Slashdot Log In
Looking Back At Copyright Predictions
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Apr 17, 2009 12:48 PM
from the 20-20-hindsight dept.
from the 20-20-hindsight dept.
Techdirt has an interesting look back at some of the more interesting predictions on copyright. The article looks at two different pre-DMCA papers and compares them to what has happened in the world of copyright. "The second paper is by Pamela Samuelson, and it discusses (again, quite accurately) the coming power grab by "copyright maximalists" via the DMCA, entitled The Copyright Grab. It clearly saw the intention of the DMCA to remove user rights, and grant highly questionable additional rights and powers to copyright holders in an online world. Samuelson lays out many concerns about where this is headed -- including how these proposals appear to trample certain fair use rights -- and in retrospect, her fears seem to have been backed up by history. Samuelson, by the way, has just written a new paper that is also worth reading pointing out how ridiculous current copyright statutory rates are -- an issue of key importance in the ongoing Tenebaum lawsuit, which (thankfully) the judge in the case is going to consider."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker (Score:5, Interesting)
Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker [wikipedia.org] held that "a ratio of no more than one-to-one between compensatory and punitive damages is generally appropriate in maritime cases". In other words, punitive damages cannot exceed compensatory damages. If this were applied to copyright infringement, it would mean that the most any record label could collect per infringing song would be $2.00. $1.00 since that's how much it could be bought off of iTunes, or something, and another $1.00 for punitive damages.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If this were applied to copyright infringement, it would mean that the most any record label could collect per infringing song would be $2.00.
I'm not sure that is true. Even that price makes the assumption that the amount lost when someone gets a song for free is the retail price of that song, but the assumption that the user would ever pay the full retail price is a mistaken one in many cases. In addition, there are two possible sources of damages when p2p is involved, both the receiving of the file (which in this case you appear to be arguing is equivalent to causing damages equal to the retail price of the track) and the distribution to anothe
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Copyright infringement? This clearly applies to all acts of piracy, both on and off sea!
Copyright Law (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
``Is there anyone outside of CEOs that really agrees with the sort of copyright policy we currently have?''
I bet there are some lawyers who enjoy the current law.
Re: (Score:2)
Politicians will follow the money. Once we've made it impossible for them to get the majority of their money by pandering to companies they'll have no choice but to come to us.
We need to bring back the i
This is nothing new and hardly surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
Any time there is a broad new (read that as "poorly worded") piece of law drafted people always use it to the poorly worded maximum.
No knock warrants were originally to "fight terrorism" - now they're used as a judicial shortcut to bust drug dealers. Often times with horrific results. [google.com]
Forfeiture laws were originally to return the goods from a crime to their rightful owners. Now, it's a cash grab by the government. [fear.org] They actually find property guilty. Or sometimes not even that much. [chicagotribune.com] Then they find the property (not the person carrying it, mind you) guilty and keep it. [npr.org]
Now we have the DMCA, which is being used to stifle competition and strangle free speech. [cmu.edu]
Why is anybody surprised?
We had precedents of poorly worded laws and what happens when we pass them into law. But when it's the government that benefits, it's hard to convince them to stop.
Simple, Elegant, Fair Solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So the biggest publisher can take your book and sell it, keeping all the profit? So anyone online can steal what you write on your blog and call it their own without giving you credit? I don't find that "fair". Simple, definitely... but I won't go so far as "elegant".
Copyright is a good idea; it's good enough to be written into the US Constitution. It just needs a lot of TLC right now. The current duration is out of control, at the very least.
Let's get back to the beginning. (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright was only introduced to allow authors to profit from their work for a LIMITED AMOUNT OF TIME, after that their work has to go IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.
I don't remember for how long the works are supposed to be protected, but 20 years seems like a good compromise to me.
Lobbying used to be illegal and was called something else. Oh right, CORRUPTION.
Let's make lobbying illegal. That's one of the major problem that's screwing up what should be a self-regulating capitalist system.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You don't really know what lobbying is, do you? It's not the same thing as bribery. It's quite necessary in our system too.
Re:Let's get back to the beginning. (Score:4, Insightful)
Lobbying, as in petitioning to make politicians aware of the needs of certain industries or groups of people, is necessary and often even good. But it needs to be disconnected from the process of financing and running election campaigns. Politicians who follow the will of lobbyists in order to help their personal campaign efforts might as well be taking bribes directly.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Lobbying needs to be subject to some additional restrictions, and a whole lot more openness. I would like to see an audio recording with automated transcript of everything said in the office of any elected official be made available to the general public. I don't see why they are entitled to privacy. If they want to seal portions of it in the interest of national security, so be it, but I want those records to be there for posterity so that if there is a question about why something happened or who is respo
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Getting representatives to vote for reasons other than to represent their constituents. "Legal" lobbying is informing the representative of what his constituents are (or should be) concerned about and informing them of the issues. "Regular" lobbying is bribery to get time, bribery to buy votes, and extortion to prevent voting the other way. It's tolerated, as long as it isn't too blatantly illegal.
It's not the same thing as bribery.
Next, you'll be tell
Re: (Score:2)
last for the life of the author plus 75 years.
Functionally unlimited compared to the past. And that's why I'm for calling anything above the 20-40 year range outright institutionalized theft from the public domain.
Artists react to the PirateBay verdict (Score:2, Interesting)
Since Slashdot is coming alive today with goofy hippies and their piracy justifications [slashdot.org] because of the PirateBay verdict, I thought it would be interesting to read the opinions of artists themselves [gearslutz.com]. You know, the people whose works you pirate and justify as a favor in the fight against the record industry. The people you speak for but never asked an opinion from. The people you're ripping off.
It's funny how different the opinions of the artists are from the selfish leeches who pirate their works. Again
Re: (Score:2)
The plural of anecdote is not data. Greed is still a deadly sin — a statement which appeals to me on the basis of my observations and not just my upbringing in a Christian-derived society. And finally, money still can't buy me love.
Re:Artists react to the PirateBay verdict (Score:5, Insightful)
If songwriters, musicians, etc. get no money for their work there will be no good music.
This opinion keeps getting repeated and repeated as if it's fact.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There was music and art long before copyright existed.
There is music and art created under copyleft licenses.
Re:Artists react to the PirateBay verdict (Score:4, Insightful)
Because we are creators. Creation gives us infinite joy. We don't do it for money, we do it because we want and need to. Monetizing thoughts, imagination, art is a fairly recent development, leading to the attempt to fence the unfencable.
Take a look at the videos on this page. These people were not paid, and Kutiman, the guy who spent hundreds of hours editing, didn't get paid either.
Because you are the Creator -- Kutiman remixes [thisinspiresme.com].
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Piracy is not theft, no property is taken. You still have your copy. Piracy is unauthorized reproduction of a work that the government has granted a monopoly on to the creator of said work.
Copyright is to encourage the creative and useful arts not some natural right. So long as copyright is defined in the current way it is theft of culture.
Re: (Score:2)
So? Artists are often as stupid as RIAA bosses.
Besides, quite a lot of them think that they'll make $$$$$$$$$$$ from CD sales if only those pesky pirates are dealt with. And almost all of them are not willing to use alternative distribution methods.
If you read this thread, it has a lot of unproven ideas taken as facts and as much wishful thinking.
Fuck the artists. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow. Self-righteous much?
Frankly, I don't give a fuck what the artists think. The RIAA and their ilk are small potatoes, ants, compared to the worldwide effects of intellectual property.
The real money in IP is not in copyright, but in patents. Drugs, pharmaceuticals, etc. Sadly, part of the spillover effect of all these artists clamoring for their "rights" and "property" is that IP as a whole is viewed less as a utilitarian means to an end, and more as a natural, God-given right. Then trade policy, etc., st
Re: (Score:2)
Ive listened to some new "music" lately... considering how the music industry rapes the artists, this statement is true...
"If songwriters, musicians, etc. get no money for their work there will be no good music."
The problem (Score:2)
Re:Need to make it clear (Score:4, Interesting)
What I'd like to make clear, though, is that I fully oppose those people who would like to take it a step too far ...
Ok, that's fair for you to have an opinion like that. I think right now you just need to take baby steps and get everyone on all sides to agree that the system is broken. While the majority of us are saying that, the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/Lawyers are still in a stubborn mule state. Which is fine because the longer they put off overhauling the system, the longer it hurts them and they lose ground to be seen as a rational actor we can work with to adapt to the changes that this magical internet has brought about.
That said, I will make the prediction for the future of Copyright: It will only get longer. It will only take longer for works to enter public domain and it will only get worse for the majority of the population. This has been true historically (Mickey Mouse Act, Sonny Bono, etc) and it will continue to be true. Where is our voice (public and public domain) represented in this process? The lobbyists run congress unopposed and hilarious lawsuits spring up routinely. It ain't a platform or election issue for the politicians so they don't care.
I'm not saying there is no such thing as intellectual property. I am saying that there are special classes of intellectual property like software and music that the law needs to adapt to. With the advent of the internet, this change must come more now than ever. We're about a full decade late in preparing the law for this wonderful technology.
When will you be able to sing Happy Birthday and White Christmas with your family publicly?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The problem as I see it is the radicalization process of everyone's stance.
On one hand we have absurdly long copyright lengths, DRM and a total disregard of fair use. On the other hand, so many people expect to get anything and everything for free.
Ideally, content producers (big and small) should realize that restrictions upon restrictions alienate their users, while users would understand that it's unrealistic to expect all things to be free.
I'm not holding by breath for this to happen.
Re:Need to make it clear (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure whether we're quite on the same page (we might be). It's not that "intellectual property" isn't a useful idea, but that it was never intended to control what happened to your ideas when they went out into the world. Owning the copyright on a book wasn't intended to control who read your book, or whether that book could be lent or shared among friends. It was intended to allow you to prevent other commercial publishers from profiting from your work without paying you.
It's also noteworthy that in the US, the government is only granted the power to give copyrights for the sake of promoting the "useful arts", and traditionally there has been the concept that copyrights were only applicable for a limited time before the work become public property. In fact, the concept was that the intellectual property would become public by default, and that copyrights were an additional reward that the public was willing to grant for the sake of encouraging and promoting the work.
I think we have to start from that foundation. From there we can ask, "Given this new age of ubiquitous information, what kinds of temporary rights is the public willing to part with for the sake of encouraging artistic work?" It should not start from believing that people have an inalienable human right to control the destiny of every thought that happens to pass through their heads.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Copyright not meant as individual property right (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright was created as a monopoly privilege, not a property right. In recent years maximalists have waged an ideological campaign to redefine copyright. The individual property rights position is radical. In the U.S., it is also well outside what the constitution allows: copyright is a regime intended to further the public interest (advancement of arts and sciences), *not* preserve or create some kind of individual rights. That individual "moral rights" approach is from the European (particularly French) tradition, and has been rejected by the United States. Lawrence Lessig (who is quite moderate) asserts that the only justification for copyright is the creation of works that would not otherwise exist.
You can talk about the foundation of copyright in moral rights in theory, but in practice it is almost never used for anything other than economic gain: and in fact promotes control and consolidation by media companies to the exclusion of all others - including artists.
It wasn't until quite recently (the 19th-20th centuries) that the idea of moral rights and individual originality even made sense. Many cultures still don't recognize it. It's a product of a particular culture at a particular moment in history. In practice, it creates all sorts of inconsistencies. It's a romantic notion that has very little to do with how creativity actually operates. It's interpretation and fleshing-out by courts has led to extremely weird and contradictory outcomes. For example, a doctor can patent your genes without your consent because he is the "creator" of his discovery. I can film people being shot in a demonstration, and *I* own the images - they have no right to them. But if those people are performing theater, all of a sudden copyright steps in. Copyright demands hard boundaries between what is "mine" and what is "yours", when no such hard boundaries really exist. Governments can create laws and call them "rights", but they are legal fictions, not reflections of some preexisting reality.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
First I'd like to say that for the most part I agree with your stance. Copyright and patents exist for a reason, and the reason isn't obsolete just yet. That said, I agree with the people who say that intellectual property doesn't exist.
There is no intrinsic reason that people should be granted an exclusive right to the use of ideas they come up with, and claiming otherwise is basically equivalent to claiming that because a law exists, it is incorrect to try to change it. Rather, IP law exists because it
Re:Need to make it clear (Score:4, Interesting)
how do you propose 'protecting intellectual property' at the same time you 'reject government intervention in the economy'?
You're equivocating. I'm not opposed to all government, just improper government. The proper role of government is reflected in the courts, police, and military, in the protection of those rights that are necessary for individuals to live and pursue their values and goals. So if you try to attack me, you are violating my rights, and the government - which has a monopoly on force - should intervene and go after you. If I plagiarize your book, steal your invention blueprints, take credit for it, or otherwise distribute your written thoughts without your consent or the consent of whomever you have sold your thoughts to, then I have violated your rights and the government should go after me.
What I mean by "government intervention of the economy" is precisely force-backed rights violations. The government has a monopoly on force, so only they could get away with forcing anyone to do anything - there's no higher power to which they must answer. A company or crony who buys a political vote that benefits them and violates the rights of others, or even if it benefits others and violates their rights, is force-backed rights violation.
Parent
Taking credit is not copyright infringement (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny thing. In the U.S. at least, taking credit for someone else's work is not a copyright infringement. Fraud perhaps, dishonest yes, but copyright no. Nor, as economist David Levine argues, should there be a special law for that: private law is fully up to the task, even harsher than anything the government might do. If you are a tenured academic (his example) or a journalist and you plagiarize, you could be out of a job. If you commit fraud, there's a law for that. If you lie persistently, it reflects on your character. Sure, lies can do tremendous harm. Think of how much damage they can do in romantic relationships. But we don't have laws for that. We shouldn't. The honest truth is that copyright (all of it in the U.S., 99.9% of in jurisdictions that respect moral rights) is about money. Preventing plagiarism is a totally bogus argument for copyright.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
If you are a tenured academic (his example) or a journalist and you plagiarize, you could be out of a job.
Tenured! Not even tenured. Imagine you're a junior professor, and it's found you've plagiarized. Good luck ever getting tenure anywhere.
Copyright and plagiarism have nothing to do with each other.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Funny thing. In the U.S. at least, taking credit for someone else's work is not a copyright infringement.
Did I say it was? They are all violations of property rights - that is what unites them. Whether it's fraud or copyright infringement is irrelevant to the question of whether it violates rights and should be prosecuted.
Attribution is a property right? (Score:3, Interesting)
Where do you get the idea from that attribution is a property right? If I say, "I wrote that AC post on Slashdot", and you say, "No you didn't", do you really think you are violating my property rights? Indeed, what makes attribution a "right" at all? What makes lying about authorship of a creative work a
Re:Need to make it clear (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
For better or worst, it seems that there is a coming rebellion against copyright. The system as it stands today is holding all creative works produced since 1923(or so) hostage for the betterment of a few rich and powerful people.
If this rebellion against copyright comes to pass, nobody will create anything as polished as what we see and hear today. The music industry will look like the one in China where artist make the most of their income on stage and not in a studio. The movie industry, however, will be
Participation and contribution over quality (Score:5, Insightful)
If this were true (I don't know that it would be), how bad would that be? In other words, how important is it that our entertainment be polished?
I'm not going to make the full argument here, but I'll throw out some thoughts.
The pyramids are great works of architecture. Wonders of the world. But we don't build them anymore. The cost is not worth the benefit. (As it happens, one of those costs was slave labor.)
I love television. I prefer good TV shows to good movies. Has TV made the world a better place? Research strongly points to television as a reason for a collapse in social and political participation since the 1960s. There's no question of abolishing television, but should we step in and enforce onerous regulations in order to preserve it as it is?
What is better: listening to highly polished music, or learning to make music and playing for your friends? We used to *do* culture instead of simply observing it. Most people could sing or play an instrument. Many more played sports. Drawing was a basic skill for educated people. But we were not professional artists. We were not usually able to both compose the song *and* sing it. We drew on the culture around us, and transformed it to enrich our lives. Now our entertainment is provided to us, and for the most part we don't contribute. Copyright as it stands entrenches that passive role because wit forbids us from most forms of participation - particularly when we use the everyday digital media and technology through which we live our lives and connect with the people we care about.
Parent
Re:Need to make it clear (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is pretty much how musicians have made a living for thousands of years. The brief period in which a musician could become a multimillionaire because of a peculiar alignment of recording and playback technologies and a rather clever distribution and marketing system are gone. It was good (for some) while it lasted, but it's toast, and sending TPB's founders to jail and taking college students to court won't make it come back.
That's the one that's going to be interesting. Technologies are going to allow movies to be made cheaper, but no matter what way you cut it, even a low-end Indie film is a multimillion dollar enterprise. The only thing that might save it, in my view, is the movie theater itself. I have to admit that, at least for some kinds of film, experiencing a movie as a group of people is significantly different than sitting in your livingroom watching it on DVD.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Clerks [wikipedia.org] which had been shot for US$27,575 in the convenience store where director Kevin Smith worked, grossed over US$3 million in theaters, launching Smith's career and reinvigorating the field of independent films.
Pi [wikipedia.org] had a low budget ($60,000), but proved a financial success at the box office ($3.2 million gross in the U.S.) despite only a limited release to theaters. It has sold steadily on DVD.
Re:Need to make it clear (Score:4, Insightful)
Given the state of chinese films I tend to wonder where you get your ideas from? I've seen some that were every bit as polished. Take Hero for one.
People will continue to create polished works regardless due to pride in their work and the reality that you can do a lot more with less now than you used to be able to. You can create studio quality sound at home for only a couple of thousand dollars now compared to hundreds of thousands for a professional recording studio. A lot of the extras are simply unnecessary now especially given that the vast majority of listeners aren't listening to your work on multi-thousand dollar stereo systems.
If you cut the cost of production from a couple of million dollars to a couple of thousand then you now do not need to charge anywhere near as much for your music. In fact, the costs would be so much lower that you could make a very good living touring and selling merchandise. Of course a lot of middle-men wouldn't be happy with that.
Why should consumers suffer high prices for content when the option exists that allows them an easy path? Combine that with the very unfriendly practices of the past, refusals to replace scratched or broken cds for instance and its no wonder people have no problems copying music from someone that did run the risk of paying for a CD which may or may not have had some form of malware on it.
Parent
Re:Need to make it clear (Score:5, Insightful)
You can make the country a jail.
CC.
Parent
Thomas Babington Macaulay, uncorrupted (Score:5, Interesting)
Thomas Babington Macaulay's speech in the House of Commons, 5 February 1841 on the obscene extension of the term of copyright protections:
"I am so sensible, sir, of the kindness with which the House has listened to me, that I will not detain you longer. I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should produce one tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers.
At present, the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesmen of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law, and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot.
On which side, indeed, should the public sympathy be when the question is, whether some book as popular as 'Robinson Crusoe,' or 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller, who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress?
Remember, too, that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find, that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living."
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much. I can't really disagree with that. Reading a wall of text is a pain in the ass and I lost my place three times.
Oh well, mod me down.
Re: (Score:2)
Rob Malda is a blatant homosexual cock-sucking bastard.
Did you read it?
Re: (Score:2)
Who is Rob Malda?
Re: (Score:2)
H.N.(erd)I.C. of Slashdot
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Internet -- a vast entity based largely on copying data without regard to its content -- is not compatible with copyright as we know it today.