Posts by Mark Harris
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But surely theft is not just that the law says theft is?
What else is it, then? Yes, theft is an offense against the law, simply because the law is what defines it. The law is a product of societal decision-making of what is acceptable behaviour. It knows only compliance and infringement. It recognises, via parliamentary representatives, that there are degrees of culpability based around the nature of the damage caused by an infringement, and therefore varying degrees of redress/punishment.
Thus, littering is not held to the same level of offence as dangerous driving, and so the consequences are more severe for the latter. Both are illegal behaviour, but one is considered worse than the other.
Copyright is a legal construct. You can't discuss it without discussing the law, but you help no part of the discussion if you persist in mis-defining it and then arguing based on your private definition.
Aren't we allowed to broaden the defenition (or at least discuss broadening it) to account for technological change, and for ethical considerations that the law may not adequately address?
Did the makers of automobiles steal the livelihood of the wagon makers? Definite technological change. Definite Societal change. Was it theft? What ethical considerations came into play there?
We have laws so that we have a common definition of appropriate behaviour.That is the whole point. Otherwise, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" would be sufficient. But I would rather not have a masochist do unto me as he would like to be done to (if it were possible), and a sadist would rather not have me do unto him as he would do unto others.
And "do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law" has no place at all, in a society that even pretends to be civilized. So, because ethics and morals are bound by perception of what should be acceptable, we* have settled on an objective code of behaviour we call the law.
If you want to change the law, there is a process. But you can't just make stuff up and say "that's what the law should mean so we'll work to that".
The analogy is pretty simple: I steal a CD ni a shop, I'm a thief. I download the same tracks and burn them in the exact same order on a CD, and it's not theft. Surely you see the disconnect?
That analogy is still flawed, because of the definitions. As has been said again and again, if you steal a CD from a shop, you are removing an item of value from the possession of its owner. You not only prevent them selling that item, because they no longer have it, but you also nullify the investment they have made in purchasing it, and turn that into a liability.
If you copy a music track, the original is not removed from the possession of the individual. You may be preventing them from making a sale, but the research is ambiguous on the long term result of that. Some point to it being a positive factor in the overall value of an item, or industry.
The disconnect you perceive is actually reality intruding on your analogy.
I grant, that it is currently illegal to copy someone else's work for profit (some exceptions exist for tightly defined activities); indeed, I have never said or thought otherwise. As a copyright holder, I depend on that for control of my work - as a Creative Commoner, I use that control to explicitly allow certain actions under certain conditions. All this is allowed to me because I respect the law.
But I know that change has come - bigger change than the industrial revolution; change on a par with the development of written language itself. The IR was a change in scale and speed - this is a quantum shift, altering the concepts of scarcity and abundance.
Yes, we need to look at and discuss the rules we live by, but it's pointless to try and apply old economy rules to the new economic reality. I don't know why you can't see that disconnect.
If we're going to have a realistic discussion on the future of copyright, we need to do it objectively, dispassionately and logically. Tossing emotive and mis-defined terms like "stealing" into the mix does not help that discussion.
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And some of us are still a bit bemused that taking away somebody's livelyhood should not be regarded as theft. But do carry on.
Bemused you may remain, but that doesn't alter the law.
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Mark, isn't the point with digital that you can't tell the difference - with audiovisual content, especially?
Yep. But back to the original point I made months ago, it's still NOT theft.
It's against the law but it is not theft.
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That's not true, at least for art.
Why not? The rest of your post had little relevance to your opening line, so I'm still mystified.
It's possible to make an exact copy of a piece of art, using the same materials and techniques.
I think I said that, which is what Kerry objected to.
The artwork done by a famous artist will still fetch a lot more than the exact copy by a not famous artist.<quote>
Umm, I think I pretty much said that too.
<quote>Pieces of art and their value are more than the objects themselves. They have a history, they have value in the market over and above the intrinsic value of the objects themselves.
All right, how much for just the history then? ;-)
Look, a brand new object has little history. It will sell for whatever the market will offer.
A 500 year old object has a history (it may not be an exciting one, of course) but it, too, will sell for whatever the market will offer.
The new object may sell for more than the old object, depending on the artist and/or the history. There is no such thing as intrinsic value, in dollar terms, of a piece of art. Is Damien Hirst's skull thingy worth millions because it's made of platinum and diamonds (each of which also have no intrinsic value, only what the market will offer) or because it's made by Damien Hirst?
Costing £14 million to produce, the work went on display at the White Cube gallery in London at an asking price of £50 million, which would have been the highest price ever paid for a single work by a living artist
Now if you're talking about cultural value, that's a different ball of wax, and some may be prepared to spend money to preserve it.
But you can't buy history. You can know it, you can publish it, but it's metadata, in reference to an art work. It has no value in itself and it's not for sale.
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Memo to self: surreptitiously change Steve's prescription...
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then proceed to build resentment against him based on that unsubstantiated material
Oh, no! My resentment is based on his consistent message that RIANZ is obviously above the law, as sacha has pointed out above. For cites, see any piece he has contributed to in the media.
Oh, and lovemusic is not part of the media - it's a RIANZ house organ.
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and to poop the party just a little more here are some links to articles and a Q&A with Campbell on 92a.
Actually, I blogged on that last week. (do keep up, boy!) ;-)
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You have not stolen the physical artefact that is the result of the artist's endeavour, but you have shown contempt for the artist and in doing so, devalued the artist's process, because you haven't had to go through that process to make the original.
1) it's still not theft.
2) How is the artist or his process devalued? If it had value in the first place, how does it lose value?
3) If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, where's the contempt?What the buyer pays for when they purchase an original artwork is not just the painting itself.
Actually it is, plus (in some cases) a provenance document outlining its origin. Purchase of an artwork is just that, not any of the intangibles.
The monetary value ascribed to the painting recognises the value of the process.
Perhaps it does, but you don't purchase the process, nor is it covered by copyright.
While every artist stands on the shoulders of others, every artist also constructs their own, unique combination of intellectual, emotional, spiritual stimuli which they draw on to create.
Hmmm, Warhol. And yet I'm still failing to see how any of this is devalued by making a copy.
The artist's ability to create depends on having the time and energy to acquire and use those stimuli. There are many necessary "failures" made on the path to making good work.
If I'm buying art, I'm buying only the success, not the failures.
The price placed on artworks (and the big cut taken by galleries) reflects both scarcity value and process value.
Scarcity? It's exactly the same as it was before a copy was made. Artist A made 1 picture. That is unique. If Copyist A makes a copy, there is still only 1 picture made by Artist A.
Process value? That maybe why you buy an artwork, but it's not why I do it. A crappy picture may have exactly the same process work as a masterpiece by the same artist - which has more value? Which will get a higher price?
And the difference between your copy and the original - well, viewing a reproduction in a book or on the net is NOT the same as viewing an original or living with it.
Absolutely, but as long as I know it's a copy, and don't pretend it's an original, I might be happy with it, especially if I can't afford the original. That's why I only have a print of the Mona Lisa on my wall.
This is, roughly, intellectual property for an artist - it's a lot more than "an idea" that you can't own. Putting the paint on the canvas is the last 10% of the process. It is as close to Ben's analogy of a factory as I can get.
And it's not very close. A factory exists for one thing - mass production of the same item or items. An artist is at the other end of the spectrum - producing (in general) single, unique items.
It's not the process that costs the money - it's the object itself (that's why they're called objets d'art ). The artist retains not even the process, but only the technique, by which s/he hopes to make further unique objects.
Case in point - Michael Smither started doing screen prints (reproducible items) specifically because he realised that his original works had become too pricey for ordinary people to afford. Same artist, different technique, but is the creative process any different? Is the creative effort really that much less? The physical effort might be, or it might not - that's down to the individual artist, really.
It's not wrong to ascribe a lot of emotional reasons to why you purchase a particular artwork, and your post describes your reasons clearly, but those will be different for each buyer. You need to be clear as to what's on sale, and it's only the object.
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Anyone familiar with the story of the Zaxs?
Heh. Haven't seen that for years
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<shameless self-promotion>
I've just put up a new blog post about TelstraClear, including the text of their letter to the TCF