Starseeker
Vault Senior Citizen
Well, I am fine as long as nobody buys into the Chinese HD-DVD BS. 
Michael Bay attacks Microsoft's plan to destroy Blu-ray disc
- Thread starter Makenshi
- Start date
Vault Senior Citizen
The whole copyright/license/patent mess is a result of several trends in our modern societies.
That it all doesn't really work and creates an awful lot of by-products that eat up a lot of resources only to sustain them while adding nothing useful in the bigger picture is a good indicator that something is very very wrong.
Sadly, we're currently better off with it than without it. Once we have found and established a way for the industry to work without it, we'll be fine. But for now, we're simply fucked.
Seriously, the patent non-sense (no pun intended) of the last couple of years is most definitely a step in the wrong direction. If we begin to patent, rather than standardise, interface elements, we're not encouraging competition, we're encouraging monopolisation, dependencies (esp. in licensing) and re-invention of the wheel (which can be a fun way to waste time but doesn't normally result in anything useful) rather than progress through improvement and adaptation.
For music, software and other media there currently aren't any decent alternatives to license madness, though. Several alternatives are being tried and we'll see how well they fare, but in the end, SOMEONE has to pay the artists for their investments (most notably, of time, which could have been spent earning money elsewhere).
There IS an inherent difference between a bard and a blacksmith, an inventor and an assembly worker, but the clumsy state-of-the-art way we deal with the inequalities should only be considered a temporary hack-job, not a polished system.
Of course, there is also the other alternative: treating "piracy" as an inevitable evil and coming to terms with its history (books were copied illegally before the advent of the internet and music "piracy" mostly dates back to the advent of tape recorders -- besides, many legislations don't punish sharing music with personal friends or recording music from radio programmes). But where's the fun in that?
Besides, the American and international music and film lobbies have already made it clear that they will combat "piracy" until they either run out of funds or succeed in establishing an Orwellian level of control (which, dystopian nightmares aside, most likely will never happen).
My 2 kilobytes.
That it all doesn't really work and creates an awful lot of by-products that eat up a lot of resources only to sustain them while adding nothing useful in the bigger picture is a good indicator that something is very very wrong.
Sadly, we're currently better off with it than without it. Once we have found and established a way for the industry to work without it, we'll be fine. But for now, we're simply fucked.
Seriously, the patent non-sense (no pun intended) of the last couple of years is most definitely a step in the wrong direction. If we begin to patent, rather than standardise, interface elements, we're not encouraging competition, we're encouraging monopolisation, dependencies (esp. in licensing) and re-invention of the wheel (which can be a fun way to waste time but doesn't normally result in anything useful) rather than progress through improvement and adaptation.
For music, software and other media there currently aren't any decent alternatives to license madness, though. Several alternatives are being tried and we'll see how well they fare, but in the end, SOMEONE has to pay the artists for their investments (most notably, of time, which could have been spent earning money elsewhere).
There IS an inherent difference between a bard and a blacksmith, an inventor and an assembly worker, but the clumsy state-of-the-art way we deal with the inequalities should only be considered a temporary hack-job, not a polished system.
Of course, there is also the other alternative: treating "piracy" as an inevitable evil and coming to terms with its history (books were copied illegally before the advent of the internet and music "piracy" mostly dates back to the advent of tape recorders -- besides, many legislations don't punish sharing music with personal friends or recording music from radio programmes). But where's the fun in that?
Besides, the American and international music and film lobbies have already made it clear that they will combat "piracy" until they either run out of funds or succeed in establishing an Orwellian level of control (which, dystopian nightmares aside, most likely will never happen).
My 2 kilobytes.
D
Deleted member 53669
Guest
Honestly I believe the laws for piracy should stay as they are now. Available, but illegal. The same principle as say, speed limits for traffic. You put the speed limit at 75mph, people are going to push toward 80. Human nature. An educated government will know this and not mind the fact that people will go 80mph, but know if they installed the official limit as 80, people will drive 85-90mph, which would be unacceptable. So, metaphorically speaking, putting piracy laws at 75, will allow people to push towards 80, but no higher. An acceptable loss rate, in a very utilitarian world. The problem is the growing rate of online piracy. A government should take steps to keep it under control... Not dictate the law. The law is there for a reason, and the reason is to keep the companies who make the content from going broke and loosing profit because of the prevalance of online downloads, and home copied media. If they don't loose a large amount of profit, it should not be a worry. If Microsoft or any other company dictates the entire net media with "Said goals" in the link posted, then it would be the equivilant of executing people who drive over the speed limit.
D
Deleted member 53669
Guest
Umm, I'm aware of that. The whole point is that Microsoft and like companies are becoming to new government.
welsh
Junkmaster
xdarkyrex said:
Copyright 101-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
History of copyrights-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law
Why do copyrights exist-
for more see Copyright basics
Sorrow
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Not to mention libraries...Ashmo said:
They allow (poor) people to read books without paying for them.
Sorrow said:
Really?
I thought they were places for homeless people to sleep and take shits.
D
Deleted member 53669
Guest
Hmm interesting idea. What if governments used taxes for Digital media like they do for books? Say Microsoft sells software to the government that uses tax dollars to pay for it? A socialized form of media distribution. Wow, in that scenario, Microsoft would actually be doing the world "GOOD".
Sorrow
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
In my country libraries are more like torrents - people bring books in. Of course some books are bought by libraries themselves.
What is interesting, libraries are treated as a good thing despite that they have the same effects as torrents - they allow people to use the text without paying for it.
I brought some books to a library - including 17 Terry Pratchett's novels. Obviously, now people that know use that library don't have to buy them to read them.
Similarly I've read all Andrzej Sapkowski's (the author of the Witcher series) books and without paying for any of them. I've read many books without paying for them.
What is interesting, libraries are treated as a good thing despite that they have the same effects as torrents - they allow people to use the text without paying for it.
I brought some books to a library - including 17 Terry Pratchett's novels. Obviously, now people that know use that library don't have to buy them to read them.
Similarly I've read all Andrzej Sapkowski's (the author of the Witcher series) books and without paying for any of them. I've read many books without paying for them.
dorry bout that welsh, those were intended to be largely rhetorical questions. sometimes i forget that tone doesnt work on the internets :/
The thing is, when it comes to art, I don't believe in copyrights, and when it comes to inventions and discoveries, i believe that due credit and recognition should be the limit of the bind on a copyright (such as I mentioned in the creative commons and GPU licenses).
I see no reason that people deserve money for creating music and movies, taking a photo, painting a picture, or telling a story.
If they want money, sell something unique, sell an experience that can't be cheaply copied from my home PC.
Copyrights may cause a certain amount of protection for artists and innovators, but they also hamper the NEED for people to actually innovate, since the true and tried methods (in the art fields) work just fine.
Musicians do not DESERVE my money because I happened to hear their song when I walked down the street by someone elses house. Nor do they deserve my money if I knock on that persons door and ask if they can record a copy of that beutiful music I just heard so that I may hear it a second time without being some creepy guy hovering outside their house. No, they only deserve my money if I am willing to give it to them, and if they offered something I couldn't copy, something physically tangible (like a concert) then I would pay. But they offer me nothing unique, nothing new, just variations of the old, and for that, they deserve nothing.
Artists are part of mankind, and with or without copyrights, they will keep on making art. If a need is present to ensure that you are getting originals and not copies, a new market will emerge to meet this need, this is how capitalism works. But forceful and violently enforced legislature is not the answer.
Now, that is strictly how I feel about art. Informational exposes (such as the news, documentaries and biographies) should be in the public domain at all times. Works of fiction should be regarded as art. Works of non-fiction, or proposed reality (in the case of philosophy and science and theology), should be labeled as non-art.
And lastly, scientific papers, when published, should be considered in the public domain (but due credit should be legally required for use within the first 10 years).
Rights to copy should only be limited by a persons willingness to credit the creator.
The thing is, when it comes to art, I don't believe in copyrights, and when it comes to inventions and discoveries, i believe that due credit and recognition should be the limit of the bind on a copyright (such as I mentioned in the creative commons and GPU licenses).
I see no reason that people deserve money for creating music and movies, taking a photo, painting a picture, or telling a story.
If they want money, sell something unique, sell an experience that can't be cheaply copied from my home PC.
Copyrights may cause a certain amount of protection for artists and innovators, but they also hamper the NEED for people to actually innovate, since the true and tried methods (in the art fields) work just fine.
Musicians do not DESERVE my money because I happened to hear their song when I walked down the street by someone elses house. Nor do they deserve my money if I knock on that persons door and ask if they can record a copy of that beutiful music I just heard so that I may hear it a second time without being some creepy guy hovering outside their house. No, they only deserve my money if I am willing to give it to them, and if they offered something I couldn't copy, something physically tangible (like a concert) then I would pay. But they offer me nothing unique, nothing new, just variations of the old, and for that, they deserve nothing.
Artists are part of mankind, and with or without copyrights, they will keep on making art. If a need is present to ensure that you are getting originals and not copies, a new market will emerge to meet this need, this is how capitalism works. But forceful and violently enforced legislature is not the answer.
Now, that is strictly how I feel about art. Informational exposes (such as the news, documentaries and biographies) should be in the public domain at all times. Works of fiction should be regarded as art. Works of non-fiction, or proposed reality (in the case of philosophy and science and theology), should be labeled as non-art.
And lastly, scientific papers, when published, should be considered in the public domain (but due credit should be legally required for use within the first 10 years).
Rights to copy should only be limited by a persons willingness to credit the creator.
Welsh said:
Well, yes. The same goes with patent laws. The point is that the laws have been derailed from their original intent and are now used for the benefit of faceless corporations that only care about maximising their profits for shareholder value (sorry for the stereotype, but it holds true) -- the actual authors profit the least, the vast amount of money made on the final sales is lost somewhere down the path, to sellers, publishers, producers.
Additionally, developers rarely own any rights to the intellectual properties they create -- it's their job to create those properties, yes, but it's not like they have any other option, generally.
The point isn't that artists don't deserve to be paid, the point is that the current system, despite all the idealism in the legislature, doesn't serve them much at all.
The problem with Chinese rip-offs, btw, isn't that they are copies, but that they are BAD copies sold to cash in on the popular trademarks. The result are customers who don't get what they think they are buying and companies that suffer from bad publicity for knock-offs they aren't involved in the making of.
Note, by the way, that I don't practice "piracy" much. I had maybe three albums I didn't own on my hard disk before it crashed. The amount of albums I have bought (mostly first-hand) in my lifetime outweighs the amount of songs I have downloaded illegally by several orders of magnitude. Same goes for games.
What pisses me off, however, is that the companies thank me by putting DRM on my albums and games, causing problems with my hardware or software, or forcing me to use a Macintosh to rip the music so I can play it on my MP3 player.
The companies claim they aren't selling a product, but a license to use their product, so they don't have to guarantee that their shit works on my system -- but they're not, they're selling the media as well, otherwise I could easily get a replacement if I lost or broke the media the product was sold to me on.
Why do legitimate customers have to jump through all these hoops if they could just as easily download the product for free? Under current legislation it's not even illegal to do so unless you upload copies of your own (not that the lobbies weren't trying their best to change that) -- why punish me for paying your outrageous prices? My money is scarce enough; if I give you some of it, I expect to be respected at least.
DRM is not the way. DRM doesn't work. You CANNOT protect audio data -- and protecting digital code is only slightly less futile. If your DRM breaks all my recording software, I'll just connect my audio output to the input (or a friggin tape recorder if all else fails) and if that fails, I'll put a microphone in front of my speakers and record the song in cellphone quality.
Fair use exists for a reason. Don't waste your time and my money (because, as a customer, I give you money so you can do your job) on putting obstacles between me and my legally bought goods -- imagine painters would sell their pictures like that, saying "Oh, you own it, alright, but you can only put it in your kitchen and don't even think about letting anybody else look at it or I'll come to your house and put you in prison!"
Sometimes the world just has to yield to the progress we've made, and these sort of transitions to new paradigms of ownership are never easy. These are the death throes of traditional media brought on by the new media... the internet.
It's only a matter of time till tv, record stores, video rental places, video game stores, libraries (although books will carry on, they have a very physical appeal), newspapers, scientific journals, and other such things are essentially non-existant, unless they innovate and start offering something that can't be put inside of the tubes.
Even physical peddlers like grocery stores and electronics stores are forcing to adapt to the internet as more and more people are choosing to conduct shopping online via direct warehouse sales and secondhand auctions and onlina bazaars like craigslist. I mean really now, I can talk to 20 people scattered around the world or perhaps even in space without ANY time delay of note. Information has broken free of the attempts to control it, and as a social entity, we continue to evolve to handle our new capacities. We are interconnected at such an immediate level and globalized so irreversibly, that there is nothing to do but accept the new world we are becoming and try to capitalise off of it. You can only swim against the tide for so long before you grow weary and beaten. Progress is one dimensional.
It's only a matter of time till tv, record stores, video rental places, video game stores, libraries (although books will carry on, they have a very physical appeal), newspapers, scientific journals, and other such things are essentially non-existant, unless they innovate and start offering something that can't be put inside of the tubes.
Even physical peddlers like grocery stores and electronics stores are forcing to adapt to the internet as more and more people are choosing to conduct shopping online via direct warehouse sales and secondhand auctions and onlina bazaars like craigslist. I mean really now, I can talk to 20 people scattered around the world or perhaps even in space without ANY time delay of note. Information has broken free of the attempts to control it, and as a social entity, we continue to evolve to handle our new capacities. We are interconnected at such an immediate level and globalized so irreversibly, that there is nothing to do but accept the new world we are becoming and try to capitalise off of it. You can only swim against the tide for so long before you grow weary and beaten. Progress is one dimensional.
Lately government representatives (or was it a police spokesman?) lamented about the Internet having created a new space, devoid of laws.
I laffed.
I laffed.