It's probably more accurate to say that once any media, such as a photograph, audio recording or movie, captures a moment and it leaves your private sphere into the public sphere, it will probably hit the internet sometime soon and you will not be able to take it off.
We need to emphasise a culture that recognises the importance of private and public spheres. Every time we upload something to the internet, we must assume that it is going to stay there as long as the internet exists. And every time we take a photograph of something WITHOUT uploading, we must guard it within the realms of our own privacy on the assumption that once it leaves our hands, it will be on the internet as long as the internet exists.
I go through this mentality every time I even type a comment, now. You have to bear in mind that future employers can look up anything you've ever said on public internet forums with the right search techniques, as well as future spouses. If you've got yourself in a way-too-embarrassing situation on the street (you've tripped up hilariously), your first instinct will probably be to look around and make sure noone was filming, in case your moment of failure becomes a viral meme. Even anything you click may be picked up by a site for some kind of metric advertising purpose.
The disturbing thing is that a lot of people will protest heavily against secret malware that's made it onto their computers and watches everything they do on those computers. Especially if it is a corporation with advertising intents. But if it's subtle DRM that you aren't even aware of - not EA's DRM but the much more dangerous kind of DRM that doesn't make itself obvious - people are quite ready to throw up their arms and say that being spied on by this stuff is all justified in the name of copyright law, even although there is hardly any evidence that DRM works in the face of a determined pirate (and it just takes one - one pirate - to crack it, and wouldn't you know, once that cracked version goes on the internet it stays on the internet as long as it exists).
Steam fans don't seem to mind that Valve has a kill switch to all games they've bought from the store. If JManga decides to remove all user's content as a result of going bust (as some contemptible way of making people pay again to get their stolen stuff back), what is to stop Valve from going down this route too if they go bust?
People can very nastily fall into psychological traps that blur the lines between private and public when on the internet.
But of course, if you are in Hyundai's position, you're either being very silly or very clever.
In the recent Richard Prince ruling over fair use in appropriation art, the court used the standard of a “new expression, meaning, or message” for transformative works.
"New expression/meaning/message" - see, I can immediately see many things wrong with this. It depends on subjective interpretation, such as what expression we are even talking about, let alone if it is "new". I can walk up to any painting and pull out 100 different interpretations of it.
I become very suspicious in moments like these, because I cannot imagine anybody competent enough to make such a decision.
A transformative work is when a derivative artist makes a creative work in a different medium from the original, and is non-commercial (I think). So it would be a sketch of a movie scene, for example, but not a movie of a movie.
But it's rather stupid: all the original author has to do in order to prevent people showing off transformative works is make his OWN transformative works before they do. So the original author himself makes a sketch of a scene from a movie, and now THAT counts as belonging to the original IP meaning the derivative artist's services are no longer considered transformative (the derivative artist's sketch would not come from a movie scene, but from another original sketch from the original artist).
"Here's a best practice: do your own work. If you're making music, record the tracks yourself. If you're writing a news article, actually do some reporting. Don't clip a huge blockquote and write a two sentence introduction."
Derivative artists have rights to their fruits of labour. John Locke would have absolutely detested this line of thinking.
" If you're running a blog and selling ads, don't use "non-commercial" CC photos. Heck, actually pay a photographer or license stock photos. They're not very expensive."
The whole point about CC is that the author has given permission. Even copyright advocates would call you out on that.
" In other words, use fair use for what it's designed to do: allow people to reuse snippets to provide context. It's not a way to take from others."
Free speech and rights for derivative artists, actually. I can provide context for what I am talking about without needing to take snippets, but you don't hear me saying there should be no Fair Use on that basis. Because that would be stupid.
"But somehow I think all of the copryight deniers around here will be arguing against even these "best practices." They'll be saying that a musician has some imaginary "right" to make an album without picking up an instrument simply by "remixing" someone else's work. They'll say that a blogger has some ephemeral "right" to run a news service without paying reporters or photographers."
If you've really got the balls to see this through, then call for the shutting down of deviantArt and the criminalisation of fan art/fan fiction. I'd admire you for being consistent.
"Horse manure. Copyright is the union card for artists. Quit denying it."
An assurance contract is the union card, actually. Crowdfunding/ticket admission is the ultimate Occam's Razor explanation. Both original and derivative artists have their rights protected.
I live in the U.K., and we just underwent a libel law reformation.
Everybody knows we are a magnet for a libel tourism industry. You just need to look at how Roman Polanski exploited it. It was once recorded that the libel litigation costs in the U.K. were something along the lines of 180 times more expensive than anywhere else in Europe.
The problem at hand is the very obvious blurry lines between free speech and defamation. The U.S. attempts to tackle it much better because it takes the First Amendment very seriously, although it can still improve by reducing court costs. It reduces the blurriness of the lines as much as possible: how many people heard the slander, if it was a statement of fact, if there was any malicious intent, if there are serious criminal allegations, if the person making the slander refuses his chance to take it back and apologise/make it clear it was just an opinion, etc.
The lines are much tougher, and I envy the U.S. on this basis.
Copyright law, on the other hand, does not come anywhere near this standard of scrutiny when it comes to fair use. The slippery slopes involved when considering what qualifies as fair use in what circumstances and adapting it as circumstances change, multiplied with the logical contradictions within the very idea of copyright itself leads to a very nasty accumulation of power where decisions can be either very stupid or very oppressive. You only need to look at how remix culture is suffering as a result of this, not to mention the rights of derivative authors in general. And you will in the future see it happen to fan artists and fan fiction writers - publishers will have learned their lesson, or will learn it soon, about allowing fan fiction to run riot in case the next Twilight fan fic becomes another 50 Shades of Grey.
So I do not think the argument of "well litigation exists in defamation, obscenity, treason, etc" holds. In those situations, the slope is nowhere near as slippery. We in the scientific/skeptical community absolutely deplore the U.K. libel laws as they allow for very obvious exploitation due to their vagueness. The same level of anger should quite rightly be leveled at copyright law - and considering how it often takes supreme court judges, tons of lawyers, etc to deconstruct a vague law and then analyse what is inevitably subjective expressions, I have every right to claim that nobody is in a good enough position to decide what the limitations of fair use should be.
The levels of anger towards so-called "stealing" are never the same towards those who watch borrowed DVDs, or watch the show with others simultaneously from the same TV. They also take from the artists without paying. But no. Nobody dares to call them "thieves" for fear of looking ridiculous.
Well there are many credible sources out there strongly indicating that he did say this. Assange also said he would sue the Guardian for libel but did not do so. And considering the insane libel laws of the U.K. which I'm glad to say have just undergone a step towards reformation, he would have had a strong case against the Guardian even if what the Guardian claimed was true - that's just how insane those libel laws are.
I don't think he can nor should be prosecuted under any kind of espionage/secrets act. The First Amendment would quite rightly protect him, because failure to do so would lead to slipperiness in which the government could abuse the opportunity.
But it doesn't change the fact that Assange is still a dick.
Hardly anyone is in praise of the government at moments like these. The protest is, quite rightly, "how could you be so stupid to lose our personal data?"
We all recognise that governments have to respect our privacy. And that can mean not cocking up like this. The government can be in the moral wrong for revealing private information that it shouldn't be.
"Well, they're informants. So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." - Julian Assange on why revealing Afghan fighters' names to the Taliban is acceptable collateral damage.
I doubt Hitchens would have praised this. There are some things that the government, like it or not, does have to keep secret if it is to be in the moral right.
I'm all for revealing crimes committed within the secret boundaries of the government... but don't carelessly and recklessly reveal EVERYTHING kept secret by a government just because you can. That's nonsense. Choose carefully what you can and cannot reveal.
I hate it when I think I can get away with posting without checking... first sentence of the last paragraph should be "Copyright only pretends to solve the free-rider problem" and full stop.
People would rather ban the reselling, swapping or lending of preowned goods than admit that there is something wrong with the premise of copyright.
And what is to stop copyright advocators banning these things? They think it IS justified when it comes to electricity, so why not paper and ink?
Copyright only pretends to solve the free-rider problem, but in reality it does not. People can still "steal" from artists and follow every copyright law in the book by borrowing second-hand DVDs, or buying them from ebay only to resell them for the same price after watching.
Start hosting hundreds of websites that have links to material that is public domain in Europe but NOT in the U.S. And watch for any U.S. extraditions. That would be hilarious to watch.
The latest extension of copyright lengths are never enough. No satisfaction is obtained in lobbyists' quests to extend copyright for ever and ever. "Life plus 50 years", "life plus 70 years", "life plus X years", "life plus afterlife". You give them an inch...
This slippery slope mentality does not just exist with lobbyists, however. The urge to control our very own monopolies is within all of us, which is key to understand. Power corrupts all of us. People would rather surrender their rights of fruits of labour in regards to making derivative works if it means they can exert control. Disney, for example, knew fine well that their campaigns to push the copyright extensions would make themselves prisoners as they would no longer be able to benefit from expanding on public domain works... but they didn't care. They wanted control over the monopolies they already had instead of the rights to expand on other works like they had always been able to do. It was seen as a worthy sacrifice in order to preserve their "empire" and stop the spawning of 50 other Mickey Mouse theme parks. It tells you everything. Copyright is a form of control and power that can only exist according to law, so the law better have earned the right to exist.
It has not, in my view. Copyright started out extremely limited, but as with all slippery slopes it gradually built up to something inexcusable.
Copyright believers have got a lot of work to do in explaining how to stop this slippery slope. It is very much on par with why free expression of opinions must not be policed: as soon as an idea becomes even a TINY bit "offensive" and therefore forbidden, ALL ideas can suddenly become "way too offensive" with the same aim of censorship, whether it is from a dictatorial state or a religious mob.
One of the only things I agree with copyright maximalists about is that nobody can possibly be in a good enough position to determine where the "balance" of copyright should lie, therefore there should be no balance at all (then my opponents take the insane route, and in some cases wish for the abolition of a Fair Use clause). What this observation taps into is a recognition of slippery slopes. However, copyright maximalists have no explanation as to how to protect the life, liberty and property of artists and everyone else, including derivative artists, while my faction of the copyright abolitionists does: assurance contracts through crowdfunding. A radical idea that I will not cease to hammer home until someone gives a good rational argument that falsifies it.
I can guarantee you that the sooner copyright law becomes reformed in a balanced way, the better, because then when it starts becoming horribly unbalanced again it will give my side more historical proof of the need for a radical rethink. If cinemas, rock festivals, musicals and comedy gigs use assurance contracts well by crowdfunding ticket payers, it is not that much of a stretch to see how the same concept can be applied to the rights of artists.
On the post: Hyundai Tries, And Fails, To Make Its Awful Suicide Ad Disappear From The Internet
We need to emphasise a culture that recognises the importance of private and public spheres. Every time we upload something to the internet, we must assume that it is going to stay there as long as the internet exists. And every time we take a photograph of something WITHOUT uploading, we must guard it within the realms of our own privacy on the assumption that once it leaves our hands, it will be on the internet as long as the internet exists.
I go through this mentality every time I even type a comment, now. You have to bear in mind that future employers can look up anything you've ever said on public internet forums with the right search techniques, as well as future spouses. If you've got yourself in a way-too-embarrassing situation on the street (you've tripped up hilariously), your first instinct will probably be to look around and make sure noone was filming, in case your moment of failure becomes a viral meme. Even anything you click may be picked up by a site for some kind of metric advertising purpose.
The disturbing thing is that a lot of people will protest heavily against secret malware that's made it onto their computers and watches everything they do on those computers. Especially if it is a corporation with advertising intents. But if it's subtle DRM that you aren't even aware of - not EA's DRM but the much more dangerous kind of DRM that doesn't make itself obvious - people are quite ready to throw up their arms and say that being spied on by this stuff is all justified in the name of copyright law, even although there is hardly any evidence that DRM works in the face of a determined pirate (and it just takes one - one pirate - to crack it, and wouldn't you know, once that cracked version goes on the internet it stays on the internet as long as it exists).
Steam fans don't seem to mind that Valve has a kill switch to all games they've bought from the store. If JManga decides to remove all user's content as a result of going bust (as some contemptible way of making people pay again to get their stolen stuff back), what is to stop Valve from going down this route too if they go bust?
People can very nastily fall into psychological traps that blur the lines between private and public when on the internet.
But of course, if you are in Hyundai's position, you're either being very silly or very clever.
On the post: Fair Use Protects Some Uses, But It Is Still Way Too Weak To Be Effective For Many
Re: Re: Question About "Transformative" Uses
"New expression/meaning/message" - see, I can immediately see many things wrong with this. It depends on subjective interpretation, such as what expression we are even talking about, let alone if it is "new". I can walk up to any painting and pull out 100 different interpretations of it.
I become very suspicious in moments like these, because I cannot imagine anybody competent enough to make such a decision.
On the post: Fair Use Protects Some Uses, But It Is Still Way Too Weak To Be Effective For Many
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Question About "Transformative" Uses
But it should be easy for the original artist just to realise the IP under all possible mediums all in one go to prevent this from happening.
On the post: Fair Use Protects Some Uses, But It Is Still Way Too Weak To Be Effective For Many
Re: Re: Re: Question About "Transformative" Uses
On the post: Fair Use Protects Some Uses, But It Is Still Way Too Weak To Be Effective For Many
Re: Question About "Transformative" Uses
But it's rather stupid: all the original author has to do in order to prevent people showing off transformative works is make his OWN transformative works before they do. So the original author himself makes a sketch of a scene from a movie, and now THAT counts as belonging to the original IP meaning the derivative artist's services are no longer considered transformative (the derivative artist's sketch would not come from a movie scene, but from another original sketch from the original artist).
On the post: Fair Use Protects Some Uses, But It Is Still Way Too Weak To Be Effective For Many
Re: "Best Practices"?
Derivative artists have rights to their fruits of labour. John Locke would have absolutely detested this line of thinking.
" If you're running a blog and selling ads, don't use "non-commercial" CC photos. Heck, actually pay a photographer or license stock photos. They're not very expensive."
The whole point about CC is that the author has given permission. Even copyright advocates would call you out on that.
" In other words, use fair use for what it's designed to do: allow people to reuse snippets to provide context. It's not a way to take from others."
Free speech and rights for derivative artists, actually. I can provide context for what I am talking about without needing to take snippets, but you don't hear me saying there should be no Fair Use on that basis. Because that would be stupid.
"But somehow I think all of the copryight deniers around here will be arguing against even these "best practices." They'll be saying that a musician has some imaginary "right" to make an album without picking up an instrument simply by "remixing" someone else's work. They'll say that a blogger has some ephemeral "right" to run a news service without paying reporters or photographers."
If you've really got the balls to see this through, then call for the shutting down of deviantArt and the criminalisation of fan art/fan fiction. I'd admire you for being consistent.
"Horse manure. Copyright is the union card for artists. Quit denying it."
An assurance contract is the union card, actually. Crowdfunding/ticket admission is the ultimate Occam's Razor explanation. Both original and derivative artists have their rights protected.
On the post: Fair Use Protects Some Uses, But It Is Still Way Too Weak To Be Effective For Many
Everybody knows we are a magnet for a libel tourism industry. You just need to look at how Roman Polanski exploited it. It was once recorded that the libel litigation costs in the U.K. were something along the lines of 180 times more expensive than anywhere else in Europe.
The problem at hand is the very obvious blurry lines between free speech and defamation. The U.S. attempts to tackle it much better because it takes the First Amendment very seriously, although it can still improve by reducing court costs. It reduces the blurriness of the lines as much as possible: how many people heard the slander, if it was a statement of fact, if there was any malicious intent, if there are serious criminal allegations, if the person making the slander refuses his chance to take it back and apologise/make it clear it was just an opinion, etc.
The lines are much tougher, and I envy the U.S. on this basis.
Copyright law, on the other hand, does not come anywhere near this standard of scrutiny when it comes to fair use. The slippery slopes involved when considering what qualifies as fair use in what circumstances and adapting it as circumstances change, multiplied with the logical contradictions within the very idea of copyright itself leads to a very nasty accumulation of power where decisions can be either very stupid or very oppressive. You only need to look at how remix culture is suffering as a result of this, not to mention the rights of derivative authors in general. And you will in the future see it happen to fan artists and fan fiction writers - publishers will have learned their lesson, or will learn it soon, about allowing fan fiction to run riot in case the next Twilight fan fic becomes another 50 Shades of Grey.
So I do not think the argument of "well litigation exists in defamation, obscenity, treason, etc" holds. In those situations, the slope is nowhere near as slippery. We in the scientific/skeptical community absolutely deplore the U.K. libel laws as they allow for very obvious exploitation due to their vagueness. The same level of anger should quite rightly be leveled at copyright law - and considering how it often takes supreme court judges, tons of lawyers, etc to deconstruct a vague law and then analyse what is inevitably subjective expressions, I have every right to claim that nobody is in a good enough position to decide what the limitations of fair use should be.
On the post: Ridiculous: Short-Sighted, Anonymous Hollywood Exec Flips Out Over Using BitTorrent For Promotions
"...but who's the world going to revolve around now?"
On the post: U.S. Ambassador To Australia Takes On #1 Issue Of The Day: Game Of Thrones Piracy
On the post: Perspective: 1987 Panel On The Press, National Security, And Official State Secrets
Re: Re:
I don't think he can nor should be prosecuted under any kind of espionage/secrets act. The First Amendment would quite rightly protect him, because failure to do so would lead to slipperiness in which the government could abuse the opportunity.
But it doesn't change the fact that Assange is still a dick.
On the post: Perspective: 1987 Panel On The Press, National Security, And Official State Secrets
Re: Re:
It is about numerous things, actually.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7704611.stm
Hardly anyone is in praise of the government at moments like these. The protest is, quite rightly, "how could you be so stupid to lose our personal data?"
We all recognise that governments have to respect our privacy. And that can mean not cocking up like this. The government can be in the moral wrong for revealing private information that it shouldn't be.
On the post: Perspective: 1987 Panel On The Press, National Security, And Official State Secrets
I doubt Hitchens would have praised this. There are some things that the government, like it or not, does have to keep secret if it is to be in the moral right.
I'm all for revealing crimes committed within the secret boundaries of the government... but don't carelessly and recklessly reveal EVERYTHING kept secret by a government just because you can. That's nonsense. Choose carefully what you can and cannot reveal.
On the post: The Copyright Lobotomy: How Intellectual Property Makes Us Pretend To Be Stupid
Re: Key words minion didn't mention: "someone else's".
On the post: The Copyright Lobotomy: How Intellectual Property Makes Us Pretend To Be Stupid
Re:
On the post: The Copyright Lobotomy: How Intellectual Property Makes Us Pretend To Be Stupid
And what is to stop copyright advocators banning these things? They think it IS justified when it comes to electricity, so why not paper and ink?
Copyright only pretends to solve the free-rider problem, but in reality it does not. People can still "steal" from artists and follow every copyright law in the book by borrowing second-hand DVDs, or buying them from ebay only to resell them for the same price after watching.
On the post: Spain Admits New Copyright Law Is Designed To Keep It Off US's 'Naughty' List
Start hosting hundreds of websites that have links to material that is public domain in Europe but NOT in the U.S. And watch for any U.S. extraditions. That would be hilarious to watch.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re:
The latest extension of copyright lengths are never enough. No satisfaction is obtained in lobbyists' quests to extend copyright for ever and ever. "Life plus 50 years", "life plus 70 years", "life plus X years", "life plus afterlife". You give them an inch...
This slippery slope mentality does not just exist with lobbyists, however. The urge to control our very own monopolies is within all of us, which is key to understand. Power corrupts all of us. People would rather surrender their rights of fruits of labour in regards to making derivative works if it means they can exert control. Disney, for example, knew fine well that their campaigns to push the copyright extensions would make themselves prisoners as they would no longer be able to benefit from expanding on public domain works... but they didn't care. They wanted control over the monopolies they already had instead of the rights to expand on other works like they had always been able to do. It was seen as a worthy sacrifice in order to preserve their "empire" and stop the spawning of 50 other Mickey Mouse theme parks. It tells you everything. Copyright is a form of control and power that can only exist according to law, so the law better have earned the right to exist.
It has not, in my view. Copyright started out extremely limited, but as with all slippery slopes it gradually built up to something inexcusable.
Copyright believers have got a lot of work to do in explaining how to stop this slippery slope. It is very much on par with why free expression of opinions must not be policed: as soon as an idea becomes even a TINY bit "offensive" and therefore forbidden, ALL ideas can suddenly become "way too offensive" with the same aim of censorship, whether it is from a dictatorial state or a religious mob.
One of the only things I agree with copyright maximalists about is that nobody can possibly be in a good enough position to determine where the "balance" of copyright should lie, therefore there should be no balance at all (then my opponents take the insane route, and in some cases wish for the abolition of a Fair Use clause). What this observation taps into is a recognition of slippery slopes. However, copyright maximalists have no explanation as to how to protect the life, liberty and property of artists and everyone else, including derivative artists, while my faction of the copyright abolitionists does: assurance contracts through crowdfunding. A radical idea that I will not cease to hammer home until someone gives a good rational argument that falsifies it.
I can guarantee you that the sooner copyright law becomes reformed in a balanced way, the better, because then when it starts becoming horribly unbalanced again it will give my side more historical proof of the need for a radical rethink. If cinemas, rock festivals, musicals and comedy gigs use assurance contracts well by crowdfunding ticket payers, it is not that much of a stretch to see how the same concept can be applied to the rights of artists.
On the post: Awesome Stuff: Three Kickstarters From Musicians You've Read About Here Before
On the post: Andy Baio On The New Prohibition Created By Copyright
Re: Re:
On the post: Andy Baio On The New Prohibition Created By Copyright
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