Copyright - 500 Years worth

[Gindil]

Beginnings [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/01/history-of-copyright-part-1-black-death/]
Tudor and copyright [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/02/history-of-copyright-part-2-tudoric-feud/]
Copyright Revolution [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/05/history-of-copyright-part-3-the-monopoly-dies-and-rises/]
The US and copyright [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/08/history-of-copyright-part-4-the-us-and-libraries/]
Moral Rights [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/14/history-of-copyright-part-5-moral-rights/]
RIAA and copyright [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/16/history-of-copyright-part-6-hijacked-by-record-industry/]
Pfizer and copyright [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/17/history-of-copyright-part-7-hijacked-by-pfizer/]


Wow, an interesting read on copyright law. I've heard it argued that copyright was about the artists. Looking at the history of it tends to disprove that theory since copyright massively helps the middleman benefit by creating a monopoly. Great articles that I hope others look into and learn why copyright may not be right in the digital era.

 

[bak00777]

i should rly take a look at these, i want to be a lawyer who works with patents and copyrights.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Beginnings [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/01/history-of-copyright-part-1-black-death/]
Tudor and copyright [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/02/history-of-copyright-part-2-tudoric-feud/]
Copyright Revolution [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/05/history-of-copyright-part-3-the-monopoly-dies-and-rises/]
The US and copyright [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/08/history-of-copyright-part-4-the-us-and-libraries/]
Moral Rights [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/14/history-of-copyright-part-5-moral-rights/]
RIAA and copyright [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/16/history-of-copyright-part-6-hijacked-by-record-industry/]
Pfizer and copyright [http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/17/history-of-copyright-part-7-hijacked-by-pfizer/]


Wow, an interesting read on copyright law. I've heard it argued that copyright was about the artists. Looking at the history of it tends to disprove that theory since copyright massively helps the middleman benefit by creating a monopoly. Great articles that I hope others look into and learn why copyright may not be right in the digital era.

It was preached on the theory of the struggling creator, but in reality it was more about allowing owners near absolute power over an IP. And owners tend to be limited in numbers and the same people who own other things like railroads,ect.

These days its nothing but another way the powers that be control the public and I have little sympathy and patience for copyright these days, its meaningless and trite. Fix it and it may be worth following but as it is now its a danger to free thought, free expression and the public at large.

 

[Gindil]

Extremely biased website. Copyright is an opt-in system, you disagree with copyright, you don't do it. If copyright truly doesn't work then no one will do it.

Also middlemen are what makes the entertainment industry viable, most artists can't publish and host their own materials. There is nothing immoral about publishing someone else's work under an exclusive agreement, that person is performing a service for the artist that they are being paid for. Every artist signed up with a publisher is signed up voluntarily, consumers have no right to tell that artist who they can and can't do business with.

It seems to me that most arguments against copyright come from consumers who wish they could get things for free. The worth of a law shouldn't be judged by asking only the people it will benefit, rapists would rather rape wasn't a crime after all. In addition a single argument against copyrighted 'data' won't work, what may not hurt a music group (I've heard artists make more on gigs than CDs) won't work for games or films because they are different systems. A music artist has more than one product, gigs and CDs, one of which is unpiratable. Games companies have no equivalent, if you try to apply that logic to them then you ignore the fact that they have no unpiratable goods.

There are possible arguments against copyright, even though I've never found one persuasive. This is not an argument.

Thank you for simply dismissing the information without possibly reviewing it nor its possible inaccuracies.

Also, thank you for implementing an emotional strawman by comparing copyright infringement to rape. Jack Valenti did that quite well in his lobby to Congress against the VCR. *thumbs up*

 

[BonsaiK]

Wow, an interesting read on copyright law.

Meh. Poor source, clear political bias and the writer is jumping all over the place, bringing up concerns about GATT controlling medicine and then using that to say "let's file-share"... er, no.

Anyway, middle-men are good. If artists want to row their own boat that's fantastic but the simple fact is that few of them do and there's some really good reasons for that. People use the system because the system works better than most people could be inclined to make it work on their own. I basically agree with everything Generic Gamer said, although I should address this:

I've heard artists make more on gigs than CDs

It's only that way now due to piracy. Ticket prices have inflated drastically in response to the fact CDs just don't make money anymore. Merch has gone up for the same reason. It's true that with games the stakes of the digital product are a lot higher, creators and publishers have more to lose, it'll probably be tackled in the same way music has tackled CD revenue decreasing - sell the public something ephemeral, like online registration... I bought Minecraft the other week and I noticed that what I was really paying for was not the game itself but the account on the Minecraft server...

 

[BonsaiK]

I've heard artists make more on gigs than CDs

It's only that way now due to piracy. Ticket prices have inflated drastically in response to the fact CDs just don't make money anymore. Merch has gone up for the same reason. It's true that with games the stakes of the digital product are a lot higher, creators and publishers have more to lose, it'll probably be tackled in the same way music has tackled CD revenue decreasing - sell the public something ephemeral, like online registration... I bought Minecraft the other week and I noticed that what I was really paying for was not the game itself but the account on the Minecraft server...

I'd not pirate music anyway, I only meant that what will harm a music company will kill a games company stone dead. I'm inclined to trust you on the pricing though, you're in the industry aren't you?

Yes. And yeah I understood the gist of your post.

I saw Nirvana at the peak of their popularity for $19 AUD in a 2000-seat venue. An act of similar notoriety in a similar venue now would cost $80, minimum, maybe even up to $150. Inflation hasn't been that bad since then, Australia's had a pretty modest inflation rate since the 90s - it's the industry and the artists recouping lost CD revenue.

 

[Gindil]

I read it, I checked it, I dismissed it. The man who wrote it is the ex-leader of the Swedish Pirate party, I don't think he can really be trusted to impart information reliably. The language of those articles is peppered with emotive language and railroads you to his conclusion, it's poor report writing and useless as anything more than an opinion piece. By reading it you're not educating yourself, you're being told what to think.

It's not an emotional strawman you know, I wish people would be taught what phrases like that mean before they get to use them. I simply selected a crime that no one would defend and explained why letting the people who would benefit from the law changing make that call is unwise.

Even if the reporter has a bias, it shouldn't be hard to fact check his work and read about the issues he brings up. That seems to be better than merely a quick glance to say "oh, his bias is towards ______" and dismissing it.

My entire problem with your comparison came down to this:

It seems to me that most arguments against copyright come from consumers who wish they could get things for free. The worth of a law shouldn't be judged by asking only the people it will benefit, rapists would rather rape wasn't a crime after all.

The first sentence is merely an opinion. The second seems to be a jump to the ethos of an argument by creating an emotional response from the audience.

No one's ever said a rapist wants merely to rape nor do they seem to think about what consumers want (which isn't everything for free). I find it quite hard to take your opinion seriously when you ironically do the exact same things as the supposed articles.

I'm at liberty to read more into the Tudors and see if copyright law actually came to being from that. I would also be interested to see the scribes and the death penalty. I mean seriously, it's a seven piece article about 500 years of copyright law...

I would be highly suspect if it didn't try to condense it. The question is, if you look at what happened, is it at the very least accurate on those events, or does the writer's bias (or even the reader's) cloud the article unfairly? That's how I try to read people's views, then respond accordingly.

 

[BonsaiK]

The question is, if you look at what happened, is it at the very least accurate on those events, or does the writer's bias (or even the reader's) cloud the article unfairly?

The writer is taking a grab-bag of events with a fairly tenuous relationship to each other and creating a cross-argument to justify some pretty shonky illegal behaviour. Whether the facts are correct or not is not relevant, what is relevant is that many facts in the article are being used by the author in places where they do not belong, to justify things that they have little to do with.

 

[Gindil]

The question is, if you look at what happened, is it at the very least accurate on those events, or does the writer's bias (or even the reader's) cloud the article unfairly?

The writer is taking a grab-bag of events with a fairly tenuous relationship to each other and creating a cross-argument to justify some pretty shonky illegal behaviour. Whether the facts are correct or not is not relevant, what is relevant is that many facts in the article are being used by the author in places where they do not belong, to justify things that they have little to do with.

And so the question is, if his grab-bag is inaccurate, how would it be that others could change it and find better ways to present the information?

I already confirm he's biased against copyright, but dismissing the information that he presents out of hand seems to be a worse alternative when none are presented.

 

[ShadowKatt]

Copyright is an opt-in system, you disagree with copyright, you don't do it.

Okay, I'm totally not part of this discussion, but I wanted to comment on this because I don't believe it is an "opt-in choice" system. It may be for the copyright HOLDERS, but you cannot go anywhere, do anything, touch, use, watch, listen, eat ANYTHING in this country that has not been copyrighted, trademarked, patented, or restricted in some way that if the holder of said copyright/trademark/patent/restriction feels you're using it wrong it gives them legal recourse to come down on you for it, for almost any reason at all under the guise of infringement.

 

[ShadowKatt]

Copyright is an opt-in system, you disagree with copyright, you don't do it.

Okay, I'm totally not part of this discussion, but I wanted to comment on this because I don't believe it is an "opt-in choice" system. It may be for the copyright HOLDERS, but you cannot go anywhere, do anything, touch, use, watch, listen, eat ANYTHING in this country that has not been copyrighted, trademarked, patented, or restricted in some way that if the holder of said copyright/trademark/patent/restriction feels you're using it wrong it gives them legal recourse to come down on you for it, for almost any reason at all under the guise of infringement.

Precisely, it's opt-in for the artists. So if copyright hurt the artists then they wouldn't copyright their work. Copyright certainly harms people trying to break copyright law but the OP's argument is that it's not about the artists.

And that's why I made the disclaimer that I'm totally not part of this discussion because I didn't read/watch whatever those seven or eight links were. But you don't have to break the copyright for them to come after you. Sony has proven that for using the...what's it called...I forget, some kinda north american technology complaince something or other to go after people that they deem use their property wrong. Just like Apple did with their jailbroken Iphones except that Sony is winning. You don't have to actually break the law, they just have to say you did.

yes, I know I'm preaching to the choir, I just wanted to clarify what I said.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I haven't seen that much bias on a website since the last time I visited the sites for MSNBC or Fox News.

 

[Gindil]

Copyright is an opt-in system, you disagree with copyright, you don't do it.

Okay, I'm totally not part of this discussion, but I wanted to comment on this because I don't believe it is an "opt-in choice" system. It may be for the copyright HOLDERS, but you cannot go anywhere, do anything, touch, use, watch, listen, eat ANYTHING in this country that has not been copyrighted, trademarked, patented, or restricted in some way that if the holder of said copyright/trademark/patent/restriction feels you're using it wrong it gives them legal recourse to come down on you for it, for almost any reason at all under the guise of infringement.

Precisely, it's opt-in for the artists. So if copyright hurt the artists then they wouldn't copyright their work. Copyright certainly harms people trying to break copyright law but the OP's argument is that it's not about the artists.

That has most certainly changed nowadays. The ones complaining the most about copyright (and changing the landscape for everyone) tend to be the richer owners of that right. These are the people in the RIAA/MPAA (trade industries in general) who use their vast resources to make law that much more impeding.

Artists never made their money in recording, nor did it happen that they made their money through distribution channels. These are two huge examples of the gateway system imposed for middlemen that are still with us today.

Nowadays, most artists have much better choices than the old system. When the DMCA came into being, I failed to hear many artists step up for it. When Mitch Glazier rewrote copyright law as an aid, it sure as certain didn't win him friends with artists. The "opt-in" that you're focusing on really wasn't that way until Napster came along and changed that paradigm.

I believe there are still horror stories of the old accounting methods that were used. IMO, copyright was about the middleman making money off of other's work.

 

[BonsaiK]

many facts in the article are being used by the author in places where they do not belong, to justify things that they have little to do with.

And so the question is, if his grab-bag is inaccurate, how would it be that others could change it and find better ways to present the information?

By presenting the relevant information in the appropriate context. The person writing the article is selectively presenting only the information which strengthens his case, glossing over the rest, and then adding a bunch of other barely-related information, all because of his clear vested interest.

Artists never made their money in recording, nor did it happen that they made their money through distribution channels. These are two huge examples of the gateway system imposed for middlemen that are still with us today.

That's just an excuse. Artists potentially can and often do make plenty of money through recordings, and artists who were sensible enough to sign deals in their favour that had a decent royalty split or low advance costs have done quite well on even modest sales, because with CDs the profit margins are good so you don't need to shift a lot of units to recoup costs. Even if a deal is shitty a really high-selling artist can still make decent money on just music sales alone if they're really that popular (assuming no piracy of course ahem). The real issues of artists being ripped off by middle-men (which is common, let's not beat around the bush here) has very little to do with copyright law and everything to do with contractual agreements concerning royalty advances, marketing, expediture and supply/demand.

The "opt-in" that you're focusing on really wasn't that way until Napster came along and changed that paradigm.

Not true, it's been optional since forever. Although in many countries copyright automatically applies to the creator of a work (thus making it more of an "opt-out" system), people who create work can choose to make it public domain, and although this is more common now with the type of free distribution models that the Internet facilitates, it's always been do-able. You can even "semi-opt-in/out" - some artists also are happy to agree to waive certain rights such as the right to be paid for others to sample their work or use it in certain contexts, while still retaining basic ownership, thus using only the portions of the copyright system that they feel comfortable with using.