Stop The Scourge Of Illegal 'Downwriting'
from the don't-they-have-camera-phones dept
Jon points us to an amusing photo highlighted by Reddit showing two older women sitting in a bookstore copying down recipes. The Daily What amusingly calls this "illegal downwriting."
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Fines
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Sorry folks...
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No, but a guy here at work keeps trying to make grilled cheese sangwiches in the photocopier.
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I know my old Macbook Pro could have made grilled cheese with the heat coming off the bottom case; but a photocopier?
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fair use.
It is limited use for educational purposes, and who is to say that they are copying down information from the book, they might be writing a list of books they intend to buy !
its people trying to make an issue out of something like this who make it impossible to take you seriously when you do try to address a 'real' issue.
If you cannot see the difference between market sellers selling bootleg DVD's and ladies copying out some cooking tips then you do not understand the issues, you do yourself a disservice by trying to press such weak arguments.
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Re: fair use.
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Though thinking more about it (and his diatribe on stakeholders in another article) I think they already are
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Re: Re: fair use.
We the Terminal Emulation Committee of America, have within our possession several copypatentrightmarks concerning the very keystroke combination to which you have just made (an admittedly skilled) allusion too.
Unfortunately, regardless of the skill and fair use nature of your usage, we feel it necessary to protect our intellectual property in regards to this matter.
Therefore, We request that you cease from using our Intellectual Property, further we request that you refrain from using said Intellectual Property in the future. Also, as may be required by law, we demand that you remove, retroactively if necessary, any and all references to our intellectual property from any form of paper or electronic document including but not limited to: Newspapers, Magazine Articles, Blogs and/or their comments, Books, Scientific & Medical Publications, Religious Documents, Volatile or Non-Volatile Electronic Memory, or Educational Publications.
Thank you.
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Re: Re: Re: fair use.
We of the Council for Threatening Letters find that your above letter violates our letter design patent and many of our wordrights. Please Cease and Desist......
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fair use, clearly non-commercial, unless you are going to race home and produce your own bootleg DVD's and sell it for a profit.
Thanks darryl!! Finally you are admitting that clearly non-commercial use is acceptable. I do not intend to make and sell bootleg DVD's! How did it take us so long to get here?
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Re: fair use.
Do we have a doctor here who can call the time of death?
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Re: fair use.
Oh, you mean like the non-commercial nature of file sharing? You mean how when someone shares a song, they arent doing it for financial gain? And dont say "file sharers avoid paying for it so its a financial gain" because that would be exactly what these ladies are doing, and you just said that that doesnt count.
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Re: Re: fair use.
using the internet to save money that rightfully belongs to a large corporation is piracy:
making a phone call through the internet to save on mobile minutes: piracy.
telecommuting instead of buying gas to drive to work: piracy.
And dont say "file sharers avoid paying for it so its a financial gain" because that would be exactly what these ladies are doing, and you just said that that doesnt count.
these are little old ladies at a bookstore, not punk teenagers on the internet. the two cases are completely different.
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Re: Re: Re: fair use.
My money rightfully belongs to me, not some corporation. I guess downloading coupons and using coupon codes is piracy then.
Starting to sound like sarcasm. I paid for my internet connection and I can choose to voice chat with whomever I want; besides, the voice quality is way better than with a phone call.
Here's where the sarcasm flag billowed out and waved in all its glory. Regardless, someone might just take this line of thinking as serious, so I'll refute it. Again, I paid for my internet connection and my employer has agreed to allow me to attach my computer to their network remotely in order for me to perform my duties while reducing the load on their air conditioners and power grid.
Thank you, and good day.
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Re: fair use.
That being said, it's OK for them to copy out the recipes they want. It would be OK if they took pictures with their phone of the recipes they wanted. It would be wrong to take pictures of all the pages of the cook book. It would be illegal to download the book and print off the recipes you want.
At the end of the day, it's all for 'limited use for educational purposes' it's just how they gained access to that use that seems to be the problem.
But...you're a troll and don't understand any of that.
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Re: fair use.
You really need to go read up on Fair Use... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
It doesn't say anything about personal use or non-commercial gain. Now, the 'fair use' would come in if they were copying down recipes that were not of the author's own creation. If I write a book that is nothing but a compilation of others' recipes, then I don't hold the copyright on those recipes.
Example: a local company in my town asks for recipes from its business partners, compiles and prints them, and distributes the book back to those partners. They do not own the copyright on those recipes.
Who's to say? Probably the guy who took the picture who was probably watching them for a few minutes to figure out what they were doing.
But you're right... they could be making a list of books. They could be college students on a special project to dress as old ladies, get books, and count the number of words in each.
They could be space aliens who are using the bookstore activity as a cover for their covert military planning.
But I think we'll stick with the most likely scenario: the guy who took the pic knew what was going on. Sound good to you?
Someone already took the "satire fail", so I'm going to sail on...
We can see the difference just fine... it's the MPAA and RIAA who lump them all in the same group that can't see the difference. And it's you who doesn't see the similarities between a couple of old ladies 'sharing' (did you notice that word there?) some recipes (a practice as old as cooking) and me letting a friend of mine borrow some of my music so he can become a friend and support that artist.
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Re: Re: fair use.
No one owns the copyright on those recipes since, without unique commentary, recipes by themselves do not qualify for copyright since they are mere factual lists of ingredients and artless instructions.
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I for one wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to patent the "process" of a some recipe and got it approved.
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/SARC
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Maybe i'm just being ignorant, but if there is no copyright on recipes [music] then how can cooks [musicians] and restaurants [labels] make any money? I mean if everyone is sharing then you can end up competing against yourself for the right to sell food [music]. If someone could download the recipe [song] from the Internet, then they would never go out to eat [to concerts/buy albums]. Thus putting the restaurants [labels], cooks [musicians], waiters [promoters], dishwashers [stagehands], and all, out of work. If everyone is downloading then nobody can make any money and no one will innovate new dishes [music]. Can you imagine the consequences of Gordan Ramsey [Ozzy]yelling obscenities on a street corner while holding a "will work for food" sign? The horror!!! This must be stopped immediately before these two old ladies [teenagers] stop innovation, put everyone out of work, and kill the economy!!!!!! Chefs {musicians}are artist to ya know.
/SARC
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Re: fair use.
fair use, clearly non-commercial, unless those ladies are going to race home and produce their own cook book and sell it for a profit.
Fair use, as consistently argued by the entertainment industry is either a) nonexistant, or b) so narrow in scope as to certainly not apply in this situation. Furthermore, as has been pointed out, some would argue that totality of the recipe (ingredients and directions) are covered by copyright, and even if they aren't by being printed in the book they are still covered by copyright (no part of this book may be reproduced, copied, yadda yadda blah blah without the express written consent of the publisher and so on and so forth".
From the viewpoint of an extemist, copying a recipe from a book is no different than copying a paragraph from a news article or downloading an MP3. Using the logic of the entertainment industry, the refusal of these women to buy the book is a lost sale that hurts the author and recipe makers, Using their own arguements, this is THEFT, pure and simple, and should be subject to the full criminal penalties.
It is limited use for educational purposes, and who is to say that they are copying down information from the book, they might be writing a list of books they intend to buy !
I don't really see a major difference between this and the silly "but we have an IP address" argument I see bantered about all the time.
its people trying to make an issue out of something like this who make it impossible to take you seriously when you do try to address a 'real' issue.
Again, it is called satire. And what makes it so effective is it simply uses the same reasoning that we hear from the entertainment industry and copyright maximalists all the time.
If you cannot see the difference between market sellers selling bootleg DVD's and ladies copying out some cooking tips then you do not understand the issues, you do yourself a disservice by trying to press such weak arguments.
WE see the difference very, very clearly. Now, perhaps, YOU have a better understanding (but most likely not) why the rest of us think the RIAA/MPAA and the rest of the entertainment industry is a complete and utter joke. This is the exact same argument we have been listening to from THEM, for close to a decade now.
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> If you cannot see the difference between market sellers
> selling bootleg DVD's and ladies copying out some cooking
> tips then you do not understand the issues
Private copying for personal use is OKAY! -darryl
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These sweet old ladies should simply cough up the money, because living upon a fixed income is easy street. And if they are still working, they will certainly be able to afford the upcoming increase in payroll taxation.
/s
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Missed a great joke
"If only there were a place where I could rent books for free! Oh..."
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While this is true in a limited sense of recipes as a list of ingredients, this is not often the case in the context of an entire recipe complete with instructions as found in a cookbook: The description of the recipe, along with the instructions/explanation for prepping the dish, may be covered by copyright. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html
So, death penalty for the old ladies, but only if they're copying out the part that reads something like "be sure to sift the flower slowly to ensure proper blending and smoothness of the dough"
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It doesn't really qualify....
Bravo
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This is why recipe publishers love e-books
Then I realized... as images, the ingredient lists can get around the exception in copyright law about factual information not being covered. Any image of anything may be copyrighted bu the person who created it...
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Stealing recipes
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