Thinking About Real Copyright Reform
from the is-that-even-possible? dept
Michael Scott alerts us to a recent paper by professor and copyright expert Jessica Litman about "Real Copyright Reform." While there's been some chatter here and there about doing real copyright reform, there seems to be no real effort behind it. That's for a few reasons, including the fact that many people still remember what a pain the last attempt at real copyright reform was (it took decades) combined with the realization (especially on the part of copyright holders) that their ability to push through laws that solely favor themselves to greater and greater degrees may not be so easy this time around. Thanks to the internet and various "wars" on consumers, copyright isn't just an arcane subject that the day to day person doesn't know much about. A serious attempt at remaking copyright laws might actually draw out well-reasoned and well-argued points that go against the current views held by the record labels and movie studios. See what's been happening in Canada, for example.Litman's paper goes through the problems with today's copyright law, and begins to explore what real copyright reform should entail, even while noting the political difficulty of having it go anywhere:
A wise approach to copyright revision might inspire us to rethink the model. If both creators and readers are ill-served by distributor-centric copyright, and if the economics of digital distribution now makes it possible to engage in mass dissemination without significant capital investment, perhaps it is time to reallocate the benefits of the copyright system. The consolidation of control in distributors' hands does not appear to have made life easier or more remunerative for creators. Copyright lobbyists have not shown that recent enhancements to copyright have made it easier or more rewarding for readers, listeners and viewers to enjoy copyrighted works. Perhaps the classic picture of copyright is too far removed from its reality to be useful.From there, Litman makes similar arguments that have been made recently by James Boyle and William Patry (among others), wondering why there is little investigation into the actual impact of changes in copyright law, rather than just assuming that "stronger protections" lead to better results, when so much of the evidence suggests otherwise. And, of course, all of this harkens back to the speeches by Thomas Macauley from over a century and a half ago, back when he was able to point to the lack of evidence from those who wished to extend copyright law:
Copyright is monopoly, and produces all the effects which the general voice of mankind attributes to monopoly.... I believe, Sir, that I may safely take it for granted that the effect of monopoly generally is to make articles scarce, to make them dear, and to make them bad. And I may with equal safety challenge my honorable friend to find out any distinction between copyright and other privileges of the same kind; any reason why a monopoly of books should produce an effect directly the reverse of that which was produced by the East India Companys monopoly of tea, or by Lord Essexs monopoly of sweet wines. Thus, then, stands the case. It is good that authors should be remunerated; and the least exceptionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good.And yet, in copyright reform today, there seems to be no one in the political realm with enough power to play the role of Macauley today. But Litman raises these same issues:
Instead of asking how to enhance copyright owner control, I suggest, we ought to be asking why. Does a particular proposed enhancement of copyright owner prerogatives seem likely to expand opportunities for creators or improve reader, listener or viewer enjoyment of copyrighted works? Is it likely to make the copyright system simpler, more effective, or more transparent? Does it seem to be designed to shore up copyright's apparent legitimacy? If not, it seems as likely to make the current mess worse instead of better.Litman goes on to suggest that the fact that so many people out there don't have any respect for copyright law at all is pretty clearly the fault of the current copyright holders who have twisted and abused the law to the point that people just don't respect it. So, her ideas for copyright reform are based on bringing back "legitimacy" to copyright law by focusing on four principles:
- Radically simplifying copyright law
- Empowering content creators (rather than intermediaries and distributors)
- Empowering readers, listeners and viewers (who, after all, are supposed to be part of the beneficiaries of copyright law)
- Disintermediating copyright away from the middlemen who seem to control the law today
- Focus on commercial exploitation (rather than personal use)
- Simplify what copyright covers (rather than breaking out each separate exclusive right within copyright)
- Reconnect creators to their copyright (via a termination right that lets them take copyrights back from third parties)
- Clearly recognize readers' (or viewers', listeners', users', etc) rights
- Get rid of existing compulsory license (and similar) intermediaries, such as ASCAP, BMI, SoundExchange and others
Still, if you're interested in copyright and copyright reform, it's certainly a worthwhile paper to read just to get you thinking.
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Filed Under: copyright, copyright reform, jessica litman
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This paper is clearly wrong, because the One True Purpose of Copyright is "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."
Shouldn't, then, any copyright reform be geared toward more effectively securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries? Where does the Constitution say anything about ecologies or enjoyment?
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re "Reconnect creators to their copyright (via a termination right that lets them take copyrights back from third parties) "
The problem of moral hazard; managements that are not answerable to their right-holders/shareholders or to the public, managements that in effect have become the owner without the risks of real owners is very current. The copyright industry is free to pursue policy's that are actually harmful to all but the most successful artists/creators, its not their problem.
Macauley(a liberal/conservative in the old usage ) understood well that talk of extending economic rights are always in reality claims being made for power,and they should always be very carefully looked in the mouth.
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It developed in the 1700s in response to the beginings of cheap mass production of copys.
It was also never meant to benefit "authors and inventors"as a class, It was definitely not a transaction tax on the sale of mass copies , such a tax would have rewarded the failed much more than the succesfull author.
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Thankfully, all these young people are doing such a wonderful job of ignoring copyright laws that it will only be a matter of time before they fade from the view of history.
And without copyright in the 21st century all human expression will cease to be. No one will create anything. Why would they? Need to get paid. Money is the most important human invention ever created.
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Shouldn't, then, any copyright reform be geared toward more effectively securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries?"
The problem is that the copyright industry lobbies to increase terms whenever they're about to expire, effectively granting unlimited terms. Any reform should be geared toward making sure those limited times are actually limited.
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Wow, this statement is either the most ignorant I've ever read or the most dishonest. Everything on my hard drive(including my os) is under a license that allows both redistribution and derivatives. (You can get paid to write free software, but most of what's on my computer was created just for the sake of creating it)
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given: money is the root of all evil
substituting into the sentence from AC gives us:
evil is the most important human invention ever created
interesting indeed
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This I think is a very poor assumption, which leads to a poor train of thought. He is making the mistake of confusing copyright (the concept) and the current business model using copyright.
There is no reason that the current copyright can't continue, with other types of distribution. They are not mutually inclusive. You can have strong copyright owner rights, and an open peer distribution system that requires no middleman.
The current middlemen exist in part to help to convert product (books, articles, music, movies, whatever) to money in a timely and simple manner, where producers can do what they do best (make more great stuff), and distributors do what they do best (distribute the great stuff). The system helps all parties to get some money back in a reasonable time on their product. Those artists who choose to sell their rights up the chain to holding companies, record labels, publishing companies, etc, usually do it in return for something. They are not forced to do it.
The entire piece basically starts from an extremely flawed premise, and goes from there.
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a bit more on reform
Many ,perhaps most, royalty payments are no longer paid to an individual authors right.
And the multitude of tax-like 'levys' do not fund publicly run programs for whole community gain.
If it is desirable to collect a levy/tax on the sale of Ipods or whatever, for the benefit of all authors/musos as a class, then it should be directly administered by a elected government and be purely for public benefit.
It should not pretend or confuse this aim with the aim of the encouragement/reward of success; taxes are to level things out, they are to help the relatively helpless, not to reward the powerfull.
Governments can be fired by the public and the holders of traditional "Full Individual Rights of control of usage" can fire their managements.
The managements of these tax/royalty rights look more like the sort of inalianable right of royalty that I thought ended with Charles the first.
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Actually The original quote is "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil"
So by that earning money itself is not evil, and not all evil has greed as the root cause.
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Full Text Download Link
(pdf) http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ejdlitman/papers/RealCopyrightReform.pdf
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1841 or 2009. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
For those who take the time to read Lord Macaulay's 1841 speech in Parliament (it is much longer than the excerpt presented here), you may be amazed at how well he predicted the consequences of extended copyright, including widespread piracy and disrespect for the law because many would perceive that law as being unreasonable. His analysis addressed arguments in the very same issues we hear raised today.
In case you might be tempted to think that while Macaulay was arguing for the benefit of the general public, he could not understand the viewpoint of authors, it is worth observing that Macaulay himself wrote several books and published essays.
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real reform
http://creativecommons.org
Radically simplifying copyright law?
check.
Empowering content creators?
check.
Empowering readers, listeners and viewers ?
check.
Disintermediating copyright away from the middlemen who seem to control the law today?
check.
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Imagine what would've happened if, sometime in the last 400 years or so, the wealthiest members of society had convinced government that a system of sanctioned professional assassination was necessary. The ability for private individuals to buy murder -- while certainly a legal compromise -- would have wonderful potential benefits for society. For instance, if you knew that any of your neighbors could have you killed, you would tend to be extremely polite to them. And in situations where troublemakers disrupted society without actually doing anything illegal, groups could band together, pool their money, and have the irritant wiped out. Further, any politician who knew that his constituents could have him whacked legally would be very careful to represent them in an accurate fashion.
Or so the advocates of sanctioned professional assassination might claim.
Of course, flaws would crop up in the system over time. As wealth concentrated in a few individuals or large organizations, these would tend to use their legal assassination power in counter-productive, dictatorial ways. But what the hell, it's nothing that some fundamental reform of the sanctioned professional assassination system couldn't fix, right?
Except of course that reforming such an insane, stupid, counterproductive idea is ridiculous. It should never have come into existence in the first place.
Ditto copyright.
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re-frame the question: Where would we be without any copyright? Think it through - who would produce what? Would we have any signficant commercial artist activity? Would we fall back to the 14th and 15th centuries when "art" was most often paid for and kept hidden by a small wealthy elite?
When it comes time to toss out a system and replace it, you have to consider the reality of where you are and where you are going. The paper quote fails massively because it spends it's time blaming the current distributor / rights holder system, without first seperating it from the laws and looking at how we end up in the current position.
It isn't so much an intellectual discussion as a passionate plea that doesn't make anywhere near as much sense in the real world.
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Artist who are passionate abut art would create whatever they damn well please, probably something like you would find in jamendo's attribution and attribution share-alike sections.
Would we fall back to the 14th and 15th centuries when "art" was most often paid for and kept hidden by a small wealthy elite?
You have to remember that p2p didn't exist back then, so there was more of a cost in distributing works. Now the cost is so low that either the wealthy elite or the artist would be more likely to make works available to all.
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I think the point is that the current copyright system actively damages the public good and the good of the creators, to the benefit of the middlemen. The problem isn't the middlemen per se, but rather that they have subverted the system to the harm of everyone else.
The solution is to unsubvert the system, i.e., copyright reform, not eliminate middlemen as a direct goal. Of course, the effect would be that the middlemen would be stripped of a great deal of power and many of the would become significantly smaller or vanish.
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I'm always fascinated by this argument, because of the fundamental and obvious wrongness of it. The only thing that I can figure is that the people making it are businessmen (for whom money is always the primary driver) not artists (for whome, as one of my artist friends says, mental illness *ahem* passion is the primary driver.)
I know quite a few top-notch artists in various media (writers, painters, musicians, sculptors) and not a single one of them would stop producing art if copyright were to go away.
Without copyright, the artistic world would expand, not shrink, as there are many legitimate forms of art which are simply illegal under our current copyright laws. The art market would barely notice the difference.
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Would the tools that are used by the artists even exist if it was not for copyright? Would Industrial Light and Magic have existed without the commercial need of George Lucas? Would we have high end NLE systems that everyone can use? Would there be music to have driven the MP3 revolution that lead to Napster and on down to P2P?
You have to think on a much broader scale: If there was no copyright for the last couple of hundred years, where would we be today?
As some suggest, there would be "more art", perhaps in an aggregate way yes, but only because much like centuries ago, there would be a jester, a minstral, and a fool in every town. In modern terms, I think of it as a million crappy garage bands and a million crappy video makers, turning out on aggregate a huge amount of material that nobody really wants.
It takes a very big rethink to actually back track and remove copyright and see where we end up.
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We have that now with copyright lasting more than a century.
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Unless I turn the culture of my youth into parody or satire which is pointless. So to hell with it.
Copyright is useless for artists.
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Perhaps not the ones currently used, but ones nonetheless satisfactory for creating original works. Those truly passionate about the arts and sciences have always found ways to advance them.
"Would we have high end NLE systems that everyone can use?"
Possibly. History has show there are always those who seek to improve the way things are done regardless of whether or not IP 'protection' exists or not.
"Would there be music to have driven the MP3 revolution that lead to Napster and on down to P2P?"
Given the history of recorded music and the early days of free software, yes.
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The real answers are No, probably not, and I doubt it.
Artists are phenomenal at usings the tools and resources they have to create things. But many of the true marvels that separate us today from where we were as a civilization 50 years ago even is sheer money to make things happen. Someone to pay the bills with the hope (and expectation) that they can make it back.
true artists don't worry about that, but true artists rarely advance things much, more like render them in prettier colors.
Again, I don't think you are thinking with an open enough mind.
MP3s? You are only going back to the early days of free software. But you forget all the things like routers, higher speed internet connections, developments of fibre optics, underlying network equipment, each of which was built on copyright code, methods, and patented designs. Those things didn't happen out of art, they happened out of desire for commercial redemption.
So without copyright, example, might a company like Cisco exist today? Probably not, because everyone and their dog would steal their work 1 second after they release it. The commericial benefits of copyright would be lost, which would raise the price of entering into new markets too much, which would in turn slow or even stop development.
That is just a simple example. You have to think way past the end of your "infinite distribution" world and check to see if we would even be anywhere near here. Without copyright, the music industry might not be the same, and perhaps there wouldn't be enough of an international market for anyone to even bother with a Napster. Wind back your mind, open your eyes, and look to see where we would be in the last 50 years with no copyright. The answer would be something much closer to how we looked 50 years ago.
Rotary dial phone anyone?
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copyright has its uses but it is not very significant. reproduction is for me free advertising, I encourage it.
My muso friends make far more from live performance and other sources ect
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You officially don't understand anything about art. Seriously. Read a book. An art book!
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the magic of creative labor
We do not pay the ditch-digger a licensing fee to use the ditch, yet we are expected to pay the middlemen for use of a product which they represent. Because of the premium we place upon our entertainment the dichotomy of the millionaire movie-star or record executive juxtaposed against the poverty of the nurse's aide or the teacher does not rankle us as it should. A great deal of the problem with copyright issues is that the artist and his work are are granted so much more prestige than those who would wipe our asses or fill our minds. Because the popular art work is given such prestige an industry arises surrounding that work to profit from it. At the root of the problem is the paradox of our values.
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You have to go back a very long way and refigure a bunch of things to see how things would turn out without copyright.
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The opportunity costs of a great writer working in an office, or a talented musician selling burgers... that is tragic. Without a commercialized system to allow them to profit from their efforts, and to be able to spend their time doing what the do best, that too is tragic.
there are many legitimate forms of art which are simply illegal under our current copyright laws
Please cite some examples (and don't say remix music... that is something that would be lost because there would be nothing majorly commercial to remix... remember, you have to think past the end of your nose on this stuff!)
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A non-answer is better than an incorrect answer. A non-answer is also more truthful than a "believe me because I'm right" answer.
Hell, not to mention that many of your statements are complete bull. The internet was NEVER developed for public consumption in the first place, it was first designed for private use without any thought of commercialization.
How can copyright be the incentive for an innovation that wasn't initially intended to be sold?
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I didn't forget, those are exactly the kinds of things IP is NOT needed for.
There is plenty of incentive for everything you just mentioned without IP. How can you sell internet service if the technology isn't mature enough? And hiring OS coders still would make sense because it opens up a new revenue stream. (Using software to sell your hardware)
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That is an equally ignorant statement; I think you'll find that the large majority of FOSS contributions are written by paid programmers as part of their job.
The difference is that in most cases the software or improvements to existing software are written because some employer needs that specific piece of software or that specific feature for their own ends. They pay the programmers, they get the software or feature, and once the work has been done there is no harm to them if others benefit from the work too. There may even be a benefit if other users fix bugs or add features of their own, and share those improvements back.
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"The Internet" only exists because of open standards. Standards that were not protected by patents, and that were made available for anyone to copy and implement without needing permission or payment.
And most services on the internet (particularly the older or most critical services) are provided by Free software; things like the root name-servers run BIND on BSD. Almost all email is passed around by sendmail, courier or postfix.
And as for 'patents' contributing to the growth of the computing industry; "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today." -- Bill Gates, back in 1991
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E=mc2 is not copyrighted. Neither is the internet.
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Here's the thing though, you don't need copyright to insure that art becomes commercialized. It will happen without intellectual property laws.
It's just the nature of art.
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You have to remember, pure art (paintings, etc) are not the only thinks protected by IP laws. COmputer code, design, all of that. Just think, in the process of visiting this site, you are using a copyright browser, on a copyright operating system, on a computer filled with patent and copyright parts, to connect via modem with copyright and patent parts, over a network filled with the same, to connect to a computer running software that are all likely copyright in some form or another, to look at a page with copyright images, text, and all displayed by a copyright software package... The important question is "would we have all of these things without IP laws?". Perhaps someday, but not now.
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You're building a straw-man argument there.
The wealthy of the middle-ages had no good channels of mass-distribution, nor a good way to monetize such if it existed.
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There is no strawman here. One of the ways that 'art' in all it's forms has rapidly advanced is the commercialization of products. it has allowed massively expensive undertakings (say designing a new car) to be spread over a large enoughgroup of buyers as to permit them to each pay a reasonable price. However if it was required that one person first buy a single car at the full cost of development, cars would not have advanced past the stages we saw in the 1900-1910 range. Widepsread distribution of product is nice, but it's the widespread dispersal of costs over that large base that makes things really work.
With the move to "free everything", and the idea of removing copyright, you create a system where there is little change to truly be able to disperse the costs over a wide audience. You get back to needing wealthy patrons willing to pay without the desire for return to make things operate.
So there is no strawman here, rather a suggestion to look at the true economics of a system without protections and IP rights. Mike will pipe in and say "aggregate output will go up!", but he never wants to discuss that the output will be mostly duplication, innovation by paint color or box shape rather than true innovation where something truly new is produced. There is a significant difference between true innovation (unique new products) and close innovation (repackaging) that economics doesn't easily seperate out. The numbers would look great for a while, but in the end, true progress would slow dramatically.
The best way to explain it is this: If copyright and patent laws were repealed in 1950s, it is very likely that we would still be watching some of the best tube based TVs in the world, enjoying out 3 network channels, and this internet thing would be right up there with other pieces of science fiction. Why would a company want to invest millions to develop a new product, only to have other mass produce it with no development costs? Yes, everyone would have the same marginal costs, but only one would have major development costs that likely would never be recovered. When investments in development stop, where would most of the developments come from? Who would move them to market? Who would take such a risk knowing they will probably lose their shirts?
The implications of removing copyright and patent protections is profound and dangerous.
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But the ones I'm using are released under terms that allow me to redistribute and modify them, the exact things that copyright is meant to restrict.
"to look at a page with copyright images, text"
The sites I usually go to generally release their works under free licenses, or have the freely redistributable content that I came for. Techdirt is the exception to this rule as I don't see any information on copyrights anywhere.
I'm rarely interested in what the entertainment industry churns out as they ironically just wind up copying each other most of the time.
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No it isn't. You just lack any sort of imagination or vision.
"With the move to "free everything", and the idea of removing copyright, you create a system where there is little change to truly be able to disperse the costs over a wide audience. You get back to needing wealthy patrons willing to pay without the desire for return to make things operate."
Or a whole bunch of non-wealthy patrons. One might call them "fans". Stop trying to apply 16th century patronage to the 21st century.
And no, copyright won't be abolished, too much money in it.
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Sorry Lisa, but this is exactly where you are wrong.
They are still copyright, and they permit you certain types of redistribution. I would say that you might find yourself in trouble if you tried to resell them, example, or to claim them as your own.
Your assumptions of copyright as only an obstruction are just wrong. Copyright doesn't stop creators from sharing their work for free, unless they happen to sell or transfer those rights to someone else who doesn't allow it. There is nothing, nadda, stopping people from putting out stuff under various forms of GPL / copyleft, or whatever you prefer to call it.
Copyright isn't mutually exclusive from sharing. The only difference is copyright enpowers the creator or rights owner to make the decision, not you. That gets to a matter of respect, something that the current online generation sorely lacks.
As for copyright images, consider this: Been to a news site recently? Visited CNN? Checked out Perez Hilton or TMZ? Perhaps checked out sports news or the latest speech from a techie guru? Guess what? All of the images you saw are copyright, potentially released under share licensing, but still licensed and copyright.
I just don't think you realize the scope and magnatude of copyright, and how it plays in your everyday life.
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I never claimed they weren't copyrighted. None of the licenses restrict resale, and only a few require attribution. Thanks for ignoring my actual point though, real nice.
"As for copyright images, consider this: Been to a news site recently? Visited CNN? Checked out Perez Hilton or TMZ? Perhaps checked out sports news or the latest speech from a techie guru? Guess what? All of the images you saw are copyright, potentially released under share licensing, but still licensed and copyright."
Again, techdirt is the only (possibly)non-shareable content I view on the net. Are you implying people who release only under freely redistributable licenses would stop doing so if all works were freely redistributable?
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It is obvious from this comment that you have never had a creative thought yourself. Otherwise you would understand the motivation of genuine creators, which is rarely if ever focussed on financial reward but rather on the burning desire that their creation should exist.
On your model Frank Whittle would have stopped developing the jet engine shortly after he let his patent lapse - whereas in fact almost all of the development happened after that point.
And of course you forget the motivation that is responsible for funding almost all the great inventions of the 20th century : The necessities of War! (Under which intellectual property considerations have usually been shelved.)
The aircraft, the piston internal combustion engine, the jet engine, the computer, nuclear energy, the integrated circuit, the internet. All of these owe the majority of their development funding to the public purse driven by war or the threat of war.
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Re: "They are not forced to do it."
That is exactly what the copyright industry spent a decade seriously trying to get, the power to force right holders to license for life + 70 to the agency. They failed but it was very hot for a while.
I get the feeling that you have not had much actual dealings with their kind , they are not real good.
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It will never succeed. How long has this been going on? Have the American capitalists been informed?
Why hasn't the US government declared a War on Free?
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1. Emulate pure public domain for an individual work, requiring all derivatives to allow free use/sharing/remixing
Nothing more needs to be said on this
2. prevent plagiarism
Which copyright does not completely prevent as claiming authorship is the same as claiming copyright. What help copyright gives in combating such false claims could be had with an anti plagiarism law.
3. make the source code available
Given this is the reasoning by the free software movement(anti copyright group) and the open source movement(open is the only right way to do software) there isn't much loss of incentive for creation here. Although there would be occasional cursing about poorly maintained documentation and the like.
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The internet? Would it exist on, say, if microchips hadn't happened, or discrete transistors, etc? You keep forgetting that each block you look at has a hundred other copyright or patent blocks under it, research, development, and so on. It's the thing that is amazing, and the thing you have to look at so closely - any one of those steps doesn't happen, and the dominoes tumble. Think of it as the butterfly effect of copyright and patent.
Expand your minds, and see reality.
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It's funny to watch you guys go, because you aren't thinking past the ends of your noses.
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to Mike Masnick
A visitor to Britain, the American, Emerson also sensed the beginings of decline.
He felt that Britain was increasingly dominated by management; that Britains skills were all of " a secondary level" that it " seemed to exist in a kind of submind".
He felt that too much power had created a situation in britain like :" walking on a marble floor where nothing can grow".
Time would prove that both author's fears were right.
Another word for corrupt is rust: all power rusts, No?
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The necessities of war? That's just the government picking up the tab. In the end, it's the same thing, a rich patron paid for it.
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However, it is safe to say that many of the freeniks you talk about would also scream to high hell and get a lawyer if their work product was turned into a multi million dollar business. Then they would suddenly love the effects of the automatic copyright of their work.
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AND
Creativity travels light, big collective groups can maintain standards , but they ,by nature, enforce standards, original is never typical or standard or found in groups and power.
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Re emerson
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Re: Re emerson "by Anonymous Coward"
I dont understand the emeron /naipal stuff was by me. I did not intend to put words into your mouth-
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I would be far too busy with the unlimited creative access now available to me thanks to the destruction of copyright.
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In aggregate. Once again, like the rich patrons of old who were fans we now have poor patrons of new who are also fans.
Artists will be fine without copyright.
It's the middlemen who are royally fucked.
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Re: the magic of creative labor
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Re: "Everything comes from something."
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to Mike Masnick
Open source languages like English , art , poetry or mathematics are, because they are very recursive, not fully controllable and thus can generate the unexpected.
Hence the concern about sterility
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The stuff I am talking about is literally an attempt to impose a copyright on the sale of things that are not copies.
Is that your idea of a appropriate extension of copyright?
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I would be far too busy with the unlimited creative access now available to me thanks to the destruction of copyright.
You sound like a hobbyist, not a professional.
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And further underneath that?
Oh, that's right, copyright has only existed for a few centuries. I like how you ignore everything ever created before that.
Creation and innovation has been happening since the dawn of man. It doesn't suddenly start and stop with some arbitrary laws.
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Attribution law would not be the same thing as copyright law.
"However, it is safe to say that many of the freeniks you talk about would also scream to high hell and get a lawyer if their work product was turned into a multi million dollar business."
Most agree they'd be delighted that someone would find their work useful. And getting a lawyer would be pointless since they chose a license that explicitly allows commercial use. In fact, a good deal of them chose said licenses because they believe restricting commercial use is immoral.
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Anonymous Coward a thought for you
They are I think right ideas are mostly unoriginal and any fool can copy ,ideas are cheap. Top performance takes hard work and is rare and thus valuable
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It wasn't but my point is simple. I am a professional. I can prove that. But even with that in mind, so what if I were only a hobbyist? Suddenly my point of view is worth less?
But seriously, a hobby?!? Ha. I wish!
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I think your "believe restricting commercial use is immoral" probably applies to a very, very, very small number of people. I think they are called either socialists or communists in most place.
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Why do you keep assuming that since some people flip out over that everyone would flip out? Fallacy much?
"I think your "believe restricting commercial use is immoral" probably applies to a very, very, very small number of people. I think they are called either socialists or communists in most place."
After reading some of their blogs it seems that the issue is more about the belief that ownership should be in individual copies and not the idea itself. Nothing socialist about that.
And you keep forgetting that copyright itself is based in socialistic principles. It's about talking ownership away from individuals to serve the common good.
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Heh. Someone is clearly unfamiliar with the history of both the copyright system and the patent system.
Homework assignment: how have both of these changed since 1945? Extra credit: Prior to 1976, what % of published works were covered by copyright? What % renewed their copyright after the initial term expired.
We'll wait.
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You said - "I think you'll find that the large majority of FOSS contributions are written by paid programmers as part of their job."
Looks to me like you guys are in agreement. You said the same thing with different words. I do think that the first part of his sentence does not have much to do with the second half but that is a small quibble.
So I think that you saying his statement is ignorant is wrong when you turn around and say mostly the same thing, from a different point of view.
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Oh and we arent feeding any Trolls today, so crawl back under you bridge
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That damn comma...
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Liked the article, and Prof Litman's proposals...
People love to share
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/30827
http://a2f2a.com/2009/11/10/people-love-to-share
all the best
John
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gosh ! you are brainwashed.
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