World Copyright Summit and the Lies of the Copyright Industry 423
Mike Masnick over at Techdirt has an incredibly in-depth look at two presentations in particular from the recent CISAC world copyright summit. Rep. Robert Wexler and Senator Orrin Hatch both gave deeply troubling presentations calling opponents of stronger copyright "liars" and suggesting that copyright is the only way to make money on creative works, respectively. "Does anyone else find it ironic that it's the so-called 'creative class' which copyright supporters insist are enabled by copyright supposedly have not been able to tell this 'great story?' Perhaps the problem is that there is no great story to tell. Perhaps the problem is that more and more people are recognizing that the 'great story' is one that suppresses the rights of everyday users, stifles innovation, holds back progress and stamps on our rights of free speech and communication? Has it occurred to Wexler that for the past decade, the industry has been telling this story over and over and over again — and every time they do, more and more people realize that it doesn't add up? "
dead simple (Score:2, Interesting)
open source king (Score:1, Interesting)
It looks like you are ready for open source governance [metagovernment.org]
Re:Wait a second... (Score:5, Interesting)
You have to realise that nobody shoots for the middle (workable) ground.
You have to aim for NO copyright to get "reasonable" copyright.
Tell me I am wrong please.
Re:There is no debate (Score:5, Interesting)
Drama queen much?
Seriously. We're talking about your "right" to download movies without paying for them.
To equate this with the end of democracy just makes you look ridiculous.
The comparison is quite apt actually, if a tad shrill. Say congress extends presidential term limits every 4 years and the House of Represenatives chose to re-elect him/her every 4 years regardless of the outcome of the "popular vote", you might cry foul. Technically, this would be legal but very unwise.
Copyrights are supposed to expire, mouse or no. Instead, they are extended ad infinitum to provide an economic moat to industries that would otherwise have none. Again, it is legal and quite common to rent congress-critters in order to bolster a failing (or failed) business model.
We were to be accorded limited/fair use of purchased copyrighted works. Instead we are only allowed to view, never transfer, transform, or reproduce these works in any way. Another bait and switch, I bought a product but now, somehow, I have no ownership rights to it.
There is a very good reason why unpopular but powerful governments shut down internet services (facebook, twitter, yahoo email, google, etc). The effortless transmission of information threatens them in exactly the same way it threatens the executives of Disney, Time Warner, Fox, and other large content creators. If you cannot control the flow of information, you cannot control the population or the consumer.
Don't you wonder why AOL could carpet the landscape with CDs/DVDs for pennies, yet when the same medium is produced by RIAA or MPAA members they cost $15.99 or $24.99? Independent filmmakers seem able to produce top quality films for only a few million, even using unionized labor throughout. When the MPAA members make movies, the budgets are in the hundreds of millions just to one up the last blockbuster with more fluff. Who pays for all this? You do. They just moved the decimal place once place to the right and rented congress to make sure that you have to pay it.
The state legislature of Indiana once passed a law that said "3 times the diameter of a circle is the circumference". So everyone who calculated the true circumference of a circle using Pi was in violation of the law. There was no Circumference Calculators Association of America at that time, so today we are able to determine for ourselves just how much runaround we get from congress on some issues.
Re:dead simple (Score:1, Interesting)
I love that 50% figure that you pulled out of thin air. What you're proposing is the classic "someone else will pay the artist" mentality. People like to trot that out when they say musicians will make their money from concert tours and t-shirts. It's just an excuse to not pay and avoid feeling guilty.
You're right that you can't force people to pay whatever you want for music, movies, and games. Nobody's forcing anybody to do anything. That's because music, movies, and games aren't necessities, so people can just NOT BUY THEM. You're not justified in pirating something just because you think it's expensive.
One thing I notice Slashdot loves to do is cite how copyrights used to last shorter periods of time way back when, ignoring the fact that we live in a more connected society where media like films, album master tapes, and so on last longer, and so content owners can make money on something for many more decades than in the past. Copyrights were extended to reflect the times. The ONLY reason Slashdotters want shorter copyright laws is because they want shit for free, so they latch onto copyright battles to make themselves feel like they're part of some kind of movement and not just pirating things. There's always a self-serving motive.
Not to mention the amusing fact that the GPL relies on copyright, since it's a copyright license. It's interesting that Slashdotters don't apply their anti-copyright attitudes toward GPL code reuse.
On my iPod (Score:5, Interesting)
When a consumer buys a CD/DVD is that customer allowed to put it on their mobile media player? If so, and how would they legally go about doing that?
It seems that the **AA wants a one way street when it comes to this issue. They put anti-ripping software on both CDs and DVDs,,, which doesn't actually reduce copyright infringement; it only causes their customers to break laws in order to actually use the content they purchased.
Laid out bare (Score:5, Interesting)
While I don't think anyone's been delusional about it, this is proof that government officials are in the pocket of corporations, or at least have some ulterior motive for acting in their interests. (While that line was said by Hatch, Wexler's part doesn't fare much better.)
The US Constitution empowers Congress:
No where in there does it say anything about profit.
I now view Wexler and Hatch as one of the many bought-and-paid-for politicians; it's unfortunate I have no opportunity to vote against either. On an interesting aside, Wexler is a Democrat (FL) and Hatch a Republican (UT). Why neither the summary nor the techdirt article states this is beyond me, as I consider it highly relevant.
Re:There is no debate (Score:3, Interesting)
Debating how Copyright should work is like debating who should be king. If you accept to be ruled does it really matter how?
Yes. Yes, it does. There are good kings and bad kings. Now, generally in the modern world we've accepted that "no king" (or having a king who is no more than a figurehead) is the best option of all, but for most of human history that hasn't been a choice.
Will we ever get rid of copyright? Hell, I don't know. Should we? I don't know the answer to that one either. What I do know is that we could have much, much better copyright laws than the ones we have now. (Say, seventeen years upon registration plus an optional, one-time seventeen-year extension ... I think I've heard that one before ...) Condemning all copyright laws as equally bad is not going to make them go away; they'll be with us for a long, long time. There is a lot to be said for harm reduction, just as there is for, to use your analogy, supporting a good king over a bad one.
i honestly don't care (Score:1, Interesting)
what people are not willing to do any more is take responsibility. nobody wants to deal with themselves any more. if they run out of money, they blame the recession, when actually they've just spent more money than they have in reserve. nobody wants to save up for anything, they pay more over a longer period of time and get a credit card, just for the shear convenience. they then lose their job, and they've got no means to pay off the debt they owe the bank... money which the bank created out of nothing to begin with, but thats another rant... nobody wants to change to renewable energies, because that involves initiative, and initiative involves hassle, hassle which people aren't willing to take responsibility for.
the artists want to make money from the album they've made, but instead of giving it to their friends and distributing it themselves (taking all of the money make for themselves), they shift all of that business to the record label they sign a contract with to give them a large percentage of the total takings (less money, quicker process). the record label want to control who hears their new product but dont like the idea of making consumers sign a contract to give them the license to use the product (better process, more expenditure, more internal paperwork), so they say to governments that they can outline what sort of product fits with what they want people listening to (less hassle, more guarantee of consumer uptake, more money). the governments then want people to accept the direction they want things to go in but they dont want to tell people they've got a direction at all (nanny state, less freedom), so they just dont tell the people.
whats interesting to note, is that at the head of all the parties involved is a single person. banks, governments, bands, record labels. this leaves a high level of influence in the hands of a few people, which, history has shown us, is a baaaaaad idea... taking us back to the first point... personal gain... i think something's very wrong, but nobody wants to take responsibility for things they can do to change...
Re:There is no debate (Score:1, Interesting)
Wait, you mean copyright's supposed to work just like patents? You know, "publish the secret of your invention, and get a monopoly on it, but only for 13 years"?
Spend a few billion dollars to develop the cure for cancer? Congratulations, your miracle drug gets patent protection: 13 years of exclusive right to produce the drug and sell it at any price you want, so as to recoup your multibillion-dollar R&D programme. After that, anyone who wants to cure cancer can copy your recipe and sell the cure for their cost of production.
Walt Disney doodled a cartoon mouse? Oh, that's not a patent, he gets a copyright. 75 years plus the life of the creator.
Any intellectual property framework that gives the inventor of a fucking cartoon mouse stronger legal protections than the cure for cancer is deranged.
Long long ago, in a parliament far away (Score:2, Interesting)
Thomas Macauley gave two speeches on copyright extension. He covered all the salient points we're going to touch here on slashdot today, and a few more. They are hosted here. [baens-universe.com] Please note that the host is a publisher, and Macauley was himself a distinguished author. It was over 160 years ago, but it's still a good read.
After that, if you have the math to sift through these two papers [rufuspollock.org] on the subject, you may agree with their author that the maximum benefit to authors and the public comes with copyright terms of about 15 years. The farther you get from optimum, the less benefit both creators and consumers see - not more for one and less for the other depending on direction, as one might assume.
Excessive length of copyright harms content creators, too.
Re:There is no debate (Score:2, Interesting)
Photoshop's main salesbase (creative industry) will always generally purchase licences for their product.
The majority of the downloaders are students who can't afford the $1000plus price, and in some cases will learn on a pirated copy and go on to work for a firm which buys legit copies (or they are the ones that push the bosses to buy the stuff)
Why this is bollocks (Score:5, Interesting)
As a professor, I write programs, papers and am currently working on a book. All these activities involve creating copyrighted content. The people of my State pay me to do this, as I work for a State university. So, you are probably thinking that my situation is a bit like Bono and the other 'creative' sorts? Nothing could be further from the truth.
Once I have written a paper, it needs to go through peer review, via the blind referee process. This is all good and stops me publishing silly stuff. The next step is where the copyright problem arises.
Once I have a paper accepted, it is necessary for me to assign the copyright to the publishers of the journal. No copyright assignment, no publication. It is as simple as that. So, who gets the fruits of my labors? Big multi-national corporations. What did they do to get this intellectual content? Absolutely bugger all, other than rigging the system! What about the people of my State who paid for my hard work? They get nothing. If they want to read my papers, they have to buy them from the journal (at $15 per paper and up), or visit a library. Libraries have to pay for a journal subscription ($750 per annum and up).
Thus, all this 'creativity' and copyright bleating is clearly bollocks. It is just a case of the powerful folks using rhetoric to fight for their monopoly 'rights'. I don't care to participate, but am forced to. Of course, I also run an e-journal where the authors retain copyright, but that is another story. My little act of subversion.
Don't fall for all this 'starving artist' rubbish. My bet is that we professors in our professional bondage produce more per year than the people represented by the members of both the RIAA and the MIAA, put together. I wonder what those crooks, or their mouth pieces, would have to say in response to that claim? I bet we will never hear.
"We are led by fools who waste our lives". Copyright is a good idea which has now been subverted into a scam and it sucks.
Re:There is no debate (Score:4, Interesting)
Are current copyright limits too long? Sure. Can you guarantee if the limit is reduced to say 7 years it won't be shared on the torrent sites in two weeks after release or before? I thought not.
I can't tell if you did it on purpose or not, but you've just made the standard argument for abolishing copyright - it's not enforceable so we should top pretending (and get on to promoting new business models).
Re:There is no debate (Score:3, Interesting)
Photoshop might have a Left4Dead situation there.
If they sold their product for 1/10th of the price (even as a test), I'd bet that they would see a huge increase in volume - enough to make up for the difference.
Re:Wait a second... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not quite so amusing when you consider the fact that I was considering only the people in your camp.
See, now you've set yourself up to do something really, really difficult. You have just made the claim that, given all the possible and feasible methods of approaching enforcement, including ones no-one have thought of, that copyright cannot be enforced. You've also made this claim in the face of all the lawsuits started by the **AA in order to enforce copyright. You have quite a bit of evidence to present here.
A common mistake made by people in your camp (yes, they do exist beside you) is to think that because something can't be enforced perfectly, it can't be enforced at all. After all these years, after so many billions and billions of dollars sunk into police, we still have crimes being committed that haven't been solved and prosecuted, but we don't ponder the pointlessness of making laws.
Gift culture? I must admit, I've never heard that term. I can't say that I know exactly what you're referring to, but if I had to guess, I would say you were referring to the ubiquity of free entertainment right?
Well, first let's not confuse free commercial entertainment with "paid for through advertising" commercial entertainment. There's a big difference to the artist between money from advertising and money from charity. That knocks out most TV and radio.
Even the truly free commercial media is often simply an advertisement for other non-free commercial media. Advertising is useless without buying power behind it. There's no point in making your products known if anyone can get them for free.
Naturally, there are people, and there probably will always be people, who will create without intention to profit. However, you're going to have a difficult time convincing people that they make a significant portion of people creating today, or that they'll have the collective man-power, dedication, and free time between jobs to fulfil any significant part of demand for culture. And yes, in order to institute change from something that is essentially working, you do have to provide at least some evidence that such a change won't backfire on us.
Actually, this is a very good example of the "everything will be fine" mentality I was referring to. The fact that you can't see copyright's involvement in culture today, from a cursory analysis, in no way implies that culture will be fine without it. A slightly deeper analysis typically reveals a wealth of issues that haven't even be considered, let alone solved.
People are realising that there are no "real" boundaries to piracy? OK, I get it. Enforcement is not working too well on average. But does it therefore make it OK? Are illegal actions only immoral if you get caught, huh?
In fact, I would certainly agree that social stigmas are eroding, and people are realising that there is another option apart from paying for their entertainment. If copyright ceases to exist, I can't see this getting anything but worse. T
Re:Wait a second... (Score:2, Interesting)
You've also made this claim in the face of all the lawsuits started by the **AA in order to enforce copyright.
I know, and those are just the tip of the iceberg, right? You should see the millions of lawsuits they will file next month. Oh yeah.. they've tapered that activity down since it's both very expensive, and turning their customers against them.
You have quite a bit of evidence to present here.
Look, I am not trying to push a bill through congress, I am only providing information to people hoping some will pull their heads out of the sand.
For example, if I see you under your car pulling your oil filter out, but notice you haven't drained the pan first, I will warn you that you are approaching the task incorrectly. If you demand it, I will not however trot home and grab a copy of "changing oil for dummy's" for you, I will consider my warning good enough and walk away to let you enjoy your face full of oil.
Copyright is simply unenforceable. It is not even imperfectly enforceable. I can share a piece of media I have in my possession with absolute strangers if need be by emailing them an encrypted copy of the data. P2P isn't any easier to enforce than email, but that is more complex to illustrate here. The point is that the progression of hardship we face to continue to pirate is in inverse geometric progression [wikipedia.org] to the hardship producers face to try and stop us.
Now before you launch into a tirade of other clever tricks law enforcement could use to track infringement, I would also like you to take a look at what is being done by this siege. Bit Torrent is a brilliant technology for dissiminating information. MP3 was the top audio encoding format in it's day. Both have had their names drug through the mud by copyright advocates because of the infringement they enable. They are simple, to the point, and they allow people to share media. Since most media people wish to share (apparently) is copyrighted, the technologies have suffered bad PR and the market has missed many opportunities to innovate: focusing instead on complicating the distribution of media solely to preserve vested IP interests.
Chase us into a hole and we'll use moderately complex means to continue to defy you. It is a siege we will win, but some like me will continue to call from our side saying "just give in already and quit scorching the earth in a futile attempt to insert your nose where it has no business being".
Gift culture? I must admit, I've never heard that term.
While I appreciate that you are willing to admit to things you aren't versed in, there is always Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_culture [wikipedia.org]
in order to institute change from something that is essentially working, you do have to provide at least some evidence that such a change won't backfire on us.
Again, I'm not instituting a change. Only asking that you perceive the fact that the change in question has already occurred, and that most of the consequences are simply playing themselves out very slowly. I am also not claiming that (certain) IP holders can expect to earn what they used to or more in the 21st century (that this "won't backfire" on them). Could you convince an early 1800's plantation owner that it was in his short term financial interest to voluntarily free his slaves? I guess if it's not in his short term interests it would't pass your criteria of being morally right either.
That should not prevent an activist from attempting to appeal to a slave-owner's long term interests, should they choose to gamble their words in the educational effort. Human rights (including the right to share your experiences with others, irregardless of overlapping commercial IP) are not a luxury. Thus, it is foolish to believe that advocates must submit to you a competing business