Discussion: On Copyright
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Thank you Robin and Sacha for a couple of excellent posts!
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"Referencing" is one way of acknowledging that broader historical/cultural context,
completely agree with you and I like aspects of referencing but all too often people say its referencing when its just plain copying or stealing. there's a sizable difference although the edges of ffair use are slightly fuzzy its not that hard to tell.
A mate of mine, Mark From the enright house has this excellent song called might as well have stayed young. I absolutely love this song and one of the main reasons I loved it was the last line of the song which goes "we might as well have stayed young, for its been useless to grow older". This line comes after various lines about what he did in his youth (even though mark isn't old).
mark later explained to me that he got the got the inspiration for this line from from a German poet where that guy explored similar themes.
firstly this line is in a different language and its inspired by themes discussed in someone elses work. if mark had just lifted the line virbatim I would have felt differently about it.
tha's a bit of a diversion from copyright though
i'm cool with the whole open source peace love and sharing vibe so long as all society plays the same game, ie open surce gas, land, food, power and internet connection
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if mark had just lifted the line virbatim I would have felt differently about it.
Just so you don't mistake me, I'm in no way advocating plagerism. I'm all for the reuse of material, but I do draw the line at copying it and calling it your own.
i'm cool with the whole open source peace love and sharing vibe so long as all society plays the same game, ie open surce gas, land, food, power and internet connection
The latter don't make sense though. They're all scarce resources. Ideas aren't, as it takes no resources to copy them. Tell me a story and we now both hold the story. Give me all your food, and you no longer have any.
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3410,
Can you handle it? Can you make copies out of nothing? In peoples' heads? Can you draw a line around it that everyone can see?
The differences seem glaring to me.
Of course there are differences. What I'm really asking is, what is it about these differences that legitimises the difference in treatment?
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So, copyright should be used to prevent people telling the stories how they want?
Copyright doesn't prevent people telling the stories that they want. It means that they need to get the agreement of the copyright holder. That's not the same thing.
That might involve paying the copyright holder. It might also mean coming to some agreement with the copyright holder about what you're doing to do. They might even get veto over the final product.
But it's very possible, LOTR movies got made, I enjoyed them, and the copyright holder of the film rights got paid some money from my movie tickets.
What it sounds like you're saying is that someone should be able to create one thing, and live off that forever. That works in almost no other space.
Lots of people invent something and then live off it forever, or could if they wanted to. Various patented products have done that for people quite often. If there's nothing wrong with that for an object based on a good idea, then I can't see why there should be something wrong with that for a story based on a good idea.
Can you handle it? Can you make copies out of nothing? In peoples' heads? Can you draw a line around it that everyone can see?
Hmm. You can steal something which isn't physical. You can steal information from a company, or the identity of a person. Both are illegal, and neither is protected for only X years from its creation.
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Ideas aren't, as it takes no resources to copy them. Tell me a story and we now both hold the story
Those two sentences don't propertly relate. Telling you a story isn't a breach of copyright. Copying the story is. Copyright is about me telling you the story, and limiting what you can do with it without my permission.
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What seems to be missing from this conversation is how best to ensure to support artists, writers and so on.
to me the argument of copyright isn't really about feeding artists, its about recognising the property of creative effort, recognising that just because you can't hold something in your hand doesn't mean it isn't ownable.
A "right" to restrict copies does not "naturally" exist, so it must be granted.
if you cast your mind back to pre law times you protected your property physically. someone came into your camp and tried to take your stuff, you beat them off with a stick.
in more civilised times (allegedly) we recognise the concept of ownership and established laws backed up by police to protect our property. this didn't stop people trying to steal your stuff but it put society on your side in seeking to protect or recover your stuff.in keeping with the more civilised vibe we've recognised to a degree that ownership rights should be extended to the things that are not physical.
go back a few decades and you've got a book or an album, and someone tries to copy or steal it, and you respond with a big stick to protect your property.jump forward to now and you'd be hard pressed to even see the people nicking your stuff, you're still protected by law and they're still nicking it but you can't stop em (for now)
a right does exist in a fair society as much as a right exists to stop someone breaking into you house. we recognise that if someone makes a recording it is there's. we know this, we just avoid seeing what we are doing by taking it without their knowledge and kid ourselves that cos everyone is doing it its not really an issue the person we're stealing off is invisible, but we know what we're doing
it doesn't make it any less wrong because everyone is doing it. 2 decades ago people were jumping in cars and driving drunk. that was no more right then than it is now, just more people did it.
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Various patented products have done that for people quite often. If there's nothing wrong with that for an object based on a good idea, then I can't see why there should be something wrong with that for a story based on a good idea.
Patents are short term too, for exactly the same reason as copyrights. Someone is allowed a short-term monopoly on an invention, provided that when that term is up, that design is able to be used and improved by anyone and everyone. It encourages innovation. People just don't seem as upset by the duration of patents, which is up to 20 years in New Zealand.
So on this point, we agree :)
(note: with great effort do I avoid discussing software patents here. I hope you're thankful ;)
You can steal something which isn't physical. You can steal information from a company, or the identity of a person.
If you can steal it, then it's physical. I guess you could break into their computers, copy, and then delete it. But I still consider that two different acts. I think 'identity theft' is something of a misnomer. It's not like the victim no longer has an identity. It's really just fraud.
Assume you break into a company's office and take their ... I dunno ... operations manual. You've stolen the physical item. That's theft (and breaking and entering, but we'll ignore that for now). Say, instead, you photocopy it. That's either copyright violation or misappropriation of trade secrets, which I think are considered equitable rights rather than property rights. (I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV).
Both are illegal, and neither is protected for only X years from its creation.
True. But in the case of trade secrets, if company C gets their trade secrets stolen, and they aren't able to demonstrate reasonable measures were taken to secure them, then it's their own hard luck.
Society has no bargain with trade secrets, we don't expect them to become public, and they are never published anyway. Thus, they are given comparatively weak protection and it's up to their holder to be careful of that.
Things like music are given to the public to enjoy, so we give them reasonably strong protections to encourage more to be made. But the bargain is that we'll give you that incentive, but we get complete access to it in the end.
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But the bargain is that we'll give you that incentive, but we get complete access to it in the end.
that seems a strange bargain to make in a capitalist society. i'm cool with the whole peace and hippy love vibe society thing but is that really the world we live in and the rules we apply to other aspects of our life,
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it doesn't make it any less wrong because everyone is doing it.
I don't consider it wrong to want to adapt some art into another form that interests me. I shouldn't have to have permission to do so. However, as a member of society I'll allow the author some rights to encourage them to create more art. I do think though that those rights should be more limited than they are.
Once an idea has been spread, in any form, to someone else that idea now belongs to all people involved in it. We just allow the author a little leeway for a while to help them out.
I have to say, the US constitution puts it quite well:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Note that the focus of this is that it is done to promote science and arts. By having too long terms, you don't achieve this. If I can't create more art from existing stuff that is a part of my culture, then culture loses out on more art. No promotion going on there.
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that seems a strange bargain to make in a capitalist society. i'm cool with the whole peace and hippy love vibe society thing but is that really the world we live in and the rules we apply to other aspects of our life,
Not really. There are many things like this. It would seem capitalist to mug someone and take their wallet, but we don't because as a society we have decided we don't like that sort of thing. It strikes me that most of law is exceptions to, or special cases within, pure capitalism.
Besides, what is so wrong with trying to make things better for people? Just because it goes against a perceived trend of ruthlessness doesn't make it wrong.
There's nothing particularly hippy about it. I'm too young to be a hippy :) Shorter copyright terms help me, they help you, and they help millions of others have increased ability to create and experience art (where by art I mean paintings, music, books, films, so on and so forth).
I also expect (although I have no evidence on this point) that most authors are getting very little from something that they did 30 or 40 years ago.
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Besides, what is so wrong with trying to make things better for people?
there's nothing wrong with it, its a great goal, but it is not the rule we apply to most other forms of business. landlords don't make things better for society, they make things better for themselves but gathering income for rent of their property. its completely selfish in motive, and so is most business, but the business of creativity is expected to be selfless and for the good of society. that's a double standard.
its all well and good if you're the part of society that isn't involved in creating stuff you can't lock away. as a fair society its our responsibility to make sure we're consistent across the board.intellectual property is a relatively new concept and people have difficulty understanding it.
I think a few commentors have watered down the drift of the issues here. its not about protecting airy fairy ideas.
I like to think of the elvis recordings example. its a clear case of a definable item ie elvis's early recordings that are passing into the public domain. the owners of the original recordings could and should have the right to exploit the worth of those recordings but be cause of expired copyright they can now be duplicated and sold by people that had nothing to do with that material, even me. I can't see a reason for this to happen because people who want those recordings can easily and legitimately purchase them.
if oil well ownership expired after 50 years and we could all have access to them then I wouldn't have an issue with it but it doesn't work like that so it seems one sided.
elvis may well be part of our culture but in the society we live in I don't really see what that's got to do with anything. things re created and their sold for profit and we live of the proceeds or pass it on to peole of our choosing, that's how it works for us all at the moment.
if we lived in a communist society then all well and good, but we don't, yet. (viva la revolution) -
Society has no bargain with trade secrets, we don't expect them to become public, and they are never published anyway.
kfc's 11 herbs and spices for example.
(salt, pepper, msg, and 8 others no doubt)
what are their legal rights there. do they ever expire? -
and now in queens english
things are created and they're sold for profit and we live off the proceeds or pass it on to people of our choosing, that's how it works for us all at the moment.
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and the protections demanded by the likes of robbery do next to nothing for the local artist on the one hand
dude, did you miss sasha outing me, I think I can quite fairly speak for the local artist, being one, working with many and fiercely independent and outspoken on it, I am that dude. I'm so indie it hurts sometimes :) (but in a good way)
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as a fair society its our responsibility to make sure we're consistent across the board.
If that's true, then once you've sold your story, you can never sell it again. That's consistent with property, but doesn't make sense.
I also don't consider 'everything else is selfish, therefore this must be too' to be a valid argument.
intellectual property is a relatively new concept and people have difficulty understanding it.
copyrights and patents at least, probably trademarks too, have been around for hundreds of years.
the owners of the original recordings could and should have the right to exploit the worth of those recordings but be cause of expired copyright they can now be duplicated and sold by people that had nothing to do with that material, even me.
They've had a long, long time to exploit the worth of those recordings. Now you can remix them if you want. More music! Yay!
You can (I believe) even copyright the remix you make. Hey, so that's even more capitalism going on there. You can take it, adapt it, and sell it. More money for you, too! We all win. You can't, of course, resell the original recording and then forbid others from doing the same.
if oil well ownership expired after 50 years
That argument doesn't make sense. The owner of the oil well could sell it if they wanted. Once. After that they have no say what happens to it. I could buy it, and make a fancy sculpture out of it. So really, copyrighted works have more protection than physical works.
Your consistency argument is starting to appeal to me ;) if we accept it, once I've bought an album, I can do anything I like with it. Copy it, remix it, etc. OK, I'd better stop that line of thinking before I put the head on the strawman :)
kfc's 11 herbs and spices for example.
(salt, pepper, msg, and 8 others no doubt)
what are their legal rights there. do they ever expire?As trade secrets, there is nothing to expire. I can write a book and not show it to anyone, then noone can copy it ever. Expiry doesn't make sense in this case. However, if someone at KFC posted the recipe on the internet, it is effectively public. There is no time limit whatsoever. You could go into your kitchen and make it right now. This also makes sense, why should someone have the right to tell you what you can or can't do to food?
Out of curiosity, do you think Project Gutenberg should stop? I mean, Herman Melville isn't getting anything from it publishing Moby Dick. Of course, now anyone who wants to get some literary history into them can, and thus we have a better educated populous, but is that enough? As it is, it'll be about 15 or so more years before they can add more recent books to their catalogue.
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I think I can quite fairly speak for the local artist, being one, working with many and fiercely independent and outspoken on it, I am that dude.
I also create stuff covered by copyright. However, I say that anyone can take it, use it, and adapt it if they like. I get paid reasonably well for it, too. Much more than I initially expected (which was zero), I just started because it was "scratching an itch".
I also encourage you to look at Jamendo. Over 12,000 albums, all free.
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Possibly that's some motivation (disclaimer: I don't listen to hip-hop), but may not evoking memories of that other track in listeners minds be a useful goal also?
I'm reading this with some fascination (the whole thread that is) and refraining from comment partially because I don't have the time to be diverted right now (although I admit to having some sympathy for Rob's arguments and have yet to see any tangible argument as to why IP cannot evolve into a a right somewhat akin to property..that's the way it is and has been is no argument and there is a physicality to the IP that is in my zone of interest which is being ignored) but it's worth noting that, aside from the cheesier end of hip hop, the more obscure the sample the better is the rule usually.
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there is a physicality to the IP that is in my zone of interest which is being ignored
Do tell..
the more obscure the sample the better is the rule usually
Only because someone is fixin to sue you, surely?
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I'm so indie it hurts sometimes :)
I believe that to be an accurate summary..
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The motivation for endless Mickey Mouse extensions seems more about greed than any artistic motivations.
As I said above, restricting duration is how the copyright bargain has traditionally been constructed. In an era of fast copying and long tail, it makes way less sense.
I'm sympathetic with the position that creators not only deserve to eat but to eat well. I've proposed a substantial IP bank (which is really a specialist economic development agency) as a mechanism for boosting and sharing return over time, and encouraging confidence in creators to share their work and foster a thriving local creative economy.
What are your ideas, everyone, about methods other than duration?
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Herald - Foo Fighters blast McCain over song use.
Do you reckon they'd be any happier if the song was 20 years old? -
if mark had just lifted the line virbatim I would have felt differently about it.
Really? Some of the best songs I know are poems set to music. Some of the best "pop" songs are based class onical riffs.
Jazz is nothing more than a constant re-work of established cord sequences.
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They've had a long, long time to exploit the worth
you're also seeing exploit as a one stop one efforrt thing.
the act of making distributing promoting and 'exploiting' is on going and involves cost.
in a way removing any benefit to the estate of the creator kills or diseases the life of the work. why bother promoting and placing a work once you no longer benefit from it. ad companies can use it to sell things the artist would never have endorsed, children of media creators get cut off in their prime where as children of oil moguls get to live the sweet life in decadent glory un fettered (yes I'm pushing for both to be put out on the street and made to work, lazy fucks). just a degree of fairness about it, is that too much to ask?I also create stuff covered by copyright. However, I say that anyone can take it, use it, and adapt it if they like. I get paid reasonably well for it, too.
sorry robin, no offence ment to you or any one, I'm merely taking devils advocate as I stated way back on my entry in this discussion.
my indie cred statement wasn't directed at you at all. I almost felt I had to defend myself cos don was lumping me in with some kinda corporate monster sctick.
can you give us some more detail on how your work situate functions. how do you make stuff for free and get income for it?
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i'm cool with the whole open source peace love and sharing vibe....
I'll bite.
From a report written for the EU 2 years ago (sorry, I'll post a link in when I have a bit more time):
Economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU
Some highlights:
- Although information economy accounts for ~10% of GDP in most developed nations, it accounts in some cases for 50% of their economic growth.
- The estimated cost of reproducing the quality open source applications currently being used by the EU is around Euro 12 billion. And the code base is doubling every 18-24 months.
- FLOSS related services are estimated to account for about 1/3rd at all IT services in EU by 2010.
- EU is using FLOSS to compensate for relatively low ICT investment compared to US to achieve comparable growth in GDP from that sector.
Here's the thing, we hippies are delivering huge value to the world economy day after day. Unlike the music industry we are not demanding the rest of the world makes sacrifices on our behalf. robbery talks about fairness, constantly. How is it "fair" that our economic contribution is being undermined to support the RIAA and their likes?
robbery thinks we are hippies but we have not asked for laws to be changed, for privacy to be invaded, for special short term, technical strategies to be enshrined in law under the extremely dubious contention that artists need extra special attention. That is hogwash.
so long as all society plays the same game, ie open surce gas, land, food, power and internet connection
Except, once used up the [coal|gas|oil] is used up. How is an idea used up? Once a book is read is it "used up"?
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