Discussion: On Copyright
738 Responses
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Fair use is a concept that is actually derived from the American constitution. But not in NZ; and please do check this - not preserved under the current act going through legislation in NZ.
Many thanks for that 81stcolumn, very interesting, tho it'll take a finer mind than mine to decipher the details of the local scenario.
I'm sure you're right to be concerned about inadevertently using anything in your work that might be owned by suit-happy Fox/Murdoch. Over 20 years ago, in a far more innocent age, I fessed up and paid APRA for barely five seconds of Simon & Garfunkel, part of a soundtrack where someone twiddles the radio dial. It was so brief that I hadn't even spotted it till it was pointed out by somebody helpful.
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There's a young copyright historian at the University of Birmingham, Ronan Deazley, who's been arguing that the 'strong', author-centred version of copyright we believe has been around since 1710 (or 1774) is actually mostly a creation of the last 100-150 years.
I would actually say since the Berne Convention in 1871, which used the French model of author's moral rights. And we're seeing a lot more notices now in books that "so-and-so asserts their moral rights as the owner of this work".
Certainly, the wording has changed (although the Statute of Anne does refer to authors and their plight) but I would contend that the practice of copyright since Berne has been even less interested in authors' rights than before, in that the corporations have got bigger and, as they controlled the means of copying and distribution, they've squeezed the authors even more. What changed for authors was the nature of payment, from an upfront purchase to royalties over the life of the work.
Copyright, from its earliest beginnings, has been about the publishers - they wanted it to sort out their own business matters and maintain little monopolies on particular works. Authors (if they were lucky) got a one-off payment on purchase of the manuscript. No such thing as royalties. The thing that has changed the game is the potential to use digital, low-cost technologies to produce and distribute content, bypassing the publishers completely.
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@Robin re Radiohead:
I'm given to understand it was a marketing gimmick. You can no longer buy it as a download.
Sure can. eMusic has it, at least.
Try instead the Nine Inch Nails experiment, where it was actually released as creative commons, and uploaded to torrent sites by Reznor himself, along with doing things like this.
I generally find torrents a soulless way to access music. I don't like the idea of being able to download an artist's entire career work without even engaging with the artist. (Confession: I've done this once, with one band, to consolidate physical copies I'd bought -- several times over in some cases -- over the years.)
If I'm going to download music in breach of copyright I'd rather do it via a good MP3 blog run by someone whose taste I can trust, or have discovered via the crowd wisdom of Hype Machine, which will automatically provide links to multiple ways of buying the music legitimately.
Selling something you've made is a really important human experience, and I don't think it should be denied people.
Or, on a smaller scale, Harvey Danger. To quote their site: "Please help yourself; if you like it, please share with friends."
I downloaded that album -- I was totally impressed with their ability to build a torrent (it was blazing at a time when torrents weren't that fast) but unfortunately it didn't make their music good.
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I was going to download the NIN thing, with all the data, just so i could play with it and then I found out how fracking huge it was and thought "that's half my cap on a band I don't even listen to" so i didn't ;-)
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Sure can. eMusic has it, at least.
Yeah, I realised that it's probably somewhere like there after posting. I was thinking of their main site though.
I generally find torrents a soulless way to access music. I don't like the idea of being able to download an artist's entire career work without even engaging with the artist.
Well, the bulk of my music comes from emusic. I paid for the FLAC copies of NIN stuff, and as their site was overloaded at the time, hit TPB to actually download them. I rarely torrent music otherwise. Sometimes I'll grab a compilation it, and then check emusic for the artists whose stuff I like from it.
I have no issue with the idea of being able to do it, I just don't do it much myself :)
Probably second-most of my music (in the past couple of years, anyway) comes from physical CDs, often bought second-hand, from mail-order distributors in the US and UK, or at concerts and festivals.
I was going to download the NIN thing, with all the data, just so i could play with it and then I found out how fracking huge it was and thought "that's half my cap on a band I don't even listen to" so i didn't ;-)
Yes, it is a large amount of data. I haven't got all the extra bits, just the songs themselves, although I got them as FLAC because everything I have (even my MP3 player) can play it.
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I was going to download the NIN thing
Oh, I do suggest checking out the Ghosts series, even if you just start with the Ogg Vorbis version of the first disk or something. It's quite different than their standard stuff (no label pressures == more experimentation), and all instrumental.
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"that's half my cap on a band I don't even listen to" so i didn't ;-)
there's no pleasing you is there mark.
What's your address?, I'll get trent to drop round a burn for you. -
Some interesting links:
Forever Minus A Day? Some Theory And Empirics of Optimal Copyright
James Boyle: Deconstructing stupidity (much lighter than the previous one)
Lawrence Lessig's book (reminds me: must figure out who I lent my hardcopy of this to) -
@robbery
Thanks for the offer. I've just changed my notation to show I'm in Waikanae and I don't go into town much. Not a problem. -
Thanks for the offer. I've just changed my notation to show I'm in Waikanae and I don't go into town much. Not a problem.
really, I'm sure its not a problem, reznor's not in it for the money or anything, I can't see why he wouldn't drop it round at his expense
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really, I'm sure its not a problem, reznor's not in it for the money or anything, I can't see why he wouldn't drop it round at his expense
He does provide it at his expense already. If you download his albums (following the 'free download' link from the NIN website), and don't use torrents, he is paying for the bandwidth. He also says nice things like:
we encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc.Oh, I also saw you can get it at higher than CD quality, which is nice. I wish they'd put that into FLAC though, it'd stop the need for multi-GB downloading of those files. A friend and I have been talking about playing with making remixes, just for the fun of it.
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He does provide it at his expense already.
oh sure , if you mean he paid for the recording, invested thetime to create it, promote it, provide the equipment needed to perform and capture it, provide the personnel that did all above said functions and the premises on which to do them and then as you mentioned the bandwidth for which you may acquire said music. but other than that, what's he done? surely dropping off a burn to a 'fan' (who doesn't want to use his bandwidth) isn't too much to ask?
I've changed my position - 50-70 years IS too long for these money grabbin' buggers
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surely dropping off a burn to a 'fan' (who doesn't want to use his bandwidth) isn't too much to ask?
Not sure what you're point is as I already said I don't listen to the band so I'm not a fan. I was merely interested in getting hold of all the data to play with it as an experiment, as I do with a lot of software. It's a means of learning which, as someone pointed out upstream, was one of the purposes of the original Copyright Act.
You seem very bitter, robbery, like we're all after your stuff and you have to fight us off. Want to share why?
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Want to share why?
taking the piss (that's allowed isn't it?), to illustrate a point, (not necessarily made by you but the music is easy, minimal effort, why should they get so much money thing), plus I was bored at the time.
not bitter, savory sweet, like mince flavoured ice cream, mmmmmm
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Excuse me but my piss is copyright and therefore not to be taken (I spent hours creating it, you know)
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Golden (heh) !
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Another interesting article in the Wall Street Journal.
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Excuse me but my piss is copyright and therefore not to be taken (I spent hours creating it, you know)
I thought yours was open source piss?
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Golden (heh) !
very clever sasha :)
we should move away from the urine jokes I think,and mark although I like your opening comment on this thread it should have been
©a computer literate man like you doesn't know option g is the circle c sign?? you really are open source.
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It merely struck me as a (golden) opportunity. :)
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to the open source anti copyright guys, I'm interested in your income structure, how do you earn a living for stuff you give away? serious question asked sincerely.
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I'm sue you guys can come up with an open source cow and a copyright cow gag.
SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws
the milk away...TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessonsAN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters
of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax
exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary
to a Cayman Island
Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the
rights to all seven
cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows,
with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States,
leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the
release. The public then buys your bull.A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you
want three cows.A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow
and produce twenty
times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image
called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide.A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month,
and milk themselves.AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy... .AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive. -
Rob, the difference between software and music is that there is a viable market for paid support and associated services alongside free software, whereas most people know what to do with music.
If the music industry finds an alternative to its traditional production, aggregation and distribution model, there may be similar opportunities (although non-profit bodies like the Music Industry Commission seem to be picking up some of those potential roles). The power balance between tour promoters and record companies shifting is one sign of that. Others here know way more about that than I do.
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to the open source anti copyright guys, I'm interested in your income structure, how do you earn a living for stuff you give away? serious question asked sincerely.
Again with the lack of comprehension. "open source" does not equal "anti-copyright".
It's about permission, whereas current copyright practice is about restriction.
As Sacha says, you can make money through services (Red Hat is the obvious model), through being the system integrator (bringing a bunch of software and hardware packages together and customising them for the client) - you can even have dual-licensing, with an open source community edition, and a value-added enterprise edition (e.g. www.alfresco.com), although that is frowned on by some purists. It's likely that integrating open source packages is easier than closed source, because you can hack the source code directly.
It all revolves around finding new ways to do business. Plus the savings you can make in getting other people to improve your software by adding their own modules and ideas. The trade off is that you hand over exclusivity to your code.
But, unless you explicitly put the code in the Public Domain, you never hand over your copyright.
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Again with the lack of comprehension. "open source" does not equal "anti-copyright".
ok
open source/anti copyright. ie either or or both.whereas current copyright practice is about restriction
I think you're tarring everyone with the same brush there.
it can't be permission if no one asks you in the first place.
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