When I copy your truck, you're not denied a single one of your rights of ownership
Look at the word "copyright". What do you think it means? Strip away all of the underlying legal issues and the word itself tells you that it is the right to copy something. If I have a copyright on something, I and only I have the legal right to copy that something or to confer that right on someone else. If I don't authorize you to copy that something and you copy it, you've not only denied me a single one of my ownership rights, but the most fundemantal of my ownership rights when it comes to copyright. You are 100% wrong.
People seem to forget that there is not only those who create content and those who obtain content, but also those who selflessly share content they have.
Oh, please. Tell me you're joking. I actually agree that copyright it out of control and that the overall media business would be better off if they embraced file sharing, but are you seriously saying that letting your friend copy your MP3 collection is a "selfless" act? I'm sorry, but that's just absurd.
Wait, what? I completely agree that theft and infringement are different enough to warrant distinct terms. In fact, I've replied to comments of people who didn't understand the distinction or (falsely) assumed that the distinction was being made as a justification for breaking the law. But I didn't think it would be a controversial statement to say that infringement and theft are at least analogous. The two concepts are similar in enough key points that you can make a quite valid analogy.
The big media companies didn't completely brainwash consumers into equating infringement with theft. They simply started with the fact that the two concepts are indeed analogous and slowly twisted the language to encourage consumers to view the two as actually being the same thing.
The problem is that the lock itself often causes a problem for the "average user" you speak of above. It has been shown over and over again that these people will go to legitimate channels even if the lock is not there - just because it is much easier for them to do so.
First off, whether you did it intentionally or not, you started up by stating there was a problem with the analogy between DRM and front door locks and then justified it with a statement about the problem of DRM. I happen to agree that the net result of DRM is negative, both for the consumer and for the media companies. But this has nothing to do with the validity of the analogy.
Secondly, I would start off by agreeing that people do like convenience and they're willing to pay for it even if there is a free alternative. But do you honestly think that a huge number of "average users" wouldn't be copying DVDs to their computers if they weren't DRMed?
We're not talking absolutes here. There is no single type of "average user". One one side of the continuum are people that actually do the cracking. Then there are people who can find and feel comfortable running the cracks. Then you have people who can find and feel comfortable with downloading the cracked media. And way farther down are the technically illiterate who are lucky to find the play button on their DVD players. The point is that the target "audience" for DRM starts off with the technilliterates and moves over on the continuum, while diminishing in effect, to the crackers.
It's not really like locking or not locking your door, because not all locks have a master key that opens them all. (well OK a bump key can open most of them) If that were so and everybody had a key, it certainly would be "why bother locking your door." Also, every dishosest person has to physically travel to even try and pick your lock.
How does a master key or the phyiscal proximity relate at all to the analogy? Those factors are irrelevent. The analogy is simply this: DRM and the front door house locks are similar in that they both discourage, but do not absolutely prevent unauthorized use.
Besides, you basically invalidated your own point by noting the existance of the bump key. There actually is a kind of key that can open most front door locks and people still lock their front door. Why? Because they know it will still discourage people they don't know from getting in their house. Just...like...DRM. Companies know that DRM won't prevent a minority of people who really want to get around it, but they know it will prevent most people.
(This says nothing about the effectiveness or business justification for using DRM. I'm just addressing the validity of the analogy.)
Doesn't really match up. Lock picking is a very long or very noisy process even among expert lock smiths. Typically it's only done if you want to hide your presence or to open a door without causing damage. Or because it's your hobby.
Do you understand the concept of the analogy? No, the concept of DRM and the lock on your front door doesn't match up exactly in every detail, but does match up enough to qualify as an appropriate analogy.
It's like one person picking the lock on one house in a city block then because he managed to do it and tell people how to pick locks for one particular company all the locks instantly unlock themselves once a thief walks up to it.
Not it isn't. The analogy between DRM and a house lock works because once DRM is cracked, someone who wants to access the media still has to go out of their way to find and use the crack. Once the DVD was cracked, people couldn't just pop a DVD into their computer and copy it. hegemon13's point was that DRM and front door locks discourage, but do not absolutely prevent unauthorized use.
I read the part in the linked you quoted and I have the same opinion of it on reading it in your post: that it is completely irrelevent to my point. All it points to is that these Russian police are corrupt. How does that relate to Microsoft?
Microsoft are the ones that egged the government on, so yes, their actions are 'shameful.'
Microsoft asked the Russian government to enforce its laws. The Russian government selectively enforced the laws to squelch dissent. How is this Microsoft's responsibility? Holding Microsoft accountable in this case is like saying that because you're in favor of laws against murder, that you're responsible for any corrupt cops in the homocide department.
The copyright industry does not compete in a free market.
No, they don't. But nobody is really surprised when the big media companies or even big name artists say they're for policies which are actually anticompetative. What's surprising in this case is that you have a member of a less-well-knowm band bashing competition who is also on record as being against copyright maximalism. He doesn't come out and say it, but the logical conclusion of his stance is that there shouldn't be a public domain or that there should be some kind of law to "protect" musicians from the public domain. The irony of course is that his (presumed) solution is more communist than what he accuses Musopen of.
Communism? You keep using that word, Mr Escalante. I don't think it means what you think it means.
Let's say that Mr Escalante is right an that that recording public domain symphonies damaged the overall classical music market and the reduced demand for live musicians. This is just a just a natural part of capitalism. It's simple competition and supply and demand at play. So, because he's against competition...he must be anti-capitalism, right?
As Mr. Esclalante would say, "That's just plain old fashioned communism!"
I don't think it's fair to say that Microsoft's behavior is "shameful". Maybe "not honorable" or "not doing enough", but not "shameful". Unless Microsoft are treating cases against "enemies of the state" differently, then it's the Russian government's fault/responsibility. They're the ones targeting dissenters, not Microsoft.
You could make the case that Micosoft should stand up to the Russian government, but in my mind there is a big difference between proactively helping someone do evil and not doing enough to reactively prevent evil. One hopes that if called on to prevent evil, we'd do the right thing, but there's still a large gap between the two behaviors.
I would think a good compromise would be for Microsoft to provide copies of the purchase records to the groups being targeted, maybe even in a public forum. Make it something that is automated. Go to this web page, type in your registration number and get printouts of the licensing information. Just like the Russian government doing evil by hiding behind "piracy", Microsoft can do good by hiding behind "customer service". "What? Should we not have done that? We were just trying to help our paying customers."
I am not an accountant, but I would think this could have a huge effect on the balance sheet of certain business. If you're a small company which uses AutoCad or other high dollar software, a large part of the assets on your books could be in software. If you really treat all software as non-transferable licenses, you could potentially slash the net worth of some companies. The law of unintended consequences for the loss.
I think most Americans have a healthy distrust of government, but the patent office holds a special place in this negative view. The stereotypes are that the IRS is evil, politicians are corrupt, the DMV is indifferent, etc. But what's the general view of the patent office? Because even people who aren't up on all the latest patent and IP issues, the average person on the street, has heard about these kinds of ridiculous patents, I'd say the answer is "incompetent". That's gotta sting. People don't like government agencies for various reasons, but they don't like your agency because it's laughably stupid. Ouch.
"The court says the [personal] information, including so-called IP addresses that identify computers on a network, is covered by Switzerland's strict data protection laws."
I'd be interested in some more information on this situation. IP addresses are public by definition, so I would think that it'd linking the IP address to an individual which would be a privacy concern. But I don't know how this company would be doing that without the co-operation of the users' ISP.
Does the Swiss court deem an IP address and other standard data that would show up in a log file (such as time stamps) as "personal" or is this company actually somehow gathering information which can link online activity back to an individual?
(And what's up with the "so-called" qualifer for IP address? Do Canadians think there there is a more accurate term to descibe an IP address?)
I have to wonder how true it is that you can't fight what's happening.
There are many reasons, but here are two...
1) The "analog hole"
You can lock down digital content to draconian levels and people would still be able to copy songs and movies using old analog technologies. People watch movies taken with a camcorder in a theatre; you think they wouldn't watch an analog copy of the digital original?
2) Sneakernet
Unless you get into big brother territory, you're not going to prevent people from copying files onto a portable drive and taking it to their friends house to trade.
The point is that the cat is out of the bag. There are just too many ways to bypass any technical and/or legal restrictions to copying. Unless you want to lock society down into an oppresive hell, then you should just accept reality and embrace business models to take advantage of it. Because if you don't, you'll just end up tilting at windmills while your competitors have figured out a way to make a buck.
They need to keep records for tracking bandwidth usage
Well, first off, if you have a truly unlimited plan, you don't need to track bandwidth usage. Secondly, surely there's a way to track bandwidth usage of the user and not of the public IP address.
also, I believe there are Federal laws mandating they keep logs for so many years.
I'm sure you're right, but I wonder if you got down into the specifics of the law, there wouldn't be some loophole that, if you were an ISP really interested in privacy, you could avoid storing identifying information.
The trouble with that policy is that any country which would implement it would be at a huge disadvantage to countries which didn't. No matter what your opinion is of corporations or capitalism, there are advantages to being big. Personally, I think there is plenty of room between being large enough to reap the benefits of economies of scale and being so large as to be "too big to fail". The problem of course is there is no objective rule for where a company falls on this continuum.
"Tom Simmons, a spokesman for Midcontinent, said Friday that his company is objecting to this partly because Voltage hasn't offered to compensate the company for expenses related to looking up IP addresses and because the request puts an undue burden on the company. But Midcontinent is most concerned with protecting customer privacy, Simmons said." http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20014970-261.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3- 0-20
Hmmm, I wonder how strong the concern for protecting customer privacy would have been if Voltage had agreed to compensate Midcontinent.
Also, pardon my ignorance on this topic, but why do ISPs keep records in the first place which would link an IP address to a specific customer? Unless this is mandated by law, wouldn't it be easier to just not log this information at all? I know there are probably legitimate technical hurdles to this, but if I were running an ISP, I'd want to be in a position where, if asked for the personal information associated to an IP address, I could honestly say "Sorry, we don't have that information."
Well, it's on the 'net, so they can use whatever robot they want
Ah, but that's a technical solution. We're not talking about a solution that actually solves the problem, but a "solution" that appears to solve the problem and makes everyone happy. What Google needs to do is set up a situation where they can say "Hey, we went through all the trouble to create this special 'copyright content verification' API so the collection agencies can to their job."
Also, I'm not quite clear on what makes a 'legitimate collection agency.'
If Google wanted to be sneaky about it, they'd make the special API available to collection agencies as part of a settlement and then, when the first independent artist requests access, open it up to everyone else. The collection agencies would shit a brick, but by then it'd be too late. There'd be no logical reason not to open it up to artists not represented by a collection agency. That would be discrimination, after all.
isn't policing this kind of stuff the purported reason for these collection societies?
This is actually a really good point. In effect, the collection agencies are trying to make Google do their job. If you force Google to do this, you're basically outlawing Google. They couldn't monitor existing and new content in the way that the collection agencies want and stay in business. Maybe they already do this, but I think a good compromise would be to give legitimate collection agencies special access to scan for their content using whatever technologies they so desire. In other words, give the collection agencies the access they need to do their job instead of forcing Google to do it.
On the post: Why It's Important Not To Call Copyright Infringement Theft
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Look at the word "copyright". What do you think it means? Strip away all of the underlying legal issues and the word itself tells you that it is the right to copy something. If I have a copyright on something, I and only I have the legal right to copy that something or to confer that right on someone else. If I don't authorize you to copy that something and you copy it, you've not only denied me a single one of my ownership rights, but the most fundemantal of my ownership rights when it comes to copyright. You are 100% wrong.
On the post: Why It's Important Not To Call Copyright Infringement Theft
Re: Re: Re:
Oh, please. Tell me you're joking. I actually agree that copyright it out of control and that the overall media business would be better off if they embraced file sharing, but are you seriously saying that letting your friend copy your MP3 collection is a "selfless" act? I'm sorry, but that's just absurd.
On the post: Why It's Important Not To Call Copyright Infringement Theft
Re: Re:
Wait, what? I completely agree that theft and infringement are different enough to warrant distinct terms. In fact, I've replied to comments of people who didn't understand the distinction or (falsely) assumed that the distinction was being made as a justification for breaking the law. But I didn't think it would be a controversial statement to say that infringement and theft are at least analogous. The two concepts are similar in enough key points that you can make a quite valid analogy.
The big media companies didn't completely brainwash consumers into equating infringement with theft. They simply started with the fact that the two concepts are indeed analogous and slowly twisted the language to encourage consumers to view the two as actually being the same thing.
On the post: HDCP 'Master Key' Found? Another Form Of DRM Drops Dead
Re: Re: Keeps "honest" people "honest"...
First off, whether you did it intentionally or not, you started up by stating there was a problem with the analogy between DRM and front door locks and then justified it with a statement about the problem of DRM. I happen to agree that the net result of DRM is negative, both for the consumer and for the media companies. But this has nothing to do with the validity of the analogy.
Secondly, I would start off by agreeing that people do like convenience and they're willing to pay for it even if there is a free alternative. But do you honestly think that a huge number of "average users" wouldn't be copying DVDs to their computers if they weren't DRMed?
We're not talking absolutes here. There is no single type of "average user". One one side of the continuum are people that actually do the cracking. Then there are people who can find and feel comfortable running the cracks. Then you have people who can find and feel comfortable with downloading the cracked media. And way farther down are the technically illiterate who are lucky to find the play button on their DVD players. The point is that the target "audience" for DRM starts off with the technilliterates and moves over on the continuum, while diminishing in effect, to the crackers.
On the post: HDCP 'Master Key' Found? Another Form Of DRM Drops Dead
Re: Re: Keeps "honest" people "honest"...
How does a master key or the phyiscal proximity relate at all to the analogy? Those factors are irrelevent. The analogy is simply this: DRM and the front door house locks are similar in that they both discourage, but do not absolutely prevent unauthorized use.
Besides, you basically invalidated your own point by noting the existance of the bump key. There actually is a kind of key that can open most front door locks and people still lock their front door. Why? Because they know it will still discourage people they don't know from getting in their house. Just...like...DRM. Companies know that DRM won't prevent a minority of people who really want to get around it, but they know it will prevent most people.
(This says nothing about the effectiveness or business justification for using DRM. I'm just addressing the validity of the analogy.)
On the post: HDCP 'Master Key' Found? Another Form Of DRM Drops Dead
Re: Re: Keeps "honest" people "honest"...
Do you understand the concept of the analogy? No, the concept of DRM and the lock on your front door doesn't match up exactly in every detail, but does match up enough to qualify as an appropriate analogy.
It's like one person picking the lock on one house in a city block then because he managed to do it and tell people how to pick locks for one particular company all the locks instantly unlock themselves once a thief walks up to it.
Not it isn't. The analogy between DRM and a house lock works because once DRM is cracked, someone who wants to access the media still has to go out of their way to find and use the crack. Once the DVD was cracked, people couldn't just pop a DVD into their computer and copy it. hegemon13's point was that DRM and front door locks discourage, but do not absolutely prevent unauthorized use.
On the post: Russian Officials Abusing Copyright Law -- With Microsoft's Help -- To Intimidate Gov't Critics
Re: Re:
I read the part in the linked you quoted and I have the same opinion of it on reading it in your post: that it is completely irrelevent to my point. All it points to is that these Russian police are corrupt. How does that relate to Microsoft?
Microsoft are the ones that egged the government on, so yes, their actions are 'shameful.'
Microsoft asked the Russian government to enforce its laws. The Russian government selectively enforced the laws to squelch dissent. How is this Microsoft's responsibility? Holding Microsoft accountable in this case is like saying that because you're in favor of laws against murder, that you're responsible for any corrupt cops in the homocide department.
On the post: Vandals' Bass Player Not A Fan Of The Public Domain, Thinks PD Recordings Will 'Destroy' Classical Music
Re: Re: Communism
No, they don't. But nobody is really surprised when the big media companies or even big name artists say they're for policies which are actually anticompetative. What's surprising in this case is that you have a member of a less-well-knowm band bashing competition who is also on record as being against copyright maximalism. He doesn't come out and say it, but the logical conclusion of his stance is that there shouldn't be a public domain or that there should be some kind of law to "protect" musicians from the public domain. The irony of course is that his (presumed) solution is more communist than what he accuses Musopen of.
Communism? You keep using that word, Mr Escalante. I don't think it means what you think it means.
On the post: Vandals' Bass Player Not A Fan Of The Public Domain, Thinks PD Recordings Will 'Destroy' Classical Music
Communism
As Mr. Esclalante would say, "That's just plain old fashioned communism!"
What a hypocrite.
On the post: Russian Officials Abusing Copyright Law -- With Microsoft's Help -- To Intimidate Gov't Critics
You could make the case that Micosoft should stand up to the Russian government, but in my mind there is a big difference between proactively helping someone do evil and not doing enough to reactively prevent evil. One hopes that if called on to prevent evil, we'd do the right thing, but there's still a large gap between the two behaviors.
I would think a good compromise would be for Microsoft to provide copies of the purchase records to the groups being targeted, maybe even in a public forum. Make it something that is automated. Go to this web page, type in your registration number and get printouts of the licensing information. Just like the Russian government doing evil by hiding behind "piracy", Microsoft can do good by hiding behind "customer service". "What? Should we not have done that? We were just trying to help our paying customers."
On the post: Appeals Court Destroys First Sale; You Don't Own Your Software Anymore
Assets
On the post: IBM Patents Guessing How Many Kids Are On A School Bus
Re: Re:
On the post: IBM Patents Guessing How Many Kids Are On A School Bus
Laughable
On the post: Swiss Supreme Court Says Tracking Online File Sharers Violates Privacy Laws
"Personal"
"The court says the [personal] information, including so-called IP addresses that identify computers on a network, is covered by Switzerland's strict data protection laws."
I'd be interested in some more information on this situation. IP addresses are public by definition, so I would think that it'd linking the IP address to an individual which would be a privacy concern. But I don't know how this company would be doing that without the co-operation of the users' ISP.
Does the Swiss court deem an IP address and other standard data that would show up in a log file (such as time stamps) as "personal" or is this company actually somehow gathering information which can link online activity back to an individual?
(And what's up with the "so-called" qualifer for IP address? Do Canadians think there there is a more accurate term to descibe an IP address?)
On the post: Comic Book Writer Mark Waid Defends Copying, Points To The Value Of The Public Domain
Re:
There are many reasons, but here are two...
1) The "analog hole"
You can lock down digital content to draconian levels and people would still be able to copy songs and movies using old analog technologies. People watch movies taken with a camcorder in a theatre; you think they wouldn't watch an analog copy of the digital original?
2) Sneakernet
Unless you get into big brother territory, you're not going to prevent people from copying files onto a portable drive and taking it to their friends house to trade.
The point is that the cat is out of the bag. There are just too many ways to bypass any technical and/or legal restrictions to copying. Unless you want to lock society down into an oppresive hell, then you should just accept reality and embrace business models to take advantage of it. Because if you don't, you'll just end up tilting at windmills while your competitors have figured out a way to make a buck.
On the post: Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?
Re: Re: "We respect our customers' privacy...unless paid appropriately"?
Well, first off, if you have a truly unlimited plan, you don't need to track bandwidth usage. Secondly, surely there's a way to track bandwidth usage of the user and not of the public IP address.
also, I believe there are Federal laws mandating they keep logs for so many years.
I'm sure you're right, but I wonder if you got down into the specifics of the law, there wouldn't be some loophole that, if you were an ISP really interested in privacy, you could avoid storing identifying information.
On the post: Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?
Re:
On the post: Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?
"We respect our customers' privacy...unless paid appropriately"?
"Tom Simmons, a spokesman for Midcontinent, said Friday that his company is objecting to this partly because Voltage hasn't offered to compensate the company for expenses related to looking up IP addresses and because the request puts an undue burden on the company. But Midcontinent is most concerned with protecting customer privacy, Simmons said."
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20014970-261.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3- 0-20
Hmmm, I wonder how strong the concern for protecting customer privacy would have been if Voltage had agreed to compensate Midcontinent.
Also, pardon my ignorance on this topic, but why do ISPs keep records in the first place which would link an IP address to a specific customer? Unless this is mandated by law, wouldn't it be easier to just not log this information at all? I know there are probably legitimate technical hurdles to this, but if I were running an ISP, I'd want to be in a position where, if asked for the personal information associated to an IP address, I could honestly say "Sorry, we don't have that information."
On the post: German Court Says Google May Have To Police Videos On YouTube For Infringement
Re: Re: Re: WTF?
Ah, but that's a technical solution. We're not talking about a solution that actually solves the problem, but a "solution" that appears to solve the problem and makes everyone happy. What Google needs to do is set up a situation where they can say "Hey, we went through all the trouble to create this special 'copyright content verification' API so the collection agencies can to their job."
Also, I'm not quite clear on what makes a 'legitimate collection agency.'
If Google wanted to be sneaky about it, they'd make the special API available to collection agencies as part of a settlement and then, when the first independent artist requests access, open it up to everyone else. The collection agencies would shit a brick, but by then it'd be too late. There'd be no logical reason not to open it up to artists not represented by a collection agency. That would be discrimination, after all.
On the post: German Court Says Google May Have To Police Videos On YouTube For Infringement
Re: WTF?
This is actually a really good point. In effect, the collection agencies are trying to make Google do their job. If you force Google to do this, you're basically outlawing Google. They couldn't monitor existing and new content in the way that the collection agencies want and stay in business. Maybe they already do this, but I think a good compromise would be to give legitimate collection agencies special access to scan for their content using whatever technologies they so desire. In other words, give the collection agencies the access they need to do their job instead of forcing Google to do it.
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