Copyright is Out of Sight

[elcreative]

and I have looked at what the OP said and that gets

Originally Posted by James_Wilde

snip...

The poster's presentation may sometimes be a little naive

...
snip
...

So start looking at what the OP is trying to say, and stop being rude.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Nada y Nadie

I believe you honestly think ending copyright is THE IDEA, but I hope someday you will gain the wisdom to realize it is just an idea.

Now it is time to put the idea into practice.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Now it is time to put the idea into practice.

And while we're at it let's do away with all property laws and make your house mine.

[carld]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

You would be better off looking for ways to turn it to your advantage.

I vote for convincing people that they don't have some magically invented right to steal his work.

[wyndslash]

i have to admit that after reading some of the other posts, an unreasonably-long copyright might seem unreasonable (redundant x.x) but at the same time, it is another person's work. and not just creative work, but work in order to get money for a living (we all do this, i'm sure, except for those still studying and retired). for me, showing that i respect the other person's work is by paying for it properly and not stealing it.

[Enlil.S.Enki]

While the original post was largely an unrealisable utopian dream. The majority of posts are all discussing a moral/ethical question as a legal one. We only have the ethos of not copying work because we are indoctrinated from birth with the law.

The law creates a market. Technology creates a way for the law to be easily and virtually undetectably circumvented. When the law can be circumvented and that circumvention goes largely undetected, we are back to ethics and morality. The law has failed. Our options are to enhance the law and strengthen the enforcement/detection capabilities of enforcers. Or to re-examine the situation from a moral perspective given what people will do anyway.

Consider a person lives in the third world, their average income is tiny by your rich first world standards, yet by local standards this person is well off. They save for a year and buy a second hand e-book reader on ebay. They can not buy e-books (even if they could afford them), because no one will sell them to them (their country is out of any supported zone). They can not afford to buy many printed books in their country, and the books they can buy are carefully censored by the repressive regime they live under. (It is the third world after all) Now it is illegal for this person to copy books, but they are left with two options (1, do not read many books or 2, read what they want, but it has to be pirated.)

The world is a better place if they opt for 2, even though they copied someone elses work. Morality wins over law, just because something is illegal does not mean it is wrong, the two concepts are not the same. Regardless of how you have been indoctrinated to think so.

As far as copyright goes in the first world, its far to extensive and over reaching, for something which in most cases amounts to effort only and not original thought. A Patent protects an original thought or invention and it has limited life beyond the date of invention. To get a valid patent the invention has to be novel, it has to never have been done before. It truly can be said to advance the human races collective knowledge in some area. Yet the copyright on a retelling of snow white will last for 70 years or more beyond the authors life. The system is screwed up, is designed to reap maximum returns for publishers, not writers. And is a method of controlling access to information for the poorest (the majority) of the earths peoples. E-books could allow massive and unprecedented amounts of information to reach anyone regardless of their wealth. Copyright in general and DRM in particular monetise information, which prevents this. "Oh, you can only afford to spend US$3 per year on books, sorry, you can only read 1 book every 3 years, the author needs a return, doncha know."

If you live in the USA and do one years work, you are entitled to on average earn $50,233.00. (*Wikipedia stat for 2006). If an author takes a year to write a book, and works 40 hours a week doing it, they should expect to earn the same from selling that book. Its the same amount of endeavour. One author who earns US$23 million for a years work is by that standard over paid. Everyone else needs to work for 457 years to achieve the same result. That author has not put in 457 times the effort of the average american in the same year. Yet few authors are that fortunate, it would be better for the human race, to pay many many authors a reasonable yearly income than pay one a huge amount, and others next to nothing.

E-Book Piracy will not be stopped. It is only growing, and for many of the earths people it is an arguably necessary evil. Ignoring it, or saying, "what about copyright" does not address the problem, the problem can only be addressed by considering, regardless of what's been done before, what should we do now, to sufficiently protect the interests of authors and editors so they keep creating, and to protect the interests of the human race at large so it can keep advancing and improving itself by ready access to information. I don't count the publisher in there, because in an e-book world they are a parasite, not useful part of the process.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Enlil.S.Enki

While the original post was largely an unrealisable utopian dream. The majority of posts are all discussing a moral/ethical question as a legal one. We only have the ethos of not copying work because we are indoctrinated from birth with the law.

The law creates a market. Technology creates a way for the law to be easily and virtually undetectably circumvented. When the law can be circumvented and that circumvention goes largely undetected, we are back to ethics and morality. The law has failed. Our options are to enhance the law and strengthen the enforcement/detection capabilities of enforcers. Or to re-examine the situation from a moral perspective given what people will do anyway.

Consider a person lives in the third world, their average income is tiny by your rich first world standards, yet by local standards this person is well off. They save for a year and buy a second hand e-book reader on ebay. They can not buy e-books (even if they could afford them), because no one will sell them to them (their country is out of any supported zone). They can not afford to buy many printed books in their country, and the books they can buy are carefully censored by the repressive regime they live under. (It is the third world after all) Now it is illegal for this person to copy books, but they are left with two options (1, do not read many books or 2, read what they want, but it has to be pirated.)

The world is a better place if they opt for 2, even though they copied someone elses work. Morality wins over law, just because something is illegal does not mean it is wrong, the two concepts are not the same. Regardless of how you have been indoctrinated to think so.

As far as copyright goes in the first world, its far to extensive and over reaching, for something which in most cases amounts to effort only and not original thought. A Patent protects an original thought or invention and it has limited life beyond the date of invention. To get a valid patent the invention has to be novel, it has to never have been done before. It truly can be said to advance the human races collective knowledge in some area. Yet the copyright on a retelling of snow white will last for 70 years or more beyond the authors life. The system is screwed up, is designed to reap maximum returns for publishers, not writers. And is a method of controlling access to information for the poorest (the majority) of the earths peoples. E-books could allow massive and unprecedented amounts of information to reach anyone regardless of their wealth. Copyright in general and DRM in particular monetise information, which prevents this. "Oh, you can only afford to spend US$3 per year on books, sorry, you can only read 1 book every 3 years, the author needs a return, doncha know."

If you live in the USA and do one years work, you are entitled to on average earn $50,233.00. (*Wikipedia stat for 2006). If an author takes a year to write a book, and works 40 hours a week doing it, they should expect to earn the same from selling that book. Its the same amount of endeavour. One author who earns US$23 million for a years work is by that standard over paid. Everyone else needs to work for 457 years to achieve the same result. That author has not put in 457 times the effort of the average american in the same year. Yet few authors are that fortunate, it would be better for the human race, to pay many many authors a reasonable yearly income than pay one a huge amount, and others next to nothing.

E-Book Piracy will not be stopped. It is only growing, and for many of the earths people it is an arguably necessary evil. Ignoring it, or saying, "what about copyright" does not address the problem, the problem can only be addressed by considering, regardless of what's been done before, what should we do now, to sufficiently protect the interests of authors and editors so they keep creating, and to protect the interests of the human race at large so it can keep advancing and improving itself by ready access to information. I don't count the publisher in there, because in an e-book world they are a parasite, not useful part of the process.

Those in the third world who have access to computers and the internet -- even if it is via pay-by-the-hour internet cafes and similar shops -- and then can afford to buy a device to download to and read the books on, are not the ones who are really poor.

[Enlil.S.Enki]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Those in the third world who have access to computers and the internet -- even if it is via pay-by-the-hour internet cafes and similar shops -- and then can afford to buy a device to download to and read the books on, are not the ones who are really poor.

I did say: "Consider a person lives in the third world, their average income is tiny by your rich first world standards, yet by local standards this person is well off."

Yet the ethics of the situation dont change. Someone who is poor by your standard is rich by someone elses, and might be able to afford to read e-books, which are much more affordable then printed books. Just because they can do that does not mean they can afford to pay for books in the quantity that you can. Or is the suggestion that if you are poor, your access to information should be artificially limited. Further, as I pointed out, e-book publishing territorial restrictions of legitimate books, disenfranchise large portions of the earth and prevent those people from accessing that information, even if they have the money. You cant complain people don't buy your book when you refuse to sell it to them.

[silasgreenback]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And while we're at it let's do away with all property laws and make your house mine.

...and naturally, men will marry goats next.

[spellbanisher]

I believe in the importance of copyright, but I also think most people have a perverse notion of what is copyright and intellectual property.

First, intellectual property is not the same as physical property; physical property is scarce and rivalrous, whereas intellectual property is not. Physical property, such as land or money, cannot be produced. Money can be printed, but the more money there is in circulation the less value each piece of currency has, so one could say that the total value of a currency cannot be produced. The same can be said for land, which obviously cannot be produced. This means that the more land I own the less land there is for everyone else. Land and money are also rivalrous, meaning that if I use them for one thing i cannot use it for another. Intellectual property has no such constraints, so it does not entail the same rights as physical property.

Second, for those in the U.S., the founding fathers didn't treat IP the same as physical property. The constitution gives congress the power to grant authors and inventors exclusive rights over their works "for limited times only." The purpose of the copyright clause was not to ensure property rights, but to encourage the creation and dissemination of information. The exclusive right over works encourages creation by giving authors monetary incentive to create, and the limited duration of the copyright ensures that the work will eventually fall into the public domain, where it can more easily and cheaply be distributed. The U.S. government has never recognized property as entailing absolute rights, and I'm sure the same can be said for other countries. For instance, the principle of eminent domain gives the government the power to seize private lands for public benefit.

Finally, i do not see the logic in saying that descendants have the right to control and profit from the ips of their parents or grandparents. Taking physical property requires force; reproducing an ip deprives the descendant of nothing but control over the ip. Physical property also requires some sort of investment to maintain it, whereas ip does not. If i inherit land, I have to do something with that land to get benefits out of it. Otherwise, the land becomes a liability either because of taxes, the need to maintain it, or the need to protect it from trespassers. The same can be said of money. If I inherit money and do not invest it, I will eventually spend all the money. With physical property, the inheritor must add value or the inheritance becomes a liability. Inheriting an IP requires no investment. If the IP has no monetary value, then it is being withheld from the public which possibly could reimagine or revise the IP. If it still has monetary value, then its just free money for the inheritor. My overall point is that most of our rights exist not because of some eternal truth, but because recognizing these rights is in the best interest of society.

As far as the duration of copyright, I cannot say how long it should be. In principle I am opposed to the sonny-bonno act because of the corruption it represents. This law was not passed for the good of the public or the economy or the creators; it was passed at the behest of major entertainment corporations by their paid-for politicians. The current copyright regime is antidemocratic in nature, but I do not believe that it will lead to the fall of civilization. Pop music and reality tv will do that.

Finally, I know that half the people who see this post will not read of all it; instead these high and mighty oh so wise and righteous folk who have everything and everyone else figured out because they've had to pay a few bills in their life will assume I'm just some pimply-faced unemployed teenager living in his parents basement who just wants free stuff. Its surprising. I thought there was less snark and smugness at Mobileread.

Here are some links for those who want to know where I stole my ideas.

http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/958
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Eldred...Dissent_Breyer

[Namekuseijin]

I think knowledge ought to be free, even when the result of years of intense funded research.

That's not the case for art, though. No one funds art, art is not useful to anyone: "All art is quite useless", as Oscar Wilde promptly noticed. Artists make a living from selling their dreams. Why is it ok for a baker to sell something you can do youself in your cheap hitech kitchen but it is not ok for an artist to sell something you can cheaply copy in your hitech home?

Why is it ok to pay to feed the body but it is not ok to pay to feed the soul?

[Namekuseijin]

Spot on, spellbanisher. And yes, I read it all.

[spellbanisher]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

I think knowledge ought to be free, even when the result of years of intense funded research.

That's not the case for art, though. No one funds art, art is not useful to anyone: "All art is quite useless", as Oscar Wilde promptly noticed. Artists make a living from selling their dreams. Why is it ok for a baker to sell something you can do youself in your cheap hitech kitchen but it is not ok for an artist to sell something you can cheaply copy in your hitech home?

Why is it ok to pay to feed the body but it is not ok to pay to feed the soul?

If the acquisition or creation of some knowledge requires years of intensely funded research, it is not free.

And just because Oscar Wilde says art is useless doesn't make it useless. To know the usefulness of art, we must first consult Shakespeare. If he has no answer, then we must consult Plato. After him, Aristotle, then Tolstoy, then the Beatles, then Bob Dylan, then Dr. Seuss. I don't know exactly where Wilde falls in the hierarchy of western culture, but he's definitely not ahead of the aforementioned men.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by Enlil.S.Enki

While the original post was largely an unrealisable utopian dream.

and yours is not? Let's see...

The majority of posts are all discussing a moral/ethical question as a legal one. We only have the ethos of not copying work because we are indoctrinated from birth with the law.

Wrong: it just turns out I believe it's ok to tip the author of a work of art for a job well done. I have moral in sight, not the law.

The law creates a market. Technology creates a way for the law to be easily and virtually undetectably circumvented. When the law can be circumvented and that circumvention goes largely undetected, we are back to ethics and morality. The law has failed. Our options are to enhance the law and strengthen the enforcement/detection capabilities of enforcers. Or to re-examine the situation from a moral perspective given what people will do anyway.

All very true. Keep going.

Consider a person lives in the third world, their average income is tiny by your rich first world standards, yet by local standards this person is well off. They save for a year and buy a second hand e-book reader on ebay. They can not buy e-books (even if they could afford them), because no one will sell them to them (their country is out of any supported zone). They can not afford to buy many printed books in their country, and the books they can buy are carefully censored by the repressive regime they live under. (It is the third world after all) Now it is illegal for this person to copy books, but they are left with two options (1, do not read many books or 2, read what they want, but it has to be pirated.)

wrong, wrong, wrong...

I'm brazilian, a third world country, no dictator nor repressive regime censoring information, heavy fees for imported hi-tech goodies, though. I've got a new smartphone. I believe I can buy ebooks from Amazon (not tried yet). I'm not the average low wage brazilian, though.

Here's the thing though: it's not related to money. I can say that because while I'm used to pay for my books, music or dvds, it's common practice here to copy or pay for cheap copies. My co-workers do it, my family members do it. Heck, president Lula was caught watching a private session of pirated copy of a national movie!

It's part of a culture. A culture that understands that digital copying is not theft and that artists are slaves for their pleasure. Why make a living when you can have the opportunity to entertain us for free, huh?

Best thing I've read about the phonomenon came from a girl in a forum about ebooks:

"The book thief" I downloaded from 4shared.

This is an actual quote and how fitting...

The world is a better place if they opt for 2, even though they copied someone elses work. Morality wins over law

Does it occur to you that your morality only works for consumers, not producers? It's ok as long as it rocks your bed, right?

just because something is illegal does not mean it is wrong, the two concepts are not the same. Regardless of how you have been indoctrinated to think so.

Or how you begin to value other people's work after you begin to get a wage.

Yet the copyright on a retelling of snow white will last for 70 years or more beyond the authors life.

Absurd copyright lifetimes are really, well, absurd. Yet you may wish the original tale if you find the retelling is not worth it.

The system is screwed up, is designed to reap maximum returns for publishers, not writers.

so, because it is unfair let's be unfair to authors, right? Like as if they are not screwed enough by publishers, let's screw them a bit more by handing pirates the money rather than authors... Sublime thought process at display here...

And is a method of controlling access to information for the poorest (the majority) of the earths peoples.

it's not information, just useless art. And the poor peoples are just a bunch of losers who think they got the right to be happy for free. Well, they certainly can have that, but it seems sunsets at the beach or sex is not enough. Their souls hunger for more and yet they deny soul bakers the money for their works...

If you live in the USA and do one years work, you are entitled to on average earn $50,233.00. (*Wikipedia stat for 2006). If an author takes a year to write a book, and works 40 hours a week doing it, they should expect to earn the same from selling that book. Its the same amount of endeavour. One author who earns US$23 million for a years work is by that standard over paid. Everyone else needs to work for 457 years to achieve the same result. That author has not put in 457 times the effort of the average american in the same year. Yet few authors are that fortunate, it would be better for the human race, to pay many many authors a reasonable yearly income than pay one a huge amount, and others next to nothing.

So, in the end it's all about this: a whinning comunist discourse mixed with no wage teen angst. Brilliant, dude.

If you think a work of art doesn't deserve your appreciation and that the author is an overpaid bastard you can simply not pay for it. And if you pirate it you're a lying bastard for dissing it as an excuse to be able to enjoy it for free. And it's your problem alone to be lying like that to yourself.

And if you think all men are equal and other comunist bs, you can do it better and work an year on an ebook, put it for free in some p2p and then come back here to tell how you've shown the world how overrated and creativeless Stephen King bastard is...

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

If the acquisition or creation of some knowledge requires years of intensely funded research, it is not free.

Bingo! It's still free to a teen not aware that their parents pay for it.

And just because Oscar Wilde says art is useless doesn't make it useless. To know the usefulness of art, we must first consult Shakespeare. If he has no answer, then we must consult Plato. After him, Aristotle, then Tolstoy, then the Beatles, then Bob Dylan, then Dr. Seuss. I don't know exactly where Wilde falls in the hierarchy of western culture, but he's definitely not ahead of the aforementioned men.

well, I'm pretty sure Dr. Seuss, Plato and company would agree with Wilde: art does not build your house, does not provide you shelter, does not make you coffee. Heck, some years ahead it'll not even make you money, if you're an author.

Pretty useless thing, aside from soothing the soul...