But when you print a book, you get the whole original book. When you print a song, you only print an instruction book on how to perform the song; actually doing so would require skill, as I said before. Actually, it would be more akin to publishing source code to a program: I may choose to do so, but that doesn't automatically mean I want people to take the code and claim that they wrote it, or sell it. And if I only give the source code to a small group of people, I certainly hope it wouldn't imply that they can publish it globally, and that I would have some means of preventing that legally.
But generally, outside of authors, rival printers, and censors, I sincerely doubt that anyone particularly cared.
So we don't care about people who are a minority group. Sound familiar?
After all, someone had to be buying the pirate copies, or else why would the printers bother with them in the first place?
Because it was cheap and easy (that's the whole point of the argument), because buyers may not know the difference (as happens with pirate material today), because people are greedy and self-serving...
Is it immoral to remain parked in a parking spot after the meter runs out
Uhh...yyeeeah. That's kinda the point...
I can't imagine why. You were condemning me for having an absolutist view of free speech, which is funny, since I don't actually have such a view, I just find it attractive.
Oh, so you only desire, but don't actually want it. Sure, that makes sense. Moving along now...
In fact, you were condemning me for not having a utilitarian view of free speech, since it is only then that something like copyright could be justified
Ba-bow. I was condeming you for craving an extremist, absolutist free speech, since you came in denouncing copyright for ZOMG impeding your free speech. Then later saying, no, you don't actually want complete free speech, nor do you want to get rid of copyright, merely create other laws that aren't copyright because they don't control the right to copy, but calling them copyright anyway.
Fair use is a good example of how copyright is utilitarian in nature.
Unless, of course, copyright were to have some kind of exemption for fair use. Which unfortunately...wait, well what do you know, it DOES!
As I said, we use formalities. If an author wants a copyright enough to take a token step in order to get one, then he was probably incentivized by copyright.
The only thing that getting a copyright proves is that he got a copyright. Getting one doesn't prove they wanted one or not, and not getting one doesn't prove they didn't want one, just that you made it too hard/expensive to get one with your new laws.
Short terms and renewal terms also relate to this.
Except as I've already shown, it doesn't work.
An author who wasn't incentivized by that much copyright will probably stop bothering to renew after a while, letting the work enter the public domain all the sooner.
So basically, you're mandating the law of "use it or lose it". Hey, I noticed your car has been sitting in your driveway for a while...you haven't been incentivized to take it out recently...yoink!
The term, as far as US copyright goes
I presume by "US copyright" you actually mean "the English language definition"?
The furniture would have a hard time of it, too, as the utility doctrine prevents sculptural works which have some use to them that is inseparable from their artistic elements from being copyrightable.
If that's your interpretation of utility doctrine, your theory is already flawed. Entertainment is a use. As is collecting, investing, trading, buying and selling...
copyrights were extended to musical compositions long after they too were easily reproduced by means of printing presses (i.e. in the form of sheet music)
Which had to be translated from a performance, since composers kept their originals secret. And then they had to be reperformed. Which meant the copier had to at least have skill. Where is the skill in pressing 'Rip to MP3'? And still, the copier wasn't able to distribute on a massive scale, undercutting the original author. And despite all of this, the copier still likely wasn't met with a great deal of praise for copying the work, ie. they were morally condemned. And what are laws, if not the enforcement of publicly-accepted morals?
Remember the bit where you condemned me for promoting copyright on utilitarian grounds?
No, I don't. I DO remember the part where I condemn you for supporting a utilitarian view of free speech, which is the exact opposite of what you just claimed I said, and is what that long list of stuff you keep ignoring is meant for. But no, I don't remember any condemnation for utilitarian copyright (which I don't support, because I'm in favor of fair use, eg. format shifting). I don't suppose you'd be so kind as to point it out?
You really think that lawyers are uninvolved in writing laws? Wow. Actually lawyers write a lot of proposed laws, which are sent to politicians (who are often lawyers themselves) who, if they choose to support the laws, in light of their mandates from their constituents, their own judgment as to whether they're appropriate, etc., will try to get them enacted.
So in other words, the politicians get to decide what laws to enact or not. Wow, that's totally different to what I said! Yall must be one o them "intellectual" types, with dem fancy words n all that.
Restrict copyrightability to works where copyright has an incentivizing effect.
How do you prove the person would have created the work without the incentive of a copyright?
architectural works, where mere copyrights don't incentivze much
By architecture I assume you mean plans specifically meant to use to construct a building in which to reside - and not the broader term of architecture which can refer to basically any physical object, like furniture or art. I also presume you've also figured out some way to prevent a builder from stealing the plans and refusing to compensate the architect. Or do laborers in "some classes of work" not need to eat?
Authors who are not incentivized by copyright will presumably not seek a copyright, and their work can pass directly into the public domain.
Like they can now...
Authors who are incentivized by copyright will presumably seek one out, so we make it easy for them to get one
Like it is now (record companies do it for them - they pay up front, too). Because of course you realize, making the copyright system easier just means you're paying for more government employees to fill in the gaps, rather than record company employees.
Further, restrict copyright so that it incentivizes but does not overincentivize.
So instead of a single copyright, artists have to fill multiple copyrights. You create more work for them. They end up with the same length of copyrights on average. Sure, you win over a few public domain works because it's easier for artists to wait for them to expire than to acively take the initiative to release them. But then you "win" over a few from artists who forget to renew, or are perhaps even unable to in a timely manner (eg. in a coma). So you create more work for what is essentially a trade off between more deliberate public domain releases for more accidental ones. Not to mention the time and effort wasted on changing the laws.
In recognition of current societal norms, and the place of copyright in serv
That's probably because locksmiths, as a recognized profession, inherently already has legal connotations. If their name was "Legal Home Security Bypassers", or "Legal Door Kicker-Downers", you could see the predicament they might be in if the "Legal" were dropped from their name. Torrents and P2P have a negative social stigma attached to them, so naturally if you want to promote the fact that you're providing a legal P2P service, a name like LegalTorrents makes sense. Whether it's a particularly good company name is another story though.
Also, you're reading way too much into the name of the regime. 'Copyright' is so named for reasons that are largely no longer relevant, dating back to the 16th century.
It was created after the printing press, as a way to restrict who can produce copies of a work, primarily due to the fact that with the printing press, copies could be produced by almost anyone at next to no cost. I can see how you believe this is different to how copyright works today though, where's it's evolved from that original intent to the system it is now, where its purpose is to restrict who can produce copies of a work due to the fact that copies can be produced by almost anyone at next to no cost.
First, I forgive your forgetfulness, what with the length and twists and turns of our discussion, but if you'll recall, the only reason I even brought up the SPP was ultimately because you were confusing a creative work -- the product of an author's labor -- with the act of the labor itself.
No, the reason you brought it up was because you were scrounging for ways to justify your "ideal world" by presenting concepts and systems that we already know don't work.
a) The reliability of the escrow service is key to both.
The reliability of the escrow service is irrelevant. They aren't the ones paying the money.
b) If you buy any kind of work without the opportunity to preview it, you have no idea what you're getting. Authors should either have some manner of preview or other assistance for potential customers...
Again, since I don't advocate abolishing copyright
I like how you condemn copyright as restricting your freedom of speech, wait for me to make a strong case as to why we need copyright, then change your mind and claim you don't have a problem with copyright.
This strikes me as a risk that a customer in the SPP would have to take.
You've already admitted that your ideals are conducive to the exploitation of an artist. But now you've also admitted that the customer loses out on the deal too. Hmm, so under your proposal, the artist is being disadvantaged, and the customer is being disadvantaged... Well, what are we waiting for, let's enact this thing immediately!
I think that copyright is a great idea, and can be implemented in a manner so as to encourage great things, but that all the potential is being squandered at the moment.
I hate to be the one to tell you you just wasted several years of your life, but...lawyers don't create laws. Politicians do, which vicariously means the public do.
And I think that we should certainly have some kind of copyright
So what exactly IS your argument? You come into this debate with claims that copyright impedes your freedom of speech, copyright is evil, blah blah blah. But you haven't actually stated what is wrong with copyright, if and why it should change, what it should change to. It's almost as if you're arguing purely for the sake of arguing. In fact the only actual arguments you have bothered to define is that 1) You believe artists forfeit their human rights by choosing to be artists, and 2) You've proposed using a new business model for artists that a) you didn't invent, b) we already know doesn't work, and c) could be implemented regardless of the current state of copyright, as evidenced by the fact that it's already been tried.
Now I just know that you're going to say points b and c are contradictory, as the successful implementation would imply it does in fact work. It doesn't, and here's why: SPP is rarely used by any artist today. Even indie artists hardly use it, preferring to release works at no cost, or stick with the existing 'pay per user' model. The fact that nobody uses it implies either a) all artists are too stupid or ignorant to utilize SPP, or b) even with SPP existing, nobody uses it, thus it is a failure.
To make sure we're on the same page, I'm sticking with the hypo involving Alice creating a work, selling a copy to Bob for a pittance, and Bob selling that very same copy to Carol for a fortune
But as I already pointed out before, this is not synonymous with copyright, because while Bob may resale the item, he loses possession of it. If Bob were to sell an unauthorized copy of the work, it would be a different story. That's why it's called COPYright, not Originalright. If your whole argument against copyright is going to be fought by claiming people have the right to resell physical goods, you've already lost.
No, they price them however they want. Whether they'll be able to make a deal at that price depends on the buyers, though.
No, it doesn't. Buyers aren't going to buy stuff with your escrow scheme because a) they have no guarantee they will get it if the reserve amount isn't met, b) they don't know what they're getting (as releasing samples of it puts it in public domain), c) they won't know when they're getting it d) they forgo their right to buying privacy (they have to be tracked, so they can get their money back if the amount isn't met), e) the hundred other problems I've already mentioned that you seem to ignore.
That's exactly right, because no one cares about the author.
And yet, you claim to have been one. That explains the self loathing. Or maybe when you were an author, people simply didn't care about you, so you feel like no other author is allowed to succeed. And then you were so angry, you wanted to go on a murderous rampage. But that was too hard, so you became the next best thing, a lawyer. Getting warmer?
You may be the only one.
If I'm the only who finds humans rights abuse acceptable, this world is in a lot more trouble than your magical "absolute free speech, no copyright!" solution will ever fix.
In a nutshell, if you have a job, and you are paid for your work, then one of three possibilities must be true. ...
And just like we have copyright to prevent the exploitation of artists, we have minimum wage, child labor laws, occupational health & safety laws, trade unions, and other worker's rights laws in place specifically to prevent exploitation of both an employee by an employer and vice versa. As well as various other indirectly related laws, eg. anti-discrimination, criminal law etc.
To some extent, you can, actually. What else is a non-disclosure agreement but a contract saying that you will temporarily forfeit your right to talk about some given subject? You can break the agreement and talk whenever you like, of course, but you may have to pay some damages to the other party as a consequence.
So when an artist signs this imaginary "please exploit me" contract allowing people to steal their work, what do they do to break it?
Interesting. I haven't seen that one.
UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 4:
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 17:
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 23:
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
Alice did indeed choose to be exploited, if at least in some manner or another.
Choosing to be an artist implies she chose to be exploited? Like how a black person chose to be a slave by migrating to America?
Really, the author can price copies however they please.
According to your argument, they have to price them only to cover the cost of materials.
Policy-wise, it is imagined that copies of public domain works will be ideal, since the presence of competition for what are, after all, commodity goods (one copy of a work generally being just as good as another copy of the same work in the same medium), will result in prices dropping to only slightly above marginal cost.
So in other words, the value of the work is severely degraded, against the wishes of the author. Much like how your money would be devalued if there were to suddenly be an influx of counterfeits.
If you're upset about consensual exploitation, you may want to look into destroying capitalism, rather than puttering around with mere copyright law.
Even if you truly believe that an artist chooses to be exploited merely by becoming an artist, I fail to see how even "choosing" to be exploited is acceptable, given that not being exploited is a basic human right. One cannot sign away one's legal rights, and one cannot commit to a contract to break the law. But it's ok to forfeit one's basic human rights merely by choice of profession?
So I would be upset with Bob if he copied Alice's copyrighted work, assuming a good copyright system was in place. I would not be upset with him because he's committed a sin against Alice, though. I'd be upset with him because he is interfering with the smooth operation of the copyright system. Were we talking about dairy farming, I'd be upset with Bob spooking the cows, but only because it results in sour milk (and thus, lower profits) rather than any other reason.
So in other words, you only care that they broke whatever law happened to be in place at the time, but couldn't care less if what they did was immoral or broke human or animal rights.
I'm a pretty upstanding, moral person.
See above.
you haven't checked to see if my position works when viewed from that perspective.
Here's a list of things I came up with in less than 5 minutes that pretty much destroy any sanity existing in the world you try to push with such zeal:
copyright, trademark, patents
slander and libel
harassment
spam, junk mail and telemarketing
racism, sexism, and hundreds of other forms of discrimination and abuse
right to privacy
right to a fair trial (perjury, disclosure of prior convictions)
fraud/deception and counterfeiting
negligence and endangerment of life ("Fire!" or "Bomb!" in a crowded room, "Sure, that rickety old bridge is safe to cross...")
manipulation in a position of power (lying politicians, teachers preaching religion or other personal views rather than fact)public disturbance and nuisance (child care workers screening Rambo 4 and porn to toddlers, flashers and nudists)
company secrets and treason (insider trading, classified military information)
intimidation, death threats
imparting knowledge of how to commit a crime and/or how to get away with one and/or encouraging such behaviour ("Hey kids! Build your own dirty nuke! Kill those evil infidels!")
media corruption/zero accountability (poor people aren't able to defend themselves)
I've also used no AV for years on an XP machine. Windows Defender is the only anti-malware I have at all. And I use Firefox primarily, with some occasional IE. I am behind a router though. You can tell XP to ignore the fact that you've got no AV via the Security Center.
Really, unless you're always browsing dodgy sites or opening random emails, it's pretty hard to get infected by anything more serious than tracking cookies.
I think that there may be a slight disconnect here between what I actually said (and my actual position) and what you imagined I said (and what you imagine my position to be). I never said that Bob would retain possession of the painting after having sold it to Carol. Nor did I say that Bob could make a copy of the painting and sell that instead (assuming that the painting is copyrighted). Nor did I say that if Bob did make a copy of the painting, that he could claim it was a copy made by Alice.
I never said you made those statements. In fact, I was specifically mentioning them because you deliberately overlooked them. How this is strawman, I don't know.
Your comparison of an intellectual work compared to a physical work is blatantly inadequate, because with a physical work, Bob needs an incentive to pass his ownership of the work on to Carol. Precisely because, once he's passed it on, he no longer benefits from it. So there is incentive for the artist, Alice, to create a replica work, so both Bob and Carol may benefit simultaneously. The incentive is fair, because when selling the original work, Alice did not price her work according to her psychic prediction of how many people would be using her work. And rightly so, since she would assume that her work would only benefit one user at a time (I use the term "user" loosely, because it may in fact be a whole household or art gallery).
Now Bob goes and replicates the work, and sells the copy on. Bob is a good copier, but has no artistic talent. At this point, you have to ask yourself: did Bob buy the painting purely for the cost of the canvas and paint? Or is there perhaps an element of time and skill involved in valuing the work? Any rational person would say, mostly you're compensating the artist for their time and skill, and the cost of materials are negligible. However, Bob is now exploiting Alice's hard work for his own personal gain. Alice never chose to be exploited, and that you say she did and deserves it is absolutely disgraceful, especially for someone who is supposedly meant to represent the ideal of justice. Not only is Bob exploiting Alice's previous work, but he's depriving her of a potential future sale. And what, this is somehow Alice's fault for not charging Bob a high enough cost to cover for the possibility that every person on Earth, present and future, may want a copy of her work?
Is this fair? A rational, moral person would say no. Your ideals say yes. When somebody calls you out on your ideals, you make up excuses not to answer the arguments and require everything to be spelled out for you. And hence we come back to the question, why would anyone believe what you say, when you are clearly and demonstrably an irrational, immoral person?
I'd point out the obviously holes in your other points, but really, I'd rather not waste my time translating it to baby talk for you when you're clearly being deliberately obtuse.
You raise the idea of a right to benefit from a work. That idea doesn't really appear in copyright law as it currently exists, at least in the US. For example, an author has a right to decide when he wants to distribute a copy of his work, but having done so, anyone can distribute it further without permission or compensation. So if Alice is a painter, and sells a painting to Bob for $1, Bob can turn around and sell it to Carol for $1 million, and never have to give Alice a penny of his newfound wealth, nor get permission for Carol to own the painting, even if Alice hates Carol's guts.
Right, Bob can sell it on. However, Bob no longer has possession of the painting. Bob also cannot sell a copy of the painting and claim it to be Alice's. It's called art fraud. I'd be surprised if a lawyer had gotten this so wrong. However, I'm not surprised at all that YOU got it wrong. Hence, we establish your shoddiness.
By the way, how's it going with the whole currency thing? Have you decided yet that counterfeit money is ok, or have you come to your senses?
So long as it's not consensual, I'd agree. We certainly cannot use the stick on authors, but we can dangle a carrot in front of them (in this case, the possibility of using a copyright to make money) in order to entice them to do what we want (create and publish works which will ultimately fall into the public domain).
And there it is again. "I agree it's wrong to exploit and manipulate people; however, it's totally ok to exploit and manipulate them". Are you really that blind to your own contradictions?
I have no desire to. I think that copyright law is capable of serving the public interest. It only wants to be reformed so as to maximally accomplish that. I would only ever advocate abolition if I thought that copyright law could not possibly serve the public interest, no matter what. While there are some people who think that day has come, I am not one of them.
Nice of you to change your tune so late in the game. I'm glad you agree with me that we need copyright law. What the other fluff is for, I don't know.
Justice Brandeis, another strong proponent of free speech, gave the best answer: "If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
Maybe in a fantasy. That's not practical and you know it. A media company has more resources, more power, more influence and a louder voice than an individual ever will. Essentially you're imposing that people who don't have these attributes aren't able to have their side of the story heard. Welcome to Utopia!
Wow. There's no guarantee of compensation in copyright.
Aside from the reality of copyright infringement, then no, there is no guarantee of compensation. There is, however, guarantee that if people want your work enough to pay for it, they will. While it would be nice to have pipe dreams about a world where we can rely on the honor system to compensate artists, the reality is humans, as a society, cannot be trusted to find their own ass with both hands, let alone do what is morally just. The same could be said of all laws: if we could trust people, we wouldn't need them. And you would be out of a job.
Contract law, one would imagine.
Sorry, contract law and NDAs don't exist, it imposes on my freedom of speech. In for a penny, in for a pound.
And in case of someone copying the unpublished work through some nefarious means, insurance rises to the occasion.
Until it starts happening on a regular basis, and insurance companies become unwilling or unable to insure against it.
A few have been recovered, though, because people failed to follow instructions to destroy copies, or unlawfully made their own copies. The BBC has been grat
Don't you recall that in fact, that's what I do? I give my clients legal advice for a fee, and I lack the ability to prevent them from sharing that advice with others, even though it might undercut me. You didn't seem to have a problem with it just a few posts ago.
How convenient, then, that the shoddy legal advice that you provide isn't relevent to the general population. You fantasize about stories of not having to repeat yourself to provide the same information and so on, and yet that's exactly what you do, provide the same advice over and over to different people. Except luckily for you, the law provents that advice from applying from applying to any general circumstance. Unlike, say, and artist, whose knowledge and works are always received by the end user in exactly the same way, and who truly does suffer from the ability of some random moron to claim it their God-given right (under the guise of "Free Speech!", no less) to copy and redistribute that work as they see fit. In other words, to deprive the author of their right to control who gets to benefit from their work; an act which you condem with one sentence, yet in the very same breath encourage, naturally because it doesn't harm YOU personally. Because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about really: what is the most benefit to You, no matter who you have to step over to get it. Because god forbid, you should see yourself in their shoes and consider how they would feel, an ability otherwise known as empathy, which any normal, rational human being would have.
But of course, we've already shown that you're not a rational being by any means, and as we know, irrational is the defifition of crazy. Let's see other ways that you've proved that:
Well, it's funny you say that. There is no human right of copyright.
Well, it's funny because I never said that. I implied that a human has a right to not be exploited and manipulated by self righteous assholes like yourself. You turned it into a day job. Well done.
Provided that it yields a net benefit for all of those other people, then I can see that copyright is tolerable, if of debatable worth.
You just try that then. Take away copyright law. And while you're at it, take away defamation and slander, because they too are evils impeding freedom of speech. I'm wondering what you're going to do when the world's major newspapers start claiming you're a paedophile. We won't have to worry about copyright infringement, because without the guarantee of compensation that copyright grants, there won't be any incentive to create content in the first place.
Further, that's a legitimate strategy for authors to recoup costs. One variant of it is called the Street Performer Protocol, in which an author creates a work, and places it in escrow, and then asks for his audience to enter into a subscription for the work. Their money also goes into escrow, and when
Without copyright law, what exactly is going to stop the escrow service from publishing the work before the defined amount is reached? Or what happens if someone steals the work from the artist or the escrow service? They won't have done anything wrong, because there's no law to prevent it. Further, in your ideal world, they'd actually be praised as a hero, for benefitting the greater good.
And how, exactly, does the artist get people to put in a bid for his work? He's basically relying on people to pay for him purely on the trust he's any good. He can't provide people a sample of his work, because being played to an audience automatically means it goes to the public domain. How do the people tell the difference between an undiscovered indie mozart, or another potential Peter Andre? Your theory is full of caveats for both artists and buyers, I'm surpised you could even for a second consider this swiss cheese idea. Yet another sign of irrationality.
Well, you're answering your own question. If there's a danger of your advice being repeated without your involvement, you'd best charge more up front, since you're not going to see much repeat business.
So you're saying an artist should charge their first customer 1 billion dollars, then give away their work to every subsequent user? Sure, that could work. You first.
I want to maximize the public benefit, which means exploiting authors.
And here we have it, the crux of your extremist utilitarianism views. "The ends justify the means", as they say. You have no problem exploiting someone, as long as it benefits everyone else, no matter what the cost to that person's human rights. As long as that person isn't you, right? Big surprise there. With a view like that, it's no wonder people think you're crazy. Unless you have a compelling reason why an intelligent being such as myself, should attempt a rational debate with someone as admittedly irrational as you, this argument is over.
No, there the trade is pay in exchange for labor. There's nothing wrong with payment merely being deferred to the next payday. What would the alternative be? The boss hands you a dollar every so many minutes?
The labor vs compensation of a blue collar worker is no different to that of an artist. All you're doing is applying one rule for artists, who you obviously despise, then mincing words and applying a completely different rule to yourself in order to not look like an ass.
However, if I do some labor -- say, I give a client some advice on how to avoid infringing -- then why on earth would it make sense for the client to ask me to repeat myself if he runs into substantially the same situation again? Surely he can remember my advice and apply it again, without my earning a second fee.
...
You wouldn't have to repeat yourself, and you shouldn't. The client should remember that knowledge and apply it in the future. That's why people whose labor has more potential future value charge more than people whose labor is worth only what you gain immediately. Consultancy is a good example - do you really think a consultant is going to charge only for the 1 hour it takes them to present their advice? Or do you perhaps think the consultant will be charging with the potential value of their teachings in mind? And if you were the consultant, do you think you would be terribly happy if, after your first lecture, all your lecture content was taken, word for word, and provided to everyone else for free?
And what about currency? According to your ideals, a $100 note is worth exactly what it cost to produce it, and not some perceived, social value.
None of those are particularly good arguments, because you are putting the cart before the horse, as it were
Because you say so, of course.
Previously, you seemed to be arguing that the law should be written in such a way to aid authors because authors deserve it.
Check the username and try again.
Authors should have total freedom to decide whether or not they wish to disclose those works to any person or persons, including outright publication.
Unless you, as a consumer, decide differently. That's essentially what you're saying.
However, if an author reveals his work to another person, and the author fails to publish his work after a reasonable period of time after having created it, then that other person should have the right to publish the work despite the author's wishes.
And a "reasonable time" would be what? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? Please. Downloading a new release movie, or the latest Miley Cyrus single, or whatever the hell you kids do with your tax payer-funded school internet these days surely cannot be defended with what you're proposing.
At no point did anyone ever make the author do anything. He didn't have to create the work, he didn't have to share it, and he didn't have to ignore it.
No, he chose to do these things. You just want to lure him in with the illusion of compensation for his labor, then exploit him for all he's go afterwards. Yeah, I totally see what a fair, (sym)pathetic person you are. You may as well have claimed "He didn't have to black, he didn't have to come to America. He just cannot force someone else to not enslave him."
Speculation about him using formulas, charts, or worksheets - as per other suggestions here - is all well and good; but his post specifically mentioned he was using Macros. So we already know for certain that in the GP's scenario, CSV or tab-delimeted isn't going to work.
You could argue that he would be better off using XML, ODF, an internal database alongside scripting support or whatever, but then you're essentially arguing that he's not allowed to choose for himself which format to use.
No, that has nothing to do with it. The issue is that creating a work is an act of labor, but the work itself, having been created, is a mere good. Re-using that good simply does not result in causing the author to engage in the exact same amount of labor once again.
The good is a fruit of that labor. How easily it can be reproduced is irrelevent. The fact that someone(s) consumed their own resources creating said good gives it inherent value. All trade works this way - the resources used in the labor are converted into the resources of the result, aka its value, much in the same way food is converted into energy to let you perform that labor.
And taking an artist's work against the terms he makes it available under IS forcing him to work for you.
No, because the actual labor is done.
Just like how it's ok for your employer to refuse to pay you at the end of the month, because the labor is already done, so it's not like you're losing anything.
We do not enslave cavemen when we make fire without paying royalties.
Because fire is not patented, and cavemen chose to share the discovery with us.
We do not enslave federal judges when we reprint the court opinions that they wrote in the course of their duties.
Because government works are declared public domain, and judges are compensated for this with their paycheck from the government.
I am not enslaving you when I include quotes from your post, just as you do not enslave the previous author when you quote him without his permission.
Because quoting for context is deemed fair use, and he's posted it in a public place (the internet) and therefore is arguably assumed to be public domain. He's chosen, of his own free will, to make it available to the public - his compensation is a public forum where people may hear his opinions. You would rather force everyone to do this by taking away his right to choose its disclosure. If it walks like slavery, talks like slavery, smells like slavery...
Think of all of the other people and the environment. Dude, stop driving your car. Right now. Just don't. Walk your lazy ass to work or the store or something like that because you will be polluting the air with more toxins from your car than a dude smoking 2 packs a day.
That's all well and good, but smoking doesn't replace driving a car. So these people who smoke may also be driving cars, so we get pollution from both the car and the smoking. If anything, smoking is going to increase the use of the car, so the negative effect goes up even more. However, one of either smoking and driving is not only of real-world benefit to the user, but is actually pretty much a necessity in today's world, and I'll give you a hint: it's not the one with the direct and deliberate inhaling of toxic chemicals.
Thanks for the complement, but unfortunately I don't bat for that team.
However if you'd care to attempt a valid rebuttal to any of these or these arguments, perhaps we can talk. Though if you are unwilling, or (more likely) incapable of actually providing rational debate, please stop wasting my time.
So your solution to the problem of developers over-representing their games, is to have them deliberately under-represent them. Yeah, that's sure going to work. Dumbass. The worst parts of the game are no more representative of the game as a whole, any more than the best parts of the game are. Of course, if you were actually thinking rationally, you'd realize that.
You're also assuming that the whole game exists when the demo is out. What if it isn't? Are you going to go pirate the game because the developers failed to forsee that there were going to be levels that weren't as good as the ones they currently have? What if they choose the worst stuff, but make it better after the demo's released? Or even with a patch after the retail release (eg. Bioshock - Widescreen, Vita Chambers)? Or if they remove it altogether, precisely because they've recognized that it is, infact, the worst part of the game?
And what is exactly is a "worst" level anyway? By who's opinion? Your whole theory relies on there being some of metric by which one can subjectively measure the worst parts of a game and have it universally agreed upon by all potential buyers. Which of course means, if such a universal metric existed, you would have no trouble basing your purchases on game reviews. Epic fail.
Another assumption is that games actually still come in "levels", a concept which has barely existed in games for about 10 years now. The first levels of games are bad? Really? Which levels of Company of Heroes didn't you like? Battlefield 2? World of Warcraft? Sorry, your theory doesn't hold. I know it, the developers know it, the gaming community at large know it. The only person who hasn't boarded the clue train yet is you. But of course, we should still listen to you, because you're just an impartial observer with a totally objective, unbiased view, who I'm sure isn't bitter at all about making poor buying choices, and I'm sure has absolutely no ulterior motive in justifying their immoral and illegal activities.
You might enjoy the TV show Dexter. It's about a guy who spends his days serving the community as a crime specialist. Which of course totally earns him the right to go around killing people, if we are to believe your logic.
You sure do have a funny way of admitting defeat.
"You're talking crazy talk, stop talking crazy talk!"? More like "Hmm, better refuse to rebut any more points before I dig myself even deeper".
I suppose you'd rather that developers release their full games for free, than relied on the honor system for people to pay them only if they liked the game? Because pirates like you are all so trustworthy, right? I'm sure developers would trust their customers enough to do that.
Bullshit. You want a company to trust YOU? From 3 posts I personally know you better than any game company ever would. Hell, I don't trust you, and I don't even have anything to lose on you, let alone if I were expected to rely on people like you to decide whether I get to feed my family tonight.
Hey Einstein, you think maybe there's a reason 99% of business relies on the customer's payment before, or at the same time as, the goods or services are delivered, and the remaining 1% have enough info on you that they could track you down if you decided to do a runner? It's the goal of EVERY market to pimp their product as much as possible, it's called doing business. You want developers to put the WORST parts of the game in the demo? What do they do if they've only built 2 levels when the demo is released? Just what exactly the fuck is it that you want from them?
Ahhh, who am I kidding, thinking that there's anything a company could do that would make you content with not breaking the law to get what you think you deserve. You've already convinced yourself that what you're doing is just, I doubt there's any better demo of cognitive dissonance at work on the simple minded. But I suppose we can't decide anything until we've pirated the full version, right?
Ah, I see. You're one of those "stealing takes something away, piracy doesn't" criminals. And I suppose "depriving the authors of renumeration" isn't a very good argument, because you probably wouldn't have bought the game anyway, and they wouldn't have got paid anyway, am I right? Kind of like how stealing a car is ok, because the dealership probably wasn't going to get someone to actually buy the car anyway. I mean, you're actually doing them a favor, now they have extra floorspace that they wouldn't have had if it weren't for your superior moral principals!
And the idea that your theft devalues everyone else's legitimate copy, I suppose doesn't bother you at all, because after all, you never had a legitimate copy, so you've got nothing to devalue. Because it's all about YOU, right? As long as you're better off, screw everyone else. And what would you say if I were to, oh, print my own (counterfeit) money? Why would you complain, it's not like I'm taking away your money, am I? And what if, say, I decide to print massive amounts of this money and give it away to everyone except you? Sure, everyone except you is now a billionaire. And sure, a loaf of bread and a carton of milk now cost $3 million. But you'd still be ok with that, yeah? Or has it finally hit you that the world doesn't revolve around your pretentious, greedy little criminal self?
Well, let's see...
We know Cavedog are shut down. It's fact.
We know it's because of lack of sales, because a) it says so in Wikipedia, and b) it's common sense that they wouldn't close if they were making huge amounts of sales (and hence, profit).
That only leaves why they lacked sales. One possibility is that Total Annihilation was a shit game. However, if we are to believe you, it was a pretty much perfect game. The other possible explanation is that its lack of copy protection meant it got pirated to hell and back.
So we are left with either, a) pirates like yourself contributed to the demise of Cavedog, or b) TA was bad, and you don't have the faintest clue what makes a good game, so you're a liar and/or a moron, and are therefore not qualified to decide whether or not a game is good enough that you should decide to purchase it after already pirating it.
Well, I don't know anybody who's complained that a demo didn't give an accurate depiction of what the game is like. But I know plenty of people whose pirated version wasn't an accurate depiction of the retail copy. And I know of plenty of people who, after already going to the trouble of getting their warez, wouldn't go out and pay money for it no matter how much they liked it.
But then, I suppose not being content with taking a car for a test drive, you'd much rather steal a car and drive it to its fullest for 20 years, before deciding it may or may not be worth shelling out the money for. Which I'm sure you'd totally be willing to do, out of the goodness of your own scurvy heart, after already having your way with it.
Hence we now have this great new thing called a DEMO. So if you don't trust the plethora of free game reviews on the internet, magazine- and newspaper-based reviews, word of mouth in both online and offline gaming communities, friends who already have the game (or friends at all), teasers and trailers, screenshots, predecessors (in the case of sequels)...then you can use this new idea of the Demo to actually try a portion of the game for yourself, free* (at the cost of bandwidth or a gaming magazine), and completely legally, and see for yourself if the game is worth purchasing, without having to resort to illegal activities and inventing new ways to rationalize your immoral and illegal behaviour.
Which company was closed down due to massive declines in sales, which can primarily be attributed to pirates such as yourself? Cavedog, makers of Total Annihilation.
Or we could just have people on the ground fire laser pointers into the pilot's eyes. It's dirt cheap, and we know exactly the kind of damage that will be caused from civillian abuse because it already happens.
Slashdot Mirror
Both could use printing presses, after all.
But when you print a book, you get the whole original book. When you print a song, you only print an instruction book on how to perform the song; actually doing so would require skill, as I said before. Actually, it would be more akin to publishing source code to a program: I may choose to do so, but that doesn't automatically mean I want people to take the code and claim that they wrote it, or sell it. And if I only give the source code to a small group of people, I certainly hope it wouldn't imply that they can publish it globally, and that I would have some means of preventing that legally.
But generally, outside of authors, rival printers, and censors, I sincerely doubt that anyone particularly cared.
So we don't care about people who are a minority group. Sound familiar?
After all, someone had to be buying the pirate copies, or else why would the printers bother with them in the first place?
Because it was cheap and easy (that's the whole point of the argument), because buyers may not know the difference (as happens with pirate material today), because people are greedy and self-serving...
Is it immoral to remain parked in a parking spot after the meter runs out
Uhh...yyeeeah. That's kinda the point...
I can't imagine why. You were condemning me for having an absolutist view of free speech, which is funny, since I don't actually have such a view, I just find it attractive.
Oh, so you only desire, but don't actually want it. Sure, that makes sense. Moving along now...
In fact, you were condemning me for not having a utilitarian view of free speech, since it is only then that something like copyright could be justified
Ba-bow. I was condeming you for craving an extremist, absolutist free speech, since you came in denouncing copyright for ZOMG impeding your free speech. Then later saying, no, you don't actually want complete free speech, nor do you want to get rid of copyright, merely create other laws that aren't copyright because they don't control the right to copy, but calling them copyright anyway.
Fair use is a good example of how copyright is utilitarian in nature.
Unless, of course, copyright were to have some kind of exemption for fair use. Which unfortunately...wait, well what do you know, it DOES!
As I said, we use formalities. If an author wants a copyright enough to take a token step in order to get one, then he was probably incentivized by copyright.
The only thing that getting a copyright proves is that he got a copyright. Getting one doesn't prove they wanted one or not, and not getting one doesn't prove they didn't want one, just that you made it too hard/expensive to get one with your new laws.
Short terms and renewal terms also relate to this.
Except as I've already shown, it doesn't work.
An author who wasn't incentivized by that much copyright will probably stop bothering to renew after a while, letting the work enter the public domain all the sooner.
So basically, you're mandating the law of "use it or lose it". Hey, I noticed your car has been sitting in your driveway for a while...you haven't been incentivized to take it out recently...yoink!
The term, as far as US copyright goes
I presume by "US copyright" you actually mean "the English language definition"?
The furniture would have a hard time of it, too, as the utility doctrine prevents sculptural works which have some use to them that is inseparable from their artistic elements from being copyrightable.
If that's your interpretation of utility doctrine, your theory is already flawed. Entertainment is a use. As is collecting, investing, trading, buying and selling...
copyrights were extended to musical compositions long after they too were easily reproduced by means of printing presses (i.e. in the form of sheet music)
Which had to be translated from a performance, since composers kept their originals secret. And then they had to be reperformed. Which meant the copier had to at least have skill. Where is the skill in pressing 'Rip to MP3'? And still, the copier wasn't able to distribute on a massive scale, undercutting the original author. And despite all of this, the copier still likely wasn't met with a great deal of praise for copying the work, ie. they were morally condemned. And what are laws, if not the enforcement of publicly-accepted morals?
Remember the bit where you condemned me for promoting copyright on utilitarian grounds?
No, I don't. I DO remember the part where I condemn you for supporting a utilitarian view of free speech, which is the exact opposite of what you just claimed I said, and is what that long list of stuff you keep ignoring is meant for. But no, I don't remember any condemnation for utilitarian copyright (which I don't support, because I'm in favor of fair use, eg. format shifting). I don't suppose you'd be so kind as to point it out?
You really think that lawyers are uninvolved in writing laws? Wow. Actually lawyers write a lot of proposed laws, which are sent to politicians (who are often lawyers themselves) who, if they choose to support the laws, in light of their mandates from their constituents, their own judgment as to whether they're appropriate, etc., will try to get them enacted.
So in other words, the politicians get to decide what laws to enact or not. Wow, that's totally different to what I said! Yall must be one o them "intellectual" types, with dem fancy words n all that.
Restrict copyrightability to works where copyright has an incentivizing effect.
How do you prove the person would have created the work without the incentive of a copyright?
architectural works, where mere copyrights don't incentivze much
By architecture I assume you mean plans specifically meant to use to construct a building in which to reside - and not the broader term of architecture which can refer to basically any physical object, like furniture or art. I also presume you've also figured out some way to prevent a builder from stealing the plans and refusing to compensate the architect. Or do laborers in "some classes of work" not need to eat?
Authors who are not incentivized by copyright will presumably not seek a copyright, and their work can pass directly into the public domain.
Like they can now...
Authors who are incentivized by copyright will presumably seek one out, so we make it easy for them to get one
Like it is now (record companies do it for them - they pay up front, too). Because of course you realize, making the copyright system easier just means you're paying for more government employees to fill in the gaps, rather than record company employees.
Further, restrict copyright so that it incentivizes but does not overincentivize.
So instead of a single copyright, artists have to fill multiple copyrights. You create more work for them. They end up with the same length of copyrights on average. Sure, you win over a few public domain works because it's easier for artists to wait for them to expire than to acively take the initiative to release them. But then you "win" over a few from artists who forget to renew, or are perhaps even unable to in a timely manner (eg. in a coma). So you create more work for what is essentially a trade off between more deliberate public domain releases for more accidental ones. Not to mention the time and effort wasted on changing the laws.
In recognition of current societal norms, and the place of copyright in serv
That's probably because locksmiths, as a recognized profession, inherently already has legal connotations. If their name was "Legal Home Security Bypassers", or "Legal Door Kicker-Downers", you could see the predicament they might be in if the "Legal" were dropped from their name. Torrents and P2P have a negative social stigma attached to them, so naturally if you want to promote the fact that you're providing a legal P2P service, a name like LegalTorrents makes sense. Whether it's a particularly good company name is another story though.
Also, you're reading way too much into the name of the regime. 'Copyright' is so named for reasons that are largely no longer relevant, dating back to the 16th century.
It was created after the printing press, as a way to restrict who can produce copies of a work, primarily due to the fact that with the printing press, copies could be produced by almost anyone at next to no cost. I can see how you believe this is different to how copyright works today though, where's it's evolved from that original intent to the system it is now, where its purpose is to restrict who can produce copies of a work due to the fact that copies can be produced by almost anyone at next to no cost.
First, I forgive your forgetfulness, what with the length and twists and turns of our discussion, but if you'll recall, the only reason I even brought up the SPP was ultimately because you were confusing a creative work -- the product of an author's labor -- with the act of the labor itself.
No, the reason you brought it up was because you were scrounging for ways to justify your "ideal world" by presenting concepts and systems that we already know don't work.
a) The reliability of the escrow service is key to both.
The reliability of the escrow service is irrelevant. They aren't the ones paying the money.
b) If you buy any kind of work without the opportunity to preview it, you have no idea what you're getting. Authors should either have some manner of preview or other assistance for potential customers ...
Again, since I don't advocate abolishing copyright
I like how you condemn copyright as restricting your freedom of speech, wait for me to make a strong case as to why we need copyright, then change your mind and claim you don't have a problem with copyright.
This strikes me as a risk that a customer in the SPP would have to take.
You've already admitted that your ideals are conducive to the exploitation of an artist. But now you've also admitted that the customer loses out on the deal too. Hmm, so under your proposal, the artist is being disadvantaged, and the customer is being disadvantaged... Well, what are we waiting for, let's enact this thing immediately!
I think that copyright is a great idea, and can be implemented in a manner so as to encourage great things, but that all the potential is being squandered at the moment.
I hate to be the one to tell you you just wasted several years of your life, but...lawyers don't create laws. Politicians do, which vicariously means the public do.
And I think that we should certainly have some kind of copyright
So what exactly IS your argument? You come into this debate with claims that copyright impedes your freedom of speech, copyright is evil, blah blah blah. But you haven't actually stated what is wrong with copyright, if and why it should change, what it should change to. It's almost as if you're arguing purely for the sake of arguing. In fact the only actual arguments you have bothered to define is that 1) You believe artists forfeit their human rights by choosing to be artists, and 2) You've proposed using a new business model for artists that a) you didn't invent, b) we already know doesn't work, and c) could be implemented regardless of the current state of copyright, as evidenced by the fact that it's already been tried.
Now I just know that you're going to say points b and c are contradictory, as the successful implementation would imply it does in fact work. It doesn't, and here's why: SPP is rarely used by any artist today. Even indie artists hardly use it, preferring to release works at no cost, or stick with the existing 'pay per user' model. The fact that nobody uses it implies either a) all artists are too stupid or ignorant to utilize SPP, or b) even with SPP existing, nobody uses it, thus it is a failure.
To make sure we're on the same page, I'm sticking with the hypo involving Alice creating a work, selling a copy to Bob for a pittance, and Bob selling that very same copy to Carol for a fortune
But as I already pointed out before, this is not synonymous with copyright, because while Bob may resale the item, he loses possession of it. If Bob were to sell an unauthorized copy of the work, it would be a different story. That's why it's called COPYright, not Originalright. If your whole argument against copyright is going to be fought by claiming people have the right to resell physical goods, you've already lost.
No, they price them however they want. Whether they'll be able to make a deal at that price depends on the buyers, though.
No, it doesn't. Buyers aren't going to buy stuff with your escrow scheme because a) they have no guarantee they will get it if the reserve amount isn't met, b) they don't know what they're getting (as releasing samples of it puts it in public domain), c) they won't know when they're getting it d) they forgo their right to buying privacy (they have to be tracked, so they can get their money back if the amount isn't met), e) the hundred other problems I've already mentioned that you seem to ignore.
That's exactly right, because no one cares about the author.
And yet, you claim to have been one. That explains the self loathing. Or maybe when you were an author, people simply didn't care about you, so you feel like no other author is allowed to succeed. And then you were so angry, you wanted to go on a murderous rampage. But that was too hard, so you became the next best thing, a lawyer. Getting warmer?
You may be the only one.
If I'm the only who finds humans rights abuse acceptable, this world is in a lot more trouble than your magical "absolute free speech, no copyright!" solution will ever fix.
In a nutshell, if you have a job, and you are paid for your work, then one of three possibilities must be true.
...
And just like we have copyright to prevent the exploitation of artists, we have minimum wage, child labor laws, occupational health & safety laws, trade unions, and other worker's rights laws in place specifically to prevent exploitation of both an employee by an employer and vice versa. As well as various other indirectly related laws, eg. anti-discrimination, criminal law etc.
To some extent, you can, actually. What else is a non-disclosure agreement but a contract saying that you will temporarily forfeit your right to talk about some given subject? You can break the agreement and talk whenever you like, of course, but you may have to pay some damages to the other party as a consequence.
So when an artist signs this imaginary "please exploit me" contract allowing people to steal their work, what do they do to break it?
Interesting. I haven't seen that one.
UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 4:
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 17:
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 23:
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
Not in the charter:
The above does not apply to authors, artists
Alice did indeed choose to be exploited, if at least in some manner or another.
Choosing to be an artist implies she chose to be exploited? Like how a black person chose to be a slave by migrating to America?
Really, the author can price copies however they please.
According to your argument, they have to price them only to cover the cost of materials.
Policy-wise, it is imagined that copies of public domain works will be ideal, since the presence of competition for what are, after all, commodity goods (one copy of a work generally being just as good as another copy of the same work in the same medium), will result in prices dropping to only slightly above marginal cost.
So in other words, the value of the work is severely degraded, against the wishes of the author. Much like how your money would be devalued if there were to suddenly be an influx of counterfeits.
If you're upset about consensual exploitation, you may want to look into destroying capitalism, rather than puttering around with mere copyright law.
Even if you truly believe that an artist chooses to be exploited merely by becoming an artist, I fail to see how even "choosing" to be exploited is acceptable, given that not being exploited is a basic human right. One cannot sign away one's legal rights, and one cannot commit to a contract to break the law. But it's ok to forfeit one's basic human rights merely by choice of profession?
So I would be upset with Bob if he copied Alice's copyrighted work, assuming a good copyright system was in place. I would not be upset with him because he's committed a sin against Alice, though. I'd be upset with him because he is interfering with the smooth operation of the copyright system. Were we talking about dairy farming, I'd be upset with Bob spooking the cows, but only because it results in sour milk (and thus, lower profits) rather than any other reason.
So in other words, you only care that they broke whatever law happened to be in place at the time, but couldn't care less if what they did was immoral or broke human or animal rights.
I'm a pretty upstanding, moral person.
See above.
you haven't checked to see if my position works when viewed from that perspective.
Here's a list of things I came up with in less than 5 minutes that pretty much destroy any sanity existing in the world you try to push with such zeal:
copyright, trademark, patents
slander and libel
harassment
spam, junk mail and telemarketing
racism, sexism, and hundreds of other forms of discrimination and abuse
right to privacy
right to a fair trial (perjury, disclosure of prior convictions)
fraud/deception and counterfeiting
negligence and endangerment of life ("Fire!" or "Bomb!" in a crowded room, "Sure, that rickety old bridge is safe to cross...")
manipulation in a position of power (lying politicians, teachers preaching religion or other personal views rather than fact)public disturbance and nuisance (child care workers screening Rambo 4 and porn to toddlers, flashers and nudists)
company secrets and treason (insider trading, classified military information)
intimidation, death threats
imparting knowledge of how to commit a crime and/or how to get away with one and/or encouraging such behaviour ("Hey kids! Build your own dirty nuke! Kill those evil infidels!")
media corruption/zero accountability (poor people aren't able to defend themselves)
I've also used no AV for years on an XP machine. Windows Defender is the only anti-malware I have at all. And I use Firefox primarily, with some occasional IE. I am behind a router though. You can tell XP to ignore the fact that you've got no AV via the Security Center.
Really, unless you're always browsing dodgy sites or opening random emails, it's pretty hard to get infected by anything more serious than tracking cookies.
I think that there may be a slight disconnect here between what I actually said (and my actual position) and what you imagined I said (and what you imagine my position to be). I never said that Bob would retain possession of the painting after having sold it to Carol. Nor did I say that Bob could make a copy of the painting and sell that instead (assuming that the painting is copyrighted). Nor did I say that if Bob did make a copy of the painting, that he could claim it was a copy made by Alice.
I never said you made those statements. In fact, I was specifically mentioning them because you deliberately overlooked them. How this is strawman, I don't know.
Your comparison of an intellectual work compared to a physical work is blatantly inadequate, because with a physical work, Bob needs an incentive to pass his ownership of the work on to Carol. Precisely because, once he's passed it on, he no longer benefits from it. So there is incentive for the artist, Alice, to create a replica work, so both Bob and Carol may benefit simultaneously. The incentive is fair, because when selling the original work, Alice did not price her work according to her psychic prediction of how many people would be using her work. And rightly so, since she would assume that her work would only benefit one user at a time (I use the term "user" loosely, because it may in fact be a whole household or art gallery).
Now Bob goes and replicates the work, and sells the copy on. Bob is a good copier, but has no artistic talent. At this point, you have to ask yourself: did Bob buy the painting purely for the cost of the canvas and paint? Or is there perhaps an element of time and skill involved in valuing the work? Any rational person would say, mostly you're compensating the artist for their time and skill, and the cost of materials are negligible. However, Bob is now exploiting Alice's hard work for his own personal gain. Alice never chose to be exploited, and that you say she did and deserves it is absolutely disgraceful, especially for someone who is supposedly meant to represent the ideal of justice. Not only is Bob exploiting Alice's previous work, but he's depriving her of a potential future sale. And what, this is somehow Alice's fault for not charging Bob a high enough cost to cover for the possibility that every person on Earth, present and future, may want a copy of her work?
Is this fair? A rational, moral person would say no. Your ideals say yes. When somebody calls you out on your ideals, you make up excuses not to answer the arguments and require everything to be spelled out for you. And hence we come back to the question, why would anyone believe what you say, when you are clearly and demonstrably an irrational, immoral person?
I'd point out the obviously holes in your other points, but really, I'd rather not waste my time translating it to baby talk for you when you're clearly being deliberately obtuse.
You raise the idea of a right to benefit from a work. That idea doesn't really appear in copyright law as it currently exists, at least in the US. For example, an author has a right to decide when he wants to distribute a copy of his work, but having done so, anyone can distribute it further without permission or compensation. So if Alice is a painter, and sells a painting to Bob for $1, Bob can turn around and sell it to Carol for $1 million, and never have to give Alice a penny of his newfound wealth, nor get permission for Carol to own the painting, even if Alice hates Carol's guts.
Right, Bob can sell it on. However, Bob no longer has possession of the painting. Bob also cannot sell a copy of the painting and claim it to be Alice's. It's called art fraud. I'd be surprised if a lawyer had gotten this so wrong. However, I'm not surprised at all that YOU got it wrong. Hence, we establish your shoddiness. By the way, how's it going with the whole currency thing? Have you decided yet that counterfeit money is ok, or have you come to your senses?
So long as it's not consensual, I'd agree. We certainly cannot use the stick on authors, but we can dangle a carrot in front of them (in this case, the possibility of using a copyright to make money) in order to entice them to do what we want (create and publish works which will ultimately fall into the public domain).
And there it is again. "I agree it's wrong to exploit and manipulate people; however, it's totally ok to exploit and manipulate them". Are you really that blind to your own contradictions?
I have no desire to. I think that copyright law is capable of serving the public interest. It only wants to be reformed so as to maximally accomplish that. I would only ever advocate abolition if I thought that copyright law could not possibly serve the public interest, no matter what. While there are some people who think that day has come, I am not one of them.
Nice of you to change your tune so late in the game. I'm glad you agree with me that we need copyright law. What the other fluff is for, I don't know.
Justice Brandeis, another strong proponent of free speech, gave the best answer: "If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
Maybe in a fantasy. That's not practical and you know it. A media company has more resources, more power, more influence and a louder voice than an individual ever will. Essentially you're imposing that people who don't have these attributes aren't able to have their side of the story heard. Welcome to Utopia!
Wow. There's no guarantee of compensation in copyright.
Aside from the reality of copyright infringement, then no, there is no guarantee of compensation. There is, however, guarantee that if people want your work enough to pay for it, they will. While it would be nice to have pipe dreams about a world where we can rely on the honor system to compensate artists, the reality is humans, as a society, cannot be trusted to find their own ass with both hands, let alone do what is morally just. The same could be said of all laws: if we could trust people, we wouldn't need them. And you would be out of a job.
Contract law, one would imagine.
Sorry, contract law and NDAs don't exist, it imposes on my freedom of speech. In for a penny, in for a pound.
And in case of someone copying the unpublished work through some nefarious means, insurance rises to the occasion.
Until it starts happening on a regular basis, and insurance companies become unwilling or unable to insure against it.
A few have been recovered, though, because people failed to follow instructions to destroy copies, or unlawfully made their own copies. The BBC has been grat
Don't you recall that in fact, that's what I do? I give my clients legal advice for a fee, and I lack the ability to prevent them from sharing that advice with others, even though it might undercut me. You didn't seem to have a problem with it just a few posts ago.
How convenient, then, that the shoddy legal advice that you provide isn't relevent to the general population. You fantasize about stories of not having to repeat yourself to provide the same information and so on, and yet that's exactly what you do, provide the same advice over and over to different people. Except luckily for you, the law provents that advice from applying from applying to any general circumstance. Unlike, say, and artist, whose knowledge and works are always received by the end user in exactly the same way, and who truly does suffer from the ability of some random moron to claim it their God-given right (under the guise of "Free Speech!", no less) to copy and redistribute that work as they see fit. In other words, to deprive the author of their right to control who gets to benefit from their work; an act which you condem with one sentence, yet in the very same breath encourage, naturally because it doesn't harm YOU personally. Because at the end of the day, that's what it's all about really: what is the most benefit to You, no matter who you have to step over to get it. Because god forbid, you should see yourself in their shoes and consider how they would feel, an ability otherwise known as empathy, which any normal, rational human being would have.
But of course, we've already shown that you're not a rational being by any means, and as we know, irrational is the defifition of crazy. Let's see other ways that you've proved that:
Well, it's funny you say that. There is no human right of copyright.
Well, it's funny because I never said that. I implied that a human has a right to not be exploited and manipulated by self righteous assholes like yourself. You turned it into a day job. Well done.
Provided that it yields a net benefit for all of those other people, then I can see that copyright is tolerable, if of debatable worth.
You just try that then. Take away copyright law. And while you're at it, take away defamation and slander, because they too are evils impeding freedom of speech. I'm wondering what you're going to do when the world's major newspapers start claiming you're a paedophile. We won't have to worry about copyright infringement, because without the guarantee of compensation that copyright grants, there won't be any incentive to create content in the first place.
Further, that's a legitimate strategy for authors to recoup costs. One variant of it is called the Street Performer Protocol, in which an author creates a work, and places it in escrow, and then asks for his audience to enter into a subscription for the work. Their money also goes into escrow, and when
Without copyright law, what exactly is going to stop the escrow service from publishing the work before the defined amount is reached? Or what happens if someone steals the work from the artist or the escrow service? They won't have done anything wrong, because there's no law to prevent it. Further, in your ideal world, they'd actually be praised as a hero, for benefitting the greater good.
And how, exactly, does the artist get people to put in a bid for his work? He's basically relying on people to pay for him purely on the trust he's any good. He can't provide people a sample of his work, because being played to an audience automatically means it goes to the public domain. How do the people tell the difference between an undiscovered indie mozart, or another potential Peter Andre? Your theory is full of caveats for both artists and buyers, I'm surpised you could even for a second consider this swiss cheese idea. Yet another sign of irrationality.
Well, you're answering your own question. If there's a danger of your advice being repeated without your involvement, you'd best charge more up front, since you're not going to see much repeat business.
So you're saying an artist should charge their first customer 1 billion dollars, then give away their work to every subsequent user? Sure, that could work. You first.
I want to maximize the public benefit, which means exploiting authors.
And here we have it, the crux of your extremist utilitarianism views. "The ends justify the means", as they say. You have no problem exploiting someone, as long as it benefits everyone else, no matter what the cost to that person's human rights. As long as that person isn't you, right? Big surprise there. With a view like that, it's no wonder people think you're crazy. Unless you have a compelling reason why an intelligent being such as myself, should attempt a rational debate with someone as admittedly irrational as you, this argument is over.
No, there the trade is pay in exchange for labor. There's nothing wrong with payment merely being deferred to the next payday. What would the alternative be? The boss hands you a dollar every so many minutes?
The labor vs compensation of a blue collar worker is no different to that of an artist. All you're doing is applying one rule for artists, who you obviously despise, then mincing words and applying a completely different rule to yourself in order to not look like an ass.
However, if I do some labor -- say, I give a client some advice on how to avoid infringing -- then why on earth would it make sense for the client to ask me to repeat myself if he runs into substantially the same situation again? Surely he can remember my advice and apply it again, without my earning a second fee.
...
You wouldn't have to repeat yourself, and you shouldn't. The client should remember that knowledge and apply it in the future. That's why people whose labor has more potential future value charge more than people whose labor is worth only what you gain immediately. Consultancy is a good example - do you really think a consultant is going to charge only for the 1 hour it takes them to present their advice? Or do you perhaps think the consultant will be charging with the potential value of their teachings in mind? And if you were the consultant, do you think you would be terribly happy if, after your first lecture, all your lecture content was taken, word for word, and provided to everyone else for free?
And what about currency? According to your ideals, a $100 note is worth exactly what it cost to produce it, and not some perceived, social value.
None of those are particularly good arguments, because you are putting the cart before the horse, as it were
Because you say so, of course.
Previously, you seemed to be arguing that the law should be written in such a way to aid authors because authors deserve it.
Check the username and try again.
Authors should have total freedom to decide whether or not they wish to disclose those works to any person or persons, including outright publication.
Unless you, as a consumer, decide differently. That's essentially what you're saying.
However, if an author reveals his work to another person, and the author fails to publish his work after a reasonable period of time after having created it, then that other person should have the right to publish the work despite the author's wishes.
And a "reasonable time" would be what? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? Please. Downloading a new release movie, or the latest Miley Cyrus single, or whatever the hell you kids do with your tax payer-funded school internet these days surely cannot be defended with what you're proposing.
At no point did anyone ever make the author do anything. He didn't have to create the work, he didn't have to share it, and he didn't have to ignore it.
No, he chose to do these things. You just want to lure him in with the illusion of compensation for his labor, then exploit him for all he's go afterwards. Yeah, I totally see what a fair, (sym)pathetic person you are. You may as well have claimed "He didn't have to black, he didn't have to come to America. He just cannot force someone else to not enslave him."
Speculation about him using formulas, charts, or worksheets - as per other suggestions here - is all well and good; but his post specifically mentioned he was using Macros. So we already know for certain that in the GP's scenario, CSV or tab-delimeted isn't going to work.
You could argue that he would be better off using XML, ODF, an internal database alongside scripting support or whatever, but then you're essentially arguing that he's not allowed to choose for himself which format to use.
No, that has nothing to do with it. The issue is that creating a work is an act of labor, but the work itself, having been created, is a mere good. Re-using that good simply does not result in causing the author to engage in the exact same amount of labor once again.
The good is a fruit of that labor. How easily it can be reproduced is irrelevent. The fact that someone(s) consumed their own resources creating said good gives it inherent value. All trade works this way - the resources used in the labor are converted into the resources of the result, aka its value, much in the same way food is converted into energy to let you perform that labor.
And taking an artist's work against the terms he makes it available under IS forcing him to work for you.
No, because the actual labor is done.
Just like how it's ok for your employer to refuse to pay you at the end of the month, because the labor is already done, so it's not like you're losing anything.
We do not enslave cavemen when we make fire without paying royalties.
Because fire is not patented, and cavemen chose to share the discovery with us.
We do not enslave federal judges when we reprint the court opinions that they wrote in the course of their duties.
Because government works are declared public domain, and judges are compensated for this with their paycheck from the government.
I am not enslaving you when I include quotes from your post, just as you do not enslave the previous author when you quote him without his permission.
Because quoting for context is deemed fair use, and he's posted it in a public place (the internet) and therefore is arguably assumed to be public domain. He's chosen, of his own free will, to make it available to the public - his compensation is a public forum where people may hear his opinions. You would rather force everyone to do this by taking away his right to choose its disclosure. If it walks like slavery, talks like slavery, smells like slavery...
Your argument is, in a word, dumb.
Yes, indeed it is.
Think of all of the other people and the environment. Dude, stop driving your car. Right now. Just don't. Walk your lazy ass to work or the store or something like that because you will be polluting the air with more toxins from your car than a dude smoking 2 packs a day.
That's all well and good, but smoking doesn't replace driving a car. So these people who smoke may also be driving cars, so we get pollution from both the car and the smoking. If anything, smoking is going to increase the use of the car, so the negative effect goes up even more. However, one of either smoking and driving is not only of real-world benefit to the user, but is actually pretty much a necessity in today's world, and I'll give you a hint: it's not the one with the direct and deliberate inhaling of toxic chemicals.
Thanks for the complement, but unfortunately I don't bat for that team. However if you'd care to attempt a valid rebuttal to any of these or these arguments, perhaps we can talk. Though if you are unwilling, or (more likely) incapable of actually providing rational debate, please stop wasting my time.
So your solution to the problem of developers over-representing their games, is to have them deliberately under-represent them. Yeah, that's sure going to work. Dumbass. The worst parts of the game are no more representative of the game as a whole, any more than the best parts of the game are. Of course, if you were actually thinking rationally, you'd realize that.
You're also assuming that the whole game exists when the demo is out. What if it isn't? Are you going to go pirate the game because the developers failed to forsee that there were going to be levels that weren't as good as the ones they currently have? What if they choose the worst stuff, but make it better after the demo's released? Or even with a patch after the retail release (eg. Bioshock - Widescreen, Vita Chambers)? Or if they remove it altogether, precisely because they've recognized that it is, infact, the worst part of the game?
And what is exactly is a "worst" level anyway? By who's opinion? Your whole theory relies on there being some of metric by which one can subjectively measure the worst parts of a game and have it universally agreed upon by all potential buyers. Which of course means, if such a universal metric existed, you would have no trouble basing your purchases on game reviews. Epic fail.
Another assumption is that games actually still come in "levels", a concept which has barely existed in games for about 10 years now. The first levels of games are bad? Really? Which levels of Company of Heroes didn't you like? Battlefield 2? World of Warcraft? Sorry, your theory doesn't hold. I know it, the developers know it, the gaming community at large know it. The only person who hasn't boarded the clue train yet is you. But of course, we should still listen to you, because you're just an impartial observer with a totally objective, unbiased view, who I'm sure isn't bitter at all about making poor buying choices, and I'm sure has absolutely no ulterior motive in justifying their immoral and illegal activities.
You might enjoy the TV show Dexter. It's about a guy who spends his days serving the community as a crime specialist. Which of course totally earns him the right to go around killing people, if we are to believe your logic.
You sure do have a funny way of admitting defeat. "You're talking crazy talk, stop talking crazy talk!"? More like "Hmm, better refuse to rebut any more points before I dig myself even deeper".
I suppose you'd rather that developers release their full games for free, than relied on the honor system for people to pay them only if they liked the game? Because pirates like you are all so trustworthy, right? I'm sure developers would trust their customers enough to do that.
Bullshit. You want a company to trust YOU? From 3 posts I personally know you better than any game company ever would. Hell, I don't trust you, and I don't even have anything to lose on you, let alone if I were expected to rely on people like you to decide whether I get to feed my family tonight.
Hey Einstein, you think maybe there's a reason 99% of business relies on the customer's payment before, or at the same time as, the goods or services are delivered, and the remaining 1% have enough info on you that they could track you down if you decided to do a runner? It's the goal of EVERY market to pimp their product as much as possible, it's called doing business. You want developers to put the WORST parts of the game in the demo? What do they do if they've only built 2 levels when the demo is released? Just what exactly the fuck is it that you want from them?
Ahhh, who am I kidding, thinking that there's anything a company could do that would make you content with not breaking the law to get what you think you deserve. You've already convinced yourself that what you're doing is just, I doubt there's any better demo of cognitive dissonance at work on the simple minded. But I suppose we can't decide anything until we've pirated the full version, right?
Ah, I see. You're one of those "stealing takes something away, piracy doesn't" criminals. And I suppose "depriving the authors of renumeration" isn't a very good argument, because you probably wouldn't have bought the game anyway, and they wouldn't have got paid anyway, am I right? Kind of like how stealing a car is ok, because the dealership probably wasn't going to get someone to actually buy the car anyway. I mean, you're actually doing them a favor, now they have extra floorspace that they wouldn't have had if it weren't for your superior moral principals!
And the idea that your theft devalues everyone else's legitimate copy, I suppose doesn't bother you at all, because after all, you never had a legitimate copy, so you've got nothing to devalue. Because it's all about YOU, right? As long as you're better off, screw everyone else. And what would you say if I were to, oh, print my own (counterfeit) money? Why would you complain, it's not like I'm taking away your money, am I? And what if, say, I decide to print massive amounts of this money and give it away to everyone except you? Sure, everyone except you is now a billionaire. And sure, a loaf of bread and a carton of milk now cost $3 million. But you'd still be ok with that, yeah? Or has it finally hit you that the world doesn't revolve around your pretentious, greedy little criminal self?
Well, let's see...
We know Cavedog are shut down. It's fact.
We know it's because of lack of sales, because a) it says so in Wikipedia, and b) it's common sense that they wouldn't close if they were making huge amounts of sales (and hence, profit).
That only leaves why they lacked sales. One possibility is that Total Annihilation was a shit game. However, if we are to believe you, it was a pretty much perfect game. The other possible explanation is that its lack of copy protection meant it got pirated to hell and back.
So we are left with either, a) pirates like yourself contributed to the demise of Cavedog, or b) TA was bad, and you don't have the faintest clue what makes a good game, so you're a liar and/or a moron, and are therefore not qualified to decide whether or not a game is good enough that you should decide to purchase it after already pirating it.
Well, I don't know anybody who's complained that a demo didn't give an accurate depiction of what the game is like. But I know plenty of people whose pirated version wasn't an accurate depiction of the retail copy. And I know of plenty of people who, after already going to the trouble of getting their warez, wouldn't go out and pay money for it no matter how much they liked it. But then, I suppose not being content with taking a car for a test drive, you'd much rather steal a car and drive it to its fullest for 20 years, before deciding it may or may not be worth shelling out the money for. Which I'm sure you'd totally be willing to do, out of the goodness of your own scurvy heart, after already having your way with it.
Hence we now have this great new thing called a DEMO. So if you don't trust the plethora of free game reviews on the internet, magazine- and newspaper-based reviews, word of mouth in both online and offline gaming communities, friends who already have the game (or friends at all), teasers and trailers, screenshots, predecessors (in the case of sequels)...then you can use this new idea of the Demo to actually try a portion of the game for yourself, free* (at the cost of bandwidth or a gaming magazine), and completely legally, and see for yourself if the game is worth purchasing, without having to resort to illegal activities and inventing new ways to rationalize your immoral and illegal behaviour.
Which company was closed down due to massive declines in sales, which can primarily be attributed to pirates such as yourself? Cavedog, makers of Total Annihilation.
Or we could just have people on the ground fire laser pointers into the pilot's eyes. It's dirt cheap, and we know exactly the kind of damage that will be caused from civillian abuse because it already happens.