SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Australian Communications Minister is proposing "game changing" laws crack down on Piracy by forcing search engines such as Google to filter content results thereby removing the path people have to finding illegal content online.
[...] Under the proposed laws to be introduced to Parliament today, authorities will also be able to force search engines like Google to stop "unashamedly facilitating crime" by promoting pirate sites that allow internet users to illegally download music or films.
Graham Burke, chief executive of Australian film company Village Roadshow, last night hailed the new laws as game-changing for the industry while slamming Google for acting "as evil as Big Tobacco" in its online behaviour.
"We stand ready to be co-operative with Google. We see good Google and bad Google. But bad Google is as evil as Big Tobacco was 30 years ago. They know what they're doing. They know they're facilitating and enabling crime and it's time for them to clean their act up," he told News Corp.
He accused Google of "unashamedly facilitating crime" by taking people to criminal pirate websites.
Does the Australian government really need to give weapons to special interest groups to enforce civil laws the majority of people do not support?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @01:20PM (63 children)
Not trolling, simply stating a fact. As someone who "creates" I certainly don't want people taking my work without paying for it. My time has value - at least as much as anyone else's time - and being compensated for my work is not unreasonable.
Do you think it's OK for someone to take "something of value"* without paying for it? Would you accept "you're not getting paid for today because the customer wanted our product/service but didn't want to pay for it, so I can't pay you."?
* They value it enough to want it, and find it useful, so it does have value at least to them whether you think it has value or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @01:33PM (48 children)
Your time has value only when others deem it worthy to pay you. If you cannot sell your product, whatever it is, you are doing it wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @01:38PM (44 children)
I certainly can and do sell my product (I make a pretty good living, TYVM). But there are those who simply don't want to pay for something because they feel entitled to get it for free. The "I'm only copying it and not preventing someone else from buying it, so it's OK for me to take it without paying" mindset.
Should someone who values my "product" enough to want it and use it, but does not value my time enough to pay for my "product", get it for free?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Friday October 19 2018, @01:53PM (28 children)
That depends on exactly what your "product" is.
Obviously in regards to physical manufactured products this isn't a problem - even though, in a sense, it does happen. I mean, eventually virtually every sort of product winds up in the dump, and people do go dumpster diving and grab all kinds of cool stuff for free. But the creator doesn't (or at least shouldn't) care - the revenue was extracted at first sale and nothing more is expected or due.
In the case of more abstract products, however, this is often exactly what happens - and what has to happen. For instance in music, for many decades the accepted mark of success is the recording artist. When a musician has not reached that point yet, you would actually have to go somewhere and typically pay an entrance fee just to hear them. And you would record them - in your own head, if nowhere else, but many people brought recorders, and many bands would obligingly arrange plugs so they could record the PA feed. These recordings were not seen as theft, or as undesirable or problematic, they were promotion, they were how you would remember the band, remember to come see them the next time they were in your area.
Then you cross that boundary and you're a 'recording artist' and now people only have to turn on the radio to hear your song, and to copy it. And now you're making royalties per sale - giving you an incentive to change your attitude, to start trying to STOP people from copying your song, wanting to force them to buy the pressed copy instead at a premium price. And a few people instantly change attitude - Metallica I'm looking at you - but in my experience most 'creators' did not. Royalties don't usually amount to much for an artist - the artists still needs to tour and play live to make their money. The record company makes most of the money on those pressed copies - and THEY are the ones that REALLY want to stop copying.
But should they be able to? Yes, we know they'd *like* a monopoly grant here, but is there a public interest in giving them one?
Just because you've built your business on an unsustainable model doesn't give you the right to up-end law and strip everyone else of their rights rather than changing your model.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday October 19 2018, @02:41PM (10 children)
Allowing people to record concerts is probably good marketing and helps get others who hear the recordings to buy an entrance fee to a live concert. In contrast, there are no bars hopping with people paying entrance fees to watch a piece of software, particularly business software, operate. So copying software doesn't achieve the same outcome as copying music.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @03:11PM
This has worked for many bands (I think the Grateful Dead are the epitome of this mindset).
This.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday October 19 2018, @03:51PM (5 children)
Historically, at least, it has worked very much the same. Microsoft dominance owes a great deal to how easy it was to 'pirate' their software. A whole generation entered the workforce knowing their software without training - because it was free and easy to get things like 'Office' at home and learn them there.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 19 2018, @04:41PM (4 children)
Does causation run in that direction? Is it possible people pirated Office because they were familiar with it from work? If "free" was the only consideration, OpenOffice should dominate everything -- not only is it free, it is permissibly free.
(Score: 4, Touché) by mhajicek on Friday October 19 2018, @04:53PM (1 child)
Where was Open Office in the 1980's when I was learning how to computer?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @05:35PM
It was at the afore mentioned Greatful Dead concert. The one with the 28 minute version of Amazing Grace.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday October 19 2018, @06:58PM (1 child)
The most common route to get a pirate copy was for it to be something you, or someone in your family, or extended family/circle of friends, worked with. So the fact that (for example) MS-DOS was widely used in business contributed to it being widely 'pirated' and then that in turn led to it being *even more* widely used in business as a generation of kids that grew up using pirated copies entered the workforce.
In terms of Office, specifically, it was WordPerfect that was most used, and most pirated; before that it was WordStar I think, but when MS started pushing their version one thing I remember very clearly was that they made it much easier to pirate than WP.
And that was actually a feat considering that WP had no copy protection whatsoever; indeed, like any decent program it encouraged you to keep backups of everything, including it! But what you really paid for when you bought WP was the manual. Ran about 600 pages iirc, oh and also the cardboard punchouts that you fit over the keyboard for a cheat-sheet. The program was for all practical purposes free as in beer - you paid for the documentation needed to really figure it all out.
Word wasn't nearly as functional, or elegant, or desirable in most ways. But it was fairly easy to get going without a manual and some cardboard cutouts. I'm hardly the first to suggest that the ease with which it was 'pirated' contributed to its rapid rise of popularity. IIRC internal Microsoft documents stating as much were leaked at some point in the mid-90s. They made a conscious decision to ignore the 'problem' for decades, in the expectation they would then be allowed to yank the leash and assert unprecedented control in the future, just as they are now doing.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Friday October 19 2018, @09:06PM
That is a quaint lost technology that anyone younger than gen-x will have no idea WTF it is.
To help the kiddies, now-a-days if you have modded minecraft usually F7 will display the light level overlay. But how to memorize that? In ye olden days games came with cardboard sheets that sat on your keyboard with holes for the keys, and the cardboard had a nice label for "light level overlay" roughly lining up with your F7 key, so you'd know at a glance to hit F7 while learning muscle memory. Some overlays had multiple colors, some games had multiple overlays for different modes OR different keyboards. It was a cool era and a cool technology.
I remember the one for Microprose Stealth Fighter simulator was particularly nice circa 1990.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday October 19 2018, @03:56PM (2 children)
Did you forget esports and Let's Plays? Or did you mean "particularly business software" to exclude esports and Let's Plays?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 19 2018, @04:38PM (1 child)
business software
There just might may be a small difference between watching people compete in a shoot'emup or tennis video game, and watching a script parse a mass of noisy data to produce a clean easily processed data set.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 19 2018, @09:07PM
I give up, they're both more fun if you're drunk?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @02:47PM (16 children)
I didn't build my business on an unsustainable model. People and companies want, and pay for, my product/service/whatever. How is me charging for my "product" stripping anyone of their rights?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday October 19 2018, @03:54PM (14 children)
Then you shouldn't be worried. The fact that you are, indicates that you have.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @04:35PM (13 children)
Apples and oranges. I am not "worried" about my business, I simply want people to pay for my "product" if they find it to be something they choose to use.
This isn't binary situation no matter how poorly you want to frame it.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Friday October 19 2018, @06:41PM (7 children)
Are are you saying you receive sufficient renumeration but it just bothers you that someone, somewhere, might be using what you made without paying you directly for the privilege?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @07:44PM (6 children)
Does it bother me that some may be using my "product" without compensating me for my work? Yes. Would it bother you if your employer (or customers/clients if you run your own business) did not pay you for your work? How often should you be expected to accept that happening before you think it was enough (or too much)? Would you put up with your boss skipping paying you an entire paycheck? More? Less?
Any work I give away for free (e.g., to charities) is mine to give away, as are the donations I give. If I do not donate my work I do not believe it is unreasonable for me to be paid for my work.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Friday October 19 2018, @07:54PM (2 children)
No, actually, as long as I receive sufficient renumeration for my work it doesn't bother me a bit that sometimes people who didn't directly contribute to that renumeration benefit from my work. To the contrary, I'd say it's a point of pride. Any time you make the world a better place, you benefit many people who did not and will not pay you squat. Many people who haven't been born yet, and who won't be born until after you die, if you're lucky! It's absurd to be bothered by that, petty and twisted.
"If I do not donate my work I do not believe it is unreasonable for me to be paid for my work. "
And again, no one has suggested otherwise in any way.
But you seem to have stipulated that you ARE being paid for your work, correct? "Sufficient renumeration." That's not the issue you say.
You seem to want to have your cake and eat it too.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @09:59PM (1 child)
That's a slick way of avoiding the question. If you work for a company, and sometimes they don't pay you for the hours you work, is that OK with you?
- If yes, how often will you accept that? A few hours per paycheck? Maybe a whole paycheck one in a while?
- If no, why not? And why should someone else not get paid for their work if it's not OK for you not to get paid for your work?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday October 20 2018, @02:53AM
How about this - my employer pays me just fine, but lots of people other than my employer make use of my work, those other people don't pay me a cent. Some of them don't even make an indirect financial contribution to me.
And that's just fine. I get paid for what I do. I don't expect to collect residuals in perpetuity on every job I ever did.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 19 2018, @09:15PM (1 child)
My ex-bosses haven't paid me for programming done since I quit working there, although I know they still use my software. They own the copyright so I only mean "my" in the sense that I wrote it, not that I own it. I don't really care, because I seem to have plenty of money...
No matter how much people don't like it, the future of "software like a book or vinyl record" will die out in favor of working on contract kinda like kickstarter or living off support contracts. Some biz models work, some don't, and no amount of legal support can keep a dead business model alive indefinitely.
I got a corporate overlord to donate money to a guy's patreon who wrote a FOSS library I used in a product that was license-compatible with a undistributed internal project I was working on; that's the future of the whole software dev world. How do you propose to "steal" this dude's FOSS library from him via google searches? He wants as many people as possible to download and use it for free, although he's making plenty of money semi-indirectly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @01:08AM
We seem to put up with court orders for jury duty.
Everyone else involved in the dispute is getting paid.
Except the juror. Which is compelled by order of the court.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday October 19 2018, @09:18PM
> Does it bother me that some may be using my "product" without compensating me for my work? Yes.
Then, libraries and used book and record stores bother you? Friends trading paperback books and listening to each other's CD and DVD collections, and playing on each other's computers, that bothers you too?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @06:41PM (1 child)
Everything you've said here indicates that this is a blatant lie. You expect people to believe that you're not worried about your business, but that you're merely worried about people not paying for your "product," which is directly related to your business. Okay.
You're playing word games, just like a typical copyright thug.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @07:48PM
Sorry that your feelings are hurt. It sounds like it is clouding your judgement.
I'm not playing word games. I'm simply being accurate and precise. This [soylentnews.org] should answer your assertions. If not, read it again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @06:43PM (2 children)
Your product is your performance, not the recording. The recording is advertisement. And if I have a copy, it is mine, and I have the right share or dispose of it as I see fit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @07:38PM (1 child)
Sorry, I'm not a musician. But thanks for playing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @09:22PM
Then you work for hire. Keep your ideas to yourself until someone pays.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @06:48AM
I don't want your "product".
Ewww.
If people are willing to pay you for your "product" then good on them.
Again. Ewww.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @02:06PM (12 children)
Yes, the "something" being copyright enforcement.
You are feeling perfectly entitled to steal out of taxes people pay, to fatten your wallet. Worse, the money allocated to "fighting illegal copying" is taken out of funds intended for protecting people from real criminals. Someone will get robbed, raped, or killed to indulge your greed. But it is A-OK by the likes of you.
See, everything in this world to be given to you has to be taken from someone else. When the cost to the society from the taking far exceeds the benefits to it from you being indulged, it is preferable that your "product" does not exist at all, and that you support yourself doing something less harmful.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 19 2018, @02:46PM (8 children)
Above post is part of the story. It falls short of pointing out that copyright infringement is a CIVIL MATTER, to be enforced by the copyright holder. Uncle Sam, or "The State", or "People" have no interest in copyright enforcement. The copyright holder is responsible for investigating, finding, and prosecuting civil infringements, not the police department, or any other branch or level of government.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday October 19 2018, @04:00PM (3 children)
Below a certain threshold, copyright infringement is indeed only a tort. Above that threshold, a single act can constitute both a tort and a crime. I don't know the Australian law, but in the United States, the threshold is $2,500.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 19 2018, @04:17PM (2 children)
Alright - and how many files are worth $2500? That woman who was prosecuted, and ordered to pay millions of dollars certainly didn't download or share $2500 worth of songs. Jamie, something or other - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Thomas-Rasset [wikipedia.org]
24 songs aren't worth $2500 bucks, to anybody, unless you happen to be selling the rights in their entirety.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @04:41PM (1 child)
The vulturous parasites that comprise the RIAA's legal teams cannot suffer enough. If a judge had asked them "So, is it your position that each song is worth more than you charge per hour?" they would have had to admit their inflationary tactics or commit perjury.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 19 2018, @04:49PM
RIAA should be outlawed on the basis of collusion. The various companies represented by RIAA are colluding in many different ways, basically to entrap people.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday October 19 2018, @05:54PM (3 children)
Well I agree with you in spirit.
Uncle Sam, or "The State", or "People" have no interest in copyright enforcement.
Unfortunately for us, this is in the constitution:
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
I say we dust off and repeal it from orbit. It's the only way to be safe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @07:51PM (2 children)
I think the strict interpretation of that part of I:8:8 is what is lacking.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday October 19 2018, @08:51PM (1 child)
Also, does "securing ... the exclusive Right" really "promote the Progress"? That assumption should not go unchallenged, and indeed it's been demonstrated many times that it is wrong, even backwards.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday October 20 2018, @03:42PM
Well, when the original copyright act was passed, back in 1710 or so, the idea was that by giving a limited monopoly would see more works go into the public domain, and therefore advance learning by having a large freely available public domain. (The original ACT was named something like an Act to promote learning, which the Americans changed to promoting the useful arts and sciences, which at the time covered most education).
If copyright terms were still a reasonable short time, I think it would still be true that people would be incentivized to produce works and a few years later those works would be public domain and others could build on them.
The problem is the reasonable time has been replaced with as long as possible and the original idea that everyone could benefit from the public domain has gone away. Look at Disney who routinely sues people for using the public domain because they can claim that the derivative works are being infringed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @03:05PM (2 children)
Huh? I don't take "steal" anything, and I certainly don't do business with any government agencies, so I am not on the receiving end of anyone's "taxes" (though I pay them a lot of my own).
Nice straw man you've got there, trying to equate me earning a living with depriving people of safety. I am not responsible for the poor performance of those in Congress. They rarely - if ever - vote my interests. And if enough funding is not being provided to fight violent crime then more money should be allocated. Let's cut back on the corporate welfare and fund things that actually help the people who live in our country.
There is more than one or two agencies "fighting crime", and each agency can certainly do more than one thing at a time. Also, just because things like fraud, money laundering, etc aren't violent crimes doesn't mean they should be ignored because it's funding that could go towards violent crime. There should be enough funding for all crime.
Nothing is "given" to me - not by you, not by the government and not by the world. I work hard, and have worked decades at improving my skills and my craft. Being in business, and selling my "product", doesn't take anything away from anyone. Any person or company that wants my "product" should pay for it, just as I am expected to pay for things I want/need/use/consume/whatever.
I'm doing something "harmful" because you don't want to pay for a product or service? All of this blather sure sounds like you think the world owes you everything and anyone who works or betters themselves make you look bad.
Still, you've said nothing addressing the basic question of why people or companies who want my "product" shouldn't pay for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @06:39PM (1 child)
Whether they should pay for your data or not is subjective. However, what is inconceivable to me is this idea that the government should prevent people from sharing certain data simply so some people can make more money and so maybe we'll see an increase in the amount of data deemed to be valuable. The ends don't justify the means.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @07:57PM
Isn't that how capitalism works?
Since you brought up data, is it OK for companies to share your data without your consent and without you being compensated?
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday October 19 2018, @04:04PM (1 child)
How much ought people to value a movie studio's time in having produced a movie over 70 years ago? Why should a single copy of Song of the South be worth 176.25 billion USD, the current market capitalization of The Walt Disney Company?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday October 19 2018, @09:41PM
Interesting that you choose Song of the South for an example ;)
(Score: 1) by Blymie on Friday October 19 2018, @01:42PM (2 children)
You know, I pirate daily. Literally daily.
Yet your arguments hold no water. You're trying to claim that piracy is only people downloading, that would not buy. What blather!
Endless, endless, ENDLESS people, including YOU, download to *save money*. To get something YOU VALUE, that the CREATOR values, but for FREE!
Not because you wouldn't pay, but because you don't have to.
To lie about this? Is just horse shit.
Some try to claim "Well, I wouldn't but it anyhow -- I don't have the money to!", yet these same people buy larger hard drives, faster internet connections, and then crone on about how they're "saving" money because they get content for free.
Here's the real deal. You enjoy something without paying, if the creator wants to be compensated? You're a *thief*. Period.
There are a variety of reasons to be a thief. Some even valid, mortally correct reasons!
But playing some bullshit game, where you pretend you wouldn't watch ANYTHING if you had to pay? Or listen to anything if you had to pay? Oh man, such delusion.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday October 19 2018, @04:00PM
It was no game for me. I would have watched music videos in the 1980s, had they been available. But they were only on MTV (Music TV), which was only available via cable TV, and that was expensive. What did I do about it? Simple. I didn't see them. I wasn't so into music that I was willing to pay cable TV rates.
Now, all these years later, I can watch pretty much whatever music video I want, whenever I want, thanks largely to YouTube. It's more than music. There were lots of shows on cable TV that I never saw. For me, it's been quite a bit of discovery. Ohh, that's the meme all my friends were talking about then. I never saw Beavis and Butthead, Kids in the Hall, or any number of movies they all saw. I didn't know what "crush your head" was all about, or "Bueller, Bueller", or the stuff from Rain Man, didn't know what they were talking about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @04:55PM
You seem so proud, I'm sure your family is too.
As for me, I don't download anything for free if the source charges for it. That includes music, movies, software, etc etc. I don't take something that is for sale without paying for it. It's as simple as that. If the freeware/OSS provider asks for a donation, and I use the software, I donate.
Spending money isn't a problem. Do I pay for terrestrial radio in my car? No, but I am bombarded with commercials. I do pay for satellite radio. I pay for every song I download, and every CD I get. Do I pay for TV? I certainly pay for the cable TV package and all the premium channels. I don't put a quarter (or a dollar) into the TV for every show I watch. I do pay for every on-demand or pay-per-view show. I pay for all my software (for each system it runs on), and every service I use. I pay for everything I use and have no qualms about it.
Your dream that everyone is a pirate so it's OK for you to be a pirate is just a fantasy.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Friday October 19 2018, @01:40PM (5 children)
Fair enough, I don't even much disagree with it from my own point of view, and even to the degree I do, you of course have a right to your own point of view.
"As someone who "creates" I certainly don't want people taking my work without paying for it"
I wouldn't want anyone *taking* my work without my consent. Paying me would be one way to get it - not the only way.
However you still don't seem to grasp that *copying* and *taking* are not the same thing!
But they are not. As long as you're talking about people *taking* things from you, the point is being evaded.
This isn't about *taking*, but about *copying.*
While *taking* without consent is something we can both agree is wrong - or at least that we don't want since that's how you phrased it - *copying* without consent isn't so clear cut at all. It can be flattering, it can be insulting, it can feel like a tribute or a rip off; most confusingly it can trigger several of those at the same time.
Of course, thinking of yourself in only a single role, as a 'creator' (presumably of something completely novel, in no way anticipated by or building on earlier works,) whose work is being "stolen" obviously you would want to be able to stop this.
But in few, if any, roles beyond that obviously unrealistic one would you still feel that way. As a realistic 'creator' who uses the cultural and intellectual heritage of the past in order to create the future, you might think it's very important that you be free to copy what you see and hear. As an artist of some sort you might realize that you could not have even learned your art without copying what had come before. And as a 'consumer' (which you surely are - everyone is - in areas outside of your creative work) of course you would expect that when you buy a copier, it makes copies.
So that one's much more complicated. You can make it simple by sticking your fingers in your ears and continuing to pretend we're talking about 'taking' but that's still not the case.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @05:31PM (4 children)
How presumptuous of you. This one is easy. For example "copying to make a backup" is not "taking". Copying a CD you own so you can have a copy in your car is not "taking". Copying a DVD for a road trip so the kids don't ruin it is not "taking". But copying someone else's images to use without licensing them is taking. Copying software so you don't have to pay for it is taking. Downloading a song or a movie because you don't want to pay for it is taking. The fact that the verb and the process are called "copying" in all of those examples doesn't mean they are all the same.
Though I agree with the "magpie philosophy" it is not germane to my situation.
Yet I do not use my copier to copy copyrighted works.
The "Steve Miller stole the lick from from Bad Company, who stole the lick from the Beatles" scenario is "much more complicated", yet not germane to me.
Your default response seems to be "you don't know the difference and are unable to grasp how complicated things are in the real world", which is ridiculously condescending. Hevean forbid that someone else might have thought something through beyond the low standards you attribute to them. It must be quite a burden to be so much smarter than everybody else.
To me it seems that you are sticking your fingers in your ears. You want to accuse anyone who wants to defend their work as not knowing the difference between "copying" and "taking" because that knee jerk reaction justifies your position (to you). But it's just you pretending that your view is the only valid position to take and no one with a brain in their head could conclude anything differently than you do. Of course, my opinion may be similar to someone else's, which means you may accuse me of copying it and not being cognizant of how that is possible.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @06:33PM (1 child)
It's certainly the only valid position in a free society. If you think the government should impede people copying data just so you and people like you can make more money, you are an authoritarian. And that is ultimately what you are arguing for, regardless of how you try to dress it up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @08:07PM
I think I should be paid for my work. That is my position, and it has not wavered. Does that make me an authoritarian?
Do you expect a paycheck from your boss every pay period? Why should you get paid for your work but think it's OK for me not to get paid for my work? Isn't denying workers their pay something authoritarian regimes do?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday October 19 2018, @07:12PM (1 child)
"Copying a CD you own so you can have a copy in your car is not "taking". Copying a DVD for a road trip so the kids don't ruin it is not "taking". "
You might want to consult a lawyer on that. IIRC, the rough jist of what I got the last time I spoke with a lawyer who was versed on the subject was 'you might have a right to do it - but it's illegal for anyone to assist if there's any form of DRM involved, even to help you figure out *how* to do it.' Which is the absurd result of the system you seem to be defending.
"But copying someone else's images to use without licensing them is taking."
No, it's not taking. It's not even actually *using* without permission, though you slip that word in to describe it. It's unauthorized copying.
Whether that's a crime or a civil infraction or a cause of action or simply fair use depends on the precise context and the applicable jurisdiction. You'd need to hire a lawyer to look at it case by case to be sure.
Which has a very chilling affect on 'fair use' btw.
"Yet I do not use my copier to copy copyrighted works."
Not even so you can have a copy in the car, or a copy for the road trip where the kids will probably ruin it?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @08:17PM
I said "taking" because taking my "product" without paying for it is "taking". You brought your presumption of "you don't understand the difference between taking and copying" by accusing me specifically of that. Which is horse shit.
Well, if you are now taking the position that what I defined as "copying" should be "taking" then you seem to be flip flopping. If not, then you're just dishing up a disingenuous distraction.
Semantics. Unauthorized copying is "taking". If you don't agree you should read what you said about "making a copy for the car" and consulting a lawyer. You can't have it both ways.
If my kids are reading copies of contracts or business correspondence on a road trip then I'm going to be saving a lot on entertainment.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday October 19 2018, @03:36PM
I agree that creators deserve compensation for creating works of value. What I don't agree with is copyright as the means and vehicle for determining the value and achieving the compensation.
Copyright has been corrupted-- stories of artists being screwed by publishers are everywhere. Researchers get screwed even worse. It's changing, but it is still mostly a bad deal in which in exchange for being published, they are asked to turn over all rights to the publisher. The academic publisher can and often does paywall all the works. They pay the authors nothing. They don't pay for the research either, the public is often the one who foots such costs in the form of grants. Nor do they do the work of reviewing the findings, they farm that out to the authors' peers.
Another corruption everyone is well aware of is the extreme length of copyright terms. This is one of the many issues in which over 90% of the public agrees: copyright lasts too long.
But even if copyright had not been warped, it would still be a bad system. I very much resent that resources we spend for law enforcement should be used to chase after alleged pirates. Worse than that though is that we are forced to not use our technology. To use a car analogy, it's like the speed limit everywhere is 10 kph when everyone knows cars can go 10 times as fast, with safety levels that the public finds acceptable. In particular, our public libraries should be allowed to go all digital. And entire bookshelf worth of books can fit on one flash drive. There would be no need to trek to the library, twice, once to pick up a physical copy and once more to return it, when everything can be downloaded. Libraries could have everything, instead of the tiny selection of works they are limited to thanks to being forced to stick to bulky physical media. No more late fines. No more lost media. And all that space that's currently used to store things could be repurposed. And most of all, everything would be way, way more searchable.
Think of it. Today, you can hop online and track down scans of the works of many famous scientists from the 19th century and earlier. I wanted to take a look at some of Euler's papers (Euler was one of the most famous mathematicians of the 18th century) and was able to track them down, online, in a few minutes. One problem I ran into was that Euler wrote his papers in Latin. However, scholars have translated many of his works into English, and made the translations freely available online. I could download the Latin original and the English translation, and had them side by side so I could compare, make absolutely sure that I had it right. There was no way that could have been done in the 1980s. For one, the translations hadn't been done yet, and that's probably because the originals hadn't been scanned then. You would have had to get permission to view such valuable originals from whichever library has them, and likely travel there, as they sure wouldn't do an interlibrary loan for that. Could have taken weeks. The Internet cut that time to minutes. We can have that with centuries old science, but we can't have it with modern science, we can only have a half assed partial access, thanks to the insanity around copyright.
An oft asked question is "how will artists make any money without copyright?" as if copyright is the only way to compensate artists. The "starving artists" wail was a great tearjerker, but it's really tired now. And that question has been answered. The answer is various forms of patronage. Patronage worked for Mozart and Beethoven, it's not new. And today, we can do patronage so much better, have the public directly involved through platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, no need for rich nobility. That's where we should spend our efforts, on improving that. Ramp up the digitization efforts, make more and better digital notary services to keep plagiarism to a minimum, and making public patronage better and better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @06:31PM (2 children)
Good thing they're not taking it.
And I want you to give me a million dollars.
Then put it towards something that can actually make you money and stop trying to prop up your failed business model with draconian laws.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @08:24PM (1 child)
Some try. You may not want to admit it because it contradicts your "everything I don't want to pay for should be free" mindset, but that doesn't make you right.
You'll have to work out a contract for that. I run a business.
Clearly you have not been paying very close attention. My business does pretty well, and "pay for production" is not a failed business model. In fact, it's pretty close to what employees expect from their employers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @02:02AM
I have no contract with you. Explain to me why you should have any say over how I flip the bits on my hard-drive?
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday October 19 2018, @07:46PM (2 children)
1. There are already laws against unauthorized use of someone else's work that's protected under laws such as copyright, trademark, patent, and the like. There doesn't need to be a special copy of each law with "On Google" tacked onto the end.
2. Google telling people where to find your work may be a crime (depends on how bad your work is), but not for the reasons you seem to think. Under this school of thought, merely telling someone about your work is subject to "crackdown"--you yourself telling others about your work is "piracy" in this flawed thinking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @09:54PM (1 child)
1) I agree, yet I have been accused of a wide variety of sins for wanting (and expecting) to be paid for my work.
2) I never endorsed Google (or anyone) being penalized. I don't agree with this prospective Australian law and certainly never suggested I did.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday October 19 2018, @10:26PM
You have the absolute right to get paid for your work (or give it away, or destroy it, or anything you choose), and no one has a right to benefit from it without your authorization. I apologize for miscasting your statements.
(Score: 3, Informative) by vux984 on Friday October 19 2018, @11:53PM
"As someone who "creates" I certainly don't want people taking my work without paying for it."
The work is in the creative effort of producing the original, not in the production of copies which self-evidently don't require any "work" (click a button and boom you have a copy... or 100... or 100 million...how much money is clicking a button worth?)
You appear to want to do the hard part (for free?) once, and then charge people for the part that that requires no work many times over. Would you like a unicorn with that?
In the past, this model worked because the reproduction effort itself took enough time and effort to create a reasonable obstacle and you could subsidize your creative effort with small surcharge over the actual reproduction cost. But as the reproduction cost and effort slid to zero, the model stops working. And you're just pissing in the wind if you think stamping around demanding the universe work the way you want it to is going to help.
The obvious solution to your conundrum is to withold the effort of producing the work, or at least the fruits of that work until you've been compensated for it. If you are a photographer, bill for your time doing the shoot.
I, for example, have written software. I got paid to write it. My work can't be taken from me because I don't do it in the first place without an upfront agreement to get paid a satisfactory amount. Once the software is written i don't really care who uses it, or if they copy it, or how many times, because I ALREADY got paid.
I don't know offhand what you create, whether its artwork, or photos, or music, or software, but in each case the solution is to adapt your business model to the universe rather than the other way around.