- Not every creator is Metallica. You're argument devolves into "*this* musician makes too much money, therefore, we must eliminate copyright to make sure they (all musicians) make a lot less money". It might "solve" the problem of overpaid musicians, but they're only a small fraction of all the people working.
- Metallica did NOT spend an hour making their latest album. I know people who are musicians. Recording music takes a lot of time. Repeating everything to perfection, laying down multiple tracks, paying to rent the studio, paying people who work there. There's an awful lot of work and effort that goes into it - not only by Metallica - but by a lot of studio people to balance and mix everything together.
- The copyright system doesn't just cover musicians. It covers everyone from software developers to film-makers to artists and photographers.
Do you think if copyright was abolished all creative content would cease? There would no longer be books, songs, movies, operating systems, games, etc..?
No, but I think most of it would cease to exist. To say all creative content would cease to exist is extreme and there are business models that allow survival based on, say, concerts or ad-revenue. But, yes, a whole class of creative content would get hit very, very hard. Basically, any creative content that currently costs $10 or more (per customer) will probably not be able to survive. Anything that costs $5-$10 per customer will get hit hard, but they might survive (depending on current profit margins).
I mean civilization is rather older then the concept of copyright.
That doesn't mean copyright isn't a valuable asset to civilization. You could make the argument that civilization is older than modern medicine, too, but I don't want to live in a world without it. We should be concerned about the long-term effects of eliminating copyright and medicine. I think both would be very bad moves.
Secondly nobody asks for elimination of venture capital and banking. This is how start-up work - you present a business plan and then someone gives you a large sum of money to create something that won't be available for years. I don't see a problem with a major studio with a proven portfolio obtaining credit to create Xmen-4.
That's a loan. Loans have to be paid back. Eliminating copyright would eliminate the ability for them to pay it back. This doesn't solve the problem.
What I'm arguing is that people won't be taken advantage of because they'll delay creating content until they've found paying customers. Since the demand for digital content is well-established, I have no reason to think those paying customers will be hard to find, at least for works that actually turn a profit under today's copyright-based model.
And I've already explained that your system is unrealistic. You simply aren't going to be able to find people to pay up front in nearly the numbers that you can find to pay after you complete the project (under a copyright system). I'd be amazed if, for example, Killzone 2 could bring even a fraction of their $70 million development costs before they even began development. ($70 million was their development cost.) I think Killzone2 would be lucky to get $7 million. The costs of finding those people in the first place would add millions of dollars to the project (and that's money that has to be paid even if you decide not to do the project at all). And, you'd need to get their money up-front because I've seen cases on the internet where people pledged money up-front and then everyone disappeared when it came time to pay. It's just plain unrealistic to say that companies can find people to pay upfront for non-existent digital media.
I have to say: your whole thinking about this subject is odd. It's almost like you're so in love with a copyrightless world that you're willing to go to any length to justify it.
I think you're confused. My point is that right now (under copyright) artists and entrepreneurs can create stuff (on loans, free-time, spending savings) in order to create something in hopes that they will get sales. They stick out their necks.
Under the system you're advocating, you're saying that artists won't get "taken advantage of" by big corporations because they won't even bother creating anything unless they get paid up-front.
But, that's an odd way to look at the situation. Essentially, what you're arguing is that people won't be taken advantage of because they'll stop creating all this digital content. Which is a very odd point to make: you're opposing copyright with the explicit acknowledgement that your system would stop a lot of people from making content. Which raises the question: do you want digital content to disappear? Do you think there is too much digital content in the world? Because your system would have the effect of greatly diminishing the amount of media people create.
Walmart can print up copies of books, music, games, and software and sell them without paying anyone for anything. A movie company could take a screenplay and make a movie out of it - without paying the author anything.
You're skipping a step here. Where did those books, music, games, and software come from, if no one was paid for them? Where did that screenplay come from if its author wasn't paid?
If someone is willing to create content for free, then yes, other people will be able to sell copies of it without paying him. I don't see a problem with that. If you want to get paid, then don't work for free!
Um - what? Lots of people create things with the anticipation or hope that someone will pay for it once it's created. Surely, you realize this? Heck, isn't every actor in Hollywood writing a screenplay that they hope to sell to a movie-studio? Entrepreneurs all over are creating stuff in the hope that it will actually sell. A *ton* of stuff is created with borrowed money or personal savings with the hope of actually having something that will sell.
There's a whole bunch of things that would suddenly be allowed that most people would object to.
They might be allowed, but they wouldn't actually happen, because I think most artists are smarter than you give them credit for.
Yes, they would happen. Do you really think Walmart wouldn't do those things if they could? How is the artist being "smarter than you give them credit for" going to stop Walmart from printing up copies of music, books, games, and software? Your argument here seems very much like hand-waving.
Paying directly for production would end up working the same way in most cases. Instead of finding one customer to pay you $40,000 for a project, you'd more likely find a thousand customers who each pay $40.
That simply doesn't work for any project with a large number of users. Further, there are all kinds of problems with the "pay up front" model - it takes years before you get your product, you don't know what the quality will be (it could be a total lemon), the creator will only get a small fraction of the people to pay, people will have an incentive to not join in paying for something (choosing, instead, to freeload after its release). Do you think that you could get millions of people to pay up-front for the production of X-Men 4 even though it won't come out for years? How would you even organize such a thing? And Windows Vista? I'm glad I didn't have to pay up-front because once I saw the reviews I didn't want it. So, I don't have to pay. I don't even want to think about trying to make a first product - nobody knows who you are, or whether you create good software. You don't have the money to spam millions of people who *might* be interested in what you are creating.
The difference is that you don't have to "hope" that your gross revenue is greater than your development costs. Your gross revenue is set by you as an asking price, and you don't incur any development costs until you already have customers lined up to pay for development. So if there isn't enough interest in your project for it to be profitable, you can spend your time on something else.
That wouldn't work. First of all, let's say that you want to make a product. You think about 1 million Americans would be interested in this product. You spam everyone you can possibly find. About 1/300 people who hear about your product think it's a good idea and agree to buy-in. If you could contact all 300 million Americans, you could get your 1 million customers. But, you can't. You only contact a million people (and that was expensive and difficult). So, you've got only 3,333 customers. Nowhere even close to 1 million. Now, you just give up because you can't make the funding work -- even though, theoretically, it could work.
Copyright solves all kinds of these problems. I really don't think we should try to go back to a pre-modern method of funding things because we'll be taking a big step backwards.
Uh - that's my point. Walmart can print up copies of books, music, games, and software and sell them without paying anyone for anything. A movie company could take a screenplay and make a movie out of it - without paying the author anything. Companies could create advertisements using other people's music or artwork - and they aren't obligated to pay the musician or artist anything. There's a whole bunch of things that would suddenly be allowed that most people would object to. That's where your argument leads.
And how do they get paid if anyone can replicate their content for free?
How about payment for work done? You know, like nearly every other industry. Or should plumbers demand a payment every time you have guest use your toilet?
Yeah, and those guys who rent places - they demand to get paid every month! What a racket!
Seriously, though - when people create copyrighted material, they sell it for FAR less than the production cost. There might be hundreds of thousands of man-hours put into a project. Then, they turn around and sell it for $10 or $50 or $100. You're paying a small fraction of the actual development cost. Hopefully, the [Profit Per Sale * Number Of Customers] is larger than [Development Costs] for them, or else they're going bankrupt.
So, would you rather make $40,000 / year (up front), or spend a year creating something that has a market for 5 years and earns $20 per day (supported by copyright)? You might argue that you can sell your copyrighted material an infinite number of times (theoretically). But, the reality is that you can't. The reality is that $20 / day * 5 years works out to only $36,500. You'd be better-off getting your money upfront, despite your assumption that copyright = cash cow. Copyright allows us to earn a living, and it's not some rich crazy amount of money we're earning.
Copyright is a totally different issue to freedom and privacy.
Only if your definition of "freedom" excludes freedom of speech.
If we take your "free speech" argument seriously, then you have to allow people to sell copyrighted material. Afterall, "free speech" covers both paid and unpaid speech.
I completely agree with this article. And, on that note: I propose that we legalize child pornography. Why? Because every "can't stop it" argument that applies to legalizing piracy applies even better to child pornography. People who trade child pornography are, in fact, more careful about "sharing" their porn with other people - which makes it even harder to stop than piracy. Clearly, we need to "allowing users 'to get child porn easily and cheaply.'"
(Yes, I am be sarcastic. And, yes, I think this argument is 100% valid - so long as you accept the "we can't stop piracy" argument.)
Most of the comments here don't seem to get the situation. Publishers don't like the fact that GameStop is getting 48% profit margins from selling these used games. Now, here's where most of the Slashdot comments get it wrong: they assume the Publishers are pushing a particular (and unfair) solution to this problem.
In the past, I've defended the idea of stores getting involved in second-hand sales. I still stand by the first-sale principle. So, let's look at some possibilities here.
Option #1: Publishers don't like second-hand sales, so they enact legislation to stop second-hand sales OR they require a cut of every second-hand sale. This would be wrong. The first-sale doctrine prohibits this. And, consumers should be angry if this is what publishers were doing. Most of the Slashdot comments seem to assume that this is what publishers are doing, and they make comparisons to used books and car sales. This is not what publishers are doing.
Option #2: Publishers get involved in the used-game sales. If GameStop is enjoying 48% profit margins, then there's a strong impetus for competition from the publishers themselves. There's nothing wrong with Publishers doing this. They're just jumping in and competing the used-game market, just like everyone else. (In fact, Stardock is attempting to setup a "used game" sales system along with their "impulse" DRM system. You can sell-back your serial-code and someone else can "buy" it. Admittedly, this gets odd. "Used bits" are no different than "new bits". And, what's to stop Stardock from always saying "sorry, we're all out of used copies of our game; you'll have to buy a new one"?)
Option #3: Publishers create additional content so that people hold-on to their games. The article states that this is what publishers are doing - trying to incentivize customers to hold-on to their games, thus lowering the number of people selling them. Again, nothing wrong with this.
I'm sure there are plenty of other options people could come up with.
There is nothing wrong with publishers getting perturbed over used-game sales, and there is nothing wrong with their attempts to get money in the used-game market. The only issue is whether or not they go about it the right way. Option #1 is the wrong way, but there are good ways to go about it. Most of the Slashdot comments seem to assume that publishers are trying Option #1 - and then complaining that publishers are greedy and underhanded. I see nothing wrong - in principle - with publishers trying to make money off used-game sales or being disturbed by GameStop's 48% profit margins.
(1) If you treat Cory Doctorow like he's relevant, then he will believe he is.
(2) Yes, it is important to preserve NetNeutrality, but I'm surprised anyone is writing up an article so late in the game.
(3) "Finally, there's the question of metered billing for ISP customers." This has nothing to do with net neutrality. I don't see what the problem is. He's arguing that people don't know how much internet they're going to use. But, please don't try to fool us into thinking that we have *no idea* how much internet we use. The only way you're going to end up in the top 2% is if you're downloading massive quantities of information (not webpages!) Metered access to the internet isn't much different than cell-phone minutes. (Oh! We have NO IDEA if we're going to use 10,000 minutes a month, or 50 minutes a month - therefore telecoms can't charge us by the minute!) How absurd. I'd be pretty unhappy if they started changing a lot per MB, but in the real-world, I don't see this being much of a problem at all unless you're uploading/downloading Gigs of data. And, isn't this how companies pay for internet service anyway? A company's internet usage will vary significantly based on factors like "number of employees". So, they simply charge by bandwidth.
I'd say anyone who expects to get paid for their work for 70 years has a pretty big entitlement problem.
(1) Even if those people wanting a 70-year copyright DID have a big entitlement problem, it does not mean pirates don't also have an entitlement problem. This isn't an "either your guily or I am" situation.
(2) I don't think most creators even care whether or not they have a 70 year copyright. Thus, the majority of creators do not have this entitlement problem.
There is no moral right to control what others do with their property.
You've never had the right to make unlimited copies of copyrighted material and give them out for free on the internet. If your logic was actually true, then Walmart would be justified in selling their own copies of books, music, and software. Afterall, when Walmart buys one copy of Microsoft Windows, they own it just as much as you do. Therefore, by your logic, they should be able to sell or give away as many copies as they want. Thus, your logic fails for the same reason Walmart can't do that.
I just checked my software project. I have about 250,000 lines of code in about 4 years. That works out to over 200 lines of code per day. I wish I could make $800/day! That works out to $200K per year.
(Besides, as someone else pointed out: this is $4 per line of code per month, not $4 per line of code.)
There is also the issue of the morality of it all. Should something that such a large section of the population do be illegal? Who is the law serving then?
I totally agree. By the way, I hope you don't mind if I use that argument to justify slavery in the pre-civil war South. If the majority of people are for slavery, then those damn Yankees have no right to make us do otherwise!
The internet makes it harder for big media producers to sell crap.
That's why I rarely see a movie opening weekend. I wait to see what people are saying about it. It's better than torrents because I don't even have to waste my time watching it.
Lol, they used the same line of reasoning when TV came out. There were scare campaigns that there would never be any more media because TV would allow people to watch things for free.
(1) TV pays for media-creation through advertizing, just like radio - which came before it. No one was saying that TV was going to destroy media-creation. (Nice strawman you've got there.)
(2) Just because someone said "X is going to destroy Y" and they were wrong doesn't mean that the new claim that "Z is going to destroy Y" is also false. Example: For decades, Saddam Hussein was afraid that people would try to kill him. Numerous assassination attempts failed. Therefore, he shouldn't be concerned about attempts on his life.
Filesharing does not help small artists; the internet does. There is nothing that filesharing adds to the equation. If an artist wants their music out there, they can setup a website. If they don't have enough money for a website, or don't want to pay for bandwidth, they can put their music on MySpace. Google works perfectly well for finding their music; filesharing offers no additional benefits over the internet.
Set the distribution rights free, drop DRM, and make the products...
Wait - how does dropping the DRM solve anything in this case? I can understand that you don't want DRM on stuff you buy (so that it continues to work years from now), but since you're only watching a temporary copy anyway what's the difference?
Civil disobedience is what people naturally do in the face of bad law. The fact that you seem to have read in "principled activists" into what I said shows that you are not arguing on what people say, but rather what people didn't say.
Well, I don't understand your distinction between "civil disobedience" and "principled activist". It seems to me that you were trying to cast piracy into a lofty light, and I know pirates deserve to get knocked off their high-horse.
You are quite the troll based on your comment history.
If by "troll" you mean I say things that you disagree with, and I like to point out that pirates don't have high-minded intellectual or philosophical reasons for piracy - despite their efforts to cast themselves in a positive light, then, yes, I am a "troll". One of my biggest gripes is with pirates who like to claim they have legitimacy. At least if you're going to pirate something, have the decency to feel guilty about it.
I say that copyright (and indeed, intellectual property law in general... Mickey Mouse was supposed to be public domain by now!) goes too far
Okay, copyright goes too far. It's the next step you take that I disagree with.
nothing will stop pirates from "stealing." It is irrelevant. The reason why is because it is completely different from the argument I was making. There will ALWAYS be some copying and sharing. The industry and the legislators need to accept it.
I think there's a big gap between "I gave this copy to my friend" and "I shared this copy with a million anonymous people on the internet". From a practical standpoint, the second one is far more damaging to creators.
As it stands, publishers are making MORE than enough profit from what they are doing and they were making lots of profit before all these draconian laws and technologies were introduced. The simple problem I see is excessive greed and abuse on the publisher's side.
I've seen lots of publishers and IP-based companies go bankrupt. Further, companies want to get paid "what they're worth". Copyright law sets up an agreement between the creator and producer - the consumer has two choices: (1) Pay for this content and get a copy, or (2) don't pay for this content and don't get a copy. If the consumer decides the content is more valuable than the money they'll pay for it, then they buy it. The consumer and the creator both win. Piracy says, "Getting the content is no longer contingent on paying for it". As a result, lots of people benefit from the content without paying the creator. The creator now feels slighted for not getting paid "what he's worth". If the creator is making a ton of money, then the market dictates that it will attract competition (because if you're making $10 off of every $1 you invest, everyone will want to jump in and make the same kind of profit). Competition then drives down costs.
Another reason I might download movies is the fact that they are otherwise not available to me in any other way. Take for example, the Disney Classic "The Song of the South." Disney will no longer publish the work and actively seeks its removal from public hands. Another example is foreign films which I would certainly have no problem buying from foreign suppliers except for the asinine price-control mechanism known as "region coding." So I can't get movies from Japan without a lot of work to make use of it.
Honestly, I'm not going to be all that judgmental over that kind of piracy. The problem is that I don't think most piracy falls into that category.
To be clear and exact, "pirating" media means making illegal copies for SALE to others. Without that profit motive, there is no piracy.
Changing definitions of words in the middle of a thread seems like an evasive tactic. Besides, if piracy is "illegal copies for SALE", then why do you think "Pirate Bay" and "Pirate Party" have the word "Pirate" in their names? Are they advocating the selling of copyrigh
Because this wholly disinterested, neutral, completely uninvolved party has announced that their unverifiable "data" is a wholesome and complete "justification" for the change in their DRM policy.
Companies have a financial incentive to follow the facts where they lead. If piracy helps them or harms them - they benefit by accurately perceiving the situation. Pirates, on the other hand, are always biased towards legitimizing piracy.
"Oh, we don't work directly for material things. The Replicators can make almost anything. So we live for other values".
So, we have a Replicator for Books/Music/Movies/Games/Software.
The problem with that is the fact that you still have to design things. Design can be a major investment. The basic business model for (say) software is invest X dollars and sell Z copies for Y dollars in profit (each). Essentially, you'd splitting up your development costs into Z parts and having each customer pay for a single chunk. You'd better have X smaller than Y*Z, otherwise you just lost money. Of course, if everyone treats software like it's freely replicatable, the whole things falls apart because no one contributes to the development cost, the software won't get written (because it's too easy for people to rip-you off), and society is worse-off for the it's selfishness on an individual level.
Only in the bizarre world of copyright/software politics is it a problem that there was huge interest from people trying out your game!
That's what demos are for. Anyway, the problem is not that they are trying out your game. The problem is that people have the full product and no longer gain anything by paying for it.
Slashdot Mirror
- Not every creator is Metallica. You're argument devolves into "*this* musician makes too much money, therefore, we must eliminate copyright to make sure they (all musicians) make a lot less money". It might "solve" the problem of overpaid musicians, but they're only a small fraction of all the people working.
- Metallica did NOT spend an hour making their latest album. I know people who are musicians. Recording music takes a lot of time. Repeating everything to perfection, laying down multiple tracks, paying to rent the studio, paying people who work there. There's an awful lot of work and effort that goes into it - not only by Metallica - but by a lot of studio people to balance and mix everything together.
- The copyright system doesn't just cover musicians. It covers everyone from software developers to film-makers to artists and photographers.
No, but I think most of it would cease to exist. To say all creative content would cease to exist is extreme and there are business models that allow survival based on, say, concerts or ad-revenue. But, yes, a whole class of creative content would get hit very, very hard. Basically, any creative content that currently costs $10 or more (per customer) will probably not be able to survive. Anything that costs $5-$10 per customer will get hit hard, but they might survive (depending on current profit margins).
That doesn't mean copyright isn't a valuable asset to civilization. You could make the argument that civilization is older than modern medicine, too, but I don't want to live in a world without it. We should be concerned about the long-term effects of eliminating copyright and medicine. I think both would be very bad moves.
That's a loan. Loans have to be paid back. Eliminating copyright would eliminate the ability for them to pay it back. This doesn't solve the problem.
And I've already explained that your system is unrealistic. You simply aren't going to be able to find people to pay up front in nearly the numbers that you can find to pay after you complete the project (under a copyright system). I'd be amazed if, for example, Killzone 2 could bring even a fraction of their $70 million development costs before they even began development. ($70 million was their development cost.) I think Killzone2 would be lucky to get $7 million. The costs of finding those people in the first place would add millions of dollars to the project (and that's money that has to be paid even if you decide not to do the project at all). And, you'd need to get their money up-front because I've seen cases on the internet where people pledged money up-front and then everyone disappeared when it came time to pay. It's just plain unrealistic to say that companies can find people to pay upfront for non-existent digital media.
I have to say: your whole thinking about this subject is odd. It's almost like you're so in love with a copyrightless world that you're willing to go to any length to justify it.
I think you're confused. My point is that right now (under copyright) artists and entrepreneurs can create stuff (on loans, free-time, spending savings) in order to create something in hopes that they will get sales. They stick out their necks.
Under the system you're advocating, you're saying that artists won't get "taken advantage of" by big corporations because they won't even bother creating anything unless they get paid up-front.
But, that's an odd way to look at the situation. Essentially, what you're arguing is that people won't be taken advantage of because they'll stop creating all this digital content. Which is a very odd point to make: you're opposing copyright with the explicit acknowledgement that your system would stop a lot of people from making content. Which raises the question: do you want digital content to disappear? Do you think there is too much digital content in the world? Because your system would have the effect of greatly diminishing the amount of media people create.
Um - what? Lots of people create things with the anticipation or hope that someone will pay for it once it's created. Surely, you realize this? Heck, isn't every actor in Hollywood writing a screenplay that they hope to sell to a movie-studio? Entrepreneurs all over are creating stuff in the hope that it will actually sell. A *ton* of stuff is created with borrowed money or personal savings with the hope of actually having something that will sell.
Yes, they would happen. Do you really think Walmart wouldn't do those things if they could? How is the artist being "smarter than you give them credit for" going to stop Walmart from printing up copies of music, books, games, and software? Your argument here seems very much like hand-waving.
That simply doesn't work for any project with a large number of users. Further, there are all kinds of problems with the "pay up front" model - it takes years before you get your product, you don't know what the quality will be (it could be a total lemon), the creator will only get a small fraction of the people to pay, people will have an incentive to not join in paying for something (choosing, instead, to freeload after its release). Do you think that you could get millions of people to pay up-front for the production of X-Men 4 even though it won't come out for years? How would you even organize such a thing? And Windows Vista? I'm glad I didn't have to pay up-front because once I saw the reviews I didn't want it. So, I don't have to pay. I don't even want to think about trying to make a first product - nobody knows who you are, or whether you create good software. You don't have the money to spam millions of people who *might* be interested in what you are creating.
That wouldn't work. First of all, let's say that you want to make a product. You think about 1 million Americans would be interested in this product. You spam everyone you can possibly find. About 1/300 people who hear about your product think it's a good idea and agree to buy-in. If you could contact all 300 million Americans, you could get your 1 million customers. But, you can't. You only contact a million people (and that was expensive and difficult). So, you've got only 3,333 customers. Nowhere even close to 1 million. Now, you just give up because you can't make the funding work -- even though, theoretically, it could work.
Copyright solves all kinds of these problems. I really don't think we should try to go back to a pre-modern method of funding things because we'll be taking a big step backwards.
Abolishing copyright is a big step backwards.
Uh - that's my point. Walmart can print up copies of books, music, games, and software and sell them without paying anyone for anything. A movie company could take a screenplay and make a movie out of it - without paying the author anything. Companies could create advertisements using other people's music or artwork - and they aren't obligated to pay the musician or artist anything. There's a whole bunch of things that would suddenly be allowed that most people would object to. That's where your argument leads.
Yeah, and those guys who rent places - they demand to get paid every month! What a racket!
Seriously, though - when people create copyrighted material, they sell it for FAR less than the production cost. There might be hundreds of thousands of man-hours put into a project. Then, they turn around and sell it for $10 or $50 or $100. You're paying a small fraction of the actual development cost. Hopefully, the [Profit Per Sale * Number Of Customers] is larger than [Development Costs] for them, or else they're going bankrupt.
So, would you rather make $40,000 / year (up front), or spend a year creating something that has a market for 5 years and earns $20 per day (supported by copyright)? You might argue that you can sell your copyrighted material an infinite number of times (theoretically). But, the reality is that you can't. The reality is that $20 / day * 5 years works out to only $36,500. You'd be better-off getting your money upfront, despite your assumption that copyright = cash cow. Copyright allows us to earn a living, and it's not some rich crazy amount of money we're earning.
If we take your "free speech" argument seriously, then you have to allow people to sell copyrighted material. Afterall, "free speech" covers both paid and unpaid speech.
I completely agree with this article. And, on that note: I propose that we legalize child pornography. Why? Because every "can't stop it" argument that applies to legalizing piracy applies even better to child pornography. People who trade child pornography are, in fact, more careful about "sharing" their porn with other people - which makes it even harder to stop than piracy. Clearly, we need to "allowing users 'to get child porn easily and cheaply.'"
(Yes, I am be sarcastic. And, yes, I think this argument is 100% valid - so long as you accept the "we can't stop piracy" argument.)
Most of the comments here don't seem to get the situation. Publishers don't like the fact that GameStop is getting 48% profit margins from selling these used games. Now, here's where most of the Slashdot comments get it wrong: they assume the Publishers are pushing a particular (and unfair) solution to this problem.
In the past, I've defended the idea of stores getting involved in second-hand sales. I still stand by the first-sale principle. So, let's look at some possibilities here.
Option #1: Publishers don't like second-hand sales, so they enact legislation to stop second-hand sales OR they require a cut of every second-hand sale. This would be wrong. The first-sale doctrine prohibits this. And, consumers should be angry if this is what publishers were doing. Most of the Slashdot comments seem to assume that this is what publishers are doing, and they make comparisons to used books and car sales. This is not what publishers are doing.
Option #2: Publishers get involved in the used-game sales. If GameStop is enjoying 48% profit margins, then there's a strong impetus for competition from the publishers themselves. There's nothing wrong with Publishers doing this. They're just jumping in and competing the used-game market, just like everyone else. (In fact, Stardock is attempting to setup a "used game" sales system along with their "impulse" DRM system. You can sell-back your serial-code and someone else can "buy" it. Admittedly, this gets odd. "Used bits" are no different than "new bits". And, what's to stop Stardock from always saying "sorry, we're all out of used copies of our game; you'll have to buy a new one"?)
Option #3: Publishers create additional content so that people hold-on to their games. The article states that this is what publishers are doing - trying to incentivize customers to hold-on to their games, thus lowering the number of people selling them. Again, nothing wrong with this.
I'm sure there are plenty of other options people could come up with.
There is nothing wrong with publishers getting perturbed over used-game sales, and there is nothing wrong with their attempts to get money in the used-game market. The only issue is whether or not they go about it the right way. Option #1 is the wrong way, but there are good ways to go about it. Most of the Slashdot comments seem to assume that publishers are trying Option #1 - and then complaining that publishers are greedy and underhanded. I see nothing wrong - in principle - with publishers trying to make money off used-game sales or being disturbed by GameStop's 48% profit margins.
A few points to consider:
(1) If you treat Cory Doctorow like he's relevant, then he will believe he is.
(2) Yes, it is important to preserve NetNeutrality, but I'm surprised anyone is writing up an article so late in the game.
(3) "Finally, there's the question of metered billing for ISP customers." This has nothing to do with net neutrality. I don't see what the problem is. He's arguing that people don't know how much internet they're going to use. But, please don't try to fool us into thinking that we have *no idea* how much internet we use. The only way you're going to end up in the top 2% is if you're downloading massive quantities of information (not webpages!) Metered access to the internet isn't much different than cell-phone minutes. (Oh! We have NO IDEA if we're going to use 10,000 minutes a month, or 50 minutes a month - therefore telecoms can't charge us by the minute!) How absurd. I'd be pretty unhappy if they started changing a lot per MB, but in the real-world, I don't see this being much of a problem at all unless you're uploading/downloading Gigs of data. And, isn't this how companies pay for internet service anyway? A company's internet usage will vary significantly based on factors like "number of employees". So, they simply charge by bandwidth.
I'd say anyone who expects to get paid for their work for 70 years has a pretty big entitlement problem.
(1) Even if those people wanting a 70-year copyright DID have a big entitlement problem, it does not mean pirates don't also have an entitlement problem. This isn't an "either your guily or I am" situation.
(2) I don't think most creators even care whether or not they have a 70 year copyright. Thus, the majority of creators do not have this entitlement problem.
There is no moral right to control what others do with their property.
You've never had the right to make unlimited copies of copyrighted material and give them out for free on the internet. If your logic was actually true, then Walmart would be justified in selling their own copies of books, music, and software. Afterall, when Walmart buys one copy of Microsoft Windows, they own it just as much as you do. Therefore, by your logic, they should be able to sell or give away as many copies as they want. Thus, your logic fails for the same reason Walmart can't do that.
I just checked my software project. I have about 250,000 lines of code in about 4 years. That works out to over 200 lines of code per day. I wish I could make $800/day! That works out to $200K per year. (Besides, as someone else pointed out: this is $4 per line of code per month, not $4 per line of code.)
Welcome to Slashdot - where you're either trying to abolish copyright or you're getting compared to Hitler. Has Godwin jumped the shark yet?
There is also the issue of the morality of it all. Should something that such a large section of the population do be illegal? Who is the law serving then?
I totally agree. By the way, I hope you don't mind if I use that argument to justify slavery in the pre-civil war South. If the majority of people are for slavery, then those damn Yankees have no right to make us do otherwise!
The internet makes it harder for big media producers to sell crap.
That's why I rarely see a movie opening weekend. I wait to see what people are saying about it. It's better than torrents because I don't even have to waste my time watching it.
Lol, they used the same line of reasoning when TV came out. There were scare campaigns that there would never be any more media because TV would allow people to watch things for free.
(1) TV pays for media-creation through advertizing, just like radio - which came before it. No one was saying that TV was going to destroy media-creation. (Nice strawman you've got there.)
(2) Just because someone said "X is going to destroy Y" and they were wrong doesn't mean that the new claim that "Z is going to destroy Y" is also false. Example: For decades, Saddam Hussein was afraid that people would try to kill him. Numerous assassination attempts failed. Therefore, he shouldn't be concerned about attempts on his life.
Filesharing does not help small artists; the internet does. There is nothing that filesharing adds to the equation. If an artist wants their music out there, they can setup a website. If they don't have enough money for a website, or don't want to pay for bandwidth, they can put their music on MySpace. Google works perfectly well for finding their music; filesharing offers no additional benefits over the internet.
Set the distribution rights free, drop DRM, and make the products...
Wait - how does dropping the DRM solve anything in this case? I can understand that you don't want DRM on stuff you buy (so that it continues to work years from now), but since you're only watching a temporary copy anyway what's the difference?
Civil disobedience is what people naturally do in the face of bad law. The fact that you seem to have read in "principled activists" into what I said shows that you are not arguing on what people say, but rather what people didn't say.
Well, I don't understand your distinction between "civil disobedience" and "principled activist". It seems to me that you were trying to cast piracy into a lofty light, and I know pirates deserve to get knocked off their high-horse.
You are quite the troll based on your comment history.
If by "troll" you mean I say things that you disagree with, and I like to point out that pirates don't have high-minded intellectual or philosophical reasons for piracy - despite their efforts to cast themselves in a positive light, then, yes, I am a "troll". One of my biggest gripes is with pirates who like to claim they have legitimacy. At least if you're going to pirate something, have the decency to feel guilty about it.
I say that copyright (and indeed, intellectual property law in general... Mickey Mouse was supposed to be public domain by now!) goes too far
Okay, copyright goes too far. It's the next step you take that I disagree with.
nothing will stop pirates from "stealing." It is irrelevant. The reason why is because it is completely different from the argument I was making. There will ALWAYS be some copying and sharing. The industry and the legislators need to accept it.
I think there's a big gap between "I gave this copy to my friend" and "I shared this copy with a million anonymous people on the internet". From a practical standpoint, the second one is far more damaging to creators.
As it stands, publishers are making MORE than enough profit from what they are doing and they were making lots of profit before all these draconian laws and technologies were introduced. The simple problem I see is excessive greed and abuse on the publisher's side.
I've seen lots of publishers and IP-based companies go bankrupt. Further, companies want to get paid "what they're worth". Copyright law sets up an agreement between the creator and producer - the consumer has two choices: (1) Pay for this content and get a copy, or (2) don't pay for this content and don't get a copy. If the consumer decides the content is more valuable than the money they'll pay for it, then they buy it. The consumer and the creator both win. Piracy says, "Getting the content is no longer contingent on paying for it". As a result, lots of people benefit from the content without paying the creator. The creator now feels slighted for not getting paid "what he's worth". If the creator is making a ton of money, then the market dictates that it will attract competition (because if you're making $10 off of every $1 you invest, everyone will want to jump in and make the same kind of profit). Competition then drives down costs.
Another reason I might download movies is the fact that they are otherwise not available to me in any other way. Take for example, the Disney Classic "The Song of the South." Disney will no longer publish the work and actively seeks its removal from public hands. Another example is foreign films which I would certainly have no problem buying from foreign suppliers except for the asinine price-control mechanism known as "region coding." So I can't get movies from Japan without a lot of work to make use of it.
Honestly, I'm not going to be all that judgmental over that kind of piracy. The problem is that I don't think most piracy falls into that category.
To be clear and exact, "pirating" media means making illegal copies for SALE to others. Without that profit motive, there is no piracy.
Changing definitions of words in the middle of a thread seems like an evasive tactic. Besides, if piracy is "illegal copies for SALE", then why do you think "Pirate Bay" and "Pirate Party" have the word "Pirate" in their names? Are they advocating the selling of copyrigh
Because this wholly disinterested, neutral, completely uninvolved party has announced that their unverifiable "data" is a wholesome and complete "justification" for the change in their DRM policy.
Companies have a financial incentive to follow the facts where they lead. If piracy helps them or harms them - they benefit by accurately perceiving the situation. Pirates, on the other hand, are always biased towards legitimizing piracy.
Star Trek nailed it right on the money here.
"Oh, we don't work directly for material things. The Replicators can make almost anything. So we live for other values".
So, we have a Replicator for Books/Music/Movies/Games/Software.
The problem with that is the fact that you still have to design things. Design can be a major investment. The basic business model for (say) software is invest X dollars and sell Z copies for Y dollars in profit (each). Essentially, you'd splitting up your development costs into Z parts and having each customer pay for a single chunk. You'd better have X smaller than Y*Z, otherwise you just lost money. Of course, if everyone treats software like it's freely replicatable, the whole things falls apart because no one contributes to the development cost, the software won't get written (because it's too easy for people to rip-you off), and society is worse-off for the it's selfishness on an individual level.
Only in the bizarre world of copyright/software politics is it a problem that there was huge interest from people trying out your game!
That's what demos are for. Anyway, the problem is not that they are trying out your game. The problem is that people have the full product and no longer gain anything by paying for it.