Here's an interesting question, completely independent of the fair use angle.
As Mike pointed out in an earlier story about this case, the Beastie Boys' "Girls" was intentionally based upon "Shout" by the Isley Brothers. Their producer, Rick Rubin, explicitly admitted that it was "a rap version of 'Shout'."
The melody and chord progression is a direct copy. While I have no doubt that the Beasties' use is either licensed or fair use, in neither case would it allow the Beastie Boys to claim copyright over the melody and chord progressions, both of which remain with Shout's copyright holder. As with all derivative works, the Beasties would only hold the copyright over the new material - in this case, the lyrics and the actual sound recording.
But here's the thing. None of that was used by GoldieBlox. GoldieBlox changed the content of the lyrics almost entirely, and did not use any of the sound recording in their own version. That means the only things GoldieBlox could be accused of infringing upon was the melody and chord progression of "Girls" - exactly the same elements, and only those elements, that the Beasties lifted from the Isley Brothers.
So, it's entirely possible that the Beastie Boys don't even have standing to sue. If GoldieBlox is infringing upon anyone's copyright, it's the copyright of the Isley Brothers (or more likely their assignees), and they're not a party to this lawsuit.
If that's the case, then the judge probably wouldn't even get to the fair use question. But it's a weird situation, and I don't know of any case that dealt with this explicitly, so I'm not sure what would happen.
GoldieBlox used their music without permission and without licensing their music to be used in an advertisement that was designed to advertise for their company.
They didn't use the Beastie Boys' music, they used a parody of the Beastie Boys' music. (Or possibly not the Beasties' music - I'll bring that up in another comment.)
And commercial use does not necessarily mean that a use is not fair use. Even if that commercial use is in advertising. In fact, the vast majority of fair uses are by for-profit entities, including the fair uses enjoyed by the Beasties themselves.
What I find troubling is that GoldieBlox used copyrighted music without permission and then sued the Beastie Boys on the basis of Fair Use.
They were suing for a declaration of fair use. That's it. They weren't demanding money. If GoldieBlox won (or wins), the only that would happen is that the Beastie Boys wouldn't get to sue them. That was the entire point.
The fact that the Beastie Boys actually are suing, shows that their instincts were probably correct.
The Beastie Boys were willing to set everything aside as long as GoldieBlox pulled the ad and stopped using their song in their ad.
No, you have that exactly backwards. Once GoldieBlox learned of MCA's wishes, they voluntarily stopped using the song in the commercial. And it was GoldieBlox who said they'd drop the declaratory judgement suit if the Beastie Boys promised not to sue for infringement. Instead, the Beasties decided to sue even after GoldieBlox stopped using the parody.
No, I think he's referring to average_joe's insistence.
Well, that's not much better. I'm not a huge fan of current copyright laws, but even so, calling copyright holders "the most useless in our society" is total BS. (Even if he was only talking about corporate copyright holders.)
so it is only the most useless in our society that deserve to be rewarded. Got it.
Sweat of the brow only counts when it is your sweat. Got it.
Who are you talking to, precisely? It appears to be a reply to my comment, but I never even hinted that I believe any of those things. (Also - "the most useless in our society?" What the fuck?)
I think it is granted because they earned those rights:
The Mazer v. Stein quote does not say they were granted because they earned those rights. In their own words, "encouragement of individual effort by personal gain is the best way to advance public welfare."
And that case itself cited two others, right before the quote you posted, which also make it clear that it is not the reason authors are granted copyrights. "The copyright law, like the patent statutes, makes reward to the owner a secondary consideration" (United States v. Paramount Pictures); it is granted "to afford greater encouragement to the production of literary [or artistic] works of lasting benefit to the world" (Washingtonian Pub. Co. v. Pearson).
No, copyright is granted to benefit the general public. If the rights do not benefit the public, then they should not be granted, no matter how much authors "earned" them:
It will be seen, therefore, that the spirit of any act which Congress is authorized to pass must be one which will promote the progress of science and the useful arts, and unless it is designed to accomplish this result and is believed, in fact, to accomplish this result, it would be beyond the power of Congress.
[...] Not primarily for the benefit of the author, but primarily for the benefit of the public, such rights are given. Not that any particular class of citizens, however worthy, may benefit, but because the policy is believed to be for the benefit of the great body of people...
- House Report on the Copyright Act of 1909
So, yeah, it's totally immoral according to your standards.
Mowing your lawn would be my exclusive "property," so mowing it yourself, or hiring anyone else to mow it, should be "theft."
...Or, perhaps you're one of those people who believes that copyright should be about controlling the work.
Say I mowed your lawn, and the next day, you decided to turn your lawn into a rock garden. You're destroying the results of my labor. All of that hard work, down the drain. And putting in a rock garden to boot! No lawn-mower in his right mind would want to be associated with such a grassless abomination.
Why, the only thing that is moral is to get the government to grant me an injunction against you putting in a rock garden. After all, I put in a lot of time and effort into the work of art that is your lawn, so I have a property right in it, and you shouldn't have a right to destroy my property.
I've seen this sort of argument before. Obviously, I don't think it holds water. There is certainly nothing moral about it.
No one is arguing against workers getting paid for their labor. What you're saying is moral is granting exclusive property rights on the results of that labor, above and beyond being paid for the labor itself.
If I pay you $50 to mow my lawn, I get to keep the mowed lawn despite your having done the work because I paid you for your effort.
But you're arguing that if I mow your lawn, I should have exclusive property rights to your lawn. Mowing your lawn would be my exclusive "property," so mowing it yourself, or hiring anyone else to mow it, should be "theft."
That is the moral argument you are making.
Lots of things exist that we don't provide intellectual rights in.
And, as it turns out, when we don't provide intellectual property rights in them, we get more of those things.
When we compare industries that both do and do not have IP protections in certain areas (the fashion industry, database rights, etc.), it turns out that the places that do not have IP protections have more innovation and more production.
This should surprise nobody, since it is well-known that monopolies stifle innovation and economic growth, and that is exactly what IP is meant to be.
I think the moral argument is pretty simple. People put time and effort into creating works of art and are given property rights to promote such efforts. They get those rights because they earned those rights.
Then you must think copyright law is terribly immoral, since copyright is not granted "because they earned those rights." (This wouldn't surprise me in the least.)
You must also think that "work for hire" is completely immoral, since the people who put time and effort into creating works never hold any kind of property rights in those works at all.
And you must also think that most employment is completely immoral, since chefs, carpenters, plumbers, welders, and so on put in a lot of time and effort into creating works, but none of them are ever granted property rights in the works they create.
What I said is the classic presentation of the copyright bargain.
Not really. Aside from what I posted above, the "copyright bargain" is not supposed to inspire creativity per se, but to encourage a commercial market for creativity. That commercial market is considered necessary for the publication or works that would (in unproven theory) otherwise never make it to the public. In other words, it is not creativity itself, but the dissemination of that creativity to the public, that is the goal of the "copyright bargain."
And copyright does so how? By giving authors certain exclusive rights, i.e., rights to exclude others from misappropriating the protected elements of their works.
Exclusive rights are the mechanism, not the purpose. If that mechanism acts counter to copyright's purpose, it is a failure.
Also, "exclusive rights" don't necessarily mean "the right to exclude others," though it often does. It can also mean "the exclusive right to income," even if that income does not come with the right to exclude others from using the work. That's how statutory royalties work, for example.
Why pretend like this isn't part of the bargain?
Because it isn't. Copyright law was not supposed to stifle derivative works that also have a significant element of original expression, or that transform the original in significant ways.
This is why fair use exists, and has existed as long as copyright has been around. Even when a copyright holder objects to that usage, the law has acknowledged that the usage should be allowed. Otherwise, copyright is acting against its sole purpose of providing the public with new works of art.
From the infancy of copyright protection, some opportunity for fair use of copyrighted materials has been thought necessary to fulfill copyright's very purpose, "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts...." For as Justice Story explained, "[i]n truth, in literature, in science and in art, there are, and can be, few, if any, things, which in an abstract sense, are strictly new and original throughout. Every book in literature, science and art, borrows, and must necessarily borrow, and use much which was well known and used before." [...]
The fair use doctrine thus "permits [and requires] courts to avoid rigid application of the copyright statute when, on occasion, it would stifle the very creativity which that law is designed to foster."
- Campbell v. Acuff-Rose
In this case, the use of "The Princess Bride" was most likely a fair use - and thus, a use that copyright is designed to promote. The fact that copyright was used to prevent that work from appearing, is not only censorship, it is acting against the very purpose of copyright itself.
William Goldman and Rob Reiner probably have nothing to do with it, as Goldman probably assigned his copyright to his publisher, and Reiner (by law) never held any part of the copyright in the movie.
They can speak out about it (and I think should), but legally there's absolutely nothing they could do about it.
In almost all common uses "censorship" refers to speech that is quashed for going against what those in power want to represent on either a factual or editorial basis.
This is absolutely not true. For example, in libel cases, it is almost never the government being libeled. But granting a TRO or injunction in libel cases is often rejected because it would be censorship under the First Amendment.
No, you're not. You've not once defended fair use, for example.
If you'll stick to pulling down The Rich and their controls that go beyond the specific expression, FINE.
So if it's the government, or someone who is not "rich" by your (never-explained) definition, then stifling speech is fine? Goody.
But when Rikuo brags about how much actual content he's stealing, that's outside statue and common law
Rikuo bragged about torrenting files, not about committing copyright infringement. There is a difference. The fact that he acknowleges that the MPAA can't tell the difference just shows that he knows the MPAA.
And, for the love of all that's holy, stop saying it's common law. Copyright was never, at any time, in any part of the world, a common law right. Nobody in history was ever granted a post-publication monopoly unless legal statutes said they were. Unlike fair use.
you don't have any right to the work, content, or intellectual property that others have paid for, made, created, worked out, promoted, and so. [sic]
Not only is that not why copyright exists, that's not even an accurate portrayal of copyright law. If your use is one that falls under the many exceptions to copyright, you absolutely do have a right to use others' intellectual property.
File hosts sharing coprighted content is SIMPLY STEALING.
Copyright infringement is not stealing, and no file host has ever been found guilty of theft. They have been found secondarily liable for copyright infringement. In other words, they weren't stealing, and they weren't liable for anyone else stealing; they were liable for other people (none of whom were "the rich") infringing on copyrights.
Where arrogance meets ignorance to conspire what they'll do with someone else's $100 million movie.
Amazing. In one post, you've gone from claiming that you're fine with "pulling down The Rich and their controls," to insulting people who infringe on the copyright of artworks that only the rich are capable of creating.
I would say your hypocrisy knows no bounds, but I don't think you're smart enough to be hypocritical.
Well, in all fairness, I was defining "industry" as synonymous with occupation, under the assumption that "the tech industry" employs more computer and science workers, and "the media industry" employs more artists, designers, entertainers, and pro sports workers. In other words, I was working with the OMB's SOC classification, rather than NAICS classification.
That's a lot easier to do, because the NAICS major classification system is kind of a mess. For example, "Motion Picture and Sound Recording Industries" is in Sector 51, "Information" - along with software companies, telecommunications, and newspaper publishers - and not in Sector 71, "Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation." Similarly, "Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing" is in Sector 33, "Manufacturing," while "Computer Systems Design" is in Sector 54, "Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services" - along with lawyers.
Just sorting out which of the NAICS classifications are part of "the tech industry" or "the media industries" is not trivial.
I do plan to do this eventually, when I have time and/or interest. If you go to the page for the SOC (occupational) classification, it lists the specific NAICS industries with both the highest levels, and highest concentration, of employment for that occupation. That way, I could find the tech and media occupations, work "backwards" to the industries with the highest number of those jobs, and calculate how much those industries' entire workforce contributes to the total economy. That way, we can include e.g. the office workers.
Everyone knows Google parks their profits (and most of their employees) overseas to avoid paying taxes.
Hey, dipshit:
1. Google is not the tech industry. They're not even "Silicon Valley."
2. These are figures from the BLS, so they're U.S. workers. Not one of those jobs are "parked overseas."
3. I was talking about median annual wages, so the "taxes" I was talking about are workers' payroll taxes, not corporate taxes. These can't be "parked overseas."
As for the rest of your trickle-down BS, spare us.
The "trickle-down BS" (which I also don't believe) involves granting tax breaks to corporations. I am talking about the take-home pay of workers.
No, "trickle-down" would be something like when states grant tax breaks to movie studios, on the theory that they would create local jobs. You're absolutely right that it is BS.
Silicon Valley doesn't even employ that many people. They outsource jobs.
First, I'm assuming that when you say "Silicon Valley," you're using a (to you) derogatory term to refer to the tech industry. I'm also assuming you mean outsourcing to foreign countries (and not outsourcing to American firms), a.k.a. "offshoring;" otherwise the whole "killing the American economy" line is ridiculous.
The jobs the tech industry outsources are the same jobs everyone else outsources - mainly manufacturing jobs. That is very much a concern, but hardly unique to the tech industry.
There are a fair amount of IT jobs being outsourced as well, but they are only the type of IT jobs that don't require the employee to be on-site, which is not many of them. For example, only three percent of computer science jobs are outsourced. Furthermore, this trend has been reversing in recent years.
But regardless of this issue, the notion that the tech industry "doesn't even employ that many people" is pure hogwash. According to the latest BLS data, the tech industry ("Computer and Mathematical Occupations") employed 3,578,220 people. That's not the top employer, certainly, but it's more than plenty of other industries. For example, it employs more than two times the number of people that are employed in the arts industries (1,750,130).
Furthermore, the median income in the tech industry ($76,270) is higher than any other industry. This means that jobs in that industry have more of a positive effect on the economy than jobs in other industries, due to higher taxes paid and greater disposable income.
In fact, if you calculate the contribution to the economy in this way (total employed times the median annual income), the tech industry comes in at #6, contributing about $273 billion, or roughly 6.03% of the total economy. In contrast, the arts industries rank at #18 (out of 21), contributing about $77 billion, or 1.9% of the total economy.
So, no, they're not "killing the American economy." Organizations that attack them are.
Open source does NOT mean EVERYONE can add code to the main repo/git/whatever.
Yeah, actually, that usually is what it means. In the case of JDownloader, you just need SVN access. Like almost all open source projects, they grant SVN write access to anyone that agrees to the license terms.
It's like you've never worked on an open source project before. I have (and am). Granting access to anyone who wants to upload code is SOP.
On the post: Beastie Boys Not Letting Goldieblox Off; Launch Massive Countersuit
Do the Beastie Boys even have standing to sue?
As Mike pointed out in an earlier story about this case, the Beastie Boys' "Girls" was intentionally based upon "Shout" by the Isley Brothers. Their producer, Rick Rubin, explicitly admitted that it was "a rap version of 'Shout'."
The melody and chord progression is a direct copy. While I have no doubt that the Beasties' use is either licensed or fair use, in neither case would it allow the Beastie Boys to claim copyright over the melody and chord progressions, both of which remain with Shout's copyright holder. As with all derivative works, the Beasties would only hold the copyright over the new material - in this case, the lyrics and the actual sound recording.
But here's the thing. None of that was used by GoldieBlox. GoldieBlox changed the content of the lyrics almost entirely, and did not use any of the sound recording in their own version. That means the only things GoldieBlox could be accused of infringing upon was the melody and chord progression of "Girls" - exactly the same elements, and only those elements, that the Beasties lifted from the Isley Brothers.
So, it's entirely possible that the Beastie Boys don't even have standing to sue. If GoldieBlox is infringing upon anyone's copyright, it's the copyright of the Isley Brothers (or more likely their assignees), and they're not a party to this lawsuit.
If that's the case, then the judge probably wouldn't even get to the fair use question. But it's a weird situation, and I don't know of any case that dealt with this explicitly, so I'm not sure what would happen.
On the post: Beastie Boys Not Letting Goldieblox Off; Launch Massive Countersuit
Re:
They didn't use the Beastie Boys' music, they used a parody of the Beastie Boys' music. (Or possibly not the Beasties' music - I'll bring that up in another comment.)
And commercial use does not necessarily mean that a use is not fair use. Even if that commercial use is in advertising. In fact, the vast majority of fair uses are by for-profit entities, including the fair uses enjoyed by the Beasties themselves.
What I find troubling is that GoldieBlox used copyrighted music without permission and then sued the Beastie Boys on the basis of Fair Use.
They were suing for a declaration of fair use. That's it. They weren't demanding money. If GoldieBlox won (or wins), the only that would happen is that the Beastie Boys wouldn't get to sue them. That was the entire point.
The fact that the Beastie Boys actually are suing, shows that their instincts were probably correct.
The Beastie Boys were willing to set everything aside as long as GoldieBlox pulled the ad and stopped using their song in their ad.
No, you have that exactly backwards. Once GoldieBlox learned of MCA's wishes, they voluntarily stopped using the song in the commercial. And it was GoldieBlox who said they'd drop the declaratory judgement suit if the Beastie Boys promised not to sue for infringement. Instead, the Beasties decided to sue even after GoldieBlox stopped using the parody.
If anything, GoldieBlox was naive, not malicious.
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Lawyers Tell Show Inspired By 'The Princess Bride' To Prepare To Die
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well, that's not much better. I'm not a huge fan of current copyright laws, but even so, calling copyright holders "the most useless in our society" is total BS. (Even if he was only talking about corporate copyright holders.)
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Lawyers Tell Show Inspired By 'The Princess Bride' To Prepare To Die
Re: Re:
Sweat of the brow only counts when it is your sweat. Got it.
Who are you talking to, precisely? It appears to be a reply to my comment, but I never even hinted that I believe any of those things. (Also - "the most useless in our society?" What the fuck?)
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Lawyers Tell Show Inspired By 'The Princess Bride' To Prepare To Die
Re:
I think it is granted because they earned those rights:
The Mazer v. Stein quote does not say they were granted because they earned those rights. In their own words, "encouragement of individual effort by personal gain is the best way to advance public welfare."
And that case itself cited two others, right before the quote you posted, which also make it clear that it is not the reason authors are granted copyrights. "The copyright law, like the patent statutes, makes reward to the owner a secondary consideration" (United States v. Paramount Pictures); it is granted "to afford greater encouragement to the production of literary [or artistic] works of lasting benefit to the world" (Washingtonian Pub. Co. v. Pearson).
No, copyright is granted to benefit the general public. If the rights do not benefit the public, then they should not be granted, no matter how much authors "earned" them:
- House Report on the Copyright Act of 1909
So, yeah, it's totally immoral according to your standards.
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Lawyers Tell Show Inspired By 'The Princess Bride' To Prepare To Die
Re: Re:
Mowing your lawn would be my exclusive "property," so mowing it yourself, or hiring anyone else to mow it, should be "theft."
...Or, perhaps you're one of those people who believes that copyright should be about controlling the work.
Say I mowed your lawn, and the next day, you decided to turn your lawn into a rock garden. You're destroying the results of my labor. All of that hard work, down the drain. And putting in a rock garden to boot! No lawn-mower in his right mind would want to be associated with such a grassless abomination.
Why, the only thing that is moral is to get the government to grant me an injunction against you putting in a rock garden. After all, I put in a lot of time and effort into the work of art that is your lawn, so I have a property right in it, and you shouldn't have a right to destroy my property.
I've seen this sort of argument before. Obviously, I don't think it holds water. There is certainly nothing moral about it.
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Lawyers Tell Show Inspired By 'The Princess Bride' To Prepare To Die
Re:
No one is arguing against workers getting paid for their labor. What you're saying is moral is granting exclusive property rights on the results of that labor, above and beyond being paid for the labor itself.
If I pay you $50 to mow my lawn, I get to keep the mowed lawn despite your having done the work because I paid you for your effort.
But you're arguing that if I mow your lawn, I should have exclusive property rights to your lawn. Mowing your lawn would be my exclusive "property," so mowing it yourself, or hiring anyone else to mow it, should be "theft."
That is the moral argument you are making.
Lots of things exist that we don't provide intellectual rights in.
And, as it turns out, when we don't provide intellectual property rights in them, we get more of those things.
When we compare industries that both do and do not have IP protections in certain areas (the fashion industry, database rights, etc.), it turns out that the places that do not have IP protections have more innovation and more production.
This should surprise nobody, since it is well-known that monopolies stifle innovation and economic growth, and that is exactly what IP is meant to be.
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Lawyers Tell Show Inspired By 'The Princess Bride' To Prepare To Die
Re:
Sorry, but using the law to keep people from speaking is considered censorship by most people. And also by the courts, as it turns out.
Sending a C&D to prohibit speech is certainly an attempt at censorship. It actually is censorship if it works. As it did here.
We don't normally call people who enforce their property rights "censors."
And we don't normally consider speech to be "property."
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Lawyers Tell Show Inspired By 'The Princess Bride' To Prepare To Die
Re:
Then you must think copyright law is terribly immoral, since copyright is not granted "because they earned those rights." (This wouldn't surprise me in the least.)
You must also think that "work for hire" is completely immoral, since the people who put time and effort into creating works never hold any kind of property rights in those works at all.
And you must also think that most employment is completely immoral, since chefs, carpenters, plumbers, welders, and so on put in a lot of time and effort into creating works, but none of them are ever granted property rights in the works they create.
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Lawyers Tell Show Inspired By 'The Princess Bride' To Prepare To Die
Re:
Not really. Aside from what I posted above, the "copyright bargain" is not supposed to inspire creativity per se, but to encourage a commercial market for creativity. That commercial market is considered necessary for the publication or works that would (in unproven theory) otherwise never make it to the public. In other words, it is not creativity itself, but the dissemination of that creativity to the public, that is the goal of the "copyright bargain."
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Lawyers Tell Show Inspired By 'The Princess Bride' To Prepare To Die
Re:
Uh, yeah, it is. The moment you consider speech to be "property," is the moment speech can be suppressed by the speech's "owner."
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Lawyers Tell Show Inspired By 'The Princess Bride' To Prepare To Die
Re:
Exclusive rights are the mechanism, not the purpose. If that mechanism acts counter to copyright's purpose, it is a failure.
Also, "exclusive rights" don't necessarily mean "the right to exclude others," though it often does. It can also mean "the exclusive right to income," even if that income does not come with the right to exclude others from using the work. That's how statutory royalties work, for example.
Why pretend like this isn't part of the bargain?
Because it isn't. Copyright law was not supposed to stifle derivative works that also have a significant element of original expression, or that transform the original in significant ways.
This is why fair use exists, and has existed as long as copyright has been around. Even when a copyright holder objects to that usage, the law has acknowledged that the usage should be allowed. Otherwise, copyright is acting against its sole purpose of providing the public with new works of art.
- Campbell v. Acuff-Rose
In this case, the use of "The Princess Bride" was most likely a fair use - and thus, a use that copyright is designed to promote. The fact that copyright was used to prevent that work from appearing, is not only censorship, it is acting against the very purpose of copyright itself.
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Lawyers Tell Show Inspired By 'The Princess Bride' To Prepare To Die
Re: William Goldman and Rob Reiner
William Goldman and Rob Reiner probably have nothing to do with it, as Goldman probably assigned his copyright to his publisher, and Reiner (by law) never held any part of the copyright in the movie.
They can speak out about it (and I think should), but legally there's absolutely nothing they could do about it.
On the post: Copyright As Censorship: Lawyers Tell Show Inspired By 'The Princess Bride' To Prepare To Die
Re: Re: Re:
This is absolutely not true. For example, in libel cases, it is almost never the government being libeled. But granting a TRO or injunction in libel cases is often rejected because it would be censorship under the First Amendment.
On the post: Make Art Not Law
Re: You need to separate STIFLING from STEALING.
No, you're not. You've not once defended fair use, for example.
If you'll stick to pulling down The Rich and their controls that go beyond the specific expression, FINE.
So if it's the government, or someone who is not "rich" by your (never-explained) definition, then stifling speech is fine? Goody.
But when Rikuo brags about how much actual content he's stealing, that's outside statue and common law
Rikuo bragged about torrenting files, not about committing copyright infringement. There is a difference. The fact that he acknowleges that the MPAA can't tell the difference just shows that he knows the MPAA.
And, for the love of all that's holy, stop saying it's common law. Copyright was never, at any time, in any part of the world, a common law right. Nobody in history was ever granted a post-publication monopoly unless legal statutes said they were. Unlike fair use.
you don't have any right to the work, content, or intellectual property that others have paid for, made, created, worked out, promoted, and so. [sic]
Not only is that not why copyright exists, that's not even an accurate portrayal of copyright law. If your use is one that falls under the many exceptions to copyright, you absolutely do have a right to use others' intellectual property.
File hosts sharing coprighted content is SIMPLY STEALING.
Copyright infringement is not stealing, and no file host has ever been found guilty of theft. They have been found secondarily liable for copyright infringement. In other words, they weren't stealing, and they weren't liable for anyone else stealing; they were liable for other people (none of whom were "the rich") infringing on copyrights.
Where arrogance meets ignorance to conspire what they'll do with someone else's $100 million movie.
Amazing. In one post, you've gone from claiming that you're fine with "pulling down The Rich and their controls," to insulting people who infringe on the copyright of artworks that only the rich are capable of creating.
I would say your hypocrisy knows no bounds, but I don't think you're smart enough to be hypocritical.
On the post: Why The USTR Is Working So Hard To Kill American Innovation And The Economy
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well, in all fairness, I was defining "industry" as synonymous with occupation, under the assumption that "the tech industry" employs more computer and science workers, and "the media industry" employs more artists, designers, entertainers, and pro sports workers. In other words, I was working with the OMB's SOC classification, rather than NAICS classification.
That's a lot easier to do, because the NAICS major classification system is kind of a mess. For example, "Motion Picture and Sound Recording Industries" is in Sector 51, "Information" - along with software companies, telecommunications, and newspaper publishers - and not in Sector 71, "Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation." Similarly, "Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing" is in Sector 33, "Manufacturing," while "Computer Systems Design" is in Sector 54, "Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services" - along with lawyers.
Just sorting out which of the NAICS classifications are part of "the tech industry" or "the media industries" is not trivial.
I do plan to do this eventually, when I have time and/or interest. If you go to the page for the SOC (occupational) classification, it lists the specific NAICS industries with both the highest levels, and highest concentration, of employment for that occupation. That way, I could find the tech and media occupations, work "backwards" to the industries with the highest number of those jobs, and calculate how much those industries' entire workforce contributes to the total economy. That way, we can include e.g. the office workers.
...But not today, obviously.
On the post: Why The USTR Is Working So Hard To Kill American Innovation And The Economy
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hey, dipshit:
1. Google is not the tech industry. They're not even "Silicon Valley."
2. These are figures from the BLS, so they're U.S. workers. Not one of those jobs are "parked overseas."
3. I was talking about median annual wages, so the "taxes" I was talking about are workers' payroll taxes, not corporate taxes. These can't be "parked overseas."
As for the rest of your trickle-down BS, spare us.
The "trickle-down BS" (which I also don't believe) involves granting tax breaks to corporations. I am talking about the take-home pay of workers.
No, "trickle-down" would be something like when states grant tax breaks to movie studios, on the theory that they would create local jobs. You're absolutely right that it is BS.
On the post: Why The USTR Is Working So Hard To Kill American Innovation And The Economy
Re: Re:
First, I'm assuming that when you say "Silicon Valley," you're using a (to you) derogatory term to refer to the tech industry. I'm also assuming you mean outsourcing to foreign countries (and not outsourcing to American firms), a.k.a. "offshoring;" otherwise the whole "killing the American economy" line is ridiculous.
The jobs the tech industry outsources are the same jobs everyone else outsources - mainly manufacturing jobs. That is very much a concern, but hardly unique to the tech industry.
There are a fair amount of IT jobs being outsourced as well, but they are only the type of IT jobs that don't require the employee to be on-site, which is not many of them. For example, only three percent of computer science jobs are outsourced. Furthermore, this trend has been reversing in recent years.
But regardless of this issue, the notion that the tech industry "doesn't even employ that many people" is pure hogwash. According to the latest BLS data, the tech industry ("Computer and Mathematical Occupations") employed 3,578,220 people. That's not the top employer, certainly, but it's more than plenty of other industries. For example, it employs more than two times the number of people that are employed in the arts industries (1,750,130).
Furthermore, the median income in the tech industry ($76,270) is higher than any other industry. This means that jobs in that industry have more of a positive effect on the economy than jobs in other industries, due to higher taxes paid and greater disposable income.
In fact, if you calculate the contribution to the economy in this way (total employed times the median annual income), the tech industry comes in at #6, contributing about $273 billion, or roughly 6.03% of the total economy. In contrast, the arts industries rank at #18 (out of 21), contributing about $77 billion, or 1.9% of the total economy.
So, no, they're not "killing the American economy." Organizations that attack them are.
On the post: The IRS And SEC Want To Snoop Through Your Email Without A Warrant; Don't Let Them
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At this point, pretty much everyone in the world is "volunteering" themselves.
On the post: German Court Says CEO Of Open Source Company Liable For 'Illegal' Functions Submitted By Community
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Yeah, actually, that usually is what it means. In the case of JDownloader, you just need SVN access. Like almost all open source projects, they grant SVN write access to anyone that agrees to the license terms.
It's like you've never worked on an open source project before. I have (and am). Granting access to anyone who wants to upload code is SOP.
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