Have crowdfunded contracts come with a clause that says if the project does not meet the deadline, refunds will be given (with interest, maybe? something for the free-market to decide). It's only a matter of time before all the projects tend to this direction. They have to in order to meet the definition of an "assurance contract", which is what these projects essentially are. Like refunding tickets for a cancelled gig, for example. Or subscription refunds for a botched cable broadcast that lasts for a month, or an ISP's service being down that long. Or refunds for people not getting their pre-ordered games for whatever reason. After that's established, consumer security will be better and the sites will become more mainstream, making the copyright believers more furious at the profits of the indie artists.
Alternatively, for lagging projects, the clause could say "if the date deadline is hit and we are not finished, we will have another "leg" of funding take place to be hit within (say) 30 days - (say) another $10,000. If that is not hit, we will consider the project failed and refund anyone who ever backed the project." This will be necessary anyway, as naturally the more time you need the more money you need to give your employees. Stretch goals will be gaining a lot of ground in the future as "extensions" to the original assurance contract, so this will fit in nicely with that.
Every single creative project has to go through this, even under copyright. If a film studio invests in a movie and it botches halfway through production, that studio's money has gone down the toilet whether it likes it or not. That's part of the risk you have to take.
So of course if companies take that sort of risk nowadays they can take it with crowdfunding no problem in relation to losing money due to having to refund funders.
Now I know what some might be thinking: technically if a film was half-finished and the deadline was hit, or just shitty in general and the deadline was hit, they could in theory release the film as it is and still have "met the conditions" of the contract and be able to run away with the money. However, the film studio in the copyright scenario could have done that too. There is no reason why you can't release a half-finished film as a DVD on the shelves of retail shops. Everybody is entitled to try it. The problem is this: reputations suffer. In particular those of the film makers AND most importantly, the retail shops of the DVDs.
Which ties into my next crucial point: like it or not, the obvious next move these crowdfunding sites are going to take - HAVE to take - is to get actively involved with the projects themselves. They are going to want to see it beforehand, to make sure it is up to a reasonable standard. Because (say) Kickstarter will know its reputation is on the line. Kickstarter IS essentially a publisher right now, whether they realise it or not.
Because that quality assurance and quality control are going to slowly but surely become mandatory in order to compete in the crowdfunding market. I've noticed that people do tend to criticse crowdfunding for its projects not having quality assurance, but that criticism won't last long.
But I repeat: not if the artist asks them to pay BEFORE creation. That's the point of the assurance contract. No one can free-ride if they are forced to pay. Bearing in mind that the artist can't get everyone under copyright anyway (second hand sales, pirates unable to be caught anyway, Google, China, torrenters, royalty-cheaters, radios, etc).
He can also ask corporations to do so too (remember, the corporation's traffic and revenue depend on the art as well, so they'd be happy to pay quite a lot into the "hat" too in order to get the art to exist in the first place and hence get the traffic - whereas with copyright they could exploit the artist's hopeless trust in copyright's empty promises of property protection).
"Game theory" effects won't kick in, because any pirate trying to "wait it out" without paying will soon find out that everybody else will be thinking likewise. Therefore the pirate would rather chip in to avoid the tipping point - he wouldn't have a choice. In other words: the pirates as a whole are responsible for their actions because the art's existence depends on their paying.
That applies to the corporations too. One corporation couldn't wait on the other corporation to pledge, else the artist would simply say "nope, I'm not doing it - the other corporations have to put in their fair share, too, else no art and profit at all buddies!". All corporations would eventually recognise that all their profits are at stake, and hence all corporations will in the end put in their fair share, under the agreement of what we might call a form of "Mutually Assured Destruction".
Copyright and plagiarism are two separate issues. One is an economic theory. The other is an issue of libel and defamation. When you mix them together pointlessly, you get confusion in the form of Cindy Lee Garcia. Because of her, copyright believers will soon have no choice but to separate the concepts of copyright and plagiarism/libel by force.
And as a matter of fact I think the makers of said torrented movie do have a right to gain something, while the downloader has no moral grounds to take the work without giving anything in return.
My dispute, which I hope is clear to you, is simply the means to which the artist protects his property. Not the question of "should his property be protected".
And putting up a crowdfunding paywall is a far better way of doing it than copyright. No pirate can ever take from the artist if the artist demands the pirate pay first.
Now only millions more to go. I hear we might eventually get China to extradite! I also can't wait to raid the offices of Google - finally, some progress!
"It's about time the artists were afforded the same police protections as other workers"
Just not derivative artists. All in the name of the "only acceptable" form of prior restraint: ownership of expression. Copyright IS prior restraint in a nutshell.
Cooks don't EVER sacrifice other cooks' finished meals in the name of preserving their own finished meals on the grounds of "there's no other way!", crushing the life, liberty and property of "derivative cooks" in the process. So yes. Maybe artists do need to be treated equally to them. But I don't think that is what you were intending. "Equal rights for ALL artists" rings so much better than just "equal rights for artists", no?
Picture if you will, James Damiano stamping on Bob Dylan's face while all the while flying a campaign flag with the words "I Respect Music!" on it to see what I mean.
Copyright can't even get the fucking radio stations to pay musicians. It's a world of make-belief. I have no time for utopias.
With crowdfunding, original artists AND derivative artists have their rights protected against anyone who restricts them, and that includes copyright advocates. With it, they can BOTH ask for whatever price that THEY BOTH choose with their OWN works. You are leagues behind me even through your own lens.
[Paraphrasing Jack Valenti in a debate with Lawrence Lessig]:
"Of course you have to be in support of copyright [he may not have strictly said "copyright" - I am recalling from fuzzy memory, I apologise - but in any case these next words definitely came from his mouth and his side of the house, and they pissed me off the most during that debate:] of course you have to... it's an application of Occam's Razor!"
Tell me honestly... and we all know the answer... who are the ones multiplying unnecessary constants, here? Supporters of copyright or opponents of it?
Supporters, with their persistence in papering up every single one of the thousands of cracks of the dam where the water gets through nonetheless, with their insisting that every papering has some validity to it, regardless of how many times the water gets through without any fear of deterrence or law enforcement, and regardless of the obvious flooding that happens right in front of our faces?
Or those who simply say that you need a new dam? And that if copyright law is broken more times than it is followed (never mind enforced), the real Occam's Razor solution is to step back and question the validity of the core philosophy itself?
Being a "reductionist" is not always a bad thing, and the word gets thrown around as a negative too often. Every skeptical thinker should aim to reduce as many unnecessary constants as possible, ergo "reduce" equations to be as simple as possible as a reductionist would... "but no simpler", as Einstein quite rightly cautions.
Here, I do not think I am being too immodest when I say that the fact that Aereo have done above all else demonstrate how many constants copyright law tries to multiply, in a futile attempt to paper over all cracks of a faulty dam that erodes away overtime, and how you can still get around the law regardless of the constants you multiply, never mind how whenever the law does work it still doesn't protect artists never mind derivative artists, and how futile the law really is at stopping 1s and 0s from exponentially multiplying and traveling at light-speed worldwide... some of those 1s and 0s LEGAL while the exact same combination of them (or ENCRYPTED combination of them) not so legal, Christ..., all of it shows that we on the opposition deserve credit for challenging the claim of "it's more complicated than that...".
The judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court of the most powerful nation on the planet, are bickering over tiny antennas, which can be easily assembled in the average layman's garage, like quantum physics. THAT'S how many constants the copyright believers multiply.
Now tell me. Where are the unnecessary constants when you substitute copyright with: assurance contracts (e.g. crowdfudning), reasonable trademark protection (fashion industry booms), and regulation by labeling what copies are official and which are bootlegs (that utilises the public attitude that favours funding artists without the need for any kind of law)? :
- Artist sets up a paywall and asks whatever price he wants, and protects his property. - Derivative artists are not discriminated against. - No "prior restraint" considerations that copyright has to take into account with respect to free expression. - No language barriers as everyone is free to translate without legal repercussions, ergo more global dialectic. - Libel is treated separately and does not confuse things (hint hint, Cindy Lee Garcia...) - Plagiarism is treated on par with libel, instead of mixed in with copyright. - Trade secrets get better strength. - No war-on-drugs-like piracy monopolies (e.g. MegaUpload) or corporate corruption and their respective pirate profits (e.g. Google): both would have to pay the crowdfunding paywall to survive in the market. - China feels the pressure as their piracy monopoly begins to crumble (or at least is greatly challenged). - Artist does not have to waste his time or money on lawyers chasing around global pirates, when withholding the actual existence of the content itself pending those pirates paying will suffice (if the mountain won't come to Mohammad, Mohammad must come to the mountain - again, Occam's Razor is on MY side). - Pirates can be taxed (and taxes given to artists to boot, if need be).
For me, it is by no means a case of "but no simpler".
“One does not have the right to yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater.”
Ah yes. This dumb cliche again. Three ways to shoot it down:
Firstly, if you yell "fire" in a crowded theatre when there really is a fire, people are still going to panic and trample each other to death. That's a fault of the construction of the theatre. Not the speaker.
Secondly, Holmes had the absolute nerve to say this when sending to jail a group of socialists handing out leaflets in a language most people in the U.S. couldn't even read (Yiddish) opposing the U.S.'s unjust participation in WW1. If anything, those socialists were the real firefighters, shouting fire when there really was a fire. And were sent to jail for it.
Thirdly, if you really do believe in this cliche, do yourself a favour: do not go up to your government and call for a ban on shouting "fire". Instead, go up to your government, and call for the banning of fire drills. Let's see how far you're committed to this premise. Does anyone remember the scene from the Simpsons, where Mr Burns' fire drill "makes" everyone in the power plant behave like complete idiots ("I think I won, Mr Burns!")? We all know what the point of that gag was.
"Oh, please. These are the same arguments constantly pulled out to justify all sorts of things that the government (and people) would love to force upon others. "Well your decision to [do/not do] X has a possible negative impact on other people in the society you live in." "
That is generally the basis on which we make ethical decisions, yes.
"I also don't forgo wearing a seatbelt, but nonetheless I will stand up for other people's right to not wear their seatbelt if the rare risks associated with them (e.g. being trapped in a burning car) scare them more than the fairly common ones (e.g. being thrown and then crushed by your own car as it continues rolling.)"
The solution to being trapped by the belt during a fire is take a knife, or design the belts so that they cannot possibly be stuck (there are ways). And your body flying around inside the car during a crash does not just endanger yourself, but the people sitting next to you. That is why we have the seatbelt rule.
"Yes, it's theoretically more dangerous for others (if say, you could have kept control of your car but not from underneath its wheel) but freedom is not based upon me getting to say what others do (or vice versa) because of some theoretical/potential risk to me (or your children, or my children) from the choices you are making."
It is, actually. And if the government does NOT get involved where it is due, I consider that an oppression. Not doing anything IS a policy. Bystanderism gets you nowhere. When the government does not enforce vaccinations for children, I consider that an action by the government to infect the public with long forgotten diseases.
Not doing anything has its oppressions. And the short-sightedness that can come from libertarians in particular always fails to see that.
Not only do many folk in society already openly reveal that they pirate many things, sometimes software worth up to thousands of pounds, everybody can see the pointlessness of calling the police, or the rights holders, in order to report this happening..
If it were a laptop worth a few hundred pounds that was stolen, police would be called. However, reveal in front of many people that you downloaded a cracked copy of Photoshop - also worth hundreds - and not only would no police show up, it is highly likely that anybody calling the police to report the theft would themselves be arrested for wasting police time. There is an unspoken rule that everybody knows here: "this is an obvious wild goose chase". If one reports to the rights holders, one will get many rants thrown back about how there are "too many out there to sue", or even "I'm just going to look like a dick if I sue".
That's why nobody reports, and even when there is info obtained (it is not too difficult to see the IP addresses of BitTorrent users), there is something called "I am Spartacus" that always comes into play. Rights holders simply can't get everybody.
I could walk up to the offices of the MPAA, yell to them that I am downloading an MP3 without paying, and they will most likely not do a thing.
A law is only as good as the people who follow it. If the attitude changed and people started respecting copyright more, rights holders wouldn't have such a tough time - but my objection is this: an economic system that calls itself copyright does not have a lot of integrity if it SOLELY depends on the attitudes of the consumer to function instead of the "practical" legal tools it SHOULD be functioning on, since global, god-like policing of property is realistically impossible and easily exploitable. In theory, copyright is supposed to work. In practice, it is laughable as the war on drugs.
An assurance contract is the only way an artist is going to be able to protect his property. Living in this utopian alternative where profits are assumed on trust instead of guaranteed before the creation's existence is, ultimately, damaging to the artist. The artist's faith in copyright is what causes his misery. If he names whatever price he chooses in his assurance contract, he will always be sure. And everyone else would suffer from a free-rider problem.
"Congress recognized that assigning this responsibility to online service providers ill-equipped to execute it would hamper the growth of online commerce. It thus forged a compromise, ensuring that rights-holders would need to initiate takedowns, but would receive expeditious, extralegal relief in response to a complaint without the time and expense of going to court. Some would prefer to unwind the compromise struck in 1998, however, and shift more of the burden of enforcing copyrights to service providers, perhaps through some form of content filtering. "
The root cause of the "safe harbour" responsibility vacuum is a failure to admit that copyright is incompatible with and unenforceable in the real world.
We all know fine well the takedowns are useless if users will reupload - under different IPs, encrypted, internationally, the list goes on. Never mind BitTorrent (I am Spartacus!) , email attachments, Skype file transfer, file "lockers"... basically, the internet.
There are only two options: hold ISPs and websites responsible for the infringing copies their machines at the end of the day produce and bring one of the greatest technological booms since the industrial revolution to its knees, or scrap copyright and try something else. The safe harbours, morphed from a refusal to crush the internet and a refusal to budge from the "infallibility" of copyright, are just the result of nobody wanting to face the fact that copyright is, undeniably, incompatible and at fault. And it shows, due to the ease of coming into contact with any infringing material of our choosing despite the millions (billions?) of takedown requests.
The true intellectual radicals of this debate are Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, and they don't truly realise it yet. To paraphrase LaPlace, in response to those who would ask what role copyright has with assurance contracts in protecting the property of artists, I say "they work without that assumption". They are the greatest, most underrated paywalls of all time. Justified paywalls, that is.
I cannot believe this. What the fuck am I reading?
Is THAT all it takes to capitulate to fascist death threats? A fucking slippery slope of copyright?
And to THINK! All this time these Islamists were pushing for fatwas against Salman Rushdie, boycotts against Denmark, threats against South Park...
Sorry, but I also need to stress this: has anyone else forgotten that the Obama administration caved into election pressure and disgracefully asked Google to take the video down? While Google stood its ground and refused?
But THIS IS WHAT IT TOOK? A fucking delusional economic system with a fucking GAG ORDER TO BOOT?
What the fucking fucking fuck? What the FUCK?
Is there anyone now who will dare say that copyright has no slippery slopes? Is there anyone here who will now seriously claim that "ownership of expression" has any superiority over "freedom of expression"?
What's it going to take? The absurdities are right in front of our noses.
"It's easier to forge a license plate than an IP address."
Yeah. If there's one thing we need more of, it's more campaigning against car organisations that recklessly dish out replacement dynamic license plates for people who get out of their cars and back in again.
"You must be a thief" is the justification for both unjust taxes as an alternative to avoiding the enforcement of utopian copyright while still holding copyright in law (which, by the way, will not target the actual people it is supposed to in the guise of the heavy duty pirates who make tons of money through advertising, because by definition they will not pay a tax on illegal profits - Al Caponism/drug-cartelism in a nutshell) and for Digital Rights Management philosophy that thinks its necessary to break core functionality of your computers and make them more vulnerable to hackers. You must be taxed because "you must be a thief" - your computer must be broken because "you must be a thief".
No. The only way forward is to make your end consumers know that the existence of your creativity depends on their payment, and let the crowd realise they have a responsibility to pay their dues if they want any creativity whatsoever - if they don't pay up, they will not get what they want. Which ultimately means crowdfunding. Amanda Palmer made a terrible mistake in her TED talk by saying that Kickstarter was a way of "letting" people pay for music instead of "making" them pay. To the contrary, crowdfunding websites, like tickets, subscriptions, pre-orders and other assurance contract economies, are the most heavily underrated and underestimated paywalls out there.
There's a terrific irony here that copyright advocates like to praise every form of paywall conceivable except the ones that actually work. Policing every copy through copyright-paywalls is a silly way of going about things when paywalls stand their grounds far better without copyright by forcing payment as a condition of the creation's existence.
You just have to imagine the sight of a politician making such similar fallacies against newspaper cartoonists to see how absurd this whole thought process is.
On the post: Washington State Files First Consumer Protection Lawsuit Against Kickstarter Project That Failed To Deliver
Have crowdfunded contracts come with a clause that says if the project does not meet the deadline, refunds will be given (with interest, maybe? something for the free-market to decide). It's only a matter of time before all the projects tend to this direction. They have to in order to meet the definition of an "assurance contract", which is what these projects essentially are. Like refunding tickets for a cancelled gig, for example. Or subscription refunds for a botched cable broadcast that lasts for a month, or an ISP's service being down that long. Or refunds for people not getting their pre-ordered games for whatever reason. After that's established, consumer security will be better and the sites will become more mainstream, making the copyright believers more furious at the profits of the indie artists.
Alternatively, for lagging projects, the clause could say "if the date deadline is hit and we are not finished, we will have another "leg" of funding take place to be hit within (say) 30 days - (say) another $10,000. If that is not hit, we will consider the project failed and refund anyone who ever backed the project." This will be necessary anyway, as naturally the more time you need the more money you need to give your employees. Stretch goals will be gaining a lot of ground in the future as "extensions" to the original assurance contract, so this will fit in nicely with that.
Every single creative project has to go through this, even under copyright. If a film studio invests in a movie and it botches halfway through production, that studio's money has gone down the toilet whether it likes it or not. That's part of the risk you have to take.
So of course if companies take that sort of risk nowadays they can take it with crowdfunding no problem in relation to losing money due to having to refund funders.
Now I know what some might be thinking: technically if a film was half-finished and the deadline was hit, or just shitty in general and the deadline was hit, they could in theory release the film as it is and still have "met the conditions" of the contract and be able to run away with the money. However, the film studio in the copyright scenario could have done that too. There is no reason why you can't release a half-finished film as a DVD on the shelves of retail shops. Everybody is entitled to try it. The problem is this: reputations suffer. In particular those of the film makers AND most importantly, the retail shops of the DVDs.
Which ties into my next crucial point: like it or not, the obvious next move these crowdfunding sites are going to take - HAVE to take - is to get actively involved with the projects themselves. They are going to want to see it beforehand, to make sure it is up to a reasonable standard. Because (say) Kickstarter will know its reputation is on the line. Kickstarter IS essentially a publisher right now, whether they realise it or not.
Because that quality assurance and quality control are going to slowly but surely become mandatory in order to compete in the crowdfunding market. I've noticed that people do tend to criticse crowdfunding for its projects not having quality assurance, but that criticism won't last long.
On the post: Awesome Stuff: Pets Need Innovative Technology Too
On the post: Brilliant Reporting: NYT Recreates Wacky Deposition Over Definition Of A Photocopier
Re:
On the post: White House Says It Can Withhold Vulnerabilities If It Will Help Them Catch 'Intellectual Property Thieves'
On the post: Criminal Conviction In South Africa For Posting A Movie To The Pirate Bay
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Awesome! It's about time!
He can also ask corporations to do so too (remember, the corporation's traffic and revenue depend on the art as well, so they'd be happy to pay quite a lot into the "hat" too in order to get the art to exist in the first place and hence get the traffic - whereas with copyright they could exploit the artist's hopeless trust in copyright's empty promises of property protection).
"Game theory" effects won't kick in, because any pirate trying to "wait it out" without paying will soon find out that everybody else will be thinking likewise. Therefore the pirate would rather chip in to avoid the tipping point - he wouldn't have a choice. In other words: the pirates as a whole are responsible for their actions because the art's existence depends on their paying.
That applies to the corporations too. One corporation couldn't wait on the other corporation to pledge, else the artist would simply say "nope, I'm not doing it - the other corporations have to put in their fair share, too, else no art and profit at all buddies!". All corporations would eventually recognise that all their profits are at stake, and hence all corporations will in the end put in their fair share, under the agreement of what we might call a form of "Mutually Assured Destruction".
On the post: Criminal Conviction In South Africa For Posting A Movie To The Pirate Bay
Re: Re: Re: Awesome! It's about time!
Copyright and plagiarism are two separate issues. One is an economic theory. The other is an issue of libel and defamation. When you mix them together pointlessly, you get confusion in the form of Cindy Lee Garcia. Because of her, copyright believers will soon have no choice but to separate the concepts of copyright and plagiarism/libel by force.
And as a matter of fact I think the makers of said torrented movie do have a right to gain something, while the downloader has no moral grounds to take the work without giving anything in return.
My dispute, which I hope is clear to you, is simply the means to which the artist protects his property. Not the question of "should his property be protected".
And putting up a crowdfunding paywall is a far better way of doing it than copyright. No pirate can ever take from the artist if the artist demands the pirate pay first.
On the post: Criminal Conviction In South Africa For Posting A Movie To The Pirate Bay
Re: Awesome! It's about time!
Now only millions more to go. I hear we might eventually get China to extradite! I also can't wait to raid the offices of Google - finally, some progress!
"It's about time the artists were afforded the same police protections as other workers"
Just not derivative artists. All in the name of the "only acceptable" form of prior restraint: ownership of expression. Copyright IS prior restraint in a nutshell.
Cooks don't EVER sacrifice other cooks' finished meals in the name of preserving their own finished meals on the grounds of "there's no other way!", crushing the life, liberty and property of "derivative cooks" in the process. So yes. Maybe artists do need to be treated equally to them. But I don't think that is what you were intending. "Equal rights for ALL artists" rings so much better than just "equal rights for artists", no?
Picture if you will, James Damiano stamping on Bob Dylan's face while all the while flying a campaign flag with the words "I Respect Music!" on it to see what I mean.
Copyright can't even get the fucking radio stations to pay musicians. It's a world of make-belief. I have no time for utopias.
With crowdfunding, original artists AND derivative artists have their rights protected against anyone who restricts them, and that includes copyright advocates. With it, they can BOTH ask for whatever price that THEY BOTH choose with their OWN works. You are leagues behind me even through your own lens.
On the post: Supreme Court Discussion In Aereo: At Least The Justices Recognize The Harm They Might Do
Occam
"Of course you have to be in support of copyright [he may not have strictly said "copyright" - I am recalling from fuzzy memory, I apologise - but in any case these next words definitely came from his mouth and his side of the house, and they pissed me off the most during that debate:] of course you have to... it's an application of Occam's Razor!"
Tell me honestly... and we all know the answer... who are the ones multiplying unnecessary constants, here? Supporters of copyright or opponents of it?
Supporters, with their persistence in papering up every single one of the thousands of cracks of the dam where the water gets through nonetheless, with their insisting that every papering has some validity to it, regardless of how many times the water gets through without any fear of deterrence or law enforcement, and regardless of the obvious flooding that happens right in front of our faces?
Or those who simply say that you need a new dam? And that if copyright law is broken more times than it is followed (never mind enforced), the real Occam's Razor solution is to step back and question the validity of the core philosophy itself?
Being a "reductionist" is not always a bad thing, and the word gets thrown around as a negative too often. Every skeptical thinker should aim to reduce as many unnecessary constants as possible, ergo "reduce" equations to be as simple as possible as a reductionist would... "but no simpler", as Einstein quite rightly cautions.
Here, I do not think I am being too immodest when I say that the fact that Aereo have done above all else demonstrate how many constants copyright law tries to multiply, in a futile attempt to paper over all cracks of a faulty dam that erodes away overtime, and how you can still get around the law regardless of the constants you multiply, never mind how whenever the law does work it still doesn't protect artists never mind derivative artists, and how futile the law really is at stopping 1s and 0s from exponentially multiplying and traveling at light-speed worldwide... some of those 1s and 0s LEGAL while the exact same combination of them (or ENCRYPTED combination of them) not so legal, Christ..., all of it shows that we on the opposition deserve credit for challenging the claim of "it's more complicated than that...".
The judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court of the most powerful nation on the planet, are bickering over tiny antennas, which can be easily assembled in the average layman's garage, like quantum physics. THAT'S how many constants the copyright believers multiply.
Now tell me. Where are the unnecessary constants when you substitute copyright with: assurance contracts (e.g. crowdfudning), reasonable trademark protection (fashion industry booms), and regulation by labeling what copies are official and which are bootlegs (that utilises the public attitude that favours funding artists without the need for any kind of law)? :
- Artist sets up a paywall and asks whatever price he wants, and protects his property.
- Derivative artists are not discriminated against.
- No "prior restraint" considerations that copyright has to take into account with respect to free expression.
- No language barriers as everyone is free to translate without legal repercussions, ergo more global dialectic.
- Libel is treated separately and does not confuse things (hint hint, Cindy Lee Garcia...)
- Plagiarism is treated on par with libel, instead of mixed in with copyright.
- Trade secrets get better strength.
- No war-on-drugs-like piracy monopolies (e.g. MegaUpload) or corporate corruption and their respective pirate profits (e.g. Google): both would have to pay the crowdfunding paywall to survive in the market.
- China feels the pressure as their piracy monopoly begins to crumble (or at least is greatly challenged).
- Artist does not have to waste his time or money on lawyers chasing around global pirates, when withholding the actual existence of the content itself pending those pirates paying will suffice (if the mountain won't come to Mohammad, Mohammad must come to the mountain - again, Occam's Razor is on MY side).
- Pirates can be taxed (and taxes given to artists to boot, if need be).
For me, it is by no means a case of "but no simpler".
On the post: Exasperation Shines Through As Google Angrily Responds To Contempt Motion Over Innocence Of Muslims
Re:
Ah yes. This dumb cliche again. Three ways to shoot it down:
Firstly, if you yell "fire" in a crowded theatre when there really is a fire, people are still going to panic and trample each other to death. That's a fault of the construction of the theatre. Not the speaker.
Secondly, Holmes had the absolute nerve to say this when sending to jail a group of socialists handing out leaflets in a language most people in the U.S. couldn't even read (Yiddish) opposing the U.S.'s unjust participation in WW1. If anything, those socialists were the real firefighters, shouting fire when there really was a fire. And were sent to jail for it.
Thirdly, if you really do believe in this cliche, do yourself a favour: do not go up to your government and call for a ban on shouting "fire". Instead, go up to your government, and call for the banning of fire drills. Let's see how far you're committed to this premise. Does anyone remember the scene from the Simpsons, where Mr Burns' fire drill "makes" everyone in the power plant behave like complete idiots ("I think I won, Mr Burns!")? We all know what the point of that gag was.
On the post: British Library Says It's Copyright Infringement To Take Photos Inside The Library; Demands Person Delete Tweet
Re: Aha!
On the post: Turkish Prime Minister Bans Twitter... Turkish People Turn Around And Ban The Ban
Re:
Basically, any machine that is even so much as connected to ONE other machine outside the country is a threat.
On the post: Turkish Prime Minister Bans Twitter... Turkish People Turn Around And Ban The Ban
On the post: British Library Says It's Copyright Infringement To Take Photos Inside The Library; Demands Person Delete Tweet
On the post: Thanks Anti-Vax Loons: The Return Of The Measles And The Backlash Against Jenny McCarthy
That is generally the basis on which we make ethical decisions, yes.
"I also don't forgo wearing a seatbelt, but nonetheless I will stand up for other people's right to not wear their seatbelt if the rare risks associated with them (e.g. being trapped in a burning car) scare them more than the fairly common ones (e.g. being thrown and then crushed by your own car as it continues rolling.)"
The solution to being trapped by the belt during a fire is take a knife, or design the belts so that they cannot possibly be stuck (there are ways). And your body flying around inside the car during a crash does not just endanger yourself, but the people sitting next to you. That is why we have the seatbelt rule.
"Yes, it's theoretically more dangerous for others (if say, you could have kept control of your car but not from underneath its wheel) but freedom is not based upon me getting to say what others do (or vice versa) because of some theoretical/potential risk to me (or your children, or my children) from the choices you are making."
It is, actually. And if the government does NOT get involved where it is due, I consider that an oppression. Not doing anything IS a policy. Bystanderism gets you nowhere. When the government does not enforce vaccinations for children, I consider that an action by the government to infect the public with long forgotten diseases.
Not doing anything has its oppressions. And the short-sightedness that can come from libertarians in particular always fails to see that.
On the post: Copyright Alliance Attacks ChillingEffects.org As 'Repugnant,' Wants DMCA System With No Public Accountability
Re: You want public accountability?
If it were a laptop worth a few hundred pounds that was stolen, police would be called. However, reveal in front of many people that you downloaded a cracked copy of Photoshop - also worth hundreds - and not only would no police show up, it is highly likely that anybody calling the police to report the theft would themselves be arrested for wasting police time. There is an unspoken rule that everybody knows here: "this is an obvious wild goose chase". If one reports to the rights holders, one will get many rants thrown back about how there are "too many out there to sue", or even "I'm just going to look like a dick if I sue".
That's why nobody reports, and even when there is info obtained (it is not too difficult to see the IP addresses of BitTorrent users), there is something called "I am Spartacus" that always comes into play. Rights holders simply can't get everybody.
I could walk up to the offices of the MPAA, yell to them that I am downloading an MP3 without paying, and they will most likely not do a thing.
A law is only as good as the people who follow it. If the attitude changed and people started respecting copyright more, rights holders wouldn't have such a tough time - but my objection is this: an economic system that calls itself copyright does not have a lot of integrity if it SOLELY depends on the attitudes of the consumer to function instead of the "practical" legal tools it SHOULD be functioning on, since global, god-like policing of property is realistically impossible and easily exploitable. In theory, copyright is supposed to work. In practice, it is laughable as the war on drugs.
An assurance contract is the only way an artist is going to be able to protect his property. Living in this utopian alternative where profits are assumed on trust instead of guaranteed before the creation's existence is, ultimately, damaging to the artist. The artist's faith in copyright is what causes his misery. If he names whatever price he chooses in his assurance contract, he will always be sure. And everyone else would suffer from a free-rider problem.
On the post: 5 Myths We're Likely To Hear At Tomorrow's DMCA Hearing
The root cause of the "safe harbour" responsibility vacuum is a failure to admit that copyright is incompatible with and unenforceable in the real world.
We all know fine well the takedowns are useless if users will reupload - under different IPs, encrypted, internationally, the list goes on. Never mind BitTorrent (I am Spartacus!) , email attachments, Skype file transfer, file "lockers"... basically, the internet.
There are only two options: hold ISPs and websites responsible for the infringing copies their machines at the end of the day produce and bring one of the greatest technological booms since the industrial revolution to its knees, or scrap copyright and try something else. The safe harbours, morphed from a refusal to crush the internet and a refusal to budge from the "infallibility" of copyright, are just the result of nobody wanting to face the fact that copyright is, undeniably, incompatible and at fault. And it shows, due to the ease of coming into contact with any infringing material of our choosing despite the millions (billions?) of takedown requests.
The true intellectual radicals of this debate are Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, and they don't truly realise it yet. To paraphrase LaPlace, in response to those who would ask what role copyright has with assurance contracts in protecting the property of artists, I say "they work without that assumption". They are the greatest, most underrated paywalls of all time. Justified paywalls, that is.
On the post: Horrific Appeals Court Ruling Says Actress Has Copyright Interest In 'Innocence Of Muslims,' Orders YouTube To Delete Every Copy
Is THAT all it takes to capitulate to fascist death threats? A fucking slippery slope of copyright?
And to THINK! All this time these Islamists were pushing for fatwas against Salman Rushdie, boycotts against Denmark, threats against South Park...
Sorry, but I also need to stress this: has anyone else forgotten that the Obama administration caved into election pressure and disgracefully asked Google to take the video down? While Google stood its ground and refused?
But THIS IS WHAT IT TOOK? A fucking delusional economic system with a fucking GAG ORDER TO BOOT?
What the fucking fucking fuck? What the FUCK?
Is there anyone now who will dare say that copyright has no slippery slopes? Is there anyone here who will now seriously claim that "ownership of expression" has any superiority over "freedom of expression"?
What's it going to take? The absurdities are right in front of our noses.
On the post: CCI Claims Six Strikes Working Great To Thwart Piracy, Offers Absolutely No Evidence To Support That Claim
Re: Be careful what you wish for....
Yeah. If there's one thing we need more of, it's more campaigning against car organisations that recklessly dish out replacement dynamic license plates for people who get out of their cars and back in again.
On the post: HuffPo Columnist: I Infringe, So All Broadband Users Must Pay A New Piracy Tax
No. The only way forward is to make your end consumers know that the existence of your creativity depends on their payment, and let the crowd realise they have a responsibility to pay their dues if they want any creativity whatsoever - if they don't pay up, they will not get what they want. Which ultimately means crowdfunding. Amanda Palmer made a terrible mistake in her TED talk by saying that Kickstarter was a way of "letting" people pay for music instead of "making" them pay. To the contrary, crowdfunding websites, like tickets, subscriptions, pre-orders and other assurance contract economies, are the most heavily underrated and underestimated paywalls out there.
There's a terrific irony here that copyright advocates like to praise every form of paywall conceivable except the ones that actually work. Policing every copy through copyright-paywalls is a silly way of going about things when paywalls stand their grounds far better without copyright by forcing payment as a condition of the creation's existence.
On the post: Steven Tyler, Don Henley And Others Join Forces To Fight A Compulsory License For Remixes
Re: This is once again the fallacy of defamation.
Next >>