I wasn’t trying to draw any conclusions - just making the distinction between selling the copyright and selling a licence to use the copyrighted work.
With the easy of copying things now compared to in the past the copyright laws have fallen way behind the technology. Something far stricter is needed in order to protect those creating things which may cost millions to create and next to nothing to copy. There is only so much the law can do though and technology is also limited in providing a solution.
There need to be two parts to a the technology aspect - one to protect the work for the owner and the second to make it easier for tothers to obtain a legal copy.
Yesterday I had a bit of time to watch TV and I came across to an interview to a popular Spanish blogger and famous journalist. The interview was about internet and, indirectly, to the subject of this thread.
The situation in Spain is as follows:
2 years ago, a special tax (cannon) was added to the prices of any HDD, CD, DVD, IPod, MP3/MP4 player, Mobile Phone, or anything that may store music, video, software, etc. This was done because people could be (or not) downloading videos, music, and software from the internet. Wether you used iTunes or eMule it didn’t matter.
Legislation has not been changed. In Spain, if you want to copy a book for personal use, you can. That’s about to change now.
The SGAE (which is the Association who represents the artists and creator and is supposed to proctect their copyrights) have been long time helping the current goverment with the political ideas, and some famous artists have actively participated in their campaigns. In exchange for this help, they want the goverment to change the current law.
A brand new law has beend drafted and it is about to be approved. This law will change copyrights and make it illegal to copy a book, a song, etc for personal use (something that it was legal and yet penalised with a cannon) and not only that, it will accept that a website will be closed directly (at the moment, a judge needs to issue an authorization to close it) if they consider there’s a copyright infrigment or any kind, or there are comments that may induce to avoid copyrights (in the sense that the SGAE don’t get profit :D)
As an example, this journalist posted an article in his blog talking about how the Music Industry and how the current system to get profit from rights is outdated and needs to be adapted to this new technology era.
Many people posted comments to that article and had a little debate (as we’re having here) about this particular problem.
He was sued because of the comments these people did. With the new law, his site could be simply closed.
I have to say that the big singers and bands in Spain love the SGAE because they make lots of money, but smaller artists hate them because they have to pay for being part of the association yet they receive almost nothing for the rights (a 0.5% for the musician that created the music, as an example)
Regular people don’t like SGAE because they want to get paid even when you play music in your shop (actually, a hairdresser was fined because he was playing the radio while he was at his place with his customers but, of course, he never thought that he had to pay a monthly fee to the SGAE just to do that)
That’s fairly common in most countries. If you play music (whether from the radio or whatever) in a public place where members of the public are participating in an activity that you are running (such as doing their hair or for a cafe providing them with food and drink) then a public broadcast licence is required.
I’m so angry that any judge agrees that playing a radio counts as “public broadcasting”. This has been taken as far as companies being required to pay because their employees are more productive because they are listening to their very own (iPods, whatever) with music they bought themselves!
The radio station is the public broadcaster who pays for the license to broadcast. The whole point of the broadcast is that it is reachable by devices such as radios. It should absolutely not matter where that radio is, and the law about having people pay to see a recorded whatever at your house being illegal should cover anyone requiring payment to hear their radio playing a public broadcast. In the US, the radio stations were supposed to belong to the Public for the Public Good. But they aren’t, they are owned by private corporations who took over the public broadcast stations in order to earn money. I expect this to happen eventually with our 3 stations here (Ned 1, 2, and 3).
Stores selling televisions, radios, and media will not be able to play things on those tv’s as they do now without paying some ungodly license. Meaning they’re going to have to start showing crappily-made videos made by the employees themselves.
Just wait: I’ll be playing my horn some day with the balcony door open, and someone trying to grocery shop below me will have to pay for the “privilege” of hearing me play, just because my music is in the open. What balls!
As an example, this journalist posted an article in his blog talking about how the Music Industry and how the current system to get profit from rights is outdated and needs to be adapted to this new technology era.
Many people posted comments to that article and had a little debate (as we’re having here) about this particular problem.
He was sued because of the comments these people did. With the new law, his site could be simply closed.
That leads to censorship of any critisism of [name entitiy here] which everyone knows will contribute to an underground, with rebels and guns and all that cool stuff, who one day will rise up and try to take over the government for the freedom of the people.
Looking at recent revolutions, I don’t see that as being a good thing, esp if there’s a Che Guevara involved who’s all into the making of revolution but gets easily bored with making the aftermath beneficial to real human beings.
…
to me, music is ethereal, a bit like thoughts, so whenever I read about laws getting stupid like that I start waiting for the thought laws and the thought police to start coming in. You were thinking in public about the plot of that film you saw! That’s copyright! Pay a fine larger than your house is worth!!
Balls!
Off Topic:
BTW there’s some music I really really really want to buy, a soundtrack, but the only place I’ve found it for sale is at Amazon, where it’s only available as mp3’s, which means only US residents can buy them!! Anyone living in the US, I’d love if someone could buy the soundtrack for me on Amazon and I’ll pay to have them burnt onto a disk and mailed to me. I’m serious, this is stupid that the only legal option I could find is not available to me because of my geographic location. Yes, I think I’ve found it all on torrentz or somewhere. No, I don’t have iTunes, I think they’re part of some sinister Apple plot.
TYhat’s one area where I agree with you that the laws have gone too far toward protecting the interests of the music companies. The radio stations have already paid to broadcast the music and so those who created the music do receive their 0.05% or whatever it is of the fee the music company collects.
That’s another area of copyright that doesn’t work the way it should - those who put the most effort into creating the work end up making the least from it while someone else is able to make a fortune from marketing it for them.
We’ve had that in Canada for years now for audio tapes and video tapes, not sure if they got around to extending it CDs and DVDs yet but I know they are looking at extending it to harddrives, flashdrives, etc…
The good thing about this is that, at the moment, courts have seen that as giving us the right to make copies of music and the such for personal use as we have already paid a fee to the recording industry when we bought the media we are using to store said music.
That’s the thing… according to the SGAE, the cannon is there just in case that someone downloads something and then create CDs or store it on your MP3 player… but then, since everything is taxed, you’re paying for every song as many times as you copy it… that would be fine but… what about when you create something (your own program, or your own creative work)? You’re paying a tax for that too! and it is your own stuff… Yet, I think that the worst is that the SGAE still wants the law to consider downloading illegal… but of course, the cannon should stay.
If it were fair you’d be able to claim your own portion of the collected fees as an author to cover that - of course those laws aren’t there to protect the authors, they are there to protect the big production companies.
[FONT=“Georgia”]The drive to compete, to rise above the competition, and to be proud of over-coming it; Those are all selfish interests though.
Maybe you define the words differently, but to me, you’ve just contradicted what you’ve been saying; that each person’s purpose in Life is to promote the species (i.e, a selfless interest).
I’m sorry, but when I was born I failed to receive that “How to Be a Human” instruction manual that would have told me this. I’ve lived my Life defining my own goals and trying to promote myself. In so doing I may have been helping others along the way, but the primary motivation wasn’t some notion of “I must do this for my species.”[/FONT]
Some of this work will be alturistic, such as medical or technological research
[FONT=“Georgia”]Techological and scientific research is far from altruistc!
There’s a greedy desire to satisfy personal curiousity there. Einstein didn’t get obsessed with solving the mystery of Nature’s forces out of a wish to give back to the species. He got obsessed because he was damn curious![/FONT]
as long as those doing the research stand to gain something from their research beyond the goal of the research themselves
[FONT=“Georgia”]Again contradicting yourself.
How is it altruistic if you admit that there is personal gain?
And why is altruism always considered a good thing anyways? The only people out there who are ever truly “altruistic” are slaves; Those who do work without any personal gain at all.[/FONT]
(e.g. fame, admiration or money), which can ultimately lead to an increased chance to reproduce.
Yeah, because Nikola Tesla chose to remain celibate and focus all his time, money, life and energy on his work because he secretly wanted to reproduce. In the back of his mind all day long, that’s what he was thinking. Riiight…
My whole point was that any attempt to define one society under one rule would simply not work.
[FONT=“Georgia”]Well buddy boy, that’s been my point too.
But in essence you’ve been saying, “Well no-one can define our lives by one rule therefore I can define our lives by one rule (i.e. to promote the species, etc.).”
You’ve taken it upon yourself to tell us what we all think and why we all do the things that we do? How do you know? What makes you so smart, that you can instantly, without meeting them, know the intention of each and every person on the planet… that intention being to reproduce and/or serve the species.[/FONT]
I haven’t suggested that copyright should be abolished altogether. My oppinion is that the copyright laws have not kept up with the technological development, and that they are used against their original intention.
[FONT=“Georgia”]Well then it’s just as Saul’s been saying, no?
Spreading either your very own genes or a relative of your’s genes throughout the human gene pool is inherently selfish, and is a general rule of thumb in biology : )
I’m sorry, but when I was born I failed to receive that “How to Be a Human” instruction manual that would have told me this.
In popular culture, the Instruction Manual starts showing itself when the woman turns to the man and says something like “honey, I’ve been thinking…” and they call it “you biological clock is ticking!” but I call it “selfish Gene strikes again”. Every single individual doesn’t need to have their Selfish Genes express themselves, but those who don’t, don’t spread their less-selfish genes, and those who do, at least make sure the most selfish are more numerous. This even includes helping your siblings and cousins make more of themselves.
Right now I’m 30 and so my husband is the one getting the baby kriebels. Really, what’s wrong with just buying a kid (other than it’s more expensive and you need to pass a test first)? “But I want one that smells like me!” psh, silly argument. But whatever, I recognise it for what it is, his genes trying to tell us to SPREAD. Lawlz.
Yeah, because Nikola Tesla chose to remain celibate and focus all his time, money, life and energy on his work because he secretly wanted to reproduce.
Oh how I wish that man had had a louder Selfish Gene!! But we had the same problem with others: Paul Erdos, Albert Einstein…
Tesla++
How is it altruistic if you admit that there is personal gain?
And why is altruism always considered a good thing anyways? The only people out there who are ever truly “altruistic” are slaves; Those who do work without any personal gain at all.
Ah, but if it’s forced it’s not altruism, so nope to slaves.
There is some really interesting research regarding altruism amongst other species. Some say it’s nothing more than helping your tribe over other tribes (and therefore brings in the Selfish Gene idea), while other say it’s pure social glue that, well, still help the tribe (so brings in the SG again). Even for those sweet people who just do it because they’re sweet people.
And sometimes it’s just personal satisfaction (“I like doing X” and it happens to be considered a Good Thing). And sometimes it’s an obsession (“I must do X” and it happens to be considered a Good Thing).
I have read several novels where one of the situations in the story was that people upon reaching a set age would be killed off for the public good.
In one (for which I can’t remember the name) everyone apart from serving politicians were subject to a maximum age that was determined by the state of the economy with the age that people would be allowed to live to being handed down as a part of the budget. In that story everyone had a device fitted to their heart (which needed to be reset whenever the budget changed the maximum age) that would automatically stop their heart at the appropriate time. Those already over the age if the economy turned bad were given a few weeks grace to get their affairs in order.
In Isaac Asimov’s first novel “Pebble in the Sky” two of the characters were both over 60 with one having travelled through time and the other being hidden by their children because that society dictated that everyone be put down at agew 60 whether they wanted to or not because of insufficient room on Earth and that no other inhabited planet would accept immigrants from such a worse than a slum neighbourhood.
That’s the earliest reference I know of to that type of story.
The story “Logan’s Run” takes things further by having everyone put to death at 30.
The story “Make Room, Make Room” (which was made into the movie “Soylent Green”) has a society where people are rewarded for committing suicide at special food production centres.
The thing that stood out in the story I mentioned earlier (I think it was called “Heart Clock” or something similar) was that the age of death wasn’t fixed but was dependent on the economy and political decisions (with the politiicians themselves being exempt).
There have been quite a few stories at various times where this sort of thing has been considered. In each case it presents an opportunity to consider the ethics of various extreme actions and when they may and may not be justifiable depending on the surrounding circumstances. Not all of these stories have concluded that killing people when they get old is necessarily bad. Not that they necessarily expect you to agree with their ending.
Well, when we do it with animals, it’s called humane. You know, like culling deer so the rest don’t starve trying to eat tree bark. That word has always given me a laugh. We are not allowed to be humane to humans. If I’m sitting in permanent pain, unable to get out of my own bed, but have the possibility to live another 10 years, I’m not even allowed humane treament: instead my society will force me to endure, due to their “ethics”. Mostly I think it makes religious people feel better that I stick around in pain than just get on with dying my own way. “oOh, no, you don’t really want that; you don’t know what you are saying; you’re just depressed because you can’t get out of bed and the morphine doesn’t work well.” So?!??
Then again, I’ve been pro-euthanasia (so long as it’s fair) and pro-assisted suicide since watching my dad slowly (took 10 years) drown in his own remaining half-lung from lung cancer, and if I were trapped in the mountains with a group of people and we were starving, I’d have zero qualms about eating one of them, or them eating me. Everyone tastes like chicken when cooked correctly, right? Aversion to cannibalism is more likely also genetic, as it’s easier to pass pathogens between members of the same species than cross-species. We just kid ourselves and keep telling ourselves it’s cultural or even, gasp, “ethical”. Balls.
People put way too much value on individual lives. Sure, you should care about yours and those of your friends and relatives, but seriously, every time a baby is born it’s not a freakin miracle. It’s no more miraculous than bunnies making bunnies, or mosquitos making mosquitos.
Everyone says I’ll change my tune when I become a mom. Lawlz.
A perfect example of how stupid such a situation would be when someone with that level of brilliance would not have the opportunity to make further brilliant contributions due to an arbitrary age limiit.