Also we had nearly 1,000 almost certainly disappointed visitors who searched for "hookers on facebook."
Hey, how do you think I found this site? I know it sounds weird, but after you work your way through the first 10,000 hits, the pickin's get really slim.
Anyway, thanks for the insightful votes. I think the higher percentage this year had to do with a lower overall post count. Quality over quantity, as they say.
Copyright grants rights that nobody has ever held in real property. It creates "property" rights over other people's property, not my own.
Actually, let's expand on this a little bit.
Let's say I have a condo, and I invite you over to it for dinner. You really like my condo: the way the furniture is laid out, the color scheme I chose, my choice in furnishings, and so on. (Yes, I know, I'm asking for a huge suspension of disbelief.)
In a month or two, you decide to invite me to a moving-in party at your new condo. To my chagrin, I discover that you've simply copied my condo - the furniture layout, color scheme, choice of furnishings, and so on.
Here's the question. Do I have a property right to your new condo? Can I claim that I am the rightful owner of your condo, and you must pay me rent? If you refuse, can I have the government seize your condo and destroy it?
No, of course not. Any defender of private property rights would find such a situation offensive. Yet these are exactly the rights that copyright grants.
So tell me, after how many years ought the rights in your condo escheat (borrowing the polite lingo of confiscation) to the general public?
If you mean the "right" to own the actual condo in which I am living, then the answer is "never" (or near enough).
But if you mean the "right" to own another condo that is like mine, then the answer is "right now."
In fact, I would question my right to be the only person in the nation who can own a condo that is like mine. Which is good, because I never held that right in the first place.
And that's the point. Copyright grants rights that nobody has ever held in real property. It creates "property" rights over other people's property, not my own.
A real statement is to do what ssc suggests: don't watch at all.
An even better statement is to watch the ones that aren't produced by copyright maximalists.
There are plenty of channels on (say) YouTube that are run by independent artists, and watching there benefits those artists far more than watching on cable, Hulu, or Netflix.
they actually made the show available for free via streaming on a website.
Not that anyone was aware of it, of course. I'm a fan of the show, and I didn't even know they were doing this until after they stopped. I waited to watch the entire season on Netflix.
Instead of taking away the lesson that "some people are just going to pirate," they should take away the lesson that "convenient" trumps "free." And "convenient" includes things like "not making people go to a website that they may not even know about."
Another lesson they should probably take away is that "piracy" does not equate to a loss of traditional viewers. After all, the Walking Dead season premiere had the highest number of viewers for any AMC show (over 16 million) - including the finale of Breaking Bad.
This is especially true when speaking of, say, math textbooks.
That's not even the half of it. Publishers have known for years that they need to continuously come out with "new" editions, solely to prevent students from buying used textbooks and avoid the publishers' insane monopoly prices.
The new trick is to move everything online, and lock it up behind non-transferable accounts that can only be accessed with codes from a specific book.
I have three different versions of exactly the same calculus book (at $150-$200 each) for exactly that reason. My calculus courses had a online components, and I needed to buy a different version of the book to access them. I literally could not take the course without re-buying the book. And, of course, I can never resell any of them.
The limitation upon the duration of copyright is a restraint upon an owner's rights in his property.
You have this exactly backwards. The rights granted under copyright are nothing other than statutory monopoly rights. Their limited duration is not a "restraint upon an owner's rights in his property," it is the expiration of a government-granted monopoly.
As with all monopolies, it is a limitation on other people's property rights. It regulates, by law, what other people can do with their own property: the works that they bought, the raw materials that they could use to produce other works, and so forth. If I legally bought a book, then copyright law says that if I create copies of it, with my own labor and raw materials, I am a criminal. If I bought a phone, then copyright law says I cannot modify my own property in order to "root" the phone, or switch to a new carrier. And so on.
That monopoly is usually treated as if it were property under the law, in the sense that the exploitation rights can be exclusively held and transferred. (This is practical, as the goal is to create rights that are marketable.) But this is not even universally true under the law. As one example, under statutory royalty laws, I do not have the right to exclude others from exploiting the work so long as they pay those royalties. As another example, the "attribution and integrity" rights granted in 17 USC 106a are not transferable.
And, under the law, infringing upon a copyright is not infringing upon the same rights one has in common property. It is not "theft" or "conversion." This was decided uniquivocably by the Supreme Court in Dowling vs. U.S.
...And that's just approaching the issue from a "property rights" perspective. Another issue (and one that I think is far more serious) is the free speech issue. Since the copyright "property" is expression, it is also infringing upon the rights of the public to express themselves as they will. This is especially apparent when you consider derivative works. It is why copyright requires fair use in order to be constitutional under the First Amendment.
Claiming that copyright is "property," in anything other than a purely statutory sense, is a mistake. Private property rights exist in order to allocate scarce resources - resources that are rivalrous and exclusive. We own a piece land because two people cannot equally exploit the same piece of land at the same time; whatever one takes, there will be less for the other. If that were not true, then land wouldn't be property - and shouldn't be property.
In contrast, copyright's purpose is to "Promote the Progress of ... Science" (here, "science" means "learning"). It exists solely to benefit the general public, not to privatize scarce resources. Its ultimate goal is "promoting broad public availability of literature, music, and the other arts" (Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken).
So, no, it is not a "specious" argument. It is right at the heart of the matter. Copyright must ultimately provide the public with access to artworks. If it does not, it is an evil that must be reigned in or done away with. (I'm of the opinion that the former is the way to go.)
Regarding term lengths, the only question is this. Did the extension of copyright terms actually result in more works being available to the public? If not, that extension should never have happened.
I'll just drop all the bullshit and say this. Techdirt is one of the few sites I pay attention to, because it is always either informative, or produces constructive arguments. That is better than 99.9% of the sites on the Internet.
So, happy new year, Techdirt. Here's hoping that there are many more.
Copyright is only intended for the author, not their grandchildren.
I do see your point. (Apologies for not recognizing that you were the same AC that made the original post.)
Still, the point stands, and it does actually provide a rationale for providing copyright past the death of the author. The monopoly privileges are granted not just as an economic incentive to create, but also as an economic incentive to publish.
So, if copyright did not survive the original author, then heirs would lack that incentive to publish posthumous works. Also, publishers would be less likely to deal with authors who are nearing the end of their lives, since they know that any monopoly they could be assigned would only be economically enforceable for a few years.
But I wholeheartedly agree that copyright lasts way too long. Frankly, even the lifetime of the author may be too long. Inventors aren't granted such a lengthy term when they hold a patent, and I don't see why authors should be treated any differently.
in an article that was meant to discredit copyright
It's meant to debunk myths that are deliberately spread by certain pro-rights-holder organizations. That doesn't "discredit copyright," unless you think that promoting facts over myths "discredits copyright." If so, then you're doing more harm to copyright than any study ever could.
You still haven't shown how he's not anti-copyright.
Those are not the statements of a copyright abolitionist. If he was an abolitionist, he wouldn't have said that copyright needs to be based on promoting the progress; he wouldn't have said it needs to be based on facts. He would have just said "Congress needs to abolish it" and left it at that.
...Not that it makes a difference. No matter what he says, you'll just claim he's lying, and that he's "really" a copyright abolitionist. All part of building a straw man.
You at least admit he's not pro-copyright.
Almost nobody is "pro-copyright" by your standards. To be "pro-copyright," apparently you think you have to support any and all legislation or enforcement that benefits rights holders, no matter what damage it does to everyone else. That's not actually "pro-copyright," it's copyright maximalism, and it goes against the very purpose of copyright.
I could hunt down examples, but why bother? You would just lie about what Mike said, then claim he didn't answer questions he absolutely did.
It's exactly what you do every single time with anything Mike says, and you do that most of the time with anything anyone (like me) says too.
Hell, this entire thread was started by you doing just that. Using a CC-BY-SA license does not mean you are "really" pro-copyright. It doesn't mean that the person who uses a CC license is hypocritical if they advocate for copyright reform. It is not "ironic" if they use a CC-BY-SA license even if they are a copyright abolitionist (which the author is not), because a CC-BY-SA license is the closest one can get to effecting copyright abolition within the bounds of the law.
The only thing "ironic" is that you believe it is ironic. That belief stems from a false sense of the hypocrisy of others, when in fact you are the most hypocritical person on Techdirt.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It is complicated...
homosexual activists are likewise forcing their views. The fact that parents in California wanted to home school their children
...had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with homosexuality, and calling the 2nd Circuit judges "homosexual activists" because of it is complete and utter BS.
It's pretty clear by now that you're not basing your beliefs on any kind of factual information. It's also pretty clear that you're not basing it on mainstream Christianity. You're simply cherry-picking from Christian beliefs in order to support your own bigotry and anti-science agenda.
posting an anti-copyright piece on an anti-copyright blog.
Add "ad hominem" and "straw man" to the long list of lies you habitually tell.
Demanding that copyright serve its stated purpose of primarily benefiting the public is not "anti-copyright." Believing that copyright laws should be evidence-driven, rather than driven by pure hyperbole, is not "anti-copyright." Being a copyright reformer is not being "anti-copyright."
Techdirt certainly calls for reform, but it is not "anti-copyright," and this study is not "anti-copyright" either.
In fact, by always putting the interests of copyright holders above the interests of the general public, the only one here who is anti-copyright is you.
If you argue against fair use, you are anti-copyright. If you argue that copyright is some sort of natural right, you are anti-copyright. If you argue against public access to works, you are anti-copyright.
If you want to know who is anti-copyright here, look in the mirror.
the irony of you asserting your copyright first thing in a post about how copyright is so very unimportant.
As you very well know, CC-BY is the most lenient form of license that is enforceable worldwide. In countries that have the "droid d'auteur," dedicating your work to the public domain is not legally allowed. The SA bit is to prevent others from locking up any derivative works behind copyright.
If someone believes that "copyright is so very unimportant," CC-BY-SA is the most consistent license they can choose. It is the one that most guarantees that no rights will be removed from the public around the globe. That's not "irony," it's logical consistency.
Of course, you know this. You're just here to insult people and create red herrings. Exactly the sort of behavior one would expect from a disingenuous troll.
On the post: Not Cool: MPAA Joins The W3C
Re:
Netflix doesn't use Flash. It uses Silverlight.
This is why anyone who uses Linux as their OS actually needs to break copyright laws in order to watch content that they paid for.
Otherwise, you're right about the reason. It still doesn't excuse putting DRM into open web standards.
On the post: Techdirt 2013: The Numbers.
Searching...
Hey, how do you think I found this site? I know it sounds weird, but after you work your way through the first 10,000 hits, the pickin's get really slim.
Anyway, thanks for the insightful votes. I think the higher percentage this year had to do with a lower overall post count. Quality over quantity, as they say.
On the post: The Grinch Who Stole The Public Domain
Re: Re: Re: Re: Rights in Property
Actually, let's expand on this a little bit.
Let's say I have a condo, and I invite you over to it for dinner. You really like my condo: the way the furniture is laid out, the color scheme I chose, my choice in furnishings, and so on. (Yes, I know, I'm asking for a huge suspension of disbelief.)
In a month or two, you decide to invite me to a moving-in party at your new condo. To my chagrin, I discover that you've simply copied my condo - the furniture layout, color scheme, choice of furnishings, and so on.
Here's the question. Do I have a property right to your new condo? Can I claim that I am the rightful owner of your condo, and you must pay me rent? If you refuse, can I have the government seize your condo and destroy it?
No, of course not. Any defender of private property rights would find such a situation offensive. Yet these are exactly the rights that copyright grants.
On the post: The Grinch Who Stole The Public Domain
Re: Re: Re: Rights in Property
If you mean the "right" to own the actual condo in which I am living, then the answer is "never" (or near enough).
But if you mean the "right" to own another condo that is like mine, then the answer is "right now."
In fact, I would question my right to be the only person in the nation who can own a condo that is like mine. Which is good, because I never held that right in the first place.
And that's the point. Copyright grants rights that nobody has ever held in real property. It creates "property" rights over other people's property, not my own.
On the post: Oh Look, Hollywood Had Yet Another Record Year At The Box Office
Re: Re: Re:
An even better statement is to watch the ones that aren't produced by copyright maximalists.
There are plenty of channels on (say) YouTube that are run by independent artists, and watching there benefits those artists far more than watching on cable, Hulu, or Netflix.
On the post: Oh Look, Hollywood Had Yet Another Record Year At The Box Office
Re: Compete With Free
Not that anyone was aware of it, of course. I'm a fan of the show, and I didn't even know they were doing this until after they stopped. I waited to watch the entire season on Netflix.
Instead of taking away the lesson that "some people are just going to pirate," they should take away the lesson that "convenient" trumps "free." And "convenient" includes things like "not making people go to a website that they may not even know about."
Another lesson they should probably take away is that "piracy" does not equate to a loss of traditional viewers. After all, the Walking Dead season premiere had the highest number of viewers for any AMC show (over 16 million) - including the finale of Breaking Bad.
On the post: The Grinch Who Stole The Public Domain
Re: Re: Re: Copyright length
That's not even the half of it. Publishers have known for years that they need to continuously come out with "new" editions, solely to prevent students from buying used textbooks and avoid the publishers' insane monopoly prices.
The new trick is to move everything online, and lock it up behind non-transferable accounts that can only be accessed with codes from a specific book.
I have three different versions of exactly the same calculus book (at $150-$200 each) for exactly that reason. My calculus courses had a online components, and I needed to buy a different version of the book to access them. I literally could not take the course without re-buying the book. And, of course, I can never resell any of them.
On the post: The Grinch Who Stole The Public Domain
Re: Rights in Property
You have this exactly backwards. The rights granted under copyright are nothing other than statutory monopoly rights. Their limited duration is not a "restraint upon an owner's rights in his property," it is the expiration of a government-granted monopoly.
As with all monopolies, it is a limitation on other people's property rights. It regulates, by law, what other people can do with their own property: the works that they bought, the raw materials that they could use to produce other works, and so forth. If I legally bought a book, then copyright law says that if I create copies of it, with my own labor and raw materials, I am a criminal. If I bought a phone, then copyright law says I cannot modify my own property in order to "root" the phone, or switch to a new carrier. And so on.
That monopoly is usually treated as if it were property under the law, in the sense that the exploitation rights can be exclusively held and transferred. (This is practical, as the goal is to create rights that are marketable.) But this is not even universally true under the law. As one example, under statutory royalty laws, I do not have the right to exclude others from exploiting the work so long as they pay those royalties. As another example, the "attribution and integrity" rights granted in 17 USC 106a are not transferable.
And, under the law, infringing upon a copyright is not infringing upon the same rights one has in common property. It is not "theft" or "conversion." This was decided uniquivocably by the Supreme Court in Dowling vs. U.S.
...And that's just approaching the issue from a "property rights" perspective. Another issue (and one that I think is far more serious) is the free speech issue. Since the copyright "property" is expression, it is also infringing upon the rights of the public to express themselves as they will. This is especially apparent when you consider derivative works. It is why copyright requires fair use in order to be constitutional under the First Amendment.
Claiming that copyright is "property," in anything other than a purely statutory sense, is a mistake. Private property rights exist in order to allocate scarce resources - resources that are rivalrous and exclusive. We own a piece land because two people cannot equally exploit the same piece of land at the same time; whatever one takes, there will be less for the other. If that were not true, then land wouldn't be property - and shouldn't be property.
In contrast, copyright's purpose is to "Promote the Progress of ... Science" (here, "science" means "learning"). It exists solely to benefit the general public, not to privatize scarce resources. Its ultimate goal is "promoting broad public availability of literature, music, and the other arts" (Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken).
So, no, it is not a "specious" argument. It is right at the heart of the matter. Copyright must ultimately provide the public with access to artworks. If it does not, it is an evil that must be reigned in or done away with. (I'm of the opinion that the former is the way to go.)
Regarding term lengths, the only question is this. Did the extension of copyright terms actually result in more works being available to the public? If not, that extension should never have happened.
On the post: New Year's Message: Optimism On The Cusp Of Big Changes
Happy new year
So, happy new year, Techdirt. Here's hoping that there are many more.
On the post: Judge Says That Sherlock Holmes Is In The Public Domain
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
...uh, my point, I mean.
On the post: Judge Says That Sherlock Holmes Is In The Public Domain
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I do see your point. (Apologies for not recognizing that you were the same AC that made the original post.)
Still, the point stands, and it does actually provide a rationale for providing copyright past the death of the author. The monopoly privileges are granted not just as an economic incentive to create, but also as an economic incentive to publish.
So, if copyright did not survive the original author, then heirs would lack that incentive to publish posthumous works. Also, publishers would be less likely to deal with authors who are nearing the end of their lives, since they know that any monopoly they could be assigned would only be economically enforceable for a few years.
But I wholeheartedly agree that copyright lasts way too long. Frankly, even the lifetime of the author may be too long. Inventors aren't granted such a lengthy term when they hold a patent, and I don't see why authors should be treated any differently.
On the post: Judge Says That Sherlock Holmes Is In The Public Domain
Re: Re: Re:
I checked. Did you miss this part?
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts
That is the sole purpose of copyright. Granting exclusive rights to authors is its method, not its purpose.
On the post: Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important
Re:
in an article that was meant to discredit copyright
It's meant to debunk myths that are deliberately spread by certain pro-rights-holder organizations. That doesn't "discredit copyright," unless you think that promoting facts over myths "discredits copyright." If so, then you're doing more harm to copyright than any study ever could.
On the post: Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important
Re:
Those are not the statements of a copyright abolitionist. If he was an abolitionist, he wouldn't have said that copyright needs to be based on promoting the progress; he wouldn't have said it needs to be based on facts. He would have just said "Congress needs to abolish it" and left it at that.
...Not that it makes a difference. No matter what he says, you'll just claim he's lying, and that he's "really" a copyright abolitionist. All part of building a straw man.
You at least admit he's not pro-copyright.
Almost nobody is "pro-copyright" by your standards. To be "pro-copyright," apparently you think you have to support any and all legislation or enforcement that benefits rights holders, no matter what damage it does to everyone else. That's not actually "pro-copyright," it's copyright maximalism, and it goes against the very purpose of copyright.
On the post: Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important
Re:
Failing to be "pro-copyright" does not make you "anti-copyright." Apparently you missed that part of my post.
He's too chicken shit to ever have a direct conversation about his personal beliefs about copyright.
Well, yeah, except when he does an entire post about it:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130516/15445423110/framework-copyright-reform.shtml
That isn't the first one, either.
I could hunt down examples, but why bother? You would just lie about what Mike said, then claim he didn't answer questions he absolutely did.
It's exactly what you do every single time with anything Mike says, and you do that most of the time with anything anyone (like me) says too.
Hell, this entire thread was started by you doing just that. Using a CC-BY-SA license does not mean you are "really" pro-copyright. It doesn't mean that the person who uses a CC license is hypocritical if they advocate for copyright reform. It is not "ironic" if they use a CC-BY-SA license even if they are a copyright abolitionist (which the author is not), because a CC-BY-SA license is the closest one can get to effecting copyright abolition within the bounds of the law.
The only thing "ironic" is that you believe it is ironic. That belief stems from a false sense of the hypocrisy of others, when in fact you are the most hypocritical person on Techdirt.
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It is complicated...
...had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with homosexuality, and calling the 2nd Circuit judges "homosexual activists" because of it is complete and utter BS.
It's pretty clear by now that you're not basing your beliefs on any kind of factual information. It's also pretty clear that you're not basing it on mainstream Christianity. You're simply cherry-picking from Christian beliefs in order to support your own bigotry and anti-science agenda.
On the post: Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important
Re:
And there you have it. If you're not "pro-copyright," you're "anti-copyright."
God, you're so binary. It's sad.
Pot, meet kettle.
In any case, all of the things I enumerated are well-settled law. It's not "binary," it's factually correct.
On the post: Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important
Re:
Add "ad hominem" and "straw man" to the long list of lies you habitually tell.
Demanding that copyright serve its stated purpose of primarily benefiting the public is not "anti-copyright." Believing that copyright laws should be evidence-driven, rather than driven by pure hyperbole, is not "anti-copyright." Being a copyright reformer is not being "anti-copyright."
Techdirt certainly calls for reform, but it is not "anti-copyright," and this study is not "anti-copyright" either.
In fact, by always putting the interests of copyright holders above the interests of the general public, the only one here who is anti-copyright is you.
If you argue against fair use, you are anti-copyright. If you argue that copyright is some sort of natural right, you are anti-copyright. If you argue against public access to works, you are anti-copyright.
If you want to know who is anti-copyright here, look in the mirror.
On the post: Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important
Re: Re:
Ha, droit d'auteur. Obviously, it doesn't apply to just R2D2 and C-3PO.
On the post: Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important
Re:
As you very well know, CC-BY is the most lenient form of license that is enforceable worldwide. In countries that have the "droid d'auteur," dedicating your work to the public domain is not legally allowed. The SA bit is to prevent others from locking up any derivative works behind copyright.
If someone believes that "copyright is so very unimportant," CC-BY-SA is the most consistent license they can choose. It is the one that most guarantees that no rights will be removed from the public around the globe. That's not "irony," it's logical consistency.
Of course, you know this. You're just here to insult people and create red herrings. Exactly the sort of behavior one would expect from a disingenuous troll.
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