When I read Sarkozy's statements in context, in French, I am left with a different impression.
Are you saying that, when read in their entirety, Sarkozy's comments come off softer than the particular "stripped of our heritage" statement, but that the statement is accurate or that the statement was actually mistranslated or taken out of context? Because that statement seems very clear cut. I'm not saying it couldn't be mistranslated, but it seems rather odd that the particular statement would be translated from "We should be doing this ourselves rather than relying on another country to do it for us."
If the french start using google, the government falls into the hands of a corporation that have no obligation to follow anything the government says.
"If" being the key word in your statement. But the French aren't required to use Google. The fact that Google would scan French books doesn't take away -- i.e. "strip away" -- anything from the French. On the contrary, it can only add to what the French have access to. That Google is an American company and that the French government wouldn't have control over how it limits access to the French works in no way whatsoever limits what the French government can do with French books.
Jaywalking is immoral because the jaywalker is infringing on the rights of the driver. Given current traffic laws, if a pedestrian walks into traffic when they don't have the right-of-way, they are endangering themselves, the drivers on the road at the time, and anyone else that might be hit by those drivers trying to avoid hitting the jaywalker. It's straightforwardly immoral.
Maybe part of getting over the 'But We Must Sell Music' hump is helping people understand the idea that a rare/non-infinite service (making music) can generate a non-rare/infinite product (digital copies of music). That physical or mental work can't be represented in some physical form, even if it's paper or a plastic disk, just seems counterintuitive. It just seems to be that one of the biggest barriers to understanding this issue is explaining the apparent contradiction that at the very moment a song gets copied to a digital file, it in effect switches from a rare good an infinite one.
The same old excuse. I laugh every time I read this, it's such a freaking cop out as to be beyond understanding.
You appear to be misinterpreting the people who make the distinction between theft and copyright infringement. Almost all of the people who make the distinction don't do so to justify copyright infringement. For example, you react as if Mike has said that copyright infringement is OK because it's not theft, but you won't find this statement in any of his posts. The reason that people make a distinciton between theft and copyright infringment is that they are fundamentally different and should be treated differently under the law. Are copyright infringment and theft illegal? Yes. Are copyright infringment and theft immoral? Yes. Is copyright infringment like theft? Yes, but that doesn't mean that we should treat a copyright infringer the same as a thief or, as we're doing now in same cases, worse.
For all the vilification directed to content industries and the constant hue and cry "they are taking away my rights, taking away my privacy, etc., etc.", has it ever occurred to those complaining the loudest that so-called "draconian copyright laws" are easily sidestepped by simply not downloading content that any reasonable person would know is not free for the taking?
You appear to be confusing two very different issues privacy in a digital world and copyright. How exactly would not illegaly downloading prevent my credit card company from losing my credit card number -- along with thousands of others -- on an unsecured laptop?
Perhaps in time the current content idustries so heavily invested in business practices relying upon copyright law will begin a shift towards what Mr. Masnick advocates, but until then it is the right of those industries to rely on the law and assert their rights under the law.
You will not find any quote from Mike that says it isn't their right to enforce copyright. What he's said -- repeatedly -- is that in spite of it being their right, they should pursue business models that are more in line with reality. So, if you're going to disagree with Mike, at least have the courtasy to disagree with something he's actually said rather than what you think he said.
From the linked article...
"I wish you filesharers would just admit the truth: you don't want to pay. Instead, you bang on about how it's fine to pass copies around because you haven't removed the original, even though the basic tenets of copyright law are founded on the idea that infringement occurs if you copy the most important part of the work (copying all of it definitely qualifies)."
Can you still call it a strawman argument if the arguer is blatantly ignorant of the actual facts instead of just purposefully setting up a premise based on facts they know to be false? Nobody is saying that illegal copyright infringement is "fine" because it doesn't remove the original. What people say and in fact the law says, is that illegal copyright infringement is not theft.
The writer chooses to make work available online, that is the writers choice. It would be different is someone was just ripping their work, and spreading it over torrents without permission.
Mike, I thought you were smart enough to know the difference.
I think one of the points that Mike is trying to make is that Wollenberg herself doesn't understand the difference between illegal downloaders and filesharers. The term "illegal downloaders" is mentioned in the headline, but in the actual article, she incorrectly uses "filesharers" as a synonym for "illegal downloaders".
Mike understands perfectly well that there's a difference between an author/rightsholder publishing digital material and someone else doing the same thing illegally. What he's pointing out is the irony of someone saying that all filesharing is bad when she herself is sharing files.
Your arguments appear to be based on the pre-Internet era...
Content is scarce.
Right, up until the second that it's converted to digital format that can be accessed by the public. After that, it's infinite.
So they don't want fans as much as they want paid heads in the door.
What does "want" have to do with anything? I want a truckload full of money delivered to my house, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen. The whole point that Mike makes is that even if copyright infringement is wrong, you'll never be able to stop it, so you might as well change your business model to accomodate the new environment. So, they shouldn't care about how many "paid heads", but about simply how much money they're making.
Innocent until reasonably imagined to be found guilty
From the linked article...
"'It is reasonable to imagine that comments like this were followed by requests by these same people that the video be removed,' the prosecutors wrote in the document they presented to the judge."
So, you can be put in jail in Italy for things that are "reasonable to imagine" rather than what has actually been proved? Either there is a mechanism for users of the Italian version of Google to report "offensive" content or there isn't. And, as the article mentions, Google isn't required by law to support such a feature or monitor the comments, but to remove content when notified by the "authorities". It looks like Google is being prosecuted for a law that doesn't exist.
I think I missed that part, what exactly are the newspapers accusing Google of?
From the newspaper's misguided viewpoint, Google is freeloading off of the newspapers content by "stealing" customers that would otherwise be going directly to their sites.
Right now Google is sending them to the store. That's ... bad?
Of course it's not bad. But that's why the analogy is flawed. Because newskids never called out the headlines just so they could send them to a store to buy a newspaper. The underlying point that Sullivan was making is still valid; it's just that the analogy doesn't make any sense.
It's a very nice "imaginary story", just a little to close to the reality to call it an analogy.
Well, its closeness to reality isn't the biggest problem. The analogy breaks down in my opinion at the following point in the post...
"Now one of those old fashioned newskids comes along. You know, the type that you'd see in movies selling papers on the street. Let's call the kid Google."
The problem of course is that if it really was one of those newskids, they wouldn't be sending the customer to the store; they'd be selling them a paper themselves. In fact, this is actually an awful analogy because this is exactly what the newspapers are accusing Google of doing.
See, there's this thing called an emoticon. It's meant to convey an emotion that might otherwise be lost in the medium of the writtent word. For example, the ;-) is the wink emoticon and is sometimes used to convey sarcasm. Glad I could help.
So, you're saying that Japanese copyright is not based on "promoting the progress"? Do you know this for a fact or are you just saying that it's not necessarilly based on the same principles as in the US? If it's not based on promoting the progress, what is it based on? Enriching the elite?
Eventually, as these new business models and new institutions work themselves out, it'll suddenly seem "obvious" what the right answers were
Reminds me of this quote...
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Ridiculed - "They're letting people decide how much they want to pay for the album! Ha! How stupid!"
Violently opposed - "We have to have this new law so that our profits, uh...I mean the profits of the artists we represent are protected!"
Accepted as self-evident - "Well, duh. Everyone knows that selling t-shirts was the solution all along." ;-)
I find it interesting that the linked article doesn't actually provide any justification for the extension. Oh, other than that the "JASRAC, other rights holders societies and music industry bodies in Japan" want it. At least in America, the RIAA/MPAA has the decency to lie to us to our face.
On the post: Can Someone Explain How Making French Cultural Works More Available Takes Away French Heritage?
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Are you saying that, when read in their entirety, Sarkozy's comments come off softer than the particular "stripped of our heritage" statement, but that the statement is accurate or that the statement was actually mistranslated or taken out of context? Because that statement seems very clear cut. I'm not saying it couldn't be mistranslated, but it seems rather odd that the particular statement would be translated from "We should be doing this ourselves rather than relying on another country to do it for us."
On the post: Can Someone Explain How Making French Cultural Works More Available Takes Away French Heritage?
"If" being the key word in your statement. But the French aren't required to use Google. The fact that Google would scan French books doesn't take away -- i.e. "strip away" -- anything from the French. On the contrary, it can only add to what the French have access to. That Google is an American company and that the French government wouldn't have control over how it limits access to the French works in no way whatsoever limits what the French government can do with French books.
On the post: Disney CEO: I Can't Figure Out Ways To Adapt My Business, So I Need Government Protection
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On the post: Getting The Music Business Over The 'But We Must Sell Music' Hump
Rare --> Infinite
On the post: Disney CEO: I Can't Figure Out Ways To Adapt My Business, So I Need Government Protection
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Yes.
Like murder? Like rape? Like theft? Like jaywalking?
Like in the sense that they're all immoral, yes. Not like in degree obviously.
Any other questions?
On the post: Disney CEO: I Can't Figure Out Ways To Adapt My Business, So I Need Government Protection
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You appear to be misinterpreting the people who make the distinction between theft and copyright infringement. Almost all of the people who make the distinction don't do so to justify copyright infringement. For example, you react as if Mike has said that copyright infringement is OK because it's not theft, but you won't find this statement in any of his posts. The reason that people make a distinciton between theft and copyright infringment is that they are fundamentally different and should be treated differently under the law. Are copyright infringment and theft illegal? Yes. Are copyright infringment and theft immoral? Yes. Is copyright infringment like theft? Yes, but that doesn't mean that we should treat a copyright infringer the same as a thief or, as we're doing now in same cases, worse.
On the post: UK Politicians Pushing Back On Mandelson's Digital Economy Bill
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You appear to be confusing two very different issues privacy in a digital world and copyright. How exactly would not illegaly downloading prevent my credit card company from losing my credit card number -- along with thousands of others -- on an unsecured laptop?
Perhaps in time the current content idustries so heavily invested in business practices relying upon copyright law will begin a shift towards what Mr. Masnick advocates, but until then it is the right of those industries to rely on the law and assert their rights under the law.
You will not find any quote from Mike that says it isn't their right to enforce copyright. What he's said -- repeatedly -- is that in spite of it being their right, they should pursue business models that are more in line with reality. So, if you're going to disagree with Mike, at least have the courtasy to disagree with something he's actually said rather than what you think he said.
On the post: Dismissing The Freeloading Myth
"Illegal copyright infringement"
"I wish you filesharers would just admit the truth: you don't want to pay. Instead, you bang on about how it's fine to pass copies around because you haven't removed the original, even though the basic tenets of copyright law are founded on the idea that infringement occurs if you copy the most important part of the work (copying all of it definitely qualifies)."
Can you still call it a strawman argument if the arguer is blatantly ignorant of the actual facts instead of just purposefully setting up a premise based on facts they know to be false? Nobody is saying that illegal copyright infringement is "fine" because it doesn't remove the original. What people say and in fact the law says, is that illegal copyright infringement is not theft.
On the post: Dismissing The Freeloading Myth
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Mike, I thought you were smart enough to know the difference.
I think one of the points that Mike is trying to make is that Wollenberg herself doesn't understand the difference between illegal downloaders and filesharers. The term "illegal downloaders" is mentioned in the headline, but in the actual article, she incorrectly uses "filesharers" as a synonym for "illegal downloaders".
Mike understands perfectly well that there's a difference between an author/rightsholder publishing digital material and someone else doing the same thing illegally. What he's pointing out is the irony of someone saying that all filesharing is bad when she herself is sharing files.
On the post: Other Legal Work Slow? Start A Practice To Help Patent Trolling
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The word "troll" is pejorative
And...? It was intended to be pejorative.
2.
and does not accurately reflect what the one (yes, only one) lawfirm is trying to implement.
Straw man. No one said that it only applied to a single law firm.
On the post: One Misguided Tweet Is 'Indisputable' Evidence That Piracy Harms Movies?
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Content is scarce.
Right, up until the second that it's converted to digital format that can be accessed by the public. After that, it's infinite.
So they don't want fans as much as they want paid heads in the door.
What does "want" have to do with anything? I want a truckload full of money delivered to my house, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen. The whole point that Mike makes is that even if copyright infringement is wrong, you'll never be able to stop it, so you might as well change your business model to accomodate the new environment. So, they shouldn't care about how many "paid heads", but about simply how much money they're making.
On the post: Italian Prosecutors Assume Google Execs Read All YouTube Comments; Demands Jailtime Over Video
Innocent until reasonably imagined to be found guilty
"'It is reasonable to imagine that comments like this were followed by requests by these same people that the video be removed,' the prosecutors wrote in the document they presented to the judge."
So, you can be put in jail in Italy for things that are "reasonable to imagine" rather than what has actually been proved? Either there is a mechanism for users of the Italian version of Google to report "offensive" content or there isn't. And, as the article mentions, Google isn't required by law to support such a feature or monitor the comments, but to remove content when notified by the "authorities". It looks like Google is being prosecuted for a law that doesn't exist.
On the post: If Google Visitors Are Worthless, It's Only Because Newspaper Execs Don't Know What They're Doing
Re: Re: Re: I like it
From the newspaper's misguided viewpoint, Google is freeloading off of the newspapers content by "stealing" customers that would otherwise be going directly to their sites.
Right now Google is sending them to the store. That's ... bad?
Of course it's not bad. But that's why the analogy is flawed. Because newskids never called out the headlines just so they could send them to a store to buy a newspaper. The underlying point that Sullivan was making is still valid; it's just that the analogy doesn't make any sense.
On the post: If Google Visitors Are Worthless, It's Only Because Newspaper Execs Don't Know What They're Doing
Re: I like it
Well, its closeness to reality isn't the biggest problem. The analogy breaks down in my opinion at the following point in the post...
"Now one of those old fashioned newskids comes along. You know, the type that you'd see in movies selling papers on the street. Let's call the kid Google."
The problem of course is that if it really was one of those newskids, they wouldn't be sending the customer to the store; they'd be selling them a paper themselves. In fact, this is actually an awful analogy because this is exactly what the newspapers are accusing Google of doing.
On the post: If Google Visitors Are Worthless, It's Only Because Newspaper Execs Don't Know What They're Doing
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So, you're condemning the whole concept of the analogy as worthless? Wow.
On the post: There Are Lots Of Ways To Fund Journalism
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On the post: Copyright Extension Moves To Japan
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On the post: There Are Lots Of Ways To Fund Journalism
Reminds me of this quote...
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Ridiculed - "They're letting people decide how much they want to pay for the album! Ha! How stupid!"
Violently opposed - "We have to have this new law so that our profits, uh...I mean the profits of the artists we represent are protected!"
Accepted as self-evident - "Well, duh. Everyone knows that selling t-shirts was the solution all along." ;-)
On the post: Copyright Extension Moves To Japan
On the post: Explaining The Innovator's Dilemma... In Two Minutes With A Whiteboard
"If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." - Gerald Ford
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