Copyright is Out of Sight

[Enkidu of Abydos]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

if we really wanted Utopia we would have it.

I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want it ! Both for the world (world peace, end to world hunger, etc.) and for myself (millions of dollars on my bank account, Ferraris in my garage, a harem of gorgeous young babes around my swimming pool...).

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

I will also accept a lap dance from shakira for recompense.

I detect an obsession here ?

Originally Posted by outlander78

It amazes me that so many other people keep coming back for more as well, and that this thread has yet to be locked.

Luckily not everyone here is a devotee of the Spanish inquisition like you seem to be...

Originally Posted by elcreative

socialised everything been tried... failed...

If you would call something run by the government and funded by the money of all the taxpayers together "socialised" (and people do) then non-socialised health-care has failed in the US, while "socialised" healthcare thrives in many countries around the world.
No doubt the best possible healthcare can be found in the US, but due to profit interests the AVERAGE level of healthcare provided to the AVERAGE citizen is statistically better in countries far poorer then the US (such as Cuba even) then in the US. Not to mention countries like Sweden.
A similar case could be made for education, with the extremely profit-driven educational system in the US keeping the rich rich and the poor poor, because to change from poor to rich you need a good job, and for that you need an expensive school (unless you're extraordinary in talent or sports).
So socialised everything failed - uninformed propaganda.

[Enkidu of Abydos]

Originally Posted by elcreative

you can't argue/discuss and deal logically with "true" believers because they know they're right...

Takes one to know one...

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

Capitalism turns us all into wolves, and wolves don't mess with each other. (Unless they are fighting over a foxy female wolf.)

[Howls loudly]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

It means when we have star trek style food replicators, do we still need copyright? With robots to do all the labor, do we still need wealth?

This is the smartest and most thought-provoking thing you've said yet.

[Enkidu of Abydos]

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

As it is, to quote chief Joseph, I am tired. My heart is sick and sad(okay it isn't really sick or sad, but lets be dramatic here). From where the sun now stands, I will post no more forever(just on this thread).

Your heart sure healed quickly... Luckily for us.

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

I think there are some very intelligent and sincere proponents of copyright reform, among them Cory Doctorow and Lawrence Lessig. The part about saving the species was a bit pretentious, but the absolute principle of property has allowed for unnecessary suffering in the world. For instance, pharmaceutical companies have used western governments and the World Trade Organization to prevent the prevention of cheap and generic drugs for the treatment of aids. Western governments have also withheld foreign aid when African nations have used information obtained on how to make drugs for aids because it violates the patents of the pharmaceutical companies. Even though Africans couldn't possibly afford more expensive aids drugs, pharmaceutical companies still do all they can, with government backing (or is it the other way around) to deny the production of cheap drugs and the sharing of information on the principle of property. Instead, In their quest to save Africa, Western countries spend billions on drugs that Africans could make themselves for a fraction of the cost.

You just may be the best-informed person on this thread (I mean generally, not just this post).

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

I always find it amusing when western companies complain about bootlegging and pirating in third world countries. The "estimated losses to piracy" are always a complete joke because most of the people in third world countries would never be able to afford these companies movies or music or books.

I've said the same a thousand times.

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

My cousins from Manila speak perfect English. In fact, on the phone people know they are not from the United States because their English is too perfect. They enunciate every syllable, and I don't know anyone in the U.S. that does that. I slur words, overenunciate, eat my words, mumble the end of my sentences, and butcher pronunciations altogether. And I graduated from College with Honors!

I do the same with Croatian sometimes and am also highly educated. Maybe it's a matter of laziness ? Or speaking efficiently rather then correctly ?

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

Just getting started. This is a thread that will not end. It's a zombie thread, and you can't kill the undead.

You can with a big enough shotgun.

[spellbanisher]

At least with English no one really speaks "official English." English is spoken in many different regions and every region has its own idioms and accents and style; the only people who learn "official English" are those who learn it as a second language.

[Enkidu of Abydos]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

are you ploying something like a liberal Boston Tea Party?

Kind of, except I don't like tea, and I'm certainly not going to dress up as an Indian (not unless it's for a hot girl with strange tastes) ! But I'm up for a party and rampant destruction, sure !

[wyndslash]

I love this thread. It's amusing.

[spellbanisher]

In giggleton's first post he goes through a rough history of the preservation of written and recorded culture. He notes that the centralization of knowledge made recorded culture vulnerable to warfare and pillaging. He argues that the better way to preserve recorded culture is through decentralization of it, I.E., allowing anyone with the means to copy and share. He is correct in asserting that historically those in power wanted to withhold information and knowledge from the populace. The aphorism that knowledge is power is no canard. He says
“The word in an electronic format, no linger hindered by the weight of stone, the word can be written by anyone, and shared with everyone. Because it can be, so it will be.”

Note that he is not issuing a moral imperative about copying. He's saying that without physical constraints people will share culture. He goes on to say

“ The magnitude of this shift will be severe. Systems that hold onto the past will crumble under the pressure of billions of minds that wish for unfettered access to knowledge. New modes of being will arise spontaneously from this massive thought experiment, be discussed at length and abandoned just as quickly until one ideal is realized that will be the harbinger of the new day.”

Note here that he is not issuing any moral imperatives. He is simply making an observation. Old modes of thinking about copying are outdated. People can either adapt or they will be swept away by the tides of history. The RIAA has tried to use the courts to quash music downloading with little success and great cost. When he talks about the “billions of minds that wish for unfettered access to knowledge” he is not talking about teenagers in western countries. His view is much broader than a Eurocentric viewpoint. He's talking about the vast majority of the world population, which lives outside Europe and the United States. It is foolhardy to think that the western world can use their might, no matter how great it is, to stop the rest of the world from sharing information. Those who adapt and evolve will persist and thrive. Those who try to force the future to follow some ideal will crumble and fall. It's hard to see, because every successful culture trains its children that its culture is the best culture, the final culture, the true culture. But time has other ideas.

For the vast majority of history Asian civilizations were more advanced than western civilizations. Up until the seventeenth century the world economy was centered around the Indian Ocean. Up until the mid-nineteenth century the average Indian and Chinese person had a higher standard of living than the average person living in Great Britain. The west has enjoyed only two centuries of economic prominence; the nineteenth century belonged to Great Britain, and the twentieth century belonged to the United States. Already the strings of power are shifting back towards Asian countries. But note this situation is the historical norm; the rise of the west was an aberration in world history.

Asia is simply too vast, its population is too large, its resources too immense, its culture and tradition to o proud and long to allow it to remain a secondary player in world affairs for long. And guess what. Sharing is central to Asian culture. The following quote is from Peter K. Yu's “Causes of Piracy and Counterfeiting in China”:

“In China people would learn art or writing by simply creating copies of some master. By encountering the past, one could understand the “Way of Heaven,” obtain guidance to future behavior, and find out the ultimate meaning of human existence. One also could transform oneself and build moral character through self-cultivation. Because intellectual property rights allow a significant few to monopolize important materials about the past, they prevent the vast majority from understanding their life, culture, and society and are therefore contradictory to traditional Chinese moral standards.

Unlike today's Westerners, the Chinese in the imperial past did not consider copying or imitation a moral offense. Rather, they considered it “a noble art,” a “time-honored learning process” through which people manifested respect for their ancestors. At a very young age, Chinese children were taught to memorize and copy the classics and histories. As they grew up, they became by training compilers, as compared to composers, and the classics and histories generally constituted their universal language. Although the practice of unacknowledged quotation is likely to be considered plagiarism today, such a practice was an acceptable, legitimate, or even necessary, component of the creative process in the imperial past. Indeed, early Chinese writers saw themselves more as preservers of historical record and cultural heritage than as creators...”

[spellbanisher]

In response to Giggleton's post outlander78 said Giggleton's ideas were good on paper, but in reality the quality of fiction and research and world knowledge would take a dive. Outlander78 dismisses Giggletons arguments as the typical perspective of a “kid living with your parents.” Outlander78 seems to think there is an absolute standard for fiction, as supposedly quality is subjective. Most research throughout the world has done by publicly funded universities. Collaboration and cooperation are actually at the heart of research. Arguably the most productive period of human creativity and knowledge in world history was the Renaissance, a period that predates the Intellectual Property era and that was defined by the free flow and sharing of information. Everyone copied everyone, and this sharing of knowledge contributed to the end of the Middle Ages and it helped usher in the modern world. Yes, it was the free sharing of information that ushered in the modern world, not intellectual property. Outlander78's reality is contemporary, not eternal.

Mr ploppy rebuttal to outlander78 was that content creators would find new ways to monetise their creations and that “the human desire to create will never go away” because it was there before copyright and it will be there “long after they become meaningless.” While I agree with his argument that people will always create culture, Mr ploppy fails in this post to explain why it would more desirable to create in a culture without copyright than in a culture with copyright. Part of the reason the Statute of Anne was created in 1709 was to recognize that works of art were the property of their creators. The first copyrights were created to free artists from exploitation, to ensure that the law would ensure to them what was theirs.

In the United States copyright law was created to encourage the creation and dissemination of information. But another reason was to prevent the concentration of power, something they feared above all. The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights limited the power of the Church, the checks and balances as well as the tenth amendment limited the power of the federal government, and the first copyright laws limited the power of publishers to control the spread of knowledge and culture. The intent of the initial copyright laws was to prevent the concentration of power, something I think our current copyright laws have failed to do in the age of the “Big Four.” By handcuffing publishers, writers were supposed to have more control, for a time, over their creations. This was also done to encourage a more democratic culture, because it allowed for ordinary people to control content production and dissemination works instead of the few powerful.

[spellbanisher]

Kali Yuga tries to debunk Giggleton's arguments by calling them “Friday afternoon technobabble.” He says that a new technical ability does not create the moral framework to make the action permissible. He uses the ability to go around killing people because he has a gun as an example an activity that is made possible by a technology but is still impermissible. His second point is that the idea that the world will be a better place and that corporate interests will evaporate is ridiculous. He finishes his rebuttal by saying that copyright is a social contract enforced by laws.

As far as his first point, he is correct but only in theory. Possibility does not equal permissibility. But he inadequately connects theory to copyright and sharing. To connect this to his final point, copyright is a social contract enforced by laws because it is generally seen that copyright does society the most good. But no law serves an absolute principle. Every law constrains liberty, but the damage it does to overall liberty is offset by the greater protections its provides. If a law no longer does good than harm, it must be changed or abolished. The question now is whether we should gimp the technology that makes production of information infinitely easy so that creators can profit the way they have always profited. The question isn't even a matter of compensation. It's a question of whether the old method of compensation, the old business model, is the best business model. New technology has always agitated old industries. The moving image was a threat to the stage. The radio and the album was a threat to the live performance. Cable and vcr was a threat to movies. Each time old industries tried to use the law to crush new technologies, and had they succeeded society would be much worse.

In summation, Yuga fails to make an argument. Instead, Yuga assumes that his position is a first principle, when in fact it must be proved. Yuga begs the question.

Yuga's post is number 5. I will continue the review at a later time to see if Carld was correct in his assertion that anti-copyright proponents have yet to make “a cogent, thoughtful and considerate.” We will let the world decide (or the three people who will read this post.) For now I am tired, and though I may still make smartass posts in this thread and other threads, I will continue my review at a later time. Now, I am off to the fortress of pretense.

[Groucho54]

The arguments that the quality of literature will suffer and authors will just not produce is something the book publishers would love you to believe... don't!

It's only the publishing houses' bottom line that would suffer.

The same argument has been used (falsely) by the music industry to protect their revenue stream for a while now and there is absolutely no evidence that the world's musicians have lost their muse..

Writers just love their material to be read... and that's the end of it. Will they produce less quality work? No. Will they only write trite rubbish? No.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Groucho54

The arguments that the quality of literature will suffer and authors will just not produce is something the book publishers would love you to believe... don't!

It's only the publishing houses' bottom line that would suffer.

The same argument has been used (falsely) by the music industry to protect their revenue stream for a while now and there is absolutely no evidence that the world's musicians have lost their muse..

Writers just love their material to be read... and that's the end of it. Will they produce less quality work? No. Will they only write trite rubbish? No.

Welcome to MR. This is simply wrong. Sure writers are going to write, painters are going to paint, musicians are going to play music. BUT without mechanisms in place to allow those creatives to put food in the dog bowl by making money at what they do the potential for creating great works is severely hampered. Modern tools and technologies make it easy to blog or post pictures or music and every tom dick and harry that think they are a writer or musician or artist can post their work on a web page and call themselves an artist or writer or whatever.

Are they?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Welcome to MR. This is simply wrong. Sure writers are going to write, painters are going to paint, musicians are going to play music. BUT without mechanisms in place to allow those creatives to put food in the dog bowl by making money at what they do the potential for creating great works is severely hampered. Modern tools and technologies make it easy to blog or post pictures or music and every tom dick and harry that think they are a writer or musician or artist can post their work on a web page and call themselves an artist or writer or whatever.

Are they?

Yes. And the world is a better place because of that.

[kennyc]

Tangentially Related:

"...Another benefit of the Kindle is the ease with which it enables anybody to self-publish. Publishing your own book used to involve expensive layouts, ISBN barcodes, very expensive printing, shipping, warehousing, shipping to bookstores, paying to ship unsold titles back to your warehouse from bookstores, and so on. It was a low-margin, risky proposition that saw most titles fail to benefit their authors in any way beyond personal satisfaction.

Not anymore. Publishing on the Kindle requires no complicated layout, no ISBN barcode, no printing, no shipping, and a generous profit-sharing structure. A first-time author completing a book on Friday can start selling it on Saturday and achieve greater profit per copy sold than if she’d gone through the lengthy, often heartbreaking process of querying agents and publishers, finally finding the book a home, waiting another year or more until it’s on shelves, and then waiting another six months for her first royalty payment. At the end of all that, the profit-per-copy for most authors is a tiny fraction of the price paid by readers, and the authors who ever get far enough to discover that are the lucky ones. Most wash out earlier in the process without seeing one dime of profit. They just collect rejection letters. On the Kindle, it goes like this: finish book, upload file, promote, sell, get paid ten times more per copy sold than you would be paid via traditional publishing. Time previously spent convincing publishers of a book’s worth can now be spent convincing readers. The market becomes the only judge...."

From: http://jasonkelly.com/2011/02/whats-...ture-of-books/

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

The market becomes the only judge...[/I]."

Which is why it is a good thing. No publisher is ever going to be interested in a suspense thriller set within the world of professional snail racing that is only going to sell a couple hundred copies. So all the people who were desperate to read something like that had to do without. Now they don't. People who want to read about boy wizards and sparkly vampires can still do so, so there is really no losers in this.

It's like the cassette culture in the UK in the late 70s. People who wanted to listen to Abba or the Bee Gees weren't affected by it at all, but it enabled people to hear Danny and the Dressmakers or the Instant Automatons, something they would never have been able to do otherwise.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Which is why it is a good thing. No publisher is ever going to be interested in a suspense thriller set within the world of professional snail racing that is only going to sell a couple hundred copies. So all the people who were desperate to read something like that had to do without. Now they don't. People who want to read about boy wizards and sparkly vampires can still do so, so there is really no losers in this.

It's like the cassette culture in the UK in the late 70s. People who wanted to listen to Abba or the Bee Gees weren't affected by it at all, but it enabled people to hear Danny and the Dressmakers or the Instant Automatons, something they would never have been able to do otherwise.

Assuming they can find what they like (or even find out what they like) amidst all the sh*t.