Making The Justice Dept. A Copyright Busybody 381
This bill, put forward by your friends and mine, Msrs. Leahy and Hatch, would task the JD with filing civil actions against "pirates" - essentially putting your tax dollars to work bringing civil actions against college students in the name of the very largest Copyright holders, allowing them even more spare pocket change to spend lobbying to restrict your already shrinking online freedoms. A choice snippet from the floor: "For too long, Federal prosecutors have been hindered in their pursuit of pirates, by the fact that they were limited to bringing criminal charges with high burdens of proof..."
And it gets better: "In the long run, I believe that we must find better mechanisms to ensure that our most vulnerable citizens--our children--are not being constantly tempted to infringe the copyrights that have made America a world leader in the production of creative works." Hold on to your wallets folks, they're telling us to "think of the children" again..."
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:0, Insightful)
Why stop at "theft" I say it's treason!
Song of the piracy apologist (Score:-1, Insightful)
Song of the piracy apologist:
(1) I don't personally believe in copying CDs illegally-- but I think we should avoid using unkind words like "piracy" to describe those that do -- instead, we should describe it as an "infringement", much like a parking infringement.
(2) I don't believe in the record companies emotively abusing the word "theft," but I do believe in emotively abusing words like "information," "sharing," and "Copyright Enforcement Militia."
(3) I believe that piracy is driven by "overpriced CDs" even though CDs have dropped in price over the years.
(4) I believe that piracy is driven by overly long copyright duration, even though most pirated works are recent releases.
(5) I believe that illegitimately downloading music is giving the author "free advertising". I don't buy any of the music I download, of course--but lots of other people probably do.
(6) I believe that ripping off the artists is wrong. The record companies always rip off the artists. Artists support P2P, except the ones that don't (like Metallica), and they don't agree with me, hence they're greedy or their opinion doesn't count or something.
(7) I believe that selling CDs is not a business model, but giving away things for free on the internet is.
(8) I believe that artists should be compensated for their work -- preferably by someone else. I mean, they can sell concert tickets (which someone else can buy) or sell t-shirts (to someone else) or something. As long as someone else subsidises my free ride, I'm coooooool with it.
(9) I believe in capitalism but only support music business models which involve giving away the fruits of ones labor for free.
(10) I believe that copying someone elses music, and redistributing it to my 1,000,000 "best friends" on the internet is sharing. Music is made for sharing. It's my right.
(11) I believe that record companies cracking down on piracy is "greed", but a mob demanding free entertainment is not.
(12) I believe that it's not really "piracy" unless you charge money for it, because, receiving money is wrong, but taking a free ride is fine.
(13) I believe that disallowing copying and redistributing music over Napster is the same as humming my favourite song in public. Because when I hum my favourite song in public, everyone likes it so much that they run home, get out their tape recorders and once they've got a recording of it, they aren't interested in hearing the original any more.
(14) I believe that when illegal behaviour destroys a business, it's "free enterprise at work".
(15) I believe piracy is simply "free advertising." Even though that's what radio is, but with the legal permission of the copyright holder. Basically, what I really want is to be able to choose the songs I want, listen to them whenever I want, but I don't want to have to pay for it. Essentially, I want the whole thing for free with no strings attached.
What I find amusing is that the pirates seem unable or unwilling to distinguish between creative activity and brainless copying.
Since a lot of the people here are GPL/OSS advocates: the "OSS way" applied to this domain is to learn how to play an instrument. Or how to sing or whatever. Then get together with a bunch of other people who can also play music, and make some noise.
One of the unfortunate things that has happened to the OSS movement is that a lot of the loudmouth advocates for it don't understand what it's really about. They view it primarily as a means to get free stuff, and then they turn their eyes from the free stuff to the non-free stuff and think to themselves "maybe I'm entitled to get that one for free too". The noble ideals of grass roots participation in the creative process, and/or supporting it in a principled way (namely, boosting the "free foo" movement by preferring free foo to nonfree foo), or for that matter, any other form of
You are missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Now tell me, really... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is /., not Fantasyland.
[Fantasyland is believed to be a registered trademark of the Walt Disney Corporation. It is used here without permission, but concurrent with the United States Supreme Court decision regarding Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc (1994) [findlaw.com] and the copyright laws of the United States protecting parody and satire.]
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You are missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
At what point does it step past "freedom" and into illegal?
Do I have the right to shoot the noise dog next door to be "free" of the noise?
Why not?
When our "freedoms" and illegal cross steps have to be taken. By supporting the illegal actions regardless of the cause or ideal behind it you bolster the RIAA's arguments.
Changing the bargin (Score:5, Insightful)
I always found it odd that this post gets protection of my live time plus seventy years but a new drug only gets seventeen years plus a few extra months the lawyers cheat out of the system at the end of the seventeen years. If something that reduces suffering is only worth 17 years maybe the founding fathers were right to put the copyright term at 28 years.
This is a natural progression for these industries (Score:5, Insightful)
It is only natural that they feed like pigs at the trough that contains the tax receipts. Industries built on theft don't stop doing it once they become "successful", they do more of it and on a much grander scale.
Re:You are missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
The point you're missing is that what is LEGAL is constantly shrinking. If the law was a static, absolute thing, your point would be valid. At some point one must stand up and say "the law goes too far". Are you really suggesting that all laws should be obeyed simply because they're LAWS?
you do realize this promotes.... (Score:3, Insightful)
i.e. free software...
the more complexity that is built up, the sooner the ever advancing world will move forward beyond such getting in the way complexity.
a simple matter of the ever increasing velocity of reaching new things for us all to benefit from and/or enjoy.
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:1, Insightful)
Or, as the scientologists call it "copyright terrorism".
Re:You are missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
You feel its wrong, Argue the legal valid points. Don't just download music because you think your punishing the RIAA for there acts. Your feeding there power not working to prevent it when you take those actions.
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
Get a sense of perspective, for God's sake!
That day 0 copy of the next StarWars film should get you a stiff fine at worst. Prison? Are you kidding? I don't think people should breach copyright (sorry, it's not the same as stealing), but your extreme view shows you're way off base. Prison is for people who are dangerous to society. I am 100% sure that you yourself have done things that are more dangerous to society than downloading a stinking movie online.
What we all really know for sure:
1) Copyright and patent law in this country are out of hand, giving people the impetus for unlawful resistence.
2) Unlawful resistence is unlawful and not particularly effective in this case.
Everything else is speculation and fiery opinion. Personally I'm for reforming the laws. In the meantime, as an artist myself I have released some of my work [crazyeddy.com] under a creative commons lisence. I encourage other artists to do the same.
Cheers.
Re:Song of the piracy apologist -- Locked & Lo (Score:4, Insightful)
Boy, you seem to have had this one Locked & Loaded and ready to fire on a moment's notice.
What rips my jocks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Song of the piracy apologist (Score:5, Insightful)
Song of the piracy apologist:
Or, in other words, if you agree with this screed, please use it to spam any future discussion of intellectual property law with pre-canned arguments rather than engaging in a rational debate framed in your own words.
(p.s. post it anonymously so people don't know who you are and mentally label you a mindless parrot)
Re:Song of the piracy apologist (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright was created, at least in this country, for the extrinsic purpose of promoting "the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Note that the exclusive rights granted are only done so for a specific end. I am not one to say that just because it is in the Constitution, that makes it right. Rather, it is just a tidy summary of my views on intellectual property. If the consequent is no longer contingent on the antecedent, we can remove the antecedent as extraneous. That is, if the "progress of sciences and useful arts" no longer depends on intellectual "property", then there is no need for this legal entity.
Many believe, and I'm sure you're one of them, that copyright and other intellectual "properties" are intrinsic rights of the author. I just disagree. There is no Archimedian point from which such disparate views can be arbitrated, so I don't see this debate being resolved anytime soon. However, I am quite certain that my position is coherence and cogent. You can only contradict it by assuming intellectual rights are intrinsic. Which is fine, but I can simply assume the opposite. And there's no way you can say that my view is wrong because of X, because whatever X you choose, I choose my view to trump it. So please, go ahead and try.
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, moron. This potential law isn't about the criminal act of copyright infringement - the JD already handles the criminal part. This potential law is about granting the government the authority to be involved in civil cases.
The entire concept of the distinction between civil and criminal law is that the government is not supposed to have the authority to punish we the people unless they have proof beyond reasonable doubt. Civil law is for cases where there is only a preponderance of evidence. Civil law has only ever been meant to encompass civil entity versus civil entity, not government versus governed.
When the dispute is civil entity versus civil entity, who is supposed to decide which side the government should back? Criminal law already deals with copyright infringement.
Take for example the IBM versus SCO fight - that is a civil dispute, which side should the government be backing? Neither. The government should never be involved in civil disputes except as the adjudicator.
Oh, and you're a lying sack of shit as well. (Score:3, Insightful)
The argument has been completely substantiated in repeated studies, the ones the RIAA didn't pay for. The only studies that contradict this are the ones the content cartel bought, the same way MS buys FUD studies.
P2P promotes sales. It does NOT displace them unless the product is such crap that the normal fan base for a musician won't buy it. That's why the industry uses Big Champagne for marketing purposes. Google is your friend, look up the studies yourself. You've wasted enough of our time.
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
They do NOT own that music or movie or concept. The minute they place that info in the public view, WE own it. However in order to incourage them to create such things we (via our proxy, the government) grant them a limited monopoly on the profitable distribution/use of that material for a limited time.
At least that is how it is supposed to be in the United States. But corporate $$ has been spent to buy poloticians and propaganda untill a suprisingly large number of people actually believe they have some sort of natural right or ownership over ideas just because they were first to come up with it, or at least file paperwork claiming so.
Mycroft
Re:Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) (Score:3, Insightful)
It's an interesting point....however, when your house is burning down, you don't start fixing the leaky faucet or the peeling paint or the creaky floorboards. You put out the fire.
You're All Missing The Point (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone here is talking about whether piracy is right or wrong. Duh. It's wrong. That's not the point.
This law would give the government the authority to punish people based on a preponderance of evidence. There has always been a distinction between civil and criminal law. When there is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but two people are still in dispute, the government is not allowed to get involved, because they tip the balance too much. If there is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, how is the government supposed to decide which side to support? This law is saying in effect, "whenever we're not sure if someone has been wronged or not, the government should back party A." It is completely antithetical to the distinction beetween civil and criminal law.
Re:Such a shame.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've never bought a pirated DVD in my life. Nor have I ever downloaded a movie from the internet, P2P or whatever.
And you know what? Nor have 99.5% of the other people who go to see movies.
Most people, if they want to see a film, are happy to cough up the UKP5/$8 it costs to see it in a cinema. Hell, they'll make a social event of it and go with a bunch of their friends, then go out for drinks afterwards. How many people out of the entire population go "Woah, party at my place tonight! I downloaded a 400x300 WMP file of [insert blockbuster here] that we can all sit around my computer monitor for two hours and watch!"? It's a tiny, tiny percentage.
If piracy is such a problem, if it's literally stealing the bread from the mouths of the stars and directors and producers and executives, then how come last year was the most successful year financially in Hollywood history?
The studios and the *AAs are not being devastated by piracy. No studio has *ever* been driven to bankruptcy by piracy - they've been driven to bankruptcy by making shit films that nobody wants to see. Piracy denies them just a teeny, tiny percentage of their overall profits. The problem is that, like organised crime, the loss of 0.5% of their profits is considered the same as losing 100% of their profits. Unlike organised crime, they have the law on their side (which they've bought), and as a result they get to treat the 99.5% of people who *don't* buy pirated goods as potential criminals.
And under the current western political system, lobbying groups and corporations with money get what they want at the expense of the pre-existing rights of citizens without it. I'm no revolutionary, but to me that seems wrong, and something really should be done about it. Any suggestions?
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:2, Insightful)
Who defines theft? In this particular situation we can't rely on the government to define morality for us, as the government does the will of the party in power, and the party in power has a vested interest in creating law in support of those, like the RIAA, who give it cash.
I do believe that filesharing is immoral. But I believe it is immoral to about the same degree that kicking a door open rather than pushing it open is immoral - the marginal damage is negligibly small. And, if the profits of the recording industry are as damaged as they say, the system itself (their business model) could be said to be broken - unsustainable in a free market. In that case, the system needs to be fundamentally changed, as opposed to litigating against those who have individually done so little damage.
If, on the other hand, the RIAA is merely keen to get as much money from lawsuits as possible, regardless of how negligibly small the effect may be on sales, then I have no sympathy. I'll keep kicking the door open, especially if my hands are full (metaphor alert: I'm a student in debt).
Note: this applies only to filesharing. I do not support commercial piracy, as this invalidates the above argument by competing with the recording industries on their own turf by unfair means.
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:1, Insightful)
And God help you if you are smoking a joint when you get caught. America already has the highest percentage of its population in prison of ANY country. Period. We are a Prison State. Ordinary people fear the police more than criminals. Does it really have to be this way?
When will we be liberated?
Not at all... (Score:5, Insightful)
"to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
The deal is that they get the monopoly for the act of creating their works and inventions. There's never been any "principal" decision of who is to enforce it, as far as I know. Certainly, by their right to secure the monopoly, making the government enforce it is fully constitutional.
I think the government should step back and look at what the goal is: To promote the creation of new works and inventions. The expectancy to make money is a driving factor. But if I write a book today, do I expect money in 2150? (which would hopefully be life + 70 for me) No.
Ask any movie producer, book author, music artist when they expect to make money off their work. Sure, sometimes a book like LotR can become massively long after it was written, but did JRR Tolkien make it because it'd be a wildly movie triology in the next millenium? Hell no.
There's two kinds of copyright. One that promotes the creation of new works, and one that promotes the hoarding of existing IP because some works will become "classics". The latter is a cancer that only contributes to making artificial profit, not to advance science nor the arts.
That is why copyright should be cut, massively. A few decades should be more than enough to put it through any normal life cycle (like e.g. cinema -> rental -> dvd sales -> premium channels -> normal channels -> reruns).
What is a concern, is the "pollution" of the setting, like e.g. the Star Trek universe. However, make it real simple. Only what is expired from copyright is expired. E.g. if TOS didn't contain the Borg, but Voyager does, they are copyrighted as long as Voyager.
But if you want to take Capt. Kirk on adventures to meet some completely new and unknown aliens, you're free to do that. If the "original" can't introduce enough new things (new characters, new plots, new items) to live with that during say, 30 years?, well they don't deserve it.
Kjella
Re:You are missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with the spirit of what you're saying - people ripping off music are just the other side of a double-edged problem - I disagree with the way you presented it.
That day 0 copy of the next StarWars can and should land you in jail plain and simple.
Why on earth should that land anyone in jail? Punishments should be contingent with the magnitude of the crime. Last I knew, society didn't really suffer a whole lot because some poor college kid or some cheap bastard ripped off a copy of a crappy sci fi flick. Pay a fine and that's that. I mean, explain to me, please, how wasting your time downloading a movie that costs $8 to see in the theatre and $20 to bring home on DVD is worth a couple thousand taxpayer dollars for jail time? Even if you're talking about the person that made the 0 day rip available, they didn't cause enough harm to justify jail time. Make them pay twenty eight bucks for the content and add court costs, reasonable restitution for investigating and prosecuting the case, and a fine. Make the fine bigger for the person who made the copy.
Nobody ever died because someone downloaded a movie. There's no justfication for jail time, $100k+ fines, or any of the other insanely draconian punishments that these nutters in the content industries want to try and mete out.
Punishments, yes. But reasonable ones.
All that said, I find it greatly distressing that those two whackjobs Leahy and Hatch are seriously suggesting spending more of MY tax money to help their palm-greasers stomp on people's feet. It's not MY content, so I don't think I should have to pay to enforce the copyright on it. THAT'S actually the problem in this story.
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the point was, there's no difference.
A tax on copyright holders (those that have an income stream from customers of those copyrighed works, at least) will simply be accounted for as a business cost and added to the price their customers pay.
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahh but that defines the taking of solid objects and was put in webster before computers even existed.
That's ridiculous. Copyright infringement predates Webster. I'd say the printing press pretty much let that cat out of the bag a few hundred years before Webster was even on this planet.
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, because downloading a movie is such an anti-social act that you need to be completely deprived of your liberty at the taxpayers' expense. Geez, get a grip and then get some perspective.
Re:Copyright should become a tax (Score:2, Insightful)
Fees (Score:2, Insightful)
There would have to be ways to ensure that trivial changes are not enough to make the work somehow "new" enough to qualify for the cheap rates.
I'll gladly sell anyone fifty years of complete copyright protection for a trillion bucks or so.
A Scary, Stupid, and Grossly Unfair Law (Score:5, Insightful)
It's scary because it provides the federal government with a very effective way to crush political free speech. Why? First, keep in mind that, unlike many countries, including some other democracies, we do not and cannot have seditious libel laws--meaning the government cannot openly ban criticism. For that, we can thank the First Amendment and our culture of independence.
But recall that any effective criticism of the actions of government agencies and politicians will require fair use quotations. Under current law, the government cannot use copyright to attack that sort of unwanted speech. Copyright infringement lawsuits are civil lawsuits, initiated and (even more important) funded by private entities. This law would allow the government to create an "enemies list" to be attacked on alleged copyright violations and open up the entire resources of the federal government in those lawsuits.
Keep in mind that the government does not have to win these cases, it simply has to file a lawsuit to create an enormous burden on its critics. (This is a bit like both the Nixonian and Clintonian administrations using the IRS to attack political opponents.) And remember too that the government doesn't have to sue over the specific book or media production that criticized the government. It can sue in some totally unrelated area. It can crush an opponent without ever appearing to violate the First Amendment. That is what I mean by scary.
Second, the law is stupid because it demonstrates no awareness of just how cluttered, contradictory and filled with gray areas present day copyright law is. Yes, there are areas where the law is not gray, republishing without permission a recent best-selling book for instance. But there's no need for the federal government to intervene in those areas. Civil suits already work quite well there. Will the government intervene in more ambigious areas? If it does, it has taken sides when it shouldn't. If it doesn't the there are lots of people, particularly impoverished authors and publishers, who are being denied help but are forced to pay taxes to fund lawsuits the government does choose to initiate.
Finally, the law is clearly unfair. The bill isn't intended to help a poor author or publisher (like me), who typically can't afford to sue, even if he has a good case. The remarks about "technological challenges," "technical experts," and "electronic data" make it clear that it's the deep-pocketed entertainment industry who'll be getting their legal costs covered by tax-payers. This law is about ordinary citizens being forced to fund lawsuits that only benefit those who can easily afford to file their own civil lawsuits.
--Mike Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle
http://www.InklingBooks.com/
Re:Song of the piracy apologist (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, the argument I was trying to make is more that we should only hold copyrights necessary to the extent that progress of science and arts depends upon them. Whether copyrights and other intellectual property concepts are, in fact, necessary, is another question. But I also feel that they are not. For example, some sciences have applications to business needs, such as genetic engineering, while some do not, such as astronomy. And while there has been much more business interest in biotechnology and related scientific endeavors of late, the attention paid to those that do not share such business interests is, in my view, sufficient.
It depends largely on how you define "progress". But I know that people will still be singing, writing, or learning whether copyrights exist or not. That there may not be anymore "blockbuster" sized games or movies is not a loss, or an insignificant loss compared to the curtailment of freedoms that their existence requires.
Re:Copyright should become a tax (Score:4, Insightful)
That way, we don't create tax criminals, and Apple II software from 1978, that wasn't making money for anyone anyway, is public domain.
Simple, doesn't rob anyone of the ability to make money, fair, maybe even elegant. So you know there is no chance in hell of it ever becoming a law.
Terrorism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fees (Score:3, Insightful)
Napster could still legally shuffle the old version around, after all.
Most importantly, and no one seems to realize this, they should be required to publically release keys so they (now) public domain works are accessible. Else none of the rest really matters, they might as well keep copyrights forever.
Re:Copyright should become a tax (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't they already effectively have that as it is?
Re:Income from copyrighted works is already taxed (Score:3, Insightful)
Its less about collecting taxes then it is about restricting the government enforced monopoly called "copyright".
Re:You are missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
No, we don't. Living life legally costs alot. Jobs aren't exactly government apportioned to all that need them. And while most are lucky enough to struggle and afford the means to a "legal" life, what about those that can't?
If you were even slightly articulate, I think you would have said "we have the right..."
Which is slightly different. If you mean legal rights, well then this statement is completely circular and meaningless. Stupid even. And if you meant some sort of higher, god-given rights... well, at that point we have the right to live illegal lives, to a point. Whenever those laws interfere with such a god-given right, well then, which has priority? The implication of god-given rights, that your nearly incoherent statement hints at, contradicts the entire point you're trying to make.
People like you have just enough tunnel vision, just enough single-mindedness, and just enough disdain for subtle distinctions to ignore that all that is legal is not necessarily good, and that all that is illegal is not necessarily bad. Does it make you feel good, that dull-headed arguments like yours allow greedy ratbastards to profit outrageously with SEC loopholes and such (think Enron, those of them that will get away with things on a technicality), while I would beome a felon for downloading software for a 1970's era computer, simply because it is no longer for sale?
You need to think long and carefully about whether you would like to live in the world that you would create. You are well on your way to getting it.
Re:Copyright should become a tax (Score:3, Insightful)
In any case, copyright right now is indeed forever, so any improvement over that is good. What was happening is that patents and copyrights were being given out pretty much without any official approval. This is bad, because now all of the cases for patents and copyrights are given to the courts, meaning anyone with money to spend on good lawers wins.
Frankly, they need to fix copyright and fix the patenting system before they begin throwing in any more new socialistic bullshit; some of us would like to keep some form of individualism you know.
Re:Copyright should become a tax (Score:3, Insightful)
This is rich from a previous copyright abuser. (Score:3, Insightful)
Your economic analysis is faulty (Score:3, Insightful)
If Disney gets it out of the vault, they can make $X million in gross revenue, with $C million in costs. It's the judgement of Disney's management that $X is less than $C. If $X were more than $C then Disney, profit-maximizing corporation that they are, would distribute Pinocchio and make a profit of ($X-$C) that way.
Your proposal is to increase $C by adding another tax to income from copyrighted materials. That makes Disney MORE likely to keep Pinocchio in the vault (no revenue, no expenses), rather than take it out of the vault (same revenue, increased expenses).
Oh, and what is the "fair market value" of 20 million copies of the Linux kernel which contain my copyrighted material? Do you want me to pay tax on that every year? It's a tiny amount of material, to be sure, but I do own the copyright on it.
Re:Copyright should become a tax (Score:3, Insightful)
This is only a good point if the law is implemented poorly. The original poster suggested that the fee should be tied to the revenue generated by the IP. This is a great option, and would solve any problems for GPL'd software. As suggested, the first term would be free, then there would be a sliding scale based on revenue. Freely distributed media (software, books, whatever), since it doesn't generate revenue, would not have a renewal fee, but would require filing a simple renewal form. Out of print items would would require a flat fee, for renewal, but a maximum of one renewal would be allowed. This way publishers couldn't keep items out of print just to keep them out of the publics eye. Tie that with reasonable maximum copyright terms (I'd say 50 years maximum), and this should help prevent the abuses of the copyright law that we've seen over the last few years.
You never played monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
Destroying copyright doesn't destroy the outlets. It still takes an expensive FCC license to get a tv station and even more money to keep it running. You think without copyright MTV is going to be any quicker to put you into rotation? The Britney Spears and Jessica Simpsons would stll dominate because they have the money behind them. No copyright would change the kind of deals those people get, but for indie artists all it would do is leave them vulnerable to exploitation without ANY means of recourse; your band's underground music website becomes popular? Great! We'll use your music to sell pepsi... and you won't get a fucking thing - thanks so much for breaking down those "monopolies on popular culture."
Russia has just about zero enforcement of what little copyright protection exists in their laws. So, do you think MTV Russia is some sort of free range of Russian indie artists? Hmmmm... p diddy, Britney, Elton, Jessica... sure doesn't look that much different [www.mtv.ru]. And what Russian lables are those Russian artists on who DO get played on mtv.ru? EMI, Warner, Sony...
Without copyright protection indie artists don't suddenly become more marketable - they just become even easier to exploit.
And so do programmers.
Re:Let the endless arguement begin. Good vs Evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Um... doesn't that strike anyone else as a dangerous precedent that could conceivably be extended to ANY area of civil law, such that the gov't could "take sides" in ANY civil suit??!
Someone above mentioned how this law could become a spearhead for censorship. I'm thinking if it isn't found unconstitutional, it could also be a toehold for just about any field that thinks the gov't should be on their side, and has the lobbyists and bought-congresscritters to ensure which side the gov't comes down on.
Well written! Just one mistake I saw... (Score:3, Insightful)
A politicians conscience is indistinguishable from his bankbook.
you shoulda stopped while you were ahead (Score:2, Insightful)
There is an inherent conflict of interest when a Drug Company goes through clinical tests. They want to get their money's worth, the FDA wants safety. Read about Antidepressants & suicide [google.com]. The most recent prescription boondoggles I can think of are the whole problem with Phen-Phen, hormone therapy for women causing heart attacks, and now antidepressants causing kids to suicide.
Drug companies have a 20 odd years until their patents expire, so they suppress studies, encourage off-label use (ie. giving medicine to age groups it wasn't tested on) and whatever other techniques they can use to get the drug to market and make their investment back
Re:Copyright should become a tax (Score:3, Insightful)
This is seriously short-sighted. It has caused a gigantic problem. Copyrights ideally should only be granted to those works which would not otherwise have been created. It is purely harmful to the public where superfluous.
When works are automatically copyrighted, that means virtually all works. And the large majority of those works would have been created otherwise -- hence the tremendous harm that ensues.
While in a proper system, people might not initially be aware that they need to register, the vast majority of them likely couldn't care less. This is particularly so considering that registration involves some formalities (notice, deposit, filing fees, etc.) that while rather minimal are more trouble to most people than a copyright would be worth.
The US got along GREAT when it required registration, and yet everything's been going to hell since we foolishly passed the 1976 Act. The truth of the matter is that we had an excellent copyright system that needed work, true, but was really quite good (especially prior to the 1909 Act), and that the rest of the world has been steadily dragging us down and fucking it up.
If I create a noteworthy paper, then I'm pleased that people can read it and use it, but the last thing I want is for other people to strip off the attribution and distribute the work - leaving me without any recognition.
That might be very true, but who the fuck cares what you want? Just you.
Copyright is a utilitarian system designed for maximizing the public good. Not your specific good. If you want some sort of benefit from a copyright system -- all the way to the idea of having such a system at all -- then you really ought to show me how it makes _me_ and the rest of the public better off to do so.
Again, this would be a huge disincentive: why create a work when you don't obtain attribution for it ?
Because it's your job, or hobby, or school assignment, or was comissioned, or it's for art's sake, or any of a hundred reasons.
Copyright is only _one_ incentive. It's probably not even the most important. And where it's possible to discern works that would've been created without a copyright -- they shouldn't get a copyright. Copyrights are only to be used for works that but for a copyright would not be created.