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It's election season in the UK, and the Green Party's policy document has been coming under scrutiny recently. In it is a desire to reduce copyright term to 14 years (not life + 14 years, but 14 years from publication).
Unsurprisingly, this has received a bit of a backlash from various parties.
There's no chance the Green Party will form the next government, so this is all academic, but is this a sensible idea? Are people overreacting?
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UK Green Party Proposes 14-year Copyright Term - Artists are not Amused
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C++ is the best example of second-system effect since OS/360.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday April 24 2015, @11:32PM
The whole notion of copyright is to take something infinitely replicable and create an artificial scarcity. For anyone who understands how real things work, this economic model is utterly moronic.
NO.
That is emphatically NOT the notion. YOU clearly do not understand the economic model.
The model isn't some conspiracy. Its really very simple. Its stated right up front in 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.
There is nothing about scarcity there.
Authors and inventors have no incentive to make their work scarce.
Instead, they are given the right to reproduce their works, and make money from their work.
The model is not one of instant seizure of any work of an author or inventor. It is one of fair compensation for their efforts, by making a little money from EACH sale.
YOUR model is one of instant seizure, simply because you can.
A viable system should instead compensate artists before they release their work.
I'm sorry, son, you are late to the party. The world is not going to totally redefine the economic model just to suite you. Get over yourself!
You're a thief. Face it. You just want to take, and you haven't the slightest intention of compensating the artists or the author either before or after they create something. They could spend 6 months writing a book, after a life time of education in the field, and you still think its yours for the taking.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by hash14 on Saturday April 25 2015, @12:07AM
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.
Even the intent as stated in the constitution is fallacious. What exactly is an exclusive right? What does that mean? How can you attach value to something that has no value? Can I copyright 142857? Then anyone who does division by 7 will have to owe me a royalty. But English students still have to pay for books that are just as easy to copy as a 6-digit number.
YOU clearly do not understand the economic model.
The quote you provided from the constitution is for a legal model, not an economic one.
Instead, they are given the right to reproduce their works, and make money from their work.
Impractical. Maybe that was useful in the days of the printing press, but once again, there's no physical value in reproducibility in today's world. Nowadays, it all just stems from an artificial legal construct. Do you really think an artificial legal construct is a better means than a real physical one?
Authors and inventors have no incentive to make their work scarce.
But they do anyway. Geoblocking is an example - an absurd practice which is unenforceable in a world where information is allowed to flow freely.
The model is not one of instant seizure of any work of an author or inventor. It is one of fair compensation for their efforts, by making a little money from EACH sale.
This I understand - I'm just saying that it's unenforceable.
YOUR model is one of instant seizure, simply because you can.
No, it isn't.
I'm sorry, son, you are late to the party.
Sounds much like how the MAFIAA does things: "It has always been this way, so we'll never change."
I think my model is better - more practical, and more economically sustainable for producers. Your model doesn't even support artists while they're creating. If they spend their entire lives working on something which ends up being a huge flop, they've wasted their lives and are left with nothing. Mine even supports them while they're working regardless of whether the final product is well received or not.
The world is not going to totally redefine the economic model just to suite you. Get over yourself!
This isn't a rebuttal. The rest of your post is ad hominem and to be frank, absurdly immature. I know that I shouldn't respond to ad hominems, but I do hope you'll notice the little star next to my username - if I were as you describe, do you think I would donate to a site where I could (and many others do) get everything for free? No, I support it both because I like it and because it supports the public good. Just like many other organizations, though I cannot prove those to you. Regardless, I think the facts I present contradict a personality that you describe.
Finally, you didn't bother responding to my suggestions to how the system can be improved, so I suppose that you have no response to that.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday April 25 2015, @11:18PM
How can you attach value to something that has no value?
If you think art, music, and literature have no value I feel sorry for you.
What exactly is an exclusive right? What does that mean? How can you attach value to something that has no value? Can I copyright 142857? Then anyone who does division by 7 will have to owe me a royalty.
You have no concept of how copyright works, kid. If you saw my laughter you'd be embarrassed.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by hash14 on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:58AM
If you think art, music, and literature have no value I feel sorry for you.
Strawman fallacy - there is value in the art, music and literature (hence why I'm actually trying to think of a reasonable way to compensate their creators, rather than relying on the obsolete systems built around around "intellectual property"). But there is no value in their digital representations because they are of infinite supply.
You have no concept of how copyright works, kid. If you saw my laughter you'd be embarrassed.
Enlighten me then.
First, the Constitution states that "the authors and inventors have _exclusive right_" to their works - to me, this is an uninterpretably vague statement. What exactly is this fantasmal right that they have?
Second, the purpose of my analogy is to demonstrate: if copyright can be imposed on a digital file (or a patent on an algorithm/implementation, a trademark on a .png), then you have effectively just censored what is nothing more than a number. And you are not permitted to share these numbers or use them without permission or in a way that the "author" doesn't like. So why shouldn't I be able to do the same for other numerical operations on numbers? I'll just create a file with my number in it, say it's my "property" and take collections from people who use it without my permission.
The more I think about it, the more I feel that people arguing in favour of ownership of digital data (or more basically, just information) are severely out of touch with reality. Nothing makes physical sense in a system where ideas and information and numbers can be restricted from being shared, expressed and thought about.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday April 27 2015, @03:13PM
there is value in the art, music and literature (hence why I'm actually trying to think of a reasonable way to compensate their creators, rather than relying on the obsolete systems built around around "intellectual property"). But there is no value in their digital representations because they are of infinite supply.
I certainly agree with that, which is why I give electronic versions of my books away for free. I don't think there's any monetary value in digits. They were mentioning on KSHE this morning that Alice Cooper postulated that the rise in vinyl sales were because "people were tired of buying air." He may be right; I've never "bought" any digital work that didn't come in physical form and the only way I will is if I get stupid.
BTW, if you like rock and roll, KSHE plays six full albums in their entirety every Sunday night. Capturing the internet stream is trivial (it's built into Windows but disabled and hidden). Monday is "burn CDs day" for me. I have nothing but disdain for those who only sell air.
Interestingly, I put a version of Mars, Ho on Amazon as a $2 e'book as an experiment. More people have bought hardcover copies, most have bought paperbacks which kind of backs up Cooper's theory somewhat. Of course, far more people download free versions, just like most bibliophiles have read far more library books than they've bought.
Reading and listening to music has always been free. I'm disgusted by people who now want to monetize it.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Informative) by melikamp on Saturday April 25 2015, @12:10AM
You can quote the US Constitution all you want, but please understand it has nothing to do with economics. I think GP understands this economic model better than you do. In USA, as well as pretty much anywhere else in the world, authors and inventors have no incentive to keep their copyright in the first place, because the chances of them making any kind of cash from art are miniscule. So the beginning artists do in fact pre-sell their copyrights, and inventors go to work for hire, so that all this intellectual non-property ends up in the pockets of giant corporations, who are the only ones capable of advertizing and waiting for several years before they can get the return on this investment. And while they are waiting, these corporations troll the court to stop sharing and lobby your legislators for more censorship. This is how copyright actually works.
No, they are given exclusive rights to reproduce their works, which means they have a legal instrument allowing them to censor everyone else. The only application of the copyright law in court is to forbid sharing: to create the artificial scarcity the GP was talking about. The "incentive" is irrelevant because the actual scarcity is the only visible, provable outcome. That copyright somehow improves that rate at which new art is created is simply make-belief. All the studies done so far have shown that copyright monopolies may be affecting the kind of art being created, but not the quantity or the quality.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday April 25 2015, @12:37AM
to create the artificial scarcity the GP was talking about.
The opposite of scarce is not FREE.
Just because there is a price, does not mean something is scarce. It merely means someone has to spent time and effort to provide it for you, so you don't have to lift a finger. Those people don't work for free, and I suspect you don't either.
You want the 27000 copies of an artist's work? Pay for them.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday April 28 2015, @01:01AM
Those people don't work for free, and I suspect you don't either.
They don't work for free, which is why they should ask for money for performing a service. The real problem begins when they try to tell others how to use their own equipment to copy and transfer data, and unleash government thugs to enforce their little monopoly.
You want the 27000 copies of an artist's work? Pay for them.
You realize that computers will make copies no matter what, right? Apparently you expect the author/artist to be paid whenever a copy is made, but that is simply insane.
And this mentality is doomed to fail, anyway. In the Age of Information, trying to place restrictions on copying is a hopeless endeavor, as evidenced by all the websites in existence that have pretty much everything available for free.