Okay, would you then be okay with much more severe penalties on people downloading materials less than 28 years old, in exchange for the more limited term of protection?
I don't know what the legal penalities are now so I can't say. I do think the RIAA goes too far pressuring people to pay thousands of dollars though.
Just FYI, personally I think a shorter term -- maybe not as short as yours, maybe two 28-year terms, but requiring filing for the extension, along with a return to a required notice -- would be a good way to go with copyrights.
Copyrights are granted to encourage the arts and having long term limits does not do that. Actually shorter limits will. With shorter limits creators will have to produce more to keep a revenue stream coming in. And the 14 years I mentioned was calculated by Thomas Jefferson as the optimal length. However with today's technology allowing quick and cheap reproduction the term length should be even shorter.
people arne't pirating Citizen Kane, they are pirating Spiderman 3
Forget "Spiderman 3", I haven't even seen the second spiderman movie though I did the first one. Now "Citizen Kane", if downloading it illegally was the only way to get a copy I'd be real tempted to do so. Even more so for "Lost Horizon". That is, er was, one of my favorite movies.
They need to give their customers something the customer is willing to pay for.
I agree -- but here, the customers aren't paying for it. They aren't buying CD's, they aren't buying music downloads, they are finding ways to get music without paying for it at all.
In other words they aren't giving customers something the customer is willing to pay for. However iTunes has shown that people are willing to pay for music they can download. Before iTunes there wasn't a legal method people could download music they wanted to listen to, not without restrictive drm.
But just because the pace of innovation may be slow is no excuse to take music without paying for it.
Oh, I agree however some of those who download music illegally look at it as sticking to the man. Others later go and buy legal music.
Because as a writer I want to make sure it is worthwhile to write. If I am going to spend all my tyme writing I want to make sure I get paid for it before someone else takes my book and sells it as their own. The same applies to photos I take.
By "special tools" I think you mean "enough knowledge/confidence to not fear wiring" (and the oil change reset tool, maybe).:)
No, as I've rebuilt transmissions and engines I had the confidence to change the oil in my 2000 Saturn. When I said "special tool" that is what I meant. To remove the oil plug a specific tool was needed to reach and unscrew it. I found this out after I got a Chilton's book on repairing the model, which I got for each of the vehicles I bought.
and I'm pretty sure there were some metric wrenches required on your '78 Malibu.
I had compleat sets of English and metric tools. Most Craftsman but some Mactools and Snapons as well.
If downloading was so good, why would the RIAA and the record labels be so firmly against it? Wouldn't that be against their interests?
Because the RIAA does not under the new economy just as the horse buggy businesses didn't understand the new economy cars created. If your business isn't working then you need to change your business methodology. They need to give their customers something the customer is willing to pay for. Whenever a disruptive technology comes along the old guard always tries to stop it instead of trying to figure out how to use it to their benefit.
It is neither stealing in actuality or as defined by law. Stealing something deprives the owner of the object being stolen. What it is is copy infringment.
Movies, I suppose, are the rub - these really do cost a tremendous amount of money to create
Not all movies cost a lot to make. For instance The Blair Witch Project was made by some college students for a project and they didn't have the money of a major studio yet in All-Time Worldwide Box office receipts it comes in at 230 making $240,500,000.
The artists agreed to the deal when they signed their recording contract. If they had wanted to make more money per CD sale, they could have recorded and produced the CD themselves, and distributed and sold the CD themselves, then there would be no record company taking "their" profits.
And more and more bands are doing just that. Some are even joining creative commons groups. The internet helps with this, people and bands are able to get their names and music to more people quicker.
The musicians made the deals with the record companies willingly.
Oh, I agree. Many may not have the ability or the desire so going with record companies may be a better choice for them. Even so though downloading and sharing music doesn't rip off the artists. Actually the studies on this I've seen conclude this actually increases sales. A person will download a song and listen to it, then when they find one they like they'll go out and buy a better quality version. Apple's iTunes has shown people will pay for music they can download. Though I don't have and haven't seen, that I can recall, the stats for the US in Britian iTunes sold more than a million songs the first weekend. Give people an easy way to pay for and download music and they will. That may not seem significant but when you consider that when iTunes opened only Macs were supported. It's be another 6 months before Apple came out with the iTunes app for Windows. Considering Windows' market share I bet that if there had been a Windows app when the iTunes store opened sales the first weekend would of been closer to 10 million.
Also the RIAA and it's members talk about declining sales they only mention illegal downloads as the reason, yet they never mention that when people started downloading music the economy was bad as well. And with a bad economy people wouldn't be spending much on entertainment anyway. Instead they blamed it entirely on Napster.
The simple fact is that downloading illegal music does not rip off the artists.
Some limited protection of ideas is good. A century of monopoly protection is too much.
What's a good number, then?
Fourteen years with one 14 year extension possible. From the tyme a finished product is available. If a person can't make a profit in 28 years then something is seriously wrong. Maybe there isn't a market for it. Or maybe too much is being asked for it.
ntellectual Ventures, a patent firm [and alleged patent troll] started by former Microsoft chief scientist Nathan Myhrvold, was staffed with fairly renowned scientists who didn't fit the profile of people trying to make a quick buck in court.
it's dead easy for me to go in with a laptop and dump the codes to figure out what's wrong with the system.
Ah but that's the easy part. Actually taking your tools like socket wrenchs and torque bars and dismantling the engine or parts of it then rebuilding it is another matter.
Sure, a seasoned mechanic would probably have figured that one out immediately, but to an office geek like me, the electronic diagnostics were a godsend.
Ah but without the special tools needed for many things you won't be able to make all repairs. Every tool I needed, except for feeler gauges which only cost a few bucks, to rebuild the 454ci engine from my 1978 Monte Carlo I could use for many other tasks.
I read TFA, I scoured the text, and even took some liberties with semantics. I couldn't find this "cheap shot" for the life of me.
All I found was this thoroughly quoted statement: (from TFA)
And frankly, without them, most open-source projects would rapidly wither away: without an intellectual property behemoth like Microsoft to fight, what would be the point?
This is a cheapshot because the writer provides no data to support this conclusion. The write totally fails to mention open source software has existed longer than software patents have been issued. Though I'm pretty sure there's open source software older than this, the oldest computer game I know of is Spacewar written at MIT in 1961 for the DEC PDP-1. Although it wasn't called open source then the code was open so anyone could read and modify it trying to make it better.
Mr. Kanellos brings up valid points, succintly analyzes a rather complex phenomenon, and even provides a fairly balanced--albeit opinionated--view of the current state of intellectual property.
Where is the data to support his conclusion? All I see is some quotes from others, most of them being anonymous.
The Haywards may indeed be the "artists" behind the footage, but do they have any release by the celebrities allowing them to sell their likenesses? Aye, there's the rub.
Ah, the rub. This can be a rather grey area. Average people can be photographed in public without a release being signed. And the photo can be used for news or for an editorial. However if it's used commercially or is sold for other than news or editorials a signed release statement is needed unless the person is NOT identifiable. It goes along with privacy. On the other hand with celebrities' photos can be taken in public and used, even sold, commercially in some cases without release statements. But it isn't true in every case. It's a tightrope some photographers have to balance on. And that's just in the US, other countries have different rules.
Why post it? So that Slashdot can take yet another anti-copyright position
Now I haven't seen many anti-copyright positions taken though I have seen anti-patent or more specifically anti-patent positions on drugs and software. And as far as that goes I'd say it's pretty much even in the number who are pro and anti patents.
Pirates only scapegoat the RIAA so they can feel guilt-free while they rip off artists.
Is it "pirates" who rip off artists or is it the RIAA? I bet if you look at the actual data on how much artists are paid and the bottom line profits of the actual corporations you'll see the industry is the one racking in the money. For instance I bet many if not most singers and bands make most of their money from concerts and receive little from media, cds and tape, sales. I'd be supprised if one receives as much as $1 on a $15 cds sale.
To be honest, it's an opinion piece, and the purpose of an opinion piece is to be biased
I don't mind the peace is biased, however if someone writes an opinion peace they should include data that supports their conclusion. And unfortunately this "writer" doesn't.
Why post it? Because it begets, starts, a discussion or debate on the merits of patents. This is one area that really needs to be debated, especially as regards software patents.
I say Great- but lets face it, you won't be able to work on your own car anymore. Then again... it's been difficult enough to do that for several years, with those whiz-bang computer thingies mucking it up.
Yea, that's something that bothers me about recent, say the last 15 or 20 years, vehicles. Used to be a shade tree mechanic would work on and repair their own vehicles but not with most of them today. I've repaired brakes, transmissions, done tuneups, and have rebuilt the engine for cars I've owned. But I couldn't do that with the car I own now. Heck I went to change oil and the filter on it and found out a special and specific tool that only has one use was needed. Then there's all the computer diagnostic equipment needed.
What I don't get is the "bonds together four cable lines" bit.
Somebody screwed up explaining this. It's not about bonding 4 lines but bonding 4 channels. Cables have a bunch of channels and what they are actually doing is bonding four of them in the cable together for data transition. So there's still only one cable.
Tell me about it - most school projects these days are far to be intricate to be built by the students. Inevitably they just get built by parents, with maybe a little student involvement.
The problem today with science projects is that is someone were to do some of the projects that were done in days gone by you might find yourself on a terrorist watch list. I recall getting a chemistry lab with 101 experiments, or some such thing, in junior high but it's been years since I've seen one. Then in high school a friend and I got the permission form the chemistry teacher to do some of our own experiments in the lab during lunch or after school when we were taking advanced chemistry. Just for the heck of it we grabbed an ecyclopedia from the library and looked up nitroglycerine and from the discription of how it was made we were able to make some ourselves. Do that now and you may find yourself being sent to Gitmo.
You're right, I'm not an anarchist as I do believe in some government. However I believe in as little as possible. That being a military for the defense of the nation, a good citizens' army much like Switzerland's, and a court justice system. Add a, er the, State Department for international affairs.
If you think about it, hardly ANYONE believes that absolute freedom is the best way to go
I should of used "liberty" instead of "freedom" the way I lok at it. Liberty isn't just a matter of freedom but also is accepting responsibility for the actions the person does.
but there is a balance between quality of life and freedom
As far as I'm concerned there's little quality of life if there isn't liberty to enjoy. Admittedly though quality of life has more parts than just liberty.
If having an ID requirement actually DOES improve security is at the very best debatable.
Requiring an ID will not improve security on planes. Every one of the 911 highjackers had ID. And having one national ID will only make ID theft more lucrative.
Having a uniform means of identification applicable to a common activity, such as getting on a public, common carrier is desirable for an orderly society.
As I say above a national ID will only aid id theives. Well, and government tracking of it's citizens. And yes, the US government has tracked it's citizens. Especially of the amin's protesters. J Edgar Hoover was real good at spying on citizens. For instance there was Conintel Pro.
Very few people have a problem with the passport requirement to travel to foreign lands.
Ah but it's those other nations that require passports for US travelers to enter their country. Though not all do many even require visas. In return the US does the same.
I, personally, tend to trust centralized government more
I distrust a centralized government more than I do decentralized government, which I distrust a lot. So long as I am not harming another I should be able to do whatever I want whenever I want. And the same applies to everyone else!
I'm willing to give up a bit more of the extreme viewpoints I have in favor of a more stable one that will shift to fit the culture over longer periods of time.
As stated above, I'm not willing to give any of my freedom. Give up a little and next tyme they ask for a little more. This will continue until people stand up to them or people have no more freedom.
I'm willing to give up a bit more of the extreme viewpoints I have in favor of a more stable one that will shift to fit the culture over longer periods of time.
Yeah, like congress didn't march in lockstep to the admin's drums these past 7 years. NOT!!!
As you recall the U.S. fought the bloodiest war in its history because a Northern biased Federal government wanted to abolish slavery
The US Civil War wasn't over slavery, it was all about keeping the nation united. The war didn't start until some southern states secesseded from the USA and formed the Confederate States of America.
Having a reasonably secure, uniform special ID to get on an airplane is not such a bad idea.
Having a government mandated requirement to board a private, commerical, airplane is a very BAD idea. If a specific airline wants to require one, that's between them and those who fly on them but the gov should keep out of the way!
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, would you then be okay with much more severe penalties on people downloading materials less than 28 years old, in exchange for the more limited term of protection?
I don't know what the legal penalities are now so I can't say. I do think the RIAA goes too far pressuring people to pay thousands of dollars though.
Just FYI, personally I think a shorter term -- maybe not as short as yours, maybe two 28-year terms, but requiring filing for the extension, along with a return to a required notice -- would be a good way to go with copyrights.
Copyrights are granted to encourage the arts and having long term limits does not do that. Actually shorter limits will. With shorter limits creators will have to produce more to keep a revenue stream coming in. And the 14 years I mentioned was calculated by Thomas Jefferson as the optimal length. However with today's technology allowing quick and cheap reproduction the term length should be even shorter.
people arne't pirating Citizen Kane, they are pirating Spiderman 3
Forget "Spiderman 3", I haven't even seen the second spiderman movie though I did the first one. Now "Citizen Kane", if downloading it illegally was the only way to get a copy I'd be real tempted to do so. Even more so for "Lost Horizon". That is, er was, one of my favorite movies.
FalconThey need to give their customers something the customer is willing to pay for.
I agree -- but here, the customers aren't paying for it. They aren't buying CD's, they aren't buying music downloads, they are finding ways to get music without paying for it at all.
In other words they aren't giving customers something the customer is willing to pay for. However iTunes has shown that people are willing to pay for music they can download. Before iTunes there wasn't a legal method people could download music they wanted to listen to, not without restrictive drm.
But just because the pace of innovation may be slow is no excuse to take music without paying for it.
Oh, I agree however some of those who download music illegally look at it as sticking to the man. Others later go and buy legal music.
FalconBecause as a writer I want to make sure it is worthwhile to write. If I am going to spend all my tyme writing I want to make sure I get paid for it before someone else takes my book and sells it as their own. The same applies to photos I take.
FalconBy "special tools" I think you mean "enough knowledge/confidence to not fear wiring" (and the oil change reset tool, maybe). :)
No, as I've rebuilt transmissions and engines I had the confidence to change the oil in my 2000 Saturn. When I said "special tool" that is what I meant. To remove the oil plug a specific tool was needed to reach and unscrew it. I found this out after I got a Chilton's book on repairing the model, which I got for each of the vehicles I bought.
and I'm pretty sure there were some metric wrenches required on your '78 Malibu.
I had compleat sets of English and metric tools. Most Craftsman but some Mactools and Snapons as well.
FalconIf downloading was so good, why would the RIAA and the record labels be so firmly against it? Wouldn't that be against their interests?
Because the RIAA does not under the new economy just as the horse buggy businesses didn't understand the new economy cars created. If your business isn't working then you need to change your business methodology. They need to give their customers something the customer is willing to pay for. Whenever a disruptive technology comes along the old guard always tries to stop it instead of trying to figure out how to use it to their benefit.
Falconit IS stealing as our current law defines it
It is neither stealing in actuality or as defined by law. Stealing something deprives the owner of the object being stolen. What it is is copy infringment.
Movies, I suppose, are the rub - these really do cost a tremendous amount of money to create
Not all movies cost a lot to make. For instance The Blair Witch Project was made by some college students for a project and they didn't have the money of a major studio yet in All-Time Worldwide Box office receipts it comes in at 230 making $240,500,000.
FalconThe artists agreed to the deal when they signed their recording contract. If they had wanted to make more money per CD sale, they could have recorded and produced the CD themselves, and distributed and sold the CD themselves, then there would be no record company taking "their" profits.
And more and more bands are doing just that. Some are even joining creative commons groups. The internet helps with this, people and bands are able to get their names and music to more people quicker.
The musicians made the deals with the record companies willingly.
Oh, I agree. Many may not have the ability or the desire so going with record companies may be a better choice for them. Even so though downloading and sharing music doesn't rip off the artists. Actually the studies on this I've seen conclude this actually increases sales. A person will download a song and listen to it, then when they find one they like they'll go out and buy a better quality version. Apple's iTunes has shown people will pay for music they can download. Though I don't have and haven't seen, that I can recall, the stats for the US in Britian iTunes sold more than a million songs the first weekend. Give people an easy way to pay for and download music and they will. That may not seem significant but when you consider that when iTunes opened only Macs were supported. It's be another 6 months before Apple came out with the iTunes app for Windows. Considering Windows' market share I bet that if there had been a Windows app when the iTunes store opened sales the first weekend would of been closer to 10 million.
Also the RIAA and it's members talk about declining sales they only mention illegal downloads as the reason, yet they never mention that when people started downloading music the economy was bad as well. And with a bad economy people wouldn't be spending much on entertainment anyway. Instead they blamed it entirely on Napster.
The simple fact is that downloading illegal music does not rip off the artists.
FalconSome limited protection of ideas is good. A century of monopoly protection is too much.
What's a good number, then?
Fourteen years with one 14 year extension possible. From the tyme a finished product is available. If a person can't make a profit in 28 years then something is seriously wrong. Maybe there isn't a market for it. Or maybe too much is being asked for it.
Falconntellectual Ventures, a patent firm [and alleged patent troll] started by former Microsoft chief scientist Nathan Myhrvold, was staffed with fairly renowned scientists who didn't fit the profile of people trying to make a quick buck in court.
Why isn't that a persuasive argument?
Becuase it doesn't provide verifiable data.
Falconit's dead easy for me to go in with a laptop and dump the codes to figure out what's wrong with the system.
Ah but that's the easy part. Actually taking your tools like socket wrenchs and torque bars and dismantling the engine or parts of it then rebuilding it is another matter.
Sure, a seasoned mechanic would probably have figured that one out immediately, but to an office geek like me, the electronic diagnostics were a godsend.
Ah but without the special tools needed for many things you won't be able to make all repairs. Every tool I needed, except for feeler gauges which only cost a few bucks, to rebuild the 454ci engine from my 1978 Monte Carlo I could use for many other tasks.
FalconI read TFA, I scoured the text, and even took some liberties with semantics. I couldn't find this "cheap shot" for the life of me.
All I found was this thoroughly quoted statement: (from TFA)And frankly, without them, most open-source projects would rapidly wither away: without an intellectual property behemoth like Microsoft to fight, what would be the point?
This is a cheapshot because the writer provides no data to support this conclusion. The write totally fails to mention open source software has existed longer than software patents have been issued. Though I'm pretty sure there's open source software older than this, the oldest computer game I know of is Spacewar written at MIT in 1961 for the DEC PDP-1. Although it wasn't called open source then the code was open so anyone could read and modify it trying to make it better.
Mr. Kanellos brings up valid points, succintly analyzes a rather complex phenomenon, and even provides a fairly balanced--albeit opinionated--view of the current state of intellectual property.
Where is the data to support his conclusion? All I see is some quotes from others, most of them being anonymous.
The Haywards may indeed be the "artists" behind the footage, but do they have any release by the celebrities allowing them to sell their likenesses? Aye, there's the rub.
Ah, the rub. This can be a rather grey area. Average people can be photographed in public without a release being signed. And the photo can be used for news or for an editorial. However if it's used commercially or is sold for other than news or editorials a signed release statement is needed unless the person is NOT identifiable. It goes along with privacy. On the other hand with celebrities' photos can be taken in public and used, even sold, commercially in some cases without release statements. But it isn't true in every case. It's a tightrope some photographers have to balance on. And that's just in the US, other countries have different rules.
FalconWhy post it? So that Slashdot can take yet another anti-copyright position
Now I haven't seen many anti-copyright positions taken though I have seen anti-patent or more specifically anti-patent positions on drugs and software. And as far as that goes I'd say it's pretty much even in the number who are pro and anti patents.
Pirates only scapegoat the RIAA so they can feel guilt-free while they rip off artists.
Is it "pirates" who rip off artists or is it the RIAA? I bet if you look at the actual data on how much artists are paid and the bottom line profits of the actual corporations you'll see the industry is the one racking in the money. For instance I bet many if not most singers and bands make most of their money from concerts and receive little from media, cds and tape, sales. I'd be supprised if one receives as much as $1 on a $15 cds sale.
FalconTo be honest, it's an opinion piece, and the purpose of an opinion piece is to be biased
I don't mind the peace is biased, however if someone writes an opinion peace they should include data that supports their conclusion. And unfortunately this "writer" doesn't.
Falcon...why post it?
Why post it? Because it begets, starts, a discussion or debate on the merits of patents. This is one area that really needs to be debated, especially as regards software patents.
FalconI say Great- but lets face it, you won't be able to work on your own car anymore. Then again... it's been difficult enough to do that for several years, with those whiz-bang computer thingies mucking it up.
Yea, that's something that bothers me about recent, say the last 15 or 20 years, vehicles. Used to be a shade tree mechanic would work on and repair their own vehicles but not with most of them today. I've repaired brakes, transmissions, done tuneups, and have rebuilt the engine for cars I've owned. But I couldn't do that with the car I own now. Heck I went to change oil and the filter on it and found out a special and specific tool that only has one use was needed. Then there's all the computer diagnostic equipment needed.
FalconWhat I don't get is the "bonds together four cable lines" bit.
Somebody screwed up explaining this. It's not about bonding 4 lines but bonding 4 channels. Cables have a bunch of channels and what they are actually doing is bonding four of them in the cable together for data transition. So there's still only one cable.
FalconTell me about it - most school projects these days are far to be intricate to be built by the students. Inevitably they just get built by parents, with maybe a little student involvement.
The problem today with science projects is that is someone were to do some of the projects that were done in days gone by you might find yourself on a terrorist watch list. I recall getting a chemistry lab with 101 experiments, or some such thing, in junior high but it's been years since I've seen one. Then in high school a friend and I got the permission form the chemistry teacher to do some of our own experiments in the lab during lunch or after school when we were taking advanced chemistry. Just for the heck of it we grabbed an ecyclopedia from the library and looked up nitroglycerine and from the discription of how it was made we were able to make some ourselves. Do that now and you may find yourself being sent to Gitmo.
Falconyou're probably not an anarchist.
You're right, I'm not an anarchist as I do believe in some government. However I believe in as little as possible. That being a military for the defense of the nation, a good citizens' army much like Switzerland's, and a court justice system. Add a, er the, State Department for international affairs.
FalconWhy not let us have service that actually uses our current hardware somewhere close to it's potential?
]You know, if you want faster net access you can move to Northeast Utah where they have A Broadband Utopia.
FalconIf you think about it, hardly ANYONE believes that absolute freedom is the best way to go
I should of used "liberty" instead of "freedom" the way I lok at it. Liberty isn't just a matter of freedom but also is accepting responsibility for the actions the person does.
but there is a balance between quality of life and freedom
As far as I'm concerned there's little quality of life if there isn't liberty to enjoy. Admittedly though quality of life has more parts than just liberty.
FalconIf having an ID requirement actually DOES improve security is at the very best debatable.
Requiring an ID will not improve security on planes. Every one of the 911 highjackers had ID. And having one national ID will only make ID theft more lucrative.
Having a uniform means of identification applicable to a common activity, such as getting on a public, common carrier is desirable for an orderly society.
As I say above a national ID will only aid id theives. Well, and government tracking of it's citizens. And yes, the US government has tracked it's citizens. Especially of the amin's protesters. J Edgar Hoover was real good at spying on citizens. For instance there was Conintel Pro.
Very few people have a problem with the passport requirement to travel to foreign lands.
Ah but it's those other nations that require passports for US travelers to enter their country. Though not all do many even require visas. In return the US does the same.
FalconI, personally, tend to trust centralized government more
I distrust a centralized government more than I do decentralized government, which I distrust a lot. So long as I am not harming another I should be able to do whatever I want whenever I want. And the same applies to everyone else!
I'm willing to give up a bit more of the extreme viewpoints I have in favor of a more stable one that will shift to fit the culture over longer periods of time.
As stated above, I'm not willing to give any of my freedom. Give up a little and next tyme they ask for a little more. This will continue until people stand up to them or people have no more freedom.
I'm willing to give up a bit more of the extreme viewpoints I have in favor of a more stable one that will shift to fit the culture over longer periods of time.
Yeah, like congress didn't march in lockstep to the admin's drums these past 7 years. NOT!!!
FalconAs you recall the U.S. fought the bloodiest war in its history because a Northern biased Federal government wanted to abolish slavery
The US Civil War wasn't over slavery, it was all about keeping the nation united. The war didn't start until some southern states secesseded from the USA and formed the Confederate States of America.
FalconHaving a reasonably secure, uniform special ID to get on an airplane is not such a bad idea.
Having a government mandated requirement to board a private, commerical, airplane is a very BAD idea. If a specific airline wants to require one, that's between them and those who fly on them but the gov should keep out of the way!
FalconDoes the federal government not trust the states anymore?
No, the feds want all the power.
Falcon