The Corruption of Western Governments by Copyright Cartels
Quote:
AN international effort to dismantle major internet piracy groups has identified more than 100 people in the US and abroad involved in the theft of more than $US50 million ($68 million) in music, movies, games and computer software, US authorities said.
Synchronized searches by the FBI in 27 states and by other authorities in 10 countries beginning Wednesday resulted in the seizure of more than 200 computers, including 30 servers used as storage and distribution hubs for the material, US Attorney General John Ashcroft said. One server contained over 65,000 titles.
AN international effort to dismantle major internet piracy groups has identified more than 100 people in the US and abroad involved in the theft of more than $US50 million ($68 million) in music, movies, games and computer software, US authorities said.
Synchronized searches by the FBI in 27 states and by other authorities in 10 countries beginning Wednesday resulted in the seizure of more than 200 computers, including 30 servers used as storage and distribution hubs for the material, US Attorney General John Ashcroft said. One server contained over 65,000 titles.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...-15319,00.html
Quote:
"Today is a good day for creative artists," said John Malcolm, chief of antipiracy operations for the Motion Picture Association and a former senior Justice Department official. "Without copyright protection and enforcement, piracy will dramatically and deleteriously impact the future of the American film industry."
"Today is a good day for creative artists," said John Malcolm, chief of antipiracy operations for the Motion Picture Association and a former senior Justice Department official. "Without copyright protection and enforcement, piracy will dramatically and deleteriously impact the future of the American film industry."
That wretched hive of scum and villany has been espousing such nonsense for ages so the quote itself doesn't disturb me. What disturbs me is John Ashcroft's quote:
Quote:
"This is thievery," Mr Ashcroft said. "This is criminal."
"This is thievery," Mr Ashcroft said. "This is criminal."
The attitude of western governments - particularly America - towards copyright over the past few decades has shifted from appreciating it as a method to promote innovation to a natural right, not for artists and individuals but for big business and copyright cartels like the RIAA, MPAA and BSA. What disturbs me is John Ashcroft, someone who is supposed to be serving the interest of America as a whole, profiling copyright violation as "thievery" and "criminal." What also disturbs me is that the chief of "antipiracy" operations at the MPAA is a "former senior Justice Department official." What favours did he do for the MPAA at the US DoJ to get him a cushy job there?
Another quote, this time from John Perry Barlow at the EFF:
Quote:
Whenever there is such profound divergence between the law and social practice, it is not society that adapts. And, against the swift tide of custom, the Software Publishers' current practice of hanging a few visible scapegoats is so obviously capricious as to only further diminish respect for the law.
Whenever there is such profound divergence between the law and social practice, it is not society that adapts. And, against the swift tide of custom, the Software Publishers' current practice of hanging a few visible scapegoats is so obviously capricious as to only further diminish respect for the law.
Barto
Comments
Copyright laws used to be civilized and respectable.
The US Government scares me. Strange that it only took 200+ years to moving from fighting a Civil War over State's rights to today fight over corporations rights.
The proof of their actions are easy to spot. Any country that prides itself on freedom and a Gov "for the people...by the people" should not have such disproportionate distribution of income.
The rich here(and probably elsewhere) are cleaning up. Companies now feel like they should be able to profit from an idea in perpetuity. Thus, a great idea now is patented, trademarked and vigorously defended. The emphasis isn't on generating more ideas but profiting immensely off of the few ideas you have. Great for the company but altruism it is not.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/...326133722.html
"If you ever needed evidence that the music industry is living a lie, it came last month with two interesting pieces of information. One was the release of sales figures that showed the sales of recorded music in Australia was at an all-time high. The other was a report from two respected US academics showing that downloading music from the internet does not slow music sales and may even help them."
Originally posted by xenu
More about these lying scum
So, rather than b*tch and moan, can any of you guys propose anything that works BETTER at protecting property rights than the current copyright system?
Didn't think so.
Originally posted by finagain
So, rather than b*tch and moan, can any of you guys propose anything that works BETTER at protecting property rights than the current copyright system?
Didn't think so.
Yes, actually.
There is a prime candidate that actually fits with the way we enjoy, find and share music these days that's supported many individuals I know in senior positions in the music and broadcast industries in the UK and some in the US. The sums show that it would mean that people who create music could benefit very well in proportion to the usage of their music in just about every application. It would, at a stroke, remove all considerations of copyright control, 'fair use,' DRM and licensing. We'd get better TV and radio and it would work using many existing technologies to track usage.
So next time why don't you leave a post between your question and your response?
I'll write it down. It could be long.
edit: should have added, but it'll never happen because of certain vested interests. The artists would be incredibly happy but the labels would have to change and the RIAA would be out of a job.
http://www.oyez.org/creativecommons/lessig.mp4 (video)
Originally posted by finagain
So, rather than b*tch and moan, can any of you guys propose anything that works BETTER at protecting property rights than the current copyright system?
Actually there are better systems that have been proposed and discussed at length and quite a few books written on it.
DMCA - by JoeBaldwin
Do you see the DMCA as a law that can truly benefit the world as a whole, or just a tool of the big corporations (MPAA, I'm looking at you) or whatever?
Godwin: Well, I think it's primarily a tool of copyright-holding companies, who continue to be terrified (with justification) about the impact the digital world is going to have on their ways of doing business. For two or three centuries, depending on how you count, publishers and distributors have relied on the technological happenstance that making a copy of a creative work was difficult. The digital world makes copying easy and cheap, which undercuts a basic assumption behind copyright law, which is that unauthorized copying is generally so expensive that only bad guys with commercial motives would bother to do it. Suddenly, computers and the Internet have created a world in which ordinary, otherwise-law-abiding people are empowered to make unauthorized copies for free, and to share those 100-percent-perfect copies of creative works with other people -- maybe millions of other people.
Now, one response to this is just exactly what we've seen -- the copyright industries have been trying to shore up the existing copyright framework by DMCA lawsuits (either against Internet service providers or against individual users), by seeking architectural changes over computers and the Internet (to make copying harder), by classifying noncommercial copying as a criminal or civil wrong, and so on. And because these are well-moneyed copyright holders who do in fact employ lots of people and contribute to the economy, they have a lot of influence with policy-makers.
The problem here isn't merely that the copyright industries are trying to demonize peer-to-peer file-sharing, and digital copying of content generally. Instead, it's that they don't realize (or don't care) that they're attempting to roll back or otherwise restrict what can only be understood properly as design features of computers and of the Internet itself. Digital technologies at some fundamental level are about the making of perfect copies of information (whether that information is your content or someone else's). It's very hard to put technological hobbles on computers and the Internet that distinguish between lawful copying and unlawful copying -- if you want to throw out that bathwater, you're going to end up throwing out the baby as well.
A better approach, it seems to me, is that suggested by, among others, law professor Jessica Litman in her book DIGITAL COPYRIGHT. In the last chapter of her book, which I recommend to anyone interested in the DMCA and related digital-copyright subjects, Litman suggests that as we revise copyright law in the digital age, we try to make it as much like pre-existing law as possible. I agree with that -- my major criticism of the DMCA is not so much that it serves only one set of interests but rather that it prohibits circumventing copy-protection technologies even if you have an otherwise lawful reason to do so.
I have one other thought on this subject that's been on my mind lately, and it's this: just as much as peer-to-peer file-sharing is a basic feature of the Internet, music sharing (and the sharing of other treasured creative works) is a basic feature of human culture. We want to share the songs we love, the books and movies we love, and so on. I think what we've got to aim for is a legal system that preserves the goals of the Copyright Act while accommodating, to the extent possible, the human impulse to share the cultural creations we love.
The whole thing is an interesting read:
http://interviews.slashdot.org/inter...&tid=95&tid=99
It's simple: a tiny flat fee levied on every individual who listens to music. Something like 50cents / month (about half the price of an iTunes song). There are plenty of ways to charge this. Before you check out how it works, how would you feel to pay half an iTunes song a month, and do what ever the hell you liked with music without guilt, knowing that people were getting paid?
OK, so everyone basically pays a bit of money every month.
Then you track radio and TV usage as you do today, forms and electronics. You track songs in P2P over networks using technologies such as LoudEye's. You track music as it moves and audience sizes. The central organisation collects the money (exactly like ASCAP now) distribute the money according to percentage use or value.
We get to do what ever we ****ing want with the music. Duplicate it, share it, put it in our films or TV programmes ... even cover it, as long as we credit original composers GPL-style for their contribution in the 'source' for a composition.
Sounds like BS?
The philosophy.
The maths.
(Both from The Register)
The hard academic research.
Stanford University Research Paper
Originally posted by finagain
So, rather than b*tch and moan, can any of you guys propose anything that works BETTER at protecting property rights than the current copyright system?
Didn't think so.
Rather than bitch and moan, can you contribute something?
No, didn't think so.
Originally posted by xenu
Rather than bitch and moan, can you contribute something?
No, didn't think so.
Actually, I agree with the system that's in place now, even with its problems. But I'm glad to see that Harald is at least trying to contribute rather than just gripe about "mean corporations". Boo hoo.
Originally posted by finagain
Harald is at least trying to contribute rather than just gripe about "mean corporations". Boo hoo.
Yeah, because this hasn't been a subject of high-profile in-depth debate for years.
Originally posted by finagain
Actually, I agree with the system that's in place now, even with its problems. But I'm glad to see that Harald is at least trying to contribute rather than just gripe about "mean corporations". Boo hoo.
So you don't care if those corporations to lie?
Lovely.
10 years duration from the date of publication, more for derivative works. Perhaps different duration of copyrights depending on the work. Permission for vertabrim, noncommercial distribution to the general public. You can read the essay for the justifications for the above.
Now, moving on to flat fee compensation. The music industry loves this because they get money without having to do any work. It's the antithesis of capitalism. In Australia, it is unconstitutional (our constitution forbids any form of tax or levy that does not go to the government). Maybe it would work in a perfectly competitive market, but in a cartel like the recording and movie industries, they can get together and just decide to produce less, spend less, and make more profit with the same amount of revenue.
Barto
I support 50 years, or the life of the author, whichever is longer. And for copyrights held by corporations, just 50 years, no longer, no extensions.
Originally posted by Kirkland
I deserve compensation for every copy of my work created
Ok, so you would like to make as much money as possible from your work (as opposed to the public interest of quantity and quality of creative works vs access to creative works). That's understandable, but counterproductive in the end. You might be a producer of creative works, but you are also a consumer. What good is all your hypothetical money if you can't afford to buy anything with it?
Also, if you read the essay, you would have read that a single copyright duration seems silly with things like books and films being more expensive and longer lasting than computer programs. So perhaps a copyright system of 10 years standard, more (perhaps 20) for books and films and less (perhaps 3) for computer programs.
Barto
How is it counterproductive for me to own my works, my creations, these written extensions of my very being? They are a part of me and belong to me; they are not the product of my community, they do not belong to the people around me, they are mine. They are me, in fact. The artist and his work are totally, 100% inseparable.
I want to return to the way things were a few decades ago, when copyrights lasted about 50 years. Fifty years is a good length. It's fair compensation ? it's what society owes the artists who create works.
I do not support perpetual copyrights, nor renewable copyrights that last longer than 50 years. I don't like the idea of corporations being able to copyright things, but I don't see any way around that.
I might be able to accept 40, or just flat 50. But anything less than half an average human lifespan is way too short.
Originally posted by Kirkland
which does not include giving copies out to friends, and certainly not to strangers over the Internet)
My family, coworkers and friends all share books freely. The only time we buy more than one copy is if we want to own it for any particular reason. For instance, typically one person in one of those groups will buy Perle and frum's book or Krugman's book and pass it around. However, I buy the ones I want to keep.
And what about libraries? If you book is good enough to worry about people sharing it, libraries will have it and anyone can interlibrary loan it through their local library if not.
But, in the end, there is no reason to be concerned about your *book* getting traded on the internet. Nobody likes ebooks right now. It's just not something you need to be concerned with. Not only that, but people don't share printed work online in quite the same way since. That's why publishers are focused on us in libraries.
If I write a book, and for some reason it catches fire after it's been out for nine years, nine months,
Maybe, but I'd really be curious about how much that really happens. My understanding is that the product sales curve is a high hump with many units sold early and a steep decline soon after.
If I have time in the next couple weeks, I will check and see whether or not there is a notable number of books that have a sales cycle like you are concerned with. However, I do highly doubt it.