If you had a vote for copyright?

[Harmon]

[QUOTE=Sil_liS;1936659]

I don't think that the lawyer lied in his report to Congress. I think that he meant something else.

I agree - he was not talking about the law, but giving what amounts to a political view. I'm sure that a lot of creators think "fair use" is a privilege. But in law, it is a right. "Fair use" is statutory, and just as much a right as copyright is.

Copyright is the right of the author to make copies and allow others to make copies of their work. Fair use isn't the right to make copies, but the privilege of not being fined or sent to jail for it.

The first sentence is correct. The second one is incorrect, both in fact and in legal theory. As I observed above, "fair use" is part of the law, written into the copyright statute. The truth of the matter is that copyright is a limited right established by statute, and there are many exceptions to that right explicitly stated in the same statute, including "fair use."

Copyright is a limited right granted by the people to creators, and "fair use" is the reservation of rights by the people.

The problem is that people don't understand this concept and think of it in terms of "it's not copyright infringement, it's fair use", or in the example that you gave it would be like saying "you provoked my dog so he didn't bite you".

I suppose you could think of "fair use" as a kind of permitted infringement. But legally, you are dead wrong. Here's what the law says:

§107 · Limitations on exclusive rights:Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

(emphasis added)

"Fair use" is simply NOT an infringement of copyright, and anyone who refers to it as a privilege is speaking loosely and incorrectly.

[spellbanisher]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

No, not really. If you want to know how people stand include the option for limited copyright. This means absolutely nothing, it is the same as asking: "would you rather I shoot your mother or your father?" And then you decide "boy, people hate their fathers!"

The example is a false analogy, because it does not represent positions that people actually hold, nor do it represent any apprehendable principles, as the debate over copyright does.

The fact is there is a very large percentage of the population that does favor perpetual copyright(such as tubemonkey on this forum, who is hardly a wacko), as there is also a very large percentage of the population that favors the abolition of copyright (such as giggleton and other posters on this forum). The CTEA Act of 1998 was named after Sonny Bonno, who was an ardent believer in perpetual copyright. Much of the testimony given in support of the CTEA were from people who support perpetual copyright. Their have been numerous articles published in mainstream magazines and newspapers arguing for perpetual copyright. Repeatedly on this forum copyright supporters have echoed the same sentiment: "Copyright is property, so why should the government have the right to come in and take away that property from my heirs after 70 years."

So really, the "copyright should be perpetual" position is not extreme; if you believe that copyright is property, then why shouldn't you believe ownership should be perpetual? Now, you can believe that there are other interests at stake which puts limits on copyright that aren't put on other forms of property, but by no means is supporting perpetual copyright an extreme position if you believe copyright is property; indeed, it is the most intellectually coherent position. Consider this from the New York Times, hardly a purveyor of radical ideas:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/op...pagewanted=all

WHAT if, after you had paid the taxes on earnings with which you built a house, sales taxes on the materials, real estate taxes during your life, and inheritance taxes at your death, the government would eventually commandeer it entirely? This does not happen in our society ... to houses. Or to businesses. Were you to have ushered through the many gates of taxation a flour mill, travel agency or newspaper, they would not suffer total confiscation.

Once the state has dipped its enormous beak into the stream of your wealth and possessions they are allowed to flow from one generation to the next. Though they may be divided and diminished by inflation, imperfect investment, a proliferation of descendants and the government taking its share, they are not simply expropriated.

That is, unless you own a copyright. Were I tomorrow to write the great American novel (again?), 70 years after my death the rights to it, though taxed at inheritance, would be stripped from my children and grandchildren. To the claim that this provision strikes malefactors of great wealth, one might ask, first, where the heirs of Sylvia Plath berth their 200-foot yachts. And, second, why, when such a stiff penalty is not applied to the owners of Rockefeller Center or Wal-Mart, it is brought to bear against legions of harmless drudges who, other than a handful of literary plutocrats (manufacturers, really), are destined by the nature of things to be no more financially secure than a seal in the Central Park Zoo.

This is the sentiment expressed by a whole lot of copyright supporters.


Likewise, if you believe copyright puts unneccessary and unproductive restrictions on people's liberty (the right to reproduce something you possess), or that copyright is not property, or that it is immoral to try to make something that is not scarce scarce, or that "freedom of information" trumps other concerns, or that copyright is a relic of the 18th century, or that there are more effective and efficient means of compensating artists in the digital age, or that copyright laws turn the vast majority of the population into criminals and the costs of enforcing copyright are greater than the returns to society, that the enforcement costs of copyright in the digital age would entail severe abridgement of arguablly more important rights, or that creative expression is such a fundamental part of human society that it needs no government enforced monopolies to be supported, or that humans are ingenious enough to figure out ways to make profits off their creative works in the absence of government protection, then it is by no means extreme to support abolition of copyright.

If you are a believer in Free markets, then you might point out that the purpose of markets is to allocate scarce resources efficiently, and that copyrights, which are government enforced monopolies, create inefficient allocations of capitals.

Both represent coherent philisophical positions on the nature of copyright, and both sentiments have been expressed by a number of posters on this forum, not all of whom are crazy.

Originally Posted by miguel1626

It would be like making a poll asking whether theft should be punished by death by dismemberment or not be punished at all.

That would be a valid poll, especially if there were people in society that took the position that theft must be stopped at all costs, even if that included death, life imprisonment, random searches of housing and belongings...

In the examples given on this poll, there is clearly a position that one or the other would be the most beneficial for society. Those that argue for perpetual copyright do so because they believe it is a form of property that should be respected the same as any other form of property. In the latter position, people might argue that copyright is obsolete, and therefore society is worse off for continuing to enforce it at all.

Additionally, you both seem to be assuming that the extreme position is always wrong, or that the moderate position is always right, which is a form of extremism itself. I think it was Thomas Sowell who said: "An extremist says let's burn everything down now. A moderate says let's burn everything down over a period of five years."

Okay, that quote illustrates something a little different from what I was trying to say, but I thought it was amusing.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

If you are a believer in Free markets, then you might point out that the purpose of markets is to allocate scarce resources efficiently, and that copyrights, which are government enforced monopolies, create inefficient allocations of capitals.

How is that, exactly? I see copyrights as a government-enforced guarantee of fairness to the creator. Without said fairness, many creators would not bother to create, and you'd have no product. I suppose if you believe that it would be more efficient for a consumer to not spend money on anything, eliminating copyright (and therefore products) would be a more efficient allocation of capital...

[Giggleton]

Copyright can be whatever you want it to be. It is extremely hard for anyone to know what would happen to creation if our creations were not "protected".

I would agree that our market is extremely inefficient and therefore due to be replaced by something more efficient eventually. I also think that this will coincide with the release of internet 2.0

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

How is that, exactly? I see copyrights as a government-enforced guarantee of fairness to the creator. Without said fairness, many creators would not bother to create, and you'd have no product. I suppose if you believe that it would be more efficient for a consumer to not spend money on anything, eliminating copyright (and therefore products) would be a more efficient allocation of capital...

I suppose that without the incentive of copyright 70 years after death we wouldn't have had this:

[HarryT]

Can you explain? I'm afraid I don't understand your last post.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I suspect he means that, without copyright, there would be no incentive to produce vacuous, ghost-written wastes of wood pulp by reality show train-wrecks, like the one above.

I could be wrong.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I suspect he means that, without copyright, there would be no incentive to produce vacuous, ghost-written wastes of wood pulp by reality show train-wrecks, like the one above.

I could be wrong.

No, you are right.

[HarryT]

One only has to look at some of the dreck on "Smashwords" to realise that there are people (I am reluctant to use the word "authors") out there who will inflict this kind of stuff upon the world even if there's no financial reward from doing so.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by HarryT

One only has to look at some of the dreck on "Smashwords" to realise that there are people (I am reluctant to use the word "authors") out there who will inflict this kind of stuff upon the world even if there's no financial reward from doing so.

Well, the point with Snooki's book is clearly to milk the gravy-train as long and hard as possible and get the maximum financial reward from it. If there was no likelihood Snooki would see any money from it, she wouldn't have put the book out (she's much too busy researching the best fingernail polish colors to wear to a breakup party).

Sure, there will be people who write "just to write"... but people like that are not the target for copyright laws anyway, any more than a pedestrian is the target of seat belt laws.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Sure, there will be people who write "just to write"... but people like that are not the target for copyright laws anyway, any more than a pedestrian is the target of seat belt laws.

They would be affected by it though, just like the pedestrians. With every new car safety feature introduced, the pedestrian death toll has risen. Just because someone gives their writing away for free it doesn't mean they would want Disney turning it into a cartoon.

Do I want to know who Snooki is?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

They would be affected by it though, just like the pedestrians. With every new car safety feature introduced, the pedestrian death toll has risen.

The data would seem to disagree with you. Eg, see this article published in the Guardian newspaper. In 2010, road deaths fell to their lowest point since records began in 1926, while the number of pedestrians killed was 60% lower than the 1994-98 average.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

How is that, exactly? I see copyrights as a government-enforced guarantee of fairness to the creator.

And fairness to the public. Do not forget that.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

Both represent coherent philisophical positions on the nature of copyright, and both sentiments have been expressed by a number of posters on this forum, not all of whom are crazy.

Excellent post.

To give the devil AKA your POV it's due, I am going to link to the best presentation of the let's-excuse-piracy POV that I have found:

File Sharing and Copyright

Do I agree? No, but it certainly is a serious position difficult to refute.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The data would seem to disagree with you. Eg, see this article published in the Guardian newspaper. In 2010, road deaths fell to their lowest point since records began in 1926, while the number of pedestrians killed was 60% lower than the 1994-98 average.

What new safety devices were fitted to cars in 2010?

http://www.oocities.org/galwaycyclis...seatbelts.html