I think it's time the public realised that copyright is not actually in their interest or worthy of their respect, and not only treated all published works as inescapably their own, but stood together in solidarity to defend any artist suffering the depredations of publishers pretending their published works remain their commercial property.
Tell me what bunch of cartoonists, who've spent their life entertaining children, would stand up and call for the prosecution of this other bunch of cartoonists who'd like to help extend the life of less fortunate children?
Fundamentally, if you don't want the public to have your art as part of their culture for them to freely exchange and build upon, then don't publish it in the first place.
As you observe, Disney had no compunction building upon public culture for their own benefit. They should similarly tolerate the public building upon the public culture Disney publishes.
Copyright was a monopoly intended to constrain a few commercial printers 300 years ago, not the public. It's an unethical anachronism and should have been abolished a century ago. Today, it's just revealing corporate sociopathy.
When will people recognise that our last century of commercially produced artistic works are not part of our public culture, and not to be appropriated by members of the public without a proper commercial license - no matter how worthy the cause.
Nevertheless, it is only your publisher who can actually assert the privilege of your copyright as far as its assertion is beneficial to them (and indirectly to you).
If copyright was a right it wouldn't have been created through legislation 300 years ago. Copyright is designed to constrain all printers for the benefit of each. Unfortunately, it also constrains the public (because no-one originally imagined that the public could become printers).
As for people taking away your copyright. No-one is taking it away. They're merely pointing out that you no longer have it, and trying to help you understand that this is actually for the best and a reversion back to the way things were 300 years ago, before such an unnatural privilege was legislated.
I think very few people begrudge artists ample reward for their labours, and many who enjoy blockbuster movies would gladly offer handsome rewards for the creators of such works.
The problem we're facing today is not how to get something for nothing, but how to solve two problems:
1) To restore the public's cultural liberty (suspended 300 years ago to create lucrative monopolies for printers).
2) To persuade publishers to exchange their cultural works for their audience's money rather than the public's liberty.
We cannot go back in time, but who's to know, if copyright had never been enacted, what sophisticated systems of social escrow we'd have developed by now for the commissioning of public works?
It was a failure of imagination pre-empted by the ease of granting the monopolies, patents, and other unethical boons that kings were quite familiar with.
The Internet reveals the anachronism of copyright at the same time as it also reveals the greater ease of offering alternative mechanisms whereby audiences may commission the production of public works.
If there are millions of people who want a blockbuster and someone who will produce it for the right amount of money, you do not need copyright, you just need to create a market in which an audience can haggle with the producer.
If copyright actually worked, if it was still effective, we'd not be arguing about it, irrespective of whether it was unethical. The thing is, copyright no longer works. We now have to help people see what else can work in its place - and hopefully avoid more failures of imagination, e.g. tax.
Copyright is a privilege intended to benefit the commercial publisher.
Logically, the privilege must be associated with a work, and consequently when a work is originated, the transferable privilege lies with the work's owner (its author or commissioner). However, although author's may find themselves in possession of copyrights, these are impotent in their hands. An author can only benefit from copyright in their work by selling it to a publisher who can wield it, and thus benefit from it.
As to the constitution, authors and inventors naturally lose the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries upon publication. Prior to publication this naturally exclusive right must be secured for a time limited only by the lifetime of the author or inventor, possibly a fraction more.
So, no, authors should not have their work taken from them, because (and as per the constitution) they have a natural, exclusive right to it. However, if authors give their work away or sell it, they logically no longer retain any exclusive right to it.
As to oppression, copyright and patent do oppress authors' and inventors' cultural liberty to originate, exchange and build upon each other's published works.
Copyrights are privileges relating to intellectual property, i.e. that you can stop people making copies of IP (that they'd otherwise have a natural right to do).
It is privileges that benefit the privileged (publishers) and cost those (the public) who've had their liberty suspended to create the privilege (copyright).
The revisionist argument in favour of copyright is effectively that publishers can make better use (greater public benefit) of the public's liberty to copy than the public can - hence the state's decision to suspend it for the publishers' benefit.
This is comparable to saying that a slave owner can extract and harness a slave's labour more effectively (for society's benefit) than if slaves were emancipated (a societal burden to society's detriment).
GrnDexter, you appear to believe that copyright confers value upon an intellectual work. It doesn't. It's merely a means of shoring up the market price of copies by having the privilege of prosecuting suppliers of unauthorised copies.
There are two valued things in a copy of an intellectual work:
1) the copy,
2) the work.
These are both values in the economic sense, and naturally will depend upon the circumstances and appreciation of each party doing the valuing.
The value of a copy to someone will be affected by availability and cost of alternative sources of copies (to them).
The value of an intellectual work to someone will be affected by whether the work is novel, interesting or useful (to them).
So, a copy of an intellectual work is a combination of these two values to someone.
However, copyright does not affect the value of an intellectual work to someone, only the value of copies thereof. Copyright indirectly affects the value of copies by reducing market supply. Well, it used to. These days it has a lesser effect given a ready alternative supply of copies from friends and the Internet.
I should say that it's not the giving away of free copies that makes copies less valuable, but the ready availability of free copies (an inevitability with published digital works on the Internet).
One can give away bottled water, but this doesn't stop a bottle of water being highly valuable to someone in a boiler room.
Similarly, one can sell a copy of Red Hat Linux to someone in a remote location without an Internet connection. The copy is still valuable, despite free copies having been given away elsewhere.
Giving away free copies devalues copies - it doesn't devalue the intellectual work so copied.
And just because something takes a lot of work to produce doesn't entitle the producer to demand compensation (in proportion to cost) having given away that work. The proper bargain is for vendor and customer to come to an agreement.
There is a difference between the commercial privilege that publishers sought for their lucrative purpose (permission to enforce exclusive reproduction), and a 'higher purpose' that was pulled from someone's hat as a more populist spin to retrospectively sanction this unethical gift to publishers (incentive to publish for cultural benefit via suspension of the public's cultural liberty).
Well done on your first point. If you sell something that's free, you must be selling added value.
On your second point, it would still be fine for Wikipedia to charge people to read the site - without paying contributors. The thing is, no-one would pay such a charge, especially given the first payer could copy the whole thing and permit free access to everyone else (or charge a slightly lower price).
You wait until we get a law prohibiting possession of unauthorised copies (probably initially qualified as 'with intent to supply'). That'll be amusing.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why can't we all just get along?
If copyright was a right it would be inalienable and the employer wouldn't be able to take it away from the author.
In the absence of copyright, authors would still require payment for their works (the non-promotional ones), and even today when copyright is pretty much ineffective and unenforceable, authors still like getting paid for their work. Even authors of GPL software, where copyright is effectively neutralised, still require a salary from those who want them to develop or enhance it.
Copyright is only protection in the sense that it protects the copyright holder's privilege of exclusive reproduction. And yes, these days it's a pretty ineffective protection against unauthorised reproduction.
Anachronistic, unethical, ineffective, unnecessary, unenforceable, the list of reasons to abolish the white elephant that is copyright is long.
Copyright is a transferable privilege that being attached to a work is initially enjoyed by the work's owner (not necessarily its author). The privilege was created to benefit publishers (since they, not mere authors, were the only ones able to assert this monopolistic privilege and benefit from it commercially - supposedly thus incentivised to publish more works than otherwise).
If you believe copyright is an author's right rather than a privilege for publishers you should wonder why, in many jurisdictions, authors employed by publishers have their privilege of copyright 'taken away from them'.
The privilege of copyright is so named because it suspends the 'right to copy' from the public in order to grant this as a privilege for the benefit of publishers (and allegedly for a greater benefit to the public than the right suspended from them).
It is predictable that those who enjoy copyright would misconstrue and pretend it to be their natural right.
Privileges such as copyright are instituted (that necessarily suspend one party's rights to reserve them for another).
The idea that one loses nothing when a burglar steals copies of one's innovative designs because one still has an original copy is a tad naive.
Try telling a software engineer that the source code they've sweated over can be copied without payment because they get to keep a copy.
If you want a copy, pay for it. You've no right to make a copy without payment.
That's why intellectual property is a right.
What suspends this right is copyright, because it stops you making copies of your own property - in order to reserve this as a privilege for the publisher (assigned the work's copyright).
This is why copyright is unethical and should be abolished.
On the post: Warner Brothers Shuts Down Auction For Children's Cancer Charity
Re: Re: Not cultural works, but commercial
Tell me what bunch of cartoonists, who've spent their life entertaining children, would stand up and call for the prosecution of this other bunch of cartoonists who'd like to help extend the life of less fortunate children?
Fundamentally, if you don't want the public to have your art as part of their culture for them to freely exchange and build upon, then don't publish it in the first place.
As you observe, Disney had no compunction building upon public culture for their own benefit. They should similarly tolerate the public building upon the public culture Disney publishes.
Copyright was a monopoly intended to constrain a few commercial printers 300 years ago, not the public. It's an unethical anachronism and should have been abolished a century ago. Today, it's just revealing corporate sociopathy.
On the post: Warner Brothers Shuts Down Auction For Children's Cancer Charity
Not cultural works, but commercial
On the post: Copyright As An Engine Of Free Expression?
Re: Re: Re: Putting words in his mouth
If copyright was a right it wouldn't have been created through legislation 300 years ago. Copyright is designed to constrain all printers for the benefit of each. Unfortunately, it also constrains the public (because no-one originally imagined that the public could become printers).
As for people taking away your copyright. No-one is taking it away. They're merely pointing out that you no longer have it, and trying to help you understand that this is actually for the best and a reversion back to the way things were 300 years ago, before such an unnatural privilege was legislated.
On the post: Copyright As An Engine Of Free Expression?
Re: Putting words in his mouth
The problem we're facing today is not how to get something for nothing, but how to solve two problems:
1) To restore the public's cultural liberty (suspended 300 years ago to create lucrative monopolies for printers).
2) To persuade publishers to exchange their cultural works for their audience's money rather than the public's liberty.
We cannot go back in time, but who's to know, if copyright had never been enacted, what sophisticated systems of social escrow we'd have developed by now for the commissioning of public works?
It was a failure of imagination pre-empted by the ease of granting the monopolies, patents, and other unethical boons that kings were quite familiar with.
The Internet reveals the anachronism of copyright at the same time as it also reveals the greater ease of offering alternative mechanisms whereby audiences may commission the production of public works.
If there are millions of people who want a blockbuster and someone who will produce it for the right amount of money, you do not need copyright, you just need to create a market in which an audience can haggle with the producer.
If copyright actually worked, if it was still effective, we'd not be arguing about it, irrespective of whether it was unethical. The thing is, copyright no longer works. We now have to help people see what else can work in its place - and hopefully avoid more failures of imagination, e.g. tax.
On the post: Copyright As An Engine Of Free Expression?
Re: Re: Re:#12
Logically, the privilege must be associated with a work, and consequently when a work is originated, the transferable privilege lies with the work's owner (its author or commissioner). However, although author's may find themselves in possession of copyrights, these are impotent in their hands. An author can only benefit from copyright in their work by selling it to a publisher who can wield it, and thus benefit from it.
As to the constitution, authors and inventors naturally lose the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries upon publication. Prior to publication this naturally exclusive right must be secured for a time limited only by the lifetime of the author or inventor, possibly a fraction more.
So, no, authors should not have their work taken from them, because (and as per the constitution) they have a natural, exclusive right to it. However, if authors give their work away or sell it, they logically no longer retain any exclusive right to it.
As to oppression, copyright and patent do oppress authors' and inventors' cultural liberty to originate, exchange and build upon each other's published works.
Abolish copyright.
Abolish patent.
On the post: Copyright As An Engine Of Free Expression?
Re:
It is privileges that benefit the privileged (publishers) and cost those (the public) who've had their liberty suspended to create the privilege (copyright).
The revisionist argument in favour of copyright is effectively that publishers can make better use (greater public benefit) of the public's liberty to copy than the public can - hence the state's decision to suspend it for the publishers' benefit.
This is comparable to saying that a slave owner can extract and harness a slave's labour more effectively (for society's benefit) than if slaves were emancipated (a societal burden to society's detriment).
On the post: Copyright As An Engine Of Free Expression?
Re: Re: Re: Devaluing
There are two valued things in a copy of an intellectual work:
1) the copy,
2) the work.
These are both values in the economic sense, and naturally will depend upon the circumstances and appreciation of each party doing the valuing.
The value of a copy to someone will be affected by availability and cost of alternative sources of copies (to them).
The value of an intellectual work to someone will be affected by whether the work is novel, interesting or useful (to them).
So, a copy of an intellectual work is a combination of these two values to someone.
However, copyright does not affect the value of an intellectual work to someone, only the value of copies thereof. Copyright indirectly affects the value of copies by reducing market supply. Well, it used to. These days it has a lesser effect given a ready alternative supply of copies from friends and the Internet.
On the post: Copyright As An Engine Of Free Expression?
Re: Free Market and Copyright
On the post: Copyright As An Engine Of Free Expression?
Re: Devaluing
One can give away bottled water, but this doesn't stop a bottle of water being highly valuable to someone in a boiler room.
Similarly, one can sell a copy of Red Hat Linux to someone in a remote location without an Internet connection. The copy is still valuable, despite free copies having been given away elsewhere.
On the post: Copyright As An Engine Of Free Expression?
Devaluing
And just because something takes a lot of work to produce doesn't entitle the producer to demand compensation (in proportion to cost) having given away that work. The proper bargain is for vendor and customer to come to an agreement.
On the post: Follow Up On Paulo Coelho Embracing Pirating His Own Books
Sigh
On the post: Is Bell Canada Violating Privacy With Its Traffic Shaping Efforts?
Re: It is a privacy violation
If packets expose their QoS requirements, that provides enough info for traffic shaping.
DPI is a privacy violation, not traffic shaping.
On the post: Is Bell Canada Violating Privacy With Its Traffic Shaping Efforts?
It is a privacy violation
On the post: If Copyright Is About Incentive, Should It Allow Total Control Over The Work?
Purposeful revisionism
On the post: The Non-Controversy: No, Wikipedia Authors Should Not Get Paid
Re: RE: Wait a minute
On your second point, it would still be fine for Wikipedia to charge people to read the site - without paying contributors. The thing is, no-one would pay such a charge, especially given the first payer could copy the whole thing and permit free access to everyone else (or charge a slightly lower price).
On the post: The Non-Controversy: No, Wikipedia Authors Should Not Get Paid
The book remains the intellectual property of its contributors
Given that Wikipedia is free, the book cannot be charging for the work therein, but the costs in producing everything else comprising the book.
Anyone can copy Wikipedia or the book and publish their own books and charge twice the price (or half) if they fancy.
It's a free market - NO FRICKING MONOPOLY!
On the post: Can Someone Explain Why The White House Should Be Playing The Role Of Copyright Cop?
Possession of unauthorised copies
The people vs their elected representatives?
Something's gone terribly wrong...
On the post: The Smear Campaign Against Larry Lessig And Free Culture
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why can't we all just get along?
In the absence of copyright, authors would still require payment for their works (the non-promotional ones), and even today when copyright is pretty much ineffective and unenforceable, authors still like getting paid for their work. Even authors of GPL software, where copyright is effectively neutralised, still require a salary from those who want them to develop or enhance it.
Copyright is only protection in the sense that it protects the copyright holder's privilege of exclusive reproduction. And yes, these days it's a pretty ineffective protection against unauthorised reproduction.
Anachronistic, unethical, ineffective, unnecessary, unenforceable, the list of reasons to abolish the white elephant that is copyright is long.
On the post: The Smear Campaign Against Larry Lessig And Free Culture
Re: Re: Re: Re: Why can't we all just get along?
If you believe copyright is an author's right rather than a privilege for publishers you should wonder why, in many jurisdictions, authors employed by publishers have their privilege of copyright 'taken away from them'.
The privilege of copyright is so named because it suspends the 'right to copy' from the public in order to grant this as a privilege for the benefit of publishers (and allegedly for a greater benefit to the public than the right suspended from them).
It is predictable that those who enjoy copyright would misconstrue and pretend it to be their natural right.
On the post: The Smear Campaign Against Larry Lessig And Free Culture
Re: Re: Why can't we all just get along?
Privileges such as copyright are instituted (that necessarily suspend one party's rights to reserve them for another).
The idea that one loses nothing when a burglar steals copies of one's innovative designs because one still has an original copy is a tad naive.
Try telling a software engineer that the source code they've sweated over can be copied without payment because they get to keep a copy.
If you want a copy, pay for it. You've no right to make a copy without payment.
That's why intellectual property is a right.
What suspends this right is copyright, because it stops you making copies of your own property - in order to reserve this as a privilege for the publisher (assigned the work's copyright).
This is why copyright is unethical and should be abolished.
Next >>