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posted by CoolHand on Sunday August 02 2015, @08:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the better-than-oil-pipeline dept.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/31/copyright_hub_launch/

The web has grown up without letting people own and control their own stuff, but a British-backed initiative might change all that, offering a glimpse of how the internet can work in the future. Their work will all be open sourced early next year.

Britain's much-anticipated Copyright Hub was given ministerial blessing when it finally opened its kimono today, boasting a pipeline of over 90 projects covering commercial and free uses.

A handy new site – Copyright done right – has also been launched, explaining what it offers. The initiative has sparked global interest.

Today, it turns out that most people actually do want what they’re missing from today’s internet: property rights (or property-ish rights) for the digital stuff they post to the interwebs. But many have found that copyright just doesn’t work for them. The Hub aims to build rights-aware layers on top of the internet, so that people can track how what they make public is used, much as DNS added ease of use to naming protocols and VPNs added privacy standards to the basic bare-bones internet.

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @08:55AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @08:55AM (#216968)

    i read the summary and the front page and I still have no idea what this is all about...

    sounds vaguely like they're trying to reinvent creative commons, or perhaps not, who knows.......

    • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday August 02 2015, @09:07AM

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 02 2015, @09:07AM (#216969) Journal

      The second link explains the aim better than the main linked story. However, it is essentially to provide the individual the rights and ability to control how others can use material that they have produced. The Creative Commons gives a way of doing this, but this project is intended to make it much easier for people to find who 'owns' a specific item and for them to obtain permission to use it. This should also reduce the number of times that others use copyright data without permission then claim the defence that 'we did not know who owned it to ask for permission...' Whether it actually achieves this second aim is yet to be seen.

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @09:57AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @09:57AM (#216970)

    Take your hexedit, strike Windows down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards Linux will be complete...

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday August 02 2015, @10:07AM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Sunday August 02 2015, @10:07AM (#216971)

    Huh? "without letting people own and control" - people could have owned and controlled the content they created. No one forced anyone to create content for third-party services like social media or walled gardens. The people voted to make the web a read-only, content-consumption medium. It didn't have to be that way.

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @12:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @12:03PM (#216984)

    Of course this inanity get promoted by the Register. Listen people, the genie is out of the bottle. The myth that creators have a right to own their ideas was a nice one, but natural law has no such limitation. Information cannot be owned and physical things can only be owned for as long as you can hold them. If your purpose for creating is monetary, you're doing it wrong. Capitalism is a passing fad on the way to the Star Trek world where everyone is expected to contribute and everyone divvies that bounty of nature. The only real wealth is the same as it has always been...influence.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 02 2015, @01:15PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 02 2015, @01:15PM (#216997) Journal

      "so that people can track how what they make public is used"

      I agree with AC here. It is none of Microsoft's BUSINESS how I use their OS. It is none of Oracle's BUSINESS how I use their software. Linux Torvalds understands that it is none of his BUSINESS how I use his software. GNU understands the same.

      Maybe I pirated Windows. Maybe I didn't pirate Windows. Either way, the fokking OS should NEVER CALL HOME.

      That goes for PDF's and e-books. That goes for games. No matter what kind of software I'm using, it is none of the developer's business how I use it. I'm decompiling and reverse engineering? Still none of his fokking business.

      In school/high school/college/university, do your teachers attach trackers and monitors to your skull, so that they can track how you use the knowledge imparted to you? Why not? Oh - you say that would be unethical? Yet, we accept the idea that corporations as well as individuals have some inherent right to track our usage of publicly released content?

      WTF!?!?!?

      • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:20PM

        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:20PM (#217021) Journal
        You've got the wrong end of the stick - if you take a photo and put it on line, then you have the copyright. Others haven't got the right to take your photo and use it as they wish without your permission. The whole point of this project is to give you a method of controlling who uses your material and to make sure that you can receive the appropriate recompense. It is nothing to do with big companies wanting to know how you use their software - it is to give you a way to prevent big companies taking advantage of something that the little man has produced.
        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:41PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:41PM (#217029) Journal

          Possibly, I have the wrong end of the stick - but it's the same stick. MPAA also thinks that they have some "right" to control how people use the movies they possess. No matter whether you paid for the movie, or you pirated it, or your folks gave it to you - it is YOURS to do whatever you wish to do with it.

          Only if/when someone is using those "intellectual properties" for commercial purposes should anyone be concerned. That goes for large corporations, as well as the unheard of Joe Sixpack who uploads some cool videos to Youtube.

          • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday August 02 2015, @05:45PM

            by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 02 2015, @05:45PM (#217044) Journal

            So if some big company takes something that you have produced without your permission, makes loads of money, and gives you nothing in return, you are happy with that? I wouldn't be.

            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:26PM

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:26PM (#217058) Journal

              Perhaps you failed to read and comprehend my post. Let me quote the relevant part. "Only if/when someone is using those "intellectual properties" for commercial purposes"

              That WAS the original intent of copyright - not to ensure that anyone would ever make money, but that IF anyone made money, the original author should get a share of that profit.

              That song, "Happy Birthday", which has been contested so hotly for the past few years? Copyright or public domain shouldn't matter one whit to the average individual. You can sing it to your children, you can sing it to your classmates, you can sing it publicly, you can even perform a derivative of it. There are all sorts of things you can do, no matter whether it is copyrighted. What you CANNOT DO, if the copyright claims are upheld, is to use the song commercially, without sharing some portion of the profit with the copyright holder.

              THAT, my friend, is copyright in a nutshell.

              NO ONE ON EARTH has the right or the authority to prevent you from using that song, or any other, as you see fit, unless and until you make some COMMERCIAL USE of it.

              • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:57PM

                by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:57PM (#217064) Journal

                I don't believed that I ever claimed otherwise. And the article is about empowering the everyday man so that he can protect his creations from exploitation by others, including bigger companies.

                • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 02 2015, @07:31PM

                  by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 02 2015, @07:31PM (#217073) Journal

                  Apologies - I was reading your comments out of context. But - I still can't really agree with the concept of "empowering" the little man to enforce his will upon his fellow man. So - you upload an image of your cat - your car - your kids. And, I grab that image, because it's cool. I post it to a blog, where the image kinda supports my ramblings. I do attribute the image to you, but it's there on my blog. And - what? You force me to take it down? I can't go along with that. Yes, of course I can find other images of the cat - a car - or some kids. But your image just happened to catch my attention, and it does happen to support my blog in some way. I'm NOT making any money off of it, it's just an image accompanying my thoughts.

                  No, I don't grant you, or anyone else the right to control content that is freely available on the web. You might make an ethical argument against using the image of your kids, and if you were good at it, I would take that image down - the rest would stay.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @10:06PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @10:06PM (#217124)

                    "So - you upload an image of your cat - your car - your kids. And, I grab that image, because it's cool. I post it to a blog, where the image kinda supports my ramblings."

                    So you're a lazy asshole unwilling to ask permission for the work of others to be used where you want it to be used.

                    "I do attribute the image to you, but it's there on my blog. And - what? You force me to take it down? I can't go along with that. Yes, of course I can find other images of the cat - a car - or some kids. But your image just happened to catch my attention, and it does happen to support my blog in some way."

                    Not only are you lazy and a thief, you aren't even able to perform the same function another person did - make a photograph of a subject that is pertinent to the blog post you made.

                    According to your chain of thought, I could copy your entire blog, put my name on it and sell it and you would just have to f*ck off.

                    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 03 2015, @05:41AM

                      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @05:41AM (#217251) Journal

                      Problems you have, with reading comprehension.

                      You're going to SELL it? That is commercial use. The moment you accept one thin dime, you lose the protections afforded a private citizen.

                      Now - who is the bigger asshole? You, or me?

                  • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday August 03 2015, @08:19AM

                    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2015, @08:19AM (#217285) Journal

                    control content that is freely available on the web

                    An therein lies the problem. It is only 'freely available' if the license under which it is published says it is. If I put my cat photo on the web with a CC license permitting you to use it, there is no issue. If, however, I put my cat photo on the web with a more restrictive license, and some big business comes along, uses it, and makes money - all without any recognition of my work nor permission for its use by me - then this project will give me some recourse to take legal action against the big company. This project will have published the license, indicated who owns the picture, and big business hasn't got a leg to stand on in court. Now, in the UK, taking someone to court can cost nothing - the loser pays all costs. Therefore, with this sort of support I stand a much better chance of winning my case and succeeding in court to gain recompense.

                    The genie is out of the bottle, no-one is going to undo the laws that are currently in place. But giving me some way of taking redress is the best I can hope for.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday August 02 2015, @04:07PM

          by bradley13 (3053) on Sunday August 02 2015, @04:07PM (#217033) Homepage Journal

          The thing is: an unenforceable law is a bad law. With the advent of the digital age, with lossless reproduction, many IP laws became essentially unenforceable. Rather than doubling down on those laws, our society really ought to be bright enough to back up, and reconsider them from scratch.

          If you put a photograph up on the public Internet, practically speaking, you have put it into the public domain. It's further usage is beyond your control. If you don't want that, then you shouldn't put it on the public internet. Copyright laws cannot change reality; reality will eventually change copyright laws. Unfortunately, only after a long and futile struggle that is causing us all sorts of pain.

          --
          Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Sunday August 02 2015, @05:53PM

            by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 02 2015, @05:53PM (#217048) Journal

            Unenforceable laws are bad laws

            So any attempt to correct them so that they become enforceable for the little people is bad?

            • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:07PM

              by shortscreen (2252) on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:07PM (#217053) Journal

              Yes, DRM is bad.

              • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:26PM

                by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:26PM (#217057) Journal

                You can give away your things, but you're not giving away mine. I will remain in control of my images, my software etc.

              • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:30PM

                by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:30PM (#217059) Journal

                I assume that your objection is the the DMCA? You must remember that it is a US law - it has no relevance to anyone else whatsoever. I am not in the USA. The article is about the situation in the UK, also a country for whom the DMCA is worthless. And rather than go down the route that the USA has chosen, this is an attempt to make sure that everyone gets treated fairly - not just the big players.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @09:18PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @09:18PM (#217107)

            If you have put a book in a bookstore/library, you have put your copyright into the public domain.

            That is not at all how copyright works. Were someone to either reproduce your website or portions of it, or reproduce your book or portions of it, both would be infringement. Same as with 'shared' mixtapes back in the 80s, or dozens of modern forms of sharing today.

            That said, going off that website 'copyrightdoneright.org' I don't have a very good feeling of them doing it for altruistic reasons. And acting like the idea is somehow 'uniquely british' also rubbed me the wrong way (Lots of sites are already doing that on a small scale, some even on a large scale, like github, sourceforge, and various free media projects for open source.)

            That said, my problem hasn't been with copyright. It has been with the ever increasing length of copyright. Cap it at 20 or even 30 years and I would accept it. Make it longer than I am likely to live and I have no reason to contaminate myself with copyrighted works which may stake a claim (however tenuous) to my own future creative works. Also, who hasn't had their favorite creative work of their childhood destroyed by now, and wished they could 'fork it' to either be more how they envisioned it, or how the 'non-canon' creative works while it was left untended portrayed it, or how its creator originally intended it before they died/got bought out? (Roddenberry, The BSG guy, and a few others are examples. Lucas fucked shit up before Disney ever got ahold of it.)

      • (Score: 2) by TheB on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:30PM

        by TheB (1538) on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:30PM (#217060)

        Linux phones home too.
        It just doesn't say much.

        I really dislike Linux apps that phone home. I found Synergy(softwark KVM) keeps opens a connection to pe-in-f82.1e100.net while running. Why it sends data and keeps a port open to a Google server I have no idea.
        So at least one app in Linux Mint is doing something fishy.

        We know Microsoft can't be trusted, but don't trust Linux just because it's open source.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheB on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:52PM

          by TheB (1538) on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:52PM (#217063)

          After some digging, it appears Synergy is phoning home to their old server on Google Code.
          Probably just to do a version check, but still this should not be tolerated in a Linux distribution.
          Still not as bad as the spyware known as Ubuntu's Amazon Lens.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @01:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @01:35PM (#217001)

    Piling up that much garbage verbiage ... yeah that will work.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Sunday August 02 2015, @02:09PM

    by Justin Case (4239) on Sunday August 02 2015, @02:09PM (#217005) Journal

    If you want to keep a secret, don't tell anyone. Once you tell someone, they might tell someone else. This simple reality should be obvious to everyone since the beginning of time. Any opposition to this "natural law", as another commenter remarked, is nothing more than a disguised attempt to control other people's behavior -- doomed to failure because other people are at least as clever as you are and will work to circumvent your controls.

    Why do people "create content" in the first place?

    A. They want to get rich.

    B. They want to alter the information stored in someone else's brain, perhaps by sharing knowledge, a story or opinion. A subset of this is persuasive messaging: romantic, political, commercial...

    Protip 1: For every rock legend or movie star there are a million who didn't get rich. Forget about it. Copyrights aren't your golden key.

    Protip 2: Restricting other people's freedoms is in opposition to your interests. You want your message to propagate. Copyrights are not your friend, except when you haxor the copyright system to preserve freedom (GPL).

    (This message is NOT copyrighted.)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:20PM (#217022)

      Woooosh!

      Try reading RTFA before running your mouth.