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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 219 responses total. |
jmsaul
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response 50 of 219:
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Feb 19 00:11 UTC 2002 |
From context, that's obviously intended as sarcasm, but ecologists actually
*have* influenced public policy in the US and Europe a hell of a lot in the
last 30-some years.
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mcnally
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response 51 of 219:
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Feb 19 01:03 UTC 2002 |
I know.. But I'm not particuarly hopeful for the effort Ken alludes to.
I'd argue that ecologists have largely been successful because they've
managed to convince a large enough segment of the populace, not because
they've influenced legislators directly. However, it's a complicated
issue and I have no desire to hijack the Napster item..
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jmsaul
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response 52 of 219:
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Feb 19 02:57 UTC 2002 |
Agreed on both counts.
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mcnally
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response 53 of 219:
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Feb 19 07:59 UTC 2002 |
Returning to Napsterish news.. An article in today's New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/18/technology/18SONG.html blasts the
music labels' official subscription download plans for not fairly
compensating artists. According to the article, subscription plans such
as PressPlay and MusicNet, which have been pushed by the music industry
as a way to make sure that artists are fairly compensated for their work,
apparently improve upon Napster's $0.0000/download by offering artists
a whopping $0.0023/download.. So if you're paying PressPlay $19.99/month
for their "Gold Plan" service, which allows up to 75 downloaded songs,
as much as $0.1725 of that $20 *may* be going directly to the artists.
Care to guess where the rest goes?
Anyway, artists are predictably up in arms about the compensation and
several have demanded that their work be withdrawn from the subscription
services.
Favorite bits from the article:
(1) "Representatives of the five major record labels would not talk on
the record about the payment system or their rights to use the
music. But in comments not for attribution, several executives
at labels and their subscription services did not dispute the
accusations regarding the payment plan. They said their first
priority was to make the services attractive to consumers and
that the details of compensation could be worked out afterward."
Oh yeah.. I'm sure the record labels can be trusted to work out
equitable compensation arrangements "afterward."
(2) Quote regarding a statement from Rand Hoffman, head of business
operations for several labels on Universal:
"[Hoffman] added that it was 'beyond logic' that artists would
choose to leave their music off Pressplay and 'effectively
encourage the use of illegal services.'"
Gosh yeah. Everyone hates getting screwed over *illegally*.
Having it happen legally is no doubt much better..
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krj
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response 54 of 219:
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Feb 19 21:37 UTC 2002 |
Thanks, Mike, I'd missed this story. It's putting a big smile on my
face, it is... Some of my favorite bits:
There's a long-ish discussion of the differences between licensing
arrangement and royalty arrangements; artists get less money in a
royalty arrangement, and of course that's what the labels have
chosen to use here, and it's defensible. But then: "But, out of that,
35 to 45 percent is deducted for standard CD expenses like packaging
and promotional copies -- expenses that obviously don't exist in
the online world." Yup, the labels are billing the artists for
CD packaging costs for songs delivered online.
And... "For many acts, suddenly there appears to be little difference
between the illicit file-sharing system and record-label services.
The arguments the labels are using, said Jill Berliner, a leading music
lawyer, are exactly the ones Napster made. 'And, from our perspective,
if the technology is going to be out there and the artist isn't
really going to make money, we'd prefer that our fans just get it for
free,' she said."
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krj
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response 55 of 219:
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Feb 20 00:04 UTC 2002 |
The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to the Sonny Bono
Copyright Extension Act, which extended all copyrights for another 20
years, and which put quite a few public domain works back under
copyright. The NY Times story is at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/19/national/19CND-RIGHTS.html
Slashdot points to a legal-oriented site backing the challenge to
the law:
http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/eldredvreno/
At the risk of oversimplifying, the argument is that Congress is going
against the clear language of the Constitution's copyright clause, which
calls for copyrights to have limited terms, when it continually lengthens
the terms of copyright.
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jmsaul
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response 56 of 219:
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Feb 20 04:12 UTC 2002 |
And it's a solid argument. Dunno whether it can beat the Mouse and his deep
pockets, but it should in an ideal world.
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mdw
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response 57 of 219:
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Feb 20 12:26 UTC 2002 |
CNN headline news said the surpreme court case involved extending
copyright to 70 years past the death of the author. I suppose if the
current copyright were 50 years, that would fit with #55.
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jmsaul
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response 58 of 219:
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Feb 20 18:40 UTC 2002 |
It was 50 before the Bono Act, which became law several years ago. Oddly
enough, the Act was passed a few years before the earliest Mickey Mouse
cartoons were due to come out of copyright.
It is widely believed that a similar act will be proposed in another 15 years,
and that Mickey -- along with every other work that age or newer -- will never
be allowed to fall out of copyright. Hopefully, this court challenge will
short circuit that.
In addition to the fact that the Constitution calls for limited terms, it also
states pretty clearly that the purpose of copyright is for the public good,
not for the good of copyright owners. The clear intent was to give a short-
term monopoly in order to encourage people to create works, which would
benefit the public. It was warped almost beyond recognition even before the
Bono Act, and now it's ridiculous. (For one thing, extending the term on
existing copyrights didn't encourage the production of any works, because
those works already existed.)
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brighn
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response 59 of 219:
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Feb 20 18:58 UTC 2002 |
The good of the copyright owners IS the public good, since they are members
of the public. It is not in the good of the copyright holders that they should
hold copyright for decades after they DIE.
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jazz
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response 60 of 219:
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Feb 20 19:13 UTC 2002 |
It's not in the good of the largest number of people, either; it's
a method of consolodating and ensuring wealth, and that is against the public
interest when in excess.
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brighn
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response 61 of 219:
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Feb 20 20:01 UTC 2002 |
The phrase "greatest good for the greatest number" also causes me to get Pig's
"Blades" stuck in my head. (Side comment)
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jmsaul
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response 62 of 219:
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Feb 20 21:41 UTC 2002 |
Re #59: It is to some extent, because that allows them to provide for their
children with the proceeds from their intellectual property.
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brighn
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response 63 of 219:
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Feb 20 21:56 UTC 2002 |
#62> Their children didn't create the works, they did. If they want their
children to benefit, they should set up trust funds for the money they earned
while they were alive.
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jmsaul
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response 64 of 219:
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Feb 20 22:08 UTC 2002 |
I'm just telling you what the justification is.
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mcnally
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response 65 of 219:
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Feb 20 22:16 UTC 2002 |
I think on this particular issue I'm one of those conspiracy theorists
who believe it's all about the Mouse. Disney will use every trick in
the book (and, if necessary, write a new book) to make sure that no
Disney-owned character ever passes into the public domain. Movie and
music studios have similar goals. Arrayed against these titans are a
handful of archivists and librarians. As much as I hate to say it,
the smart money is on the Mouse.
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brighn
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response 66 of 219:
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Feb 20 22:47 UTC 2002 |
#64> I know. I even understand adding a certain amount of time after death,
to cover surviving spouses. But I think that when it gets into kids, then
grandkids, that's just getting silly.
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krj
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response 67 of 219:
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Feb 20 23:50 UTC 2002 |
While I understand that "the smart money is on the Mouse," I wonder how
much the Disney deep pockets matter, now that the Supreme Court
has agreed to hear the case?
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scott
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response 68 of 219:
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Feb 20 23:55 UTC 2002 |
No matter how long the copyrights get extended, Mark Twain is still not going
to come back from the dead and write more books.
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jmsaul
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response 69 of 219:
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Feb 21 00:04 UTC 2002 |
Re #66: These days, the real problem is that IP is owned by corporations.
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krj
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response 70 of 219:
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Feb 21 01:21 UTC 2002 |
Seems like much of the DMCA action has now moved away from music and
into game consoles and software. Slashdot carried this story from about
a week ago:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/14/1745238&mode=thread
in which the original author
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~mcmillen/dmca/
reported having a serial cable (designed to connect a Sega Dreamcast
machine to a PC) seized by US Customs, citing the DMCA.
The cable is needed if one is to develop anything for the Dreamcast
on one's PC and upload it to the game console; theoretically this is
still a legal activity.
A followup Wired story indicated that Customs seems to be after all
shipments from this particular Asian vendor, Lik-Seng, in an effort to
stop the importation of modification chips for the Playstation.
It's not totally clear to me, but it looks like region coding is now
being elevated to the level of a copyright-protecting encryption.
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mcnally
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response 71 of 219:
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Feb 21 01:53 UTC 2002 |
The Dreamcast development cable thing seems to have been mostly due
to a problem with insufficient granularity at customs -- customs was
seizing all incoming merchandise from a vendor rather than just the
items which were alleged to be in violation of the DMCA.
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mdw
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response 72 of 219:
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Feb 21 04:32 UTC 2002 |
I don't think the copyright extensions have much to do with the
interests of authors or their families. I think most of it has to do
with the interests of various big corporations. Increasingly, most of
the real money in the creative business is not in properties owned by a
single person, but in properties owned and controlled by big
corporations. This is certainly true of Mickey, it's also true of most
other movies, most TV series and characters, most computer software...
Even in the case of a creative property owned & controlled by a single
person up until their death, I question whether it's really fair that
their great grand children, who probably never even knew "the master",
should still have a financial monopoly on the work 70 years later.
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jmsaul
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response 73 of 219:
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Feb 21 13:07 UTC 2002 |
I don't think so; I think 70 years is way too long.
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krj
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response 74 of 219:
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Feb 21 17:13 UTC 2002 |
Slashdot again: The copyright office has come out with its proposals for
royalty payments for webcasting. As expected, the arrangements seem designed
to crush small webcasters. Royalty payments for pure webcasters are set
at twice the rate for a web stream of an over-the-air broadcast,
despite there being little to no advertising revenue in the webcasting
business right now.
Webcasters are also to log and report information about every single
listener to their service.
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/02/20/2351222.shtml?tid=141
also links to two journals at:
http://www.kurthanson.com/index.asp
(Radio and Internet Newsletter)
http://www.radiohorizon.com/index.php3?fcn=displayarticle&id=2424
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