I pay an addition $19.99 for unlimited EDGE Gprs service. My monthly bill comes to about $70.00, which I feel is pretty good for the number of minutes, and the unlimited internet access. I use approximately 2000 minutes a month, with heavy emphasis on nights and mobile-to-mobile. I use ~40 megs per month of date transfer.
Hmm. My monthly bill with Verizon is around $60, which includes 450 peak minutes, unlimited N/W and mobile-to-mobile, and 250 text messages. Data is billed using the same minutes as voice, so it's unlimited as long as I mainly use it at night or on weekends.
The only 3G option we have here at the moment is EVDO, which is fairly expensive, and requires you to sign with Verizon, whom I hate.
1xRTT is considered a 3G technology (as part of CDMA2000), even though it tops out at 144 kbps. You can use it basically anywhere in the country with either Verizon or Sprint.
You can have a Federally standardized voting procedure because the method of voting is constitutionally left up to the States.
I assume you meant "can't", but in fact you can. From the Constitution:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
Buying a single track from ITune maybe somewhat inconvenient because you have to convert the music to a different format, but it does provide you with an alternative to not having respect for the author's copyrights.
Why should I go out of my way, spending money and wasting time, just to serve your ideals?
No, I don't have respect for the author's copyrights. You seem to think that's a bad thing, but to me, it's no worse than having no respect for the tenets of any other ideology or religion I don't follow. If a vegan tells me "Sure, it might be harder to plan nutritious meals made only of vegetables, but it does provide you with an alternative to having to eat meat," then I'm just going to laugh, because I see nothing wrong with eating meat - doing things his way is just a lot of work for no benefit. If a strict Christian tells me "It may be inconvenient to get your shopping done during the week, but it does provide you with an alternative to breaking the sabbath", same thing. I don't need an alternative to something that works just fine.
You think you have absolute rights to free speech
I said no such thing. I don't think I have the right to lie about a product I'm selling, or falsely claim there's a fire in a crowded theater, etc. There are times when other concerns, such as protecting the public from fraud and stampedes, outweigh free speech. Putting money in an individual's pocket just isn't one of them.
Distributing copyrighted materials without a license agreement will bring out those consequences.
In other words, illegal copying is illegal. Thanks for the tip, Matlock.;)
I don't see how you personally get anything by being allowed to distribute other's copyrighted materials illegally
I get to share the things I enjoy with my friends, family, and the public. Have you never done such a thing? Have you never wanted to take your loved ones to a movie you've enjoyed, or invite them to join you in a favorite hobby? Have you never recommended something to a stranger? Sharing your favorite music, movies, software, books, etc. is just one step better - instead of pointing someone to the store where they can find the stuff you enjoy, and maybe actually enjoy it themselves if they have the money, you can give it to them directly.
I also get to base my own works on others'. I get to make remixes, mash-ups, and other interesting works that build upon the work of others to form something unique. I get to write software that uses existing code instead of reinventing the wheel. I don't have to let an author's concerns about how his work was "meant" to be used get in the way of producing something that will enrich the lives of myself and others.
So, who is stopping thousands of people from hiring an author to write a book?
The authors themselves, probably. It's hard work to find customers. Who wants to actually find someone who'll agree to pay you for your work, when instead, you can just do the work and then use the power of government to punish people who don't pay?
If mechanics, barbers, physicists, janitors, and others could get away with doing the same thing, you can bet they would. And if they could keep charging royalties on the one car they fixed or the one floor they mopped 20 years ago, they'd do that too. Unfortunately for them, they don't have the same powerful lobbies on their side.
But I don't understand how are we supposed to get any original ideas from authors, whose only business model under your rule would be to write for hire?
The same way we get original ideas for car designs, architecture, etc.: hire someone with a good imagination.
ITunes sells music by track, which is convenient and legal.
Legal, yes. Convenient, no. I can't play those files anywhere but on my computer unless I want to jump through hoops, and I hardly ever listen to music at my computer. One of those hoops (HYMN/DeDRMS) is illegal, another (burning and re-ripping) is inconvenient, another (buying a music player with a picture of an apple on it) is both inconvenient and costly.
Free speech does not apply when other peoples rights are infringed.
Of course it does. Even the cliched prohibition against falsely shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is recognized as a restriction of free speech. Such limitations are acceptable when necessary for something very important... but I don't believe enabling someone to make a buck without changing his business model is important enough to stifle free speech.
And, of course, you presume that these other people actually have the right to profit by selling copies.
People generally cannot afford a book that costs tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars. (depends on the amount of time and research it takes to write something.)
Sigh... go back and read what I wrote. A thousand people paying $10 each will raise just as much money as a single person paying $10,000. We have a great tool now called the internet, which like-minded people can use to find each other and pool their money toward a common goal - such as funding a campaign for a political candidate they all support, or paying an author to write a book they all want to read.
With no details of your service provider or phone model, one can only assume your phone is broken, or you live at the bottom of a volcano. Most people don't have trouble with dropped calls.
You buy it sometimes, most likely this has to do with convenience.
Did you miss the part where I gave you the actual reasons why I've bought CDs?
Downloading music is generally more convenient than buying CDs. I can do it from home, without spending any money, and it's already in a format that I can use on my PC, laptop, DVD player, TiVo, and car.
Purchasing a CD, on the other hand, means driving (which in the winter means putting on a hat and coat and scraping ice off my car), spending money, and then what do I have? Maybe I get lucky and it's a CD with no DRM, in which case it's still less convenient than an MP3 file. If I want to play it, I have to find the CD, take it out of its case, and replace the CD that's already in there with the one I want to hear. I can make MP3 files from it, but that takes a while and only leaves me with exactly what I could've gotten by downloading it in the first place. If it has DRM, I have to worry about whether I'll be able to play it everywhere that I want to, rip it, or return it if I end up not being able to use it.
I don't buy the 'free speech' argument at all. It definitely does not apply, since it infringes on other peoples rights.
That's fine, because I'm not selling it. It's obvious that copyright restricts speech - if I can be sued or arrested for sending you a file, singing you a song, or reading you a poem, that's a limit on my speech. Your latter sentence presumes that other people actually have the right to limit my speech for their own financial gain.
On the other hand I can see how musicians can be compensated for live shows, but I absolutely don't see how book writers, software developers, movie producers can be compensated properly for their work, when it is, again - worthless and useful to the consumers.
It's very simple. It's the same way anyone else gets paid.
Author: "Would you like me to write a book? It'll cost you $X. I don't care whether the money comes from one person or a million people, as long as I get paid. Agree to pay me and I'll start writing."
I never said the product becomes useless. That would mean noone wants to download it and use it, and that is not the kind of product I am arguing about here.
My mistake again - that "not" crept in there while I wasn't looking. I meant "worthless, but still useful".
(who as I repeatedely insisted have no real moral views and don't have respect for the author,)
You would do well to stop repeating this falsehood. I, and anyone else who shares my views or knows someone who does, can see right through it - I have moral views, they just don't all line up with yours (although I'm sure most of them do).
Under these circumstances, even those who would normally pay for these products will not have an incentive to pay to the publishers/author any longer, given that the book became worthless - freely available through multiple illegal distribution channels.
I don't think that's entirely true. I've bought CDs and DVDs, for example, even though I could easily have downloaded the content for free and burned my own. In some cases it's because I want to reward the artists, and that's the most convenient way to do it; in others, it's because I'm giving a gift, and a well-packaged disc that I spent my hard-earned cash on is a more thoughtful gift than a CD-R labeled in Sharpie.
You cannot argue against this simple fact: given the moral set of the consumers, the only 'correct' price for any material available through the Internet is 0$ (plus a couple of cents for the download bandwidth.)
Indeed, I won't argue against that. That's exactly why I argue that artists should be compensated directly for the work they do - because the copyright system we have now is working less and less each year, there's no feasible way to fix it, and without it, it becomes impossible to make a living doing this thing that people obviously want to see done (and are willing to spend money on) unless we change the model under which they get paid. Paying artists directly for their time means allows them to make money doing what they do, without having to stifle anyone else's free speech.
your are backing up from your original statement that noone wants to see your movies and your statues.
That wasn't what I meant, but looking back, I see that I did use the words "no one wants to see them, because there are better movies out there". My mistake, I should've said "no one wants to pay to see them". And even then, I could probably find some people to watch my crappy movies or look at my bizarre statue for, say, 10 cents... but I'm never going to make up my production costs at that rate. Sounds to me like what I need is a government monopoly.
Your stuff is still useless if noone would pay for it given your distribution monopoly provided to you by the copyright law. Just because some people would want to see it for free, does not mean that your stuff is useful. People want to get their hands on useful stuff even if it costs money.
Now you're contradicting your own argument. Earlier, you said freely available copyrighted material is worthless, but not useful - but now you're saying that if it's useful, people are willing to pay for it, which means it has economic worth. So which is it?
If the problem is simply that people are willing to pay less than the copyright holders want them to, then why do they deserve my sympathy (and government-enforced monopolies) any more than I deserve theirs when no one wants to pay me $500 to look at the Mr. T statue? Why is it OK if I never pay back my loans because no one will pay the prices I'm asking, but if an author or musician has trouble paying off his loans because others are offering the same product at a lower price, now the government has to step in and stifle my speech for his benefit?
My point was that a good author that provides a product that is useful enough for people to want to pay for it will suffer loss of temporary distribution monopoly when his work is 'shared' living him outside of the distribution loop.
If people want to pay for it, what's the problem? I'd say the price they're willing to pay is, by definition, exactly what the product is worth, and if that price is lower than what it costs to make the product, then the producers' business model has failed. They can cut their costs, increase the usefulness of their product, or just pack up and find another business where they can produce a product that sells for more than it costs to make.
certainly the materials over the radio waves are provided for use, not for distribution.
So I suppose it's OK with you if someone downloads a song from a P2P service, as long as he only uses it and doesn't redistribute it. (If the fact that he's creating a local copy upsets you, suppose he streams it from another peer without saving a copy.)
After all, he isn't a party to any license agreements, so it doesn't matter from his perspective whether the person providing him with the song is licensed or not. Whether he's using a radio or a computer, he just presses a button and it starts playing music.
I don't need to convice you or anyone of this, this is not essential to the discussion, it is my observation on the nature of the people who do not value others' work/input/creativity and don't give them respect, even though they distribute their works.
I see. So, in other words, you don't care whether or not you are right, or whether anyone else believes you're right - it's enough for you to plug your ears and tell yourself that you know you're right about them dirty ol' number thieves, and ain't no one gonna change your mind with no "facts".
Creative ideas are easily copied, your example with the statue just shows that you can't find anyone who cares to look at it, so it is a USELESS PRODUCT. [claim repeated later about my hypothetical crappy movies]
No, surely there are a few Mr. T fans and B-movie fans who would be willing to look at it for free; they simply aren't willing to pay for it (or at least to pay me enough so that I can pay off all those loans). Just like the people who download music illegally for free because they aren't willing to pay the asking price for it. The product has a use, but its economic value is nearly zero.
It is very relevant, the radio stations are licensing the information from the copyright holders, this is why they can distribute that information over the radio waves. You are a listener and do not have a license to distribute this information, but you have the privilege of listening to the radio.
The terms of the license are irrelevant to listeners. The license is an agreement between the broadcaster and the artist; the listener is out of the loop entirely. Listeners just turn on their radios and voila, the artists' precious ideas are delivered to them for free. As you yourself stated, those ideas are the important part, and once they're given away, they can't be taken back.
You are an author of the comment, you left it on the public forum where anyone can read it, and where it is understood, that the information on this forum is left by the original author for everyone to use. [...] since you are providing me with your comments on the public forum, which clearly operates in an open way, and you are aware of the way it operates, you are giving me the right to read the comment.
So, are the creators of copyrighted works unaware of how radios and books operate? Do they not realize that anyone will be able to walk into a store and read the content of their book, or turn on a radio and listen to their songs? Because if they're worried about people getting access to their ideas without paying, they should really know that already.
I am certain that you are not that stupid, to compare reading/. comments to illegaly redistributing copyrighted materials.
Look, either an author's intent is what determines how others may use his writings, or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.
I am certain that people who today download mp3s without care in the world, would just as readily use some untraceable electronic means of invasion of my private appartment if they were certain that there would be no punishment. You can't give me any arguments that refute my certainty, I have seen people like that, talked to them and I am certain that I am correct.
Uh huh. See, I've talked to people who would not do such a thing. I'm one of them myself. I'm equally certain that I am correct. How do you plan to convince anyone that folks like me are in the minority?
I know people who spent years of their lifes working on some idea, a few musicians and software developers, who are creating stuff that people want. A couple of them take out bank loans just to get buy during those pennyless times. If those guys don't get return on investment, they are toast.
Then the business they've chosen to enter is on pretty shaky ground.
Maybe I want to spend years of my life working on a giant statue of Mr. T. Maybe I take out a bank loan just to get by during those penniless times. If I don't get a return on my investment, I'm toast. Well... so what? All that proves is that I was a fool to do all that work without finding someone who'd agree to pay me for it.
Or maybe I want to spend years of my life making crappy movies, but no one wants to see them, because there are much better movies out there from better filmmakers. If I can't get people to see my movies, I'm toast... but if I could just prevent everyone else from making films, I'd be the only game in town, and I'd be able to pay back those huge loans. Does that mean I'm entitled to a monopoly on the art of filmmaking?
Of course not. You can wish for something as hard as you can, you can dedicate your life to any cause you want, but just because you've put yourself in a bad position doesn't mean you're entitled to a government monopoly to help bail you out.
I am afraid that they are wrong, seing this kind of attitude from people (out of all places, on/.)
Don't act so surprised to see arguments like mine on Slashdot; it's one of the easiest places to find anti-copyright arguments on the net. I think it's because so many of the poster
So, pick an age and dry your eyes; you'll be past that barrier and looking back soon enough. And I say that with the experience of age;)
That sounds awfully patronizing; I hope I've only misunderstood you.
I've passed all the age restrictions that matter (I don't plan on running for president anytime soon), and looking back at them, they don't seem any more reasonable than they did when I was on the other side.
They don't directly affect me, but frankly I think it's vile that so many people are willing to look the other way the moment they stop being directly affected. "If I had to put up with it, and I lived through it, then it's good enough for the next generation to put up with too," they say. That is the self-reinforcing nature of age restrictions.
I don't know how old you are, but you claim to be working, so you should know by now that the radio pays every time they play a song, every time they read an audio book. They pay for the license. Every freaking time. So do the TV channels for showing movies.
Yes, quite true, and quite irrelevant. The fact is, that music is being broadcast to thousands of people. The ideas in that music, which you yourself have said are the important part, are being given away for free to the people who listen to the radio.
The fact that the radio station is paying has no impact on the people who are actually receiving those ideas for free in their cars and homes. If the artists are really so concerned about having their ideas given away, they should drop whatever it is they're doing and get this radio problem fixed right away.
This is a discussion forum, people participate in a discussion. You just changed the rules under which this forum operates, that is ONE.
So what if it's a forum? Radio is a medium people use to broadcast words and music. The internet is a medium people use to share information. Photocopiers are devices used to copy printed pages.
Surely you don't believe it's all right to copy anything you want just because you have a copier. Why should it be all right to do it just because you're looking at a forum? I thought you were saying it was the author's intent, not the medium, that mattered.
I am reading them where YOU LEFT THEM and NOT making a copy, NOT giving your comments to anyone, not even going to remember what you said here an hour from now.
There's a copy in your computer's memory. There's a copy on your screen. Either you're about to send me a check for a million bucks, or you're disrespecting my intent. The solution is just to admit that you're under no obligation to respect my intent, because I don't own these words any more than I own the number 2001.
What an asshole you are, comparing your stinking comments to a book, this is beyond words.
Isn't it funny that I'm the one remaining calm, and you're the one who's been reduced to name-calling? I guess it must be frustrating for you to try to defend your bankrupt philosophy of hoarding.
The way you can ENCODE a book does not change the fact, that it is not the encoding that is protected, it is the idea that is supposed to be protected from being illegally distributed in any encoding, in any form.
The words themselves are just an encoding of an idea. Of course, copyright law doesn't protect the idea--I can sell a cartoon about a mouse who runs a steamboat, as long as it isn't Steamboat Willie--it only protects some of the expressions of that idea.
I contend that the song, and the number that represents an encoded version of it, are equivalent. The law agrees with me: if you hold the copyright to a song, your legal monopoly covers the audio performance of that song as well as the numbers that represent it as an MP3, an OGG, a WAV, etc.
But I am certain, that if there was a way to commit more crimes electronically, say have things disappear from my appartment, or have people being killed electronically with very little chance of punishment many many many more people would do those things, and those who have shown lack of respect for other people's copyrights would be (I am sure) the first to engage in that behaviour.
You'd be wrong, but hey, it's a free country. You can be as certain about your wrong opinions as you want.
of-course it is depriving the author of the natural monopoly. That is the truth of the matter and you can't deny that.
Since you've provided no proof that anyone deserves a "natural monopoly" over the words they write.. yes, I think I can deny that. You may have a gut feeling that it just ain't fair that someone else can use the same words you wrote, but I'm afraid that won't convince anyone who doesn't share your gut feelings.
oh, I see, placing books on stores' bookshelves means giving everyone free access to items without paying.
You said yourself that the ideas inside are what counts. If reading a book aloud in front of an audience is giving it away, then so is placing the book on a library shelf where anyone can read it for free. If copying some music for your friend is giving it away, then so is broadcasting it over the radio for thousands of listeners to hear.
If you want to keep your ideas to yourself, there's a foolproof way to do it: don't tell anyone about them. Once you give them away, they're out of your control.
We only respect our desire to copy everything around us without paying attention to the rules, under which the author released this highly copyable product.
So the author's intent creates an obligation on the part of everyone who wants to read it, huh?
OK then. The rule under which I'm releasing this highly copyable/. post of mine is as follows: if your user ID is 125474, then by reading this post, or making a copy in your computer's memory, you agree to pay me... ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
Something tells me you're not going to respect my intent. Gosh, maybe I should've gotten you to agree to those terms first before I made this post available to the public.
Obviously everyone knows that the digital representations of ideas are easily and basically freely copyable, so who cares that the author did not authorize these copies to be distributed.
Thank you, that's exactly my point. You don't need anyone's blessing to use the number 1, or the number 123, or the number 8675309. I just gave you copies of those 3 numbers (oops, there's another one), and I didn't need to get anyone's permission first. Why should anyone need "authorization" to use a 5 million digit number that happens to encode a song?
Probably that's the real reason - many people are just thieves by nature and only the difficulty of stealing, difficulties with the law, and actually the required physical presence of that physical act is the only thing that is stopping them.
Nonsense. If you think any significant fraction of the people who use P2P file sharing would be willing to actually steal things in real life, even if it were easy and undetectable, you're deluding yourself. They know that if they took something out of your apartment, you wouldn't have it anymore. They understand the difference between information and physical property. Why don't you?
Once everyone and their mother has a copy of this product, there is no appearence of scarcity and the product becomes worthless. It does not become useless though, that's why many people still want a copy, but in their eyes it is worthless because it is basically free for them.
Yes, it becomes economically worthless, but that isn't depriving anyone. Sunlight is plentiful during the day and scarce at night, but does that mean someone goes broke every night because their sunlight portfolio becomes worthless? Of course not. What you fail to acknowledge is that numbers don't have owners. A change in their economic value does not deprive anyone of anything.
These people are in fact depriving the author of a monopoly
Since he's not entitled to any monopoly in the first place, I don't see a problem with that.
That's a different argument from saying there's no line at all.
You don't need much of an argument to prove that claim; it's obvious if you think about it for a moment. Human growth is a continuum, everyone develops at a different rate, and there's no way to draw a line that won't leave some adults labeled "children" or some children labeled "adults". Furthermore, human growth doesn't only proceed along a single axis: one person might be capable of voting or holding office but not handling alcohol, while another might be the reverse.
Sure, we can choose to draw a line in law because it's simple and objective, but we're trading away accuracy, and therefore justice.
The principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty is important enough to us that we go to the trouble of having trials, even in cases where statistics might show that the defendant is probably guilty. I believe guaranteeing everyone's rights is also important enough to go to the trouble of determining, on an individual basis, whether a given person is ready for various rights and responsibilities.
And just as guaranteeing an innocent man's freedom is important enough to let a guilty man go when there's no evidence to convict him, I believe guaranteeing an adult's freedom is also important enough to allow minors to vote (for example) when there's not enough evidence to prove they're immature.
Oh, were supposed to make programming easier for people who don't understand computers.
Er... I, for one, understand computers just fine, and I'm quite capable of writing manual bounds checks in C, Delphi, and other languages where they're needed. But using a language where they aren't needed makes things easier for me and every other programmer.
Catching bounds check exceptions at a few key points in the application is easier to remember and less tedious to implement than checking by hand every time you access an array. It's also less likely to end badly when someone screws up - if an exception goes uncaught in C# or Java, the program just crashes, but if a buffer access goes unchecked in C, the program is open to exploitation.
A book is a product - it is paper with words printed on it. You can burn it, you can resell it. Just like any other product.
You know what else I can do with any other product? Put it in a photocopier and give the resulting pages to my friends. I can take a picture of it and put that on my web site for everyone to see. I can go on stage in front of a crowd of thousands and show it to everyone who's interested. But oh wait, books get special treatment, because apparently it's just too much to expect authors to ask for payment before they do their work like everyone else.
If it was possible to just buy a car and copy it and give it to everyone around you without paying for the effort of the engineers, investors, who spent decades and billions of dollars designing/developing these products, I assume you would take the same pose - "anyone can just come and dig", "they shouldn't be building a business model out of engineering these cars that I can copy and give or sell so easily."
It is, in fact, possible to buy a car and copy it (although it's a hell of a lot of work, so no one bothers), and yes, I do take the same position. If you want to buy a Honda Accord, study how it works, duplicate all the parts, reassemble them into a new car, and sell it, then you have my blessing - as long as you don't try to claim that it was built by Honda, or deny that it was based on someone else's design. Just because someone else designed it doesn't mean they get to dictate to you, or anyone else, what you may do with it.
I am certain of one thing: if copying actual objects was as easy as copying information, we wouldn't have engineers who would design cars for decades, going to work, often doing very boring, time consuming stressful work and knowing that once they are done, and once they sell one car all of that work would give them no return on all that investment.
I believe we would. Even if we ignored all the advantages that the original manufacturer would have--such as production lines and supply chains that are already geared up to begin mass-producing the new car before any competitor even knew about it--even in that case, all they'd have to do is charge enough for that first car to offset all their costs. Selling one car for $1 billion is just as good as selling 100,000 cars for $10,000 each. Of course, individual drivers wouldn't buy a billion-dollar car, but if it's a good enough design, other car manufacturers would buy one just so they could reverse engineer it and resell it on their own.
I don't see authors running around, forcing you to take their software/books/music/movies/whatever and then forcing you to (god forbid) pay for their work. What a load of bullshit is in your head.
Yawn... I don't see consumers running around, forcing authors to write software/books/music/movies/whatever before anyone has agreed to pay for them, and then forcing them to (god forbid) play them on the radio, place them on bookshelves, etc. where everyone will have free access to them without paying. What a load of bullshit is in your head.
Let's just name things appropriately: people don't dig, they create ideas.
Now you're begging the question. Remember, songs aren't created, they already exist. Every song has at least one corresponding number (the representation as an MP3 file, WAV file, or whatever), and the existence of all numbers is implied by the rules of mathematics. You can't "create" a song, and its corresponding number, any more than you can "create" the largest known prime or the number of grains of sand in Daytona Beach. All you can do is discover which numbers correspond to songs that people want to hear.
There are those of us who believe they are entitled to use those ideas in any way they see fit just by virtue of the fact that they can easily copy them.
The ease of copying has nothing to do with it. What matters is that copying doesn't deprive anyone of anything. That is the fundamental difference betw
A spokesperson said "It is a basic fact that any adult who says someone under the age of 17 can't do something is a fucking fascist bastard and should be hunted down like a dog."
You were being satirical, of course, but you've hit upon a grain of truth: most of the restrictions placed upon young people have no basis in fact. There is no evidence, for example, that choosing to play violent video games or view pornography are harmful to minors - a lot of people have the gut feeling that they are, but go ahead, try to find some actual scientific data to prove it.
There is no evidence that 18 is a better choice for the voting age than 16 or 21, no evidence that 16 is a better choice for the driving age than 14 or 18, and no evidence that 21 is a better choice for the drinking age than 18 or 30. There is no evidence to back up the legal requirements that the President be 35 years old, Senators be 30 years old, and Representatives be 25 years old.
All these restrictions are essentially based on no more than gut feelings, some of them going back hundreds of years. Look at how far medicine, science, and even other areas of the law have evolved since then. Isn't it about time to reconsider where we've drawn the line between "adult" and "child", and the rights and responsibilities associated with them?
but people who create ideas, write books etc., they didn't provide you with the service. They did not print the book themselves, they did not create the film, on which the movie is printed. They created an idea.
That is the service. Writing a book is providing a service, just like performing research or filling out tax forms. If I'm able to enjoy a book or a song because of the work someone did, then they've provided a service to me (and to everyone else who enjoys it).
If, as you seem to think, they are selling a product, then how come the people who pay for it don't take ownership of it? And how can you possibly create something once and then sell that one thing to thousands of customers? Car manufacturers can't just "create a car" in some office and then sell it to everybody who wants one; they have to assemble a new car for every customer.
It just doesn't make sense to think of an author's job as anything but performing a service.
Granting rights to distributed copies of the story to the author for a period of time is only fair in order to make sure the author gets the reward (s)he desires.
No, I don't think it is fair at all. No one made them write that story, and no one is entitled to have their desires enforced by law. If they want to be compensated for their work, then they can ask for money before they do the work. Barbers don't go around giving haircuts to people who haven't agreed to pay; authors shouldn't go around writing stories before any readers have agreed to pay either.
You do know, that noone is pushing you into buying copyrighted materials but as long as you are not buying you shouldn't get a distributed copy of this material.
The author knows that no one is pushing her into writing copyrighted materials, and that no one has agreed to pay her to write. As long as she is going to write something anyway, she shouldn't expect anyone else to feel an obligation to pay her or obey her demands as to how the finished story may be used.
yeah, right, you gave an analogy: there is a backyard and anyone can just go and dig in there. You are being a hypocrite here, telling me I am using strawman.
Nope. Like I said, anyone can just go and dig there, but they won't turn up anything of value unless they have the skill to know where to look. Translation: anyone can write a story or record a song, but it won't be any good unless they have the skill to know how to do it well. That skill is what's valuable, and the direct application of that skill is what should be rewarded.
I happily pay $12.95 a month for Sirius. It's great to have commercial free music, but more importantly, there are a ton of stations with content I just can't get from local radio. Electronic (trance, big beat, chill), alternative, new wave, 90s, stand-up comedy, reggae, old rap, liberal talk, international news... the list goes on. And on long road trips, it's nice not to have to hunt for new stations as the old ones go out of range.
I haven't been a fan of local FM radio since my favorite stations got bought out and switched to crappy formats, though. I don't see satellite radio as an alternative to terrestrial radio, because I wouldn't be listening to that anyway - I see it as an alternative to downloading music and burning CDs. I thought about setting up internet radio in my car, but the cellular data charges would've been far more than $12.95/month.
What you are still telling me is that your work is equivalent to everyone elses work timewise and thiat is just plain old self-serving BullShit.
Nonsense. Maybe you should stop "reading between the lines" and focus on what I've actually written.
A doctor gets paid more than I do, and I get paid more than a burger flipper or a call center agent. A professional, highly trained hair stylist at an upscale salon gets paid more than the new hire at Fantastic Sam's. We recognize that their work is more valuable because it's more likely to produce better results, and/or because fewer people are able to do that type of work, and we compensate them by paying them more for their time. But they're still paid for their time.
I am not suggesting that everyone's time is worth the same amount. If one person's services are better than another's, then let him ask more for them! That's perfectly fine. What I'm suggesting is that we pay people for the service they provide, rather than hobble ourselves with copyright laws in order to let them charge us for copies of a piece of information as if they were physical products.
That is, you accept money in order to do a job, and then once that job is done, you move on to the next one. You don't ask people to pay you today for something you made 10 years ago and have been milking ever since.
What you were saying is that everyone basically has the same possibility to create the same thing.
No, the only person who said that was you, and you only said it so you could knock it down. That's called a strawman argument.
But say, if there was no JKRowling, I personally don't believe Harry Potter would have ever existed.
Frankly, I think we'd be better off in that case, but that's beside the point.;)
That was a very long comment that can be summarized like so: "I don't believe that people who sacrifice part of their life into researching something/creating something new should get the benefit of temporary copyright monopoly because I want to use the product of their lifes' work now and for free."
And this summary of yours can itself be summarized like so: "Either I'm a troll and I didn't bother reading your comment at all before replying, or I've just discovered that snarky pseudo-summaries are a lot easier to write than actual arguments."
You are telling me that everyone is equivalent, that you can do everything that I can do and that I can do everything that the Rolling Stones can do, well guess what. That is a big load of stinking BS and will always be a big load of stinking BS because it is just false.
You're right, that is a load of BS. Guess what: it's not what I wrote. It's not even remotely related to what I wrote. How about you go back and actually read it this time?
The talent it takes to write/discover a song is scarce and valuable, and the people who have it and use it should be paid. But they should be paid for their time, just like everyone else with a valuable skill - a pilot, a barber, or a mechanic.
My job involves producing copyrightable works, and I'm paid for my time... and you know what? I have no objections to it at all. I get paid for working. If I want to get paid more, I have to work more, which is just as it should be; I can't just keep milking the work I did a few years ago, as some people in the music and movie industries seem to think they should be able to do.
I know what a copyright is, for crying out loud, of-course it is about dictating the way your work is being distributed, I created plenty of copyrighted material myself and some of it is GPLed, which again, means I dictate by the license how the work is to be distributed further.
Sorry for restating the obvious, then. It's just that when you write something like "I personally believe it is immoral to infringe on the rights of the author to distribute his/her work in any way the author desires", there are only two explanations: it's a strawman argument, or you don't know how copyright works. I thought I'd give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter.
Of-course when you create something, you own it, there are no two ways to put it.
That's true for physical objects.. not so true for ideas. Even the law sees a clear distinction between property and copyrighted works. There are many exceptions to copyright (fair use) that don't exist for property rights, there's an expiration date, and there are restrictions on the size of your work. You can't copyright a single word, or a 10 second song, even though they're "creations" just as much as a poem and a full-length song.
Those quote marks are intentional, because there's a strong argument to be made that information is not created at all; it's discovered. An MP3 file is essentially a long number, and when you feed it into an MP3 player, a song comes out... but no one put that song into the number. You'd hear the same song when you fed that number into the player, no matter what. The work that the musician did to write and record the song simply lets you know what the number is.
Suppose you have an infinitely large back yard, and somewhere in that yard, you know there's a buried treasure chest. Obviously you can't just dig up the whole yard and look for it, because it's too big. One day, someone comes along who has the necessary skills to locate the treasure chest, so he goes into your back yard with a dowsing rod and digs it up. Now, he's done you a great service--you couldn't possibly have gotten that treasure by yourself--and so you should pay him for helping you out. But he doesn't own it, and he'd be out of line to tell you how you could spend the money.
Now suppose that it's no one's back yard. It's a Platonic back yard that just exists without ownership, the same one where the laws of physics and the rules of mathematics are stored (in a little shed by the pump house). Suppose also that the treasure is limitless: you can take out handful after handful of gold coins and never reach the bottom. How could anyone claim to own the treasure? What justification would anyone have for denying his neighbor access to it?
Information is copyable, but that is my point: I don't infringe on others' copyrights and that's how I expect to be treated. Those who do not observe this are not moral in my view. Get it?
You're free to hold whatever views you like, but that doesn't mean anyone else has to abide by them. You can also choose to abide by others' copyrights, but again, that doesn't mean they have to do the same for yours; the Golden Rule doesn't say "do unto others so that they'll be obligated to do the same unto you".
I have never let concerns about copyright law stop me from doing anything. In my view, the immoral ones are those who wish to stifle the flow of information, prevent people from sharing their favorite experiences with their friends, and dictate to others what they may do with their own equipment (or what kinds of equipment they can make, or what kinds of software they can write) simply because they don't want to give up control.
Yes, should implies a moral position, and I personally believe it is immoral to infringe on the rights of the author to distribute his/her work in any way the author desires.
You've got it backwards. Copyright isn't about letting the author distribute his works; it's about letting the author dictate to others how they may distribute them.
I don't see how it is moral for anyone in the world to believe that someone's life's work is their personal toy they can screw with in every possible way.
Just because you put effort into something doesn't mean that you own it, or that you're guaranteed a profit, or that you're even guaranteed a chance to profit from it. Information (including books, music, movies, software, etc.) is inherently copyable, just like water is inherently wet; perhaps the people who are worried about their life's work being copied should've chosen to dedicate their lives to something a little less copyable.
If you're paying $3 per megabyte for cellular data, you're getting screwed.
Mine is billed by the minute and comes out to between $0.17 and $0.54 per megabyte (assuming 100 kbps on average), depending on whether I'm using my plan minutes or overage minutes. And that's just during the day - it's free between 9:00 PM and 6:00 AM every day, all day Saturday and Sunday, and on holidays.
Slashdot Mirror
I pay an addition $19.99 for unlimited EDGE Gprs service. My monthly bill comes to about $70.00, which I feel is pretty good for the number of minutes, and the unlimited internet access. I use approximately 2000 minutes a month, with heavy emphasis on nights and mobile-to-mobile. I use ~40 megs per month of date transfer.
Hmm. My monthly bill with Verizon is around $60, which includes 450 peak minutes, unlimited N/W and mobile-to-mobile, and 250 text messages. Data is billed using the same minutes as voice, so it's unlimited as long as I mainly use it at night or on weekends.
The only 3G option we have here at the moment is EVDO, which is fairly expensive, and requires you to sign with Verizon, whom I hate.
1xRTT is considered a 3G technology (as part of CDMA2000), even though it tops out at 144 kbps. You can use it basically anywhere in the country with either Verizon or Sprint.
I assume you meant "can't", but in fact you can. From the Constitution:
Buying a single track from ITune maybe somewhat inconvenient because you have to convert the music to a different format, but it does provide you with an alternative to not having respect for the author's copyrights.
;)
Why should I go out of my way, spending money and wasting time, just to serve your ideals?
No, I don't have respect for the author's copyrights. You seem to think that's a bad thing, but to me, it's no worse than having no respect for the tenets of any other ideology or religion I don't follow. If a vegan tells me "Sure, it might be harder to plan nutritious meals made only of vegetables, but it does provide you with an alternative to having to eat meat," then I'm just going to laugh, because I see nothing wrong with eating meat - doing things his way is just a lot of work for no benefit. If a strict Christian tells me "It may be inconvenient to get your shopping done during the week, but it does provide you with an alternative to breaking the sabbath", same thing. I don't need an alternative to something that works just fine.
You think you have absolute rights to free speech
I said no such thing. I don't think I have the right to lie about a product I'm selling, or falsely claim there's a fire in a crowded theater, etc. There are times when other concerns, such as protecting the public from fraud and stampedes, outweigh free speech. Putting money in an individual's pocket just isn't one of them.
Distributing copyrighted materials without a license agreement will bring out those consequences.
In other words, illegal copying is illegal. Thanks for the tip, Matlock.
I don't see how you personally get anything by being allowed to distribute other's copyrighted materials illegally
I get to share the things I enjoy with my friends, family, and the public. Have you never done such a thing? Have you never wanted to take your loved ones to a movie you've enjoyed, or invite them to join you in a favorite hobby? Have you never recommended something to a stranger? Sharing your favorite music, movies, software, books, etc. is just one step better - instead of pointing someone to the store where they can find the stuff you enjoy, and maybe actually enjoy it themselves if they have the money, you can give it to them directly.
I also get to base my own works on others'. I get to make remixes, mash-ups, and other interesting works that build upon the work of others to form something unique. I get to write software that uses existing code instead of reinventing the wheel. I don't have to let an author's concerns about how his work was "meant" to be used get in the way of producing something that will enrich the lives of myself and others.
So, who is stopping thousands of people from hiring an author to write a book?
The authors themselves, probably. It's hard work to find customers. Who wants to actually find someone who'll agree to pay you for your work, when instead, you can just do the work and then use the power of government to punish people who don't pay?
If mechanics, barbers, physicists, janitors, and others could get away with doing the same thing, you can bet they would. And if they could keep charging royalties on the one car they fixed or the one floor they mopped 20 years ago, they'd do that too. Unfortunately for them, they don't have the same powerful lobbies on their side.
But I don't understand how are we supposed to get any original ideas from authors, whose only business model under your rule would be to write for hire?
The same way we get original ideas for car designs, architecture, etc.: hire someone with a good imagination.
ITunes sells music by track, which is convenient and legal.
Legal, yes. Convenient, no. I can't play those files anywhere but on my computer unless I want to jump through hoops, and I hardly ever listen to music at my computer. One of those hoops (HYMN/DeDRMS) is illegal, another (burning and re-ripping) is inconvenient, another (buying a music player with a picture of an apple on it) is both inconvenient and costly.
Free speech does not apply when other peoples rights are infringed.
Of course it does. Even the cliched prohibition against falsely shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is recognized as a restriction of free speech. Such limitations are acceptable when necessary for something very important... but I don't believe enabling someone to make a buck without changing his business model is important enough to stifle free speech.
And, of course, you presume that these other people actually have the right to profit by selling copies.
People generally cannot afford a book that costs tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars. (depends on the amount of time and research it takes to write something.)
Sigh... go back and read what I wrote. A thousand people paying $10 each will raise just as much money as a single person paying $10,000. We have a great tool now called the internet, which like-minded people can use to find each other and pool their money toward a common goal - such as funding a campaign for a political candidate they all support, or paying an author to write a book they all want to read.
With no details of your service provider or phone model, one can only assume your phone is broken, or you live at the bottom of a volcano. Most people don't have trouble with dropped calls.
You buy it sometimes, most likely this has to do with convenience.
Did you miss the part where I gave you the actual reasons why I've bought CDs?
Downloading music is generally more convenient than buying CDs. I can do it from home, without spending any money, and it's already in a format that I can use on my PC, laptop, DVD player, TiVo, and car.
Purchasing a CD, on the other hand, means driving (which in the winter means putting on a hat and coat and scraping ice off my car), spending money, and then what do I have? Maybe I get lucky and it's a CD with no DRM, in which case it's still less convenient than an MP3 file. If I want to play it, I have to find the CD, take it out of its case, and replace the CD that's already in there with the one I want to hear. I can make MP3 files from it, but that takes a while and only leaves me with exactly what I could've gotten by downloading it in the first place. If it has DRM, I have to worry about whether I'll be able to play it everywhere that I want to, rip it, or return it if I end up not being able to use it.
I don't buy the 'free speech' argument at all. It definitely does not apply, since it infringes on other peoples rights.
That's fine, because I'm not selling it. It's obvious that copyright restricts speech - if I can be sued or arrested for sending you a file, singing you a song, or reading you a poem, that's a limit on my speech. Your latter sentence presumes that other people actually have the right to limit my speech for their own financial gain.
On the other hand I can see how musicians can be compensated for live shows, but I absolutely don't see how book writers, software developers, movie producers can be compensated properly for their work, when it is, again - worthless and useful to the consumers.
It's very simple. It's the same way anyone else gets paid.
Author: "Would you like me to write a book? It'll cost you $X. I don't care whether the money comes from one person or a million people, as long as I get paid. Agree to pay me and I'll start writing."
Readers: "Yes, please."
I never said the product becomes useless. That would mean noone wants to download it and use it, and that is not the kind of product I am arguing about here.
My mistake again - that "not" crept in there while I wasn't looking. I meant "worthless, but still useful".
(who as I repeatedely insisted have no real moral views and don't have respect for the author,)
You would do well to stop repeating this falsehood. I, and anyone else who shares my views or knows someone who does, can see right through it - I have moral views, they just don't all line up with yours (although I'm sure most of them do).
Under these circumstances, even those who would normally pay for these products will not have an incentive to pay to the publishers/author any longer, given that the book became worthless - freely available through multiple illegal distribution channels.
I don't think that's entirely true. I've bought CDs and DVDs, for example, even though I could easily have downloaded the content for free and burned my own. In some cases it's because I want to reward the artists, and that's the most convenient way to do it; in others, it's because I'm giving a gift, and a well-packaged disc that I spent my hard-earned cash on is a more thoughtful gift than a CD-R labeled in Sharpie.
You cannot argue against this simple fact: given the moral set of the consumers, the only 'correct' price for any material available through the Internet is 0$ (plus a couple of cents for the download bandwidth.)
Indeed, I won't argue against that. That's exactly why I argue that artists should be compensated directly for the work they do - because the copyright system we have now is working less and less each year, there's no feasible way to fix it, and without it, it becomes impossible to make a living doing this thing that people obviously want to see done (and are willing to spend money on) unless we change the model under which they get paid. Paying artists directly for their time means allows them to make money doing what they do, without having to stifle anyone else's free speech.
your are backing up from your original statement that noone wants to see your movies and your statues.
That wasn't what I meant, but looking back, I see that I did use the words "no one wants to see them, because there are better movies out there". My mistake, I should've said "no one wants to pay to see them". And even then, I could probably find some people to watch my crappy movies or look at my bizarre statue for, say, 10 cents... but I'm never going to make up my production costs at that rate. Sounds to me like what I need is a government monopoly.
Your stuff is still useless if noone would pay for it given your distribution monopoly provided to you by the copyright law. Just because some people would want to see it for free, does not mean that your stuff is useful. People want to get their hands on useful stuff even if it costs money.
Now you're contradicting your own argument. Earlier, you said freely available copyrighted material is worthless, but not useful - but now you're saying that if it's useful, people are willing to pay for it, which means it has economic worth. So which is it?
If the problem is simply that people are willing to pay less than the copyright holders want them to, then why do they deserve my sympathy (and government-enforced monopolies) any more than I deserve theirs when no one wants to pay me $500 to look at the Mr. T statue? Why is it OK if I never pay back my loans because no one will pay the prices I'm asking, but if an author or musician has trouble paying off his loans because others are offering the same product at a lower price, now the government has to step in and stifle my speech for his benefit?
My point was that a good author that provides a product that is useful enough for people to want to pay for it will suffer loss of temporary distribution monopoly when his work is 'shared' living him outside of the distribution loop.
If people want to pay for it, what's the problem? I'd say the price they're willing to pay is, by definition, exactly what the product is worth, and if that price is lower than what it costs to make the product, then the producers' business model has failed. They can cut their costs, increase the usefulness of their product, or just pack up and find another business where they can produce a product that sells for more than it costs to make.
certainly the materials over the radio waves are provided for use, not for distribution.
So I suppose it's OK with you if someone downloads a song from a P2P service, as long as he only uses it and doesn't redistribute it. (If the fact that he's creating a local copy upsets you, suppose he streams it from another peer without saving a copy.)
After all, he isn't a party to any license agreements, so it doesn't matter from his perspective whether the person providing him with the song is licensed or not. Whether he's using a radio or a computer, he just presses a button and it starts playing music.
I don't need to convice you or anyone of this, this is not essential to the discussion, it is my observation on the nature of the people who do not value others' work/input/creativity and don't give them respect, even though they distribute their works.
I see. So, in other words, you don't care whether or not you are right, or whether anyone else believes you're right - it's enough for you to plug your ears and tell yourself that you know you're right about them dirty ol' number thieves, and ain't no one gonna change your mind with no "facts".
Creative ideas are easily copied, your example with the statue just shows that you can't find anyone who cares to look at it, so it is a USELESS PRODUCT. [claim repeated later about my hypothetical crappy movies]
No, surely there are a few Mr. T fans and B-movie fans who would be willing to look at it for free; they simply aren't willing to pay for it (or at least to pay me enough so that I can pay off all those loans). Just like the people who download music illegally for free because they aren't willing to pay the asking price for it. The product has a use, but its economic value is nearly zero.
It is very relevant, the radio stations are licensing the information from the copyright holders, this is why they can distribute that information over the radio waves. You are a listener and do not have a license to distribute this information, but you have the privilege of listening to the radio.
/. comments to illegaly redistributing copyrighted materials.
/.)
The terms of the license are irrelevant to listeners. The license is an agreement between the broadcaster and the artist; the listener is out of the loop entirely. Listeners just turn on their radios and voila, the artists' precious ideas are delivered to them for free. As you yourself stated, those ideas are the important part, and once they're given away, they can't be taken back.
You are an author of the comment, you left it on the public forum where anyone can read it, and where it is understood, that the information on this forum is left by the original author for everyone to use. [...] since you are providing me with your comments on the public forum, which clearly operates in an open way, and you are aware of the way it operates, you are giving me the right to read the comment.
So, are the creators of copyrighted works unaware of how radios and books operate? Do they not realize that anyone will be able to walk into a store and read the content of their book, or turn on a radio and listen to their songs? Because if they're worried about people getting access to their ideas without paying, they should really know that already.
I am certain that you are not that stupid, to compare reading
Look, either an author's intent is what determines how others may use his writings, or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.
I am certain that people who today download mp3s without care in the world, would just as readily use some untraceable electronic means of invasion of my private appartment if they were certain that there would be no punishment. You can't give me any arguments that refute my certainty, I have seen people like that, talked to them and I am certain that I am correct.
Uh huh. See, I've talked to people who would not do such a thing. I'm one of them myself. I'm equally certain that I am correct. How do you plan to convince anyone that folks like me are in the minority?
I know people who spent years of their lifes working on some idea, a few musicians and software developers, who are creating stuff that people want. A couple of them take out bank loans just to get buy during those pennyless times. If those guys don't get return on investment, they are toast.
Then the business they've chosen to enter is on pretty shaky ground.
Maybe I want to spend years of my life working on a giant statue of Mr. T. Maybe I take out a bank loan just to get by during those penniless times. If I don't get a return on my investment, I'm toast. Well... so what? All that proves is that I was a fool to do all that work without finding someone who'd agree to pay me for it.
Or maybe I want to spend years of my life making crappy movies, but no one wants to see them, because there are much better movies out there from better filmmakers. If I can't get people to see my movies, I'm toast... but if I could just prevent everyone else from making films, I'd be the only game in town, and I'd be able to pay back those huge loans. Does that mean I'm entitled to a monopoly on the art of filmmaking?
Of course not. You can wish for something as hard as you can, you can dedicate your life to any cause you want, but just because you've put yourself in a bad position doesn't mean you're entitled to a government monopoly to help bail you out.
I am afraid that they are wrong, seing this kind of attitude from people (out of all places, on
Don't act so surprised to see arguments like mine on Slashdot; it's one of the easiest places to find anti-copyright arguments on the net. I think it's because so many of the poster
So, pick an age and dry your eyes; you'll be past that barrier and looking back soon enough. And I say that with the experience of age ;)
That sounds awfully patronizing; I hope I've only misunderstood you.
I've passed all the age restrictions that matter (I don't plan on running for president anytime soon), and looking back at them, they don't seem any more reasonable than they did when I was on the other side.
They don't directly affect me, but frankly I think it's vile that so many people are willing to look the other way the moment they stop being directly affected. "If I had to put up with it, and I lived through it, then it's good enough for the next generation to put up with too," they say. That is the self-reinforcing nature of age restrictions.
I don't know how old you are, but you claim to be working, so you should know by now that the radio pays every time they play a song, every time they read an audio book. They pay for the license. Every freaking time. So do the TV channels for showing movies.
Yes, quite true, and quite irrelevant. The fact is, that music is being broadcast to thousands of people. The ideas in that music, which you yourself have said are the important part, are being given away for free to the people who listen to the radio.
The fact that the radio station is paying has no impact on the people who are actually receiving those ideas for free in their cars and homes. If the artists are really so concerned about having their ideas given away, they should drop whatever it is they're doing and get this radio problem fixed right away.
This is a discussion forum, people participate in a discussion. You just changed the rules under which this forum operates, that is ONE.
So what if it's a forum? Radio is a medium people use to broadcast words and music. The internet is a medium people use to share information. Photocopiers are devices used to copy printed pages.
Surely you don't believe it's all right to copy anything you want just because you have a copier. Why should it be all right to do it just because you're looking at a forum? I thought you were saying it was the author's intent, not the medium, that mattered.
I am reading them where YOU LEFT THEM and NOT making a copy, NOT giving your comments to anyone, not even going to remember what you said here an hour from now.
There's a copy in your computer's memory. There's a copy on your screen. Either you're about to send me a check for a million bucks, or you're disrespecting my intent. The solution is just to admit that you're under no obligation to respect my intent, because I don't own these words any more than I own the number 2001.
What an asshole you are, comparing your stinking comments to a book, this is beyond words.
Isn't it funny that I'm the one remaining calm, and you're the one who's been reduced to name-calling? I guess it must be frustrating for you to try to defend your bankrupt philosophy of hoarding.
The way you can ENCODE a book does not change the fact, that it is not the encoding that is protected, it is the idea that is supposed to be protected from being illegally distributed in any encoding, in any form.
The words themselves are just an encoding of an idea. Of course, copyright law doesn't protect the idea--I can sell a cartoon about a mouse who runs a steamboat, as long as it isn't Steamboat Willie--it only protects some of the expressions of that idea.
I contend that the song, and the number that represents an encoded version of it, are equivalent. The law agrees with me: if you hold the copyright to a song, your legal monopoly covers the audio performance of that song as well as the numbers that represent it as an MP3, an OGG, a WAV, etc.
But I am certain, that if there was a way to commit more crimes electronically, say have things disappear from my appartment, or have people being killed electronically with very little chance of punishment many many many more people would do those things, and those who have shown lack of respect for other people's copyrights would be (I am sure) the first to engage in that behaviour.
You'd be wrong, but hey, it's a free country. You can be as certain about your wrong opinions as you want.
of-course it is depriving the author of the natural monopoly. That is the truth of the matter and you can't deny that.
Since you've provided no proof that anyone deserves a "natural monopoly" over the words they write.. yes, I think I can deny that. You may have a gut feeling that it just ain't fair that someone else can use the same words you wrote, but I'm afraid that won't convince anyone who doesn't share your gut feelings.
oh, I see, placing books on stores' bookshelves means giving everyone free access to items without paying.
/. post of mine is as follows: if your user ID is 125474, then by reading this post, or making a copy in your computer's memory, you agree to pay me... ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
You said yourself that the ideas inside are what counts. If reading a book aloud in front of an audience is giving it away, then so is placing the book on a library shelf where anyone can read it for free. If copying some music for your friend is giving it away, then so is broadcasting it over the radio for thousands of listeners to hear.
If you want to keep your ideas to yourself, there's a foolproof way to do it: don't tell anyone about them. Once you give them away, they're out of your control.
We only respect our desire to copy everything around us without paying attention to the rules, under which the author released this highly copyable product.
So the author's intent creates an obligation on the part of everyone who wants to read it, huh?
OK then. The rule under which I'm releasing this highly copyable
Something tells me you're not going to respect my intent. Gosh, maybe I should've gotten you to agree to those terms first before I made this post available to the public.
Obviously everyone knows that the digital representations of ideas are easily and basically freely copyable, so who cares that the author did not authorize these copies to be distributed.
Thank you, that's exactly my point. You don't need anyone's blessing to use the number 1, or the number 123, or the number 8675309. I just gave you copies of those 3 numbers (oops, there's another one), and I didn't need to get anyone's permission first. Why should anyone need "authorization" to use a 5 million digit number that happens to encode a song?
Probably that's the real reason - many people are just thieves by nature and only the difficulty of stealing, difficulties with the law, and actually the required physical presence of that physical act is the only thing that is stopping them.
Nonsense. If you think any significant fraction of the people who use P2P file sharing would be willing to actually steal things in real life, even if it were easy and undetectable, you're deluding yourself. They know that if they took something out of your apartment, you wouldn't have it anymore. They understand the difference between information and physical property. Why don't you?
Once everyone and their mother has a copy of this product, there is no appearence of scarcity and the product becomes worthless. It does not become useless though, that's why many people still want a copy, but in their eyes it is worthless because it is basically free for them.
Yes, it becomes economically worthless, but that isn't depriving anyone. Sunlight is plentiful during the day and scarce at night, but does that mean someone goes broke every night because their sunlight portfolio becomes worthless? Of course not. What you fail to acknowledge is that numbers don't have owners. A change in their economic value does not deprive anyone of anything.
These people are in fact depriving the author of a monopoly
Since he's not entitled to any monopoly in the first place, I don't see a problem with that.
That's a different argument from saying there's no line at all.
You don't need much of an argument to prove that claim; it's obvious if you think about it for a moment. Human growth is a continuum, everyone develops at a different rate, and there's no way to draw a line that won't leave some adults labeled "children" or some children labeled "adults". Furthermore, human growth doesn't only proceed along a single axis: one person might be capable of voting or holding office but not handling alcohol, while another might be the reverse.
Sure, we can choose to draw a line in law because it's simple and objective, but we're trading away accuracy, and therefore justice.
The principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty is important enough to us that we go to the trouble of having trials, even in cases where statistics might show that the defendant is probably guilty. I believe guaranteeing everyone's rights is also important enough to go to the trouble of determining, on an individual basis, whether a given person is ready for various rights and responsibilities.
And just as guaranteeing an innocent man's freedom is important enough to let a guilty man go when there's no evidence to convict him, I believe guaranteeing an adult's freedom is also important enough to allow minors to vote (for example) when there's not enough evidence to prove they're immature.
Oh, were supposed to make programming easier for people who don't understand computers.
Er... I, for one, understand computers just fine, and I'm quite capable of writing manual bounds checks in C, Delphi, and other languages where they're needed. But using a language where they aren't needed makes things easier for me and every other programmer.
Catching bounds check exceptions at a few key points in the application is easier to remember and less tedious to implement than checking by hand every time you access an array. It's also less likely to end badly when someone screws up - if an exception goes uncaught in C# or Java, the program just crashes, but if a buffer access goes unchecked in C, the program is open to exploitation.
A book is a product - it is paper with words printed on it. You can burn it, you can resell it. Just like any other product.
You know what else I can do with any other product? Put it in a photocopier and give the resulting pages to my friends. I can take a picture of it and put that on my web site for everyone to see. I can go on stage in front of a crowd of thousands and show it to everyone who's interested. But oh wait, books get special treatment, because apparently it's just too much to expect authors to ask for payment before they do their work like everyone else.
If it was possible to just buy a car and copy it and give it to everyone around you without paying for the effort of the engineers, investors, who spent decades and billions of dollars designing/developing these products, I assume you would take the same pose - "anyone can just come and dig", "they shouldn't be building a business model out of engineering these cars that I can copy and give or sell so easily."
It is, in fact, possible to buy a car and copy it (although it's a hell of a lot of work, so no one bothers), and yes, I do take the same position. If you want to buy a Honda Accord, study how it works, duplicate all the parts, reassemble them into a new car, and sell it, then you have my blessing - as long as you don't try to claim that it was built by Honda, or deny that it was based on someone else's design. Just because someone else designed it doesn't mean they get to dictate to you, or anyone else, what you may do with it.
I am certain of one thing: if copying actual objects was as easy as copying information, we wouldn't have engineers who would design cars for decades, going to work, often doing very boring, time consuming stressful work and knowing that once they are done, and once they sell one car all of that work would give them no return on all that investment.
I believe we would. Even if we ignored all the advantages that the original manufacturer would have--such as production lines and supply chains that are already geared up to begin mass-producing the new car before any competitor even knew about it--even in that case, all they'd have to do is charge enough for that first car to offset all their costs. Selling one car for $1 billion is just as good as selling 100,000 cars for $10,000 each. Of course, individual drivers wouldn't buy a billion-dollar car, but if it's a good enough design, other car manufacturers would buy one just so they could reverse engineer it and resell it on their own.
I don't see authors running around, forcing you to take their software/books/music/movies/whatever and then forcing you to (god forbid) pay for their work. What a load of bullshit is in your head.
Yawn... I don't see consumers running around, forcing authors to write software/books/music/movies/whatever before anyone has agreed to pay for them, and then forcing them to (god forbid) play them on the radio, place them on bookshelves, etc. where everyone will have free access to them without paying. What a load of bullshit is in your head.
Let's just name things appropriately: people don't dig, they create ideas.
Now you're begging the question. Remember, songs aren't created, they already exist. Every song has at least one corresponding number (the representation as an MP3 file, WAV file, or whatever), and the existence of all numbers is implied by the rules of mathematics. You can't "create" a song, and its corresponding number, any more than you can "create" the largest known prime or the number of grains of sand in Daytona Beach. All you can do is discover which numbers correspond to songs that people want to hear.
There are those of us who believe they are entitled to use those ideas in any way they see fit just by virtue of the fact that they can easily copy them.
The ease of copying has nothing to do with it. What matters is that copying doesn't deprive anyone of anything. That is the fundamental difference betw
A spokesperson said "It is a basic fact that any adult who says someone under the age of 17 can't do something is a fucking fascist bastard and should be hunted down like a dog."
You were being satirical, of course, but you've hit upon a grain of truth: most of the restrictions placed upon young people have no basis in fact. There is no evidence, for example, that choosing to play violent video games or view pornography are harmful to minors - a lot of people have the gut feeling that they are, but go ahead, try to find some actual scientific data to prove it.
There is no evidence that 18 is a better choice for the voting age than 16 or 21, no evidence that 16 is a better choice for the driving age than 14 or 18, and no evidence that 21 is a better choice for the drinking age than 18 or 30. There is no evidence to back up the legal requirements that the President be 35 years old, Senators be 30 years old, and Representatives be 25 years old.
All these restrictions are essentially based on no more than gut feelings, some of them going back hundreds of years. Look at how far medicine, science, and even other areas of the law have evolved since then. Isn't it about time to reconsider where we've drawn the line between "adult" and "child", and the rights and responsibilities associated with them?
but people who create ideas, write books etc., they didn't provide you with the service. They did not print the book themselves, they did not create the film, on which the movie is printed. They created an idea.
That is the service. Writing a book is providing a service, just like performing research or filling out tax forms. If I'm able to enjoy a book or a song because of the work someone did, then they've provided a service to me (and to everyone else who enjoys it).
If, as you seem to think, they are selling a product, then how come the people who pay for it don't take ownership of it? And how can you possibly create something once and then sell that one thing to thousands of customers? Car manufacturers can't just "create a car" in some office and then sell it to everybody who wants one; they have to assemble a new car for every customer.
It just doesn't make sense to think of an author's job as anything but performing a service.
Granting rights to distributed copies of the story to the author for a period of time is only fair in order to make sure the author gets the reward (s)he desires.
No, I don't think it is fair at all. No one made them write that story, and no one is entitled to have their desires enforced by law. If they want to be compensated for their work, then they can ask for money before they do the work. Barbers don't go around giving haircuts to people who haven't agreed to pay; authors shouldn't go around writing stories before any readers have agreed to pay either.
You do know, that noone is pushing you into buying copyrighted materials but as long as you are not buying you shouldn't get a distributed copy of this material.
The author knows that no one is pushing her into writing copyrighted materials, and that no one has agreed to pay her to write. As long as she is going to write something anyway, she shouldn't expect anyone else to feel an obligation to pay her or obey her demands as to how the finished story may be used.
yeah, right, you gave an analogy: there is a backyard and anyone can just go and dig in there. You are being a hypocrite here, telling me I am using strawman.
Nope. Like I said, anyone can just go and dig there, but they won't turn up anything of value unless they have the skill to know where to look. Translation: anyone can write a story or record a song, but it won't be any good unless they have the skill to know how to do it well. That skill is what's valuable, and the direct application of that skill is what should be rewarded.
I happily pay $12.95 a month for Sirius. It's great to have commercial free music, but more importantly, there are a ton of stations with content I just can't get from local radio. Electronic (trance, big beat, chill), alternative, new wave, 90s, stand-up comedy, reggae, old rap, liberal talk, international news... the list goes on. And on long road trips, it's nice not to have to hunt for new stations as the old ones go out of range.
I haven't been a fan of local FM radio since my favorite stations got bought out and switched to crappy formats, though. I don't see satellite radio as an alternative to terrestrial radio, because I wouldn't be listening to that anyway - I see it as an alternative to downloading music and burning CDs. I thought about setting up internet radio in my car, but the cellular data charges would've been far more than $12.95/month.
XM has about 5 million subscribers, and Sirius now has 3 million (thanks to Howard Stern). That's pretty significant.
What you are still telling me is that your work is equivalent to everyone elses work timewise and thiat is just plain old self-serving BullShit.
;)
Nonsense. Maybe you should stop "reading between the lines" and focus on what I've actually written.
A doctor gets paid more than I do, and I get paid more than a burger flipper or a call center agent. A professional, highly trained hair stylist at an upscale salon gets paid more than the new hire at Fantastic Sam's. We recognize that their work is more valuable because it's more likely to produce better results, and/or because fewer people are able to do that type of work, and we compensate them by paying them more for their time. But they're still paid for their time.
I am not suggesting that everyone's time is worth the same amount. If one person's services are better than another's, then let him ask more for them! That's perfectly fine. What I'm suggesting is that we pay people for the service they provide, rather than hobble ourselves with copyright laws in order to let them charge us for copies of a piece of information as if they were physical products.
That is, you accept money in order to do a job, and then once that job is done, you move on to the next one. You don't ask people to pay you today for something you made 10 years ago and have been milking ever since.
What you were saying is that everyone basically has the same possibility to create the same thing.
No, the only person who said that was you, and you only said it so you could knock it down. That's called a strawman argument.
But say, if there was no JKRowling, I personally don't believe Harry Potter would have ever existed.
Frankly, I think we'd be better off in that case, but that's beside the point.
That was a very long comment that can be summarized like so: "I don't believe that people who sacrifice part of their life into researching something/creating something new should get the benefit of temporary copyright monopoly because I want to use the product of their lifes' work now and for free."
And this summary of yours can itself be summarized like so: "Either I'm a troll and I didn't bother reading your comment at all before replying, or I've just discovered that snarky pseudo-summaries are a lot easier to write than actual arguments."
You are telling me that everyone is equivalent, that you can do everything that I can do and that I can do everything that the Rolling Stones can do, well guess what. That is a big load of stinking BS and will always be a big load of stinking BS because it is just false.
You're right, that is a load of BS. Guess what: it's not what I wrote. It's not even remotely related to what I wrote. How about you go back and actually read it this time?
The talent it takes to write/discover a song is scarce and valuable, and the people who have it and use it should be paid. But they should be paid for their time, just like everyone else with a valuable skill - a pilot, a barber, or a mechanic.
My job involves producing copyrightable works, and I'm paid for my time... and you know what? I have no objections to it at all. I get paid for working. If I want to get paid more, I have to work more, which is just as it should be; I can't just keep milking the work I did a few years ago, as some people in the music and movie industries seem to think they should be able to do.
I know what a copyright is, for crying out loud, of-course it is about dictating the way your work is being distributed, I created plenty of copyrighted material myself and some of it is GPLed, which again, means I dictate by the license how the work is to be distributed further.
Sorry for restating the obvious, then. It's just that when you write something like "I personally believe it is immoral to infringe on the rights of the author to distribute his/her work in any way the author desires", there are only two explanations: it's a strawman argument, or you don't know how copyright works. I thought I'd give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter.
Of-course when you create something, you own it, there are no two ways to put it.
That's true for physical objects.. not so true for ideas. Even the law sees a clear distinction between property and copyrighted works. There are many exceptions to copyright (fair use) that don't exist for property rights, there's an expiration date, and there are restrictions on the size of your work. You can't copyright a single word, or a 10 second song, even though they're "creations" just as much as a poem and a full-length song.
Those quote marks are intentional, because there's a strong argument to be made that information is not created at all; it's discovered. An MP3 file is essentially a long number, and when you feed it into an MP3 player, a song comes out... but no one put that song into the number. You'd hear the same song when you fed that number into the player, no matter what. The work that the musician did to write and record the song simply lets you know what the number is.
Suppose you have an infinitely large back yard, and somewhere in that yard, you know there's a buried treasure chest. Obviously you can't just dig up the whole yard and look for it, because it's too big. One day, someone comes along who has the necessary skills to locate the treasure chest, so he goes into your back yard with a dowsing rod and digs it up. Now, he's done you a great service--you couldn't possibly have gotten that treasure by yourself--and so you should pay him for helping you out. But he doesn't own it, and he'd be out of line to tell you how you could spend the money.
Now suppose that it's no one's back yard. It's a Platonic back yard that just exists without ownership, the same one where the laws of physics and the rules of mathematics are stored (in a little shed by the pump house). Suppose also that the treasure is limitless: you can take out handful after handful of gold coins and never reach the bottom. How could anyone claim to own the treasure? What justification would anyone have for denying his neighbor access to it?
Information is copyable, but that is my point: I don't infringe on others' copyrights and that's how I expect to be treated. Those who do not observe this are not moral in my view. Get it?
You're free to hold whatever views you like, but that doesn't mean anyone else has to abide by them. You can also choose to abide by others' copyrights, but again, that doesn't mean they have to do the same for yours; the Golden Rule doesn't say "do unto others so that they'll be obligated to do the same unto you".
I have never let concerns about copyright law stop me from doing anything. In my view, the immoral ones are those who wish to stifle the flow of information, prevent people from sharing their favorite experiences with their friends, and dictate to others what they may do with their own equipment (or what kinds of equipment they can make, or what kinds of software they can write) simply because they don't want to give up control.
Yes, should implies a moral position, and I personally believe it is immoral to infringe on the rights of the author to distribute his/her work in any way the author desires.
You've got it backwards. Copyright isn't about letting the author distribute his works; it's about letting the author dictate to others how they may distribute them.
I don't see how it is moral for anyone in the world to believe that someone's life's work is their personal toy they can screw with in every possible way.
Just because you put effort into something doesn't mean that you own it, or that you're guaranteed a profit, or that you're even guaranteed a chance to profit from it. Information (including books, music, movies, software, etc.) is inherently copyable, just like water is inherently wet; perhaps the people who are worried about their life's work being copied should've chosen to dedicate their lives to something a little less copyable.
If you're paying $3 per megabyte for cellular data, you're getting screwed.
Mine is billed by the minute and comes out to between $0.17 and $0.54 per megabyte (assuming 100 kbps on average), depending on whether I'm using my plan minutes or overage minutes. And that's just during the day - it's free between 9:00 PM and 6:00 AM every day, all day Saturday and Sunday, and on holidays.