Jimquisition: Copyright War

[jklinders]

So can we talk about whether or not removing the ad revenue from these LPs (thus satisfying the legal requirement of fair use) would resolve this issue? Or is this the wrong crowd? I disapprove of the heavy stick being used here but this is not so much a new overreach of legal authority as it is publishers catching up with something that's been going on for a long time. Last I checked, the primary reason for copyright to exist was to prevent the very thing that LP'ers do. Make money off of the copyright material owned by another. It doesn't have to big bag fulls of money, just money being made without permission.


So, would removing ad content and revenue from those videos solve the issue? If the answer is yes, carry on, if not then we have something to piss and moan about.

Reviews and commentary pass the fair use test easily. LPs seem to me at least to be a little more muddy. They go a bit past commentary and criticism to being a full copy with voice over added. So we need an update to the concept to clear things up. Maybe if the biggest Let's Play personalities got together and issued a court challenge they could get the law and legal precedent clarified.

 

[Qage]

The publishers are afraid of us.

We have seen their true faces. The shelves are extended gutters and the gutters are full of shite and when the drains finally clog, all the vermin will drown.

The accumulated filth of all their grubbing and crying will foam up about their waists and all the review whores and CEOs will look up and shout "Save us!"...


... and I'll look down and whisper


"Fuck off."

You sir... you win the internet.

In all seriousness, is there really nothing that the consumers can do? Nothing at all? What about Change.org or something, or do we just have to wait this out and eventually let publishers just destroy themselves like dying stars? Because personally I'm in favour of both.

 

[VoiceOfTheVoiceless]

It's the state of the world today. Things are run by people who cannot innovate, only control and smother. I think it's almost they're jealous they don't have the capacity to create and innovate so they need to keep it down as much as possible.

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

 

[JasonKaotic]

I'm not sure if this has been said already, it probably has, but fuck it, I'll say it in case it hasn't, but apparently in most cases it isn't even the publishers making the claims.
YouTube has apparently set up some automated copyright flagging system thing that searches videos on the 'tubes for songs or gameplay footage or even just the mention of games in the title and removes their monetization or takes them offline completely.
And apparently a load of websites who aren't even affiliated with the publishers or developers of the games are filing copyright claims against game videos and stealing their ad revenue.

So for the most part this is apparently YouTube's fault, but there're probably publishers doing it themselves too.


Take a shot every time you see the word 'apparently'.


Edit: Hell, the publishers are even trying to stop this themselves. [http://www.gamespot.com/articles/blizzard-ubisoft-and-capcom-offer-support-after-huge-spike-in-youtube-copyright-claims/1100-6416659/]

 

[Eve Charm]

Well to be honest at the end of the day it was youtube's choice to even share ad rev with content uploaders or copyright holders. Youtube is big enough and easy enough to out right say screw it and keep all the money. They'll be backlash from the big guys but hell it's still a free place to host videos.

 

[BakedSardine]

I think the question really comes to whether or not actually PLAYING the game is a requisite part of the experience. In a court of law, I think that notion would be backed up, otherwise it would be on the publishers/devs to argue they chose to develop an entertainment product that relies on a control mechanic, when they could have simply designed the story as a piece of machinima and told the story through computer graphics without requiring the consumer to interact.

This is unlike movies or music where the entire experience is a passive absorption of the product and the creators did not consider that interaction with the product is necessary for that experience. With games, interaction is fundamental to the experience.

For something like a fighting game or a game like Pac Man, the case is very clear. The experience of the game is almost entirely based upon the actions that the player makes. The game itself has no more effect on the outcome than a mountain does with a skiier going down the hill - and I don't think we'll be seeing owners of mountains filing claims against snowboarders with GoPros attached to their helmets.

With a completely story driven game, like The Last of Us, you could say we are getting into murkier waters, but the fact is that the developers could have told that story as a movie and had all the traditional copyright laws on their side. Instead, they determined that interaction with that world is fundamental to the experience, so it should dictate that you are not breaking copyright laws if the end user (i.e. those viewing YT videos) are actually playing the game.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

"falls under fair use"

You see that's the problem because (IIRC) the moment you monetise the stuff, it isn't covered by fair use anymore.

That simply is not true. As I explained and linked in a previous post, profiting from a derivative work does not invalidate fair use. Fair use is determined by a four-factor test, and many courts have previously ruled that derivative works created for profit are indeed fair use.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Care to elaborate? I can't think of any example of speech (in the legal/political sense) that isn't also communication, or communication that isn't also speech.

Oh, that's easy. Your computer connected to The Escapist's servers, and transferred digital data from it to retrieve a web page. That is communication, but it is not speech. When your bank transfers bits that represent money to Amazon.com, it is communicating, but not speaking.

In fact, I'd guess that there is a lot more communication happening every day than there is speech. The whole world is wired with devices and systems that communicate, but do not speak.

Because unless you are able to change human nature on a fundamental level, so that everyone is willing to share all their possessions, SOMEONE is going to exclusively own them, so it might as well be guided by legal property laws to belong to the ones who have the strongest claim on it.

The same is not true for IP. Even if copyrights, patents and trademarks have existed for over 200 years, as a market regulation "to promote the progress of science and useful arts", It has been only in the past few decades of copyright defense organizations have started to widely use the "intellectual property" argument as a figure of speech.

So, because something is recent, it is not valid?

You know that computers have only been around for a few decades? Women didn't have the right to vote within the last 100 years, and slavery was a common practice in the last 150 years?

Now, let's contrast this with "intellectual property" - such as writing a novel based on your life experience. That story is uniquely tied to yourself. It's hard to imagine a more intimate and real form of property than something created by your own brain. Anybody can dig rocks out of the ground. That's why things like oil and gold are called "commodities." But nobody else has your brain or your experiences.

Because your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.

If you own a car, and I own a car, we can both keep possessing our ownn cars, and to stop each other from taking away the other's car.

If you create an idea in your brain, and start expressing that, and I create an idea in my brain, and start expressing that, then with "intellectual property" we aren't just asking for protection to keep possessing our ideas, or protecting the ability to keep expressing what we have in our brain, but an authority to limit the other one's allowed expressions.

This is extremely weird logic. "The right to swing your fist" is especially inappropriately applied here. Because the manufacture of a car involves mining, which depletes natural resources, and the the establishment of mines has often displaced native people and destroyed entire cultures. the operation of a motor vehicle often leads to death and injury - and it creates pollution, which has killed even more people and made them sick.

The ownership of physical items is much more dangerous to other people than the ownership of intellectual property. Your ownership of the intellectual rights to a book you wrote has no detrimental effect on me. Your ownership of a car does have a detrimental effect on me, and all the other inhabitants of the Earth, including animals, not just humans.

And this also demonstrates why your previous point is invalid:

Now, why exactly is this more valid than people owning or passing on the things that they have created with their brains, rather than digging up from the ground, or killing people over?

You can pass on the ideas that you have. You can tell them to your child, so now they have it too.

But IP laws aren't asking for that, publishers aren't actually aking to pass on "the things that they have created with their brains", but to pass on the monopolistic market regulations that they have gained to control other people's expression in the future.

But that has nothing to do with the concept of intellectual property or copyright law. That's just companies being greedy, as they always are. You don't think companies want monopolies on physical resources, such as mining rights? Think again.

None of this invalidates my points. People will find ways to abuse any kind of law or regulation. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws or regulations. It means we should enforce them fairly and be vigilant against abuse of them.

This leads to cases like this, with publishers attacking derivative works without any clearly defined need to do so, solely out of a sense of desire for controlling "their property".

And of course, that never happens with physical property at all. It's not like there are any land and property disputes that date back hundreds or thousands of years (sarcasm).

Yes, of course it does, hence my entire point that copyright SHOULDN'T be treated like property, to avoid all the connotations that copyright holders deserve a similar level of control. [/quote]

By that logic, doesn't that mean that physical resources shouldn't be treated as property, because people will abuse the system? There's been a hell of a lot more abuse of physical property than intellectual property in the history of the world.

Moreover, treating physical property as more important and privileged than intellectual property, who are you rewarding, and who are you punishing? Ultimately you are rewarding people who run things like oil cartels and sweatshops, and you are punishing people who write poetry, who create video games, and who hold a critical lens up to society.

Maybe it's just me, but I think the writers and musicians and other creative people have done a lot more good on this planet than the people who have destroyed our environment for a profit on manufactured goods.

Admit that copyright and patents are limited market monopolies, organized by the government with the specific purpose of securing artists' financial viability, invented in the 18th century to regulate book publishing, and arbitrarily expanded or decreased based on society's practical needs.

Yes. I never denied this, so why are you demanding that I admit it?

I never claimed otherwise. Should I demand that you admit that the laws governing physical property are antiquated and have been extended beyond reason? What makes the ownership of a car so much more worthy than the ownership of something one has written?

Use common sense of a fair balance, instead of tortured analogies about what if having an idea would be like having a car.

I never even mentioned ideas, other than in response to you, who was the one who brought up the idea that copyright law is about ideas. Which it is not.

There's nothing tortured about my analogy. In fact, I didn't even use an analogy. I was directly comparing the laws regarding the ownership of cars, with the laws regarding the ownership of intellectual output. You claimed that we should never, EVER use the term "intellectual property" and I asked "why not?"

If one can own a car, why can't one own the rights to a book they wrote? What makes one form of ownership valid, and the other not?

 

[Aardvaarkman]

I'm a bit late to the discussion and I've not read all six pages, but there's one thing I'd like to point out:

YouTube/Google is a private corporation. They're not a government agency nor a public service. As such, they have full control over what content they choose to host with their assets. Arguments such as Freedom of Speech and Fair Use copyright law have no effect on their business policy.

Not true. Private companies are not above the law. Google has to abide by copyright law just like everybody else theoretically does. That's why Google so readily takes down material which they think violate copyright laws. Because if they didn't, they would face lawsuits.

I'm pretty sure Google would rather not do this, as it costs them more money to enforce these rules. But they have to, because it's the law. For a moment, think about if this was Google hosting child pornography. Do you think there would be a nuanced discussion of copyright law or the rights of a corporation versus the government in that case? I very much doubt it.

 

[Entitled]

Oh, that's easy. Your computer connected to The Escapist's servers, and transferred digital data from it to retrieve a web page. That is communication, but it is not speech. When your bank transfers bits that represent money to Amazon.com, it is communicating, but not speaking.

In fact, I'd guess that there is a lot more communication happening every day than there is speech. The whole world is wired with devices and systems that communicate, but do not speak.

You are pointlessly communicating things by adding the tools through which the speech goes through, but yes, websites and money transfer can both be speech in the legal/political sense. For example the government shutting down the Escapist website without a proper cause would be an example of them violating the staff's (and our) freedom of speech.

And the 1976 SCotUS case Buckley v. Valeo established that paying money counts as speech.

So, because something is recent, it is not valid?

By that logic, doesn't that mean that physical resources shouldn't be treated as property, because people will abuse the system? There's been a hell of a lot more abuse of physical property than intellectual property in the history of the world.

Validity comes from legitimacy.If there would be a simple way to solve the problem of people wanting to own property, that would be great, but it's long history of self-evident presence proves that there isn't.

For copyright, there is still hope, because even if the more reasonable parts of it have existed for centuries as government-granted monopolies, it's treatment as "intellectual property" is a relatively recent sleight of hand by lobbyist groups trying to present it in a way that gives legitimacy to it's mindless extensions.

I never even mentioned ideas, other than in response to you, who was the one who brought up the idea that copyright law is about ideas. Which it is not.

There's nothing tortured about my analogy. In fact, I didn't even use an analogy.

Admit that copyright and patents are limited market monopolies, organized by the government with the specific purpose of securing artists' financial viability, invented in the 18th century to regulate book publishing, and arbitrarily expanded or decreased based on society's practical needs.

Yes. I never denied this, so why are you demanding that I admit it?

Here I'm talking more generally about how apologist interest groups should and shouldn't portray copyright.

You have been helping them and contributing to their arguments, by continuing to argue that it is property, instead of these things.

The difference between the harms that property does, and the harms that overgrown intellectual property does, is that the latter could be overgrown solely by the claim of also being property.

If censoring LPs does not in fact contribute to the promotion of useful arts, then by the traditional justification of property, it is an illegitimate claim.

Only the recent exaggeration that publishsers "own" their creative works, and every other public communication is "taking those away" from them, has justified controlling everyone else's expression related to these works, without any further concern.

This is extremely weird logic. "The right to swing your fist" is especially inappropriately applied here. Because the manufacture of a car involves mining, which depletes natural resources, and the the establishment of mines has often displaced native people and destroyed entire cultures. the operation of a motor vehicle often leads to death and injury - and it creates pollution, which has killed even more people and made them sick.

The harms that you listed, are entirely circumstancial to property ownership.

If you get stabbed with a knife, then the crime is irrelevant to whether all knives are public property or it is owned by the stabber. And if you only cut tomatoes with your knife, then owning it doesn't harm anyone else's rights.

In contrast, the very act of claiming copyright over a book, means that you are claiming to control what other people are allowed to write down, limiting their freedom of speech.

Maybe necessarily, maybe not, but the point stands that unlike property, copyright is harmful by default, and should be able to justify itself by greater pragmatism (such as making an industry viable).

But IP laws aren't asking for that, publishers aren't actually aking to pass on "the things that they have created with their brains", but to pass on the monopolistic market regulations that they have gained to control other people's expression in the future.

But that has nothing to do with the concept of intellectual property or copyright law. That's just companies being greedy, as they always are. You don't think companies want monopolies on physical resources, such as mining rights? Think again.

No, this is pretty much the definition of any copyright.

They might have asked for government-granted monopolies, but with the exception of copyrights, (and trademarks and patents), they didn't get them. They had to settle for owning an actual finite amount of resources as property.

With IP, they are getting away with it due to the claim that there is a direct intellectual analogy to "owning a mine", for example "owning a speech", even if the latter case has nothing to do with owhership, as it can only manifest itself in the form of holding a monopoly over what speeches other people can tell.

Ultimately you are rewarding people who run things like oil cartels and sweatshops, and you are punishing people who write poetry, who create video games, and who hold a critical lens up to society.

Not wanting the government to grant extra authorities to these people, is not the same thing as "punishing them".

That's a main difference between physical property and copyrights.

If you would want to take away a company's sweatshops, you would have to punish them by actively removing their possessed lands, buildings, objects, and money.

To "take away" a company's IP rights, you would only need to stop persecuting the public's information usage.

Before 1710, governments were not "punishing" publishsers by "taking away their stuff", they were simply not giving them any rewards.

Right now, governments are not "punishing" publishsers when they "take away" their 95 year old books, the first 95 years were a benefit granted to them in the first place, which only existed by the virtue of the government sustaining it.

 

[marurder]

Source BBC:

'Illegitimate flags'

But publishers worried about a potential backlash from vocal fans moved quickly to make it clear they had not been behind the spike in take-downs.

"If you're a YouTuber and are receiving content matches with the new changes, please be sure to contest them so we can quickly approve them," tweeted Blizzard, publisher of the Diablo series.

Capcom wrote: "YouTubers: Pls let us know if you've had videos flagged today. These may be illegitimate flags not instigated by us. We are investigating."

Ubisoft pointed out to users that take-down requests may be due to the music used in the clips, rather than the game footage.

"If you happen to be hit with claims on any of your Ubisoft content, it may be that some of the audio is being auto-matched against the music catalogue on our digital stores," the company explained in a statement.

Another developer, Deep Silver, also said it had not called for removal of footage.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

You are pointlessly communicating things by adding the tools through which the speech goes through, but yes, websites and money transfer can both be speech in the legal/political sense. For example the government shutting down the Escapist website without a proper cause would be an example of them violating the staff's (and our) freedom of speech.

Right. But that would be because of the suppression of speech, not communication. It's kind of weird that you use the term "free communications" because the Constitution says "Freedom of Speech" - not communications.

And the 1976 SCotUS case Buckley v. Valeo established that paying money counts as speech.

A terrible ruling if ever I saw one.

Validity comes from legitimacy.If there would be a simple way to solve the problem of people wanting to own property, that would be great, but it's long history of self-evident presence proves that there isn't.

So, what makes the ownership of intellectual property less legitimate? There are also no simple ways to solve that issue, so why would you treat it differently?

For copyright, there is still hope, because even if the more reasonable parts of it have existed for centuries as government-granted monopolies, it's treatment as "intellectual property" is a relatively recent sleight of hand by lobbyist groups trying to present it in a way that gives legitimacy to it's mindless extensions.

That's incorrect. Copyright law was introduced to address issues facing the arts and creative works due to the development of technology that allows mechanical reproduction. It was not created because of lobbyist groups, even though many lobbyists have abused it in the meantime.

But then again, lobbyists frequently also abuse the laws pertaining to physical property.

Here I'm talking more generally about how apologist interest groups should and shouldn't portray copyright.

Why are you bringing up apologist interest groups? That was never pat of our discussion, and is irrelevant.

You have been helping them and contributing to their arguments, by continuing to argue that it is property, instead of these things.

So, stating the truth is wrong, because you disagree with it? This really isn't making sense.

Only the recent exaggeration that publishsers "own" their creative works, and every other public communication is "taking those away" from them, has justified controlling everyone else's expression related to these works, without any further concern.

It's not an exaggeration - it's a fact that copyright holders own the rights to their copyrighted material. In what way is it false?

This is extremely weird logic. "The right to swing your fist" is especially inappropriately applied here. Because the manufacture of a car involves mining, which depletes natural resources, and the the establishment of mines has often displaced native people and destroyed entire cultures. the operation of a motor vehicle often leads to death and injury - and it creates pollution, which has killed even more people and made them sick.

The harms that you listed, are entirely circumstancial to property ownership.

No they are not. They are the opposite - they are integral to them. You can't make a car without mining. You can't operate a car without feeding it oil or other forms of energy.

This is not circumstantial in any way, unless you've somehow discovered a source of free energy and resources.

In contrast, the very act of claiming copyright over a book, means that you are claiming to control what other people are allowed to write down, limiting their freedom of speech.

No, you are not. Copyright law doesn't stop anybody from writing anything down, even if they copy a whole book. Can you give any example of anybody's freedom of speech being limited by Copyright Law? People are still able to say whatever they like.

In contrast, actual wars have been started over physical property. Entire genocides have happened over land and physical resources. Copyright has not cause any problem that even remotely compares. Even those subject to copyright infringement claims still have the power of speech and still express themselves.

Meanwhile, physical property has claimed millions of actual lives. I think that human lives and the right of humans not to be tortured or otherwise assaulted is rather more import an than the right to copy some artworks.

Maybe necessarily, maybe not, but the point stands that unlike property, copyright is harmful by default, and should be able to justify itself by greater pragmatism (such as making an industry viable).

Says who? What is so necessarily virtuous about industry that it a reason to support something? Industries are often very harmful - just look at what the oil industry has done, or what the child sex industry has done. How are they more important than creative industries that rely on intellectual property laws to be viable?

But IP laws aren't asking for that, publishers aren't actually aking to pass on "the things that they have created with their brains", but to pass on the monopolistic market regulations that they have gained to control other people's expression in the future.

But that has nothing to do with the concept of intellectual property or copyright law. That's just companies being greedy, as they always are. You don't think companies want monopolies on physical resources, such as mining rights? Think again.

No, this is pretty much the definition of any copyright. [/quote]

No, it isn't.

Ultimately you are rewarding people who run things like oil cartels and sweatshops, and you are punishing people who write poetry, who create video games, and who hold a critical lens up to society.

Not wanting the government to grant extra authorities to these people, is not the same thing as "punishing them". [/quote]

It actually is, because it's the only way that people with valuable things to say can compete with the resource monopolists. Without some way to profit from creative work, in a capitalist society, that basically means the death of creativity.

Right now, governments are not "punishing" publishsers when they "take away" their 95 year old books, the first 95 years were a benefit granted to them in the first place, which only existed by the virtue of the government sustaining it.

Right - just as mining companies and the ownership of land was only granted in the first place by governments granting those privileges - usually as a result of winning a war or conquering indigenous peoples. How is copyright any different?

All forms of property are essential government granted (or prior to democratic governments, granted by the aristocracy or monarchies).

 

[Strazdas]

In that scenario you're more or less using YouTube as a way to advertise your channel. A lot of people will search for video clips on YouTube, if they like what they see, then they'll go to your site.

But that is kinda pointless as if all those videos would move to another site people would be searching that other site to begin with. people go where the content is.
Also you should look at how you quote. you quoted yourself and added my text without quote. this way i do not recieve then notification about it, while if you directly quote me, i do. Luckily i remmebered what i typed here yesterday so i knew you were quoting me, but next time i may just miss your reply altogether.

Do you sense the irony of your comment, by using my comment in this way you have completely invalidated your own arguement.

No, i do not sense any irony. I have not invalidated my argument ,as i always argued that you should be able to use other peoples work to create your own work without needing to compensate them, while you argued otherwise. Me using your post as basis for my argument does not invalidate my argument. It reinforces it.

Care to elaborate? I can't think of any example of speech (in the legal/political sense) that isn't also communication, or communication that isn't also speech.

While its true that all speech is communication but not all communication is speech. a sign language is not speech. writing is not speech. if you want even mroe extreme example, computers communcating between eachother over internet for, say, loading the video on youtube, is not speech, but is communication.

Last I checked, the primary reason for copyright to exist was to prevent the very thing that LP'ers do. Make money off of the copyright material owned by another. It doesn't have to big bag fulls of money, just money being made without permission.

But thats not what they are doing it though. They are douing two things that differentiate it from this.
1. add their own creativity to it in form of commentary. Some do it better, some worse, but that is the reason we watch thme to begin with. At least i never watch a game video without commentary, because its the commentary im coming for and the game is secondary.
2. Game is interactive medium. Lets say i create a mod for a game, it is now my own creation (that technically should make the video copyrighted to ME in this case). i should be able to demand that anyone maknig video with the mod in it pay me royalties. this is of course silly, but thats what the publishers like Nintendo is doing. If your video consits only of cutscenes - thats copyright inflirngement in a way. gameplay - thats a thing you create yourself by your actions. Games are interactive medium, it doesnt work like movies.

In all seriousness, is there really nothing that the consumers can do? Nothing at all? What about Change.org or something, or do we just have to wait this out and eventually let publishers just destroy themselves like dying stars? Because personally I'm in favour of both.

Nope. The companies have lobbied up the laws that make this legally correct and we have nothing we can do about it other than all out revolution or something. Change.org petitions means if enough people sign white house has to give an official response. This response could easily be "no, we are not doing this", like it was for the deathstar petition. it really has no legal power. Now if we were to collect signatures for public referendum, that would have legal power, but that is.... a very long (think years) and tedois job where you would probably need to hire tens if not hundreds of people full time for this to be effective. Gamers arent THAT big of a population yet. Well, at least "Active" gamers.

Edit: Hell, the publishers are even trying to stop this themselves. [http://www.gamespot.com/articles/blizzard-ubisoft-and-capcom-offer-support-after-huge-spike-in-youtube-copyright-claims/1100-6416659/]

the key to youtubes spokesperson statement is: "Based on policies the companies set". basically publishers set such policies that the bot using them flag the videos as copyright. If they havent set such policies to begin with, there wouldn't be any criteria to flag. So publishers are merely trying to weasel out of a thing they caused. That being said, my gmaeplay videos arent flagged, or at least youtube didnt tell me about it when i visited it this morning. Checked, my gaming videos are still on. Granted, they are from really old games and not really relevant to thier moenypipes, and i never monetized the thing (nor could i) but still autobot didnt flag it.

I'm a bit late to the discussion and I've not read all six pages, but there's one thing I'd like to point out:

YouTube/Google is a private corporation. They're not a government agency nor a public service. As such, they have full control over what content they choose to host with their assets. Arguments such as Freedom of Speech and Fair Use copyright law have no effect on their business policy.

If they suddenly decide (as they have) that they don't want to host any content that features so much as a snippet of gameplay, then that's their decision. We can wail and gnash and quote Scripture all we like, but it's ultimately their decision on how they want to run their business.

Conversely, we, as consumers, have the choice to either continue eating the shit sandwiches they serve up or to simply not partake of their services any longer.

See, the problem with this viewpoint is that this is not what apperently happening. What is happening and was for a while now is that thanks to copyright laws publishers can flag and remove any content they want and google does not have a say in the matter. though in this particular case it does look like google is getting overzealous and thats about it. It is true that is up to them to host it or not, unless the thing is copyright claim (true or false does not matter), in which case google doesnt have a choice. they legally MUST take down claims that are even obviously false simply because claim was made.

Wrong,LPers use their own footage so publishers don't deserve compensation for it.Would you want people demand a cut everytime you made a home movie because the video caught a glimpse of their property?No,because it was your footage and not theirs.

Whops, that was a bad choice of analogy. People actually got sued for thousands of dollars for videos titled "Baby dancing" where they would film their babies and there was a popular song in the background. this already happened.

Right - just as mining companies and the ownership of land was only granted in the first place by governments granting those privileges - usually as a result of winning a war or conquering indigenous peoples. How is copyright any different?

All forms of property are essential government granted (or prior to democratic governments, granted by the aristocracy or monarchies).

I think your examples fails your point by being wrong examples.
Natural resource rights belong to the government. All of them. Companies do not "own" a mine. they are "allowed by the government" to mine it. Land gets more muddy going from country to country. for example in my country noone "owns" land. legally they have a 0 costs undetermined time rent contract with the state that is trasnferable. baiscally ALL land is rented from the state for no cost.

A much better example would be factory, which does not have these state ownership hidden under personal ownership problems.

 

[Entitled]

Right. But that would be because of the suppression of speech, not communication. It's kind of weird that you use the term "free communications" because the Constitution says "Freedom of Speech" - not communications.

Which also commonly gets identified as the "freedom of expression", to emphasize that it is about controlling all means of expressing opinions, not just about the standard definition of "speech", that is vocalized face-to-face interactions, but also about writings, films, dance, clapping, or video game development.

Communication seems to be an interchargible alternative term for that, but in case you are about to find some clever counterexample anyways, just replace the word with "expression" in my earlier posts, just replace it with "expression" in my earlier post, because they certainly ARE interchargible in the specific cases we are talking about, expressing public artistic content either digitally or analoguely.

So, what makes the ownership of intellectual property less legitimate? There are also no simple ways to solve that issue, so why would you treat it differently?

Because property is largely seen as virtous in and of itself, while copyright has been, until very recently, a means of securing benefits for society.

If the government would start talking about taking away mines from corporations, or cars from their owners, they would have to go full communist, upsetting people's universally established expectation to owning property.

If they would want to decrease copyright length from 95 years to 40 years, that many would still see as merely shortening the granting of an entitlement to a more practical scope, and only the WIPO/RIAA/MPAA style organizations, and people like you, would present it instead as an act of taking away stuff from it's owners.

For copyright, there is still hope, because even if the more reasonable parts of it have existed for centuries as government-granted monopolies, it's treatment as "intellectual property" is a relatively recent sleight of hand by lobbyist groups trying to present it in a way that gives legitimacy to it's mindless extensions.

That's incorrect. Copyright law was introduced to address issues facing the arts and creative works due to the development of technology that allows mechanical reproduction. It was not created because of lobbyist groups, even though many lobbyists have abused it in the meantime.

What are you disgreeing with here?

"Copyright law was introduced to address issues facing the arts and creative works due to the development of technology that allows mechanical reproduction." - That's true, and like I said, it was addressed by granting publishers certain government-granted monopolies"

"It was not created because of lobbyist groups, even though many lobbyists have abused it in the meantime." - Yeah, that's what I just said, that RECENTLY lobbyists have started abusing it by treating it as intellectual property.

Although as a matter of fact, I would also debate that statement that it was not created because of lobbyist groups. Depending on how you define them, may I introduce you to the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, essentially a printers' guild, who received the world's first copyright as a Royal Letter Patent, an exclusive right to publish any books in England?

You have been helping them and contributing to their arguments, by continuing to argue that it is property, instead of these things.

So, stating the truth is wrong, because you disagree with it? This really isn't making sense.

You, just as the lobbyists, are yet to demonstrate any example of how it IS property, beyond wordplay and irrelevant appeals to amounts of harm caused.

It's not an exaggeration - it's a fact that copyright holders own the rights to their copyrighted material. In what way is it false?

There is a world of difference between "owning the rights" of something, and that thing actually being property, "a thing that you own".

If a police officer owns an arrest warrant, that doesn't mean that they have "arresting property".

If a government owns the right to define marriage, that doesn't mean they have "marriage definition property".

If you own the right to drive a car, that doesn't mean that you own a car.

A game developer might be "owning the rights", in a manner of speaking, to control access to their game. But they could own some such rights, no matter how copyright is defined. If copyright would only extend to 14 years, a wide Fair Use permitting all derivative works, and legal non-commercial file-sharing, then copyright holders would still continue to "own the rights" granted to them in the remaining regulations.

The problem begins when they start to equalating "owning the copyright", with "owning the intellectual property", a.k.a. "owning the game", and claim that holding copyright regulations must come with every concievable aspect of control, because it is "their property", "their game".

No they are not. They are the opposite - they are integral to them. You can't make a car without mining. You can't operate a car without feeding it oil or other forms of energy.

This is not circumstantial in any way, unless you've somehow discovered a source of free energy and resources.

It's circumstancial to whether they are someone's legal property. If the government would nationalize all cars, their usage would still consume energy. Their legal status is irrelevant to the fact of their existence, unlike with copyright, that exists by the virtue of being legally defined.

No, you are not. Copyright law doesn't stop anybody from writing anything down, even if they copy a whole book. Can you give any example of anybody's freedom of speech being limited by Copyright Law? People are still able to say whatever they like.

Well, there was that thing with the youtube LPs, obviously, but other than that, basically every example of derivative works getting C&D letters. And that isn't even getting into the issue of direct copies.

Maybe necessarily, maybe not, but the point stands that unlike property, copyright is harmful by default, and should be able to justify itself by greater pragmatism (such as making an industry viable).

Says who? What is so necessarily virtuous about industry that it a reason to support something? Industries are often very harmful - just look at what the oil industry has done, or what the child sex industry has done. How are they more important than creative industries that rely on intellectual property laws to be viable?

You misunderstood me here, I was talking about the justification of COPYRIGHT, in making the creative industry viable.

(As opposed to actual property that is expected to exist whether or not it's helping any industry).

No, it isn't.

Yes it is.

Right - just as mining companies and the ownership of land was only granted in the first place by governments granting those privileges - usually as a result of winning a war or conquering indigenous peoples. How is copyright any different?

Because if that property wouldn't be legally secured, someone would control the mines and the sweatshops anyways, and over a long term, that control would still get codified as property.

For physical objects, it is in their nature to be possessed by someone.

In contrast, information is perfectly capable of being freely shared and copied in society, as it has been demonstrated by thousands of years of copyright-free systems.

All forms of property are essential government granted (or prior to democratic governments, granted by the aristocracy or monarchies).

There is a difference between negative and positive rights.

Property is a negative right, it mostly consists of governments acknowledging possession or control that individuals have gathered anyways, and secure it with laws and policing.

Copyright is a positive right, it's subject, the copying authority, exists by the virtue of being invented by the government, and

Finishing property would require the government to actively take away and redistribute all property among the public, and keep stopping them from gathering popssessions.

Meanwhile, finishing copyright would happen simply by stopping to actively censor the public's tools of communication, and letting information be freely shared in it's default state.

That's the reason why most historical governments could barely take away their citizens property even with lots of bloodshed, while all "intellectual property" got "redistributed" without them lifting a finger.

 

[Entitled]

Care to elaborate? I can't think of any example of speech (in the legal/political sense) that isn't also communication, or communication that isn't also speech.

While its true that all speech is communication but not all communication is speech. a sign language is not speech. writing is not speech. if you want even mroe extreme example, computers communcating between eachother over internet for, say, loading the video on youtube, is not speech, but is communication.

I have specified that I'm talking about speech in the legal/political sense, (i.e: "the Freedom of Speech"). In that sense, writing, singing, dancing, painting, and filming are all equally speech as much as vocalization is, only in different code.


And sharing a video online is not about computers communcating, any more than a phone call is about two phones communicating with each other. The technology is the transfer medium, the communication happens between the people using it.

 

[furai47]

That simply is not true. As I explained and linked in a previous post, profiting from a derivative work does not invalidate fair use. Fair use is determined by a four-factor test, and many courts have previously ruled that derivative works created for profit are indeed fair use.

But we're not talking general fair use now are we?

If you hosted the content on your own site fair use would be a viable defense. Hosting on someone else's server, someone's who might also get sued for copyright infringement in addition to yourself should a company decide to follow through means that the hoster has every right to tell you what you can upload to their servers.

Whether or not the content falls under fair use is irrelevant, the thing that is relevant is Youtube's policy on such things which is:

"Whether you can use video game content for monetization depends on the commercial use rights granted to you by licenses of video game publishers. Some video game publishers may allow you to use all video game content for commercial use and state that in their license agreements. Certain video game publishers may require you to credit them in a specific manner for your gameplay to be monetized. Videos simply showing game play for extended periods of time may not be accepted for monetization."

And last I checked, in the EULA's and in statements following this recent change, most publishers and developers do not allow you to monetise if their content is in your videos. See http://alloyseven.com/component/k2/item/115-monetize-gaming-videos and http://letsplaylist.wikia.com/wiki/%22Let%27s_Play%22-friendly_developers_Wiki#Master_List. Some of them have come out to help people with the copyright strikes but not everyone is so generous.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

You, just as the lobbyists, are yet to demonstrate any example of how it IS property, beyond wordplay and irrelevant appeals to amounts of harm caused.

It clearly is property. I'm dumbfounded that this needs to be demonstrated, as it is obvious to anybody who is familiar with the modern world. Copyrights are bought and sold every day. Patents and trademarks can be worth billions of dollars. there are companies that exist just to own patents.

Pretty much every country in the world's legal system recognises intellectual property. Companies list their intellectual property as valuable assets of the company, that contributes to the worth of the company. For example, the Coa-Cola brand has significant value - even though the fizzy sugared water they sell is a generic product, having the Coca-Cola brand on it is very valuable and brings in a lot of money.

The onus is frankly on you to prove that intellectual property does not exist. All of the other arguing aside, this was the extraordinary claim you made that started this discussion. You said that the term "intellectual property" should never be used. I asked why not. You have not provided a satisfactory answer to this very simple question.

If copyrights, patents and trademarks can be bought and sold, and are considered valuable by the market, then how are they not property?

There is a world of difference between "owning the rights" of something, and that thing actually being property, "a thing that you own".

What's the "world of difference? The rights are the property. That's what "intellectual property" refers to - the rights. Just like mining rights are property.

If a police officer owns an arrest warrant, that doesn't mean that they have "arresting property".

If a government owns the right to define marriage, that doesn't mean they have "marriage definition property".

If you own the right to drive a car, that doesn't mean that you own a car.

Wow, that's just silly and completely irrelevant.

A game developer might be "owning the rights", in a manner of speaking, to control access to their game. But they could own some such rights, no matter how copyright is defined. If copyright would only extend to 14 years, a wide Fair Use permitting all derivative works, and legal non-commercial file-sharing, then copyright holders would still continue to "own the rights" granted to them in the remaining regulations.

Right. That's the property.

The problem begins when they start to equalating "owning the copyright", with "owning the intellectual property", a.k.a. "owning the game", and claim that holding copyright regulations must come with every concievable aspect of control, because it is "their property", "their game".

But nobody's saying that. You've just misunderstood what "intellectual property means.

No they are not. They are the opposite - they are integral to them. You can't make a car without mining. You can't operate a car without feeding it oil or other forms of energy.

This is not circumstantial in any way, unless you've somehow discovered a source of free energy and resources.

It's circumstancial to whether they are someone's legal property. If the government would nationalize all cars, their usage would still consume energy. Their legal status is irrelevant to the fact of their existence, unlike with copyright, that exists by the virtue of being legally defined. [/quote]

You really aren't making any sense, because the same logic can apply to intellectual property. Any harm caused by intellectual property is incidental to its status as property, and does not affect its existence. A book would still exist if it is considered property or not, just as a car would still exist regardless of its status as property. What's the difference?

You are constantly changing your argument. I never said that cars polluting had anything to do with their ownership status. I said that pollution and the exploitation of resources is integral to the existence of cars. That they cause harm to everybody - this was in response to your "swinging my fist" argument, to show that physical property has effects on people other than the owner. You were claiming this was a unique property of intellectual property.

Well, there was that thing with the youtube LPs, obviously, but other than that, basically every example of derivative works getting C&D letters. And that isn't even getting into the issue of direct copies.

What thing with the Youtube Let's Plays? Who was prevented from speaking?

You misunderstood me here, I was talking about the justification of COPYRIGHT, in making the creative industry viable.

(As opposed to actual property that is expected to exist whether or not it's helping any industry).

Again, how is intellectual property not "actual" property?

Because if that property wouldn't be legally secured, someone would control the mines and the sweatshops anyways, and over a long term, that control would still get codified as property.

And how is that not the case with intellectual property.

For physical objects, it is in their nature to be possessed by someone.

No, it is not. Physical object just exist. They don't have any desire to be possessed or not. You are also projecting cultural values onto this. Not all cultures and society believe in individual ownership.

In contrast, information is perfectly capable of being freely shared and copied in society, as it has been demonstrated by thousands of years of copyright-free systems.

Physical items are also perfectly capable of being freely shared and copied. And many cultures value expression over physical objects, and have rules about who is able to express certain things or disseminate information. It's been a pretty integral idea of major world religions.

Property is a negative right, it mostly consists of governments acknowledging possession or control that individuals have gathered anyways, and secure it with laws and policing.

Copyright is a positive right, it's subject, the copying authority, exists by the virtue of being invented by the government,

No, they are both the same. Both only exist by the consensus of a society or government. Your view of how property should behave is not universal, it is culturally determined. There is nothing innate about property - it is a human construction. It is not something like the laws of physics, which doesn't care what we humans think. It's something we construct.

Meanwhile, finishing copyright would happen simply by stopping to actively censor the public's tools of communication, and letting information be freely shared in it's default state.

So, because it's easier to stop, that makes it of no value? And what is the "default state" of information? You are making a hell of a lot of assumptions without backing them up.

That's the reason why most historical governments could barely take away their citizens property even with lots of bloodshed, while all "intellectual property" got "redistributed" without them lifting a finger.

No, it did not. We have lost a lot of cultural and intellectual property due to things like cultural imperialism and genocide. Totalitarian regimes usually act very quickly to destroy cultures, art, and languages. Because they have a lot of value. People have fought to the death and sacrificed all of their physical property to save their cultures and ideals.