Actually, a lot of artists worked for their daily bread, and not just for love of the work. From the classic period all the way up to the Paris Salon, there were many who did it as work for hire and were absolutely dependent upon it in order to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. Of course this is beside your point, because they lived in a copyright-free age, the kind of work that these artists did generally wouldn't be adversely affected by illicit copying (I doubt most people would notice it, given the genericness of a lot of the work), and even copying a painting takes a considerable amount of skill.
So, just for the sake of argument, you'd be happy for Universal to appoint itself distributor, grab your low-budget HDV Filipino horror movie when it's finished and put it out as a mainstream cinema release, then a lavish DVD production, without actually giving you anything in return? What if everybody you'd hoped to show the movie to goes to Universal's screenings instead? How do you even recoup your original (small) budget in that environment? What if Universal takes it personal (you know they would) and decides to cut you out of the equation when it comes to the distribution of every movie you ever make? This is an extreme example, of course, but so is "copyright is dead".
You seem to have written in a hurry here, so I'd like to clarify what you're saying. I think what you're saying is that while protection from large-scale, commercial exploitation of intellectual property is important for creators, and easy to enforce, protection from small-scale noncommercial exploitation is dead, because it's simply impossible to enforce in the real world, and ultimately not particularly harmful to the creator's ability to exploit his or her creation. I'm not sure I agree with that, but it's persuasive.
I'm pretty sure that copyright is still enforcable if, say, George Lucas decides to make a movie of The Dark Tower without giving Stephen King any money or input. Or if Marvel decides to start publishing Megatokyo every week without paying its writers.
Although the general public probably never felt it, I recall there was a similar aura of crappitude around Windows 98 when it first popped up (actually, probably around when that BSOD popped up, but there was some legit moaning about the OS itself). The sheer bugginess of it boggled minds. When they brought out 98SE people seemed more willing to forgive, as it was an implicit acceptance of the original version's badness and a need to address the problem. Perhaps it's time to forget about doing Vista SP2 and just call it Vista SE instead?
Yeah, perhaps I'm being too optimistic. My bias is towards open editorialisation, because it makes for more interesting material. Looking back on my adolescence that sort of material did lead me into a lot of really stupid offline and online arguments about the merits of the Commodore 64 or yetis or whatever. Impressionable minds and all that. I wonder what the demographics are for Slashdot?
I'm not saying that the editorialision of news, as a general phenomenon, is acceptable. To elaborate my reasoning:
1) Slashdot will inevitably receive summaries written by people who engage strongly with the subject matter. Those people are unlikely to write neutrally.
2) It is immediately obvious that in the summary we are receiving the submitter's editorialised version of the events. There is no facade of neutrality or objectivity in an IP law post that starts "I Don't Believe In Imaginary Property writes:"
3) There is an expectation of factual accuracy in a Slashdot summary. Outright lying with regards to the content of the article is not acceptable in any case. Fortunately that is not true here.
4) A non-editorialised, neutral version of events is usually provided by the story itself, a mere mouse click away, assuming it is not a blog or some other editorial article. Given that said story contains the news we're actually after, it seems to me inevitable that even the most credulous reader would be dissolusioned of any false assumptions they made on the basis of an editorialised summary.
To get down to brass tacks: I never read a Slashdot summary an expect it to be neutral and free of editorialisation, any more than I would expect a blog post to be. Everything from the way stories are gathered at the back end to the way they're written on the front page makes it obvious that this is not the case. Even if you argue that all news sources (even Slashdot summaries) should come with an expectation of neutrality and objectivity it seems obvious to me that it's in an entirely different kingdom of bias than the likes of Fox News.
Slashdot's stories almost always come about because some guy found something on the internet he feels strongly about, and submitted it to the firehose. I mean, we wouldn't have half as many stories on IP law if I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property wasn't a complete fanatic on the subject, and Slashdot be the worse for it. The way the summaries are presented makes it pretty clear that they're the editorialised version of the original, interpreted the opinions of the submitter, and I think honestly we all have the critical thinking skills required to handle that, right? It's not like the summary is downright misleading or yet another dupe.
NASA is trying to hack a rocket together, IMO, because there's not any real money for it until the Shuttle program ends and they can hardly wait that long to start development. So they speed things along by building on existing hardware designs which have been shelved or were meant for other applications. Ares is called the "Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicle" for a reason.
The would-be SF writer in me wonders if it would be possible to redesign the craft to passively eliminate any hazardous oscillations, by making sure that the structure doesn't have any resonances near the frequencies put out by the engines. The doesn't-want-to-be engineer in me has absolutely no idea how feasable this is, of course, but it'd be a mechanically graceful spacecraft for a more civilised age.
Going via the ISP is just one of his suggestions for how it could be paid. The article is slim on details but I assume he's considered alternatives, like paying directly to the blanket licencing group.
No doubt, but it's hardly fair for 80% of the comments here to criticise the poor guy for proposing a mandatory download tax when in reality he's one of the few trying to make headway with a voluntary one.
No kidding. I'm sure ISPs would jump at the chance to charge people $40 instead of $30 for their internet access, point the finger at the nasty music industry, then quietly mention in the fine print that you can opt out. Maybe even with a "convenience fee" for opting out.
Those are the sorts of issues raised in the article, and unfortunately not discussed. There's not much to it that wasn't in the summary. I have to wonder if it'll turn out like "protection money" paid to this agency. As long as you keep paying, then they don't sue you for downloading the songs...
Yes, exactly. If you do not wish to pay for internet access, you do not do so. If you do not wish to pay for blanket access to music, you do not do so.
It's a mess for the little guy whatever way you cut it. Open negotiation? Big guys disporportionately represented. Reported illegal downloads? Big guys have Mediasentry, little guys probably convicted if they try to do what Mediasentry does. Reported legit sales? Big guys wouldn't go for that to begin with.
It's described as voluntary. As in, you can pay X to the companies which join the scheme, and then get carte blanche to download music. Or you can just not bother, and continue to buy music from the specific artists you prefer. If it was mandatory, then it'd be pretty dubious.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, a lot of artists worked for their daily bread, and not just for love of the work. From the classic period all the way up to the Paris Salon, there were many who did it as work for hire and were absolutely dependent upon it in order to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. Of course this is beside your point, because they lived in a copyright-free age, the kind of work that these artists did generally wouldn't be adversely affected by illicit copying (I doubt most people would notice it, given the genericness of a lot of the work), and even copying a painting takes a considerable amount of skill.
Riiiiiight.
So, just for the sake of argument, you'd be happy for Universal to appoint itself distributor, grab your low-budget HDV Filipino horror movie when it's finished and put it out as a mainstream cinema release, then a lavish DVD production, without actually giving you anything in return? What if everybody you'd hoped to show the movie to goes to Universal's screenings instead? How do you even recoup your original (small) budget in that environment? What if Universal takes it personal (you know they would) and decides to cut you out of the equation when it comes to the distribution of every movie you ever make? This is an extreme example, of course, but so is "copyright is dead".
You seem to have written in a hurry here, so I'd like to clarify what you're saying. I think what you're saying is that while protection from large-scale, commercial exploitation of intellectual property is important for creators, and easy to enforce, protection from small-scale noncommercial exploitation is dead, because it's simply impossible to enforce in the real world, and ultimately not particularly harmful to the creator's ability to exploit his or her creation. I'm not sure I agree with that, but it's persuasive.
I'm pretty sure that copyright is still enforcable if, say, George Lucas decides to make a movie of The Dark Tower without giving Stephen King any money or input. Or if Marvel decides to start publishing Megatokyo every week without paying its writers.
Although the general public probably never felt it, I recall there was a similar aura of crappitude around Windows 98 when it first popped up (actually, probably around when that BSOD popped up, but there was some legit moaning about the OS itself). The sheer bugginess of it boggled minds. When they brought out 98SE people seemed more willing to forgive, as it was an implicit acceptance of the original version's badness and a need to address the problem. Perhaps it's time to forget about doing Vista SP2 and just call it Vista SE instead?
On a related note, I often attempt to date unfamiliar movies and TV shows by the Macs they feature. It's quite effective. :)
Yeah, perhaps I'm being too optimistic. My bias is towards open editorialisation, because it makes for more interesting material. Looking back on my adolescence that sort of material did lead me into a lot of really stupid offline and online arguments about the merits of the Commodore 64 or yetis or whatever. Impressionable minds and all that. I wonder what the demographics are for Slashdot?
I'm not saying that the editorialision of news, as a general phenomenon, is acceptable. To elaborate my reasoning:
1) Slashdot will inevitably receive summaries written by people who engage strongly with the subject matter. Those people are unlikely to write neutrally.
2) It is immediately obvious that in the summary we are receiving the submitter's editorialised version of the events. There is no facade of neutrality or objectivity in an IP law post that starts "I Don't Believe In Imaginary Property writes:"
3) There is an expectation of factual accuracy in a Slashdot summary. Outright lying with regards to the content of the article is not acceptable in any case. Fortunately that is not true here.
4) A non-editorialised, neutral version of events is usually provided by the story itself, a mere mouse click away, assuming it is not a blog or some other editorial article. Given that said story contains the news we're actually after, it seems to me inevitable that even the most credulous reader would be dissolusioned of any false assumptions they made on the basis of an editorialised summary.
To get down to brass tacks: I never read a Slashdot summary an expect it to be neutral and free of editorialisation, any more than I would expect a blog post to be. Everything from the way stories are gathered at the back end to the way they're written on the front page makes it obvious that this is not the case. Even if you argue that all news sources (even Slashdot summaries) should come with an expectation of neutrality and objectivity it seems obvious to me that it's in an entirely different kingdom of bias than the likes of Fox News.
Slashdot's stories almost always come about because some guy found something on the internet he feels strongly about, and submitted it to the firehose. I mean, we wouldn't have half as many stories on IP law if I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property wasn't a complete fanatic on the subject, and Slashdot be the worse for it. The way the summaries are presented makes it pretty clear that they're the editorialised version of the original, interpreted the opinions of the submitter, and I think honestly we all have the critical thinking skills required to handle that, right? It's not like the summary is downright misleading or yet another dupe.
I'll file this idea under "Roland Emmerich" then. ;)
NASA is trying to hack a rocket together, IMO, because there's not any real money for it until the Shuttle program ends and they can hardly wait that long to start development. So they speed things along by building on existing hardware designs which have been shelved or were meant for other applications. Ares is called the "Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicle" for a reason.
The would-be SF writer in me wonders if it would be possible to redesign the craft to passively eliminate any hazardous oscillations, by making sure that the structure doesn't have any resonances near the frequencies put out by the engines. The doesn't-want-to-be engineer in me has absolutely no idea how feasable this is, of course, but it'd be a mechanically graceful spacecraft for a more civilised age.
Going via the ISP is just one of his suggestions for how it could be paid. The article is slim on details but I assume he's considered alternatives, like paying directly to the blanket licencing group.
No doubt, but it's hardly fair for 80% of the comments here to criticise the poor guy for proposing a mandatory download tax when in reality he's one of the few trying to make headway with a voluntary one.
No kidding. I'm sure ISPs would jump at the chance to charge people $40 instead of $30 for their internet access, point the finger at the nasty music industry, then quietly mention in the fine print that you can opt out. Maybe even with a "convenience fee" for opting out.
Those are the sorts of issues raised in the article, and unfortunately not discussed. There's not much to it that wasn't in the summary. I have to wonder if it'll turn out like "protection money" paid to this agency. As long as you keep paying, then they don't sue you for downloading the songs...
Yes, exactly. If you do not wish to pay for internet access, you do not do so. If you do not wish to pay for blanket access to music, you do not do so.
That's why he's proposing a voluntary scheme, not a mandatory one.
It's a mess for the little guy whatever way you cut it. Open negotiation? Big guys disporportionately represented. Reported illegal downloads? Big guys have Mediasentry, little guys probably convicted if they try to do what Mediasentry does. Reported legit sales? Big guys wouldn't go for that to begin with.
"Voluntary" is right there in the summary. "A voluntary, blanket music licence".
It's meant to be voluntary. So you don't have to.
It's described as voluntary. As in, you can pay X to the companies which join the scheme, and then get carte blanche to download music. Or you can just not bother, and continue to buy music from the specific artists you prefer. If it was mandatory, then it'd be pretty dubious.
What's that lassie? You want us to pref the seterence?
It's not like looking at dust is the only thing Phoenix does, you know. ;)