"Nope. The critical comments could have stayed up (or been reposted), minus the borrowed content. The author chose not to. The validity of the critical comments are such that it wasn't worth reposting. That says a lot."
Sigh. Stop pussyfooting around the argument. Ideas were taken offline because of this law. Your opinion about those ideas is not relevant.
"The technology wasn't surpressed, only the use of it for illegal activities."
That would have meant not suing the providers of the technology, just the users who were doing those illegal activities. That's not what happened.
"The fear, my friend, is only in your heart and your greedy, freeloading mind."
But I'm not a pirate, while you are massive douchebag no matter how I look at you. The fear is, of course, all yours -- and I look forward to IP policy being fixed and people like you being out of a job.
"The first one, well, who knows? The content is removed, the person admitted to using it, I can't say more."
Which is precisely the point. Valid criticism was taken offline in response to a DMCA claim. Is that the suppression of an idea, or not? Perhaps it'll be easier for you to check out Sony's recent copyright shenanigans.
"Limewire? They broke the law, end of story. Next."
Again, that's the point. A technology was suppressed as a result of copyright law.
"Sorry, but if those are the massive horrible terrible results of copyright, we don't have much to fear."
Since most of those are VERY high-profile events, I'm sure you won't have any problems finding more information using your favourite search engine. If you believe Mike got any facts glaringly wrong, make sure to point them out.
Yes, links which describe particular EVENTS, something you would have discovered if you were anything more than a TROLL. Any opinions in those posts, Mike's or anyone else's, are irrelevant and at no point did I make reference to them.
Feel free to point out which of those EVENTS aren't real, or why they don't support my arguments.
"I think if anyone is displaying impartiality, it is you."
I am impartial only as far as not being in the employment of the industry in whatever role, or in fact a pirate. My stakes in this, really, are as amateur creator and as a human being with some supposed rights.
"You have made many assumptions about be based on little information."
Should glaring conflicts of interest be ignored? If it's "likely" that you are not impartial because of your job, then I don't regret using that against you.
So, you consider the artists themselves too pathetic, stupid and incompetent that they can't respond for themselves.
Moreover, you seem more keen to discuss matters of economic policy (such as the motives behind copyrights and patents) rather than technicalities about the current state of the law that your training covered.
"Copyright incentivizes the creation of works that are so good"
Is there evidence of that, or is that what they told you at IP jihad training?
Plus, copyright is just a law. You could make a law that makes breathing illegal and sue everyone for "stealing" air. That would be one hell of an incentive for lawsuits -- it would surely keep the hot-air lawyers busy and their wallets heavy.
Or maybe current IP law will be considered a terrifying example of legal scope creep that involved the suppression of ideas, of technologies, book burnings, witch hunts and martyrs.
But hey, let's not take any guesses about what is most likely to go down in history as insane -- the ideas of a blogger, or the global persecution of people sharing files? Let's not take any guesses, because that would be.. reaching.
"First, assuming that there is only one motivator for creation of creative works and "copyright is not the motivator" I think is not based in reality."
I never assumed that. I do assume that those who do not aspire to sell their work professionally are mainly motivated by a host of things other than copyright.
"Saying that most "works" are not professionaly done (a) may or may not be true, and (b) doesn't mean that copyright provides no incentive for such work."
(a) I'd say there's way more content being created by amateurs, however a lot of it is never published (I would also argue that copyright routinely fails to incentivize publication, and often actively discourages it).
(b) Useful for plagiarism protection, not necessarily useful as an economic motivator if your main concern isn't making money by selling copies.
"The kid in his garage might not be thinking about copyright, but he wouldn't be an aspiring rock star without it (because "rock stars" wouldn't exist, or at least wouldn't exist the way they do now or for the last several decades)."
Aspiring doctors and engineers don't need super-star legends to look up to, just good raw models. I'm sure that kid will find artists to look up to, copyright or no copyright, and maybe when he grows up the wealth distribution in his chosen field will be a bit more even without the super-stars.
"I do believe it has a net incentive effect (which could probably be optimalized from what it is now by reducing restrictions on use of preexisting works)."
Ok, but is the net effect still positive after things like the societal dead-weight loss and draconian enforcement issues are accounted for? I strongly suspect that it's not.
"You seem to do the same thing. You there's not data showing a chilling effect from RIAA suits, so apparently assume there is none. Yet, where is your data for the chilling effect of copyright law? I agree that it happens in certain contexts, but that's not data."
Like I said, the difference between the two is their scale. The lawsuits are a scare tactic, so what you need to measure is how many people were terrorized to stand in line as a result of seeing what happened to their fellow citizens. Collecting that data is nigh impossible.
On the other hand, measuring how many users have had their content deleted from YouTube or some other internet website on copyright grounds is simply a matter of counting! It would probably be very easy to find millions of such cases.
That's why you're comparing apples and oranges.
"Who do you presume my "masters" are? I suspect you'd might be surprised if you saw my list of clients."
Would I be disgusted if I found out about the things you've done?
"on what basis do you presume to know that my "motivation is nothing other than self-preservation and greed.""
It's because as an IP lawyer you cannot be impartial -- IP is your business. It's more your business than any content creator's, in fact. That people like you feel more compelled to speak for IP than the artists themselves really shows what IP is for.
It's self-preservation to kindle the flames of conflict so you can play the role of the peacekeeper, and it's self-preservation to try and justify that IP protection is a beneficial and virtuous thing so you can feel you're not a villain.
Of course I'm hyperbolizing shamelessly, but I have some pent up anger for those who want to preserve these mythical artist incentives while depriving the public at large of basic privacy, speech and property rights. It makes me mad when those individuals come here trying to rationalize that that's somehow a fair trade for more creative output, but fail to provide any evidence to support their positions.
"Things don't need to be published in order to be protectable or protected by copyright, so I fail to see this distinction between "copyright works" and "production in general.""
The stat in TFA concerns all content creation, regardless of whether it was produced in a professional capacity or for the lulz. It's fair to assume that the majority of content is not created by professionals who want to publish it and assert copyright control over it.
Thus, copyright is most likely not the motivator for the creation of those works. However, should those non-pro creators decide to share their work (e.g., on YouTube) for others to see, they could face legal trouble because of copyright (if, for instance, they used a copyrighted song).
So, a lot of that content may go unpublished, even through it may contain culture or knowledge that would be valuable to others. Content that does get published may be censored on copyright grounds, for example a video may be taken off YouTube because it contained copyrighted music.
Net effect, copyright has a chilling effect on the publication of some works. I don't know how much this is generally felt by professionals, especially those who work for publishers in ownership of most content. At the very least, I know the sound-sampling music genres have been affected -- meaning there's also a chilling effect on the professional creation of those works, as they can't be legally published without clearing the rights for hundreds of samples.
"If I frame an assertion as "despite the increased copyright protection and enforcement worldwide over the last couple decades, the amount of production of creative works has increased a gagillionfold in that time" it's essentially the same argument as the filesharing argument you post, but is not treated the same here."
You must be able to see that you're comparing apples with oranges here, so there's no double standard.
The two arguments are that more copyright enforcement may lead to:
1) Less file-sharing, and
2) Less content creation.
(1) can be checked just by looking at the measurements of p2p traffic year-on-year. The lawsuits have not reversed the upward trend. Perhaps they've decreased the rate of change, however there's no evidence of that.
That means, the lawsuits have been ineffective at completely stopping file-sharing, and have had unmeasurable and quite possibly negligible effects as a deterrent. There's not even any data showing a chilling effect, and all we know is that the only people who are no longer file-sharing as a result are the people sued (so, apples).
(2) is much more nuanced. Like I said above, it's difficult to show that creation has been affected, except where professionals know they will not be able to legally publish their works because of licensing demands. If TFA's argument is true, overall creation is increasing, and I argue that copyright does not so much affect the production of non-professional derivative works, as much as it restricts their publication.
Some of those works are still published in spite of copyright, as some creators who feel like defying the system may choose to upload their works to the internet. Even then, IP filters will catch anything that contains even small amounts of copyrighted content and the entire works will be deleted, fair use or not.
In other words, there is clearly a chilling effect on the publication of these works, and it's on a massive scale (ah, oranges!). Tens of thousands of user-created videos are likely being deleted from YouTube alone every day as an effect of copyright enforcement.
"I'm not sure what "the same arguments" you're talking about are. I was talking about applying one standard of proof to arguments supporting conclusions you agree with, and another to arguments supporting conclusions you disagree with."
I've made my case on why the two arguments you juxtapose are far too different. Perhaps you disagree with my reasoning, but that's no reason to make any unnecessary accusations.
And seeing we are on the topic of accusations, the industry is notorious for presenting some of the most one-sided and deluded reports, blatantly devoid of all forms of reasoning, specially crafted for duping fickle-minded individuals into jacking up enforcement. If you think a blog owner like Mike is more guilty of gaming the system for personal gain and misrepresenting evidence, then turn to/on your masters.
"I am an IP lawyer. My motivation for criticizing weak arguments is to expose their flaws. You may note that I've criticized some "pro-copyright" arguments in this very thread, because they are weak."
Why do artists never drop by to tell us what's on their mind? It's always the IP lawyers. It's as if the IP lawyers have more to lose from copyright being fixed than the artists themselves.
Oh, wait. That's actually true. Your motivation is nothing other than self-preservation and greed. As long as there's conflict over copyright, the IP lawyers get to make tons of money. So, keep feeding the fires. Make us all kill each other. Divide and conquer.
"I'd like to know how I am acting in the most obnoxious way possible. Am I being more obnoxious than someone who discounts someone's arguments because of who they are, rather than the merit of their argument?"
- What do you call 5000 IP lawyers at the bottom of the sea?
- A good start.
On the post: A Fifteenth Century Technopanic About The Horrors Of The Printing Press
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Sigh. Stop pussyfooting around the argument. Ideas were taken offline because of this law. Your opinion about those ideas is not relevant.
"The technology wasn't surpressed, only the use of it for illegal activities."
That would have meant not suing the providers of the technology, just the users who were doing those illegal activities. That's not what happened.
"The fear, my friend, is only in your heart and your greedy, freeloading mind."
But I'm not a pirate, while you are massive douchebag no matter how I look at you. The fear is, of course, all yours -- and I look forward to IP policy being fixed and people like you being out of a job.
On the post: A Fifteenth Century Technopanic About The Horrors Of The Printing Press
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Which is precisely the point. Valid criticism was taken offline in response to a DMCA claim. Is that the suppression of an idea, or not? Perhaps it'll be easier for you to check out Sony's recent copyright shenanigans.
"Limewire? They broke the law, end of story. Next."
Again, that's the point. A technology was suppressed as a result of copyright law.
"Sorry, but if those are the massive horrible terrible results of copyright, we don't have much to fear."
Hey, that's what Trithemius said.
On the post: A Fifteenth Century Technopanic About The Horrors Of The Printing Press
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Of course bankruptcy is in no way the same thing as medieval torture, but that's why analogies are like sandwiches, in that I'm making one now.
On the post: A Fifteenth Century Technopanic About The Horrors Of The Printing Press
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Since most of those are VERY high-profile events, I'm sure you won't have any problems finding more information using your favourite search engine. If you believe Mike got any facts glaringly wrong, make sure to point them out.
I look forward to your reply.
On the post: A Fifteenth Century Technopanic About The Horrors Of The Printing Press
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Feel free to point out which of those EVENTS aren't real, or why they don't support my arguments.
On the post: A Fifteenth Century Technopanic About The Horrors Of The Printing Press
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Is that really that hard?
On the post: Copyright Is An Incentive... To Create Lawsuits
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On the post: The Amount Of Content Created In Spite Of Copyright Is Staggering
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I am impartial only as far as not being in the employment of the industry in whatever role, or in fact a pirate. My stakes in this, really, are as amateur creator and as a human being with some supposed rights.
"You have made many assumptions about be based on little information."
Should glaring conflicts of interest be ignored? If it's "likely" that you are not impartial because of your job, then I don't regret using that against you.
On the post: A Fifteenth Century Technopanic About The Horrors Of The Printing Press
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On the post: A Fifteenth Century Technopanic About The Horrors Of The Printing Press
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Or maybe current IP law will be considered a terrifying example of legal scope creep that involved the suppression of ideas, of technologies, book burnings, witch hunts and martyrs.
On the post: Copyright Is An Incentive... To Create Lawsuits
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Moreover, you seem more keen to discuss matters of economic policy (such as the motives behind copyrights and patents) rather than technicalities about the current state of the law that your training covered.
On the post: Copyright Is An Incentive... To Create Lawsuits
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Is there evidence of that, or is that what they told you at IP jihad training?
Plus, copyright is just a law. You could make a law that makes breathing illegal and sue everyone for "stealing" air. That would be one hell of an incentive for lawsuits -- it would surely keep the hot-air lawyers busy and their wallets heavy.
On the post: A Fifteenth Century Technopanic About The Horrors Of The Printing Press
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But hey, let's not take any guesses about what is most likely to go down in history as insane -- the ideas of a blogger, or the global persecution of people sharing files? Let's not take any guesses, because that would be.. reaching.
On the post: Copyright Is An Incentive... To Create Lawsuits
Has anyone else noticed that the most aggressive critics here on TechDirt are not in fact artists, but IP lawyers...
The artists we get, some of whom are actually regulars like Nina and Karl, are a lot less dogmatic about IP enforcement.
I find that rather telling about who is more concerned about their future employment when IP policy is fixed.
On the post: Sony's Neverending War Against The Freedom To Tinker And Innovate
Re: Re: Ambigiousness is bad, m'kay?
On the post: Sony's Neverending War Against The Freedom To Tinker And Innovate
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And he has the audacity to say it's "to protect the rights of content creators". Disgusting.
But it's clear why he does it. Dictatorship-level enforcement means more work for the IP lawyers. What a lowlife.
On the post: The Amount Of Content Created In Spite Of Copyright Is Staggering
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I never assumed that. I do assume that those who do not aspire to sell their work professionally are mainly motivated by a host of things other than copyright.
"Saying that most "works" are not professionaly done (a) may or may not be true, and (b) doesn't mean that copyright provides no incentive for such work."
(a) I'd say there's way more content being created by amateurs, however a lot of it is never published (I would also argue that copyright routinely fails to incentivize publication, and often actively discourages it).
(b) Useful for plagiarism protection, not necessarily useful as an economic motivator if your main concern isn't making money by selling copies.
"The kid in his garage might not be thinking about copyright, but he wouldn't be an aspiring rock star without it (because "rock stars" wouldn't exist, or at least wouldn't exist the way they do now or for the last several decades)."
Aspiring doctors and engineers don't need super-star legends to look up to, just good raw models. I'm sure that kid will find artists to look up to, copyright or no copyright, and maybe when he grows up the wealth distribution in his chosen field will be a bit more even without the super-stars.
"I do believe it has a net incentive effect (which could probably be optimalized from what it is now by reducing restrictions on use of preexisting works)."
Ok, but is the net effect still positive after things like the societal dead-weight loss and draconian enforcement issues are accounted for? I strongly suspect that it's not.
"You seem to do the same thing. You there's not data showing a chilling effect from RIAA suits, so apparently assume there is none. Yet, where is your data for the chilling effect of copyright law? I agree that it happens in certain contexts, but that's not data."
Like I said, the difference between the two is their scale. The lawsuits are a scare tactic, so what you need to measure is how many people were terrorized to stand in line as a result of seeing what happened to their fellow citizens. Collecting that data is nigh impossible.
On the other hand, measuring how many users have had their content deleted from YouTube or some other internet website on copyright grounds is simply a matter of counting! It would probably be very easy to find millions of such cases.
That's why you're comparing apples and oranges.
"Who do you presume my "masters" are? I suspect you'd might be surprised if you saw my list of clients."
Would I be disgusted if I found out about the things you've done?
"on what basis do you presume to know that my "motivation is nothing other than self-preservation and greed.""
It's because as an IP lawyer you cannot be impartial -- IP is your business. It's more your business than any content creator's, in fact. That people like you feel more compelled to speak for IP than the artists themselves really shows what IP is for.
It's self-preservation to kindle the flames of conflict so you can play the role of the peacekeeper, and it's self-preservation to try and justify that IP protection is a beneficial and virtuous thing so you can feel you're not a villain.
Of course I'm hyperbolizing shamelessly, but I have some pent up anger for those who want to preserve these mythical artist incentives while depriving the public at large of basic privacy, speech and property rights. It makes me mad when those individuals come here trying to rationalize that that's somehow a fair trade for more creative output, but fail to provide any evidence to support their positions.
On the post: The Amount Of Content Created In Spite Of Copyright Is Staggering
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On the post: The Amount Of Content Created In Spite Of Copyright Is Staggering
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The stat in TFA concerns all content creation, regardless of whether it was produced in a professional capacity or for the lulz. It's fair to assume that the majority of content is not created by professionals who want to publish it and assert copyright control over it.
Thus, copyright is most likely not the motivator for the creation of those works. However, should those non-pro creators decide to share their work (e.g., on YouTube) for others to see, they could face legal trouble because of copyright (if, for instance, they used a copyrighted song).
So, a lot of that content may go unpublished, even through it may contain culture or knowledge that would be valuable to others. Content that does get published may be censored on copyright grounds, for example a video may be taken off YouTube because it contained copyrighted music.
Net effect, copyright has a chilling effect on the publication of some works. I don't know how much this is generally felt by professionals, especially those who work for publishers in ownership of most content. At the very least, I know the sound-sampling music genres have been affected -- meaning there's also a chilling effect on the professional creation of those works, as they can't be legally published without clearing the rights for hundreds of samples.
"If I frame an assertion as "despite the increased copyright protection and enforcement worldwide over the last couple decades, the amount of production of creative works has increased a gagillionfold in that time" it's essentially the same argument as the filesharing argument you post, but is not treated the same here."
You must be able to see that you're comparing apples with oranges here, so there's no double standard.
The two arguments are that more copyright enforcement may lead to:
1) Less file-sharing, and
2) Less content creation.
(1) can be checked just by looking at the measurements of p2p traffic year-on-year. The lawsuits have not reversed the upward trend. Perhaps they've decreased the rate of change, however there's no evidence of that.
That means, the lawsuits have been ineffective at completely stopping file-sharing, and have had unmeasurable and quite possibly negligible effects as a deterrent. There's not even any data showing a chilling effect, and all we know is that the only people who are no longer file-sharing as a result are the people sued (so, apples).
(2) is much more nuanced. Like I said above, it's difficult to show that creation has been affected, except where professionals know they will not be able to legally publish their works because of licensing demands. If TFA's argument is true, overall creation is increasing, and I argue that copyright does not so much affect the production of non-professional derivative works, as much as it restricts their publication.
Some of those works are still published in spite of copyright, as some creators who feel like defying the system may choose to upload their works to the internet. Even then, IP filters will catch anything that contains even small amounts of copyrighted content and the entire works will be deleted, fair use or not.
In other words, there is clearly a chilling effect on the publication of these works, and it's on a massive scale (ah, oranges!). Tens of thousands of user-created videos are likely being deleted from YouTube alone every day as an effect of copyright enforcement.
"I'm not sure what "the same arguments" you're talking about are. I was talking about applying one standard of proof to arguments supporting conclusions you agree with, and another to arguments supporting conclusions you disagree with."
I've made my case on why the two arguments you juxtapose are far too different. Perhaps you disagree with my reasoning, but that's no reason to make any unnecessary accusations.
And seeing we are on the topic of accusations, the industry is notorious for presenting some of the most one-sided and deluded reports, blatantly devoid of all forms of reasoning, specially crafted for duping fickle-minded individuals into jacking up enforcement. If you think a blog owner like Mike is more guilty of gaming the system for personal gain and misrepresenting evidence, then turn to/on your masters.
"I am an IP lawyer. My motivation for criticizing weak arguments is to expose their flaws. You may note that I've criticized some "pro-copyright" arguments in this very thread, because they are weak."
Why do artists never drop by to tell us what's on their mind? It's always the IP lawyers. It's as if the IP lawyers have more to lose from copyright being fixed than the artists themselves.
Oh, wait. That's actually true. Your motivation is nothing other than self-preservation and greed. As long as there's conflict over copyright, the IP lawyers get to make tons of money. So, keep feeding the fires. Make us all kill each other. Divide and conquer.
"I'd like to know how I am acting in the most obnoxious way possible. Am I being more obnoxious than someone who discounts someone's arguments because of who they are, rather than the merit of their argument?"
- What do you call 5000 IP lawyers at the bottom of the sea?
- A good start.
On the post: The Amount Of Content Created In Spite Of Copyright Is Staggering
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