Musician Lobby Terms Balanced Copyright "Disgusting" 319
An anonymous reader writes "While most of the attention at Thursday's Canadian copyright town hall was on the recording industry's strategy to pack the room and exclude alternate voices, the most controversial activity took place outside the hall. It has now been revealed that security guards threatened students and a Member of Parliament for distributing leaflets, and the American Federation of Musicians termed the MP's leaflet, which called for balanced copyright, 'disgusting' and demanded a retraction and apology. At this point, such an admission seems unlikely."
haha (Score:5, Insightful)
By describing "balanced copyright" as "disgusting, the musician's lobby has admitted publicly that current copyright law is unbalanced in their favor.
Frankly (Score:5, Insightful)
The artists, the songwriters need to be the ONLY people represented there.
They are, after all, the people who create the music. RIAA and their ilk
need not be present at all. They are merely thugs who take the lion's share
of the money that should go to the artists directly.
it doesn't matter what they think (Score:5, Insightful)
it doesn't matter what laws they pay to get passed
copyright has been treated as damage to the network and has been appropriately routed around
thousands of
industry lawyer goons
versus
millions of
1. technically superior,
2. media hungry and
3. POOR teenagers
the game is already over
it doesn't matter in the least what the law says, in any country
copyright has been rendered functionally defunct and unenforceable
"Shamelessly buy votes?" (Score:5, Insightful)
So if you support a policy in line with a large segment of the people you represent, that's "shamelessly buy"ing votes?
Well, if so, than I wholeheartedly condemn the American Federation of Musician's shameless perversion of Democracy.
Re:Frankly (Score:4, Insightful)
The other night I was a witness to flagrant copyright infringement. Nay, I even supported it.
I was at a small restaurant, and there was this guy strumming an electric guitar, playing all these "Golden Oldies" (I am 40+) from the 60's to the 80's. The guy was a terrible singer, but he could play the guitar reasonably well. My girlfriend and I started singing along (we are pretty damned good singers) to some of the classics (like Beatles songs we knew) - it was that kind of relaxed tiny restaurant. We got applause.
We ended up having a great time. I tipped the guy the equivalent of about $20.
However according to RIAA world view, this person should probably be in jail for not only singing songs that weren't "his" but actually trying to earn a living from it. And I should be in jail for supporting his illegal activities and singing along. In fact, this probably constituted a "public performance". You know, the world according to the RIAA would kind of suck.
Name me ONE FUCKING ARTIST who started out with 100% original music. Everyone plays the songs they like, or the songs they heard, while they're learning to play. EVERYONE. Without explicit written permission from the copyright holder. The RIAA hypocrites represent the worst in human greed and, to quote Pink Floyd: "And if I had my own way, I'd have all of you SHOT!".
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
By describing "balanced copyright" as "disgusting, the musician's lobby has admitted publicly that current copyright law is unbalanced in their favor.
It just means that they shouldn't be taken seriously. Nothing they say is meaningful, helpful or relevant to anything but their own copyright fetish.
Actually (Score:3, Insightful)
When I was learning to play the saxophone and later , guitar,
I would purchase sheet music for the songs I wanted to learn.
I assumed that my purchase of the music, essentially allowed
me to play that music. Not for profit, but to learn.
School bands, the orchestral and marching bands, all did the
same thing until Xerography became commonplace. Now I suspect
they buy ONE copy and burn as many copies as they need.
That would be a copyright violation, easily.
Re:"Shamelessly buy votes?" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the same kind of logic that makes 30 copies of crappy pop songs worth over a million dollars.
I'll tell you what's disgusting (Score:5, Insightful)
What's really disgusting is that the RIAA/CRIA, in this case through their lapdogs in the AFM, are still firmly convinced that they speak for all musicians everywhere.
It ain't true. [exclaim.ca] Really. [canada.com]
Re:Frankly (Score:1, Insightful)
Name me ONE FUCKING ARTIST who started out with 100% original music
W. A. Mozart?
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
"Balanced" does not mean "fair" or "right".
For example, one might term a new tax structure in which the government takes half of your income "balanced".
Re:He ought to respond and keep responding! (Score:3, Insightful)
Shame them? These people have no shame. Otherwise, they wouldn't be doing what they are doing.
Then again, the dinosaurs probably had no shame either.
There's still a big market for copyrighted material that people are willing to pay for - but the writing is on the wall - games already exceed movies in terms of total sales. People only have a certain budget for entertainment, and they're allocating it - and that means less for "old-skool" media such as movies and music.
And they wonder why we have no respect for them... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean seriously, when you pull stunts like this, barring even the other view from being fielded, how in the hell do you expect us to take you seriously? This kind of thing disgusts me. I'm actually for copyright and protections and the like, but every time they do this kind of thing I lose that much more of my support for their position as they are obviously not even trying to be reasonable.
As to the MP and students distributing the flier, good job. The other side has to be heard. Don't let these guys get away with this BS. And don't even think about apologizing. They are the ones that should be apologizing to you. They obviously aren't interested in real discussion.
Forces of Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the wants and needs of teenagers that is bringing the end of copyright. It's the simple forces of reality.
You know the song "Happy Birthday". It's copyrighted. The song itself is a mere 95 bytes in size. The data overheads involved in transmitting the file probably outweigh the file itself. Yet copyright law essentially tells us that Time Warner "owns" this song. That the act of copying it is a sacred right, reserved only for those whom the privilage is conferred upon by the rightful owner. The rightful owner of 95 bytes of data. An amount so small that no currency exists that can measure its worth.
But Happy Birthday represents only the purest and most absurd form of copyrighted work. As Moore's law has progressed, and continues progressing, and as our networks get faster and faster and disc space cheaper and cheaper, even music files 5MB in size have become trivial amounts of data. Soon even 50GB Blu Ray movies will be considered too paltry to be worth protecting. For some, they already are. This isn't a simply a consequence of people being too cheap. It's a consequence of the data being too cheap to buy.
People realise this. They're not stupid. They see how easy, accessible and trivial data is in our digital age. The internet is a deluge and trying to tell them that certain datas cannot be copied because they are under some sacred divination is like telling people in a thunderstorm that they cannot collect rain water(This is in fact done in certain places). You can pass such laws, but ultimately resonable people will not obey them. They will not obey the law, not because it is unjust, but because it is entirely irrational. In ten years time, claiming the latest 5MB pop song should be protected will be as ludicrous as claiming the same for "Happy Birthday".
As the realities of the digital of make the concept of copyright more and more irrational, I find it increasingly difficult to even find arguments justifying its continued existence. With the de facto perpetual copyright that has evolved, its irrational claims and the draconian measures used to enforce it, more and more I find myself viewing copyright as a system that will be inherently gamed by its proponents and which will, inevitably evolved to the absurd position we now find ourselves in. Frankly, I think copyright is akin to the system of direct democracy and propositions run in California. A noble goal, and even a worthwhile one in the beginning, but which in the end became a destructive farce and totally unworkable.
I'd like to hear some justifications for copyright that aren't 300 years old. While I see some benefit to the system, ultimately, I am like someone seeing the benefits of Prohibition while also seeing the great harm it has done to society, politics and the legal system. My current position is that copyright needs drastic reform and moreover, if that reform is impossible or unworkable then we need to scrap the system entirely.
Re:haha (Score:3, Insightful)
"Balanced copyright" are just words. What some might consider fair or balanced, others will inevitably not.
It's not like the artists walked in and demanded that copyright be unfair.
Re:Forces of Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
By that bytes == seriousness logic, violating the license of the entire Linux kernel is about as bad as violating the license of a CDs worth of mp3s.
However, I do agree you have a problem when the collected hits in history can fit on a USB stick.
Re:Frankly (Score:4, Insightful)
It might be fair use, but as fair use is not clearly codified we don't really know.
Re:haha (Score:4, Insightful)
Another difference between Canada and the States is the deficit. What would the Americans taxes be like if they had not been running a deficit for the last decade or so?
Re:Actually (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought "educational use" was allowed as fair use?
Fair Use has been dead for awhile now...
Learning from the folks down south (Score:3, Insightful)
Thursday's Canadian copyright town hall was on the recording industry's strategy to pack the room and exclude alternate voices
Hey, they're taking a page from the Republican play book. Packing town hall meetings with partisans to shout down opposing points of view. Then justify it by accusing the other side of doing the same thing, while steadfastly maintaining those are just "real" citizens voicing their opposition. Real citizens being bused in with box lunches from other districts, many of whom happen to work for companies with an interest in the debate, but who's really going to check?
Next they'll have talking heads on sympathetic cable news networks suggesting that Canada is being taken over by Socialists and "real patriots" should start showing up at meetings with guns.
And don't forget to mock the messenger if you're losing the debate. Anyone who doesn't see things your way is a traitor and a Nazi, call them ignorant, "moonbats" and "liberals". I'm not sure why that last one is a bad thing but it seems to play pretty well down here, so give it a shot. Maybe suggest anyone not adopting strict copyright interpretation is killing old people. If that doesn't work, accuse them of not supporting the military. Suggest that lax copyright will lead to "death panels" for musicians.
Got all that? You're off to good start up there, just have to get with the rest of the program.
Re:Frankly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Shamelessly buy votes?" (Score:5, Insightful)
In their world, politicians acting on voters wishes is 'buying votes', while lobbyists using the promise of campaign contributions to get favourable legislation passed is 'Democracy in Action'.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
The time has come to eschew abstractions in debate to the greatest extent possible, because they have been taken over by the liars and lobbyists.
Using concrete terms is more wordy, but much harder to distort.
Don't talk about "copyright" or "pirating", talk about "laws against making copies of songs or movies". It works in part because people think that "copyright|" means exactly one thing, and they know what that thing is. When you use more concrete language you actually INCREASE certain types of necessary ambiguity, and raise questions in people's heads like, "WHICH laws against making WHAT KIND of copies of songs or movies FOR WHAT PURPOSE?" To have an intelligent opinion on these matters you need to know the answers to those questions, and many people do not, but think they do because the comfortable abstraction "copyright" makes them feel they have a handle on the issue.
Re:haha (Score:1, Insightful)
Alright. Let's take your numbers ("84% have some sort of coverage"), and also remember to subtract the illegal immigrants which would not qualify for governmentcare even if it passed, that gives us:
16% without coverage
-5% number of non-citizen Americans (according to CBO)
-6% (0.16 times 0.37) YOUR numbers of persons who voluntarily choose not to buy insurance even though they could afford it
====
5% of U.S. citizens left-over who *want* insurance but do not have private or government care. This five percent figure is still very small, and therefore we do not need a government monopoly takeover of the industry anymore than we need a government takeover of the car or computer industries... all we need are minor fixes such as extending Medicare to that small 5% of persons. That's it.
>>>American system spends more on health care than any other country
So? Americans spend more on EVERYTHING. That's just the nature of our country - we like to spend gobs of money. We spend more on cars. We spend more on houses. We spend more on videogames and DVDs and computers. That's not a negative result.
Re:Learning from the folks down south (Score:5, Insightful)
Next they'll have talking heads on sympathetic cable news networks suggesting that Canada is being taken over by Socialists and "real patriots" should start showing up at meetings with guns
This is where the strategy breaks down, as we've had numerous socialist governments at the provincial level that have been variously disastrous (Ontario), middling-competent (BC) and really quite good (Manitoba.)
So "socialist" ain't the scare-word up here it is in the USA, although that's helped by Canadians being generally braver and more tolerant of diversity than Americans (see our gay marriage laws, for example.)
The difference is due to two things, I think: we have a long history of robust alternative political experimentation, so we tend to go, "Ok, another bunch of wingnuts... let's see what they have to bring to the table..." because we have lots of examples, particularly at the provincial level, of wingnuts not turning out to be any more dangerous/stupid/insane than the mainstream parties.
On the other hand, we have no imperial ambitions, and that means we aren't afraid to be seen to try and fail. This makes us more successful, in the long run, because it gives our political and economic system more freedom to experiment. Whereas the Americans know they'll be mocked around the world if they try anything and fail, which often leads them to simply not try, except in the area of military adventurism where even failure is so terrible and terrifying that there isn't a lot of mocking going on.
In any case, attempts by Americans to influence Canadian policy have not been notably successful even with our most neo-conservative Federal government ever, and antics like these at the town hall meeting are only going to result in conditions that make it politically impossible for the Conservatives to table legislation that is seen to kowtow to American corporate interests.
Americans typically see Canadians as stoic and think we're passive. You see we're self-deprecating and think we lack confidence. You see we're polite and think we're weak. Then you come up against our hard limits and wonder what you were thinking.
Copyright and the big picture... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a fair amount to be said about the idea of copyright and copyright law. I'd like to take a moment to think about the idea of copyright and something that I always think about when dealing with the idea.
There are works in the public domain that nobody can claim copyright on. And some of them are still very popular today. I'll submit that they are popular not only because they are free as in beer but because they have stood the test of time and are just that good. And because of all of this that our society is a better place for it.
However imagine for a moment if all works were under a perpetual copyright type setup. A system that the **AA's wish. Would our society be better because of such a system? I seriously doubt it.
It's hard to quantify such ideas and as such the **AA's have had a pretty easy time in pushing their addenda. Being that it's easy to show that if Micky Mouse is released into the public domain that $X will be lost, or some such nonsense.
Re:Frankly (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
MEP Daniel Hannan said in early August, "The worst thing to be is elderly under the UK Health System..... you will be denied care and left starving in wards."
For some reason I'm reminded by the American Republican (or something) who railed against the Obama plan in a newspaper-article by saying "If Stephen Hawking had to rely on UK healthcare, he would be long dead by now!". The retard didn't realize that Hawking has been relying on UK healthcare for all his life....
It seems to me that the whole healthcare-discussion in USA is plagued by buzzwords and stupidity. Some people oppose it because it "socialism" and everything that is related to socialism is automatically bad. They never stop and think about the issue, they just see the S-word being thrown around and automatically oppose it with zero critical thinking.
Re:"Shamelessly buy votes?" (Score:3, Insightful)
The funny thing is Olivia Chow, who supports fair and balanced copyright is a practicing artist herself.
Why is the opinion of a Canadian artist, and a politician who is actually representing the views of those she represents 'disgusting', while the opinion of a foreign lobby group is somehow acceptable?
Re:Frankly (Score:5, Insightful)
That was Beethoven, and for only part of his life.
Could you at least check facts you're not sure of?
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case it's pretty clear that they're talking about balancing the needs of the owners of copyrights, with the needs of those that use it and society in general.
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
LMAO. There's a difference between being technically eligible, and being realistically able. When I changed my last job, I was told about COBRA coverage - not that I needed it but nonetheless. I was told that if my wife and I elected to use COBRA, our monthly insurance payment would be $1190.
I'm sure I'm not alone in pondering where someone laid off from their job is going to come up with $1190 a month for health insurance alone, but maybe you could enlighten me.
You mean the conservative politician who is so conservative that even his own party leader immediately tried to distance the party from him, saying that Hannan "has some rather eccentric points of view"?
Anecdotally, my grandmother in Scotland would disagree with him. She was transported by ambulance to hospital recently, and stayed 14 days, with a case of bronchitis / pneumonia. Whilst there they not only treated her for that, but said that since she was already in the facility, they would get her help to quit smoking, and also arranged a physical therapist to spend considerable time with her in regards to an ailing hip, and took diagnostic imagery 'in case in the future they might need to look at it in more detail'.
Too expensive... implies reform may be needed.... (Score:2, Insightful)
> A lot more people (about 20 million) are wealthy enough to get insurance
> but don't want it (like me).
I find it hard to believe that the reason that most of them don't want it is ideological in nature.
Which means in turn that it is too expensive.
This leads me to believe that what is necessary is reform or some other way to lower the cost of health care which, unfortunately, would hit a lot of people's income (doctors, medical schools). And since those people are highly influential, it is unlikely to happen.
Re:Frankly (Score:3, Insightful)
A want copyright laws that allow artists to earn a fair living. I want fair use spelled out. I want a limited copyright term, say 20 years. I want NO DMR.
I want NO DRM.
Re:haha (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that Mandelson can walk in and change government policy by diktat is worrying not just because of his agenda on copyright but because he isn't bloody well elected. It really scares me that while everybody's been complaining about the Big Brother state, surveillance and CCTV cameras, this dictator seems to have slipped in under the radar.
Re:haha (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're earning over 50,000 (like me) you can afford to buy your own health insurance.
Just as you can afford to buy your own food, your own housing, your own car, et cetera. You don't need government assistance. We *choose* not to buy insurance for various reasons. Like being 20-something or 30-something and in good health and therefore not needing it. Or in my case, I consider insurance a scam. Why would I pay around $3000/year for insurance when it's cheaper to just give my doctor $200 per year in cash.
.
>>>when you consider the number of people on medicare, medicaid, and VA benefits you will find you already have a significant minority, (maybe even a majority)
Don't exaggerate. It's only around 15%... mostly people over 65. That's how "safety nets" work - everyone else takes care of themselves with their own resources, and the government acts like a safety net to catch those who can't. PLUS you have the benefit of competition between doctors which drives-down costs. Competition is better than a monopoly that has no incentive to cut prices (think Comcast or Cox or Verizon) or to improve quality of service (think the phone company).
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
You speak with sarcasm, but you are absolutely correct.
Society does have a need for music, and for more music (and other works to be produced) society NEEDs that music to enter the public domain at some point. The same holds true for pharmaceutical drugs as well. That is why copyright and patent protection are for limited times.
You make the common mistake of confusing real property rights with monopoly rights granted through copyright and patents. and the point you are trying to make illustrates where this analogy breaks down. I wish we user the term Intellectual Monopoly instead of property. It is more accurate and less likely to lead people to making these poor analogies.
Re:Frankly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Frankly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:haha (Score:3, Insightful)
Or in my case, I consider insurance a scam. Why would I pay...
Because, you go and get your annual checkup, the doctor tells you have stage 3 metastatic seminoma, and you find yourself with no insurance company willing to pick you up because of a pre-existing condition. Suddenly, you are that burden on society that you are always bitching about.
I did have coverage though, quite a lot of coverage actually. But I still had to supplement my care with medicaid and medicare because my coverage ran out. For instance, one liter of the sysplatinum chemotherapy drug cost $5000.00 at the time. That was just the drug's line item cost, the $5000.00 does not include the cost for care and the other drugs. I soon capped my policy limit ( some may call that rationing ).
Then my insurance company decided they wanted me to see a different Oncologist. Not the local one that I had been seeing, but one 50 miles away. Even for simple blood tests to check LDH levels. So here I am, spending 2 hours on the road so I can spend 5 min for blood to be drawn. You see, The Oncologist my insurance wanted me to see used a different lab then the Oncologist I was seeing and I could get my blood tests done locally, but insurance wouldn't pay for them.
The insurance company decides who you see by qualifying what Doctors can submit claims. Why do you think the doctors have it listed on the paperwork you fill out when you see them? "We accept the following insurance plans...". ( was someone saying something about not being able to choose your doctor on a government health plan? )
PLUS you have the benefit of competition between doctors which drives-down costs.
My, f - ing, ass...
If you're earning over 50,000 (like me)
Quite frankly, I fall very close to the 100k / year range and I will have all my medical bills paid off by 2012. ( I was diagnosed in 1998. In remission since 2003 ).
Why would I pay around $3000/year for insurance when it's cheaper to just give my doctor $200 per year in cash.
Why? Because only an idiot thinks they're bullet proof. That's why. What kind of cognitive dissonance does it take to say "The belief that having government care is 'better' is a false one." in one post and "I consider insurance a scam" is another is beyond me.