Pirate Party Leader: Copyright Laws Ridiculous 543
smitty777 writes "Rick Falkvinge, better known as the leader for Sweden's Pirate Party, recommends doing away with copyright laws since no one is following them anyway. FTA: '...he uses examples from the buttonmakers guild in 1600s France to justify eliminating the five major parts of copyright law today. The first two are cover duplication and public performance, and piracy today has ruined those. The next two cover rights of the creator to get credit and prevent other performances, satires, remixes, etc they don't like. Falkvinge says giving credit is important, but not worthy of a law. Finally, "neighboring rights" are used by the music industry to block duplication, which Falkvinge rejects.'"
GPL (Score:3, Informative)
I have to make the same point I always make in these articles (by the way, isn't this like the third Pirate Party submission in the last month?)--if you do away with copyright laws, you do away with the GPL. The GPL is a copyright license that requires copyright law to have any legal power over what people do with GPL code. Go ahead and take a look at how many times the term copyright appears in the GPL:
- "'The Program' refers to any copyrightable work licensed under this License. Each licensee is addressed as 'you'. 'Licensees' and 'recipients' may be individuals or organizations."
- "All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met."
- "However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so."
And so on. Without copyright laws, the GPL is powerless.
Re:He seems to confuse the purpose of copyright (Score:5, Informative)
The purposes of the copyright monpoly vary between legislations, so there is not "one" purpose.
In the United States, it is "to promote the progress and the useful arts", nothing more, nothing less. That is a direct quote from the constitution.
Re:He seems to confuse the purpose of copyright (Score:5, Informative)
Well, record labels do provide many services to artists, starting from financing them when they're starting up, their professional help, their experience and their marketing channels. This isn't exactly free either. Here is a list of costs for advertising related stuff:
Optional mailing labor for CD $1.00 each
Optional mailing labor for CD+vinyl $1.50 each
Optional BDS tracking $1000
Optional Mediabase tracking $1000
Optional R&R Indicator tracking $1000
Optional Quarterbacking $100 00
College Radio (8 weeks) .$ 2500 .$ 2500 .$ 6000 .$ 2000
Jazz, Blues, Folk, Americana, Piano (up to 100 stations)
CMJ charting for URBAN, metal, electronic, jazz, world, AAA, (250 stations), or non-
charting for alternative
CMJ Top200 Charting (up to 500 stns; incl extra phones) $ 4000
CMJ Top200 Charting (up to 700 stns; incl extra phones
and CMJ core stations)
Regional (non charting, any genre) (50 stations)
Commercial Specialty Mixshow (8 weeks)
National Mixshow (BDS Level - 100 stations) $15,000
Mixshow (up to 70 stations, college & commercial) $ 6000
Dance Mixshow Charting (100 stations) $ 4000
Regional (non-charting) (10 stations) $ 6000
Commercial Regular Rotation for AC, Pop, R&B (8 weeks) .$ 7000 .$20000 .$ 1500/station
75 stations (small markets) $ 4000
150 stations (small markets)
R&R indicator stage 1 (small markets - 10 stations) $15000
R&R indicator stage 2 (medium & small markets - 25 stations).$30000
BDS Promotion (7-10 stations) $15000
FMQB charting (100+ stations, medium and small) $20000
R&R CHR/Pop Indicator (medium and small markets - 50 stations) $40000
Regional (non-charting) (10-15 stations) $8000
FMQB AC tracking (optional) $ 400/mo
High-Level AC Promotion (includes field staff)
(additional)
High-Level Pop/Urban Promotion (includes field staff) $40000
(additional)
High-Level station giveaways or commercials (unrated mkt) $ 200/station
High-Level station giveaways or commercials (small mkt) $ 500/station
High-Level station giveaways or commercials (medium mkt)
Commercial Regular Rotation for Rock, Alt, Urban (8 weeks) .$ 15000 .$ 1500/station
R&R indicator stage 1 (small markets - 10 stations)
R&R indicator stage 2 (medium & small markets - 25 stations) $ 30000
Regional (non-charting) (10-15 stations) $8000
BDS Promotion (7-10 stations) $15000
High-Level Promotion Urban (includes field staff) $40000
(additional)
High-Level station giveaways or commercials (unrated mkt) $ 200/station
High-Level station giveaways or commercials (small mkt) $ 500/station
High-Level station giveaways or commercials (medium mkt)
Commercial Regular Rotation for AAA or Smooth Jazz (8 weeks) .$20,000 .$ 200/mo
50 station special (medium and small) $ 8,000
FMQB / R&R charting (75 stations, all sizes)
Regional (non-charting) (20 stations) $ 2500
FMQB AAA tracking (optional)
High-Level Promotion (includes field staff) $10000
(additional)
Commercial Regular Rotation for Country (8 weeks)
Small market non-charting (50 small stations)
Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Copyright laws are to preserve the right of copying the work for the copyright holder.
The point of copyrights (and patents) is to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for a limited time the exclusive right to use the work(s) to the person(s) who created them as they see fit.
Original article is on Techdirt (Score:5, Informative)
Use the second link.
The original source of this message is the column on Techdirt [techdirt.com] named It is time to stop pretending to endorse the copyright monopoly. The ITWorld reporter (the first link in the story) muddles the message to some degree, and also introduces heavy bias into the story (see the headers over the comments section, for instance).
The original message is that yes, the copyright monopoly (or four/five monopolies) are ridiculous, but we should stop pretending to support them all while criticizing the draconian laws that are de facto needed to sustain them. IT World muddles this to that we should stop "following" the copyright monopoly laws. That is a different message (which I might have said too, but not in this particular article).
Re:Original article is on Techdirt (Score:5, Informative)
Also, I have not been the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party for a bit over a year. I am its founder and I led it for its first five years. Anna Troberg is the current leader of the Swedish Pirate Party.
Cheers,
Rick
Re:GPL (Score:4, Informative)
So? If you get rid of copyright, the GPL would have no purpose anyway. Like, in a good way.
Re:He seems to confuse the purpose of copyright (Score:5, Informative)
(Nitpicky edit)
"To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts..."
(/Nitpicky edit)
Re:He seems to confuse the purpose of copyright (Score:4, Informative)
Well, record labels do provide many services to artists
That's a hell of a way to spin it. Who do you think ultimately pays for the advertising, the studio time, the costs of live shows, etc.?
The customer, like in every business? Of course, record labels also take risk of the band not succeeding and them making a loss.
Re:GPL (Score:4, Informative)
Some years ago, Richard Stallman would have supported that idea. But now, with the changes in the world lately, he sings a rather different tune [gnu.org]. There's that pesky distinction between source and object code to think about and the fact that the copyright licenses for Free Software are also used as a defense against software patents.
Re:He seems to confuse the purpose of copyright (Score:4, Informative)
Copyright law has been largely unified via the Bern convention (USA signed on in the 1980s) and later WIPO.
Re:Using copyright for the Right things... (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you reach a level of popularity that borders on lottery-winning luck, you will not see millions from your label contract. The labels may steal from the consumer's pockets, but they are also throttling the money out of the artists naive enough to sign to them.
Re:He seems to confuse the purpose of copyright (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ahem, FCC? Yeah, could you read this.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:He seems to confuse the purpose of copyright (Score:2, Informative)
Laws balance the rights of individuals to the rights of societies. You can't solely argue for the rights of the individual
I don't disagree with anything you've said, and implicit in every definition of copyright is a time period, after which everything becomes public domain.
That part is so obvious I didn't thing it necessary to state it.
In fact I could make a case that Copyright should be knocked back to that it was originally, or maybe just to 10 years.
After all, if you can't sell enough in ten years to feed your family while you work on the next creation, you should probably take
up farming instead.
But that is not what the Pirate Party is proposing. They are proposing total abolition of copyright, (and by logical extension, patents too).
They are essentially saying that If I get a peek at your great manuscript, I can rush it out before you even get a chance to sell the leather
bound first editions. When you do soldier on and print a few copies for friends, I can scan that
and under cut your price, because there would be no legal protection at all.
Writing, composing, and recording become spare time projects for steel workers, farmers, and truck drivers, because without a source of income
the people who create can't make a living, unlike the performers.
Re:He seems to confuse the purpose of copyright (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure Avatar is a very good example: I thought I read that it was largely financed by James Cameron himself, so it probably would never have been made if it weren't for him ponying up his own money, and he instead had tried to rely on getting some studio to finance it entirely.