Copyright is the legislature's annulling of the people's right to copy. Contract cannot do this. It is not law, but agreement. People cannot agree to surrender their rights (as opposed to privileges).
And no, you cannot exchange service. You make an exchange conditional on service, e.g. "I'll pay you $5 if you wash my car" - Not "I hereby submit myself to you into temporary bondage (assured by penalty of prison or severe fine) that I will wash your car to your satisfaction at a time of your choosing, for which I may receive $5 consideration".
Payment for service (as opposed to bondage) works like this: If I wash your car, you owe me $5. If I don't, you owe me nothing, I owe you nothing. If you paid me $5 in advance and I don't provide the labour I owe you $5. Whatever agreement I make I remain at liberty not to provide my labour, and the law doesn't require my punishment for enjoying that liberty. Otherwise, you're just arguing for slavery.
Why don't you have a go at justification and put your name to it rather than anonymous gainsaying?
A license is not force, but liberty, so it's a bit odd to talk of enforcing a license.
Even in the case of a copyleft license, one still asserts or enforces one's copyright to ensure that a licensee licenses their derivative as per the license condition.
A privilege is 'private legislation' and requires a legislature, i.e. you have to be a king or Congress. We can all make agreements, but we can't all pass laws.
NB Copyright was a privilege granted unconstitutionally by the US Congress.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A license isn't a contract
Let us say there is a royal decree that no-one save royalty can cross The Mall (an otherwise public street) without permission from the crown, which the mayor has been empowered to grant.
Your liberty to cross that street has been suspended.
The mayor can provide you or anyone with a license to cross it (conditionally restoring to people the liberty to cross that they once had). A license needs no consent on the part of the licensee.
This license could have as one of its conditions that the day is a Tuesday.
Note that the licensor is the holder or assign of the privilege derogating from people's liberty. In other words, only those privileged are able to provide a license.
Of course some people would say "Sod the king!" and cross whenever they wanted.
You do know that the privilege of copyright was established by Queen Anne's royal decree in 1709 don't you? And her statute copied by the US in 1790.
It's time to say "Sod the Queen!" and sing each others' songs whenever you want. That's how folk music used to work until copyright put a stop to it. Filesharing is just the tide of folk music coming back in, and there's nothing any King or Queen Canute can do about it.
No need to cross your fingers. Extortion does not obtain agreement.
As you observe, you've paid $2,000 for an authorised copy. The exchange has completed. The breaking of a seal or performing any other action necessary to utilise your property cannot signify agreement to anything. Agreement is something provided voluntarily, not under duress.
Unfortunately this is moot, because copyright is extortion in the first place, i.e. "Settle for $X or my privilege of copyright that allows me to so extort you is likely to cost you 2-10,0000 x $X depending upon your budget (and remote chance of a sympathetic judge)". Predictably, copyright litigants tend to sue those with smaller litigation budgets. Hence copyright is a privilege for the larger corporation, not the meek individual protesting duress.
Generally, you can just ignore copyright, licenses, EULAs, etc. until you become an attractive target. It doesn't even matter if you're squeaky clean, being sued is always expensive for you and usually lucrative to the litigant. Copyright is a weapon by which the larger subjugate the smaller. It's an instrument of injustice. An anachronism overdue for abolition.
Licenses are not enforceable. Copyright is enforceable. Licenses restore to people their liberties suspended by copyright. Licenses do not grant privileges. The state grants privileges. Copyright is a privilege. Copyright annuls the right to copy in the majority to leave it, by exclusion, in the hands of a few.
The issue with the promotional CD is whether it was ever the property of the recipient, as opposed to say 'provided on approval'. Copyright doesn't really have much to do with it. If it was the property of the recipient they could transfer it (copyright isn't concerned with transfer of authorised copies). If not, they'd have to return it (or make it available for collection for some limited period).
Being a privilege (law), copyright derogates liberty (unethically).
Contract (agreement) cannot enable an individual to alienate their (inalienable) liberty to make and distribute copies. A reward can be conditioned on non-distribution, sure, but this is not a loss of liberty. A contract is not microlegislature. It can be conditioned on anything, but can only concern the exchange of that which is alienable, i.e. property.
There is nothing magical about calling a document provided with an authorised copy a "EULA". There are contracts/agreements and there are copyright licenses.
1. One can provide a unilaterally agreed contract - optionally agreed to by a recipient (at any time, if ever), and that agreement cannot be inferred (through the performance of an act they are free to perform anyway, such as opening shrink-wrap or operating software, even infringing copyright).
2. One can provide a license (or several).
3. One can provide a unilaterally agreed contract that offers a license in exchange, but remember that a license is not necessary - there is no such thing as an authorised copy that a recipient is prohibited from using without a license.
How do you stop people enjoying their natural liberty to communicate, to tell each other's stories, to sing each other's songs, to engage in free cultural intercourse?
How do you stop immortal corporations persecuting and predating upon the populace?
In the first case, the law is so extreme that downloading ends, and the war ends. There is 'peace', but the populace are effectively subjugated into content consumers, scared stiff to do anything else.
In the second case the copyright cartel's persecution (deliberately directed at the most naive and innocent victims) catalyses the populace into paying the mob's protection money. A cultural mulct is collected from all citizens in exchange for immunity from prosecution (no longer based on guilt or evidence). Thus the people pay an unjust rent to those publishing corporations who've received and amassed the stolen good that is their cultural liberty (Statute of Anne 1709), for its temporary restoration.
In the third case, the people rub the scales from their eyes and realise the emperor is naked, that they had never lost their liberty, that it was all an illusion, that their children have been innocent all along. Artists learn to exchange their intellectual work for the money of their fans in a free market, no longer intermediated by immortal corporations taking most if not all of the revenue for copies that can no longer be priced as if they were expensive to make.
The only reason the third solution is unthinkable is that those in a position to champion it cannot confront the possibility that all their lives they have been wrong in supporting copyright. Copyright MUST be right. That it is an unethical anachronism and instrument of injustice is too horrific to countenance except as incoherent verbiage. People have been indoctrinated by copyright as a religion to believe that it is the only thing able to encourage author to put pen to paper, the only means of enlightening mankind out of cultural oblivion. This is its truth, that it is as essential to our species as circumcision, that any questioning of this is heresy.
To imagine a world without copyright is a failure of imagination.
Incidentally, even without copyright there's nothing stopping those who'd like to persuade a storyteller to tell a story, or a songwriter to write a song, to offer them money to do so.
The crime is to instead offer them as incentive the suspension of all others' liberty to retell the story they've told or to sing the song they've sung. Such a privilege is useful only to printers, and having power only in the hands of an immortal corporation, the price they'll pay a mortal for it is a pittance.
We are no longer free to entertain ourselves with our own culture, but enthralled by the myth that copyright is the only magic that can save us from a cultural yoke the corporations would otherwise put upon us. That copyright encourages our culture is the biggest lie of all. It is a cultural parasite, a corruption, an instrument of injustice.
Copyright - unethically derogate from the liberty of all citizens the right to copy, perform or otherwise communicate any folksong, folktale, or folklore, that printers shall exploit a monopoly in each work to enrich themselves, and being beholden to the state that grants them this privilege shall keep that state safe from challenge.
That might work for a few years - until few citizens can resist taking back their liberty to share their culture with each other in disrespect of such monopolies.
Patronage - all an artist's enthusiastic fans insatiable for more art from them collectively commission the artist to produce further works.
It's a farcical and anachronistic privilege vs exchange of work for money in a free market.
Which is the better incentive? A decent wage OR being able spend one's lifesavings hiring a firm of lawyers to bankrupt the Cratchit's because their Tiny Tim downloaded a Disney DVD?
Re: Re: Same way you measure the benefits of slavery
My point is that in a system in which the loss of liberty is taken for granted, few notice that loss in considering the benefits of its exploitation.
People rarely think of 'what could have been' had people had their rightful liberty - in the case of copyright to share and build upon their own culture for the last three centuries.
Anyway, it's a bit late to ask about the 'benefits' of preventing people from sharing and building upon their own culture. Copyright can no longer prevent them. People are taking back their liberty. All the privileged copyright owners can do is harass some with litigation, or throw a few people in prison now and then by way of threatening the rest.
Instead of appraising the benefits of copyright to publishing corporations and their state, it's probably time to think in terms of abolishing copyright and paying artists (not printers) to produce good art. Free exchange, aka money, is an ethical incentive. A monopoly isn't - it necessarily derogates from everyone's liberty, and, as has been long known, is an instrument of injustice.
If, as an art lover, you want to persuade an artist to work, try offering them money.
If, as the state, you want to enrich publishing corporations in exchange for their support, accede to their wishes for global monopoly harmonisation and entrenchment such as ACTA, and legislate ever more draconian enforcement measures such as COICA - which also help suppress sedition such as WikiLeaks.
What do you want? Cultural liberty and a new renaissance, or subjugation and enslavement in a corporate state? Or as the latter would put it, cultural desolation and starvation, or fulfilling your dreams of wealth and security?
Do you have liberty only in so far as it is useful to the state? Or does the state only have your power in so far as it protects your liberty?
1) The privileged vendor of the slave gets an upfront fee and can haggle for a commission, e.g. 1% of the profits obtained through use of the slave.
2) The privileged slave owner enjoys the lucrative use of a labour resource considerably below market rates, with minimal overheads.
3) The state that permits the privilege of owning slaves is feted, favoured, and rewarded with prompt taxes and back-handers.
Everyone wins! The benefits are obvious, bountiful beyond measure.
The only remaining issue is after what term of service is it optimal to retire the slave? When do the costs of keeping them outweigh the benefit of their labour? That needs an econometrician to figure out.
State security keeps people employed. It means money for manufacturers of security equipment. And you never know what contraband you might find. It also conditions people to acquiesce to the burgeoning totalitarian police state. You can also rapidly sort between the domestic extremists and the compliant & valuable worker citizens.
A few decades ago German citizens woke up to find that they had become much more secure from threats against the state and other undesirable elements.
We joke about it until it happens. And then we stop joking, or rather, the jokers start disappearing...
For an explanation as to why copyright was created, beyond its pretext of 'to encourage learning' I suggest you read http://questioncopyright.org/promise
That copyright is 'well documented' to be about rewarding authors is because it is in the interests of publishers to maintain this well documented deceit.
Enriching publishers (or even authors) with a monopoly at the cost of everyone's liberty may be a purpose, but purpose doesn't make something ethical.
So here's the big question. Why do you think so many people are infringing copyright? Why don't people obey the law that says they can't go around singing a copyright protected song, telling a copyright protected joke, or copying a copyright protected file?
Andrew, the context of my discussion is clearly concerned what the law should be regarding 'making available' and I explain my reasoning based on the salient 'principles' of copyright. If I refer to specific legislation in a specific jurisdiction it will be obvious.
You've clearly noticed that this site is not primarily for lawyers to discuss what the law is, but for anyone to discuss the impact of legislation on society and to what extent it is about exploiting people vs protecting them.
Adding 'making available' to copyright legislation starts to distort copyright from concerning distribution/communication and toward controlling access. Should books be prohibited from libraries without payment of a license fee because this makes them available to the public?
Copyright started being about copies, then included performance and communication, and now includes access/availability and rent/resale. It was supposedly only to be concerned with fixed expression, but now covers the ideas too. It was supposed to be purely a civil matter, but is steadily becoming a criminal one. It used to require evidence, but now guilt can be presumed if the accused is given the opportunity to pay for an appeal tribunal. It used to cover just a single actor in terms of infringement, but now covers intermediaries, facilitators, inducers, etc. Where does it stop?
Are you only concerned with what copyright law is in any particular jurisdiction, or are you also concerned with the ethics of the law too?
Yes, when I say what copyright should or should not class as an infringement, this is based on its 'principle' of enabling the holder to exclude others from copying or communicating a covered work, not on actual legislation in any particular jurisdiction.
"Leaving a solar powered MP3 player with USB port on a public noticeboard should not be a copyright infringement" is distinct from "... is not an infringement according to the UK's current copyright law".
Given people are ending up in prison for pointing their iPhones at the cinema screen, it should give anyone the collywobbles that such complex and arcane law is on the statute books, especially when things that shouldn't be infringements are continuously being added to it.
Copyright is not a law of the people. It is a warrant given by the state to its sponsors to persecute anyone with a smaller litigation budget.
Excuse me, but copyright law assumes a very naive understanding of the Internet. Don't blame me for an unethical anachronism that should have been abolished along with slavery, let alone left to cling on until the eventual demise of the printing press.
Copyright law waves its magic wand of 'ephemeral copies' to dismiss the copying that occurs in the bowels of the Internet.
That copyright is bunk and as foolish as arguing angels on a pin doesn't mean one cannot join those arguments. People are being prosecuted, fined, and imprisoned because of them, so arguing the misapplication of 18th century law to computer networks is not entirely without merit.
The law attempts to recognise a difference between the making of a copy and its communication, that the making of copy/ies is commanded by someone, and the making of that/those copy/ies is performed by someone (probably same person), and that the communication can involve no infringing copies until reception of one or more copies.
Don't complain to me that there's no difference between downloading and streaming. Tell the copyright legislators who still think in terms of distributing printed copies, telegraphic facsimile, and radio broadcasting.
The biggest job is educating the public out of the crazy superstition that they should have the supernatural power to control whether anyone else copies or performs their published work.
"For most people, it just doesn't make sense to pay someone prior to their performing the work."
Quite. I wouldn't pay someone prior to performing the work unless I was confident it would increase the chances of getting the work produced.
However, there's nothing stopping umpteen thousand readers pledging to pay an author upon publication/delivery of their next short story. No story, no money. Good story, good money. No money changes hands prior to performing the work.
On the post: Court Rules That It's Legal To Sell Promotional CDs
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Copyright is the legislature's annulling of the people's right to copy. Contract cannot do this. It is not law, but agreement. People cannot agree to surrender their rights (as opposed to privileges).
And no, you cannot exchange service. You make an exchange conditional on service, e.g. "I'll pay you $5 if you wash my car" - Not "I hereby submit myself to you into temporary bondage (assured by penalty of prison or severe fine) that I will wash your car to your satisfaction at a time of your choosing, for which I may receive $5 consideration".
Payment for service (as opposed to bondage) works like this: If I wash your car, you owe me $5. If I don't, you owe me nothing, I owe you nothing. If you paid me $5 in advance and I don't provide the labour I owe you $5. Whatever agreement I make I remain at liberty not to provide my labour, and the law doesn't require my punishment for enjoying that liberty. Otherwise, you're just arguing for slavery.
Why don't you have a go at justification and put your name to it rather than anonymous gainsaying?
On the post: Court Rules That It's Legal To Sell Promotional CDs
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Even in the case of a copyleft license, one still asserts or enforces one's copyright to ensure that a licensee licenses their derivative as per the license condition.
A privilege is 'private legislation' and requires a legislature, i.e. you have to be a king or Congress. We can all make agreements, but we can't all pass laws.
NB Copyright was a privilege granted unconstitutionally by the US Congress.
On the post: Court Rules That It's Legal To Sell Promotional CDs
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A license isn't a contract
Your liberty to cross that street has been suspended.
The mayor can provide you or anyone with a license to cross it (conditionally restoring to people the liberty to cross that they once had). A license needs no consent on the part of the licensee.
This license could have as one of its conditions that the day is a Tuesday.
Note that the licensor is the holder or assign of the privilege derogating from people's liberty. In other words, only those privileged are able to provide a license.
Of course some people would say "Sod the king!" and cross whenever they wanted.
You do know that the privilege of copyright was established by Queen Anne's royal decree in 1709 don't you? And her statute copied by the US in 1790.
It's time to say "Sod the Queen!" and sing each others' songs whenever you want. That's how folk music used to work until copyright put a stop to it. Filesharing is just the tide of folk music coming back in, and there's nothing any King or Queen Canute can do about it.
On the post: Court Rules That It's Legal To Sell Promotional CDs
Re: Re: Re: Re:
As you observe, you've paid $2,000 for an authorised copy. The exchange has completed. The breaking of a seal or performing any other action necessary to utilise your property cannot signify agreement to anything. Agreement is something provided voluntarily, not under duress.
Unfortunately this is moot, because copyright is extortion in the first place, i.e. "Settle for $X or my privilege of copyright that allows me to so extort you is likely to cost you 2-10,0000 x $X depending upon your budget (and remote chance of a sympathetic judge)". Predictably, copyright litigants tend to sue those with smaller litigation budgets. Hence copyright is a privilege for the larger corporation, not the meek individual protesting duress.
Generally, you can just ignore copyright, licenses, EULAs, etc. until you become an attractive target. It doesn't even matter if you're squeaky clean, being sued is always expensive for you and usually lucrative to the litigant. Copyright is a weapon by which the larger subjugate the smaller. It's an instrument of injustice. An anachronism overdue for abolition.
On the post: Court Rules That It's Legal To Sell Promotional CDs
Re: Re:
The issue with the promotional CD is whether it was ever the property of the recipient, as opposed to say 'provided on approval'. Copyright doesn't really have much to do with it. If it was the property of the recipient they could transfer it (copyright isn't concerned with transfer of authorised copies). If not, they'd have to return it (or make it available for collection for some limited period).
YJMV
On the post: Court Rules That It's Legal To Sell Promotional CDs
Re: Re: Re:
Being a privilege (law), copyright derogates liberty (unethically).
Contract (agreement) cannot enable an individual to alienate their (inalienable) liberty to make and distribute copies. A reward can be conditioned on non-distribution, sure, but this is not a loss of liberty. A contract is not microlegislature. It can be conditioned on anything, but can only concern the exchange of that which is alienable, i.e. property.
There is nothing magical about calling a document provided with an authorised copy a "EULA". There are contracts/agreements and there are copyright licenses.
1. One can provide a unilaterally agreed contract - optionally agreed to by a recipient (at any time, if ever), and that agreement cannot be inferred (through the performance of an act they are free to perform anyway, such as opening shrink-wrap or operating software, even infringing copyright).
2. One can provide a license (or several).
3. One can provide a unilaterally agreed contract that offers a license in exchange, but remember that a license is not necessary - there is no such thing as an authorised copy that a recipient is prohibited from using without a license.
On the post: Court Rules That It's Legal To Sell Promotional CDs
A license isn't a contract
On the post: How Do You Measure The 'Benefits' Of Copyright?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Music tax vs blanket license
"To be unable to imagine a world without copyright is a failure of imagination"
A bit of a tautology. :-}
On the post: How Do You Measure The 'Benefits' Of Copyright?
Re: Re: Re: Music tax vs blanket license
How do you stop immortal corporations persecuting and predating upon the populace?
There are three final solutions:
1) Draconian enforcement - 'cultural terror'
2) Cultural mulct
3) Copyright abolition
In the first case, the law is so extreme that downloading ends, and the war ends. There is 'peace', but the populace are effectively subjugated into content consumers, scared stiff to do anything else.
In the second case the copyright cartel's persecution (deliberately directed at the most naive and innocent victims) catalyses the populace into paying the mob's protection money. A cultural mulct is collected from all citizens in exchange for immunity from prosecution (no longer based on guilt or evidence). Thus the people pay an unjust rent to those publishing corporations who've received and amassed the stolen good that is their cultural liberty (Statute of Anne 1709), for its temporary restoration.
In the third case, the people rub the scales from their eyes and realise the emperor is naked, that they had never lost their liberty, that it was all an illusion, that their children have been innocent all along. Artists learn to exchange their intellectual work for the money of their fans in a free market, no longer intermediated by immortal corporations taking most if not all of the revenue for copies that can no longer be priced as if they were expensive to make.
The only reason the third solution is unthinkable is that those in a position to champion it cannot confront the possibility that all their lives they have been wrong in supporting copyright. Copyright MUST be right. That it is an unethical anachronism and instrument of injustice is too horrific to countenance except as incoherent verbiage. People have been indoctrinated by copyright as a religion to believe that it is the only thing able to encourage author to put pen to paper, the only means of enlightening mankind out of cultural oblivion. This is its truth, that it is as essential to our species as circumcision, that any questioning of this is heresy.
To imagine a world without copyright is a failure of imagination.
http://questioncopyright.org/promise
From Imagine by John Lennon
On the post: How Do You Measure The 'Benefits' Of Copyright?
Re: Re: Re:
Incidentally, even without copyright there's nothing stopping those who'd like to persuade a storyteller to tell a story, or a songwriter to write a song, to offer them money to do so.
The crime is to instead offer them as incentive the suspension of all others' liberty to retell the story they've told or to sing the song they've sung. Such a privilege is useful only to printers, and having power only in the hands of an immortal corporation, the price they'll pay a mortal for it is a pittance.
We are no longer free to entertain ourselves with our own culture, but enthralled by the myth that copyright is the only magic that can save us from a cultural yoke the corporations would otherwise put upon us. That copyright encourages our culture is the biggest lie of all. It is a cultural parasite, a corruption, an instrument of injustice.
On the post: How Do You Measure The 'Benefits' Of Copyright?
Re: Re: Re:
That might work for a few years - until few citizens can resist taking back their liberty to share their culture with each other in disrespect of such monopolies.
Patronage - all an artist's enthusiastic fans insatiable for more art from them collectively commission the artist to produce further works.
It's a farcical and anachronistic privilege vs exchange of work for money in a free market.
Which is the better incentive? A decent wage OR being able spend one's lifesavings hiring a firm of lawyers to bankrupt the Cratchit's because their Tiny Tim downloaded a Disney DVD?
"The latter!" say you all.
On the post: How Do You Measure The 'Benefits' Of Copyright?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Same way you measure the benefits of slavery
When people say copying is theft, they are not making an analogy, but asserting an equivalence.
Copyright isn't slavery, but in derogating from individual liberty it is dimensionally similar.
The difference between copyright and slavery is that whereas slavery suspend all liberties from a few, copyright suspends a few liberties from all.
On the post: How Do You Measure The 'Benefits' Of Copyright?
Re: Re: Same way you measure the benefits of slavery
People rarely think of 'what could have been' had people had their rightful liberty - in the case of copyright to share and build upon their own culture for the last three centuries.
Anyway, it's a bit late to ask about the 'benefits' of preventing people from sharing and building upon their own culture. Copyright can no longer prevent them. People are taking back their liberty. All the privileged copyright owners can do is harass some with litigation, or throw a few people in prison now and then by way of threatening the rest.
Instead of appraising the benefits of copyright to publishing corporations and their state, it's probably time to think in terms of abolishing copyright and paying artists (not printers) to produce good art. Free exchange, aka money, is an ethical incentive. A monopoly isn't - it necessarily derogates from everyone's liberty, and, as has been long known, is an instrument of injustice.
If, as an art lover, you want to persuade an artist to work, try offering them money.
If, as the state, you want to enrich publishing corporations in exchange for their support, accede to their wishes for global monopoly harmonisation and entrenchment such as ACTA, and legislate ever more draconian enforcement measures such as COICA - which also help suppress sedition such as WikiLeaks.
What do you want? Cultural liberty and a new renaissance, or subjugation and enslavement in a corporate state? Or as the latter would put it, cultural desolation and starvation, or fulfilling your dreams of wealth and security?
Do you have liberty only in so far as it is useful to the state? Or does the state only have your power in so far as it protects your liberty?
On the post: How Do You Measure The 'Benefits' Of Copyright?
Same way you measure the benefits of slavery
1) The privileged vendor of the slave gets an upfront fee and can haggle for a commission, e.g. 1% of the profits obtained through use of the slave.
2) The privileged slave owner enjoys the lucrative use of a labour resource considerably below market rates, with minimal overheads.
3) The state that permits the privilege of owning slaves is feted, favoured, and rewarded with prompt taxes and back-handers.
Everyone wins! The benefits are obvious, bountiful beyond measure.
The only remaining issue is after what term of service is it optimal to retire the slave? When do the costs of keeping them outweigh the benefit of their labour? That needs an econometrician to figure out.
On the post: TSA Claims You Need To Be Naked Scanned Or Groped After A Flight?
The state can never have too much security!
A few decades ago German citizens woke up to find that they had become much more secure from threats against the state and other undesirable elements.
We joke about it until it happens. And then we stop joking, or rather, the jokers start disappearing...
On the post: UK Court Says Making Available Online Only Happens Where The Server Is Located
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Okay.
That copyright is 'well documented' to be about rewarding authors is because it is in the interests of publishers to maintain this well documented deceit.
Enriching publishers (or even authors) with a monopoly at the cost of everyone's liberty may be a purpose, but purpose doesn't make something ethical.
So here's the big question. Why do you think so many people are infringing copyright? Why don't people obey the law that says they can't go around singing a copyright protected song, telling a copyright protected joke, or copying a copyright protected file?
On the post: UK Court Says Making Available Online Only Happens Where The Server Is Located
Re: Re: Re: Okay.
You've clearly noticed that this site is not primarily for lawyers to discuss what the law is, but for anyone to discuss the impact of legislation on society and to what extent it is about exploiting people vs protecting them.
Adding 'making available' to copyright legislation starts to distort copyright from concerning distribution/communication and toward controlling access. Should books be prohibited from libraries without payment of a license fee because this makes them available to the public?
Copyright started being about copies, then included performance and communication, and now includes access/availability and rent/resale. It was supposedly only to be concerned with fixed expression, but now covers the ideas too. It was supposed to be purely a civil matter, but is steadily becoming a criminal one. It used to require evidence, but now guilt can be presumed if the accused is given the opportunity to pay for an appeal tribunal. It used to cover just a single actor in terms of infringement, but now covers intermediaries, facilitators, inducers, etc. Where does it stop?
Are you only concerned with what copyright law is in any particular jurisdiction, or are you also concerned with the ethics of the law too?
Regarding imprisonment of folk who iPhone the cinema screen see my comments to this article: "Whoa Shelly Roche…Stealing Does Not Equal Free Speech".
On the post: UK Court Says Making Available Online Only Happens Where The Server Is Located
Re: Okay.
"Leaving a solar powered MP3 player with USB port on a public noticeboard should not be a copyright infringement" is distinct from "... is not an infringement according to the UK's current copyright law".
Given people are ending up in prison for pointing their iPhones at the cinema screen, it should give anyone the collywobbles that such complex and arcane law is on the statute books, especially when things that shouldn't be infringements are continuously being added to it.
Copyright is not a law of the people. It is a warrant given by the state to its sponsors to persecute anyone with a smaller litigation budget.
On the post: UK Court Says Making Available Online Only Happens Where The Server Is Located
Re: Re: Advertising willingness to copy
Copyright law waves its magic wand of 'ephemeral copies' to dismiss the copying that occurs in the bowels of the Internet.
That copyright is bunk and as foolish as arguing angels on a pin doesn't mean one cannot join those arguments. People are being prosecuted, fined, and imprisoned because of them, so arguing the misapplication of 18th century law to computer networks is not entirely without merit.
The law attempts to recognise a difference between the making of a copy and its communication, that the making of copy/ies is commanded by someone, and the making of that/those copy/ies is performed by someone (probably same person), and that the communication can involve no infringing copies until reception of one or more copies.
Don't complain to me that there's no difference between downloading and streaming. Tell the copyright legislators who still think in terms of distributing printed copies, telegraphic facsimile, and radio broadcasting.
The biggest job is educating the public out of the crazy superstition that they should have the supernatural power to control whether anyone else copies or performs their published work.
On the post: UK Ebook Seller Refuses Foreign Customers' Money
Re: Re: Re: Re: A better way
Quite. I wouldn't pay someone prior to performing the work unless I was confident it would increase the chances of getting the work produced.
However, there's nothing stopping umpteen thousand readers pledging to pay an author upon publication/delivery of their next short story. No story, no money. Good story, good money. No money changes hands prior to performing the work.
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