response 151 of 219:

Mar 15 05:42 UTC 2002

True -- but making a mix CD and giving it to a friend isn't one of them.

response 153 of 219:

Mar 15 06:01 UTC 2002

Well, that's an interesting word.  Have you found a good definition of it in
the copyright context?

response 155 of 219:

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.

response 157 of 219:

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.

response 159 of 219:

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.

response 161 of 219:

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.

response 163 of 219:

Mar 15 23:41 UTC 2002

        So, who wants to start a critics circle?

response 165 of 219:

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.

response 167 of 219:

Mar 16 04:49 UTC 2002

I think sometimes people go on fishing expeditions in U.S. courts, too.  I
remember hearing about some other foreign cases that were filed here, but
dismissed when the judge ruled he didn't have jurisdiction.

response 169 of 219:

Mar 16 23:12 UTC 2002

Really interesting article from the NYT on the future of music:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=76&u=/nyt/20020316/tc_nyt/w
her
e_music_will_be_coming_from
(sorry about the excessive URL; this is a no-registration version from Yahoo)

response 171 of 219:

Mar 17 16:49 UTC 2002

        Leaving aside the question of "wrong" and "right", or "legal" and
"illegal", the peer-to-peer file sharing issue does illustrate that the
traditional record-selling method really isn't viable anymore.  You can sell
fruit out of a stand in downtown Detroit, but if you leave the fruit there
overnight, someone's going to steal it.  It's still wrong, and illegal, but
it's the business model that's failed.

response 173 of 219:

Mar 17 21:32 UTC 2002

Re #170:  Still a faulty analogy, as you have a transfer of PHYSICAL
PROPERTY (just so you can't claim to have missed it again) from
someone else's possession to  yours.

Here's a better analogy.  Suppose that Friskies were available only
in huge, lifetime-supply quantities (like an album on CD, once you
own it you may never need another).  Further suppose that you got
the recipe for Friskies and made some of your own, to see if your
cat liked them.  It would not deprive anyone else of a thing, and
it would let you sample the wares before you buy instead of being
stuck with an expensive, non-returnable item that you can't use.
The only way you would be harming the maker of Friskies is if you
continued to make your own instead of going out and buying the
package once you knew your cat liked them.

And in case you missed it, "intellectual property" is a LEGAL
CONSTRUCT.  No such thing exists in nature.  Once you let someone
else learn your idea, your poem or your song, nothing prevents
them from repeating it to others for nothing; it becomes part of
the commons, available to everyone.  It requires a legal system
to give the inventor, poet or composer anything resembling "property
rights" in any work once revealed to the public.

As Jefferson (who helped author the copyright clase of the
Constitution, so he should be an authority) wrote in 1813:

    If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others 
    of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called 
    an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he 
    keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself 
    into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess 
    himself of it.  Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses 
    the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.  He who 
    receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without 
    lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light 
    without darkening me . . . . 

    Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.  Society
    may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an
    encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but
    this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience
    of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.

Both Jefferson and Madison classed copyrights and patents as grants of
monopoly, only to be allowed for limited periods and only for the
purpose of creating an incentive to invent and make inventions public.

Patents and copyrights are supposed to exist only for the purpose of
increasing the public good.  To the extent that rigid enforcement of
copyright increases monopoly rents on music, movies or anything else,
they are contrary to the public interest.  Ditto any mode of enforcement
which keeps people from space-shifting or time-shifting; such should
be ruled contrary to the Copyright Clause and thus un-Constitutional
to enforce legally.  Bye-bye, DMCA.