The Great Copyright Debate

[paul e.]

[jksuperstar]

I wouldn't discount it...ALL business is driven by who owns, buys, or sells what. Since these methods have moved into new mediums, there is misconduct, misunderstanding, and misuse of these new mediums. These new ways of communication have opened up the control of ideas and knowledge as a driving factor in business...Ideas can be copied without effect on the original. This is way beyond the scope of just downloading music. This also effects how government reacts to business and economy versus the advancement of humanity.

This exact same discussion could be applied to why US pharmecuticals can withhold AIDS medication from African countries that desparately need them. Do you choose ownership & economy over human value?

I think *ideally*, ALL ideas that are put into public, become public domain. It is the only way all of humanity benefits. The Native Americans lived this way for a very, very long time. I suppose we've just all become *dependent* on other things, so we all feel the right to control those things, or at least have a say in how those things are controlled. But we're not close to there, and have a few more generations of political evolution before these types of social ethics can be re-introduced. (assuming there's no devolution between now & then)

Anyways, in the many democracies that exist today, the non-voting corporations have found better ways than voting for a political voice. Dealing with this is really the core of the issue.

[dilvie]

[dmosc]

Here's my take.

Principle: there are certain "nessisary evils" in life. Greed is clearly bad but there's nothing you can do on a society wide basis to control it except embrace it. Cage even has us use it to fuel our economy and social progress. Similarly, certain things that are wrong must be done to allow finantial backings behind new ideas and change.

Basically, Copyrights at their core are needed to give legitamacy and spawn investment. I do not believe that this works all the time but I think it does the MAJORITY of the time. It is a "nessisary evil". We need record companies to have enough legal rights to actually want to distribute music. We need to have pattents actually hold enough water to get investment backings and allow corperations to make money. Clearly there is a problem with this when the copywrites are abused, and I think they are. I just don't see much other alternative.

The extreme example is of course microsoft uselessly creating unique aspects of it's code to prevent it from interfacing with non-ms products. This literally impedes progress and competition but I believe under our current laws it is unconstitutional and they are at least taking some heat for it in EU courts.

You have to respect the big music publishing companies for taking the line they do. They want to maximize profits, not advance society. People don't buy shares in them for the betterment of mankind. Because of this I think the current interpretations of the laws have gone too far. The other side of the debate is clearly not as well funded. Still, it is largely a "nessisary evil". I agreed with the earlier argument about "deep linking" etc that we're getting a little crazy to see such a huge difference between a site link and a more specific link but this site can't fight that legal battle, nor likely does it want to. I'm sure if Bush made a law banning synths this site would be more active in opposing the law but clearly the intended functions supported by this site are not restricted (YET).

This is also why I voiced opposition to Microsoft's OS as a legally copywrited product because that is a fight I do take on.

[dilvie]

I believe that we should tackle big problems while they're still small. At this point, it's pretty obvious that the big media corporations cannot be trusted with the sort of absolute power that government-mandated DRM would give them.

So far, DRM has done a whole lot of harm (and only to those who purchase products legally... the lawbreakers get the cracks), and not a lot of good. They want to sell CD's with DRM, fine, I won't buy those CD's, but they want to put DRM in every computing device, and everything capable of making a digital copy -- that's going much too far.

Pretty soon you'll be unable to copy your own CD's because the DRM mistakes it for a country album issued in the early 1940's (it's hapenned to me using a DRM-enabled CD copier at a friend's house).

Obviously, that's something that every fan of freedom should be fighting tooth-and-nail.

Big media companies are taking advantage of the ignorance of the general populace to undermine our core liberties, central to democracy, in the name of the mighty dollar.

For me, this has never been about somebody's right to pirate music... It's about our right to remain free, and communicate socially and artistically without worrying about getting sued.

Should people get sued for copyright violation? Sure... as long as there are reasonable copyright laws (life+70 years? oi!), and the plaintiff can demonstrate intent in court...

Should corporations be allowed to mandate DRM in every computing advice, or seek vigilante justice without the oversight of the public or the legal system? HELL NO.

Like I said, I'm not totally against all brands of IP protection, but they crossed the line a long time ago, and it's time we wake up and fight back.

- Eric

[mosc]

[dilvie]

[Kassen]

[deknow]

mosc wrote:

[Kassen]

[deknow]

[Kassen]

[opg]

Wow! This thread is on FIRE!

I think it's clear that no matter how easy it becomes to get music from the creator to your ear, there will always be problems. Perhaps we've gone a step too far with music as digital files. There's no more work in stealing a song or album. Remember the good old days, when you were a kid and taped a song off the radio, or recorded a record onto a cassette tape with RCA cables. Then everyone had cassettes and it was easier to make copies. The loss in quality was usually obvious. And then CDs to cassette.
When everyone was able to rip CDs, make CDs, and then mp3s, there was no more work involved in stealing a song. Programs do it for us. I'm not saying that it's the programmers' fault; they can do whatever they want.

I think many of us here today still feel that they need that actual product in their hands, with the album art, shameless shout-outs on the inside, etc. Don't get me wrong, I love mp3s. But when I started to imagine what would be the next media after CDs, I didn't imagine DVD-As or SACDs or mp3s on an IPod, I imagined some sort of credit card-looking thing. Some sort of card with a magnetic strip where nothing really moved inside the player like a record needle or cassette tape reel or CD laser arm. I STILL wanted an actual product, with album art. Something I could collect and look at, even if I wasn't listening to it. Just like baseball cards. Of course, this "credit card" thing would be digital and meaningless in a society already accepting of mp3s and AACs.

I love the idea of $1 a song, $10 for an album. I think the real problem here is how nobody but the artists care about stealing or art.

[Kassen]

Yeah, it´s on fire, but in a good way, I think. The last one was kinda ugly, I like the more positive aproach here much better. We (well, the people making new kinds of electronic music right now) need to discuss this, at the very least we need to think about how this affects the relationship between us and our audience or us and the people who´s music we enjoy. Of cource we also need to see how this field affect the relationship between society as a whole and art (or creative works) as a whole.

Anyay, I share your feelings about cd; It was cd burners amongst other things that made me care very little about that medium. There is still something magical about vinyl in that you can´t make it yourself at home. Come to think of it; because of the work and time involved casettes are now "more magical" then cd´s are.

On one hand this complicates the issue, on the other I´m realy facinated by the emotional value of "dead" things, particularly technologicaly created ones, and what effects that. After all we ourselves are trying to affect people emotionally with technolocically created music....

[Kassen]

Now this is a interesting development!

Perhaps most interesting about this is that contrary to ideologically based initiatives like Archive.org, Yahoo is a commercial venture.....

[opg]

[redskull]

What is Copyright?

Copyright is a protection that covers published and unpublished literary, scientific and artistic works, whatever the form of expression, provided such works are fixed in a tangible or material form. This means that if you can see it, hear it and/or touch it - it may be protected. If it is an essay, if it is a play, if it is a song, if it is a funky original dance move, if it is a photograph, HTML coding or a computer graphic that can be set on paper, recorded on tape or saved to a hard drive, it may be protected. Copyright laws grant the creator the exclusive right to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute, perform and display the work publicly. Exclusive means only the creator of such work, not anybody who has access to it and decides to grab it.



When does Copyright Protection begin, and what is required?

Copyright protection begins when any of the above described work is actually created and fixed in a tangible form.

For example, my brother is a musician and he lives in the United States. When he writes new lyrics, he prints them out on paper, signs his name at the bottom with the Copyright © symbol to show that he is the author, places it in an envelope and mails it to himself without opening it. His copyright begins at the moment he puts his idea in a tangible form by printing the lyrics out on paper. He creates proof when he mails it to himself - the postmark establishes the date of creation. He then registers his copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office which is a requirement in order to sue for monetary damages should a violation of his copyright arise. However, if somebody copies and redistributes his lyrics without permission before his copyright is registered, he still has the right to assert a copyright claim as the true author.

The above applies to digital art and graphics. Open a gif, jpg or png file that you created and look at the properties. It states the date that you saved it to your hard drive as the date of creation. If somebody copies a graphic from your web site I assure you that the date of creation on your copy of the file is earlier than the copy taken off your web site. If that still doesn't feel like enough proof for you, save everything to a floppy disk and mail it to yourself via certified mail. Keep the envelope sealed, wrap it in protective plastic and put it in a safe place.

Somebody once asked if it was "illegal" to place the copyright © symbol next to your name if you have not registered your copyright. Unless you have stolen the work from somebody else and you are not the true author of the work, it is not illegal to place the copyright © symbol next to your name - it is your right to do so.

The proper way to place a copyright notice is as follows: Copyright © (first date of creation) (name of owner). Like this: Copyright © 2003 John Smith.



When does Copyright Protection end, or expire?

If a copyright statement reads, "© Copyright 1998, 1999 John Smith." does that mean that John Smith's copyright expired in 1999? The dates that you see in a copyright statement do not refer to the dates that the owner's material will expire and become public domain - they actually refer to the dates that the material was created.

When you see several dates in a copyright statement, it simply means that certain things were created in one year and modified later. It could also mean that new things were created and added in a later year. It most definitely does not refer to the date that a copyright will expire. Expiration of a copyright actually takes place much later, and this period of validity begins from the date that you see in the copyright statement. The Berne Convention establishes a general and minimum period that lasts the life of the author and fifty years after his (or her) death. Cinematographic works and photographic works have a minimum period of protection of 50 and 25 years upon the date of creation, respectively. This applies to any country that has signed the Berne Convention, and these are just the minimum periods of protection. A member country is entitled to establish greater periods of protection, but never less than what has been established by the Berne Convention.

So, what does all this mean? This means that if a copyright statement reads, "© Copyright 1998, 1999 John Smith" and John Smith is from a country that has signed the Berne Convention, he created his works in 1998 and 1999, and his copyright is not going to expire until at least fifty years after he dies (this period may be greater - remember that member countries may establish longer periods of protection). Until that time his works are not in public domain.

I have actually seen copyright statements with future dates, such as "© Copyright 2003, 2004 John Smith", most likely because the copyright holder thought that they could establish an expiration date for the copyright. This is incorrect unless John Smith traveled to the future and created the work in question. These types of copyright statements also mislead others to believe that dates in a copyright statement refer to the date a copyright expire, when the date should really refer to the date of creation.

[deknow]

redskull, not all of that is good advice (mailing things to yourself for instance is not a good way to protect yourself). i'm a stickler for knowing where information comes from, and this was clearly pasted from somewhere on the net.

i copied the first 20 words or so, and did a google search (with the words in quotes), expecting to find a website that was giving out bad legal advice about protecting one's copyrights. instead what i found was that this is being posted (verbatim) by all kinds of individuals and organizations. given that it was written by someone, and probaby copyrighted in it's original form (i don't know where that is). it's even funnier that the web sites that post it are also copyrighted....giving out advice on how to protect the reader's copyright, by violating someone else's copyright, copyrighing it themselves...and all the while the advice is bad. this kind of thing cracks me up

deknow

[redskull]

I suppose i goofed there, as I never said i wrote it, nor did i say i did not.

the copyright office official site doesn't veer away form my former post much to make it void

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html

[play]

This post has been censored by Protect-o-Bot due to possible copyright infringement.

Protect-o-Bot, "Serving your community better."



----------------------------------------------
For more information about this service,
see U.S Patent 666

[play]

Via Slashdot:

Wal-Mart Parody Site Censored by DMCA
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D89NUI9G0.htm?campaign_id=apn_tech_down

[Patrick Stacey]

really enjoying this discourse....

Let's leave some Chinese entrepenuer bootlegging a million "Titanic"
DVD's off the table for a minute...and consider someone who is presenting some type of musical collage or mashup in a live performance...this someone is performing for free, not distributing the music in any other way, CD, mp3 or otherwise...is this person really infringing on some IP law? Should the "owners" of his/her raw source material have some say as to whether he/she engages in that activity or not? Does this person need permission? Does the owner of that one snare hit that came and went into the air momentarily have a right to request money from that person? How much?

I quote Anthony Kedis..."Give it away, give it away, give it away now!"

forgive me, but...You have an original idea, do you? And you want to own

it? How precious...sell it, liscense it, protect it, fight over it...fine...but I

submit that you do not "own" it....

[dmosc]

1) if I hack a game I legally bought so it doesn't need the CD to play, did I do something illegal?
2) if I buy a game but it gets backordered so I download it to play in the meantime did I steal it?
3) If I play a CD and my friend puts me on speakerphone, did he just pirate the music?
4) what if I have a recorded line and I call somebody up who puts me on hold and music kicks in. Now, that music is being recorded (involuntarily). Did I just pirate it?
5) If I have a key to winxp I legitamently purchased but use another one microsoft published as a known stolen key instead did I pirate it?
6) If I make copies of a CD for my own use in say, my car that's fine right but if I then LOAN my real CD to a buddy to try out, did I just distribute? What if I don't listen to the burnt one until I get the original returned?
7) with all these gray areas, is it any wonder that some level of pirating is unavoidable?

[play]

This one could easily be mistaken for a joke. It's not.

Apple sued for using the name "Tiger"
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1039

[play]