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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 219 responses total. |
brighn
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response 141 of 219:
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Mar 14 17:57 UTC 2002 |
Yes, it slip in, Ken. I see your apology didn't.
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flem
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response 142 of 219:
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Mar 14 18:05 UTC 2002 |
If the music industry were just trying to protect themselves by identifying
and bringing lawsuits against people who pirate music, I'd be a lot more
sympathetic. Instead, they're trying to buy laws (which I find objectionable
in the first place) to regulate in severe and short-sighted ways industries
that are only tangentially related. I honestly think this is a case of
outlawing short skirts because they lead to rape.
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dbratman
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response 143 of 219:
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Mar 14 18:06 UTC 2002 |
I am a legitimate user. I have never downloaded or listened to any
music on the Internet that wasn't licensed to do so, and I own no CDs
not commercially purchased.
Yet I still feel I'm being lectured at by Michael Greene. Why?
Because of his assumption that all users are "shoplifters".
Because of the proposed draconian solutions to this problem, which
would make it impossible for me to listen to my own legitimately
purchased music the way I want for my own purposes - not passing it on
to anyone else or doing anything even remotely unethical, let alone
illegal.
Some software anti-piracy fixes - I know this is planned for e-book
downloads - would tie the software to the machine it's downloaded to.
This means that if my hardware breaks or I buy a new one or anything of
the sort, I can no longer use my legitimately purchased software. Nor
can I buy it and then sell it or give it as a gift to someone else,
activities that have always been both legal and moral with hard-copy
books and records.
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brighn
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response 144 of 219:
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Mar 14 18:09 UTC 2002 |
#140> I had thought so, but in 1992, Congress made it legal, as Ken has
demosntrated.
#142> I agree, actually. I find the RIAA acting very collusionarily and
egregiously. Then again, I can understand some of their panic in the face of
Napster, a situation nobody was really prepared to process. But they have
nice, calm, nonpanicking lawyers who should know better. Supposedly.
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brighn
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response 145 of 219:
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Mar 14 18:10 UTC 2002 |
#143> I don't feel like I'm being lectured by Michael Greene. Maybe you're
feeling so because you're paranoid...? *shrug*
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krj
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response 146 of 219:
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Mar 14 19:01 UTC 2002 |
Flem in resp:142 brings up an interesting argument, one which Napster
attempted to raise in its defense. The court swatted it down without
much comment, which I think is unfortunate and wrong.
Napster is being sued for CONTRIBUTORY copyright infringement.
They are not accused of making infringing copies themselves; they are
accused of contributing to the infringing activities of others.
But who are the others? No Napster user has ever been successfully
sued or criminally convicted of copyright infringement. Without a
legal decision establishing the primary infringement, how can there
be a legal judgement of CONTRIBUTORY infringement? Napster argued
that the file sharing its users did fell into the category of
"private and non-commercial" copying.
("Contributory infringement" is what was alleged by the copyright
industry in the Sony Betamax case. More commonly it's seen in
cases like flea markets where the owners of the market know that
infringing goods are being sold.)
(Speaking of the Betamax case: it's worth reiterating how
close the USA came to banning the VCR. The Supreme Court decision
in the Betamax case was only 5-4 in favor of allowing the machines to be
sold, and to come up with that decision the Court engaged in some
pretty outrageous law-making, arbitrarily ruling that time-shifting
did not count as copyright infringement even though it involved
the physical production of an unauthorized copy. Those of you
who, like brighn, have a moral objection to the unauthorized duplication
of copyrighted material really need to disable the recording function
on your VCR.)
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brighn
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response 147 of 219:
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Mar 14 19:21 UTC 2002 |
Does somebody else have to be found guilty of a crime for me to be found
guilty of abetting the crime? I honestly don't know. Napster clearly had
commercial gain in mind... why would it go through all this nightmare for
pure altruism? I think the code that Ken pointed to, while applicable to the
case, is poorly written, because it goes beyond "fair use" in letter, but I
don't think it was intended to. Putting a copyrighted piece of music on my
website is no more (or less) appropriate than putting a copyrighted piece of
text, but the latter is illegal, but the former doesn't appear to be, so long
as my website isn't a commercial venture.
Reading the code, I think we'd be a lot better off if we just tore up sizable
portions off the intellectual property code and started over, WITHOUT the
interference from either the RIAA or the Napsterites. That's not going to
happen, though.
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krj
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response 148 of 219:
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Mar 14 20:07 UTC 2002 |
A web site may be non-commercial but it is not considered private.
People have gotten in legal trouble for putting copyrighted music
on their web site.
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jmsaul
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response 149 of 219:
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Mar 14 23:34 UTC 2002 |
I've said it before, but it's worth saying again:
Fair use is *really* complicated, the outcome of a fair use case can be hard
to predict, and you only get to find out whether your specific case was fair
use at trial.
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brighn
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response 150 of 219:
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Mar 15 03:05 UTC 2002 |
#148> The code quoted in #136 doesn't use the word "private," so if websites
are no good, neither is distributing copies to friends. Reading it again, the
code in #136 doesn't say anything about distribution. It says that I'm
permitted to make copies for non-commercial purposes, it doesn't say I'm
allowed to distribute them to anyone.
#149> Fair use is really compicated, but there are clear cases.
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jmsaul
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response 151 of 219:
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Mar 15 05:42 UTC 2002 |
True -- but making a mix CD and giving it to a friend isn't one of them.
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krj
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response 152 of 219:
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Mar 15 05:55 UTC 2002 |
I have one last word for Paul: "Publishing."
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jmsaul
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response 153 of 219:
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Mar 15 06:01 UTC 2002 |
Well, that's an interesting word. Have you found a good definition of it in
the copyright context?
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krj
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response 154 of 219:
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Mar 15 06:35 UTC 2002 |
Not explicitly, no, but it would seem to be bound up with the phrasing
in Paul's resp:135, where the law talks about the exclusive right to
"distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work TO THE PUBLIC"
(emphasis mine).
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krj
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response 155 of 219:
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Mar 15 07:25 UTC 2002 |
Salon ran an overview of the SSSCA arguments yesterday, and today there
is one in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/14/technology/14PROT.html
"Piracy, or Innovation? It's Hollywood vs. High Tech"
One quote from down deep in the article:
> Several technology producers already offer copy-protection
> systems that media companies can use when they
> sell their content in a digital form. What the companies
> are looking for, in essence, is a second line of defense for
> material posted on the Internet by someone who breaks the
> original security system, or records a movie in a
> theater with a camcorder, or steals a copy from the studio.
>
> One proposal calls for a digital "watermark" -- a kind
> of label undetectable to the human eye or ear -- to be
> embedded in every piece of digital media, carrying
> instructions about whether it can be played or copied. Every
> computer and electronic media player would be designed
> to obey those instructions, and TO REFUSE TO PLAY
> ANYTHING THAT DID NOT CONTAIN A WATERMARK. That would
> mean that even camcorders would have to be redesigned
> to imprint watermarks on home videos. ((emphasis krj))
The 20 years' worth of "installed base" of CDs do not have watermarks,
nor do the 3-4 years' worth of DVDs. Wonderful, there is a proposal in
play to make most music sold in the last 20 years unplayable.
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jmsaul
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response 156 of 219:
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Mar 15 13:45 UTC 2002 |
Yeah, it's f*cking ridiculous, and hopefully it won't actually get very far.
It's possible that even the people who proposed it don't expect it to pass,
and are just using it to soften us up for a less ridiculous proposal that will
sound reasonable by comparison... or it's possible that they really are that
evil, and really do think we're that stupid. After all, they'd get to sell
us new stuff, right? And since they can't get us to buy their new products
in the quantities they want, they need to resell us the old stuff, right?
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brighn
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response 157 of 219:
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Mar 15 14:38 UTC 2002 |
"Publishing" is a nice word, Ken. Irrelevant, but very pretty.
Throwing single words out at me and then making obtuse arguments about them
isn't a good way to state a thesis.
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gull
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response 158 of 219:
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Mar 15 14:59 UTC 2002 |
Re #156: Record companies have been looking for a way to do this for a while
now. They made out like bandits when people switched to CDs and bought all
new copies of albums they already owned. Now they're looking for a way to
tap into that market again. A mandatory digital watermaking system would be
a pretty effective way to do it.
(The other way they've been trying to get people to buy the same music again
is buy coming out with the "Super CD" standard. It has yet to take off, but
it'd use 24-bit sampling instead of 16-bit. Some audiophiles claim to be
able to hear the difference, but it's doubtful most people could; the
evidence mostly points to even 16-bit sampling having about 3 dB more
dynamic range than the human ear.)
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orinoco
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response 159 of 219:
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Mar 15 15:32 UTC 2002 |
Re mix tapes: Look, nobody's arguing that it's immoral to make copies for
a friend, or that it _should_ be illegal. Nobody's even saying "oh, you've
been naughty, you're gonna get in trouble now" -- everybody knows that even
the New, Improved, Twice As Much Evil For The Same Low Price copyright
industry isn't gonna bother prosecuting you for making a single mix and giving
it away quietly. Paul's just saying that technically, the way the laws have
been interpreted, it _is_ illegal to make a mix tape for anyone but yourself.
And, well, that's just true. It's also pretty trivial. We break laws all
the time -- traffic laws, for instance. (Now, granted, the cops aren't
lobbying for a law that would prevent any new car from going over 65, so the
bad guys in the copyright industry are acting a little badder... but if you
ignore what _they're_ doing, _we're_ still breaking the law in both cases.)
If you wanted to argue against a law banning cars that can go over 65, you
wouldn't do it by saying "well, but speeding is legal, isn't it?" -- that
would never fly. You'd come up with other arguments -- cars like that would
be unsafe, they'd be less efficient running at the high end of their range
all the time, they'd require unreliable new technology to limit their speed.
There are plenty of arguments like that against what the RIAA and their ilk
are up to; nobody needs to deny the existence of the laws to show that the
RIAA are being excessive.
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jmsaul
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response 160 of 219:
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Mar 15 15:39 UTC 2002 |
If it's illegal to make a mix tape for someone other than yourself -- meaning,
that it's clearly outside the bounds of Fair Use -- please cite the case or
statute where that's explicitly stated. Nothing that's been quoted or
referred to in this item so far eliminates the possibility that making a
mix tape and giving it to a friend is Fair Use.
I'm not convinced, and I have a fair amount of background in this area. I
realize there may be something I've missed, though, so educate me.
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brighn
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response 161 of 219:
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Mar 15 17:47 UTC 2002 |
It's not clearly illegal. Ken pointed to the AHRA, which is vague in letter
about whether it's legal to distribute home copies for non-commercial
purposes.
I said there are clear examples which are not fair use. In that post, I didn't
specify any examples.
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jmsaul
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response 162 of 219:
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Mar 15 22:55 UTC 2002 |
Fair enough. Um, no pun intended.
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tpryan
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response 163 of 219:
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Mar 15 23:41 UTC 2002 |
So, who wants to start a critics circle?
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gull
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response 164 of 219:
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Mar 16 00:20 UTC 2002 |
The AHRA doesn't actually say it's not *illegal*, just that they aren't
allowed to sue you over it.
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russ
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response 165 of 219:
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Mar 16 01:48 UTC 2002 |
I find it very enlightening that brighn:
1.) Is talking about things I never mentioned,
2.) Didn't mention anything I actually said, and
3.) Can't seem to grasp the distinction between physical
property and "intellectual property".
Neither does he seem to grasp that taking a physical copy
without paying for it is stealing, but sending off a virtual
copy for free is often damned effective *marketing*.
But he won't admit that this has any merit either.
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