformative one.
*shrug*
I could see people objecting to the occasional completely gratuituous content that appears to be thrown in for the sole purpose of showing some skin to randy viewers. If showing some ultra-photogenic stars getting hot and bothered at the drop of a hat means more profit for the investors in a movie, then it might be done even if it makes little sense from an artistic point of view -- just like any other formulaic bits.
It's creating, marketing, and distributing a derivative work for commercial purposes without authorization, and completely absent any editorial or educational grounds.
The 'harm' is that, by law, it's the copyright owner's right to be the exclusive provider of such derivative works. Whether or not they actually choose to produce them is irrelevant to the question of whether or not they can prohibit others from doing so. Furthermore, in these cases the 'derivative' works may be remarkly similar to the original...
Do you think it should be legal for one movie studio to copy a currently-in-theatres blockbuster that cost some other studio $100M to produce and market, and then to sell a trivially edited version to theatres at a fraction of the normal price? If you give a blanket exemption to derivative works, this is really a logical consequence.
Rosa Parks didn't exactly sneak into the bus.
The sit-ins and the marches weren't subtle.
Gandhi didn't hide himself under anonymity.
Since when is committing a crime without openly announcing it considered 'civil disobedience'?
How is it EA's problem if -you- get the media scratched, when your average person knows that compact discs are vulnerable to damage by scratching? You can't claim negligence on their part.
If you damage part of your car through your own carelessness, when the car is functioning as designed, is it the manufacturer's problem?
Have you paid your Use Tax? You almost certainly can afford to, but you also almost certainly don't -- compliance rates are EXTREMELY low.
Have you listened to public radio, or watched public television, without contributing? A rather small percentage of listeners donate, IIRC.
Given the chance to get something for nothing, for essentially no risk and very low effort, vast numbers of people will not pay even if they can.
Strange. I've seen college students complain about money, and then turn around and spend lots of money on X-Boxes, cell phones, pizza delivery, and beer.
Once software infringement has reached endemic levels, it is probably about as difficult to reverse as just about any other severely ingrained cultural practice. After all, if a perfect copy is available for $1 on any street corner, and the culture refuses to enforce against this, there is no rational reason to pay even $50 for it.
In a world in which people switch cell phones just to be fashionable, cable television is ubiquituous, and taking a family of four to see two movies with popcorn and drinks can easily reach $100 -- I don't see $100 as an unsurpassable expense for anybody who's spending any amount of time editing digital photographs.
After all, he probably spends two to three times that every couple of years, treating his camera as disposable as the cell phone and worrying more about the megapixels than his technique.
What if the choice is between unlawfully duplicating a $700 program, buying the $700 program, unlawfully duplicating a $70 program, or buying the $70 program?
The cheaper, perhaps less-feature heavy but perhaps perfectly adequate program might genuinely be losing sales and market share to unauthorized copies of the more expensive program. After all, how many people infringe Photoshop vs. infringe Paint Shop Pro, even though most people can perfectly make do with the latter?
That's a nice leap of faith. Contributions, after all, do not necessarily involve a quid pro quo -- and that's what bribery is about.
What it IS about is helping to fund a campaign, because you agree with that campaign sufficiently (or dislike all others that much). You're not going to want to contribute to a campaign which DISAGREES with what's most important to you, are you -- unless you've got either priorities than policies, like insisting on a candidate with two X chromosomes or whatever. Unless you actually make a request, however, that's linked to the money -- there's no bribery.
I contribute to public radio stations. That doesn't mean that I'm writing them and trying to sway their programming -- even though they do run programs that I find not worth listening to (a slight excess of quiz shows, rambling from Garrison Keillor, shows broadcast thrice a week and artist interviews, say). All they get from me is a little bit o' funding, no strings attached, primarily because of the breadth and depth of their news programming with relatively little advertising -- and the endorsements that they do run, at least usually do not treat the listeners as utter morons. If there were candidates whom I actually agreed with and respected, and whom had a reasonable chance, I might back them. *shrug*
Same principle. You have no right to demand that others subsizide your speech, nor to insist that others refrain from espousing their own.
'Equal representation' is one man, one vote -- oh, and there are certain rules about being able to contact your legislators. That's it.
Ask Judith Miller.
"Free speech" does not include a right to the medium. You cannot force a newspaper to publish your Letter to the Editor, unless it is explicitly under some obligation to do so.
If the ads bother you, you're free to attempt to convince others that the ads are wrong. Since political ads are frequently chock-full of distortions through selective presentation of facts (outright slander being somewhat rare), this shouldn't be too difficult.
At that point, you get to realize that it's not the lack of money that matters, but the lack of attention and rationality from the voters.
That would be the Incumbency Protection Act.
After all, incumbents get more publicity from exercising the powers of their office, and more free publicity from media members. Try getting the equivalent of a State of the Union address, for instance, without being POTUS.
Merely disagreeing with somebody or speaking more often does NOT infringe the rights of others.
There is no right to have your viewpoint equally represented. None. You do have the same right to vote, assuming that you're a citizen and are registered. You have the same right to use your resources as you'd like, within the content-neutral rules, as anybody else does.
But if you're a fringe candidate whom nobody wants to listen to, and whose ideas are so unpopular that nobody else wants to back them, you have no right to demand that everybody else be so, either.
The bombing begins in five centuries.
Even considering population density effects and especially the suburban commute?
It's a little late to be causing mass concentrations of people to make mass transit a practical option for more people, for instance.
It's fine if it's not for sale?
Hmm. So how about this scenario --
* Publishing house A releases a record expected to be a top seller.
* Publishing house B buys one copy, and openly makes it downloadable without charge, in order to reduce the sales of publishing house A.
Is this legal?
Ding.
And now, every potential employer gets to find out not only about her willingness to publicly violate the DMCA while working at a law firm concerned with such matters, but ALSO about her whining about the obvious consequences thereof and her inane excuses.
She may find employment with somebody aligned with the EFF, if they feel her beliefs make up for her lack of judgment. But other firms are really going to have to wonder.
Oh, that might work once.
:o
Second time, Mr. Smart Guy might code a surprise for the rest, such as code that checks the UID of who's running it and complains about the others if it's a TA or the prof.