Judge: Live Performance Copyright Unconstitutional 249
swiftstream writes "CNN reports that a federal judge has ruled in favor of the owner of a record store in NYC in a copyright case brought against him for selling recordings of live performances. The judge said the current copyright code on live performances is unconstitutional, because copyrights last forever, in conflict with the 'limited time' requirement of copyright law."
can you please just TRY? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you frickin' editors please just TRY not to post duplicates of stories that are still on your frickin' FRONT PAGE?
Without belaboring the obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell me again what those subscriptions are supposed to get me?
Advice (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot must be making a reasonable amount of money out of its subscribers and advertising, perhaps a small fraction of that could be spent on vetting what is posted on the front page?
(And before I am dismissed as someone who should be dismissed, take a look at my /. id - which is lower than most, not to mention the fact that I have been interviewed on this site. /. is a great site, and so its popular, but it won't stay popular if the editors don't demonstrate more respect for their readership).
Re:can you please just TRY? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is not your website. It's not their website either. It's everyone's, even those people who have yet to read it, or this article, or this particular repeat of this article. And that's a good thing.
Are you mad because you feel taking the 10 seconds to read an article headline is too much of your precious time? Or your own memory eluding you, and perhaps clicking on the link to the article and reading the article a second time.. and then you remember -- I've already read this. You are wasting my time.
I'm done.
Re:Flag on the play, this one's coming back. (Score:2, Insightful)
THe purpose is to increase innovation/creativity and allow artist/inventers to prosper from there work (within reason) and then, once that time has expired, allow all of the public to benefit.
By prevent the recording of the live concerts the spirt of the law, that at one point all of society will be able to benefit is obstructed (since there are no recordings).
So I say f33r my 13g41 skillzors (IE I am not a lawyer, not a law student, and I dont even watch law and order that much , but I took gr12 law awhile back and hey its slashdot
Re:Advice (Score:3, Insightful)
Never watched CNN, or Fox News have you?
Re:can you please just TRY? (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, I think lately it's been Rolay Piquepalle's website. Maybe they should put his name at the top, like fark does with that drew carey guy
Re:can you please just TRY? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure he's "mad" because having nothing but a bunch of duplicate stories right on the front page of a site makes the site a lot less useful. And every story that's a dupe is another story that didn't get posted.
There are a lot of tech news sites and blogs out there - news.com, engadget.com, theregister.com, etc. Some of them overlap the content posted here, but there's generally a lot of info that only gets posted in one place, which makes each of those sites worth visiting on their own. But if one of those sites simply repeats the same story over and over, then it's not really providing you with news at all, which is the main purpose of their existence. I would think this would be of interest to the editors here; posting dupes very simply makes the site less useful and makes visitors less likely to keep visiting.
If you like visiting a site, and you suddenly see it become less useful than it used to be, then the natural human reaction would probably be disappointment and/or irritation. I don't think there's any reason for you to try to belittle those feelings among people who are just trying to get the editors to do a little better job for the good of the site as a whole.
Re:Yeah, that sounds great, except... (Score:2, Insightful)
A percentage of the people buying the bootlegs will wind up short of ticket money? Are you fucking serious?
And, finally, I don't know how many times we're going to have to go through this:
Recording artists do not make money off of recordings. Recording companies make money off of recordings. Artists almost always lose money on recording. The value of going into massive debt on making an album is that it might induce more people to come to your shows.
If people are recording and distributing recordings of your shows for you, it's free advertisement.
Re:Advice (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to say I considered subscribing a couple times but then just took a look not just at the rampants dupes but even worse the massive factual errors that show up so often in the summary that even a cursory glance through the article would reveal. How many times I've read about a company doing some great evil in the summary only to find they've done nothing of the sort in the article, or about some event described as something completely different. Almost all of these errors could be caught with 3 min of research, it's gotten to the point where I don't even pay attention to the summary or even the title other then to see if it's something that might be interesting, it's the article and comments that I use for info.
Re:It's interesting to note what gets duplicated (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, the bookstore in my neighborhood has copies of Shakespeare for sale every day. They're unauthorized, and he doesn't get a penny.
Are you saying that it's bad?
Re:Without belaboring the obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)
"without any real right to do so"? Hey, check it out: 1) free speech. You're welcome. 'Nuff said. 2) I read the site regularly, I don't block the ads, I post informational and (occasionally) insightful commentary - I AM the target audience for subscription sales. 3) Slashdot offers subscriptions to people like me, I point out what needs to be done to sell me one - hint: decent editing is high on the list. This website is a product, and I pay for it by viewing ads. That gives me EVERY right to bitch, and to point out that I have NO reason to pay more for a product whose improvement continues to falter.
Did I leave anything out? Oh, yeah - BILLY GOAT! Get thee back under thy bridge, troll.
Re:Without belaboring the obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell me again what those subscriptions are supposed to get me?
The right to see stories before everyone else so you can email the editors and tell them that it's a dupe - only to have your email ignored and see the story posted anyway?
Re:re-posted article (Score:4, Insightful)
Finally a judge "gets it"! (Score:2, Insightful)
W00t!
Re:It's interesting to note what gets duplicated (Score:3, Insightful)
Time to once again mention that, unless your recording sells at least 1.5 million copies, you won't get paid. At least, this is the situation with "industry standard" recording-industry contracts.
If your recording sells under a million copies, you'll usually end up in debt to the recording company. So maybe this store was actually helping the musicians, by selling the recordings in such a way that they wouldn't put the musicians in debt to the store.
Re:It's interesting to note what gets duplicated (Score:4, Insightful)
Drug Dealer: I am validated by the masses. I sell lots of drugs and am rather profitable. Logically that means that something I am doing is filling a marketable demand.
(I think you should forget about "marketable demand" and simply say the RIAA's practices are allowed by the law.)
Re:It's interesting to note what gets duplicated (Score:3, Insightful)
I bet the drugs those companies are selling aren't restricted by the DEA.
"if I write a program that takes over your computer and spies on you -- I'm a hacker/terrorist. A company does it -- its legit (spyware/adware)."
Spyware/Adware is legal because the user agrees, albeit often without knowing it, to install it on their computer. You cna do this.
"Sorry for the bile -- I've just had it with our country right now."
I hope you plan on voting.
Re:It's interesting to note what gets duplicated (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the real trouble with where the copyright laws have gone. Each "performance" is technically a different performance so his "copy" is unique from any others...should even have it's own protections!!!
More than that it's a perfect case to show the hillarity of the system... The idea of letting ANYTHING out of your mouth or pen be copyrighted is perposterous...especially for 150+ years!! The original intent was to have the works submitted to the Library of Congress for posterity... not to have every private letter supressed. If you look at the largest corperate push for protections, it's now "live" events, databases, and "pre recorded" software... these people don't ever plan on releasing the actual scripts, information, or source code to the "library" for posterity to enjoy ...it's just a form of corperate welfare.
on the flip side, we can't just eliminate the 1976 changes becase GNU DEPENDS on them. Otherwise getting offical copyrights for OSS would be prohibitvily time-consuming and expensive.
Re:It's interesting to note what gets duplicated (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to any significant degree. In your two examples, you misrepresent legal distinctions between kinds of actions as legal distinctions between kinds of actors.
If you obtain the user's informed consent, it's legit. Whether you are a corporation or individual is irrelevant. I also note that you are using the words corporation and company interchangeably. A company may be a sole proprietorship. In other words, an individual.
And what is your basis for claiming that malware authors are charged as terrorists?
The important distinction here is not who is selling the drug; it's what drug is being sold. The company is selling an FDA-approved drug. If the company tries to sell marijuana under the current law, it will be in violation of the law just as an individual would. If you can develop a drug and obtain FDA approval for it, you can legally sell it.
Note that I am taking no position on either the ban on marijuana or the FDA's approval of these mood-altering drugs. I am merely pointing out that your thesis is incorrect; the corporate or individual nature of the seller has no bearing on the legality of the drug sale.
Re:It's interesting to note what gets duplicated (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it isn't what drug is being sold that's important, it's how it is legal. How is it that certain patent-protected large-drug-company-controlled mood-altering drugs have been made legal, and non-patentable non-profitable mood-altering drugs are illegal? That one is legal and the other is not is a given. Why it should be that way is the question that emphasizes that corporations can get away with things that individuals can't, which was the point that was being made.