Copyright laws

"Would it be right for me to buy a poster, photocopy it, and sell it at a cheaper rate?"

Perhaps not, but it's not worthy of punishment.

"Would it be right for me to make a profit and take your living away from you by underselling you on your own work?"

1) I do not believe in profits and 2) I believe society should have everyone's needs should be taken care of.

So, no.

But I don't assume I'm actually correct when it comes down to it.

edited 11th May '11 8:09:12 PM by LoveHappiness

And how do you stop someone from doing something without a punishment? Ask nicely?

1: Unfortunately the rest of the world disagrees with you. 2: Perhaps by having their works protected so they can make money off them?

Well, that PDF book thing convinced me it's idiotic based on Chapter 6 alone.

Ideas are certainly a dime a dozen, as I gaze raptly around me at this very wiki. But, then, that's exactly why mere ideas and patterns can't be copyrighted. (Patents are lousier about this, but then, IMHO patents are yet another thing which are currently being misused, rather than necessarily an inherently flawed concept. Anyhoo.)

Meanwhile, things like art, music, dance, games, etc. that can be copyrighted aren't just ideas, they're the exact detailed execution of ideas, which can't be meaningfully commoditized or knocked-off without someone pretty much using your own detailed work without your permission.

I mean, for instance, let's say I'm Gene Roddenberry creating Star Trek. You can totally compete against me in the "crewed ship or space station in space on behalf of the almighty empire thingy" idea by creating different implementations of that basic concept such as Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Firefly, Lexx, Space Cases, etc. etc., that's cool. May the best idea implementation/execution win in the ratings department.

But competing against me by creating stories starring the Federation and Kirk, Spock, McCoy, a.k.a. using the exact details of the specific implementation of the idea that I personally put in the work of creating... that's a lot thornier a concept, IMHO.

edited 11th May '11 8:28:57 PM by Jeysie

Say we abolished copyright laws and it really did lead to more artists not having a living, permanently. Well how about a full employment program and a living wage? What's the problem then?

edited 11th May '11 8:38:57 PM by LoveHappiness

The problem is that it doesn't exist, and never will.

Huh? Bother to qualify that? I know for a fact that certain countries have implemented these policies. And much aggressive attempts are clearly possible. Plus look at this [1] Unemployment rate: 0%!!

edited 11th May '11 9:01:01 PM by LoveHappiness

So how are we going to attract 9 million tourists per 42,320 workers to support our economy? I don't think the world has that many people.

annually!

9 000 000 / 365 = 24 657.5342

there's enough. The real point was to show it's possible.

I don't think that's quite right, LH. We'd have to multiply that by however many sets of 42,000 workers there are in the US. I'm not sure there's enough people on the planet (with enough money and ability to leave their country) to support that.

EDIT: More importantly, that 0% unemployment rate seems suspect, though I suppose it's possible it's legit.

edited 11th May '11 9:24:29 PM by Wulf

I'm just going to throw my own two cents at the OP, because the entire thread A: is arguments that have already been beaten to death (then shocked back to life, and beaten to death again three more times) or B: people quibbling over details.

Copyright law exists so that artists can make a living off their work...just like anyone else. It isn't perfect, and everyone abuses the loopholes, but it's what we have to work with.

The system could do with a re-write; it's based in a model that has yet to catch up with the instant connectivity and dissemination the Internet offers. The mix of bad laws, loophole abusers (on both sides) and rapid technology advancement has made a right hash of traditional ideas regarding intellectual property ownership. Companies aren't helping themselves by clinging to old models (I see you, RIAA) price-gouging their customers (Hi, movie industry!) or pulling sleazy deals that screw over everyone (fuck you and the proprietary format you rode in on, iTunes).

All that said, I still think piracy is wrong.

I pay for my movies, music, books, gaming supplies, and other media. I've never pirated a book or movie, and only downloaded music (as opposed to purchasing it) when I'd exhausted all other avenues for acquiring it. I grumble at the high cost and occasionally rail about greedy corporate leeches, but I do it. Why? Someday I hope to make a living with my creativity, and good karma is as helpful as anything else.

Breaking the law actually helps the other side, and is exactly why the companies got away with the egregious bullshit they've pulled so far and why they're going to keep getting away with it.

Case in point; the Napster music fiasco. The recording industry pointed to the rampant instances of online piracy...and lets all just face reality here, it was rampant. The establishment got scared, because we scared them. And look at the result; Lawsuits, overpriced "legal" online music, and zero cooperation. The relationship between internet users and media companies took a J-turn for the acrimonious, and remains so to this day.

Put simply, the pirates took a big dump in the living room and then whine because no one's cleaned it up yet. Piracy caused half the problems that we now suffer from, and I find it sort of amusing no one ever mentions that. Probably because most of you reading this have gigs and gigs of art, movies, music, books and other media you didn't pay for cluttering up your hard drive.

Well, I don't. So I can rant at you.

Don't like the law? Fucking do something about it. Don't like the way companies are behaving? See above. The law isn't fair, but breaking it makes you part of the problem.

Oh, and as an aside...

Aeondug: No they aren't. "Anne Rice" is a pen name...the individual in question was born Howard Allen O'Brien. Make of that what you will.

edited 11th May '11 10:05:58 PM by drunkscriblerian

Poor Anne...she wasn't born with a pretty name...

@Aon: or a pair of boobs, near as I can tell.

Anyhow, back on topic.

From what I've read so far she is biologically female. Her mother just felt it would be a good name...Rice picked the name Anne as a kid when a nun asked her what her name was apparently.

Huh.

Makes sense to me. Being a girl with a guy's name kinda sucks.

I think I would have liked to have been named Samuel. Though it might have resulted in a weirder Sam.

If it's 9000000 per year per 42000 it doesn't matter how big the whole population is. So yes there is enough people. Regardless I'm quite sure there other possibilities for full employment.

edited 11th May '11 9:44:05 PM by LoveHappiness

EDIT: Here's the math I was referring to, for the interested.

MATH

That's... 64 billion. Over 9 times the world population. Which, divided by 365, comes to 175,342,465 a day, meaning we'd need to get 2/3 the population of the country a day in tourism for that to work. True, there's other ways for full employment, but how feasible those are seems pretty variable.

And, to hop back on topic real quick, my main beef with copyright is ease of access. With books and even music, I can somewhat understand saying "well no, wait, I'm still trying to make money off this" but with video games, movies, and TV shows, once the system gets discontinued or the work is no longer shown on television or the movie's not being sold any longer, what's the point of not allowing people to use it? Even with books, I'm curious as to how much money writers and artists get from their works after a few years.

edited 11th May '11 10:05:32 PM by Wulf

Only one detail, Scriblerian: not breaking an unfair law makes you more part of the problem than breaking it, because you show acceptance and submission, and those propagate socially, and also because you set the precedent for other people that it's OK being unfair to you.

Make of that what you will.

@Silent: except, the idea of this law is good. The execution is poor, but the idea is something we need. Breaking it only encourages the powers-that-be to make said law more draconian, rather than less.

Accepting is still hardly a better solution than complaining though. The powers that be are always going to judge as they see fit. What it's either, they force a greasy stick up our asses, or we accept it lovingly?

edited 11th May '11 11:06:46 PM by SilentReverence

possibly, considering that A: we're only getting a greasy stick in our bungholes because we (the internet community) shoved one in the media industry's ass first and B: we're not stopping the behavior that pissed them off in the first place.

What we should have done was oh, I don't know...maybe not have used the wonderful new technology to rip off a bunch of corporate giants, then follow that with six years of whining about how mad they got over it?

My point is; the relationship is adversarial because the pirates made it so. Events such as the RIAA's lawsuit pogrom and the restrictive environment for legal digital media did not occur in a vacuum, and it's high time the community acknowledged that fact.

edited 11th May '11 11:16:19 PM by drunkscriblerian

We are all forgetting the part about how piracy is actually happening, and it's becoming easier and easier to commit.

There are some of you who think that copyright is necessary, and others think that it's evil, but it doesn't matter, if people actually refuse to pay for digital content, this is what will influence the economy, not the moral implications. w

So, if you think that piracy will be held back in the future, what do you expect? That people will feel morally obliged to pay for things that they can get for free, or that The Man will become full orwellian, to stop it?

Well there are only three things I can foresee happening

1: Copyright stays on the books but becomes simply unenforceable and the industry collectively gives up lawsuits and draconian policies and finds other ways to make money.

2: Anti-theft measures become so invasive that piracy is effectively squashed at much cost to the consumers choice.

3: Things stay exactly the same because this happens every fucking time a new format comes out.

I think copyright laws should only protect from plagiarism and other forms of dishonest benefitting from someone else's work (i.e. selling pirated copies). The piracy itself is really hard to define and even harder to avoid - when I borrow a game, a movie or an album from my friend, is it piracy? It works the same way as downloading, I use the product without buying it. In times of tape recorders, was it piracy to record a song from the radio on tape? Or a movie from television on VCR? How are those thing that almost everyone did and nobody complained about any different from internet piracy? Well, other than piracy lets you acquire things that would be virtually impossible without it (e.g. amateur translations of Japan-only video games; obviously, it's possible to learn Japanese, import a Japanese game and, preferably, Japanese console because of dumb region locks - the question is if it's really so evil and dishonest not to do all that).

Odds are, option 1 is going to happen.

Eventually We The Pirates make a major technical breakthrough that ensures anonymity. The media industry bitches and whines for a lil'while, and eventually gives up, or they sue those who don't use anonymizers.

Also, FUCK Big Media. Ripping Big Business off is, by definition, a good thing.

Why should big business be able to use technology to rip off the public, and the public not be able to rip off Big Business through technology? Major double standard here.

Yeah, the relationship is adversarial. Adversarial beats submission any day of the week.

edited 12th May '11 4:51:04 AM by SavageHeathen