RIAA's Elementary School Copyright Curriculum 507
selven writes "In a blatant campaign devoid of any subtlety, the RIAA is fighting for the hearts and minds of our children with its Music Rules, a collection of education materials on how to respect copyright. The curriculum includes vocabulary such as 'counterfeit recordings, DMCA notice, "Grokster" ruling, legal downloading, online piracy, peer-to-peer file sharing, pirate recordings, songlifting, and US copyright law.' There is no mention whatsoever of fair use. Compounding the bias, it includes insights such as that taking music without paying for it is 'songlifting,' and that making copies for personal use and then playing them while your friends come over is illegal. On the bright side, it includes math showing that the total damages from copyright infringement by children in the US amount to a measly $7.8 million."
How about rewards? (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely the riaa can take a lesson from the war on drugs and get the children to turn in their parents and friends for dmca violations!
I mean c'mon wouldn't it be worth it to any kid to receive a free cd (with rootkit) for sending their parents, friends, neighbors and relatives to the slammer?
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, I'll play devil's advocate for a just a second: It didn't stop them from smoking, so why the hell do you think it'll stop them from doing a far easier to do "crime"?!
How about some Civics? (Score:2, Insightful)
When I was in elementary school (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:2, Insightful)
What I strongly believe is that the RIAA may find the current generation of teens and young adults to be pretty much a lost cause in terms of convincing them that "downloading is wrong/illegal/etc" because they will just end up doing it anyway (apparently making examples of people through massive lawsuits did not have enough influence). This could be for a variety reasons including being against the RIAA's policies, negative PR, how the RIAA have treated people (and even artists) in that past, or because each individual just can't find anything ethically or morally wrong about downloading especially when they later decide to give tribute to the artist directly should they become a close fan.
So knowing that, the RIAA can move towards a younger audience who are still too young to make decisions like the teens and young adults and therefore end up being VERY impressionable. I am assuming the objective is to convince them that "filesharing is wrong and illegal" so that when they DO get older, they will not partake in the same actions as their older brothers/sisters and maybe even parents.
Naturally in order to accomplish this task, the information will likely be biased in favour of the RIAA so any counter-arugments to their policies such as "fair use" will be cleverly omitted from the program. In short, this whole thing is NOT for the benefit and education of children but the private business interests of a third party organization. Educating them that the RIAA's ancient business model is the ONLY way one should go (as opposed to filesharing which has opened up numerous other possible distribution models).
I think the RIAA's actions here border on "sick" and "brainwashing" if you ask me. That's like if Coca Cola ran a program at schools informing children that all other brands are "harmful" and will have severe negative consequences if you drink them.
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're actually doing some commentary on the pieces of the songs that you're using, then yes. And no, an episode of Family Guy is not a small piece - each episode is a standalone work.
Yeah well, I said that to illustrate a point in what is a complete work? Did you know that a single song can be recorded over hundreds of hours spent in a studio? Is each snippet of a track recorded a "complete work"? What about the post recording processing that goes on? You're using that too, you know.
... and there you are at +5 informative. Great, keep teaching kids that.
I'm just trying to get you to think about the ways in which this whole fair use thing becomes ambiguous but apparently you can say what you feel like saying without quoting or citing one legal document or precedent
Go ahead and tell us what fair use is, I'm not pretending to be a lawyer but you're doing a fine job.
As for my above post being moderated troll?! So much for discourse and discussion on nailing down the definition of "fair use." I cite Capitol Records chasing after the Grey Album and I'm the troll.
Why do I even waste my time putting together posts? I am so sick and tired of this site.
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:5, Insightful)
So given the above information, would you please outline how you would explain this to children?
Step 1: Teach them critical thinking, instead of doctrine.
Step 2: There is no step 2.
Children should learn to think. With regard to controversial topics like copyright law or health care legislation, they should be encouraged to seek broad resources and to judge for themselves. They should never, under any circumstances, be indoctrinated into any belief. Not even beliefs about fair use, of which I am a rabid supporter.
President Obama (Score:4, Insightful)
Erm... EPIC FAIL (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm, no it isn't illegal. What if the music you're 'taking without paying for it' has been released as CC or Public Domain? Personally, since all the crap first started kicking off back in the Napster days I've released all of my own music as CC and sold some for commercial use, but my small fanbase always appreciated that I'd give them tracks for free and sell them CDs for the cost of the materials and they were free to share them around with friends (I encouraged it), because it was free publicity that got me bigger attendances at gigs and thus better gigs with better pay. Filesharing is a great thing for artists. Major labels are bad bad bad things for artists and will only screw them over to exploit their talent without fair compensation. I bet the RIAA don't talk about THAT fact do they?
What's wrong with teaching? (Score:4, Insightful)
I bet I'll lose a ton of karma here, but...
What's wrong with teaching kids about respecting copyright? I agree completely that the US system is far from perfect, but we do have copyright laws on the books, and they're there for a good reason.
Most artists are not rich. The ability to control their music, pictures, paintings, designs, etc. allows them to pay bills very much in line with the ordinary Joe. It's a job. They should get paid for their job, if their work is in demand.
The Internet generation seems to think that if you can touch something, you can have it. I've started to see that 'entitlement' thing that the older folks keep talking about. Stuff on the Internet is not necessarily free. Sure, there are plenty of people who do make their songs, pictures etc. available for free legitimately. Why not download that? I'm betting it's because much of the time, it's not nearly as good as the paid-for stuff.
More people should be taught to respect copyright; even if it only leads to a change in the laws on the books (specifically, I hate the lifetime+70. Far too long.). But illegal downloading really IS stealing. I know that's an unpopular view, and the cartels have done nefarious things trying to enforce the laws, but it remains a fact.
And as to the fair use argument:
1) Fair Use is an admissive defense for copyright infringement. Meaning, you don't get to do something because it's fair use, you do it and if you get sued, you make a case for fair use.
2) Fair Use generally does not encompass making copies of something to give to someone else. It also does not encompass putting complete or majority portions of a work, say, online for review or critique purposes.
3) People should be able to make backups of CDs and movies (except for the lousy 'decryption' provision), and even shift between media.
But let's not pretend that downloading something you don't own or have license to use is somehow OK; much less Fair Use.
Re:Public Schools Taking a dump ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite Honestly (Score:3, Insightful)
We're in this mess now because we ignored these issues and didn't complain when Congress kept tipping the scales in favor of the large corporations who own most of the copyrights. Copyright law offers us very little protection now, and it offers the artists who actually create the work very little protection either. And nothing will change it until more people know what's going on with it and are angry enough to make some changes.
I'm not saying that the very parasites who have effected this situation in the first place should be the ones in charge of that education, but I think a well balanced program is required.
Re:The emperor is naked! (Score:5, Insightful)
Children are best at spotting when the emperor is naked.
I see what you're saying, but you're wrong. Children are horrible at spotting that.
Look at drug education, which is taught in a similarly shrill tone. Almost all children come out of that with an absolute hatred of any drugs. It's not until later, when exposed to the actual effects that some of them will realize that most of what was taught was bunk. Many will have the extremely negative reaction that they were taught for the rest of their lives, regardless of any evidence they receive to the contrary. And even those that do figure out that it was mostly hysteria that they were taught generally fling in the other direction, rebelling against any authority and expecting everything they say to be a lie.
Teaching unbalanced and hysterical lessons to young children, who do not have BS filters in place, is as far as I've seen, universally harmful. I can think of no situation where a reasoned explanation of the facts, and clearly marked explanation of theories, would not be better than the above.
Corporate propaganda (Score:2, Insightful)
Raising good Corperate Consumer citizens.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sharing? that's bad, Stop sharing with billy.
and children, you do know that you kill kittens when you share? Also you are being very bad if you sing a song you heard on the radio without paying for the right to do so?
yes billy, your mother is a criminal for singing "happy birthday" to you yesterday. She is evil and should be put away.
you know kids, it's up to you to watch your parents and report any suspicious or bad behavior.
Re:How about rewards? (Score:1, Insightful)
Very Stasi of you to mention it.
There, fixed that for you...
Re:What's wrong with teaching? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's wrong with teaching kids about respecting copyright?
Nothing, as long as you are teaching them actual law.
Back in the day, when plain paper copy machine began to pop up in places like public libraries, people had an understanding of copyright that was simple and wrong. Most people thought that you could copy anything you wanted in any amount if it was for personal use. No-one was prosecuted for copying too many pages out of a book. Now, with the Internet, things are more complicated, but people haven't kept up.
A good teacher would make a passing reference to the RIAA's literature, then ask the class, "What do you think copyright *should* be?", and then go into a discussion about the history of copyright, how laws are created, and how to get them changed.
Re:What's wrong with teaching? (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the article itself, and fail to see where that was mentioned. I think that the submitter "remixed" some of what was said in the Ars article with what was on the MusicRules site.
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:5, Insightful)
UK Gov't Health tells kids to masturbate;Parents are angry. But when you have a monopoly, customer opinions don't matter
Your sig and your post both present the same essential argument, and both suffer from the logical fallacy. I seriously doubt that the Uk government is telling kids to masturbate. I full believe and wouldn't even be surprised to hear that the UK government is telling kids something along the lines of "Current psychological research shows that masturbation is natural and/or healthy". The first is giving advice, the second merely stating a fact. Moreover the second is stating a TRUE fact. Whether or not you believe that masturbation is natural and/or healthy, the vast majority of current research shows that it is. Your moral judgment on the act itself cannot stand in the way of a simple statement on the current state of research *about* the act. You are perfectly free, at home, to tell your children that masturbation is a sin, and that they should not do it. The schools can, and should, present data about what the most current science on the matter says. Schools should not be in the business of teaching morals, but they are in the business of presenting scientific data to students.
The same fallacy applies to your post about what RIAA is doing. While what the RIAA curriculum is teaching might be counter to your moral beliefs (i.e. you may believe that all information should be free and copyright laws are an abomination), unless it is factually inaccurate it doesn't matter. Schools are again not in the business of presenting moral arguments, they are in the business of presenting facts. In this case legal facts. If the facts are wrong (and in this case is seem that they are, if not wrong, certainly biased) then we should object. If the facts are right, and the curriculum does not stray into making moral declarations, then the fact that we'd like those facts to be different doesn't change anything. Objecting based on the idea that we'd rather our children didn't hear these facts is silly.
Re:Erm... EPIC FAIL (Score:3, Insightful)
Erm, no it isn't illegal. What if the music you're 'taking without paying for it' has been released as CC or Public Domain?
Exactly this will have fail written all over it. The kid will go to these classes and come home to newgrounds.com, then question it.
That's how I learned (for better or worse), if I could question one thing and prove it's wrong, then the entire lesson could be corrupt and I took it as a "everything taught in this lesson could be true" for later research/discussion outside of the teachers view. Kind of like how they said sex was bad.
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's not well defined. Fair use is, in my opinion, an abomination in that it's a "law" that's not defined in anyway.
It is deliberately left undefined. A fair use is an otherwise infringing use which, under the totality of the circumstances, is fair. There are tests to help determine fairness, and there are trends as to the sorts of things that often are fair or unfair, but ultimately it is meant to be a a way of handling minor, otherwise infringing acts which should be allowed in the spirit of copyright, rather than the letter of the law; and it is a way of handling unusual and unforeseen acts.
If you want specific exceptions for specific things, whether they are narrow or broad, that's fine, but then they should exist in addition to fair use, since they could never suffice to replace it.
Remember, both law and equity are part of our legal traditions; don't be surprised that fair use is rooted in the latter.
And what's even better is when I try to cite the safe harbor laws or portion limits on Slashdot, I'm ridiculed over and over (not that I've ever practiced law but as a citizen it's the most I can find) despite my analysis being correct!
Fair use has no such things. I'm sorry that you are upset when people point this out to you. The best people can manage with fair use is to look at a number of cases, and try to discern trends. But each fair use case being unique, trends are of limited utility. There have been cases where small amounts of material were quoted from a work, and it was not fair, and there have been cases where entire works have been copied, and it was fair.
If you're really interested in trying to know when a use is fair or not, I'd suggest learning the test and reading a number of the leading cases on fair use, including the recounting of the facts of the case, so you know just what the particular use happened to be. But this will only at best put you at the level of legal scholars, lawyers, judges, etc. who get it wrong fairly often. Courts have a hard time working out fair use, and reversals on appeal are not uncommon. It's just a difficult thing, and it can't be helped without destroying fair use in the process.
Again, I think you'd be much better off leaving fair use (and your criticisms of it) aside, and instead pushing for additional statutory exceptions which would avoid your having to rely on fair use for things you wanted to do, while still leaving it in place for those who did need to rely on it.
For example, I would like to see an exception that made any otherwise infringing act non-infringing (or at least non-actionable) if it was engaged in by a natural person, and was not commercial in nature or for profit, without affecting secondary liability. The idea being that Alice could engage in file sharing, but Bob could not run a torrent tracker that carried advertisements, or required a fee to access, nor could Carol require that people adhere to a particular ratio of uploads to downloads, nor could Dave sell the software used for this. Thus while we might reduce the amount of money that could be exploited from a particular copyright, at least about all the money there was to be had would still be funneled to the copyright holder. It also legitimizes a lot of what people are doing already, kind of like repealing Prohibition.
REALLY? (Score:5, Insightful)
...playing them while your friends come over is illegal
So if my wife and I listen to a CD in the car, I'm violating the law? Should I have purchased two copies of the CD?
That is, perhaps, the absolute stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life.
The RIAA really needs to get a better PR wing.
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:5, Insightful)
The law is the best reference for this. 17 USC 107 lists the four factors to test, and gives illustrative (and not exclusive) examples to show what the purpose behind the doctrine is. If you are trying to do something that uses the work as a basis, you probably have a problem. If you are trying to merely talk about the work, and use small snippets of it to that end, you are probably ok. And then copying your own copies for your own exclusive purposes is ok.
Parody gets a little tougher to talk about, since the case-law makes the distinction that what is meant is critical parody (which makes sense, given that it fits the pattern of the permitted classes), and not parody as a back-door to making a derivative work (in the Weird-Al sense). Note that Fair Use is not unique here: like any case that wanders too close to the boundaries of the law, you have to take it to a courtroom to know for sure. Wikipedia offers Mattel, Inc. v. Walking Mountain Productions and Art Rogers v. Jeff Koons as cases to reference.
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:3, Insightful)
Shooting one self in the foot 101
Not everyone listens to the radio
One means of promotion of a great tune is when it's heard at a friend's home on their stereo
If the CD is good, your friends will rush out and buy it.
Sales soar, and the album goes platinum
In order to protect and preserve the newly purchased CD, the wise consumer rips the thing to digital and then listens to music on their digital player of choice. You then store the CD to protect it from damage and loss. This is how it's done in the real world
For the MAFIAA to declare this illegal is retarded.
They are actually criminalizing the act of listening to the music, they (the artists and production companies) want to promote.
These people running the RIAA are stupid! Only from the mind of a fucking lawyer
Like this business model is going to work
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:4, Insightful)
The moderation system seems to be working, as your "-1, troll" has become a "+2, interesting" as it should be. It only takes two asshats to take an informative or interesting post and make it invisible.
I'd like to add to the "fair use" thing: if you plagairize, aven a tiny bit, that is NOT fair use. If you don't give credit where creadit is due, you should be bitchslapped. It's usually easy to tell when something is not fair use, but I agree that it is hard to tell when something is.
Perhaps if Comgress wasn't a wholly-owned subsidiary of the corporatti we could get fair use defined in understandable terms. We could also get a reasonable copyright length so it wouldn't be such a problem anyway. Why should Tolkien's, Hendrix's, or Walt Disney's work, or Gene Roddenberry's work be covered by copyright? He's dead, Jim. There's no way in hell you could ever convince any of the listed people to create more art.
Now watch Paramount sue me for typing "he's dead, Jim".
Re:Can parents take their children out of class? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:3, Insightful)
my innocence would depend entirely on how much money I have for a lawyer ... not the law.
How is that different from any other law?
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:5, Insightful)
That is much harder then you think... Your biases are often sent to the children even if you are not trying to do so.
Lets use Unions. I don't think teachers can fairly teach children about unions and their effect on the US and the world. As they are directly benefiting from the Unions so even if they try to teach both sides it makes it seem that Unions will benefit the Underclass at a slight expense to the upperclass, Created such advancements such as Minimum Wage, Weekends and Holidays. However there is little teaching about the other side of unions to allow full critical thinking. Such as past (And possibly current) Moffia ties. The fact that they are now separate organizations who are in the lookout for improving the Union vs. The individual worker. The fact that Unions can hinder HR for a company so much that the company cannot be allowed to modernize or improve efficiency, as efficiency improvements either mean less employees or employees doing more or more difficult work. Or the fact the Unions are now more of a political force who pressure (mostly the democrat party) to do things their way).
Now that a teacher is a Union Member they will have a difficult time teaching the negatives especially if they feel these negatives are untrue or just a small side effect. Vs. someone else who sees it as a major side effect.
Is it important when teaching say american history to cover big events say the civil war WWI and WWII (Where the US won and was considered the good guy) vs. Whisky Rebellion, War of 1812 (WHICH WE ACTUALLY LOST!), Vietnam... Where our goals wern't not always noble and our success wasn't so great.
And do you have any idea what backlash you would have from the parents and politicians if you tried to teach children to look at both sides of WWII.
Re:Is it like Sex Ed can I opt my Kid Out (Score:4, Insightful)
Stay involved. Ask your kids' teachers about the subjects they will be taught. Go to PTA meetings.
I did all that when my kids were in school, and none of it helped the tiniest little bit. The only parental involvent the school system wants is when they're fund raising.
If I had to do it again I'd sell dope so I could afford to send my kids to private school.
Re:It didn't stop them from smoking (Score:1, Insightful)
You checked out smoking rates in the US lately? Way down from it's peak. ... because of schooling? or because of price?
... or statewide bans of smoking indoors?
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:4, Insightful)
Nicely done you have completely taken what I said out of context, and neatly twisted its meaning. I said in no fewer than two places in the post that schools should not be making moral judgments at all, but should be presenting facts. As accurately as possible. Let's look at both subjects that seem to irritate you and see how schools should handle them...
Masturbation:
1) "Current research shows that masturbation is a normal/healthy activity" - Fine. It accurately states a fact. Current research does in fact show that.
2) "Current research shows that masturbation is a normal/healthy activity, and you shouldn't feel bad about doing it" - Questionable. The first statement is certainly true, the second is getting on to possibly making a moral call. I would generally support it, because the first statement supports it, and frankly I think masturbation is perfectly normal and healthy. I can see where some parents might object.
3) "Masturbation is fine, any family or religious figure that tells you otherwise is wrong." - Bad. The school is usurping parental and/or religious authority. If the schools in the UK are actually saying this or something like it, then I don't support their program, despite agreeing with their aims.
Copyright Infringement:
1) "Copying music and movies and sharing them with your friends is illegal under most circumstances in most of the Western World" - Fine. It's an accurate statement of facts. More details explaining exceptions might be good, but on the face of it this statement is accurate.
2) "Because copying music and movies and sharing them with your friends is illegal under most circumstances in most of the Western World, you should not do it. You could be arrested or fined and your parents could get into trouble." - Questionable. It gives advice, and presents a "scare" scenario. Again though, the second statement follows pretty logically from the first, and you can in fact be arrested or fined. There's nothing really inaccurate here, but I can see where some parents might object.
3) "Copyright infringement is wrong and evil and should be punished where ever it's found out. Always tell on anybody you find doing it." - Bad. Makes a moral judgment call, and gives questionable advice about how to behave.
It's pretty simple. If the school is giving out facts, and the facts are accurate then the school is doing its job. I never defended this as a good program. In fact I say quite clearly that it seems to be giving out biased or incorrect information. My objection is not to the fact that you don't like it (I don't think it's a good idea either), my objection is to the reasons you dislike it. Your essential argument could be used to completely shelter children from any information you, as their parent, don't want them to have. It's the same essential argument used against the teaching of evolution. If school curriculum are based on withholding everything that any individual parent doesn't want their kinds to know, pretty soon there won't be any curriculum. By the time you accommodate the pacifists that don't want their kids to know wars existed, the right wing Christians who don't want their kids to know other religions exist (not to mention half the biology and physics curriculum), the anarchists who don't want their kids to know laws exist, and the prudes who don't want their kids to know sex exists, you might as well cancel education after 6th grade once kids know how to read and add most of the time.
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm no copyright expert, but basic googleage tells me that even in an academic environment, public performance (i.e., a concert, marching band on the field, etc.) requires distinct license, above and beyond buying sheet music. But apparently, just performing music within a classroom setting for the purposes of teaching (for instance, in the band room while learning to read sheet music and tootle your tootler) isn't public performance.
As to "educational purposes" as a particular defense against infringement charges, as far as I can tell it isn't. It appears to be one particular species of Fair Use, with varying degrees of success depending on the extent of the "infringement".
IANAL, of course. But google agrees with me.
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:3, Insightful)
Because this is On the Web, as you very sagely put it, you could... you know... click the link. Assess the content of the linked page against eldavojohn's original context, and perhaps decide for yourself whether he means what he says or is being ironic.
To quote one of my older sigs here, "Whether this post is ironic or sincere is left as an exercise for the reader."
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:3, Insightful)
Eh, no. The primary purpose of copyright was to reward the friends of the crown in exchange for support in censorship and control. The English people needed protection from cheap and potentially dangerous books printed by the Scots. And paying friends through awarding monopolies confuses people more than outright taxing them and handing to proceeds to your buddies.
The fact that the creators get a miniscule percentage of the revenue is not a mistake; copyright is, and has always been designed that way on purpose. Had anyone of the involved parties actually given a damn about encouraging creators it would have been trivial to formulate a system with levies on sales where the majority of the revenue went directly to the creator.
Re:The three Rs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:4, Insightful)
Could Fair Use be clearer? Maybe. But I'll spell out what I think he is getting at. Fair Use is inherently ambiguous. Saying that's intentional is like saying "I meant to do that" after making a mistake. Laws should not be unnecessarily ambiguous. There ought NOT to be a law where there is no need.
Using one entire episode of a show is obviously not Fair Use, while using only 10% is regarded as fair. But at some point we always reach a gray area, and we always will. As an example, what about double or triple size episodes, in 30 minute installments, complete with "to be continued" announcements at the break points? Which 10% of that is fair? Could the first 6 minutes be used, or would the user have to take no more than 3 minutes from each 30 minute part? Suppose the producer tries to obscure things by purposely leaving out the "to be continued" announcements? To argue one way or another on that and similar questions is to miss the point. We shouldn't have to argue about that at all. We should not have fallen into the trap of wasting huge amounts of time and money trying to decide such things on a case by case basis. No there are not a finite number of circumstances, so we won't be able to eventually have a decision for every possible circumstance. And if we do have a decision, we can reopen and fight again and again. We shouldn't have to split hairs at all. We should avoid the entire issue, and replace copyright law. Find another way to justly compensate artists. Don't feed the confusopoly.
As another example, take traffic lights. If we could afford to replace every intersection with an interchange, we would not need traffic lights, or laws concerning traffic lights. No more running of red lights. No more red light cameras and corruption involving the shortening of yellow lights in order to extort money from "violators". Most of all, no more waiting around at red lights. It's a nice dream, but at this time replacing every intersection is impractical. If we ever get flying cars.... Replacing copyright law on the other hand is not only much more possible, but necessary.
I think technology will force us to scrap copyright. Copying will only become easier and faster and more deeply embedded in all that we do, and it is already impossible to stop the majority of copyright infringement that occurs constantly. Also the law is such a hopeless mess, based on bad foundations and bad ideas, it never will be possible for would-be obedient users to know that something they're doing is infringing or that something they want to do is not infringing. The law is so screwed up that just booting up a computer with Windows is an infringement, as the computer copies the OS from disk to memory, however fixing such specific issues by explicitly allowing them does not really help. The only way to be sure of complying with the law is never do anything at all-- never write any songs, books, never buy anything in case it might be pirated, never use a computer or a network or a phone, never even watch TV or listen to the radio lest you remember a jingle and sing it where someone else can hear. Of course we're not going to shut ourselves into boxes, instead, we're all criminals. Copyright must go.
Re:Fair use? (Score:4, Insightful)
> I don't think you'll find much agreement on /. People often believe pretty much anything that
> isn't nailed down should be free because they don't want to pay for them.
Total slander.
The simple fact is: technology is difficult to use if copying is not easy. Computers are ALL ABOUT copying. If I can't copy something, I can't use it. If I can use it, then I can pirate it. There just isn't any getting around this really. Media moguls and artist wannabes simply don't get this.
Overblown hysterics about the damages of rampant copyright infringement eventually interferes with my ability to use the stuff that I bought and paid for.
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:3, Insightful)
Correction: it's primary purpose is to encourage creators to create and share what they create
A minor correction to that:
Copyright's purpose is to promote the progress of science, by encouraging authors to create and publish works, and by having minimal, if any, restrictions, in both scope and length, as to what the public can do with those works.
The second half -- that copyrights should be as minimal and short-lived as possible while still encouraging authors -- is important, since works are more valuable to the public the less protected they are by copyright. It's why there are limits to copyright, why copyrights expire (or at least are supposed to; the current law is pretty rotten), etc.
Re:Okay, You Have the Floor (Score:5, Insightful)
No need to take my word for it. Attribution was not present in US copyright law until 1990. Since then, it is only available for a very small set of works -- check the definition in 17 USC 101 for a work of visual art, to see what is covered -- and even then the attribution right is subject to fair use.
And why should we even have this much?
There hasn't been a big explosion, AFAICT, in the quantity of eligible works since the law was passed in 1990. This suggests that the creators of such works, e.g. fine artists, sculptors, art photographers, etc., are not incentivized to create and publish their works because such a right is available. And there's not really a dearth of such creators now, nor before the law came along, which is attributable to copyright law. There is no attribution right for the vast majority of works, but the US is awash in non-eligible works now, and was before the law was enacted.
Granting copyrights imposes a burden on the public, and has a public cost. This is acceptable if granting the copyright produces a benefit to the public which outweighs that cost. In the case of attribution rights, it seems that they have the inevitable burden, with no commensurate benefit.
So while some creators might want an attribution right, the fact that they are perfectly willing to create and publish works without it leads me to oppose such a right, since it would be a huge waste perpetrated against the people.
It's kind of like how I'd like my clients to pay me a million dollars an hour. Since I'm willing to settle for less, no one is foolish enough to pay me more than they absolutely have to.
And even if I refused to work unless I did get paid a million dollars an hour, my clients would surely, rightly, decide that I'm not worth that much, and simply fire me. This is exactly what we should do with authors who want too much copyright: Refuse to give them any rights that we deem excessive, and if they refuse to create, we happily let them wait tables or deliver pizzas. No creative work is so important that it justifies excessive copyright. We are better off without such works by definition.
Re:Is it like Sex Ed can I opt my Kid Out (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, this is society. Welcome, I hope you like it. You see, we have this thing called other people. Other humans. And well, not all the other people are alike. Taken together, because - who wants to be a hermit in the woods? - these other humans make up this society.
So there is society. This society is "we". We've agreed there are some things we should probably not do, like kill each other. We made up a list of things that we've tended to agree are good ideas. So far, it's not the best, but it's pretty good. Some people disagree, and we try to address that. Then there are very few people who think everyone else should die and they should be in charge and they also deserve a new computer.
However, as a group, we've done pretty well by aiding our individual interests, and the interests of group balanced against individuals. So we don't listen to the people who don't want to destroy the group. The group isn't perfect, and it can change, but we have it because we were agreeing on some things and doing better than we were as individuals.
These other people. We treat them with respect because they can have great ideas, everyone does, sometimes. But not all the time. Sometimes other people are right. Sometimes we give in a little bit of our personal gp to buy the cleric a wand of healing, it could help. We're all different, and we all have different ideas. But we need to agree that by having an entirely opt-out group, no one might be part of the band. And that wouldn't be as cool as having a party.
So we'll be a party. In this group some make more, some make less, some are doctors, and some are farmers. Some are fighters, some rogues (not rouges), and the most awesome of all are druids. We decided we want both doctors and farmers, we need healing and dps, we need control, and because there are a lot of us, we can't just exchange services at the tribal council. So we have money. Money and taxes. And lots of other cool things too. Like cookies. Cookies are really good. And also Zoidberg was there.
Anyway, this taxation exists to provide services for all, and to help redistribute wealth. Not everyone agrees all the time, in fact, people generally do not agree. But by agreeing not to be entirely self-serving nihilists, we've seem to have some kind of compromise. And it has worked out pretty well so far. We've defeated some monsters, had some laughs, and gained some levels. Are we realms-shaking gods yet?
No, not yet.
(Tag rant in humour/sarcastic colour, I realize you didn't say that everyone should die).