You assume that if we take down all regulations regarding the internet, it would become a train wreck.
I hate people telling me what I assume. You're assuming that I was worried about the health of the internet.
I know that the internet will survive without regulation (at least, with regards to content). I'm talking about impact of the internet on societies (not vice-versa). It makes sense to consider the internet as an international entity for the sake of individual countries trying to uphold their laws within their own countries. Otherwise, it's a simple matter for people to move off-shore and continue what they're doing in a country that allows it.
Wait. Why is that stupid? The internet is an international entity these days. It seems nuts to maintain individual sovereignty over "pieces" of the net, when everyone has access to almost everything.
Not that I'm picking on TPB specifically here (which is what I'd normally do), but in principle, it seems like a good idea to lay down (or update) some treaties here.
Internet, safeguard of free speech, tool of the common man against oppression. Democracy, safeguard of freedom in general, tool of the common man against oppression.
To make it short: the concept of "private property" can be applied only to objects with certain physical characteristics, like a unique location in the space-time continuum, for example, amongst many others. Which restricts the idea basically to physical objects.
Says who? It's a very artificial restriction. And in fact, it hasn't stopped us in the past. For example, it is not uncommon for people to "own" their identity, which is just a collection of their personal information. Their names, their bank numbers and the number they store, their signature, all make up parts of a person's identity, and that identity has no more fixed reference point in the space-time continuum than a copyright or patent.
So to say that a series of numbers has an "owner" would imply that somehow a person can "control" the integer numbers, God-like, in whatever ethereal dimension they exist.
Sorry to engage in semantics here (I really have no choice, since semantics is the basis for your argument), but it actually does not imply some control over integers. It implies the control over the distribution of certain strings of integers. The integers themselves don't change. It also requires some context to the integers. For example, I could say the numbers 539367834548, and that could be someone's credit card number. But unless I actually say it is a credit card number, and specify the expiration date, and the person it belongs to, then it isn't enough to be considered a credit card number. So yes, it differs from traditional property in the sense that some context needs to be applied.
In fact, to draw analogy to physical property, all objects do not naturally belong to a single person. Property is artificial, while possession in 100% natural. Sometime, some people must have declared an object or a tract of land to be their property, and take it from the pool of common resources. Was this person stealing from the common man? Quite possibly, but in the end, it turns out that the physical world is (in many respects) superior to the physical world before property, and property may help with that. For example, if someone declares a piece of land theirs, and then finds precious iron or oil deposits on his land, he can use that land to unearth those resources, and make the world a little bit richer.
Similarly for intellectual property, before copyrights and patents, there was no real legal recognition of ownership of the intellectual domain. It's another debate as to whether such a domain should be subject to property, but to say that it's unnatural because it's different to how things were is not sufficient to take it off the table. Things used to be different before physical property. We had different values back then. But change does not equal bad, or infeasible.
Which is clearly not the case. Information cannot be simply so restricted by humans.
I have a way of restricting information, but I can't tell you, because it's a secret.
Furthermore, its other properties (like an ability to propagate infinitely) present additional departures from the idea of "private property". Since information can be transmitted (i.e. patterns are replicated) rather then "moved" (as it is with physical objects) in order to "control" it one has to supervise all transfer of information in order to restrict the "owned" kind, in any form, which is what the MPAAs and the like are attempting, without regard of the type of information being transmitted as all channels can contain the "owned" patterns. In short the idea of "intellectual property" and "total surveillance" or "thought control" are synonymous from the point of view of theory of information.
In theory, yes, in order to totally control information, we would require total surveillance. But, we are more flexible than that. We are capable of adopting an idea without taking it to an ugly extreme. Intellectual property laws hav
Did you just compare a non-profit foundation, which operates completely within the law, and which only exists by convincing lots of people to voluntarily give it money, to an armed psychotic and a dictator?
Yes. People/groups with completely undue confidence in their radical and one-eyed outlook are indeed comparable with the crazy guy and the dictator, because those two properties are exactly what makes the dictator and crazy guy so repugnant and dangerous.
And that covers my definition of "fringe", and now that I've stated it explicitly, I can see that it's very reasonable and not really fringe at all.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression of the DMCA's protection of DRM only applied to DRM that copyrighted files, and only the copyright holder could sue. This looks like it's way off the DMCA's radar.
The GP actually raises a valid point; he just didn't voice it properly, and here it is:
If you don't like Apple's product, why the hell did you buy it in the first place?
Not that I think Apple should have this tight of a hold on already bought iPods, but it's a fair point. Most people who have a stake in this discussion, by now, realise that it's locked down, and that Apple doesn't look kindly on breaking the locks. Whether or not Apple is allowed to do this should be largely irrelevant by now, because people who like an open device should already have bought an open device instead.
The crazy guy with the gun down the street, who thinks that everyone is a robotic clone made by a secret group formed by the government and big corporations is also looking out for your freedom, and is also anti-evil. Yet, at the same time, he manages to screw over everyone he comes in contact with by acting on his poorly-based information.
The politician who orders the forceful annexing of all non-democratic countries is looking out for other people's freedoms, and is anti-evil. Yet, he is himself a type of evil.
The EFF is a fringe group with an agenda, with a total inability to see the big picture (like all fringe groups) and should be treated as such. I trust them to know what's best for me about as much as I trust the RIAA to do the same thing.
The framers left a framework that could be used to keep gov't in line. But many of us cede our brains to some other person or organization, and by not thinking for ourselves we waive our chance to lodge our opinion. And we lose.
I think there are a number of internet forums that would make a quick but effective mockery of your claim.
People think, some more efficiently than others, but we all do it, and nothing short of a lobotomy will change that. I realise, of course, that it's harder to keep an air of superiority while simultaneously acknowledging that other people (who disagree with you) also have the capacity for thought, but it does make it less of a shock when one such person actually speaks up and intelligently contradicts you.
Remember, if you've checked the "Democrat" box, you must fear Conservatives, Pedophiles, Rednecks, and Terrorists. If you've checked the "Republican" box, you have to fear Liberals, Gays, Foreigners, and Terrorists. Either way you have to support more surveillance and less individual rights.
And if you check "Libertarian", you must fear the government, police, corporations, and power in general.
Hey mods, the parent didn't just make up that quote to illicit a response; it was actually in the GP's post. Perhaps an "insightful" is more warranted than a "troll".
I've read some informative AC posts. Often, they're just like regular posts, except they can be edgier, and they don't subscribe so much to the Slashdot Groupthink. As for the GP, I thought he raised a fair point, in his own vacuous, gratuitously offensive way.
As soon as you demonstrate how the "intellectual property" crap is logically consistent with the fundamental properties of information, and thus basic physical characteristics of the Universe
I believe it's up to you to demonstrate to us why it's logically inconsistent. We say we can't find any inconsistencies with "fundamental properties of information" (whatever that means), but obviously you think you can, so you'll have to share first if you want to make any impact whatsoever. If you don't buy that, then I submit that God exists, and I ask you to prove me wrong.
I honestly can't think of a "fundamental property of information" that any IP violates. Unless you include bogus properties like "information wants to be free", or phrase differently, "information must always be shared", or something like that. It's bullshit of course, because we are perfectly capable of stemming the flow of information by not passing it on. We can all keep secrets. You might argue that it's different with the public, but that seems more of a property of the public, and certainly not a fundamental one. If we make it illegal to use certain pieces of "information" (or more accurately and less misleadingly, artworks), then we can actually change, over time, public attitudes towards said "information", and it will no longer be a fundamental property of information.
But that's all a stab in the dark without having a falsifiable hypothesis to disprove.
Yeah, but it's ok for us to be screwed over when they do have that mental lapse, one misjudgement
Yeah, that's not what I said. There's middle ground between:
a) It's A-OK and the officer gets of scott-free and b) Immediate firing and barred from ever holding a law enforcement position ever again.
It's called disciplining. It encourages officers to be wary of making such mistakes, without ruining their lives permanently. Just like the fact that we don't punish speeding with death, we just give the person a wrist-slap of varying degrees.
Are you serious about that last one? If they don't know the law they are enforcing then they shouldn't enforcing it without advice from those they do know.
It could happen. It's true, a good police officer would know the law, and keep up with all its changes. However, on the other hand, it's not really possible for a single person to know the entire law. I can imagine there would be circumstances when it would appear, even to an otherwise competent police officer, when they need to make educated guesses as to certain grey areas of the law.
Besides, even if they do, is it really the end of the world? It's a mistake. Sure, one person's freedom is momentarily curtailed slightly, but all that calls for is, again, a slap on the wrist, not a full-blown sacking.
Oh for god sake! Little brothers and Sisters have always been watching you! There are always nosy^H^H^H^H concerned neighbours, and they will even report to police from time to time. It's part of life in the public, and always has been.
Not only that, it's the only way that police can actually operate. Do you think they have the funding and the numbers to patrol all of their district a reasonable portion of the time? They need to be pointed in the right direction from time to time, otherwise they would be rendered almost completely ineffective. All this new website does it makes tipping off the police more anonymous and more efficient, which I, for one, welcome.
The cop knows it's not illegal, and if not, the cop is incompetent. We don't need cops who are either malicious or incompetent. This is wrong and should never be tolerated. Any officer who does this should be fired and barred from ever holding any law enforcement position.
You realise what you're advocating here? One cop makes one screw up, one mental lapse, one misjudgement of one situation, or one failure to keep up with additions/subtractions from the law, and the cop is incompetent, and should be fired and bared from ever holding a law enforcement position.
OK, who here wants to invest their future into becoming a police officer now? No one?
Not more difficult, more honest. I've seen a million debates than run into weasely examples. I wanted to make sure the weasel steps were skipped and you used concrete counter examples. I guess it didn't work...
I guess not. I must have been lying my ass off just now.:)
(By the way, why so grumpy? It's a gorgeous day today in my neck of the woods!)
Free-as-in-beer software - distribution is essentially unlimited. No copyright needed for that, unless you want to restrict money-making resales which is the only characteristic that any significant number of free-as-in-beer software tends to have.
Certainly not in terms of making money, but some people like to keep control of their creative works while distributing it around. It's probably not needed for the code itself, since disassembly is a prohibitively crap way of reading/modifying code, but for other media embedded into the software. You don't necessarily want clones populating the net.
Nope, not aware of any, but if there are a few it doesn't help your position anyway because they're in the noise, not "plenty."
"Plenty" doesn't mean a majority, it just means there are several. Sure, there are heaps upon heaps of people who distribute for commercial gain, but I never claimed otherwise. All I'm saying is that now established use of copyrights includes non-commercial uses (including the free software that brought this debate up). Notice that I never claimed anything different.
Anyway, one group of one-off examples (an oxymoron?) is charity events, where musicians play live or record an album for some charity gala, and copyright is necessary to make sure that people actually show up to the events and pay some money.
That's close, but still not really "same-ol', same-ol'" the CC licenses being inspired by the idea of copyleft to begin with, they are just as "novel and unintended" as the GPL itself.
All leading to the conclusion that this wacky new idea called "copyleft" is just another established use of copyright. It's everywhere, and even if GPL is the first major example, it would be approaching 20 years since the GPL was created (according to Wikipedia). You want modern examples, but you want examples that aren't inspire by the GPL (among many other things). You're really tying my hands here.
Nah, not really feeling it. Sure, the copyleft movement is an example of what you are talking about, but this whole thread started when you denied that copyleft was a novel and unintended use of the copyright, so you can't really count it.
But, don't you see, the fact that copyleft is undeniably the premier example of non-commercial copyright uses does not mean that the approach is novel (around for 20 years), nor unintended (it's not like people are saying "hey, you aren't supposed to do that!" We're just happy they're creating at all!).
Come back in a hundred years when copyleft ideals are truly widespread and then you would probably be safe in claiming that the copyright law it uses (if it even still exists in the same form) is about control of distribution and not just about making money.
Seriously, you think it takes 120 years to become mainstream? In the age of computers doubling in transistors every 18 months, and the internet, you honestly don't think that 20 years is long enough to be accepted into mainstream culture? Do you think the internet is mainstream enough to be considered a part of our culture, or do you think we need another 80-100 years?
There are many, many, many examples of copyrighted works using copyright for non-commercial uses. The internet is full of them. These, as whole, including "copyleft", make up a non-trivial portion of copyright works created, especially if you weight appropriately according to popularity. I think there are plenty of examples, and it has been plenty of time, to concede that these uses are no longer novel, and they certainly were never unintended.
Look, I understand where you were coming from, but it was rather funny seeing so many restrictions tied to my finding an example. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why you placed the once-off restriction, or the software restriction, other than to make my job much harder.
But, while I'm here, I'll say that there are plenty of examples of software that isn't free software that is distributed for free. Sure, people make small money off advertising, but mostly that covers the cost of distribution. Also there are once-off examples (as you seem to know, since you restricted it), and there are other works which nowadays fall under the catch-all creative commons licenses.
My point is that money-making is not the only established use of copyrights. We trade control for creation, and there are other ways to benefit from control than money.
Monsanto and RIAA want the same thing (IP) with opposing logic (copying is creative work - copying is evil).
To be fair, there is a distinction between copying an idea (like a patent) and copying an artistic work verbatim. That's the distinction between patents and copyrights. They're not as opposing as they sound.
I know you're joking, and I know it's considered poor form to attack someone's viewpoints while making light fun, but I really need to point this out:
DNA is not, repeat not subject to copyrights, trademarks, or registered trademarks! If you really wanted a cutting statement against IP, you should have created dna (patent pending) or something like that.
I apologise for my rudeness. It won't happen again.:)
I call it "copyright", because controlling distribution in this way is neither novel nor unintended. It's just artists limiting distribution of their works in exchange for creation
Fixed that back for you. We exchange control for the work itself. Your phrasing seemed to suggest that we pay artists to limit the distribution of their work, which is absurd.:)
You don't get the thinking behind copyright...
I do, actually. I understand that copyright is, ostensibly, there for artists to make money, should they want to. But copyright has been granted as a right of artists to exert control over the distribution their creations. There have been plenty of other examples where copyright has been used to control distribution for goals other than immediate profit.
I guess the point I was making is that to paint copyright exclusively as some kind of tool for profiteering is a little unfair. Remember, copyright doesn't actually grant money in exchange for creation, all it does is grant something more flexible: control, which can be used for personal gain ("normal" copyright), or for communal gain ("copyleft" copyright), or it can be forfeited completely (BSD-licenses and public domain dedications). I object to the first type being painted as the only "true" type of copyright because:
a) It doesn't accurately represent copyrights b) Copyright is just as integral to "copyleft" as it is to "normal" copyright, and c) It's often used to justify simultaneously bagging copyright, and enjoying the benefits of "copyleft", which is just hypocritical.
Slashdot Mirror
I hate people telling me what I assume. You're assuming that I was worried about the health of the internet.
I know that the internet will survive without regulation (at least, with regards to content). I'm talking about impact of the internet on societies (not vice-versa). It makes sense to consider the internet as an international entity for the sake of individual countries trying to uphold their laws within their own countries. Otherwise, it's a simple matter for people to move off-shore and continue what they're doing in a country that allows it.
Wait. Why is that stupid? The internet is an international entity these days. It seems nuts to maintain individual sovereignty over "pieces" of the net, when everyone has access to almost everything.
Not that I'm picking on TPB specifically here (which is what I'd normally do), but in principle, it seems like a good idea to lay down (or update) some treaties here.
Internet, safeguard of free speech, tool of the common man against oppression.
Democracy, safeguard of freedom in general, tool of the common man against oppression.
Internet... subvert democracy? *head asplode*
Says who? It's a very artificial restriction. And in fact, it hasn't stopped us in the past. For example, it is not uncommon for people to "own" their identity, which is just a collection of their personal information. Their names, their bank numbers and the number they store, their signature, all make up parts of a person's identity, and that identity has no more fixed reference point in the space-time continuum than a copyright or patent.
Sorry to engage in semantics here (I really have no choice, since semantics is the basis for your argument), but it actually does not imply some control over integers. It implies the control over the distribution of certain strings of integers. The integers themselves don't change. It also requires some context to the integers. For example, I could say the numbers 539367834548, and that could be someone's credit card number. But unless I actually say it is a credit card number, and specify the expiration date, and the person it belongs to, then it isn't enough to be considered a credit card number. So yes, it differs from traditional property in the sense that some context needs to be applied.
In fact, to draw analogy to physical property, all objects do not naturally belong to a single person. Property is artificial, while possession in 100% natural. Sometime, some people must have declared an object or a tract of land to be their property, and take it from the pool of common resources. Was this person stealing from the common man? Quite possibly, but in the end, it turns out that the physical world is (in many respects) superior to the physical world before property, and property may help with that. For example, if someone declares a piece of land theirs, and then finds precious iron or oil deposits on his land, he can use that land to unearth those resources, and make the world a little bit richer.
Similarly for intellectual property, before copyrights and patents, there was no real legal recognition of ownership of the intellectual domain. It's another debate as to whether such a domain should be subject to property, but to say that it's unnatural because it's different to how things were is not sufficient to take it off the table. Things used to be different before physical property. We had different values back then. But change does not equal bad, or infeasible.
I have a way of restricting information, but I can't tell you, because it's a secret.
In theory, yes, in order to totally control information, we would require total surveillance. But, we are more flexible than that. We are capable of adopting an idea without taking it to an ugly extreme. Intellectual property laws hav
Yes. People/groups with completely undue confidence in their radical and one-eyed outlook are indeed comparable with the crazy guy and the dictator, because those two properties are exactly what makes the dictator and crazy guy so repugnant and dangerous.
And that covers my definition of "fringe", and now that I've stated it explicitly, I can see that it's very reasonable and not really fringe at all.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression of the DMCA's protection of DRM only applied to DRM that copyrighted files, and only the copyright holder could sue. This looks like it's way off the DMCA's radar.
The GP actually raises a valid point; he just didn't voice it properly, and here it is:
If you don't like Apple's product, why the hell did you buy it in the first place?
Not that I think Apple should have this tight of a hold on already bought iPods, but it's a fair point. Most people who have a stake in this discussion, by now, realise that it's locked down, and that Apple doesn't look kindly on breaking the locks. Whether or not Apple is allowed to do this should be largely irrelevant by now, because people who like an open device should already have bought an open device instead.
The crazy guy with the gun down the street, who thinks that everyone is a robotic clone made by a secret group formed by the government and big corporations is also looking out for your freedom, and is also anti-evil. Yet, at the same time, he manages to screw over everyone he comes in contact with by acting on his poorly-based information.
The politician who orders the forceful annexing of all non-democratic countries is looking out for other people's freedoms, and is anti-evil. Yet, he is himself a type of evil.
The EFF is a fringe group with an agenda, with a total inability to see the big picture (like all fringe groups) and should be treated as such. I trust them to know what's best for me about as much as I trust the RIAA to do the same thing.
I think there are a number of internet forums that would make a quick but effective mockery of your claim.
People think, some more efficiently than others, but we all do it, and nothing short of a lobotomy will change that. I realise, of course, that it's harder to keep an air of superiority while simultaneously acknowledging that other people (who disagree with you) also have the capacity for thought, but it does make it less of a shock when one such person actually speaks up and intelligently contradicts you.
And if you check "Libertarian", you must fear the government, police, corporations, and power in general.
Hey mods, the parent didn't just make up that quote to illicit a response; it was actually in the GP's post. Perhaps an "insightful" is more warranted than a "troll".
I've read some informative AC posts. Often, they're just like regular posts, except they can be edgier, and they don't subscribe so much to the Slashdot Groupthink. As for the GP, I thought he raised a fair point, in his own vacuous, gratuitously offensive way.
I believe it's up to you to demonstrate to us why it's logically inconsistent. We say we can't find any inconsistencies with "fundamental properties of information" (whatever that means), but obviously you think you can, so you'll have to share first if you want to make any impact whatsoever. If you don't buy that, then I submit that God exists, and I ask you to prove me wrong.
I honestly can't think of a "fundamental property of information" that any IP violates. Unless you include bogus properties like "information wants to be free", or phrase differently, "information must always be shared", or something like that. It's bullshit of course, because we are perfectly capable of stemming the flow of information by not passing it on. We can all keep secrets. You might argue that it's different with the public, but that seems more of a property of the public, and certainly not a fundamental one. If we make it illegal to use certain pieces of "information" (or more accurately and less misleadingly, artworks), then we can actually change, over time, public attitudes towards said "information", and it will no longer be a fundamental property of information.
But that's all a stab in the dark without having a falsifiable hypothesis to disprove.
Wait, doesn't that mean people would trade the security of being a law-abiding citizen all for something that is, in value terms, human effluence?
I think something's wrong with your analysis.
That's OK. We'll just increase the maximum penalty for piracy again, and lobby to make it a criminal offence.
Sincerely, the RIAA.
It certainly wouldn't. Everything would be handled purely by contracts. All it would do would double the size of the contracts artists sign.
Yeah, that's not what I said. There's middle ground between:
a) It's A-OK and the officer gets of scott-free and
b) Immediate firing and barred from ever holding a law enforcement position ever again.
It's called disciplining. It encourages officers to be wary of making such mistakes, without ruining their lives permanently. Just like the fact that we don't punish speeding with death, we just give the person a wrist-slap of varying degrees.
It could happen. It's true, a good police officer would know the law, and keep up with all its changes. However, on the other hand, it's not really possible for a single person to know the entire law. I can imagine there would be circumstances when it would appear, even to an otherwise competent police officer, when they need to make educated guesses as to certain grey areas of the law.
Besides, even if they do, is it really the end of the world? It's a mistake. Sure, one person's freedom is momentarily curtailed slightly, but all that calls for is, again, a slap on the wrist, not a full-blown sacking.
Oh for god sake! Little brothers and Sisters have always been watching you! There are always nosy^H^H^H^H concerned neighbours, and they will even report to police from time to time. It's part of life in the public, and always has been.
Not only that, it's the only way that police can actually operate. Do you think they have the funding and the numbers to patrol all of their district a reasonable portion of the time? They need to be pointed in the right direction from time to time, otherwise they would be rendered almost completely ineffective. All this new website does it makes tipping off the police more anonymous and more efficient, which I, for one, welcome.
You realise what you're advocating here? One cop makes one screw up, one mental lapse, one misjudgement of one situation, or one failure to keep up with additions/subtractions from the law, and the cop is incompetent, and should be fired and bared from ever holding a law enforcement position.
OK, who here wants to invest their future into becoming a police officer now? No one?
I guess not. I must have been lying my ass off just now. :)
(By the way, why so grumpy? It's a gorgeous day today in my neck of the woods!)
Certainly not in terms of making money, but some people like to keep control of their creative works while distributing it around. It's probably not needed for the code itself, since disassembly is a prohibitively crap way of reading/modifying code, but for other media embedded into the software. You don't necessarily want clones populating the net.
"Plenty" doesn't mean a majority, it just means there are several. Sure, there are heaps upon heaps of people who distribute for commercial gain, but I never claimed otherwise. All I'm saying is that now established use of copyrights includes non-commercial uses (including the free software that brought this debate up). Notice that I never claimed anything different.
Anyway, one group of one-off examples (an oxymoron?) is charity events, where musicians play live or record an album for some charity gala, and copyright is necessary to make sure that people actually show up to the events and pay some money.
All leading to the conclusion that this wacky new idea called "copyleft" is just another established use of copyright. It's everywhere, and even if GPL is the first major example, it would be approaching 20 years since the GPL was created (according to Wikipedia). You want modern examples, but you want examples that aren't inspire by the GPL (among many other things). You're really tying my hands here.
But, don't you see, the fact that copyleft is undeniably the premier example of non-commercial copyright uses does not mean that the approach is novel (around for 20 years), nor unintended (it's not like people are saying "hey, you aren't supposed to do that!" We're just happy they're creating at all!).
Seriously, you think it takes 120 years to become mainstream? In the age of computers doubling in transistors every 18 months, and the internet, you honestly don't think that 20 years is long enough to be accepted into mainstream culture? Do you think the internet is mainstream enough to be considered a part of our culture, or do you think we need another 80-100 years?
There are many, many, many examples of copyrighted works using copyright for non-commercial uses. The internet is full of them. These, as whole, including "copyleft", make up a non-trivial portion of copyright works created, especially if you weight appropriately according to popularity. I think there are plenty of examples, and it has been plenty of time, to concede that these uses are no longer novel, and they certainly were never unintended.
Don't forget once-offs! Why aren't they allowed?
Look, I understand where you were coming from, but it was rather funny seeing so many restrictions tied to my finding an example. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why you placed the once-off restriction, or the software restriction, other than to make my job much harder.
But, while I'm here, I'll say that there are plenty of examples of software that isn't free software that is distributed for free. Sure, people make small money off advertising, but mostly that covers the cost of distribution. Also there are once-off examples (as you seem to know, since you restricted it), and there are other works which nowadays fall under the catch-all creative commons licenses.
My point is that money-making is not the only established use of copyrights. We trade control for creation, and there are other ways to benefit from control than money.
Yeah and your rebuttal will carry more weight if you don't question my argument at all.
It's OK. You can trust me. I would never place arbitrary restrictions on your rhetoric in order to gain the upper hand.
To be fair, there is a distinction between copying an idea (like a patent) and copying an artistic work verbatim. That's the distinction between patents and copyrights. They're not as opposing as they sound.
I know you're joking, and I know it's considered poor form to attack someone's viewpoints while making light fun, but I really need to point this out:
DNA is not, repeat not subject to copyrights, trademarks, or registered trademarks! If you really wanted a cutting statement against IP, you should have created dna (patent pending) or something like that.
I apologise for my rudeness. It won't happen again. :)
Coming from a strong Jewish heritage, that's... that's so incredibly offensive!
I love it!
Fixed that back for you. We exchange control for the work itself. Your phrasing seemed to suggest that we pay artists to limit the distribution of their work, which is absurd. :)
I do, actually. I understand that copyright is, ostensibly, there for artists to make money, should they want to. But copyright has been granted as a right of artists to exert control over the distribution their creations. There have been plenty of other examples where copyright has been used to control distribution for goals other than immediate profit.
I guess the point I was making is that to paint copyright exclusively as some kind of tool for profiteering is a little unfair. Remember, copyright doesn't actually grant money in exchange for creation, all it does is grant something more flexible: control, which can be used for personal gain ("normal" copyright), or for communal gain ("copyleft" copyright), or it can be forfeited completely (BSD-licenses and public domain dedications). I object to the first type being painted as the only "true" type of copyright because:
a) It doesn't accurately represent copyrights
b) Copyright is just as integral to "copyleft" as it is to "normal" copyright, and
c) It's often used to justify simultaneously bagging copyright, and enjoying the benefits of "copyleft", which is just hypocritical.