Are you under the assumption that people who share music get for themselves Broadcast licenses for each song they share, or contact BMI or ASCAP or SESAC to pay royalties?
While we are being stupid about it and coming up with new metaphors to explain something we should all be able to understand without metaphors, let me propose that what 'they' would really like is to just take cash money right out of your pocket based on how much 'they' think 'they' deserve.
Despite your record levels of self absorption and what I hope is a sticking caps lock key, I doubt the RIAA cares about whether you specifically will have to buy your digital music again.
What they do care about is finding a way to prevent digital music files from being distributed without their consent. At the present the best way they have determined to accomplish that is DRM.
This is really only 'extreme' because it is being done on the internet via a relatively new service. Anyone who built a free video sharing service without realizing that it might one day be used to deliver advertising hasn't been paying attention.
For as long as there have been people with stuff to sell they have co-opted anything they could get their hands on to advertise. Roadside signs, barns, telephone poles, bumpers, hats, t-shirts, asses, airplanes flying around dragging banners behind them. Hot air baloons, can coolers, junk mail. Sneaky anthropomorphic dogs. Sheep with numbers painted on their sides. Phone calls to your house. Etc, etc.
Advertising, even slick inline contextual advertising, has been around for a long long time. While that may not mean it is a good thing, pretending that it is new or that one specific company has 'gone too far' misses the big picture.
There are already several regs regarding how appliances are treated when they become waste, same for automobiles. There are even regs to deal with many of the specific components of each.
How it makes sense to force the manufacturer to 'take it back' I don't quite get. For nearly everything charging the end user for disposing of it seems to work well.
I'm just a consumer who wants to enjoy life a little bit more by having less conspicuous consumerism shoved in my face.
To that end you should probably stop referring to yourself as a consumer. Also, Apple is just trying to sell more stuff by taking advantage of people who use iPods as statements. Some idiot waving their red music player around like it is a fashion statement doesn't make me feel like an idiot for having the same player (in white) discreetly stashed in my pocket.
While I agree with you I do not understand why you felt the need to point this out. For instance: it would have been just as topical for you to note that you think cucumbers taste better than pickles.
HDR images are not at their best on a computer monitor, they look much better in print. Side by side a 3 stop HDR digital print generally looks better than a single exposure.
Many of us who create copyrightable works dislike the one sidedness of contracts and want to keep as much of the income our material generates in our own hands as possible. It is encumbent on us to do this by pursuing better contracts with traditional media companies or by seeking out our own methods of distribution. Where I think the Slashdot crowd is mistaken is when they assume that all artists everywhere want them to freely copy all material and make it available to the entire world free of charge.
What really amazes me is the number of WAPs this applies to. When I'm traveling I hardly ever bother to find an actual public wireless spot, I just fire up Netstumbler and find one to borrow. Easier to find than a coffee shop, much less traffic, and no one in pantaloons smoking cloves sitting next to me.
I do not reason according to the principles you laid out because I do not agree that a person who creates something immediately loses all control over that something simply because there are people who disagree with the way copyright law has been implemented.
The law as written allows for control of distribution. You freely distributing my work is forcing me to go along with your interpretation of the failings of copyright laws. While I do not care one way or the other whether you chose not to seek the rights afforded to you by copyright, or to distribute the works of others who do not, I prefer to opt out of your campaign to save us all.
The fact that ownership of property exists at all is a construction of governments. Here in the US there existed thousands of people who got along fairly well for a long period of time with, in relative terms, no concept of such a thing as real estate. Yet here we are arguing that the impossibility of two people being able to occupy the same phyical space at a given time necessitates some law delineating who gets which space.
The laws governing copyright have indeed been bought and paid for by the industry, but every penny the industry spent came from the hands of the public, who bought content produced by individuals who voluntarily chose to have it distributed by the industry.
There exist ways to change laws. Feel free to make a run them at them through the courts. If indeed they are unconstitutional and you aren't just cheerleading, you'd should have a pretty easy go of it and should have no trouble finding pro bono representation. Take to the street and picket. Choose some alternate path for the copyrightable works you produce. Just stop trying to force me to go along with you.
That case could be made of just about anything. People claim to own real estate, but all they own is a document entitling them to do various things at a location described by a particular set of coordinates to the exclusion of other entities doing various things at their own accord. That document is only as good as the force that backs it up. Just like copyright is only as good as the force that backs it up.
Debating semantics is fun, but the reality of the situation is that copyright law is backed up by people who own tanks and canons and the like. Maybe I'm mistaking the direction your comment goes but I don't see how people getting the feeling that distributors have abused their privilege, when the distributors have the law on their side.
It is still voluntary. You sit down, usually with your agent and an attorney from the company offering the contract, and sign the thing or you don't. If you do it isn't because the only possible thing you might otherwise do with your life is work at McDonalds. As many Slashdotters will tell you, there are scores of other possible ways to make money off your art. Micropayments, nanopayments, somehow peer sharing your work and hoping people will come to your show or gallery opening and buy a T shirt. While none of those may actually work, ever, they are indeed some of the many alternatives.
What I find even more annoying than my exercising the choice to sell a company the exclusive right to content I create, is the desire of some people to jump in and save me from myself by taking that content and redistributing it as they see fit.
While there are certainly problems with the corporate world railing against copyright laws under the banner of freeing slaves won't get you much further than laughed at by most people.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you under the assumption that people who share music get for themselves Broadcast licenses for each song they share, or contact BMI or ASCAP or SESAC to pay royalties?
While we are being stupid about it and coming up with new metaphors to explain something we should all be able to understand without metaphors, let me propose that what 'they' would really like is to just take cash money right out of your pocket based on how much 'they' think 'they' deserve.
They being whomever.
Despite your record levels of self absorption and what I hope is a sticking caps lock key, I doubt the RIAA cares about whether you specifically will have to buy your digital music again.
What they do care about is finding a way to prevent digital music files from being distributed without their consent. At the present the best way they have determined to accomplish that is DRM.
And what does freely copying an artist's music do for the artist?
Also would you guess at whether a service like iTunes would exist if the original Napster had not been pulled down by the entertainment industry?
I'm pretty sure that is the whole of it, instead of just a lot.
Petrochemicals to the rescue again.
This is really only 'extreme' because it is being done on the internet via a relatively new service. Anyone who built a free video sharing service without realizing that it might one day be used to deliver advertising hasn't been paying attention.
For as long as there have been people with stuff to sell they have co-opted anything they could get their hands on to advertise. Roadside signs, barns, telephone poles, bumpers, hats, t-shirts, asses, airplanes flying around dragging banners behind them. Hot air baloons, can coolers, junk mail. Sneaky anthropomorphic dogs. Sheep with numbers painted on their sides. Phone calls to your house. Etc, etc.
Advertising, even slick inline contextual advertising, has been around for a long long time. While that may not mean it is a good thing, pretending that it is new or that one specific company has 'gone too far' misses the big picture.
There are already several regs regarding how appliances are treated when they become waste, same for automobiles. There are even regs to deal with many of the specific components of each.
How it makes sense to force the manufacturer to 'take it back' I don't quite get. For nearly everything charging the end user for disposing of it seems to work well.
What generation is Windows on?
To that end you should probably stop referring to yourself as a consumer. Also, Apple is just trying to sell more stuff by taking advantage of people who use iPods as statements. Some idiot waving their red music player around like it is a fashion statement doesn't make me feel like an idiot for having the same player (in white) discreetly stashed in my pocket.
I assure you, it is a very real marketing ploy, not a fake one.
Dude, you'll be too late.
While I agree with you I do not understand why you felt the need to point this out. For instance: it would have been just as topical for you to note that you think cucumbers taste better than pickles.
HDR images are not at their best on a computer monitor, they look much better in print. Side by side a 3 stop HDR digital print generally looks better than a single exposure.
DSLRs are limited to 12 or 14 bits. Merge to HDR in Photoshop CS2 will do as many images as you care to take.
I have never seen a huge advantage in color prints but B&W, even with HDR, can't quite produce the results film can.
Public Enemy.
Many of us who create copyrightable works dislike the one sidedness of contracts and want to keep as much of the income our material generates in our own hands as possible. It is encumbent on us to do this by pursuing better contracts with traditional media companies or by seeking out our own methods of distribution. Where I think the Slashdot crowd is mistaken is when they assume that all artists everywhere want them to freely copy all material and make it available to the entire world free of charge.
Maybe not mistaken, just self serving and greedy.
Copyright is as much individual vs. individual as the civil rights movement.
It is much easier to justify copyright infringement by putting a corporate face on it, but you are untimately acting against an individual.
What really amazes me is the number of WAPs this applies to. When I'm traveling I hardly ever bother to find an actual public wireless spot, I just fire up Netstumbler and find one to borrow. Easier to find than a coffee shop, much less traffic, and no one in pantaloons smoking cloves sitting next to me.
I do not reason according to the principles you laid out because I do not agree that a person who creates something immediately loses all control over that something simply because there are people who disagree with the way copyright law has been implemented.
The law as written allows for control of distribution. You freely distributing my work is forcing me to go along with your interpretation of the failings of copyright laws. While I do not care one way or the other whether you chose not to seek the rights afforded to you by copyright, or to distribute the works of others who do not, I prefer to opt out of your campaign to save us all.
The fact that ownership of property exists at all is a construction of governments. Here in the US there existed thousands of people who got along fairly well for a long period of time with, in relative terms, no concept of such a thing as real estate. Yet here we are arguing that the impossibility of two people being able to occupy the same phyical space at a given time necessitates some law delineating who gets which space.
The laws governing copyright have indeed been bought and paid for by the industry, but every penny the industry spent came from the hands of the public, who bought content produced by individuals who voluntarily chose to have it distributed by the industry.
There exist ways to change laws. Feel free to make a run them at them through the courts. If indeed they are unconstitutional and you aren't just cheerleading, you'd should have a pretty easy go of it and should have no trouble finding pro bono representation. Take to the street and picket. Choose some alternate path for the copyrightable works you produce. Just stop trying to force me to go along with you.
And next time be easy with the saffron, if I wanted this much saffron I'd just eat raw saffron.
The plaintiff's name is given as Sue Scheff. Tell me that that isn't funny.
I left out:
"...abused their privilege allows them to jump ahead of the timeline established by copyright law, when the distributors..."
That case could be made of just about anything. People claim to own real estate, but all they own is a document entitling them to do various things at a location described by a particular set of coordinates to the exclusion of other entities doing various things at their own accord. That document is only as good as the force that backs it up. Just like copyright is only as good as the force that backs it up.
Debating semantics is fun, but the reality of the situation is that copyright law is backed up by people who own tanks and canons and the like. Maybe I'm mistaking the direction your comment goes but I don't see how people getting the feeling that distributors have abused their privilege, when the distributors have the law on their side.
It is still voluntary. You sit down, usually with your agent and an attorney from the company offering the contract, and sign the thing or you don't. If you do it isn't because the only possible thing you might otherwise do with your life is work at McDonalds. As many Slashdotters will tell you, there are scores of other possible ways to make money off your art. Micropayments, nanopayments, somehow peer sharing your work and hoping people will come to your show or gallery opening and buy a T shirt. While none of those may actually work, ever, they are indeed some of the many alternatives.
What I find even more annoying than my exercising the choice to sell a company the exclusive right to content I create, is the desire of some people to jump in and save me from myself by taking that content and redistributing it as they see fit.
While there are certainly problems with the corporate world railing against copyright laws under the banner of freeing slaves won't get you much further than laughed at by most people.