Why don't we translate it into more familiar terms?
"No person shall be deprived of their freedom of speech without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty"
And then we can deduce that:
"A person may be deprived of their freedom of speech given due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty"
And we could reconcile that with the US 1st amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So here we have TBL suggesting that as long as due process occurs, it's perfectly fine for governments to make laws requiring their citizens to be disconnected from the Internet.
Anyone who endorses TBL's proposition is therefore supporting (consenting in principle to) laws that disconnect them.
You should certainly have no compunction about making and sharing your own copies and derivatives of published works, but it would be churlish to refuse to pay artists to produce and publish more.
Is there no artist you would pay even a dollar to if they produced a new work in exchange? No favourite musicians or novelists? No bugs in software you'd pay a small amount to have fixed?
I don't think there's anything wrong in paying artists to produce new works.
The wrong is either in being forced to pay (levy) or in being denied your cultural liberty (to grant a monopoly).
That should be "Money Extorted", not 'Money Recovered'.
And how much on average has been squeezed out of the fundamentally innocent individual for their act of cultural liberty, that may or may not have actually been infringing?
It works fine for the church and religion. After all, not only do they put voices from supernatural beings above evidence, they invented the idea of monopolies on works of literature and iconography. They would have patented it too, if there'd been a patent office thousands of years ago.
If you are a devout believer in copyright then its holy sanctity is a matter of faith, not evidence.
It's probably going to take more than imprisoning cinema goers who point their iPhone at the cinema screen (Emmanuel Nimley) to stir up the public into revolt. Perhaps something like burning randomly selected villagers at the stake or sending anyone in possession of unlicensed copies/content off to the IP inquisition for 're-education'. Then, the public might just start wondering if copyright is really written on one of Moses' tablets.
Websites critical of copyright and patent will have been censored long before we get to that point of course.
This is why the copyright cartel got a law passed to imprison any member of a cinema audience who pointed an iPhone at the screen.
It lets them set the precedent for imprisonment as an appropriate penalty for infringement.
Disconnection upon suspicion is thus getting off lightly - even if the entire household suffers.
"Of course I support copyright and penalties for infringers, but" is simply a modern translation of "Of course I am a devout Catholic and believer in God's appointment of our church as his divine messengers, but"
Start worrying when 'information retrieval' (torture) and 'permanent disconnection' (death penalty) re-appear on the statute books. Julian Assange might be a little more in touch with such prospects.
They've thought of this. They will simply suggest you purchase a license-paid internet connection with a 'share-all-you-want' deal on it at 1Mbps.
Disconnection is simply the draconian bargaining chip to compromise with.
2010) Disconnect the entire household!
2011) Ok, all ISPs should provide both an unlicensed connection 10M @ $10/month and a licensed connection 1M @ $20/month. People suspected of infringing are disqualified from the unlicensed connection for a year.
2013) Hey, why don't we cut the admin and discontinue unlicensed connections? It'll save so much bother.
2014) The Internet is taxed. 50% to government. 49% to publishing corporations, collection societies, etc. 1% to popular independent artists.
2015) A radio based darknet arises...
The story of the Salem witch trials should give people a clue what happens when you legislate severe consequences for no more than accusation.
Even if you require the accusation that someone is a witch must be signed by the accuser in triplicate and specify three separate 'reasonable' grounds for suspicion, you still end up with a farce (and injustice).
It's also as much a farce as witchcraft in another respect, because copyright infringement is just as much an offence by a natural being against a supernatural power as witchcraft is.
Sharing music offends the god given power of a musician's record label to prevent anyone copying it or performing it without their permission.
They didn't have this power until Queen Anne granted it to them, and even then it was an approximation of the supernatural power some people claimed existed (perpetually).
It is only today that people are recognising that copyright is magical nonsense, and that the power to prevent others copying one's music naturally ends at the front door. Once you let your music hit the street, it's everywhere, promiscuous, pervasive, global - if it's any good...
Expect '3 strikes' excommunications in abundance until the politicians, legislators and witch-finders general also end up disconnected.
XII. THOU SHALT SCRIBE AND SHARE MY WORD, YET THOU MUST NOT SCRIBE, NOR SHARE AMONG A GATHERING, THE WORD OR GRAVING OF THY NEIGHBOUR WITHOUT HIS LEAVE, WHILST HIS BLOOD LAST.
Upholding the truth of IOUs (contracts, agreements, exchanges, etc.) is not a matter of belief, but of natural law and natural right. If you give someone a loaf of bread for safe keeping, and then ask for it back, and the recipient says "What loaf?", you will disabuse them of any notion that the loaf was a figment of your imagination sustained only by your faith in its existence.
Thus if money is in exchange for a commodity (gold in place of bread) then it is not a matter of belief. However, as you no doubt recognise, money does become a matter of consensual belief when it is no longer guaranteed to be exchangeable for a specific amount of a commodity, but has nominal value only, as is the normal practice today.
Where things get really spooky is with copyright.
That authors have a supernatural ability to prevent their work being copied or performed anywhere in the world is a matter of belief. That authors should have such supernatural power, and that all states the world over should thus lend the author their superhuman power to approximate it, is more a matter of religion than self-evidence. The church being the multinational publishing corporations (shepherding their flock of authors - who get shafted when no-one's looking).
This is why the faithful, even unobserved in the privacy and secrecy of their own homes, still hesitate before copying one of their CDs onto their MP3 player. They have been indoctrinated since birth to believe the publishing corporations' holy scripture that this is wrong, a theft from the starving artist.
And yet, the folklore upon which Disney's 'IP' is largely based was produced with free and full cultural exchange prior to copyright's establishment in the 18th century. The development of mankind's folklore stretches across ice ages. Copyright is a flash in the pan over the storyteller's camp fire. So, would you prefer our natural right to copy and improve each other's stories restored, or would you jealously cherish Queen Anne's grant of a transferable privilege to sue anyone who copies or improves your stories? Bear in mind that the privilege of copyright is the suspension of the natural right to copy from all.
"All laws are just a group concensus and the group has decided."
Not at all. There are natural laws that arise in nature, that a civilised/harmonious society tends toward protecting (at common law and by constitution), and then there are crown/state granted privileges - instruments of injustice.
Respect for privilege may be a matter of consensus.
Are all men created equal? Or is it a matter of consensus? If the consensus decides that those of a particular skin colour or religion are no better than animals, what then?
If the consensus decides that infringement of a state granted monopoly warrants putting infringers in jail, what then?
HOW MANY PEOPLE BANKRUPTED, FINED, DISCONNECTED, IMPRISONED, OR CENSORED, DOES IT TAKE?
At some point you've got to shift paradigms and recognise that it is the privilege that is wrong, and the infringers who are the wronged - irrespective of consensus.
The right to copy is natural. It's suspension by Queen Anne in 1710 is unnatural.
Don't let people try to persuade you that slaves are naturally inferior, nor that those in possession of a commercial privilege are naturally superior. It's a lie.
Copyright and patent suspend your liberty. Take it back.
It comes down to those who believe in supernatural power vs those who require evidence. I'd expect more coherent morals from the latter, than those biased to expand the power of their church.
The derogation of mankind's cultural liberty by Queen Anne's Statute of 1709 (copyright) is only effective because so many people suspend disbelief in it.
If people stop believing they don't have the cultural liberty to share and build upon published works, then the 18th century privilege to the contrary vanishes in a puff of smoke (albeit with a few families bankrupted and cinema goers imprisoned along the way).
Copyright is already vanishing before our eyes, as many file-sharers will attest.
When it comes to a battle between immortal publishing corporations and mankind, fighting over the right to copy vs the exclusive privilege, my money's on the mortals.
I'm discussing the distinction between prohibiting the communication of certain works 'because they violate natural rights' vs 'because they infringe commercial privileges'.
There's nothing about destruction there.
Everyone has the natural liberty to share and build upon mankind's culture, and that includes telling each other's stories and improving or extending them. This happened with folk tales prior to copyright and when copyright's abolished it will happen again.
Only unscrupulous lawyers will say that given a large enough budget to obtain clearance and procure necessary 'rights' (aka license to have their own liberty back) people can continue to feel at liberty extend each other's stories even under the increasingly draconian copyright regime.
Wealthy people perhaps... with consequently wealthy lawyers.
People should be free to publish anything they like (without censorship), but only at liberty to publish that which violates no-one else's right.
An intellectual work that was adjudged to incite violence against a person or class to maliciously endanger or jeopardise their life is such a violation.
Further publication of the specific work being prohibited (banned) such that all are required to cease and desist from further distribution (despite being free to, uncensored) to avoid prosecution is an ethical measure.
This is nothing to do with the privilege and reproduction monopoly that is copyright, which is an intrinsic rights violation.
Because copyright is gradually becoming confused to be as a much a natural 'right' as a moral right (and moral rights in turn picking up proprietary aspects of the former) they are lumped together on Wikipedia. A terrible sign of the times.
Article 6bis of the Berne Convention protects attribution and integrity, stating:
Independent of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to the said work, which would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation.
Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, September 9, 1886, art. 6bis, S. Treaty Doc. No. 27, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 41 (1986).
Natural rights, also called moral rights or inalienable rights, are rights which are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of a particular society or polity.
The term 'Moral rights' distinguishes the natural rights relating to intellectual works and their communication from the legislatively granted rights (from the privilege of copyright and its decomposition).
Your jurisdiction may vary, but there is at least some recognition of a moral/natural right pertaining to the truth of authorship - even if it goes too far into realms of granting additional proprietary controls and remedies against defamation.
Concerning your use of 'authorised', it should be emphasised that the Framers are not the authority in the context of the power delivered by the Constitution.
The Constitution defines the strict limits of the power provided by the people to Congress to protect them (the people).
The people do not provide power to Congress to annul any of their rights. Thus it is an error to consider that the people empower Congress to annul their right to copy (and respective freedom of speech) in order to reserve this as a privilege for exploitation by the press.
The people empower Congress to secure their (natural) right to exclude others from their writings.
If an author gives someone their writing, it is self-evident that they do not have a (natural) right to exclude them from copying it. To have even the pretence of such power, they would need a privilege that annulled the recipient's natural right to copy, i.e. copyright.
An author can naturally exclude another from (copying, etc.) the writings they possess that the other does not - in addition to excluding others from their material property (paper, ink, etc.).
On the post: Tim Berners-Lee Comes Out Against COICA Censorship Bill; Shouldn't You?
Sounds fancy, but it's ethically flawed
"No person shall be deprived of their freedom of speech without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty"
And then we can deduce that:
"A person may be deprived of their freedom of speech given due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty"
And we could reconcile that with the US 1st amendment:
So here we have TBL suggesting that as long as due process occurs, it's perfectly fine for governments to make laws requiring their citizens to be disconnected from the Internet.
Anyone who endorses TBL's proposition is therefore supporting (consenting in principle to) laws that disconnect them.
Pretty tragic if you ask me.
On the post: 'Pre-Settlement' Shakedown By ACS:Law Doesn't Seem Quite So Profitable
Re: ACS:Law
Is there no artist you would pay even a dollar to if they produced a new work in exchange? No favourite musicians or novelists? No bugs in software you'd pay a small amount to have fixed?
I don't think there's anything wrong in paying artists to produce new works.
The wrong is either in being forced to pay (levy) or in being denied your cultural liberty (to grant a monopoly).
On the post: 'Pre-Settlement' Shakedown By ACS:Law Doesn't Seem Quite So Profitable
Money Extorted
And how much on average has been squeezed out of the fundamentally innocent individual for their act of cultural liberty, that may or may not have actually been infringing?
On the post: More People Thinking About Smart Copyright Reform
Re: Good news
On the post: More People Thinking About Smart Copyright Reform
Re:
I'd say it was the dimmest minds in copyright that were all starting to converge on the need to fix copyright law, not the 'brightest'.
You don't fix an instrument of injustice. You abolish it.
On the post: More People Thinking About Smart Copyright Reform
Re: Well, I'll pass on reading it then.
Copyright is, and has always been, a turd.
So don't polish it, abolish it!
On the post: My Challenge To Jim Urie Of Universal Music: Instead Of 'Drowning Out' Those You Disagree With, Let's Come Up With Solutions
Re: Re:
If you are a devout believer in copyright then its holy sanctity is a matter of faith, not evidence.
It's probably going to take more than imprisoning cinema goers who point their iPhone at the cinema screen (Emmanuel Nimley) to stir up the public into revolt. Perhaps something like burning randomly selected villagers at the stake or sending anyone in possession of unlicensed copies/content off to the IP inquisition for 're-education'. Then, the public might just start wondering if copyright is really written on one of Moses' tablets.
Websites critical of copyright and patent will have been censored long before we get to that point of course.
On the post: Could Cutting People Off From The Internet Be Dangerous?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
It lets them set the precedent for imprisonment as an appropriate penalty for infringement.
Disconnection upon suspicion is thus getting off lightly - even if the entire household suffers.
"Of course I support copyright and penalties for infringers, but" is simply a modern translation of "Of course I am a devout Catholic and believer in God's appointment of our church as his divine messengers, but"
Start worrying when 'information retrieval' (torture) and 'permanent disconnection' (death penalty) re-appear on the statute books. Julian Assange might be a little more in touch with such prospects.
On the post: Could Cutting People Off From The Internet Be Dangerous?
Re: One question...
Disconnection is simply the draconian bargaining chip to compromise with.
2010) Disconnect the entire household!
2011) Ok, all ISPs should provide both an unlicensed connection 10M @ $10/month and a licensed connection 1M @ $20/month. People suspected of infringing are disqualified from the unlicensed connection for a year.
2013) Hey, why don't we cut the admin and discontinue unlicensed connections? It'll save so much bother.
2014) The Internet is taxed. 50% to government. 49% to publishing corporations, collection societies, etc. 1% to popular independent artists.
2015) A radio based darknet arises...
On the post: Could Cutting People Off From The Internet Be Dangerous?
Consider Salem
Even if you require the accusation that someone is a witch must be signed by the accuser in triplicate and specify three separate 'reasonable' grounds for suspicion, you still end up with a farce (and injustice).
It's also as much a farce as witchcraft in another respect, because copyright infringement is just as much an offence by a natural being against a supernatural power as witchcraft is.
Sharing music offends the god given power of a musician's record label to prevent anyone copying it or performing it without their permission.
They didn't have this power until Queen Anne granted it to them, and even then it was an approximation of the supernatural power some people claimed existed (perpetually).
It is only today that people are recognising that copyright is magical nonsense, and that the power to prevent others copying one's music naturally ends at the front door. Once you let your music hit the street, it's everywhere, promiscuous, pervasive, global - if it's any good...
Expect '3 strikes' excommunications in abundance until the politicians, legislators and witch-finders general also end up disconnected.
On the post: Richard Dawkins Points Fan To The Pirate Bay To See His Latest Documentary
Re: Re: So much for...
XII. THOU SHALT SCRIBE AND SHARE MY WORD, YET THOU MUST NOT SCRIBE, NOR SHARE AMONG A GATHERING, THE WORD OR GRAVING OF THY NEIGHBOUR WITHOUT HIS LEAVE, WHILST HIS BLOOD LAST.
On the post: Richard Dawkins Points Fan To The Pirate Bay To See His Latest Documentary
Re: who IS the rights holder?
Thus if money is in exchange for a commodity (gold in place of bread) then it is not a matter of belief. However, as you no doubt recognise, money does become a matter of consensual belief when it is no longer guaranteed to be exchangeable for a specific amount of a commodity, but has nominal value only, as is the normal practice today.
Where things get really spooky is with copyright.
That authors have a supernatural ability to prevent their work being copied or performed anywhere in the world is a matter of belief. That authors should have such supernatural power, and that all states the world over should thus lend the author their superhuman power to approximate it, is more a matter of religion than self-evidence. The church being the multinational publishing corporations (shepherding their flock of authors - who get shafted when no-one's looking).
This is why the faithful, even unobserved in the privacy and secrecy of their own homes, still hesitate before copying one of their CDs onto their MP3 player. They have been indoctrinated since birth to believe the publishing corporations' holy scripture that this is wrong, a theft from the starving artist.
And yet, the folklore upon which Disney's 'IP' is largely based was produced with free and full cultural exchange prior to copyright's establishment in the 18th century. The development of mankind's folklore stretches across ice ages. Copyright is a flash in the pan over the storyteller's camp fire. So, would you prefer our natural right to copy and improve each other's stories restored, or would you jealously cherish Queen Anne's grant of a transferable privilege to sue anyone who copies or improves your stories? Bear in mind that the privilege of copyright is the suspension of the natural right to copy from all.
On the post: Richard Dawkins Points Fan To The Pirate Bay To See His Latest Documentary
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not at all. There are natural laws that arise in nature, that a civilised/harmonious society tends toward protecting (at common law and by constitution), and then there are crown/state granted privileges - instruments of injustice.
Respect for privilege may be a matter of consensus.
Are all men created equal? Or is it a matter of consensus? If the consensus decides that those of a particular skin colour or religion are no better than animals, what then?
If the consensus decides that infringement of a state granted monopoly warrants putting infringers in jail, what then?
HOW MANY PEOPLE BANKRUPTED, FINED, DISCONNECTED, IMPRISONED, OR CENSORED, DOES IT TAKE?
At some point you've got to shift paradigms and recognise that it is the privilege that is wrong, and the infringers who are the wronged - irrespective of consensus.
The right to copy is natural. It's suspension by Queen Anne in 1710 is unnatural.
Don't let people try to persuade you that slaves are naturally inferior, nor that those in possession of a commercial privilege are naturally superior. It's a lie.
Copyright and patent suspend your liberty. Take it back.
On the post: Richard Dawkins Points Fan To The Pirate Bay To See His Latest Documentary
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Richard Dawkins Points Fan To The Pirate Bay To See His Latest Documentary
Re: Re:
If people stop believing they don't have the cultural liberty to share and build upon published works, then the 18th century privilege to the contrary vanishes in a puff of smoke (albeit with a few families bankrupted and cinema goers imprisoned along the way).
Copyright is already vanishing before our eyes, as many file-sharers will attest.
When it comes to a battle between immortal publishing corporations and mankind, fighting over the right to copy vs the exclusive privilege, my money's on the mortals.
Who do you think are the good guys?
On the post: When You Realize That Copyright Law Violates Free Speech Rights, You Begin To Recognize The Problems...
Re: Re: Re:
There's nothing about destruction there.
Everyone has the natural liberty to share and build upon mankind's culture, and that includes telling each other's stories and improving or extending them. This happened with folk tales prior to copyright and when copyright's abolished it will happen again.
Only unscrupulous lawyers will say that given a large enough budget to obtain clearance and procure necessary 'rights' (aka license to have their own liberty back) people can continue to feel at liberty extend each other's stories even under the increasingly draconian copyright regime.
Wealthy people perhaps... with consequently wealthy lawyers.
On the post: When You Realize That Copyright Law Violates Free Speech Rights, You Begin To Recognize The Problems...
Re:
An intellectual work that was adjudged to incite violence against a person or class to maliciously endanger or jeopardise their life is such a violation.
Further publication of the specific work being prohibited (banned) such that all are required to cease and desist from further distribution (despite being free to, uncensored) to avoid prosecution is an ethical measure.
This is nothing to do with the privilege and reproduction monopoly that is copyright, which is an intrinsic rights violation.
On the post: When You Realize That Copyright Law Violates Free Speech Rights, You Begin To Recognize The Problems...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
See Wikipedia/Moral rights/Berne Convention:
There's a poor distinction made here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights
The term 'Moral rights' distinguishes the natural rights relating to intellectual works and their communication from the legislatively granted rights (from the privilege of copyright and its decomposition).
Your jurisdiction may vary, but there is at least some recognition of a moral/natural right pertaining to the truth of authorship - even if it goes too far into realms of granting additional proprietary controls and remedies against defamation.
On the post: When You Realize That Copyright Law Violates Free Speech Rights, You Begin To Recognize The Problems...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Even if copyright was abolished, people still have a (natural) right not to be deceived as to a work's authorship.
On the post: When You Realize That Copyright Law Violates Free Speech Rights, You Begin To Recognize The Problems...
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The Constitution defines the strict limits of the power provided by the people to Congress to protect them (the people).
The people do not provide power to Congress to annul any of their rights. Thus it is an error to consider that the people empower Congress to annul their right to copy (and respective freedom of speech) in order to reserve this as a privilege for exploitation by the press.
The people empower Congress to secure their (natural) right to exclude others from their writings.
If an author gives someone their writing, it is self-evident that they do not have a (natural) right to exclude them from copying it. To have even the pretence of such power, they would need a privilege that annulled the recipient's natural right to copy, i.e. copyright.
An author can naturally exclude another from (copying, etc.) the writings they possess that the other does not - in addition to excluding others from their material property (paper, ink, etc.).
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