Natural rights cannot be granted, and privileges (aka legal rights) cannot be granted by Constitution, nor may it empower their granting.
The Framers were just men. They could not grant rights.
The Constitution could not empower Congress to grant rights.
Congress unconstitutionally ASSUMED power to grant the privilege of copyright and was unchallenged.
Some members of Congress who were Framers of the Constitution may have been involved in the subsequent legislation of copyright, but this does not mean the Framers granted copyright, nor does it make copyright a right rather than a privilege.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: (Calling a horse a horse, and extortion extortion)
You have a natural right to your possessions, and empower a government to secure that right, so you can prosecute thieves.
Because the corrupt government you empowered had the de facto power to grant privileges to its publishing industry buddies, and did, then as a representative of a 'collecting society' (aka protection racket) you now have the privilege (copyright aka legalised extortion) to prosecute restaurants for playing covered songs, but you don't have the natural right to do this.
A singer who sings a song you wrote and published takes nothing from you when they sing that song. It is up to you as a songwriter to encourage others to commission you to write and publish songs. This is how things works since Homo Sapiens first learnt to sing - and it stopped abruptly, only relatively recently, to feather certain lobbyists' (aka racketeers') nests.
Understanding an 18th century Constitution is not something that can be achieved without understanding the natural rights philosophy of the time.
Natural exclusive right: You may not read nor copy another's literary work through burglary:
Privilege: You may read a literary work you have purchased, but you may not produce further copies nor perform it in public unless permitted by a holder of this privilege.
To compare with material works:
Natural exclusive right: You may not use nor copy another's wicker basket through burglary:
Privilege: You may use a wicker basket you have purchased, but you may not produce further copies nor offer it for hire to the public unless permitted by a holder of this privilege.
I agree with you that Congress has granted the privileges of copyright and patent, and amended them each time technology has threatened their unnatural basis, but however incredible it may sound to those indoctrinated to find such privileges natural, the Constitution cannot grant nor sanction the granting of privileges.
Copyright and patent are privileges and unconstitutional.
Would it make any difference to you whether they were constitutional or not?
Does a privilege become ethical simply because you believe it to be constitutional?
An individual has a natural, exclusive right to their private possessions, including their writings - and this includes the right to prevent others removing or copying them.
A literary monopoly is the power to exclude others from making and distributing further copies of a published literary work.
NB Copyright is not a natural right, but a privilege and has come to be termed a 'legally granted right', or 'legal right' for short - or these days simply 'right'.
This enables people to describe copyright as an exclusive 'right' or 'bundle of exclusive rights'. The term 'right' in this case is not the natural right necessarily referred to by the Constitution, but the unnatural, legal right granted a few years later.
Logically, the Constitution cannot refer to or specify the securing of a legal right that hasn't yet been granted (the Constitution cannot grant rights, neither can it give Congress power to grant them).
However, people do like to pretend that the term 'exclusive right' used in the Constitution refers to the privilege of copyright as later legislated - a paradox.
This paradox is achieved primarily due to the change in language concerning rights, and is to a large extent affected by the use of 'right' as a contraction of 'legally granted right' and alternative to 'privilege'. Today, people have the notion that all rights are legal rights, granted and protected by law. The distinction between natural right and legal right has disappeared from the layman's vernacular and consciousness - disastrously so.
Copyright is a legal suspension of the individual's natural right to copy, their cultural liberty.
To convince people that copyright is their 'right' and not the opposite, a privilege designed for their cultural exploitation by publishing corporations, is a magnificent trick of the devil.
To say that cultural acts are permissible only so long as the individual doesn't get anything in exchange for their efforts is spiteful.
All artists should be able to exchange their labour in a free market.
The Free Software Movement recognised this and demonstrated considerable wisdom in doing so.
But no, you'd have those who sing "Happy Birthday" to be denied payment for their labour UNLESS they'd paid the due protection money to the copyright holder's 'collecting society'.
Before copyright, there were no 'collecting societies', no thugs going round hostelries to demand taxes for the benefit of the composing minstrels who'd originated mankind's folk-song from their magical backsides.
Copyright benefits the extortionists and racketeers. It neither benefits mankind, nor our culture.
Well done Mike for recognising that copyright meets the definition of extortion.
Not so well done for persisting in your claim that copyright (aka legalized extortion) was enacted to promote progress.
The Constitution empowered Congress to secure the author's exclusive right - to promote progress. It said nothing about monopolies.
While later, Jefferson did suggest adding monopolies in literary works to the Bill of Rights, this was not done. Queen Anne's 1709 Statute that did so was simply re-enacted by Congress. And everyone is left to incorrectly infer that "exclusive right"="literary monopoly".
Why do you recognise corruption in the act of exploiting the privilege, but not in its legislation? It has always been about the power to legally threaten someone (who prior to copyright was otherwise doing something perfectly natural). So, you must recognise that the legislators knew they were creating a legal weapon - not protecting an individual's natural, exclusive right.
Copyright has always been legalised extortion, and the legislators were as corrupt as those who exploit their legislation. Even a protection racket has the pretext of 'insurance', so don't be so ready to believe the sanctimonious pretexts ascribed to copyright.
Copyright doesn't incentivise the production of original works, it disincentivises the use of 'protected' works - the better to enrich their publishers - at the far greater cost of the public's suspended liberty to its own culture.
Copyright is a crime against the people. A wholesale theft of its culture into the hands of immortal publishing corporations.
Copyright is beyond criticism. It's overdue for abolition.
I think the problem with 'waterboarding' is that the media have cleverly persuaded the public that it's just a wet flannel and jug of water to create the facial sensation of drowning, that one doesn't instead repeatedly fill and empty the victim's lungs until fear of dying is replaced with fear of living.
Re: Re: Re: Only fools waste time arguing with fools such as Lessig
Well, firstly Steve, by ignoring the privilege of copyright you do not necessarily break the law, you simply risk being sued - copyright gives the holder the privilege of excluding others from making copies. And they don't HAVE to sue anyone.
Secondly, as far as injustice goes, I'll refer you to Wikipedia: Rights of Man.
Not all laws are ethical, especially those that derogate from the individual's natural rights, e.g. laws permitting slavery.
Let's say, hypothetically, that as a journalist or conscientious soldier in the field you'd discovered systematic use of severe interrogation techniques (waterboarding/torture) in use to 'persuade' indigenous inhabitants to become 'informants' on militants' positions.
You recognise that the informants would very likely be executed by their countrymen if discovered (despite being tortured), however you have a doubt as to the ethics of your side's intelligence gathering strategy. Do you publish all the evidence including the names of the informants (as witnesses)?
How do you choose between the safety of informants vs prompting pressure for a more scrupulous military operation?
So, I guess it's treason if you bring a global superpower (to which only terrorists are not allied) into disrepute through revealing its incompetence, neglect, and contempt for its own values?
Better to hide the truth and leave no-one in any doubt as to how well the war in Eurasia is being expertly prosecuted, eh?
Could there be any truth to allegations that the Pentagon trained Osama Bin Laden? If true, would the Pentagon wish such truths to be made public? Is it treason simply to publish truths the Pentagon wishes to remain unpublished?
Controlling what's published is a key source of the state's power. That's why Queen Anne was persuaded to enact Copyright in 1709, and why the US copied her statute in 1790. And this is why ACTA will represent a reprise of the state's attempt to enforce global control over what information may be communicated to (and now by) the public.
We are in a civil cyberwar and no-one's noticed. It's corporate state vs the people, and a lot of the latter don't know which side they are or should be on.
In the old days (and perhaps in some parts of the world even today) people with 'loose' tongues would have them cut out.
No doubt The Pentagon would amend the Constitution to rectify this liberty people have to disclose things the Pentagon would rather not be disclosed.
Perhaps they'd create a facility opposite to Guantanamo, where they try to 'persuade' you to disclose what you don't want to (or don't know), but instead, try to 'persuade' you NOT to disclose what they don't want you to disclose.
I daresay NASA spent a bit setting up the Space Shuttle. Does that make photos of it expensive?
Similarly, you could set a briefcase containing a million dollars alight in order to photograph it. Does that make the photo worth more than it cost to print it?
Work is not transferred into a recording. The recording is just a recording. The recording itself may have involved some work, but that's independent of the work being recorded, and independent of the cost of making a copy of the recording.
It's paying the retailer and copyright holder for a copy (of which a royalty MIGHT be paid to the artist), so, a complete transaction. It's neither paying a tiny amount for part-use, nor paying a tiny share of a whole payment.
You could argue that the copy royalty (if any) represents a micropayment to the artist for their art. The trouble is, this is an extremely inefficient mechanism, i.e. when 99.99% of the revenue ends up in pockets other than those of the artist. And that's why it's permitted by RIAA.
I don't think 'micropayment' is really the issue. The issue is enabling those who want intellectual work produced to exchange their money for it with the producer - without significant losses. And of course, bearing in mind that copies are free and no longer a viable revenue mechanism.
The basic mechanism has to get rolling first. The provision for use by pseudonymous or virtual identities will inevitably follow, but don't hold your breath.
On the post: A Day In The Life Of Legalized Extortion: How The BMI Shakedown Works
Re: Re: This is legalized extortion
Do you think people have a natural right to make copies, say tape recordings, of the records they buy, e.g. in case they get broken?
On the post: A Day In The Life Of Legalized Extortion: How The BMI Shakedown Works
Re: Performance Rights Organizations
On the post: A Day In The Life Of Legalized Extortion: How The BMI Shakedown Works
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: (Calling a horse a horse, and extortion extortion)
Because the corrupt government you empowered had the de facto power to grant privileges to its publishing industry buddies, and did, then as a representative of a 'collecting society' (aka protection racket) you now have the privilege (copyright aka legalised extortion) to prosecute restaurants for playing covered songs, but you don't have the natural right to do this.
A singer who sings a song you wrote and published takes nothing from you when they sing that song. It is up to you as a songwriter to encourage others to commission you to write and publish songs. This is how things works since Homo Sapiens first learnt to sing - and it stopped abruptly, only relatively recently, to feather certain lobbyists' (aka racketeers') nests.
On the post: A Day In The Life Of Legalized Extortion: How The BMI Shakedown Works
Re: Re: Re: Re: This is legalized extortion
Natural exclusive right: You may not read nor copy another's literary work through burglary:
Privilege: You may read a literary work you have purchased, but you may not produce further copies nor perform it in public unless permitted by a holder of this privilege.
To compare with material works:
Natural exclusive right: You may not use nor copy another's wicker basket through burglary:
Privilege: You may use a wicker basket you have purchased, but you may not produce further copies nor offer it for hire to the public unless permitted by a holder of this privilege.
I agree with you that Congress has granted the privileges of copyright and patent, and amended them each time technology has threatened their unnatural basis, but however incredible it may sound to those indoctrinated to find such privileges natural, the Constitution cannot grant nor sanction the granting of privileges.
Copyright and patent are privileges and unconstitutional.
Would it make any difference to you whether they were constitutional or not?
Does a privilege become ethical simply because you believe it to be constitutional?
On the post: A Day In The Life Of Legalized Extortion: How The BMI Shakedown Works
Re: Re: This is legalized extortion
A literary monopoly is the power to exclude others from making and distributing further copies of a published literary work.
NB Copyright is not a natural right, but a privilege and has come to be termed a 'legally granted right', or 'legal right' for short - or these days simply 'right'.
This enables people to describe copyright as an exclusive 'right' or 'bundle of exclusive rights'. The term 'right' in this case is not the natural right necessarily referred to by the Constitution, but the unnatural, legal right granted a few years later.
Logically, the Constitution cannot refer to or specify the securing of a legal right that hasn't yet been granted (the Constitution cannot grant rights, neither can it give Congress power to grant them).
However, people do like to pretend that the term 'exclusive right' used in the Constitution refers to the privilege of copyright as later legislated - a paradox.
This paradox is achieved primarily due to the change in language concerning rights, and is to a large extent affected by the use of 'right' as a contraction of 'legally granted right' and alternative to 'privilege'. Today, people have the notion that all rights are legal rights, granted and protected by law. The distinction between natural right and legal right has disappeared from the layman's vernacular and consciousness - disastrously so.
Copyright is a legal suspension of the individual's natural right to copy, their cultural liberty.
To convince people that copyright is their 'right' and not the opposite, a privilege designed for their cultural exploitation by publishing corporations, is a magnificent trick of the devil.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_Man
On the post: Congress About To Pass 'The ______Act of____' (These Are The People We Elect?)
tl;dr
The lobbyists write the legislation. The only people expected to read it are the lawyers paid to apply it, and the judges paid to interpret it.
On the post: Congress About To Pass 'The ______Act of____' (These Are The People We Elect?)
We could suggest
On the post: A Day In The Life Of Legalized Extortion: How The BMI Shakedown Works
Re: what a beautiful racket
On the post: A Day In The Life Of Legalized Extortion: How The BMI Shakedown Works
Re:
All cultural exchange is commercial.
To say that cultural acts are permissible only so long as the individual doesn't get anything in exchange for their efforts is spiteful.
All artists should be able to exchange their labour in a free market.
The Free Software Movement recognised this and demonstrated considerable wisdom in doing so.
But no, you'd have those who sing "Happy Birthday" to be denied payment for their labour UNLESS they'd paid the due protection money to the copyright holder's 'collecting society'.
Before copyright, there were no 'collecting societies', no thugs going round hostelries to demand taxes for the benefit of the composing minstrels who'd originated mankind's folk-song from their magical backsides.
Copyright benefits the extortionists and racketeers. It neither benefits mankind, nor our culture.
On the post: A Day In The Life Of Legalized Extortion: How The BMI Shakedown Works
This is legalized extortion
Not so well done for persisting in your claim that copyright (aka legalized extortion) was enacted to promote progress.
The Constitution empowered Congress to secure the author's exclusive right - to promote progress. It said nothing about monopolies.
While later, Jefferson did suggest adding monopolies in literary works to the Bill of Rights, this was not done. Queen Anne's 1709 Statute that did so was simply re-enacted by Congress. And everyone is left to incorrectly infer that "exclusive right"="literary monopoly".
Why do you recognise corruption in the act of exploiting the privilege, but not in its legislation? It has always been about the power to legally threaten someone (who prior to copyright was otherwise doing something perfectly natural). So, you must recognise that the legislators knew they were creating a legal weapon - not protecting an individual's natural, exclusive right.
Copyright has always been legalised extortion, and the legislators were as corrupt as those who exploit their legislation. Even a protection racket has the pretext of 'insurance', so don't be so ready to believe the sanctimonious pretexts ascribed to copyright.
Copyright doesn't incentivise the production of original works, it disincentivises the use of 'protected' works - the better to enrich their publishers - at the far greater cost of the public's suspended liberty to its own culture.
Copyright is a crime against the people. A wholesale theft of its culture into the hands of immortal publishing corporations.
Copyright is beyond criticism. It's overdue for abolition.
On the post: Pentagon Demands Wikileaks 'Returns' Leaked Documents; Does It Not Know How Digital Documents Work?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Loose tongues
On the post: Pentagon Demands Wikileaks 'Returns' Leaked Documents; Does It Not Know How Digital Documents Work?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Loose tongues
On the post: ASCAP Boss Refuses To Debate Lessig; Claims That It's An Attempt To 'Silence' ASCAP
Re: Re: Re: Only fools waste time arguing with fools such as Lessig
Secondly, as far as injustice goes, I'll refer you to Wikipedia: Rights of Man.
Not all laws are ethical, especially those that derogate from the individual's natural rights, e.g. laws permitting slavery.
On the post: Pentagon Demands Wikileaks 'Returns' Leaked Documents; Does It Not Know How Digital Documents Work?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Loose tongues
On the post: Pentagon Demands Wikileaks 'Returns' Leaked Documents; Does It Not Know How Digital Documents Work?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Loose tongues
Let's say, hypothetically, that as a journalist or conscientious soldier in the field you'd discovered systematic use of severe interrogation techniques (waterboarding/torture) in use to 'persuade' indigenous inhabitants to become 'informants' on militants' positions.
You recognise that the informants would very likely be executed by their countrymen if discovered (despite being tortured), however you have a doubt as to the ethics of your side's intelligence gathering strategy. Do you publish all the evidence including the names of the informants (as witnesses)?
How do you choose between the safety of informants vs prompting pressure for a more scrupulous military operation?
On the post: Pentagon Demands Wikileaks 'Returns' Leaked Documents; Does It Not Know How Digital Documents Work?
Re: Re: Loose tongues
Better to hide the truth and leave no-one in any doubt as to how well the war in Eurasia is being expertly prosecuted, eh?
Could there be any truth to allegations that the Pentagon trained Osama Bin Laden? If true, would the Pentagon wish such truths to be made public? Is it treason simply to publish truths the Pentagon wishes to remain unpublished?
Controlling what's published is a key source of the state's power. That's why Queen Anne was persuaded to enact Copyright in 1709, and why the US copied her statute in 1790. And this is why ACTA will represent a reprise of the state's attempt to enforce global control over what information may be communicated to (and now by) the public.
We are in a civil cyberwar and no-one's noticed. It's corporate state vs the people, and a lot of the latter don't know which side they are or should be on.
On the post: Pentagon Demands Wikileaks 'Returns' Leaked Documents; Does It Not Know How Digital Documents Work?
Loose tongues
No doubt The Pentagon would amend the Constitution to rectify this liberty people have to disclose things the Pentagon would rather not be disclosed.
Perhaps they'd create a facility opposite to Guantanamo, where they try to 'persuade' you to disclose what you don't want to (or don't know), but instead, try to 'persuade' you NOT to disclose what they don't want you to disclose.
Freedom of speech? It's wasted on mortals.
On the post: Oscar Winner Sues BBC & CBS For Copyright Infringement Of His Photo
The work is not the copy
Similarly, you could set a briefcase containing a million dollars alight in order to photograph it. Does that make the photo worth more than it cost to print it?
Work is not transferred into a recording. The recording is just a recording. The recording itself may have involved some work, but that's independent of the work being recorded, and independent of the cost of making a copy of the recording.
Copyright has got a lot to answer for.
The sooner it's abolished the better.
On the post: Getting Past The Hurdles Of Micropayments
Re: Does iTunes count?
You could argue that the copy royalty (if any) represents a micropayment to the artist for their art. The trouble is, this is an extremely inefficient mechanism, i.e. when 99.99% of the revenue ends up in pockets other than those of the artist. And that's why it's permitted by RIAA.
I don't think 'micropayment' is really the issue. The issue is enabling those who want intellectual work produced to exchange their money for it with the producer - without significant losses. And of course, bearing in mind that copies are free and no longer a viable revenue mechanism.
On the post: Getting Past The Hurdles Of Micropayments
Re: If it is anonymous, it might work
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