True, testing and certification must contribute a huge overhead.
I think there's three questions rather than one though:
Are Patents the best way of promoting progress?
If so how long should the patent be?
and, most importantly,
Is recouping a company's costs more important than saving lives?
The obvious rejoinder is that if the companies can't recoup their costs then they wouldn't be making any drugs at all, hence it becomes a tricky question.
But to get back to the case in point, a quick shufti at google gives me a figure of about $8000 for an average yearly wage in India. So a drug costing 2/3rds of a annual salary probably isn't going to sell that many treatments, so I'm not sure how much they would have recouped on this in India anyway?
AC, the problem isn't over there. The problem is right here. In the US no new material is entering the public domain. That's the concern, not whether cutting the term to 35 year (or 20 years) would affect piracy levels.
The purpose of copyright is to promote creativity. The last thirty years of changes to copyright law haven't achieved that because they have been driven by the idea that inspiration and creativity happen in a vacuum. It's simply not so. We all build on our experiences and our experiences are our shared culture.
"If opt-out work as intended, I don't see an issue here."
2 things on this, 1) they probably won't work as intended because of the technical hurdles to overcome (see other comments for details) and 2) I dislike (and I fully appreciate that this is solely my opinion) both the concept of censorship by default and the delegation of personal responsibility that comes with it. I'm in the UK and we appear to be doing a fine line in creating a culture where everyone knows their rights but not their responsibilities, everything is someone else's fault no-one takes ownership of their actions. Proposals like this feed that behaviour.
"If your government censoring critics this way - time to put keyboard aside and take a gun" Well, probably, but I'd rather we stopped them at the top of the slope rather than when they're halfway down and accelerating.
Basically, this kind of opt-out filter isn't needed, is unlikely to achieve its objectives and is likely to cause a reasonable amount of collateral damage.
That makes it a bad idea in my book.
his obscene wodges of tax-efficient-cash-funneled-through-switzerland... ;¬)
Really though, cherry-picking quotes from the top 1% of the recording artists* is hardly representative of the bulk of the industry now is it? How about some quotes from those in the middle or lower quartiles?
* By sales, i'm not convinced they're the top 1% of artists...
Ifroen, and this is entirely your choice, but it should be an active choice. Let's face it, you're on techdirt, you probably know a little bit about technology and from your comments you plainly know about your kids so all's good there.
The problem with making it a default option is that some people who don't know so much about technology will assume that because it's filtered at network level everything will be fine.
Then we get to the whole slippery slope around what goes on the blacklist. Today it's porn, tomorrow it might be sites extolling religious extremism, by the end of the week* it might be sites that are critical of the encumbent government.
In summary, filters are fine, but they should always be opt-in.
I was thinking in terms of the effort involved in duplicating a discrete,physical item may be sufficient to effectively limit what can be done with it after sale. E.g. manually copying a book is unlikely to be a time-effective activity.
Even then I was a bit dubious about it, hence "may".
"but when the artist pockets all the money, without a third party, then that's fair?"
YES! Of course it's friggin' fair! The artist sets the price, the fan agrees that the price is reasonable and buys the goods.
If it's unfair then the fan doesn't pay and the artist goes back to square one.
So what we have here is a frequent set of examples of how people are successfully competing in the new reality. You keep trying to drag it back to a moral question that, in itself, is based on a massive assumption: that an artist can or should be able to control something once it has been released to a market.
In the days of physical and discrete goods that may have been valid but I keep getting back to the question of why it would still be valid.
I should thank you for your comments as I've done some further thinking about your point, sadly I've come down even further on the other side of the argument.
Why should it be illegal for someone to build a business on the back of someone else's work? Because of copyright. That's all. I no longer think that that's a good argument, it (like patents) is a legacy that has been built and repeatedly extended by industries who have struggled to compete.
I'm no longer convinced of its worth at all.
And how many of those tunecore artists would have made any more at all on the old model?
"where's the model that's creating a new middle class of professional musicians?" Where, exactly, is it written that being a professional musician means you deserve a middle class income?
The frustrating thing about this is, when contacting my MP about this, I just get stonewalled with the "protecting the children" argument. It's not that they don't understand the issue, it's that they're not even prepared to listen to the argument. I suppose it is seen as political suicide to be on the "wrong side" of any argument where the words "porn" and "children" appear.
Interestingly my MEPs do appear to be slightly more aware on this subject though, perhaps the ACTA demonstrations have woken them up a bit.
again with the Pirate Bay. I note that you make no mention of Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Ubetoo, CDBaby or any of the other myriad of distribution agencies that offer a far better return than any of the legacy labels.
But you're right in a way, they're not gatekeepers, they're middlemen providing a useful and valuable service. Hence they're able to build a business model in the current environment without trying to screw over the rest of the web whilst they're at it.
Mike doesn't censor the comments, the users do.
Plainly a few people here have confused you with another AC who also posts as hurricanehead.
To be fair, it's an easy confusion to make as you both repeat the same points, in very similar wording, in a quite aggressive and insulting fashion whilst cherry-picking data points.
It would be easy enough to avoid this confusion by just signing in with a pseudonym. You don't have to use your real name (though that might garner you a lot more respect) but a username would help the discussion along quite a bit.
I am curious as to exactly what kind of a web and what kind of a content industry you would like to see us left with if all your preferred legislation was passed?
From where I'm sitting it looks pretty horrific.
On the post: You're Only Making Things Worse For Yourself (And Us Too), Media Industries (Part II)
Re: Re: Abolish copyright
On the post: Generics Drive Down Drug Prices In India, TPP Trying To Stop That
Re: Re: Re:
I think there's three questions rather than one though:
Are Patents the best way of promoting progress?
If so how long should the patent be?
and, most importantly,
Is recouping a company's costs more important than saving lives?
The obvious rejoinder is that if the companies can't recoup their costs then they wouldn't be making any drugs at all, hence it becomes a tricky question.
But to get back to the case in point, a quick shufti at google gives me a figure of about $8000 for an average yearly wage in India. So a drug costing 2/3rds of a annual salary probably isn't going to sell that many treatments, so I'm not sure how much they would have recouped on this in India anyway?
On the post: You're Only Making Things Worse For Yourself (And Us Too), Media Industries (Part II)
Re:
The purpose of copyright is to promote creativity. The last thirty years of changes to copyright law haven't achieved that because they have been driven by the idea that inspiration and creativity happen in a vacuum. It's simply not so. We all build on our experiences and our experiences are our shared culture.
On the post: Amanda Palmer Details How All That Kickstarter Money Is Being Spent
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 20 bucks a record?
On the post: As UK Government Considers Opt-Out Porn Censorship, Report Already Finds Overblocking On Mobile Networks
Re:
Upcoming? It's already here in the UK. Might be why we're slightly ahead of the curve I guess...
On the post: As UK Government Considers Opt-Out Porn Censorship, Report Already Finds Overblocking On Mobile Networks
Re: Re: Re: I actually prefer blocked porn
2 things on this, 1) they probably won't work as intended because of the technical hurdles to overcome (see other comments for details) and 2) I dislike (and I fully appreciate that this is solely my opinion) both the concept of censorship by default and the delegation of personal responsibility that comes with it. I'm in the UK and we appear to be doing a fine line in creating a culture where everyone knows their rights but not their responsibilities, everything is someone else's fault no-one takes ownership of their actions. Proposals like this feed that behaviour.
"If your government censoring critics this way - time to put keyboard aside and take a gun" Well, probably, but I'd rather we stopped them at the top of the slope rather than when they're halfway down and accelerating.
Basically, this kind of opt-out filter isn't needed, is unlikely to achieve its objectives and is likely to cause a reasonable amount of collateral damage.
That makes it a bad idea in my book.
On the post: Band Protests As A Copyright Troll Sues Its Fans
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Band Protests As A Copyright Troll Sues Its Fans
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Really though, cherry-picking quotes from the top 1% of the recording artists* is hardly representative of the bulk of the industry now is it? How about some quotes from those in the middle or lower quartiles?
* By sales, i'm not convinced they're the top 1% of artists...
On the post: As UK Government Considers Opt-Out Porn Censorship, Report Already Finds Overblocking On Mobile Networks
Re: I actually prefer blocked porn
The problem with making it a default option is that some people who don't know so much about technology will assume that because it's filtered at network level everything will be fine.
Then we get to the whole slippery slope around what goes on the blacklist. Today it's porn, tomorrow it might be sites extolling religious extremism, by the end of the week* it might be sites that are critical of the encumbent government.
In summary, filters are fine, but they should always be opt-in.
* This is a metaphorical week obviously :¬)
On the post: Amanda Palmer Details How All That Kickstarter Money Is Being Spent
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 20 bucks a record?
Even then I was a bit dubious about it, hence "may".
On the post: Dan Bull Auctioning Off Another Custom Song On eBay
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Pirate Dan
On the post: Amanda Palmer Details How All That Kickstarter Money Is Being Spent
Re: Re: Re: 20 bucks a record?
YES! Of course it's friggin' fair! The artist sets the price, the fan agrees that the price is reasonable and buys the goods.
If it's unfair then the fan doesn't pay and the artist goes back to square one.
On the post: Amanda Palmer Details How All That Kickstarter Money Is Being Spent
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 20 bucks a record?
In the days of physical and discrete goods that may have been valid but I keep getting back to the question of why it would still be valid.
I should thank you for your comments as I've done some further thinking about your point, sadly I've come down even further on the other side of the argument.
Why should it be illegal for someone to build a business on the back of someone else's work? Because of copyright. That's all. I no longer think that that's a good argument, it (like patents) is a legacy that has been built and repeatedly extended by industries who have struggled to compete.
I'm no longer convinced of its worth at all.
On the post: Amanda Palmer Details How All That Kickstarter Money Is Being Spent
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 20 bucks a record?
"where's the model that's creating a new middle class of professional musicians?" Where, exactly, is it written that being a professional musician means you deserve a middle class income?
On the post: As UK Government Considers Opt-Out Porn Censorship, Report Already Finds Overblocking On Mobile Networks
Counter action
Interestingly my MEPs do appear to be slightly more aware on this subject though, perhaps the ACTA demonstrations have woken them up a bit.
On the post: Band Protests As A Copyright Troll Sues Its Fans
Re: Re: Racketeering?
But you're right in a way, they're not gatekeepers, they're middlemen providing a useful and valuable service. Hence they're able to build a business model in the current environment without trying to screw over the rest of the web whilst they're at it.
On the post: Band Protests As A Copyright Troll Sues Its Fans
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Plainly a few people here have confused you with another AC who also posts as hurricanehead.
To be fair, it's an easy confusion to make as you both repeat the same points, in very similar wording, in a quite aggressive and insulting fashion whilst cherry-picking data points.
It would be easy enough to avoid this confusion by just signing in with a pseudonym. You don't have to use your real name (though that might garner you a lot more respect) but a username would help the discussion along quite a bit.
On the post: Band Protests As A Copyright Troll Sues Its Fans
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Band Protests As A Copyright Troll Sues Its Fans
Re: Re:
On the post: Russian Appeals Court Says Popular Social Network vKontakte Is Liable For File Sharing By Users
Re:
From where I'm sitting it looks pretty horrific.
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