Mike, I'm a big fan of your blog and I agree with a ton of what you're saying.
But I take issue with the way you've seemingly lumped all musicians together in this post and in some of your comments.
e.g. "Musicians must love him", "A bargain was made. The public lived up to our end. Why are musicians trying to back out of theirs?"
I don't think this was intended to lump all musicians together, but I think you should be careful because it sounds that way and weakens your argument a bit.
I'm a musician and I don't agree with McCreevy. There are lots of bands who embrace file sharing and new business models rather than clinging to copyright as welfare. (I know you're well aware of this.) Lastly, as others have pointed out, most of the time it's the record companies and publishers pushing these things who aren't always speaking on behalf of musicians.
Anyways, "some musicians" (the Metallica type) and some large corporations are in favour of these types of laws - not musicians in general.
Well, if they're not allowed to go after you, it's not necessarily being treated as a criminal. It could be view as paying for a privilege for private copying (which would still be problematic - should you have to pay for that privilege?).
I have mixed feelings on the levy. Certainly a bandage solution at best though.
It very well may have been, but John "maddog" Hall recently mentioned in an interview that they're worked to port the Android stack to the OpenMoko hardware as well, both software stacks run the 2.6 kernel.
But yes, alpha for way too long.
They started work before the iPhone was announced though, and it was clearly another attempt at a product that was geared towards what people wanted (no lock in).
When you deactivate a Facebook profile, it certainly still exists on their servers. But try telling Robert Scoble that you can still be found.
I've had my account deactivated once for angering the spam filter, sending messages to alumni from my high school about upcoming events. My sister has had a run in with the spam filter as well.
When your account is deactivated, you disappear without a trace. It's like you never existed. It's more reminiscent of an encounter with the secret service in a Hollywood movie than Hotel California (as suggested in the article).
The data retention policies are still a privacy issue, yes, but I'd bet money that Mr. Das just couldn't figure out how to deactivate his account. I'd advise him to spend a bit more time on his technical education and a bit less time "threatening legal action."
Facebook has already implemented friend lists to group your friends into subcategories. The feature was quietly announced in the last month or so. They've yet to allow users to customize privacy settings for particular groups, but that's in the works.
I think there's another option that allows for competition, but still addresses the issue of "openness" that standards address.
If video game consoles were made to be more open and freed up (e.g. no DRM on the games) that would allow for more portability/flexibility while still allowing for more competition (companies could still design their own consoles).
For example, my brother plays Rock Band a lot. When he downloads songs for Rock Band, he can't transfer them to his computer or digital audio player. I understand there are a lot of legal concerns and such, but opening up that sort of thing ought to add a competitive edge for companies while locking consumers in less.
I mean, I'm not articulating this very well here... but if you look at the GNU/Linux word, companies like Novell, Canonical and Red Hat all offer free as in freedom software, but they still compete intensely.
In other words, competition does not require things to be proprietary, non-free or locked down with DRM.
I agree entirely, but I wonder whether some people attempt to use balance in a different way. Maybe, balancing the extent to which copyright protections apply, say finding the right balance between absolutely no copyright and copyright to ridiculously harmful extent.
That's just to say that some people use the word balance without intentionally trying to imply that each side has to give something up. But I agree the term has those connotations, and it would make sense to either avoid it or to be precise when using it.
"I believe history overwhelmingly supports the notion that a person is entitled to use his property, whether real or intellectual, in whatever manner they desire, including excluding others from using it if that is their wish."
Without attempting to refute any part of that statement, you have to recognize the inconsistency in what you're saying. Sure, you can exclude someone from using your own property, but once you transfer ownership to them it's another story.
The question here is with software. If someone legally acquires software from the vendor (buys it, for example), should they be able to copy it and share it with a friend? Shouldn't that ownership be transferred? Many people believe so. The law says no, so it's wrong from a legal perspective. But the demand is there, and many companies (ie. free software and open source companies) are profiting from adapting their business model to allow and encourage the sharing of software.
In other words, the historical idea of ownership is quite different from the ownership that is granted to vendors over ALL instance of their software, for example. And regarding ideas, historically ideas were actually not considered property, that's a rather recent development.
I don't recognize "artificial scarcity" as the business model I am using, although if companies can make more money from it, then that is good enough for me. I intended to use the supply-demand model of economics.
Supply and demand is artificial scarcity if the supply is infinite. When the supply is infinite, it must be restricted in order for the supply and demand model to work, hence the title "artificial scarcity."
The difference between your example and what I am asserting is, each and every pizza will be purchased in your example (not counting the wasted ones). In my artist example, only a fraction are purchased, and the rest are stolen.
The difference between the pizza example and your assertion is that pizza is physical and software is digital. "Stolen" is the wrong term, because it's not being taken away from anyone. Rather, unauthorized copying has taken place. It's still illegal (in this case), but there's a fundamental difference.
Since pizza is a physical good, it would be hard to give it away for free for an extended period of time because the supply is limited, you need to bake each pizza. But software is infinite; once you have the original it's trivial to make copies. Hence, software companies might consider a free and open source business model.
That would be a common sense recognition of the nature of their product.
Mike is dealing with the story briefly. If you read his other stuff, you'll soon realize that there's more to it than the example he gives here, and the analogy to smoking doesn't hold.
First of all, a ban on smoking could be considered a good law because it protects public health. And it's based on the hard facts that link smoking to health problems. Unauthorized copying of software, on the other hand, is only illegal because we say it is.
There is nothing inherently harmful about it, namely because of the natural of software. Software is digital, and sharing digital goods does not deprive the owners of their original copies. For this reason, that software is essentially an abundant resource, many software companies have embraced a different style of economics which recognizes the difference between digital and physical goods, and which recognizes the desire of users to share software. These software companies are part of the free software or open source movement, and companies like Red Hat or MySQL make a ton of money selling software that users are legally permitted to share.
Other companies, like the ones in question I'd imagine, try and create artificial scarcity by putting serial numbers on their software, treating it like a physical good and treating users who share it as if they were "stealing".
Unauthorized copying is only unauthorized to create artificial scarcity. Mike challenges the idea the sharing software is wrong because there's nothing inherently wrong about it.
On the post: EU Looks To Extend Copyright And Blank Media Levies
Don't lump all musicians together
But I take issue with the way you've seemingly lumped all musicians together in this post and in some of your comments.
e.g. "Musicians must love him", "A bargain was made. The public lived up to our end. Why are musicians trying to back out of theirs?"
I don't think this was intended to lump all musicians together, but I think you should be careful because it sounds that way and weakens your argument a bit.
I'm a musician and I don't agree with McCreevy. There are lots of bands who embrace file sharing and new business models rather than clinging to copyright as welfare. (I know you're well aware of this.) Lastly, as others have pointed out, most of the time it's the record companies and publishers pushing these things who aren't always speaking on behalf of musicians.
Anyways, "some musicians" (the Metallica type) and some large corporations are in favour of these types of laws - not musicians in general.
On the post: EU Looks To Extend Copyright And Blank Media Levies
Re: Re: Media Levies
I have mixed feelings on the levy. Certainly a bandage solution at best though.
(I live in Canada btw)
On the post: Companies Baffled By iPhone's Success
Re: openmoko
But yes, alpha for way too long.
They started work before the iPhone was announced though, and it was clearly another attempt at a product that was geared towards what people wanted (no lock in).
On the post: Deleting Your Facebook Profile Isn't So Easy
Re:
On the post: Deleting Your Facebook Profile Isn't So Easy
Still exist? Yes. Still Visible? No.
I've had my account deactivated once for angering the spam filter, sending messages to alumni from my high school about upcoming events. My sister has had a run in with the spam filter as well.
When your account is deactivated, you disappear without a trace. It's like you never existed. It's more reminiscent of an encounter with the secret service in a Hollywood movie than Hotel California (as suggested in the article).
The data retention policies are still a privacy issue, yes, but I'd bet money that Mr. Das just couldn't figure out how to deactivate his account. I'd advise him to spend a bit more time on his technical education and a bit less time "threatening legal action."
On the post: The Problem With Social Networks: When Worlds Collide
Re:
Facebook has already implemented friend lists to group your friends into subcategories. The feature was quietly announced in the last month or so. They've yet to allow users to customize privacy settings for particular groups, but that's in the works.
On the post: Which Is More Important For Innovation: A Standard Platform Or Competition?
What about freeing up the software/games?
If video game consoles were made to be more open and freed up (e.g. no DRM on the games) that would allow for more portability/flexibility while still allowing for more competition (companies could still design their own consoles).
For example, my brother plays Rock Band a lot. When he downloads songs for Rock Band, he can't transfer them to his computer or digital audio player. I understand there are a lot of legal concerns and such, but opening up that sort of thing ought to add a competitive edge for companies while locking consumers in less.
I mean, I'm not articulating this very well here... but if you look at the GNU/Linux word, companies like Novell, Canonical and Red Hat all offer free as in freedom software, but they still compete intensely.
In other words, competition does not require things to be proprietary, non-free or locked down with DRM.
Just a thought...
On the post: The Myth Of Finding A 'Balance' In Copyright Laws
That's just to say that some people use the word balance without intentionally trying to imply that each side has to give something up. But I agree the term has those connotations, and it would make sense to either avoid it or to be precise when using it.
On the post: Russian BitTorrent User Sentenced... But It May Backfire
Re: Re: Re: Common Sense
"I believe history overwhelmingly supports the notion that a person is entitled to use his property, whether real or intellectual, in whatever manner they desire, including excluding others from using it if that is their wish."
Without attempting to refute any part of that statement, you have to recognize the inconsistency in what you're saying. Sure, you can exclude someone from using your own property, but once you transfer ownership to them it's another story.
The question here is with software. If someone legally acquires software from the vendor (buys it, for example), should they be able to copy it and share it with a friend? Shouldn't that ownership be transferred? Many people believe so. The law says no, so it's wrong from a legal perspective. But the demand is there, and many companies (ie. free software and open source companies) are profiting from adapting their business model to allow and encourage the sharing of software.
In other words, the historical idea of ownership is quite different from the ownership that is granted to vendors over ALL instance of their software, for example. And regarding ideas, historically ideas were actually not considered property, that's a rather recent development.
I don't recognize "artificial scarcity" as the business model I am using, although if companies can make more money from it, then that is good enough for me. I intended to use the supply-demand model of economics.
Supply and demand is artificial scarcity if the supply is infinite. When the supply is infinite, it must be restricted in order for the supply and demand model to work, hence the title "artificial scarcity."
The difference between your example and what I am asserting is, each and every pizza will be purchased in your example (not counting the wasted ones). In my artist example, only a fraction are purchased, and the rest are stolen.
The difference between the pizza example and your assertion is that pizza is physical and software is digital. "Stolen" is the wrong term, because it's not being taken away from anyone. Rather, unauthorized copying has taken place. It's still illegal (in this case), but there's a fundamental difference.
Since pizza is a physical good, it would be hard to give it away for free for an extended period of time because the supply is limited, you need to bake each pizza. But software is infinite; once you have the original it's trivial to make copies. Hence, software companies might consider a free and open source business model.
That would be a common sense recognition of the nature of their product.
On the post: Russian BitTorrent User Sentenced... But It May Backfire
Re: Ok...
Mike is dealing with the story briefly. If you read his other stuff, you'll soon realize that there's more to it than the example he gives here, and the analogy to smoking doesn't hold.
First of all, a ban on smoking could be considered a good law because it protects public health. And it's based on the hard facts that link smoking to health problems. Unauthorized copying of software, on the other hand, is only illegal because we say it is.
There is nothing inherently harmful about it, namely because of the natural of software. Software is digital, and sharing digital goods does not deprive the owners of their original copies. For this reason, that software is essentially an abundant resource, many software companies have embraced a different style of economics which recognizes the difference between digital and physical goods, and which recognizes the desire of users to share software. These software companies are part of the free software or open source movement, and companies like Red Hat or MySQL make a ton of money selling software that users are legally permitted to share.
Other companies, like the ones in question I'd imagine, try and create artificial scarcity by putting serial numbers on their software, treating it like a physical good and treating users who share it as if they were "stealing".
Unauthorized copying is only unauthorized to create artificial scarcity. Mike challenges the idea the sharing software is wrong because there's nothing inherently wrong about it.
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