Court Rules That File-Sharing Service Infringed Copyrights

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by Iphinome

If I'm wrong I'll offer an apology but what I keep seeing form him is money money money when copyright that fails to expand the public domain defeats the purpose of offering protection.

Wanting to be paid for ones creative work is entirely different to being against fair use, is different from ignoring all aspects of copyright that "don't put money in your pockets" and is different from having no respect for copyright. All things you have accused Mr Jordan of.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[kennyc]

Take for example the original topic and story in this thread.

[Iphinome]

Being in favor of life+ copyrights means having no respect for copyright. If something lasts longer than a human lifetime it can hardly be considered limited in the view anyone alive at that time. Having any support for DRM means having no respect for fair use, DRM prevents fair use copies. Suggesting that having access to something by paying for it is a substitute for having access to something in the public domain means having no respect for public domain, it means seeing it as nothing but free as in beer content instead of the free as in libre content that it is. The public domain can not only be freely views and distributed it can be expanded on, redacted, remashed, remixed, folded, spindled, mutilated, transformed, shifted, printed on a grain of rice, baked into a cake, remastered, changed into space opera changed into soap opera changed into operetta, crossovers, color changes, played backwards, used to inspire song and sculpture, incorporated into a downfall parody, translated to other languages, preformed in klingon or even fed to a grue. People who hold copyrights can place limits on those actions. When things enter the public domain there's more for everyone to draw on for the next art the next invention, Human knowledge expands, there is sunshine and rainbows and I finally get that pony I asked Santa for when I was 9.

[Dusty Bottoms]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I don't want T-shirts and fridge magnets with the author's name on it. I want to read a book. You might as well charge me for the book, because if you depend on my buying a lot of kitschy c**p instead of paying for the book, you won't get a dime.



There really isn't much else to say, is there? You don't believe the world operates on capital.

Many of us say you're wrong. Even those who say you are right mostly work for a living and pay for their food and rent, thereby proving you wrong.

Until you create a world where everyone gets everything for free, your idea of giving away creative works for free is simply unworkable.

Face it. Or die.

It's not really about what you want, because frankly the individual author going it alone is a dying market as are all those who pony up for digital product at the get go. It's about what will sell and what is acceptable in market. It's about community and branding and all that other marketing research that you have to acknowledge if you want to sell. If the market is trending towards free with ancillary or extended products for profit, then you don't just ignore that market because it's not what you expect. Capitalism works, largely, on perceptions. You NEED this useless product because it does A, B, C even if it doesn't do A, B, C. It's also highly influenced by societal trends, hence the rolling success of terrible writers who have a good PR campaign behind them. Monetary value is gauged by what the market will bare, but when the market is digital, you have to play the game a little differently.

Most of the big websites work on the 5% rule. They give away a free version of their service and charge a premium for the premium service. They work on the theory that 5% of their audience will pay the premium. That 5% then covers the running costs for the rest of the site and the free versions for everyone else. Flickr famously works under this model.

So, back to economics, if supply is infinite (or perceived as infinite) then you have to find a way to restrict supply to add value, or extend value to increase demand. The companies thought DRM would create this artificial restriction of supply and creation of value, but it did not, because digital can't be artificially restricted. The internet as an entity, routes around any blocks such as DRM and sees them as the infection they are. So you're left with a choice in a capitalist economy, if your main product has a zero perceived value, is abundant and does not conform to the old supply side economic model, what to do?

The only sensible model that's been espoused is that created recently by indie game developers, albeit slightly modified for the book world.

First you need to build community, then to keep that community you need to add value that sharing can't add (but I believe that sharing is the best thing for any writer or any creative who wants to gain an audience). You need to have something that drives the economics. Partly, it's good will. I like this author because he writes what I like, he doesn't have DRM, he gives his stuff away for free etc so I want to support this author. It's here where you really grab people economically, in the willing-to-pay to support the endeavour. But not through donations, because there will always be a taint associated, a block that associates donation with charity and no author wants to be a charity case. So you extend, you diversify in reaction to the burgeoning markets and societal attitudes. You provide extended extras on the pay versions, you provide t-shirts and ancillary products like plushys or personalised commissioned short stories as ways for people to support you. You give the extra-value to what has essentially become valueless (the digital product). You give that extra to the communities that you build but all the while you keep your basic product (the stories) free and available to all - and you're right this isn't just economics for me, but a belief that Reading is a Right, not some by-product of the profit motive. To that end I like the idea that after X amount of time or X amount of money made in sales on a book that the book is given back to the Public Domain where it can do most benefit for all, even if that all means someone else profiting.

Anybody can write, and anybody can sell that writing on-line now. It's those that extend, those that adapt and create community and involvement that will truly flourish. If it's just about making money, you can write copy for Viagra companies about wang solidity that will pay more and take less time and effort.

Adapt. Believe. Flourish.

tl:dr How to sell a cow even though the milk is free.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by kennyc

No, but laws and enforcement will.

They haven't so far. You could create extra new laws that will take away more civil liberties, but at best you will just push it back underground where it was 10 years ago, with the result that most people will just go back to paying for pirate content on CDR. But then of course you will lose out on the money they were paying for legitimate content. And none of those liberties you gave up to achieve this will ever be coming back ...

[mr ploppy]

There is a writer who will write you into one of his stories and have you killed in an interesting way for a fee. (in the story, not in real life). There are all sorts of ways you can supplement your writing income once you get over your "the sky is falling" attitude and start to think about solutions.

[Dusty Bottoms]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

There is a writer who will write you into one of his stories and have you killed in an interesting way for a fee. (in the story, not in real life). There are all sorts of ways you can supplement your writing income once you get over your "the sky is falling" attitude and start to think about solutions.

Exactly, it's these interesting ways to involve audience that will gain you audience. You can't just offer your stuff for free or for sale any longer without something behind it. Resisting the audience, punishing them and calling them criminals is about as useful as tying a brick to a duck and seeing if the duck can still fly.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Dusty Bottoms

Resisting the audience, punishing them and calling them criminals is about as useful as tying a brick to a duck and seeing if the duck can still fly.

I'd say the same about painting creators as greedy anti-society opportunists.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

They haven't so far.

Laws and security aren't static. They are invented, developed, and refined. Most of them come about when the majority of society agrees that it is not only for the good of all to develop the security, but it is for the good of all to accept and adhere to it. That's why there are locks on doors and trespassing laws, which act together in a hybrid system to provide protection and establish punishment for violation.

Today's realities are pushing us towards biometric security, as identity theft becomes more common and more serious... eventually, the public will almost certainly find itself demanding the use of biometric security, to protect lives and property that cannot be kept secure in any other way.

There will always be those who oppose such increases in security (especially scofflaws). But as the methods are put in use and prove their worth in the preservation of lives and property, even most of those who opposed the security will grudgingly accept it in time. Eventually, no one will even remember what life was like before that.

Don't believe it? Open a history book... there are many examples of that happening in most every society. And it is a LOT more likely than a future in which no one works for a living, everything is free and there is plenty for all. Anyone who denies it is essentially denying real, basic, demonstrated human nature, which is the cornerstone of modern society.

The internet may provide for a number of changes to society, especially in terms of communications. But it has not changed basic human nature, nor will it in the foreseeable future. We are no more around the corner from Utopia than we are from growing organs in our elbows that will allow us to take our astral bodies to the nineteenth dimension.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Laws and security aren't static. They are invented, developed, and refined. Most of them come about when the majority of society agrees that it is not only for the good of all to develop the security, but it is for the good of all to accept and adhere to it.

Give it enough time and the majority will expect digital content to be free at the point of consumption. You have already allowed a whole generation to grow up thinking that way, and there will come a time when that generation is in control.

According to the entertainment industry's own figures, there are 7 million active downloaders in the Uk, out of a total population of 60 million. I don't know what the percentage of UK internet users is, but even if you assume every single UK citizen is online (they are not), that's more than 10% of them downloading. A pretty big minority that is only ever going to get bigger.

[Dusty Bottoms]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Laws and security aren't static. They are invented, developed, and refined. Most of them come about when the majority of society agrees that it is not only for the good of all to develop the security, but it is for the good of all to accept and adhere to it. That's why there are locks on doors and trespassing laws, which act together in a hybrid system to provide protection and establish punishment for violation.

Today's realities are pushing us towards biometric security, as identity theft becomes more common and more serious... eventually, the public will almost certainly find itself demanding the use of biometric security, to protect lives and property that cannot be kept secure in any other way.

There will always be those who oppose such increases in security (especially scofflaws). But as the methods are put in use and prove their worth in the preservation of lives and property, even most of those who opposed the security will grudgingly accept it in time. Eventually, no one will even remember what life was like before that.

Don't believe it? Open a history book... there are many examples of that happening in most every society. And it is a LOT more likely than a future in which no one works for a living, everything is free and there is plenty for all. Anyone who denies it is essentially denying real, basic, demonstrated human nature, which is the cornerstone of modern society.

The internet may provide for a number of changes to society, especially in terms of communications. But it has not changed basic human nature, nor will it in the foreseeable future. We are no more around the corner from Utopia than we are from growing organs in our elbows that will allow us to take our astral bodies to the nineteenth dimension.

This isn't about Utopia, but it is about human nature as you point out. Guess what? One of our basic human, and even animal instincts, is to share. To share with or without thought of monetary recompense (money is an invention after all). Some share to gain something in return, others because they want to pass on what they have and see it live on, but we all share from a very young age, and this behaviour is encouraged to keep us civilized. If you take sharing out of society, then every single episode of Sesame Street would make no sense.

The internet is an extension of that sharing, and as already been noted, the internet treats any attempts to stem the flow of information as a disease and quickly routes around the attempt. History, although pointing us toward general 'real world' trends has few to no examples that would point toward what the internet and digital are doing to society now - it truly is unprecedented.

Further, it's disingenuous to suggest that attempts to merge societal and copyright concerns with experimentations in a more fluid economic model are somehow pointing toward a world without money, or even a desire to live in that world (I'd argue that we're heading toward a world where capitalism fails, but that's another discussion). What I find most disturbing is the allusion toward extra-security being 'acceptable' and that those who oppose draconian and IMHO unworkable security models are somehow 'scofflaws'. Again, none of these allusions or analogies work, because the comparison of 'real' to 'virtual' stands upon shaky ground to begin with.

Utopia can't exist. But working toward a more equitable system and in tandem with others is not ignoble or even impracticable. Genies don't go back in bottles. People won't stop sharing. And the economics of the digital bare little resemblance to those of the analog age.

[perversity]

Originally Posted by Iphinome

Being in favor of life+ copyrights means having no respect for copyright. If something lasts longer than a human lifetime it can hardly be considered limited in the view anyone alive at that time. Having any support for DRM means having no respect for fair use, DRM prevents fair use copies. Suggesting that having access to something by paying for it is a substitute for having access to something in the public domain means having no respect for public domain, it means seeing it as nothing but free as in beer content instead of the free as in libre content that it is. The public domain can not only be freely views and distributed it can be expanded on, redacted, remashed, remixed, folded, spindled, mutilated, transformed, shifted, printed on a grain of rice, baked into a cake, remastered, changed into space opera changed into soap opera changed into operetta, crossovers, color changes, played backwards, used to inspire song and sculpture, incorporated into a downfall parody, translated to other languages, preformed in klingon or even fed to a grue. People who hold copyrights can place limits on those actions. When things enter the public domain there's more for everyone to draw on for the next art the next invention, Human knowledge expands, there is sunshine and rainbows and I finally get that pony I asked Santa for when I was 9.

Your arguments against copryright are my reason for copyright

[perversity]

How strange this has gotten, I never would have labeled writers, artists, actors, musicians and the like as greedy capitolists. I always thought it was the big bankers, CEO's, stock-traders...
Just goes to show what I know

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Dusty Bottoms

This isn't about Utopia, but it is about human nature as you point out. Guess what? One of our basic human, and even animal instincts, is to share... If you take sharing out of society, then every single episode of Sesame Street would make no sense.

Guess what? The world isn't Sesame Street. There isn't enough of everything to go around. Sharing doesn't work when there are too many people, and not enough supplies. That's why there is commerce, and money, and property, and society... a collective of people agreeing to a system that manages what they have as fairly as possible.

That's why creators often need financial incentives to create, instead of simply plugging away at their day jobs and creating nothing at all. That's why copyright laws are in existence... they address a basic fact of practical, real life. I'm not saying that social or financial experimentation isn't worth trying, or might not succeed. I'm simply pointing out the stark reality, like it or not, of where our last few millennia of social and financial experimentation, when set alongside human nature, has gotten us.

You mention that Genies don't go back in bottles. I agree: You're trying to suggest that some basic tenets of society and human nature will somehow reverse themselves and go away, thanks to modern technology; and I say that despite our technology, people haven't changed significantly in a few hundred thousand years, and the basic laws of society haven't changed in over 5,000 years.

The economics of the digital age are certainly different, but not that different. And society has demands that sometimes outweigh what is possible, forcing it to adhere to what is practical. It is that practicality which is at issue here: The practicality of making sure creators create, and are treated fairly when they do, so society can enjoy the fruits of their labors. It takes more than simply saying we'll do it... we have to put laws in place to guarantee it, since we know that without those laws, creators are taken advantage of (a historical fact).

And since those laws have been enacted, we have seen greater innovation, cooperation and development than at any other point in history. I take that as clear and indisputable proof of a system that works.

So, debate the finer points of copyright if you will. But the system does work. The digital realm will writhe like a released demon for some period of time, but eventually, it too will have to find its niche in the current system... and will introduce some adjustments to better fit its existence there... and again, one day we'll hardly be able to remember a period where anarchy ruled the Internet.

[Dusty Bottoms]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Guess what? The world isn't Sesame Street. There isn't enough of everything to go around. Sharing doesn't work when there are too many people, and not enough supplies. That's why there is commerce, and money, and property, and society... a collective of people agreeing to a system that manages what they have as fairly as possible.

The internet is boundless though, and if you'd cared to read what I actually wrote, does not conform to the supply side economics that we have in the analog world. There is no end to supplies, they are limitless and without end. Abundant. Post-scarce.

That's why creators often need financial incentives to create, instead of simply plugging away at their day jobs and creating nothing at all. That's why copyright laws are in existence... they address a basic fact of practical, real life. I'm not saying that social or financial experimentation isn't worth trying, or might not succeed. I'm simply pointing out the stark reality, like it or not, of where our last few millennia of social and financial experimentation, when set alongside human nature, has gotten us.

And I am saying that creators create in all kinds of economies for all kinds of reasons. When Solzhenitzyn wrote Cancer Ward or The Gulag Archipelgo, I would reckon the impetus wasn't 'putting food on the table' (horrible phrase) but because he had something to say and wanted to say it. People will create even if that means they are killed because of that creation. This low level, capitalistic drive that is far more prevalent in North America than anywhere else, is not universal. In Europe a lot of art and creativity is subsidsed or unpaid, local theater being only one example...art galleries etc. And again, as per what others have said in this thread, the copyright law we have now in it's abused and useless form, means nothing to the audience and even less to individual creators who cannot defend the copyright without access to expensive laywers.

You mention that Genies don't go back in bottles. I agree: You're trying to suggest that some basic tenets of society and human nature will somehow reverse themselves and go away, thanks to modern technology; and I say that despite our technology, people haven't changed significantly in a few hundred thousand years, and the basic laws of society haven't changed in over 5,000 years.

I'd suggest you look at what is happening, not what you think is happening. Technology has enhanced our interaction, removed barriers to sharing, encouraged co-operation, knowledge and the sharing of that knowledge across the board. We have changed drastically over 5,000 years, and our interactions with the internet are evolving rapidly into realms as yet uncharted by human history. There is no precedence (apart from, maybe, the Anarchistic communes in the Spain of the 1930's, but done on virtual, and ever expansive 'land' called the internet).

The economics of the digital age are certainly different, but not that different. And society has demands that sometimes outweigh what is possible, forcing it to adhere to what is practical. It is that practicality which is at issue here: The practicality of making sure creators create, and are treated fairly when they do, so society can enjoy the fruits of their labors. It takes more than simply saying we'll do it... we have to put laws in place to guarantee it, since we know that without those laws, creators are taken advantage of (a historical fact).

No, we are seeing a fundamental shift in economics in the digital era. From scarcity to post scarcity. When the supply side of the economic equation is removed, then the suggested Economic laws of supply and demand no longer works as it should. The markets we see now are building on good will and community.

Again we come to the why of creation. Everyone creates. Everyone, there is no exception to this. The onus is on you as a creator to monetize that creation, not society, and certainly not through the inclusion of intrusive laws that restrict freedoms. Laws, may I add, that the internet will merely circumnavigate and ignore.


And if you think copyright laws somehow protect the abuse of creators, then I'm not sure what to tell you. Every mainstream publisher abuses creators at a level that would get them investigate almost everywhere else. 5-10% after a paltry advance, come on. Copyright has done nothing for creators in teh last fifty years and everything for corporations. Pre-digital age you might have had a chance, but not much of one. In the digital age, copyright is just smoke and mirrors.

And since those laws have been enacted, we have seen greater innovation, cooperation and development than at any other point in history. I take that as clear and indisputable proof of a system that works.

So, debate the finer points of copyright if you will. But the system does work. The digital realm will writhe like a released demon for some period of time, but eventually, it too will have to find its niche in the current system... and will introduce some adjustments to better fit its existence there... and again, one day we'll hardly be able to remember a period where anarchy ruled the Internet.

The system works in an analog world, and then only if you accept some of its more glaring faults. In a digital world it has to change, as does everything. We're at the stage now where everything is free or near to free if you want it to be. There is no precedence for this, none at all. The way in which you react, adapt, will chart the future.