Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 4 Apr 2011 @ 4:41am
Translation?
Elsewhere, KEI has done a good job highlighting some of Maria Martin-Plat's previously stated positions, including this lovely one: "private copying [has] no reason to exist and should be limited further than it is."
Maybe I'm a cynic but that read to me as "Culture is great stuff as long as you pay for it each and every time you want it. Culture is expensive and precious and should not be left in the hands of mere people but kept by corporations who can best decide exactly what culture is and know exactly for to charge for.. uh, sorry, value it."
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 1 Apr 2011 @ 9:12am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
who cares? then don't use it.
Ah.. so it doesn't matter if my copyright protections don't work just so long as a corporation that did not create anything but happens to own the copyright for a song written 50 years ago gets to get paid for it ad-infinitum with no further work and no further creation? Nice to know you think the law should be so even-handed. I therefore guess that you are either in the latter category or neuronic-ally challenged.
That doesn't mean you get to infringe the rights of an individual who does.
To quote Samuel L. Jackson: "[E]very time you make an assumption, you make an ass out of you...and umption."
Ad hominem attacks (that's ranting about personal stuff that's totally beside the point) really don't work very well when you know nothing whatsoever about the person you're attempting to attack.
That just makes you a selfish douchebag.
[sarcasm]Well bravo sir, your rapier-like wit and succinct arguments so tightly on-point completely convince me that copyright is everything to do with society and not at all about greedy corporations buying the result to the detriment of most people. After all, being such a clear example of a polite, upstanding- nay,(dare I say it?) OUTstanding - member of society yourself, you would clearly be in the best position to know.[/sarcasm]
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 1 Apr 2011 @ 3:22am
That's where you're going wrong you see.....
I'm trying to figure out how this could possibly make sense in a country that has even marginal respect for free speech.
You're mistaking the UK for a country that has even a marginal respect for free speech. We turned into a police state some time ago and didn't bother to tell anyone including the residents.
What kind of country allows such a ridiculous suppression of basic rights?
What, like the right to remain silent when arrested?
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 1 Apr 2011 @ 3:09am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Who said anything about enhancements?
You did. You are talking about copyright "protections" in their current form. Current copyright law resembles in very few ways the original law due to the "enhancements" on behalf of those with a very specific vested interest in the outcome therefore the enhancements and their source are relevant to the discussion especially as it relates to your claim of "society's will".
And what do you care about the length of copyright?
I care about it in as much as I'd like to see the laws resemble something actually achieves its alleged purpose and actually be about society rather than being a protectionist money grab for very few. As a creator of content, my own work is theoretically protected by copyright just as much as a song. Know how much actual "protection" or "benefit" I get from copyright? None. Know how much I care if my work is copied by others? Not even slightly - anyone who can copies it needs to understand it to make use of it and if they do they're at least as smart as me so good luck to them.
99% of the stuff you guys rip off is less than a couple years old.
I'm just the one person thank you and consider 90% of the stuff from the last decade to be trash, not that that is any more relevant to the source of copyright laws than your own non-sequitur.
Your pathetic rebuttal is transparent.
Your ad hominem ranting at my observation on your use of language as it relates to the source of copyright laws is.... well let us just say it's a good thing my monitor has really good contrast.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 1 Apr 2011 @ 2:07am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Society made copyright as a protection
Hmmm to my memory all the "enhancements" of copyright law since it was invented have been at the behest of either artists with a vested interest (sonny bono) or corporations with a vested interest(disney). Clearly we are using a new and interesting definition of the word "society" that I wasn't previously aware of. Copyright law seems to have largely formed by roughly the equivalent of asking only prius drivers and residents of Pensecola beach to write a law as to what should happen to companies who's quality control is less than 100% effective.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 30 Mar 2011 @ 7:28am
Re: Re: Boing
this is the dead cat bounce you mention. is there a brief spike in music sales while the fragmented community settles in elsewhere, or does each shutdown actually create long term buyers?
I'd think it unlikely. If there was more "carrot" maybe you might get the effect of "Oh, you know what? Now I come to try is again buying stuff is actually really easy and convenient - well worth the money.". The reality of "more stick" is that after a few months/years/whatever those people are more likely to start thinking "God this DRM stuff is awful, to play this music everywhere I want it I pretty much have to be a 'criminal' anyway so why am I paying for it again?"
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 29 Mar 2011 @ 1:04pm
Re:
Anytime a "new work" uses a bunch of someone else's work, try this:
Remove the "borrowed" parts of the new work.
Then look at what you have left.
Interesting thought idea. So what granularity to you apply? Take music; how many chord combinations? How many songs consist of a few bars "stolen" from various sources? How many lyrics (lines, 1/2 lines, key prhases), borrowed from other songs, poetry, literature? If the granularity is words I'm pretty sure most of them have been used before (though to be fair I can't remember the use of "floccinaucinihilipilification" in any song.. perhaps there's an opportunity there?).
Point is, unless you set the granularity at "most of the song", then the aswer to your implied question applied to music is "not a lot" for any case. In the case of "art" like Prince, *shrug* would it have made a difference if he'd taken the extra 10 minutes to re-shoot a similar photo of his own in the same pose, and perhaps pasted the original guy's body over it too? If so, why's that different?
Where's the line? Who gets to say what the magic number of "sameness" is? Who gets to say what ganularity constitutes a "copied element"? I think Prince's picture sucks too, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not art or as "original" as anything else.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 29 Mar 2011 @ 12:39pm
Re: Re: So why didn't she recuse herself?
You mean whiny tech and freetard blogs like this one?
Any time you want to go away and find a blog for arrogant, rude, pointless people who whinge about how hard-done-by they are because the goverment doesn't just automatically tax everyone and give them the money instead of them having to work for a living would be just fine. Send a postcard.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 29 Mar 2011 @ 4:44am
Re: Re: Re:
So, if music was a 70 billion a year industry and even 10% of that is lost (7 billion) don't you think someone should work on enforcement?
Don't you think that if this 10% figure were real and really all due to "piracy" it might be worth a look at breaking it down as to why those people are "pirating" and focus on selling to the ones that will stop it if you provide them what they want rather than spending millions buying new laws that won't work and brand every single one of those people as "Thieves that are killing kittens and clubbing baby Jesus with a seal and should be locked up, flensed and preferably executed with their estates given to us"? That would seem to me to provide a more cost-effective alternative that might, well you know, actually get a useful result.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 29 Mar 2011 @ 4:21am
Yes and no
My feeling on this kind of thing is that the use of data shouldn't necessarily be regulated but what should be mandated by law (otherwise it simply won't happen) is that the company should have a clear opt-in/opt-out choice for the consumer as to how they are allowed to use that data especially when it comes to marketing. Just because I might buy a coffee machine from a company doesn't mean I want them to ring me up and ask me how it is and try and sell me something else nor give my details to coffee manufacturers to do the same thing. On the other hand I might want them to, but I think that should be my choice not theirs. I don't think there should be an implicit contract that just because you have interacted with them and therefore given them data about you that they can do anything they like with it with no further permission from you.
There's regulations like that in the UK and they sort of work, as well as "Telephone preference" and "mailing preference" lists to prevent junk marketing, but they are muddy at best, poorly advertised and usually bent by lobbying for exceptions.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 25 Mar 2011 @ 10:09am
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well, from the recording industry's point of view, if you acquire music, and you don't pay them, then you are a pirate.
Well, from the recording industry's point of view, if you acquire, listen to, are informed of or even think about music, and you don't pay them, then you are a pirate.
There FTFY :-)
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 24 Mar 2011 @ 8:17am
First reaction
My first reaction to this article was "Meh, society adapts around a new ubiquitous technology, so what?".
Then again in other areas there's so much "railing at the waves" that goes on at exactly this effect it makes it a somewhat more interesting observation......
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 23 Mar 2011 @ 5:19am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That 10% is roughly in the millions for my uncle's company. So, they might try to negotiate, they might try to find some prior art, they might threaten litigation and an attempt to kill the patent (which is currently licensed to a dozen or so other companies, thus pulling in $$$ for the patentee). You never know what they'll do. They might get sued themselves. They might not infringe at all.
IANAL and neither am I in a business where I have to worry much about patents, but that all sounds pretty damn uncertain to me and were I in that position the thought of forking over 10% of what I make on what might well be a tight margin doesn't sound like it's encouraging me to take a chance. Even more so if I have to do that 2 or 5 or however many times with multiple licenses. So I'd say that suggests that at least in some cases patents hinder innovation.
I'd be especially p*ssed off if I was paying the 10% for something I could knock up on the back of a fag packet without ever knowing the patent existed (there was a menu payment system patent posted in here not so long ago that was well in this category for example). I'd say that was a good argument for anything that heads even slightly in the direction of better patents since every piece of legislation or decisions I've seen heads the other way or ignores it (a limited subset to be sure so if there's evidence the other way, then by all means....).
But like I said, it happens every day in the business world, and somehow some companies (all the ones you know of plus all the rest in the world) are still standing. Some companies get sued out of existance. It's true. That is a downside.
And that to me is the argument. You yourself (who seem to be pro-patent) say there's a downside to patents. The downsides are sometimes pretty obvious and some are pretty specific (number of companies folded due to patent suits perhaps?) and I'd guess that numbers could be or have been attached to them.
On the other hand I've yet to see anyone come up with equally specific argument of the "good" side of patents. I'm not anti-patent and I'm willing to accept there is one but it seems nebulous - based on a "Oh well getting payed for stuff you invent must be an incentive, right?", rather than any quantitative study of how many of those patented "inventions" might have been created no matter what patent term or lack of patent applied.To me arguments like "Oh well that's the way it is and it's OK because not that many companies go out of business because of patent suits and I don't think it stops that many new companies or products" simply aren't good enough. For patent to be valid it should be definitively shown that;
patent benefit - patent (your word) "downside" >= no patent benefit - no patent "downside"
And then if it comes out on the patent side to keep going until you find the right method of controlling patent to maximize that number. Inertia is not a good reason for doing anything.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 23 Mar 2011 @ 2:28am
Re: Re: Re:
Well, irl, companies do this thing called "licensing" and let other companies use their patents. And, post ebay, you practically get a compulsory license unless there is really some equitable reason to issue an injunction against you.
Lets see, how might that conversation go IRL?
"Hello we'd like to license your patent please we're building this thing"
"Certainly sir, well it's a nice broad patent that you can't possibly build something like that without and we have a monopoly here so that'll be a gazillion pounds please."
"Hang on a minute our projections for the first 5 years say we can only make a couple of billion we can't afford that. We're just going to have to invent something ourselves."
"Oh I'm sorry sir but our patent is so ridiculously vague and non-specific that anything you could invent that does even faintly the same job will covered by the patent too so I'm afraid we're going to have to sue you if you don't pay up. We get our money either way so I guess you won't be competing with us any time soon. Goodbye sir..."
"Oh F**K!*
Nah, never happens right?
On the post: Questions Asked About EU Appointing IFPI Lobbyist To Copyright Role
Translation?
Maybe I'm a cynic but that read to me as "Culture is great stuff as long as you pay for it each and every time you want it. Culture is expensive and precious and should not be left in the hands of mere people but kept by corporations who can best decide exactly what culture is and know exactly for to charge for.. uh, sorry, value it."
On the post: Exploit On Hadopi Site Turns It Into Pirate Bay Supporter
Re: satire v real life
But.. wait, hang on? There's a difference? I'd always assumed it was all some sort of cosmic drawing room farce.
On the post: The Cognitive Science Explanation For Why Copyright Doesn't Make Much Sense
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Ah.. so it doesn't matter if my copyright protections don't work just so long as a corporation that did not create anything but happens to own the copyright for a song written 50 years ago gets to get paid for it ad-infinitum with no further work and no further creation? Nice to know you think the law should be so even-handed. I therefore guess that you are either in the latter category or neuronic-ally challenged.
To quote Samuel L. Jackson:
"[E]very time you make an assumption, you make an ass out of you...and umption."
Ad hominem attacks (that's ranting about personal stuff that's totally beside the point) really don't work very well when you know nothing whatsoever about the person you're attempting to attack.
[sarcasm]Well bravo sir, your rapier-like wit and succinct arguments so tightly on-point completely convince me that copyright is everything to do with society and not at all about greedy corporations buying the result to the detriment of most people. After all, being such a clear example of a polite, upstanding- nay,(dare I say it?) OUTstanding - member of society yourself, you would clearly be in the best position to know.[/sarcasm]
On the post: Bizarre UK Free Speech Ban Bars People From Telling Anyone -- Including Elected Officials & Lawyers -- About Potential Toxic Chemicals
Re: Re: That's where you're going wrong you see.....
And yet.......
On the post: Bizarre UK Free Speech Ban Bars People From Telling Anyone -- Including Elected Officials & Lawyers -- About Potential Toxic Chemicals
That's where you're going wrong you see.....
You're mistaking the UK for a country that has even a marginal respect for free speech. We turned into a police state some time ago and didn't bother to tell anyone including the residents.
What, like the right to remain silent when arrested?
On the post: The Cognitive Science Explanation For Why Copyright Doesn't Make Much Sense
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You did. You are talking about copyright "protections" in their current form. Current copyright law resembles in very few ways the original law due to the "enhancements" on behalf of those with a very specific vested interest in the outcome therefore the enhancements and their source are relevant to the discussion especially as it relates to your claim of "society's will".
I care about it in as much as I'd like to see the laws resemble something actually achieves its alleged purpose and actually be about society rather than being a protectionist money grab for very few. As a creator of content, my own work is theoretically protected by copyright just as much as a song. Know how much actual "protection" or "benefit" I get from copyright? None. Know how much I care if my work is copied by others? Not even slightly - anyone who can copies it needs to understand it to make use of it and if they do they're at least as smart as me so good luck to them.
I'm just the one person thank you and consider 90% of the stuff from the last decade to be trash, not that that is any more relevant to the source of copyright laws than your own non-sequitur.
Your ad hominem ranting at my observation on your use of language as it relates to the source of copyright laws is.... well let us just say it's a good thing my monitor has really good contrast.
On the post: The Cognitive Science Explanation For Why Copyright Doesn't Make Much Sense
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hmmm to my memory all the "enhancements" of copyright law since it was invented have been at the behest of either artists with a vested interest (sonny bono) or corporations with a vested interest(disney). Clearly we are using a new and interesting definition of the word "society" that I wasn't previously aware of. Copyright law seems to have largely formed by roughly the equivalent of asking only prius drivers and residents of Pensecola beach to write a law as to what should happen to companies who's quality control is less than 100% effective.
On the post: The Cognitive Science Explanation For Why Copyright Doesn't Make Much Sense
Re: Re: Devil's Advocate
Then I'd be interested to hear your definition of the 2.
On the post: The Cognitive Science Explanation For Why Copyright Doesn't Make Much Sense
Re: Devil's Advocate
Surely you mean Wolfenstein 3D? :-)
On the post: Did Limewire Shutdown Increase Music Sales?
Re: Re: Boing
I'd think it unlikely. If there was more "carrot" maybe you might get the effect of "Oh, you know what? Now I come to try is again buying stuff is actually really easy and convenient - well worth the money.". The reality of "more stick" is that after a few months/years/whatever those people are more likely to start thinking "God this DRM stuff is awful, to play this music everywhere I want it I pretty much have to be a 'criminal' anyway so why am I paying for it again?"
On the post: Why Do Some People Have A Mythical Standard Of 'Newness' To Determine What Qualifies As Art?
Re:
Interesting thought idea. So what granularity to you apply? Take music; how many chord combinations? How many songs consist of a few bars "stolen" from various sources? How many lyrics (lines, 1/2 lines, key prhases), borrowed from other songs, poetry, literature? If the granularity is words I'm pretty sure most of them have been used before (though to be fair I can't remember the use of "floccinaucinihilipilification" in any song.. perhaps there's an opportunity there?).
Point is, unless you set the granularity at "most of the song", then the aswer to your implied question applied to music is "not a lot" for any case. In the case of "art" like Prince, *shrug* would it have made a difference if he'd taken the extra 10 minutes to re-shoot a similar photo of his own in the same pose, and perhaps pasted the original guy's body over it too? If so, why's that different?
Where's the line? Who gets to say what the magic number of "sameness" is? Who gets to say what ganularity constitutes a "copied element"? I think Prince's picture sucks too, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not art or as "original" as anything else.
On the post: Judge Who Said Lumping Together Unrelated Copyright Cases Is Fine... Is A Former RIAA Lobbyist
Re: Re:
Ooo geek humour... love it. Yep a divide-by-zero error will do it every time :-)
On the post: Judge Who Said Lumping Together Unrelated Copyright Cases Is Fine... Is A Former RIAA Lobbyist
Re: Re: So why didn't she recuse herself?
Any time you want to go away and find a blog for arrogant, rude, pointless people who whinge about how hard-done-by they are because the goverment doesn't just automatically tax everyone and give them the money instead of them having to work for a living would be just fine. Send a postcard.
On the post: What Have We Learned: Greater IP Enforcement Doesn't Work... Yet That's What Governments Want To Give
Re: Re: Re:
Don't you think that if this 10% figure were real and really all due to "piracy" it might be worth a look at breaking it down as to why those people are "pirating" and focus on selling to the ones that will stop it if you provide them what they want rather than spending millions buying new laws that won't work and brand every single one of those people as "Thieves that are killing kittens and clubbing baby Jesus with a seal and should be locked up, flensed and preferably executed with their estates given to us"?
That would seem to me to provide a more cost-effective alternative that might, well you know, actually get a useful result.
On the post: Is It A Privacy Violation For Companies To Make Inferences About What You Might Like?
Yes and no
There's regulations like that in the UK and they sort of work, as well as "Telephone preference" and "mailing preference" lists to prevent junk marketing, but they are muddy at best, poorly advertised and usually bent by lobbying for exceptions.
On the post: Drop In P2P File Sharing Due To Limewire Shutdown A Pyrrhic Victory For The Recording Industry
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well, from the recording industry's point of view, if you acquire, listen to, are informed of or even think about music, and you don't pay them, then you are a pirate.
There FTFY :-)
On the post: Phone Calls Are So Last Century
First reaction
Then again in other areas there's so much "railing at the waves" that goes on at exactly this effect it makes it a somewhat more interesting observation......
On the post: US Gov't Supports Keeping Patents Difficult To Invalidate
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
IANAL and neither am I in a business where I have to worry much about patents, but that all sounds pretty damn uncertain to me and were I in that position the thought of forking over 10% of what I make on what might well be a tight margin doesn't sound like it's encouraging me to take a chance. Even more so if I have to do that 2 or 5 or however many times with multiple licenses. So I'd say that suggests that at least in some cases patents hinder innovation.
I'd be especially p*ssed off if I was paying the 10% for something I could knock up on the back of a fag packet without ever knowing the patent existed (there was a menu payment system patent posted in here not so long ago that was well in this category for example). I'd say that was a good argument for anything that heads even slightly in the direction of better patents since every piece of legislation or decisions I've seen heads the other way or ignores it (a limited subset to be sure so if there's evidence the other way, then by all means....).
And that to me is the argument. You yourself (who seem to be pro-patent) say there's a downside to patents. The downsides are sometimes pretty obvious and some are pretty specific (number of companies folded due to patent suits perhaps?) and I'd guess that numbers could be or have been attached to them.
On the other hand I've yet to see anyone come up with equally specific argument of the "good" side of patents. I'm not anti-patent and I'm willing to accept there is one but it seems nebulous - based on a "Oh well getting payed for stuff you invent must be an incentive, right?", rather than any quantitative study of how many of those patented "inventions" might have been created no matter what patent term or lack of patent applied.To me arguments like "Oh well that's the way it is and it's OK because not that many companies go out of business because of patent suits and I don't think it stops that many new companies or products" simply aren't good enough. For patent to be valid it should be definitively shown that;
patent benefit - patent (your word) "downside" >= no patent benefit - no patent "downside"
And then if it comes out on the patent side to keep going until you find the right method of controlling patent to maximize that number. Inertia is not a good reason for doing anything.
On the post: US Gov't Supports Keeping Patents Difficult To Invalidate
Re: Things we learn as children...
I thought that was Parker.... :-)
On the post: US Gov't Supports Keeping Patents Difficult To Invalidate
Re: Re: Re:
Lets see, how might that conversation go IRL?
"Hello we'd like to license your patent please we're building this thing"
"Certainly sir, well it's a nice broad patent that you can't possibly build something like that without and we have a monopoly here so that'll be a gazillion pounds please."
"Hang on a minute our projections for the first 5 years say we can only make a couple of billion we can't afford that. We're just going to have to invent something ourselves."
"Oh I'm sorry sir but our patent is so ridiculously vague and non-specific that anything you could invent that does even faintly the same job will covered by the patent too so I'm afraid we're going to have to sue you if you don't pay up. We get our money either way so I guess you won't be competing with us any time soon. Goodbye sir..."
"Oh F**K!*
Nah, never happens right?
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