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The Great Copyright Debate
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dilvie



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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 5:30 pm    Post subject: The Great Copyright Debate Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Possibly the single most important social issue today: The management and mismanagement of intellectual property in the internet age:



Where do you stand?

- Eric

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 8:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well, I can think of a few other issues but of the important ones this is definately the most underapreceated one. The management and distribution of information and thus knowledge is indeed a vital question for the future of humanity.

I think your question is a provocative one, would I be alowed to counterprovoke by stating I side with what I always try to side with, being progress, even though I still wonder about what this would mean, action wise, for me here?

If we are going to try and answer this hard question, which I feel we should, would it be a good idea to try to establish what end result our answer should lead to? At the risk of being accused of thread hyjacking, I´d like to encourage people to answer that for themselves and possibly write about the answer, then try and adress the first question posed by Dilvie.

I do this not at all because I´m unsympathetic to Eric´s point of view (since I´m not) but because I´m hoping for more clarity and reason in a hard and often heated field.

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 10:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Kassen wrote:
would it be a good idea to try to establish what end result our answer should lead to?


For starters...

It would be nice if:


  • Artists could sample a snare sound from a Led Zeppelin album without worrying about copyright infringement
  • Copyright would expire after a reasonable period of time -- say, 14 years, for example.
  • We could create a reasonable solution to the orphaned works problem
  • Security researchers could do their thing without worrying about the DMCA
  • Government would steer clear of mandating DRM (which is often applied arbitrarily to protect works beyond the scope of copyright holder intentions, or worse, to intentionally stifle political speech)
  • Copyright holders had to renew protections periodically
  • A central repository could be made to check on the protection status of particular works


I'm a fan of the middle road. I don't view copyright as entirely evil -- I just think we've let it get way out of hand...

- Eric

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 5:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Yes, that´s the direction I wanted to go. Those are all points I agree should be included in a modern copyright law. I´m very much with you here and indeed I wonder wether there are that many people that aren´t if we phrase it this way and start at that end.
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 8:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Perhaps it would be a neat exercise to draft a fantasy copyright bill, and mail it to our government representatives? =)

- Eric

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:16 am    Post subject: Re: The Great Copyright Debate Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

dilvie wrote:

[*]Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity


As John Lennon said, "If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow."

A copyright is a right of property ownership, just like the title to a home. IMHO, strong copyright laws are in the best interests of creative people. Whether you think the current laws are appropriate or need changing, the use of such lanugage in the abovementioned article is counterproductive.

If we were to reduce the right of ownership to all property to 14 years, then I'd support reducing copyrights as well.

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

OK.. so.. I write a piece of music. 14 years later I have lost all my rights to it. This is really wonderful news. I am planing on releasing some CDs now. A lot of the material is more than 20 years old. This means I am a bozo and an enemy of creativity? Cute. This is really rocket science.
So.. if this is a decent take on the copyright problem.. how do you solve world peace and that all that shit?

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:39 pm    Post subject: Re: The Great Copyright Debate Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

mosc wrote:
dilvie wrote:

[*]Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity


A copyright is a right of property ownership, just like the title to a home.


Uh, no it isn't. It's a control over the legal right to copy a creative work. There are lots of differences between owning intellectual property, and owning physical property -- differences that seem quite obvious to me.

Quote:
IMHO, strong copyright laws are in the best interests of creative people.


I'm not so sure of that, but there is a fine line between strong and stifling, and that line was crossed a long time ago.

Quote:
Whether you think the current laws are appropriate or need changing, the use of such lanugage in the abovementioned article is counterproductive.


The book pokes fun at some of the absurdities caused by the current situation with IP law. You have every right to be offended, if that's where you stand, as long as you understand that I take great offense at some of the abuse we've had to endure in the aftermath of such silly laws as the DMCA.

Quote:
If we were to reduce the right of ownership to all property to 14 years, then I'd support reducing copyrights as well.


That just sounds ludicrous from my perspective. Keep in mind, I hold copyrights for a large number of creative works.... My creative output is responsible for most of my own income.


  • Real property has limited supply -- if somebody steals your car, you don't have the car anymore. If somebody downloads a song, it stays put -- you can share it with as many people as you want.
  • Builders of fine furniture get paid once for their creative output. Would you buy a couch that sucked a dollar from you every time you sat on it?
  • Creators have the option of creating works for hire (much like a furniture builder might do a commissioned piece for a particular dining room).
  • A furniture builder would get laughed off the street if he set up a chair on a busy street, let people sit on in, and asked for tips, but musicians have the luxury of producing creative materials and collecting residual tips for life.


Obviously, furniture builders and musicians should pursue very different business models. If your more comfortable with "physical" business models, there are plenty of companies that contract musicians to create works for hire. Stock music, commercial jingles, video games, film, and television production companies are looking for you. That's about as close as a musician is going to get to the physical property paradigm.

You can't have it both ways. If you want your music to be treated like physical property, go the work for hire route and get paid once for your creative output. Rinse. Repeat. If you want it to provide residual income, you must accept that you cannot control it like you could control physical property. As musicians, we're free to do a little of each, like a real-estate investor might split his efforts between flip transactions and long term investment properties...

Actually, this real-estate analogy isn't half bad... for instance:

A real-estate investor dealing in rental properties has to deal with tenants that don't always treat the property the way the owner wants them to... But the analogy breaks down here: A real-estate owner generally knows who he's leasing to, while music fans are largely anonymous to the content creator.

Incidentally, people are still buying CD's. CD Baby has doubled its sales year over year since they opened up shop.


One final point: I still have not seen any good evidence that copyright protections encourage more sales than filesharing. The argument that filesharing is equivalent to theft just isn't justified by the real-life numbers...

- Eric

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

elektro80 wrote:
OK.. so.. I write a piece of music. 14 years later I have lost all my rights to it. This is really wonderful news. I am planing on releasing some CDs now. A lot of the material is more than 20 years old. This means I am a bozo and an enemy of creativity? Cute. This is really rocket science.


Don't be silly:


  • You haven't lost all your rights to it... the public has gained rights that were previously restricted. There's a big difference. You can still sell it and make money from it. Lots of book publishers sell creative works that are no longer protected by copyright.
  • I didn't call you a Bozo. I think that some of the people abusing copyright law are bozos... People who would mandate DRM in things like TV sets, cell phones, and book readers, for instance.
  • The title of the book is not the point... the book is a tounge-in-cheek illustration of some of the problems caused by continually expanding IP enforcement powers.


Quote:
So.. if this is a decent take on the copyright problem.. how do you solve world peace and that all that shit?


What an ironic attack. Perhaps if you took more than the titles into account, you might come up with a real critique of my position.

Oi. This is the problem that people on my side of the fence face: Most people don't recognize that there are problems with IP that need solving...

"If you're explaining, you're losing..."

- Eric

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 9:38 pm    Post subject: Re: The Great Copyright Debate Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

mosc wrote:
As John Lennon said, "If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow."


Mao had more followers then Lennon had, I´m not sure what "making it with anyone" means in that context then?

I also respect Mao a whole lot more. I´m not realy into politics on that level but Mao did write the first real tretease on guerillia warfare that on some level by itself won the vietnam war first against the French, later against the U.S., inspired laregely by Sun Tzu. Arguably Mao´s is the most important interpertation of the thirteen chapters and (to me) without a doubt the most relevant in the modern world. Lennon wrote pop songs.

I would pay good money for a decent translation of Mao´s work on military strategie (i alread own and don´t realy care for his work on politics), I´d pay comparable amounts if I´d never have to suffer through any more of Lennon´s excersises in mediocre rhime and average interpertations of scales.

Admittedly Mao did turn out to be a whole lot worse at running states then he was at modern warfare, but then again Lennon never tried proving himself in either field, instead choosing to promote drugs to childeren and collecting sungleasses or some such behaviour.

It is also beyond me how chairman Mao relates to Delvie´s remark above or why Lennon, who doesn´t even hold the rights to his own work, is supposed to be a expert or even worthy of recognition in this field.

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 9:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

elektro80 wrote:
This means I am a bozo and an enemy of creativity? Cute. This is really rocket science.
So.. if this is a decent take on the copyright problem.. how do you solve world peace and that all that shit?


It´s fine to disagree with thing you imagine people moght also have said, but there is realy no reason at all to do this within the context of a board then. Yes, that reasoning "is realy rocket science", it´s also completely your own and not anybody else´s. You are eating your own tail, then claiming it tastes like Eric.

Once again I feel forced to ask people to please *READ* what is actually written. The 14 years number is just a mere number, one some people sugest is preferable to 75 years after the creator´s death. It´s not the main issue here, the main issue is the body of knowledge and informations humanity holds and how we distribute and/ or archive it. This is the future of our species on one of the most fundamental levels I can imagine. Kneejerking at that number does not mean you are giving a valid discussion on the questions at hand, just replying to one detail is not the same as adressing these questions.

"not 14 years" is not a answer to the question "where do you stand?", even if adressing that number may well be a valid part of such a discussion.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 2:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Quote:
One final point: I still have not seen any good evidence that copyright protections encourage more sales than filesharing. The argument that filesharing is equivalent to theft just isn't justified by the real-life numbers...


This may or may not have any bearing at all on the conversation, but it's my 2 cents, at this moment anyways. I don't view every thing in the world as monetary transactions, so my first impression of laws and their effect doesn't necessarily fall into some business model.

However, I see copyright as a means of protecting the integrity of an idea. That is to say, if I write a story, for my life time, I'd like to be able to say, "No, that movie you want to make completely distorts the intent of my story, you can't use my story", or for a song, "Yes, I like how you've taken my song and combined an orchestral theme with it, it's something I wasn't capable of expressing myself, please use my song".

So, for me personally, I would only discuss copyright law the same way, I believe, our "founding fathers"(in the US) would have...in terms of ideals, morals, and/or concepts. Not business models. However business falls *around* the law, so let it be. But I wouldn't drive law with money...it's what got us here in the first place.
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 7:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

jksuperstar wrote:
However, I see copyright as a means of protecting the integrity of an idea. That is to say, if I write a story, for my life time, I'd like to be able to say, "No, that movie you want to make completely distorts the intent of my story, you can't use my story", or for a song, "Yes, I like how you've taken my song and combined an orchestral theme with it, it's something I wasn't capable of expressing myself, please use my song".


Excelent points. This is exactly where I hoped to "pull" the discussion. I think that if we list what we want from copyright and what we don´t want that it´ll turn out we are actually all on the same line.

I agree completely with the points above, but suppose that your story or song would have some political elements or turned out to represent some subculture. In that case I´d say there should be a posibility for me to make some sort of parody of it in order to express some disagreement I might have with your opinion there, agreed?

Even if that one´s fairly clear, there are many other sides. I might get inspirered by your story and might want to make a movie that explores similar elements. I might accedetally have written a song with a many theme close to yours, then what? There are grey areas.

When I worte above I side with "progress" I meant that I feel copyright law should allow some things that would enable artists to make new works based on others (such as collages or sampled chords in hiphop) yet it should also protect sufficiently that artists won´t start keeping their works for themselves, fearing they might be "raped" otherwise. Sure many artists would still need to express themselves, but for highly personal material I can imagine they´d keep it to themselves. That happens to be exactly the type of material I enjoy.

What I feel should be pushed to the foreground is the added value of a new work. By that I mean that if you are making a especially beautifull collage art image of a house then cutting out a window I previously photographed and using that should be fine. Simply taking the whole photograph displaying a street and writing some advertising text on it praising your cheap rates at windowcleaning should probably not be allowed. See where I´m going? I want to protect "quoting" since building on previous work is realy a good idea and we should not throw it out of the window. It brought us as a species where we are now. This should also clarify why I feel that how we deal with copyright is indeed a fundamental question and though it at first may apear to be small compared to "world peace" it runs a bit deeper then it looks at first sight.

One other side I´d like to shed some light on is archiving we *NEED* to be allowed to archive works we as individuals deem to have value. Since many important or at least worthwhile works are innacessible, artistically, they don´t get re-pressed and libraries might not find them suitable either. I feel it´s unacceptable for copyright to prevent archiving since it´s the body of human knowledge that´s at stake. As I pointed out before; "leaking" some obscure recording to the p2p networks where the few dozen people worldwide that care about it will download it might well preserve that recording for humanity for dozens of years at least. When we are talking about some recording that was released int he 60´s since abandoned by it´s creator and where it might not even be tracable where the rights actially are then I think that in that case breaking the current law is more ethical then following it. This, to me, means some elements of that current law are unjust.

-------
Well, those are my thoughts, in a nutshell. There apears to be a primordial need with some people to disagree with minor bits, then hammer on those instead of adressing the main line. I don´t doubt I made typos that could be interperted amusingly, but please, please read what is written. I´m perfectly fine with having a dozen new threads, all making fun of things Dilvie or me might also have said in some imaginary world, No doubt many people heavily disagree with things that were never said but might have in which case they would´ve been stupid, but please can we stick to the topic here this time? Can we make some attempt at having a real discussion and real interaction? You see, we don´t even actually disagree that much.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 8:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

What do the current laws really stifle? Content creators can use any number of licences for their music, including the Creative Commons and EFF audio licences. The current laws don't restrict this, do they? Everyone is free to do with their property (intellectual and physical) as they choose. It seems to me that copyright laws only stifle people who want to use other peoples' property for their own purposes.

Kassen has an interesting point about content being lost to society. I share that concern. I'm not sure how to fix that. Preserving the historical record is a function of libraries, and I belive libraries have certain legal exemptions, but I'm not sure what they are. Still, every law is administered by the courts, and there are legal concepts that protect people who break the law given certain mitigating circumstances. Kassen, if you have some disks of very rare music for which you can't identify the copyright owner and you make a few copies for the purposed of saving this for humanity, you may not end up suffering severe legal consequences. If you distribute it commercially, then that might be different. That's what we have the courts for.

There is the concept of collage art, and this includes sampling. To some extent, parody is a legally recognized art form. I'm not knowledgeable about these issues and I'm sure there are areas of the law than could be adjusted.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 8:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

mosc wrote:
What do the current laws really stifle?


Well, one speciffic thing that deeply disturbs me is that in the Netherlands the "official news", made by a company funded by the goverment(!!!!!), is exempted from some forms of copyright; they don´t need permission and don´t need to pay. Since quoting (I´m also using that term for using elements of movies and so on) can add a lot of convincingness to your reporting this means that the state has a monopoly on some forms of expression, practically speaking.

Now, we are a unusually democratic country, not infrequently reaching levels of reasonable-ness one might even be tempted to agree with, but this is Bad and Wrong on a fundamental level. Here clearly freedom of speech and politics touch on copyright law in ways I feel are directly dangerous to us as a society. Just because this does not apear to be affecting us that heavily at this speciffic moment does not mean it´s not deeply wrong and disturbing.

Admittedly this is just one country and it´s a minor example with little current practical influence (as far as I´m aware) but I mean to illustrate there are subtile side effects of these laws that need to be taken into account.

I believe archive.org is very much concerned with old media becoming unavailable because they are from the same period as Steamboat Willy and thus will never get into the public domain thanks to Disney. lThis is a practical matter affecting us now and the longer we wait in adressing it the more will be lost. I´m not usually given to pleading for something "for the childeren" but if ever there was a situation where that phrase was apropriate, it´s here.

Another field where I think we need discussion at the very least is mashups. Current copyright law forbids those yet since that law was written we´ve seen a shift in what is considdered a instrument, what is musical expression and how one relates to recorded material (and thus how one reltates to mainstream culture, we are seeing a return of two-way traffic in some sense). I feel we need to reëxamine those laws in that light, I particularly feel more emphasis should be placed on the artistic content of the works involved at the expense of examining every case predominantly from the finantial point of view, particularly as no finances at all are involved in many situations. In my view that situation came about as some organisations have created a virtual monopoly on the distribution of recorded media and demand money for any instance of those. I´m not saying we should instantly legalise any form of remixing/mashups and so on but I do think blundering on with old rules applied to new situations is a bad idea. A much better idea, IMHO would be to examine what those rules were intended to accomplish, then try and verify wether they do within the modern context.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 9:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

mosc wrote:
What do the current laws really stifle? Content creators can use any number of licences for their music, including the Creative Commons and EFF audio licences. The current laws don't restrict this, do they? Everyone is free to do with their property (intellectual and physical) as they choose. It seems to me that copyright laws only stifle people who want to use other peoples' property for their own purposes.


Well, that is my point too.

The archiving itself is another issue. In Norway this has partly been handled by a law that tells you to send one or two copies of whatever publication ( as in books, music.. ) you have made to a state archive. There it will be preserved. It has all a matter of obeying the law in this case. Very Happy the contents of the achive are open to researchers and whoever finds an interest in the material.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 9:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Mashup - I had to look it up. Embarassed

If this is a mashup http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/01/beatlesbatman_mashup.html then what's the point? If the creator of this mashup didn't secure the rights to these two songs(Batman and Taxman), then he's clearly sealing that material. The site is making money from this material because of the advertising revenue generated by it.

I guess one could argue that these two songs are so much a part of our culture (because of thier success in the market) that they are really in the public domain and are fair game for use in derived material. This arguement could be made in court if it got that far.

As for the government owned news company that is immune from copyright law, I see your point.

As for very old copyrighted movies being unseen by the children, I'm also concerned. But hey, they can be played on your government media. So, I guess the government media being exempt from copyright laws is a two edged sword.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 9:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well, I´d be in favour of replacing the government news with early movies but that´s not going to happen any time soon. Since "history is written by the victrious" I´m not even sure it´s wise to allow the governement to be solley responcible for archiving those (he who controls the present, 1984, etc). Ok, I admit I feel that is simply a dangerous idea.

As for mashups, indeed this speciffic one is hosted on a site that gets add revenue, but that´s a single example. Add revenue is not a inherent part of mashups. Indeed, it´s clearly illegal, I don´t contest that, I contest that it *should* be illegal without discussion. At the very least I propose we debate that as a society. The fact that people are now taking this from mainstream culture, morphing it, then outputting it again, often anonimous and frequently with no compensation at all and that this is illegal is quite signifficant, I feel.

These people are not so much "stealing" as they are relating to mainstream culture in a active way instead of a passive one. Sure, they could also start a rock band themselves, but that´s not the point. Clearly there is a need in quite a few people to do this and clearly many others feel it is vallid enough as a from of expression that they collect and play these works (or collages or, erm, mashups). The best mashups are new works of art by themselves and very enjoyable, there is skill and and tallen requirered. Yes, they are illegal and there is indeed a sense of being rebellious to this scene. Notice the last phrase of the mp3 you yourself linked to.

This is interesting, it signifies a shifting way of relating to music and I feel we need a better way of dealing with it. You see, I highly doubt either the Beetles or Batman are losing anything from this, it certainly won´t count as a substitute to Beetles or Batman fans and in fact there is a aspect of the creator being sceptical about those two cultural icons as being unpermutable and untouchable. Like it or not; this is politics, this is people finding a new form of speech. Media visible artists and similar icons like cartoon heros have become synthetic products, they are *made*. Some youths have figured this out and logically take their new found persepctive and start changing what they just realised is maleable. The emperor is being lauged at and current laws determine that joke was made before and so nobody else can laugh at it anymore.

Well, he´s still naked and by now so many people are laughing the prisons aren´t large enough anymore. I feel it´s time we adapt, once gain that does not imply I feel we should just let everybody grab what he or she wants for free but we do need to switch to some different criteria for what "grabbing" means.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 10:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

There are some collages that are quite profound. This one mashup I found isn't one; I'm actually thinking of some visual ones I saw in the 60s. Their intent was to change consiousness about the war in Vietnam. They were political commentaries of the strongest kind. I'm sure they used some copyrighted material. I think you are right, there is certainly a role for this kind of thing. Of course, I can't say it's OK if mosc thinks it's profound and not OK if mosc thinks it's banal. There must be some well thought out and well articulated standards.

My understanding that political speech and parody is protected. Certainly, there can be a fine line between that and slander or copyright violation. In the end, this must come down to a judegement call and each case can have it's day in court.

There are also some absurdities. For example, there is a famous film about the life of Martin Luther King that is no longer in circulation because of problems with copyrights. One case is a scene of Dr. King's birthday party. His friends and family are singing "Happy Birthday To You", as is sung at almost every birthday party all over the world. Unfortuantely, this song is still covered by copyright and the owners are aggressively protecting it. So they can't release the movie without paying them a royalty. I guess the same goes for showing the movie of Marilyn Monroe singing the same song for President Kennedy. Still, these are clearly news and historical documents. But these are examples on the 2 sigma end of the bell shaped curve. For the most part, I side with the rights of the artists.

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Kassen
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 4:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Oh, yes, certainly. I´m no great consumer of mashups either, but I do think the genre can have artistic value. I mainly find them a interesting phenomenon from a cultural perspective. In a way mashups are the kind of "throwing culture back at itself" Negative land was pleading for ages ago. Actually, for serious, artfull audio collage art I think Negative land is a nice example and one where the political side to this art is a little more explicid. Mashups are more popular right now and more something people can directly relate to right now and so they make a good example for questions on modern culture and copyright. Perhaps it´s even a good thing that mashups are not purely countercultural and have a large dose of simple, immature fun. Where Negativeland was talking about how you can (and perhaps should) relate to modern media culture, mashups are actually a form of modern culture themselves. MTV is (was?) broadcasting mashup video clips made out of two videos.


Anyway, on a broader scale I´m trying to point out that "protecting the artist" or "protecting the integrity of the work" can mean many things since what "we" considder to be a artists, a art and even work is shifting. There´s no need for you to go out right now and recombine some sweet lovesong with a gangsta rap piece on "bitches and money", as long as we ackowledge such things are happening and may be interesting in some way.

If you are trying to further a point of view that goes against the grain of the mass media of your time then collage is perhaps a perfect form. The Vietam era in the U.S. is a excelent example of such a time indeed, as is the current bombardment with ads that Negativeland adressed. I think the artificiallity of mass produced music is a similar, more current thing that´s well suited for attack through collage-forms. Probably the people who make those wouldn´t be into the ´nam era collages you mentioned either, perhaps it´s a generation thing.

In recent years the price of computers has gone down, they have become usefull and they have become easy to use. This has had a very large effect on how people see their media and that effect will still grow. This is a big deal to people like myself and I suppose Eric here. This shift happened during our youth and so it´s something we relate to in a different way the those of previous generations did. I´m not on the P2P networks, I´m not making or playing a lot of mashups or illegal remixes either. Synthesis is my primary musical love, I have no direct stake here. I do think it´s a very, very important matter though and that people like yourself should give it some serious considderation.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 6:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I'm interested in these things as a phenomenon, not as art. Without this discussion, I wouldn't know about mashups. Smile Confused
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 6:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Wellll...

;¬)

If only I could get you to get turntables now.

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 6:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Hey, I've still got lots of reel to reels. Smile Crying or Very sad
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 10:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Quote:
I see copyright as a means of protecting the integrity of an idea.


What, exactly, do you mean by "the integrity of an idea"? If an idea is really good, people will repeat it, and put their own spin on it... should good ideas be "protected" from that sort of behavior?

I imagine some people might consider the VW Golf GTI commercial an abomination. I consider it to be a highly valuable creative work that stands on its own. Should the abomination camp get their way, and rob people like me of the opportunity to enjoy the remix?

I tend to respect the wishes of the content creators, but not because I think they should have the right to control their works after they've been released. I don't expect everybody to show the same respect I try to show, and quite frankly, I think a legal mandate is totally insane.

The central problem with IP legislation comes down to this:
How do you enforce it without going to far? How do you protect the interests of the artists without trampling on parody, satire, the freedom to speak out against corrput politics, or corrupt business practices?

It's a very slippery slope. Senator Hatch has proposed legislation that would MANDATE DRM in devices that are capable of making copies. The DMCA makes it illegal to manufacture products that can circumvent copy protection measures (like DRM), even for legal purposes, such as archival copies, quoting, collage, etc...

The "Inducers" act seeks to make "enabling" technology such as P2P software and iPods illegal -- holding programmers and manufacturers responsible for infringement.

There are a lot of big companies with tremendous IT holdings who are literally trying to get a stranglehold on the technology that we all use to communicate and interact... Do you trust them that much?

Is your integrity worth sacrificing our right to speak out, unencumbered by censoring technology? The bozos want to sacrifice the integrity of our social communication to protect a dead artist's right not to be remixed or copied on a P2P network.

The big question is: How do you enforce IP laws without going too far?

- Eric

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Quote:
How do you protect the interests of the artists without trampling on parody, satire, the freedom to speak out against corrput politics, or corrupt business practices?


...well, at least in the us, satire and parody are pretty well established as fair game. the only recent issue i recall was a case where a copyrighted song was used as a soundtrack to a parody....the ruling was that the song could not be used because there was no parody of the song itself...you can't use "bad boys, bad boys" for your cops parody...but "good boys, bad toys" would be a parody of the song itself, and therefore allowable.

if you can't "speak out" against corrupt politics without relying on publishing the words, images, and novel ideas of others, than you really are not speaking out, but merely parroting others ideas.

Quote:
It's a very slippery slope. Senator Hatch has proposed legislation that would MANDATE DRM in devices that are capable of making copies. The DMCA makes it illegal to manufacture products that can circumvent copy protection measures (like DRM), even for legal purposes, such as archival copies, quoting, collage, etc...


this is a much better policy than the tax charged on blank cassette tapes to cover the fact that some of them are used to make illegal copies of records. at least with drm it doesn't cost me anything extra to make copies of my own work that i own (not possible on audio cassette).

if your collage is dependant on a bit for bit copy of someone elses copyrighted material (ie, a still image lifted directly from a dvd as opposed to a photo of the television screen), then it is not your collage, but someone elses work.

Quote:
The "Inducers" act seeks to make "enabling" technology such as P2P software and iPods illegal -- holding programmers and manufacturers responsible for infringement.


setting up a p2p network for the purpose of trading copyrighted material seems to me to be akin to setting up a storefront record library with cd recorders at all listening stations and saying "oh, we are not responsible if our visitors happen to make copies". unless such a p2p network has as it's true purpose (and works hard to maintain it's purpose) sharing of legal material (original and/or non copyrighted material), it is bound to be seen as an attempt to distribute other's copyrighted material...given the fact that very few people produce their own music, images, software compared with the number of people who distribute material produced and owned by others, this seems to be a no brainer.



Quote:
Is your integrity worth sacrificing our right to speak out, unencumbered by censoring technology? The bozos want to sacrifice the integrity of our social communication to protect a dead artist's right not to be remixed or copied on a P2P network.


...now you are talking apples and oranges here. censorship has nothing to do with intelectual property...my own original words can be censored, but they are not copyright infringment. being sued for plagerism, software piracy, or copyright infringment is not preventing you from speaking your mind or making music...it is an entity (individual or otherwise) calling you on the fact that you are using someone elses material. if it is recognizably not yours, then you don't own it, and can't distribute it....it's not your idea if you can't express it in your own words.

deknow
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