There is another conclusion, that copyright is an unjust law created by a corrupt government for the ulterior benefit of having its consequently enriched and beholden press suppress sedition.
Thomas Paine tried to explain natural rights to both the French and the Americans, but they too enacted simulacrums of Queen Anne's statute of 1709 that annulled in the majority their natural right to copy - leaving it, by exclusion in the hands of a few (copy-right holders).
If you support copyright, you won't like the natural rights explanation of its demise in the face of the people's natural liberty and right to copy, so don't read this: http://culturalliberty.org/blog/index.php?id=276
IP lawyers get really upset when people point out how unethical these anachronistic privileges are, because deep down, in what remains of their humanity, they subconsciously recognise that they are helping their clients wield instruments of injustice.
They only appear idiosyncratic to those heavily indoctrinated by the "Copyright prevents poor artists from starving" and "Copyright benefits the public" fairy tales (among others).
The recognition of natural rights goes back thousands of years and provides the foundation to the US Constitution. Natural rights also explain why the liberty people naturally possess must inexorably supersede the 18th century privilege granted for the benefit of the press (to annul in the majority, the right to copy, leaving the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few - 'copyright holders').
Why not give it a read? At worst, it'll provide you with even more hilarity. You never know you might even learn* something.
* Did you know that 'learn' comes from old English 'leornian' to follow in another's footsteps, to COPY another's path? But, then, if learning is copying, to those who would prohibit copying, learning must be prohibited too. Such anti-learnists are ignorantly leading us into Fahrenheit 451.
Giving credit is good. Giving credit credits the creditor as well as the credited. However, credit remains a mark of respect. We must be wary not to slip into the idea (inculcated by CC) that it should be a legal requirement to give credit, for then credit ceases to be a mark of respect (it also soon becomes burdensome to attach provenance and cross-fertilisation ‘credits’ to a work).
The natural right is to truth, not to attribution, thus a right to accuracy in attribution, but not a right to be attributed. Thus there is a right against misattribution, which includes the circumstance where misattribution occurs by implication, e.g. through omission and context. A gallery of my unattributed drawings in which one was drawn by someone else, may imply my authorship. The remedy is clarification, e.g. “Not all by me” or attribution “This one by Fred”.
As long as they remain honest and truthful, it is up to the individual whether they give credit – where and when they feel it is necessary and appropriate.
Lastly, as you observe, it is copyright that disincentivises attribution because of the FUD and ever increasing jeopardy for admitting uncleared/unlicensed works as inspiration or source material. Without copyright, people can once again take pride in building upon published works and crediting those they feel should be credited, without the copyright inculcated stigma and risk against it.
One day people will once again no longer ask permission to build upon other artists’ work, and no longer fear to admit they were inspired by others’ works, or that they incorporated any in theirs.
It's pretty obvious copyright and patent are anachronisms. Trouble is, few want to admit this. Too many prefer to believe these turds can be polished up nicely for the 21st century.
They won't last the decade, let alone another century.
Roll on when the court systems don't take kindly to clear abuse of the legislative system as part of a business model, i.e. enacting the privileges of copyright and patent.
I'm of the opinion that if you want a book/album/software that the owner wishes to charge for, then you should pay for it, or don't have it. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me too.
Unfortunately, in 1709 Queen Anne created a law that prohibited anyone from making a copy of a book - even one they had paid for - unless permission was obtained from the holder of this privilege. In 1708 people could freely make copies of books. In 2011 people are once again freely making copies (of eBooks and a lot else). Trouble is, this unethical 18th century law hasn't yet been repealed.
Just because a monopoly has been around for a few hundred years, that doesn't make it any less ethical.
So, let's just abolish copyright and stick with your suggestion of straightforward exchange in a free market.
Author offers to write a novel. Readers offer author money to write one. No money, no novel. No novel, no money. But, if both agree that the offer to write a novel is equivalent to the money offered for its writing, then the exchange can proceed. Author gets the money. Readers get the novel. Then, anyone can print the novel as a book, file-share it as an eBook, or even translate it, abridge it, improve it, or write a sequel, etc. The only ones upset are the immortal publishing corporations who'd been hoping to sell copies at monopoly protected prices for the next two centuries.
Actually, the people are busily wresting back their liberty to share and build upon their own culture.
The corporations and their lawyers who'd rather this liberty remained suspended by copyright and patent term such people pirates. But then, when to be human is to be at liberty to sing each other's songs, tell each other's stories, copy each other's tools & remedies, and to improve upon them, then to be human is to be a pirate.
Folklore occurred without monopoly, its survival depended upon oral tradition, being copied and improved down the generations. File-sharing irrespective of copyright and utilising technology irrespective of patent resumes that primordial tradition.
It's a metaphor. It's figurative: to refer to a familiar situation in order to explain an unfamiliar one that shares similar dynamics - even if their elements are dissimilar. A 'hive of industry' doesn't necessarily mean that human workers have wings and produce honey, or that bees are intelligent and have two legs.
For bullets substitute copyright litigation. For totalitarian state substitute corporate state.
They aren't shy of suing children - the shock story provides useful publicity.
If guards on the Berlin wall issued court summons to people attempting to cross it without permission, perhaps you would have found it a more apt metaphor?
What do you think of the copyright holder who obtained a sentence of 6 months in prison for Emmanuel Nimley (who shared some iPhoned recordings he'd made of a few movies)?
The shooting of one in umpteen thousand wall breachers is a METAPHOR for the penalty used by copyright holders against infringers unlucky enough to be selected as educational examples - as a grievously futile and patently ineffective deterrent - against an action they should be naturally at liberty to enjoy in any case.
You should be more worried that your speech is abridged by copyright than stunned by mock surprise at an apposite metaphor.
"Godwin's law itself can be abused, as a distraction, diversion or even censorship, that fallaciously miscasts an opponent's argument as hyperbole, especially if the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate."
Copyright is bit like the Berlin wall, but with umpteen sections completely destroyed and only a few guard towers remaining. Thousands of people enjoy the restoration of their liberty to pass through the gaps every day - in both directions. Unfortunately, there's one bitter & twisted soldier in a guard tower who each week receives a magazine of ammunition for his rifle. Now and then, when he sees a particularly naive wall-transgressor, he shoots them in the leg. He has been told that this will serve as an educational deterrent, and thus maintain the wall's effectiveness.
When I say that copyright should be abolished, I'm saying that the wall's guards should be disarmed and stood down, and the remains of the wall entirely dismantled.
All you're saying is "What can we replace the wall with to control the movement of people?", and "I don't see how dismantling the wall is better than keeping it", and "The wall never prevented people from crossing so as long a they obtained the necessary visas".
Alex, the wall has become ineffective. We should abolish it to prevent any more file-sharing kids being shot (sued/fined/bankrupted/imprisoned). The wall's military infrastructure (copyright cartel) will come to an end, but musicians will keep on making music, and their fans will keep on paying them.
Now I have a hunch you're just going to tell me "Well, I think we should keep the wall - until we have a better way to control the movement of people across our (imaginary) political borders".
Alex, you will have to shift paradigms at some point.
I'm just letting you know that without intermediary publishers exploiting a monopoly to provide an artist with a 1% royalty, it is possible for artists to exchange their work directly, for the money of those in their audience who want them to produce more work.
Note that a free market involves voluntary exchange.
A monopoly is state granted power, compulsion. A loss of power (copyright's dissolution and abolition) is obviously not a replacement for power. If you're looking to replace copyright you're looking for a power that is as effective as copyright once was. About the only thing that would do it is a tax or mulct on the Internet to fund the publishing corporations directly - bypassing the tedious scam of selling digital copies that cost nothing to make. This could be achieved via ACTA by enabling the provision of premium, licensed Internet subscriptions vs unlicensed ones (subject to invasive infringement policing & penalties). My hunch is that this hasn't got a hope in hell, but I could be wrong.
Bear in mind that copyright has already ended in effect. If you sell one copy of a novel as an ebook (and it's popular) it's going to be pirated anyway - irrespective of your privilege of copyright, that if you were very wealthy you might try prosecuting against a few random victims.
You have to sell your novel - not copies of it. That means you build up an audience from which you invite commissions/sponsorship for each further novellette/novella/novel. If you get 100% of revenue from 1% of your readers that's equivalent to a 1% royalty from sales to 100% of them.
Copyright is a privilege. That means it annuls the right to copy in the majority to leave the right by exclusion in the hands of a few. So, copyright is not a right so much as a law that enables the holder of the privilege to prohibit the enjoyment of the right in others (others who were born with that liberty and power, the natural right to copy the songs and stories they heard, to improve and retell them).
Copyright is law that was first enacted in 1709 (The Statute of Anne). It was re-enacted in 1790 in the US.
This anachronistic law, that youngsters are today ignoring in ever greater numbers, this instrument of injustice (ask Joel Tenenbaum or Jammie Thomas), should be abolished, repealed. And thus people's cultural liberty, their right to copy is restored.
So yes, abolish the publishing corporations' privilege of copyright, and thus restore the people's right to copy.
Rights are not 'kept'. We are born with them. We create governments to secure them.
Governments however, if we let them get away with it, can assume power beyond that provided by the people (via Constitution) and grant privileges (such as were often granted by Kings & Queens), and James Madison assumed the power to grant the privilege of copyright (which requires the legislative derogation of the people's right to copy from their liberty - that they created the government to protect in the first place - the Statue of Liberty is a big reminder).
We have a right to exclude others from our material and intellectual possessions because we have a natural power & need to (we build houses and lock the doors). Conversely we have no natural power or need to prevent others singing the songs we sing to them or retelling the stories we tell to them, or improving them. That doesn't mean such power is not attractive - to those who'd rather a monopoly to exploit than their liberty left intact.
We do not and cannot abolish rights. We can however, and should, abolish the archaic, unethical and now anachronistic privileges that derogate from them - especially copyright and patent.
Cultural and technological progress is promoted by preserving people's liberty, to share and build upon each others' ideas. State granted monopolies may well be potentially lucrative to those who receive them, but they represent a net loss to society (loss of opportunity and cost of administrative/policing overheads and inhibition of intercourse). All an author or inventor needs to enable commercial exchange of their writings and inventions is the recognition and securing of the exclusive right to them. It is the act of releasing their work from this (rightful) exclusive possession into the possession of the purchaser that enables commerce. Note that 'the purchaser' can just as well comprise a consortium of 10,000 sufferers of a particular disorder as a single person.
Well, firstly the progress clause only provided power to secure the author's exclusive right to their writings and being a natural right this should certainly be secured.
Copyright was enacted with the insinuation that it would help secure the author's exclusive right - even as it at the same time derogated the right to copy from everyone's liberty.
Securing the exclusive right to one's intellectual works is essential to the commercial exchange of that work, e.g. for money. So, this carries on anyway.
Your question is probably more about how authors exchange their work directly with their readers, for their money, i.e. given the monopoly of copyright granted for the benefit of the printing industry is no longer effective (and so should be abolished). All you need is a marketplace where author and readers can meet, make their offers, and do an exchange. Selling the work in one go instead of copies.
On the post: France Three Strikes Law Suggests A Huge Percentage Of French Citizens At Risk Of Losing Internet Access
Re: Re: Re:
And don't worry, I do 'realize'.
On the post: France Three Strikes Law Suggests A Huge Percentage Of French Citizens At Risk Of Losing Internet Access
Re:
Thomas Paine tried to explain natural rights to both the French and the Americans, but they too enacted simulacrums of Queen Anne's statute of 1709 that annulled in the majority their natural right to copy - leaving it, by exclusion in the hands of a few (copy-right holders).
If you support copyright, you won't like the natural rights explanation of its demise in the face of the people's natural liberty and right to copy, so don't read this: http://culturalliberty.org/blog/index.php?id=276
On the post: Shouldn't Free Mean The Same Thing Whether Followed By 'Culture' Or 'Software'?
Re: Re: Re: Good Post
Incidentally, who was that "annoying regular commenter"?
On the post: Rihanna Sued By Yet Another Photographer Who Doesn't Understand That An Homage Is Not A Copy
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Echt Copying
Here's another of my recent 'cat among the pigeons' visits: http://www.copyhype.com/2011/06/demonizing-copyright
IP lawyers get really upset when people point out how unethical these anachronistic privileges are, because deep down, in what remains of their humanity, they subconsciously recognise that they are helping their clients wield instruments of injustice.
On the post: Rihanna Sued By Yet Another Photographer Who Doesn't Understand That An Homage Is Not A Copy
Re: Re: Re: Re: Echt Copying
The recognition of natural rights goes back thousands of years and provides the foundation to the US Constitution. Natural rights also explain why the liberty people naturally possess must inexorably supersede the 18th century privilege granted for the benefit of the press (to annul in the majority, the right to copy, leaving the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few - 'copyright holders').
I've written on this recently in The 18th Century Overture - A Crescendo of Copyright - Natural Finale and Reprise.
Why not give it a read? At worst, it'll provide you with even more hilarity. You never know you might even learn* something.
* Did you know that 'learn' comes from old English 'leornian' to follow in another's footsteps, to COPY another's path? But, then, if learning is copying, to those who would prohibit copying, learning must be prohibited too. Such anti-learnists are ignorantly leading us into Fahrenheit 451.
On the post: Is Copyright Needed To Stop Plagiarism?
No right to attribution
The natural right is to truth, not to attribution, thus a right to accuracy in attribution, but not a right to be attributed. Thus there is a right against misattribution, which includes the circumstance where misattribution occurs by implication, e.g. through omission and context. A gallery of my unattributed drawings in which one was drawn by someone else, may imply my authorship. The remedy is clarification, e.g. “Not all by me” or attribution “This one by Fred”.
As long as they remain honest and truthful, it is up to the individual whether they give credit – where and when they feel it is necessary and appropriate.
Lastly, as you observe, it is copyright that disincentivises attribution because of the FUD and ever increasing jeopardy for admitting uncleared/unlicensed works as inspiration or source material. Without copyright, people can once again take pride in building upon published works and crediting those they feel should be credited, without the copyright inculcated stigma and risk against it.
One day people will once again no longer ask permission to build upon other artists’ work, and no longer fear to admit they were inspired by others’ works, or that they incorporated any in theirs.
On the post: Kind Of Blue: Using Copyright To Make Hobby Artist Pay Up
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: The Anachronism Of Today's Patent And Copyright Laws
Anachronism is the word
They won't last the decade, let alone another century.
See Natural Finale and Reprise.
On the post: ACS:Law Boss Andrew Crossley Breached Solicitor's Code, 'Brought The Legal Profession Into Disrepute'
How about the legislative system?
On the post: Revisiting The Question Of Who Deserves Copyright
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: alternatives...
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me too.
Unfortunately, in 1709 Queen Anne created a law that prohibited anyone from making a copy of a book - even one they had paid for - unless permission was obtained from the holder of this privilege. In 1708 people could freely make copies of books. In 2011 people are once again freely making copies (of eBooks and a lot else). Trouble is, this unethical 18th century law hasn't yet been repealed.
Just because a monopoly has been around for a few hundred years, that doesn't make it any less ethical.
So, let's just abolish copyright and stick with your suggestion of straightforward exchange in a free market.
Author offers to write a novel. Readers offer author money to write one. No money, no novel. No novel, no money. But, if both agree that the offer to write a novel is equivalent to the money offered for its writing, then the exchange can proceed. Author gets the money. Readers get the novel. Then, anyone can print the novel as a book, file-share it as an eBook, or even translate it, abridge it, improve it, or write a sequel, etc. The only ones upset are the immortal publishing corporations who'd been hoping to sell copies at monopoly protected prices for the next two centuries.
On the post: Why Do We Let Those Who Benefit Most From Monopolies Write The Laws That Grant Them?
Repeal copyright now!
The corporations and their lawyers who'd rather this liberty remained suspended by copyright and patent term such people pirates. But then, when to be human is to be at liberty to sing each other's songs, tell each other's stories, copy each other's tools & remedies, and to improve upon them, then to be human is to be a pirate.
The rot can be rooted out if you dig deep enough - see The 18th Century Overture - A Crescendo of Copyright - Natural Finale and Reprise.
Folklore occurred without monopoly, its survival depended upon oral tradition, being copied and improved down the generations. File-sharing irrespective of copyright and utilising technology irrespective of patent resumes that primordial tradition.
On the post: Revisiting The Question Of Who Deserves Copyright
Re:
For bullets substitute copyright litigation. For totalitarian state substitute corporate state.
They aren't shy of suing children - the shock story provides useful publicity.
If guards on the Berlin wall issued court summons to people attempting to cross it without permission, perhaps you would have found it a more apt metaphor?
On the post: Revisiting The Question Of Who Deserves Copyright
Re: Re: Re: Re:
What do you think of the copyright holder who obtained a sentence of 6 months in prison for Emmanuel Nimley (who shared some iPhoned recordings he'd made of a few movies)?
The shooting of one in umpteen thousand wall breachers is a METAPHOR for the penalty used by copyright holders against infringers unlucky enough to be selected as educational examples - as a grievously futile and patently ineffective deterrent - against an action they should be naturally at liberty to enjoy in any case.
On the post: Revisiting The Question Of Who Deserves Copyright
Re: Re:
On the post: Revisiting The Question Of Who Deserves Copyright
Copyright is bit like the Berlin wall, but with umpteen sections completely destroyed and only a few guard towers remaining. Thousands of people enjoy the restoration of their liberty to pass through the gaps every day - in both directions. Unfortunately, there's one bitter & twisted soldier in a guard tower who each week receives a magazine of ammunition for his rifle. Now and then, when he sees a particularly naive wall-transgressor, he shoots them in the leg. He has been told that this will serve as an educational deterrent, and thus maintain the wall's effectiveness.
When I say that copyright should be abolished, I'm saying that the wall's guards should be disarmed and stood down, and the remains of the wall entirely dismantled.
All you're saying is "What can we replace the wall with to control the movement of people?", and "I don't see how dismantling the wall is better than keeping it", and "The wall never prevented people from crossing so as long a they obtained the necessary visas".
Alex, the wall has become ineffective. We should abolish it to prevent any more file-sharing kids being shot (sued/fined/bankrupted/imprisoned). The wall's military infrastructure (copyright cartel) will come to an end, but musicians will keep on making music, and their fans will keep on paying them.
Now I have a hunch you're just going to tell me "Well, I think we should keep the wall - until we have a better way to control the movement of people across our (imaginary) political borders".
My hunch may be wrong...
On the post: Revisiting The Question Of Who Deserves Copyright
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'm just letting you know that without intermediary publishers exploiting a monopoly to provide an artist with a 1% royalty, it is possible for artists to exchange their work directly, for the money of those in their audience who want them to produce more work.
Note that a free market involves voluntary exchange.
A monopoly is state granted power, compulsion. A loss of power (copyright's dissolution and abolition) is obviously not a replacement for power. If you're looking to replace copyright you're looking for a power that is as effective as copyright once was. About the only thing that would do it is a tax or mulct on the Internet to fund the publishing corporations directly - bypassing the tedious scam of selling digital copies that cost nothing to make. This could be achieved via ACTA by enabling the provision of premium, licensed Internet subscriptions vs unlicensed ones (subject to invasive infringement policing & penalties). My hunch is that this hasn't got a hope in hell, but I could be wrong.
On the post: Revisiting The Question Of Who Deserves Copyright
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You have to sell your novel - not copies of it. That means you build up an audience from which you invite commissions/sponsorship for each further novellette/novella/novel. If you get 100% of revenue from 1% of your readers that's equivalent to a 1% royalty from sales to 100% of them.
On the post: Revisiting The Question Of Who Deserves Copyright
Re: Re: Re:
Copyright is a privilege. That means it annuls the right to copy in the majority to leave the right by exclusion in the hands of a few. So, copyright is not a right so much as a law that enables the holder of the privilege to prohibit the enjoyment of the right in others (others who were born with that liberty and power, the natural right to copy the songs and stories they heard, to improve and retell them).
Copyright is law that was first enacted in 1709 (The Statute of Anne). It was re-enacted in 1790 in the US.
This anachronistic law, that youngsters are today ignoring in ever greater numbers, this instrument of injustice (ask Joel Tenenbaum or Jammie Thomas), should be abolished, repealed. And thus people's cultural liberty, their right to copy is restored.
So yes, abolish the publishing corporations' privilege of copyright, and thus restore the people's right to copy.
On the post: Revisiting The Question Of Who Deserves Copyright
Re:
Governments however, if we let them get away with it, can assume power beyond that provided by the people (via Constitution) and grant privileges (such as were often granted by Kings & Queens), and James Madison assumed the power to grant the privilege of copyright (which requires the legislative derogation of the people's right to copy from their liberty - that they created the government to protect in the first place - the Statue of Liberty is a big reminder).
We have a right to exclude others from our material and intellectual possessions because we have a natural power & need to (we build houses and lock the doors). Conversely we have no natural power or need to prevent others singing the songs we sing to them or retelling the stories we tell to them, or improving them. That doesn't mean such power is not attractive - to those who'd rather a monopoly to exploit than their liberty left intact.
We do not and cannot abolish rights. We can however, and should, abolish the archaic, unethical and now anachronistic privileges that derogate from them - especially copyright and patent.
Cultural and technological progress is promoted by preserving people's liberty, to share and build upon each others' ideas. State granted monopolies may well be potentially lucrative to those who receive them, but they represent a net loss to society (loss of opportunity and cost of administrative/policing overheads and inhibition of intercourse). All an author or inventor needs to enable commercial exchange of their writings and inventions is the recognition and securing of the exclusive right to them. It is the act of releasing their work from this (rightful) exclusive possession into the possession of the purchaser that enables commerce. Note that 'the purchaser' can just as well comprise a consortium of 10,000 sufferers of a particular disorder as a single person.
On the post: Revisiting The Question Of Who Deserves Copyright
Re: alternatives...
Copyright was enacted with the insinuation that it would help secure the author's exclusive right - even as it at the same time derogated the right to copy from everyone's liberty.
Securing the exclusive right to one's intellectual works is essential to the commercial exchange of that work, e.g. for money. So, this carries on anyway.
Your question is probably more about how authors exchange their work directly with their readers, for their money, i.e. given the monopoly of copyright granted for the benefit of the printing industry is no longer effective (and so should be abolished). All you need is a marketplace where author and readers can meet, make their offers, and do an exchange. Selling the work in one go instead of copies.
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