A "Computer Scientist" is reinventing things that another company did, where the works are copyrighted for 90 years, and obsolete in 5 years. Open-source is all about reinventing things in a way where the "Intellectual Property" Barriers are reduced. A Chemical engineer is helping the company look for the most profit effective drugs, and then charge as much as the patients can pay, with less regard to helping society. A Musician that had a really big hit may never innovate again, as they struck the lazy lottery, and perhaps the grandchildren don't need to work for things either. New technologies for sharing information are attacked and often forced to stop development, as this sharing is a threat to the business model of those that broker information. Long dead book authors works could have benefited society by falling in the public domain. But in an effort to protect Mickey Mouse for yet another 20 year extension, much information bystandards are falling away in usefulness and possibly lost.
If the publishing and patent monopoly barriers were reduced, innovation could more easily flourish.
As the restrictions and duration of publishing monopolies are increased, the public domain diminishes, and demand for creative-commons, open-source, and other freely distributed works increases.
Perhaps an obvious question. Are you talking about the US here?
Meaning:
1. Modernize Copyright Law - Move away from the Printing press model (Absolute monopoly control of publishing, near-infinite terms, using "DRM" to maintain old model), and towards an Internet model (Information is less restricted, business models must adjust). Meaning shorter copyright monopoly terms, less restrictions, allow non-profit duplication. 2. Business Model - Duplication happens. Abandon DRM. Listen to customer, rather than criminalize. Innovate with new works, rather than trying so hard to milk old ones.
> Digital rights management is essentially a technology mechanism to enforce (or hinder the breaking of) contract law.
Not exactly, as there is usually no binding contract involved.
Should be: "DRM is essentially a technology to enforce restrictions of use."
The restrictions do not align with the law (DRM knows nothing of fair use, or copyright limits). The DRM restrictions do not align to some contract either. These restrictions are a mis-place effort to increase sales from an ill-conceived notion that controlling use and clamping down on copying would increase interest and sales.
Digital Restrictions Mechanism
A 90+ year publishing monopoly, enforced with $500,000 FBI threats is already too much of a restriction. More restrictions are obviously not necessary.
It is really not possible to show how DRM is necessary on legal grounds, starting with the constitutional purpose of copyright. It is really not possible to show how DRM is necessary on moral grounds, showing how it helps the advancement of society.
" After 1 March 1989: 70 years after death of author, or if work of corporate authorship, the shorter of 95 years from publication, or 120 years from creation2"
Since Corporations are corporations have enough power to bring the FBI (or police in your country) to your door with guns, I would tend to focus on them. And they were the ones pushing for the extensions.
A more fitting example is that of the Stationers Company holding a publishing monopoly for much of 2 centuries. The U.S. was founded at a time where freedom from such long-lived monopolies was important.
Unfortunately, Copyright monopolies have been extended from 13 years to 90-120 years.
America was founded not long after the 100+ year publishing monopolies in Europe were dissolved, and the US allowed only a 14 year copyright monopoly.
Now, here we are again. If you want to find a place where you can freely exchange ideas for the sake of advancing science or art, well, the US is not currently that place. If you have a new composition based on Bach, great, but anything based on any work from the last century would be illegal to even give away without paying the owning corporation whatever they demand. And the software that you created is also illegal to give away, because the trivial algorithm you used was patented last year by another information holding company.
It is quite a low point when Information Monopoly "rights" can override the right to open, free and fair elections.
There is really no alternative but to make this software public.
The voting software does not need to be free-software/open-source (though it would be best), but it does need to be public. It is still possible for a company to hold and enforce copyrights on publicly available software.
Any complex compuations that are performed (that they claim to be trade secrets) cannot be trade secrets in a free democracy. These compuations, if wrong comprimise elections.
Since the founding reason for copyright law was to advance science and useful art, has our current copyright law passed a reasonable "limited time" given by the constitution?
Does a 50 year copyright help art and science more than a 25 year copyright? Does a 100 year copyright help science and art more than a 50 year copyright? Does a 500 year copyright help science and art more than a 100 year copyright?
Does the RIAA have some limit it years beyond which it will enforce its copyright monopoly less? Or does RIAA go after duplicaton of a 40 year old song written by now dead artists the same as a song that was bought by a RIAA corporation last week? (all profit is good profit?) If there was some reasonable limit of the copyright enforcement imposed by RIAA, then people may have a little more trust of it.
It was 14 years long for books originally. You should probably look at the motivation for the original laws and compare it against publishing monopoly abuse that existed prior to that.
Are books now so advanced that a 95+ year monopoly is needed to encourage people to write them?
There is no real justification for a monopoly that last a century and/or beyond a persons life-span.
2. it exists for good reason (we couldn't have the GPL without it)
The GPL, Open Source and Creative Commons are reactions to the effective termination of the Public Domain. Specifically, GPL is a reaction to copyright law that does not fit software. Software is obsolete in 10 years, and in 95 years, when public domain, the software is only available in binary form.
3. creators have the right to control the distribution of their works
It's not the "creators" that are worrisome, it is publishing collector companies that expect to buy and "own" information, even of the dead, and profit from it forever.
Creators should expect a system that compensates people for new invention.
There is no eternal publishing right. It was intended to be a temporary monopoly that encouraged people to innovate.
Next, you can limit or warn about following distance.
You could also detect a vehicle following you, and emit some warning brake pattern.
Erratic (swerving due to some distraction/impairment) driving behavior could be detected and warned (perhaps it could switch to safer limits too).
It would be nice if some limits were imposed on the whole auto industry. But companies (and their consumers, and their government) want to have cars that go 200 MPH, even if deaths increase as a result.
Beyond some limits and warnings, to achieve true safety, an entire automated traffic system would be needed. (Open source of course).
These 4500 "artists" know that this 95 years will not create new incentive for them to create or enhance artistic works. (incentive when they are dead?). They know that this only serves to create money-for-nothing for their great-great-grandchildren: Or to create money-for-nothing for the owning corporation. They, themselves are probably also assuming to be rewarded soon for the corporate loyalty.
One casualty here is artistic creation. Innovation incentive for the heirs is limited due to inherited wealth. But in reality, no heirs inherit these "rights". They sold out to some corporation or other individual unrelated to the original work.
The biggest casualty is artistic innovation from adaptation/derivation. Much of innovation builds on the works of others. Such an after-death copyright fights against such innovation.
Instead of fighting the tide, lawmakers should look again at the purpose of copyrights and look at a creating a model that more fits the internet instead of trying to emulate the 500 year old "Stationers" publishing control model.
I would suggest: 1. Use of DRM should be abandoned. It is the governments role to control publishing, not the private company. 2. Copyright length decreased to a length that would encourage innovation from both invention and extension, say 15-50 years (depends on type of work). This should be periodically reviewed by independent groups. 3. Legal, official, and unencumbered "pay per download sites" should be create with reasonable prices and direct payment to the owner. (The owner should be listed to help the consumer making a support/purchase decision). 4. Governments should shut down and block obvious illegal download sites. (Precondition (2) and (3). WIthout (2), there is no moral basis. Without (3), you are kicking the hungry out of the kitchen. 5. non-commercial copies should be allowed. With no DRM, and legal alternatives available, and reasonable copyright limits, there is little need or desire to hunt around on temporary questionable sites.
> 1. If you didn't buy it and it wasn't legitimately given to you, you stole it > 2. I'm not sure what the impact of you listening to a song is on its sales.
In order to "steal" one, would have to take something of value.
The copy of the digital song download itself has no value, as copies are freely made.
What has possible value is the lost revenue that person downloading would have paid.
If a million people in china find out that they can download your song for free, and they do, how much money have you lost. Well, you could look at how many of those people would have paid for it when they did not find it for free. Say 1000 of those million would have paid $1 for it, if they could not get it for free. So on average, each of the million people cost you 1 tenth of a sale, or 10 cents.
Note that now a million people in china heard your song, and if the work is good, the accidental publicity may cause future sales.
Arguing that those million people all "stole" a song from you and cost you 1 million dollars in sales is not realistic.
4. If you steal caviar that you can't afford, or wouldn't otherwise buy, you're still stealing. See #2
Agreed, but if I take a picture of the caviar, (ignoring the sign says no pictures without paying $1 royalty), does the owner of the caviar claim losses due to theft of copies (from those who could not afford to pay)?
(My attempt at a reasonable Caviar-Information comparison.)
5 > Or those with whom the artist made a legal agreement during his/her lifetime. I intend to state in my will that I want my family to inherit the rights to my work, and receive any royalties I would have earned. 6 > Why not? Must a moral person say that legal contracts expire after 30 years or 3 million dollars, whichever came first?
It's not a "legal contract". A copyright is a temporary publishing monopoly, granted by the government to encourage invention/art.
The question is what should that limit be in order to maintain a balance of providing an incentive while encouraging innovation, both for independent works and derived works.
Should the limit be 30 years? Should the limit be 95 years? Should the limit be 200 years? Should the limit be 1000 years?
Would you like it if:
royalties of any copies of Mono Lisa go the the heirs of Leonardo da Vinci.
royalties from Beethoven go to heirs of that family.
royalties from any use of all printed fonts go to the printer that invented it 400 years ago....
Hopefully you would agree that without limits, you end up with a class system with wealth based on information inheritance. (Actually, it would be a little different.The artists or the family often sell out to big companies, and the class system would be based on what your families corporate ties are).
I would argue that we see the ill effects of this even now with a 95-120 year copyright.
I picked 30 years, even though Thomas Jefferson's 14 years would probably work even today. 50 years would be a step in the right direction too.
If I download a song from a questionable site, what happens?
1. I get non-DRM music. 2. I add to the popularity of the music. 3. If I would otherwise have paid $1 for the music, of which the artist would have got 2 cents, then I shorted the artist by 2 cents. And I denied 98 cents profit to a information exploiting company. 4. If I would not have otherwise paid for it (because I am poor, or because it is only available as DRM), then then I have shorted no-one, thought If I did not download it, the song would not gain in popularity. 5. If the artist is dead, then It is not possible to short the artist, only possible to short those that wish to make a living from the work of the dead. 6. If the artist wrote it 30 years ago and already made millions from it, then there is no moral reason to continue penny payments to the artists, or dollar payments to the company exploiting old works.
Information is very important, and is not something that only the rich should have. It allows people to learn, live and build a better life, and innovate even better living solutions.
In our society, there exists an "Information Commons", which is available to everyone at no cost.
In the past, the "Information Commons" was the public domain. But with current laws (century copyright,...), the Public-Domain has less value. The replacement "Information Commons" is Free-Software/Open-Source/Creative-Commons.
Yes, one can effectively "rent" information from controlling companies, but you always have to go back to the controlling company for more copies or different iterations of the information.
By purchasing information for the "Information Commons", the information is purchased for all people now and later.
What exactly would you like to give to the poor?
Food? are open-source/creative-commons cook books useful? or open-source/creative-commons instructions of how to build solar stoves? Or open-source software that allows someone to design cost effective stoves or cookware?
Medicine? Are patent-free medicines useful for the poor? Are open-source/creative-commons medical programs useful for the poor?
Education/Science? Are open-source/creative-commons creative commons textbooks/libraries of information helpful to the poor? Are open-source/creative-commons science/engineering useful? Is a "wikipedia" of information useful?
The point is that whenever money is spent for "information rights", that money could have spent to buy physical items, or to further innovation or information in the "Information Commons".
That money could buy an OLPC with a library of information pre-installed.
The new printing press, the internet, came and provided a means of great information freedom. But for the companies that used a business model based on controlling media, the freedom of information was a threat to profits. So these companies paid/lobbied/bribed the government to get some new laws passed. One that extended the copyright to 95-120 years. And another specifically written to control publishing digital information and override past "fair use" clauses that allowed things like VCR's and Tivo's. But even with all of this, the public still expects to have more freedom and innovation that internet had promised. Companies and web sites come up for sometime short times that offer a glimpse of what could be. Then the controlling media companies try to shut them down, pointing to the laws that were legally paid for. The media companies may be successful in suppressing information for a time, perhaps in some countries. But a country that manage to fight this control, and manage to allow a level of information freedom that really promotes innovation; This country will have a great advantage.
With all of the talk of how much file sharing costs the media companies, perhaps it would be good to look at the costs of the copyright monopoly on the public.
After all, the purpose of copyright law was supposed to be innovation to benefit the public.
What is the public cost/benefit of a 10 year copyright monopoly? What is the public cost/benefit of a 20 year copyright monopoly? What is the public cost/benefit of a 50 year copyright monopoly? What is the public cost/benefit of a 95 year copyright monopoly?... What is the public cost/benefit of a 1000 year copyright monopoly?
A 95 year copyright is well beyond any point that is providing extra incentive to create new works. And actually, it prevents derivative works from being created, and only creats incentive to hoard and hide information.
Why does the government allow such monopolies at no cost to the big publishing/media companies?
If copyright is going to be this long, then there should be some cost associated with a government granted information monopoly. Any such cost should be exponential to encourage new innovation. Then the income from such a fee would compensate the public (by creating new public works) in exchange for the "rights" that the government gave to media companies to milk works of dead or non-person artists.
"Negative. No extra profit. Loss of control as middleman is always required."
I guess I greatly mis-stated it. "always" should be "possibly".
The point is that if DRM is mandated for broadcast, or if a popular device only played DRM, then the music would need to go through the middle man really be published.
Yes, we are not yet there. But I was talking about a DRM world that the media industries want.
Today, GM announced that with new computer settings int Hummer H2 and H3, The fuel economy improves by 20% (Before: 10-15MPG. After: 12-18MPG). This change is available for free at all Hummer dealers.
This change will save XXX million gallons of fuel per year, making GM the greenest company ever!
A - Move/Music industry: make as much profit with the least effort B - Musician/Artist: make good music, make good profit, be independent C - Average User: play media on common consumer devices D - Power User: play media on common and uncommon devices. Skip commercials. Play as desired. E - Poor College copiers: copy cool music, as I can't really afford to buy it. F - Criminal: undo or avoid protection and sell copies to others to make profit with little effort.
Now look at the effect of DRM on these players:
A - Seemingly positive because of control. But diminishing popularity due to removal of "college copying mentality" as free product placement. B - Negative. No extra profit. Loss of control as middleman is always required. C - Somewhat negative. Missing flexibility causes re-purchase, annoyance and diminishing sales. D - Negative. DRM means no freedom of use. E - Negative. Result to DRM-free of commons music. F - Somewhat Negative. Though large-scale criminals can obtain commercial duplicators that can copy without unDRMing. Though displaced "college copiers" may create bigger demand for gray-market copies.
Look at trends and guess where things must go. Patent some product which is not yet obvious to everyone, but will be as trends move that way. Do some minimal development of the "idea".
Wait.
Now when everyone is using your "idea" which is now obvious (without your help).
Slashdot Mirror
A "Computer Scientist" is reinventing things that another company did, where the works are copyrighted for 90 years, and obsolete in 5 years.
Open-source is all about reinventing things in a way where the "Intellectual Property" Barriers are reduced.
A Chemical engineer is helping the company look for the most profit effective drugs, and then charge as much as the patients can pay, with less regard to helping society.
A Musician that had a really big hit may never innovate again, as they struck the lazy lottery, and perhaps the grandchildren don't need to work for things either.
New technologies for sharing information are attacked and often forced to stop development, as this sharing is a threat to the business model of those that broker information.
Long dead book authors works could have benefited society by falling in the public domain. But in an effort to protect Mickey Mouse for yet another 20 year extension, much information bystandards are falling away in usefulness and possibly lost.
If the publishing and patent monopoly barriers were reduced, innovation could more easily flourish.
As the restrictions and duration of publishing monopolies are increased,
the public domain diminishes,
and demand for creative-commons, open-source, and other freely distributed works increases.
Perhaps an obvious question. Are you talking about the US here?
Meaning:
1. Modernize Copyright Law - Move away from the Printing press model (Absolute monopoly control of publishing, near-infinite terms, using "DRM" to maintain old model), and towards an Internet model (Information is less restricted, business models must adjust). Meaning shorter copyright monopoly terms, less restrictions, allow non-profit duplication.
2. Business Model - Duplication happens. Abandon DRM. Listen to customer, rather than criminalize. Innovate with new works, rather than trying so hard to milk old ones.
> Digital rights management is essentially a technology mechanism to enforce (or hinder the breaking of) contract law.
Not exactly, as there is usually no binding contract involved.
Should be:
"DRM is essentially a technology to enforce restrictions of use."
The restrictions do not align with the law (DRM knows nothing of fair use, or copyright limits).
The DRM restrictions do not align to some contract either.
These restrictions are a mis-place effort to increase sales from an ill-conceived notion that controlling use and clamping down on copying would increase interest and sales.
Digital Restrictions Mechanism
A 90+ year publishing monopoly, enforced with $500,000 FBI threats is already too much of a restriction.
More restrictions are obviously not necessary.
It is really not possible to show how DRM is necessary on legal grounds, starting with the constitutional purpose of copyright.
It is really not possible to show how DRM is necessary on moral grounds, showing how it helps the advancement of society.
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_P ublic_Domain.htm
"
After 1 March 1989:
70 years after death of author, or if work of corporate authorship, the shorter of 95 years from publication, or 120 years from creation2"
Since Corporations are corporations have enough power to bring the FBI (or police in your country) to your door with guns, I would tend to focus on them. And they were the ones pushing for the extensions.
95-120 years.
A more fitting example is that of the Stationers Company holding a publishing monopoly for much of 2 centuries.
m
The U.S. was founded at a time where freedom from such long-lived monopolies was important.
Unfortunately, Copyright monopolies have been extended from 13 years to 90-120 years.
http://www.culturaleconomics.atfreeweb.com/cpu.ht
America was founded not long after the 100+ year publishing monopolies in Europe were dissolved, and the US allowed only a 14 year copyright monopoly.
Now, here we are again. If you want to find a place where you can freely exchange ideas for the sake of advancing science or art, well, the US is not currently that place. If you have a new composition based on Bach, great, but anything based on any work from the last century would be illegal to even give away without paying the owning corporation whatever they demand. And the software that you created is also illegal to give away, because the trivial algorithm you used was patented last year by another information holding company.
It is quite a low point when Information Monopoly "rights" can override the right to open, free and fair elections.
There is really no alternative but to make this software public.
The voting software does not need to be free-software/open-source (though it would be best), but it does need to be public.
It is still possible for a company to hold and enforce copyrights on publicly available software.
Any complex compuations that are performed (that they claim to be trade secrets) cannot be trade secrets in a free democracy. These compuations, if wrong comprimise elections.
Since the founding reason for copyright law was to advance science and useful art, has our current copyright law passed a reasonable "limited time" given by the constitution?
Does a 50 year copyright help art and science more than a 25 year copyright?
Does a 100 year copyright help science and art more than a 50 year copyright?
Does a 500 year copyright help science and art more than a 100 year copyright?
Does the RIAA have some limit it years beyond which it will enforce its copyright monopoly less?
Or does RIAA go after duplicaton of a 40 year old song written by now dead artists the same as a song that was bought by a RIAA corporation last week? (all profit is good profit?)
If there was some reasonable limit of the copyright enforcement imposed by RIAA, then people may have a little more trust of it.
Probably you are a troll, but I will bite.
1. copyright DOES exist
It was 14 years long for books originally. You should probably look at the motivation for the original laws and compare it against publishing monopoly abuse that existed prior to that.
Are books now so advanced that a 95+ year monopoly is needed to encourage people to write them?
There is no real justification for a monopoly that last a century and/or beyond a persons life-span.
2. it exists for good reason (we couldn't have the GPL without it)
The GPL, Open Source and Creative Commons are reactions to the effective termination of the Public Domain. Specifically, GPL is a reaction to copyright law that does not fit software. Software is obsolete in 10 years, and in 95 years, when public domain, the software is only available in binary form.
3. creators have the right to control the distribution of their works
It's not the "creators" that are worrisome, it is publishing collector companies that expect to buy and "own" information, even of the dead, and profit from it forever.
Creators should expect a system that compensates people for new invention.
There is no eternal publishing right. It was intended to be a temporary monopoly that encouraged people to innovate.
Crashing can be reduced by reducing the dangers.
The maximum speed is easy to set.
Next, you can limit or warn about following distance.
You could also detect a vehicle following you, and emit some warning brake pattern.
Erratic (swerving due to some distraction/impairment) driving behavior could be detected and warned (perhaps it could switch to safer limits too).
It would be nice if some limits were imposed on the whole auto industry. But companies (and their consumers, and their government) want to have cars that go 200 MPH, even if deaths increase as a result.
Beyond some limits and warnings, to achieve true safety, an entire automated traffic system would be needed.
(Open source of course).
These 4500 "artists" know that this 95 years will not create new incentive for them to create or enhance artistic works. (incentive when they are dead?). They know that this only serves to create money-for-nothing for their great-great-grandchildren: Or to create money-for-nothing for the owning corporation. They, themselves are probably also assuming to be rewarded soon for the corporate loyalty.
One casualty here is artistic creation. Innovation incentive for the heirs is limited due to inherited wealth.
But in reality, no heirs inherit these "rights". They sold out to some corporation or other individual unrelated to the original work.
The biggest casualty is artistic innovation from adaptation/derivation. Much of innovation builds on the works of others. Such an after-death copyright fights against such innovation.
Instead of fighting the tide, lawmakers should look again at the purpose of copyrights and look at a creating a model that more fits the internet instead of trying to emulate the 500 year old "Stationers" publishing control model.
I would suggest:
1. Use of DRM should be abandoned. It is the governments role to control publishing, not the private company.
2. Copyright length decreased to a length that would encourage innovation from both invention and extension, say 15-50 years (depends on type of work). This should be periodically reviewed by independent groups.
3. Legal, official, and unencumbered "pay per download sites" should be create with reasonable prices and direct payment to the owner. (The owner should be listed to help the consumer making a support/purchase decision).
4. Governments should shut down and block obvious illegal download sites. (Precondition (2) and (3). WIthout (2), there is no moral basis. Without (3), you are kicking the hungry out of the kitchen.
5. non-commercial copies should be allowed. With no DRM, and legal alternatives available, and reasonable copyright limits, there is little need or desire to hunt around on temporary questionable sites.
> 1. If you didn't buy it and it wasn't legitimately given to you, you stole it
> 2. I'm not sure what the impact of you listening to a song is on its sales.
In order to "steal" one, would have to take something of value.
The copy of the digital song download itself has no value, as copies are freely made.
What has possible value is the lost revenue that person downloading would have paid.
If a million people in china find out that they can download your song for free, and they do,
how much money have you lost.
Well, you could look at how many of those people would have paid for it when they did not find it for free.
Say 1000 of those million would have paid $1 for it, if they could not get it for free.
So on average, each of the million people cost you 1 tenth of a sale, or 10 cents.
Note that now a million people in china heard your song, and if the work is good, the accidental publicity may cause future sales.
Arguing that those million people all "stole" a song from you and cost you 1 million dollars in sales is not realistic.
4. If you steal caviar that you can't afford, or wouldn't otherwise buy, you're still stealing. See #2
Agreed, but if I take a picture of the caviar, (ignoring the sign says no pictures without paying $1 royalty), does the owner of the caviar claim losses due to theft of copies (from those who could not afford to pay)?
(My attempt at a reasonable Caviar-Information comparison.)
5
...
> Or those with whom the artist made a legal agreement during his/her lifetime. I intend to state in my will that I want my family to inherit the rights to my work, and receive any royalties I would have earned.
6
> Why not? Must a moral person say that legal contracts expire after 30 years or 3 million dollars, whichever came first?
It's not a "legal contract". A copyright is a temporary publishing monopoly, granted by the government to encourage invention/art.
The question is what should that limit be in order to maintain a balance of providing an incentive while encouraging innovation, both for independent works and derived works.
Should the limit be 30 years?
Should the limit be 95 years?
Should the limit be 200 years?
Should the limit be 1000 years?
Would you like it if:
royalties of any copies of Mono Lisa go the the heirs of Leonardo da Vinci.
royalties from Beethoven go to heirs of that family.
royalties from any use of all printed fonts go to the printer that invented it 400 years ago.
Hopefully you would agree that without limits, you end up with a class system with wealth based on information inheritance. (Actually, it would be a little different.The artists or the family often sell out to big companies, and the class system would be based on what your families corporate ties are).
I would argue that we see the ill effects of this even now with a 95-120 year copyright.
I picked 30 years, even though Thomas Jefferson's 14 years would probably work even today. 50 years would be a step in the right direction too.
Downloading is advertising, not stealing.
If I download a song from a questionable site, what happens?
1. I get non-DRM music.
2. I add to the popularity of the music.
3. If I would otherwise have paid $1 for the music, of which the artist would have got 2 cents, then I shorted the artist by 2 cents. And I denied 98 cents profit to a information exploiting company.
4. If I would not have otherwise paid for it (because I am poor, or because it is only available as DRM), then then I have shorted no-one, thought If I did not download it, the song would not gain in popularity.
5. If the artist is dead, then It is not possible to short the artist, only possible to short those that wish to make a living from the work of the dead.
6. If the artist wrote it 30 years ago and already made millions from it, then there is no moral reason to continue penny payments to the artists, or dollar payments to the company exploiting old works.
Information is very important, and is not something that only the rich should have.
It allows people to learn, live and build a better life, and innovate even better living solutions.
In our society, there exists an "Information Commons", which is available to everyone at no cost.
In the past, the "Information Commons" was the public domain.
But with current laws (century copyright,...), the Public-Domain has less value.
The replacement "Information Commons" is Free-Software/Open-Source/Creative-Commons.
Yes, one can effectively "rent" information from controlling companies, but you always have to go back to the controlling company for more copies or different iterations of the information.
By purchasing information for the "Information Commons", the information is purchased for all people now and later.
What exactly would you like to give to the poor?
Food? are open-source/creative-commons cook books useful? or open-source/creative-commons instructions of how to build solar stoves? Or open-source software that allows someone to design cost effective stoves or cookware?
Medicine? Are patent-free medicines useful for the poor? Are open-source/creative-commons medical programs useful for the poor?
Education/Science? Are open-source/creative-commons creative commons textbooks/libraries of information helpful to the poor? Are open-source/creative-commons science/engineering useful?
Is a "wikipedia" of information useful?
The point is that whenever money is spent for "information rights", that money could have spent to buy physical items, or to further innovation or information in the "Information Commons".
That money could buy an OLPC with a library of information pre-installed.
The new printing press, the internet, came and provided a means of great information freedom.
But for the companies that used a business model based on controlling media, the freedom of information was a threat to profits.
So these companies paid/lobbied/bribed the government to get some new laws passed. One that extended the copyright to 95-120 years. And another specifically written to control publishing digital information and override past "fair use" clauses that allowed things like VCR's and Tivo's.
But even with all of this, the public still expects to have more freedom and innovation that internet had promised.
Companies and web sites come up for sometime short times that offer a glimpse of what could be. Then the controlling media companies try to shut them down, pointing to the laws that were legally paid for.
The media companies may be successful in suppressing information for a time, perhaps in some countries. But a country that manage to fight this control, and manage to allow a level of information freedom that really promotes innovation; This country will have a great advantage.
With all of the talk of how much file sharing costs the media companies,
...
perhaps it would be good to look at the costs of the copyright monopoly on the public.
After all, the purpose of copyright law was supposed to be innovation to benefit the public.
What is the public cost/benefit of a 10 year copyright monopoly?
What is the public cost/benefit of a 20 year copyright monopoly?
What is the public cost/benefit of a 50 year copyright monopoly?
What is the public cost/benefit of a 95 year copyright monopoly?
What is the public cost/benefit of a 1000 year copyright monopoly?
A 95 year copyright is well beyond any point that is providing extra incentive to create new works. And actually, it prevents derivative works from being created, and only creats incentive to hoard and hide information.
Why does the government allow such monopolies at no cost to the big publishing/media companies?
If copyright is going to be this long, then there should be some cost associated with a government granted information monopoly. Any such cost should be exponential to encourage new innovation. Then the income from such a fee would compensate the public (by creating new public works) in exchange for the "rights" that the government gave to media companies to milk works of dead or non-person artists.
Interestingly, This Slashdot article is shown to me with advertisement for HD-DVD, which has a data format "forgotten" by design.
"Negative. No extra profit. Loss of control as middleman is always required."
I guess I greatly mis-stated it. "always" should be "possibly".
The point is that if DRM is mandated for broadcast, or if a popular device only played DRM, then the music would need to go through the middle man really be published.
Yes, we are not yet there. But I was talking about a DRM world that the media industries want.
Today, GM announced that with new computer settings int Hummer H2 and H3, The fuel economy
improves by 20% (Before: 10-15MPG. After: 12-18MPG).
This change is available for free at all Hummer dealers.
This change will save XXX million gallons of fuel per year, making GM the greenest company ever!
Lets look at the goals of the key players here:
A - Move/Music industry: make as much profit with the least effort
B - Musician/Artist: make good music, make good profit, be independent
C - Average User: play media on common consumer devices
D - Power User: play media on common and uncommon devices. Skip commercials. Play as desired.
E - Poor College copiers: copy cool music, as I can't really afford to buy it.
F - Criminal: undo or avoid protection and sell copies to others to make profit with little effort.
Now look at the effect of DRM on these players:
A - Seemingly positive because of control. But diminishing popularity due to removal of "college copying mentality" as free product placement.
B - Negative. No extra profit. Loss of control as middleman is always required.
C - Somewhat negative. Missing flexibility causes re-purchase, annoyance and diminishing sales.
D - Negative. DRM means no freedom of use.
E - Negative. Result to DRM-free of commons music.
F - Somewhat Negative. Though large-scale criminals can obtain commercial duplicators that can copy without unDRMing. Though displaced "college copiers" may create bigger demand for gray-market copies.
Look at trends and guess where things must go.
Patent some product which is not yet obvious to everyone, but will be as trends move that way.
Do some minimal development of the "idea".
Wait.
Now when everyone is using your "idea" which is now obvious (without your help).
Cash out by suing everyone.
I guess, the owner of the parallel Mars TLC (Taste-Like-Chicken) franchise abandoned the above ground market long ago.