Summations Only

I'm pretty suire Crashfrog has consistently said that he doesn't have an issue with copyright, merely its abuse and continuation into perpetuity.

I think you need to re-read the thread :-)crashfrog and Huntard have been trying to make a case that even without copyright, people would pay artists. Crashfrog is fine that this model will destroy Holywood, Huntard thinks that films would still be made even if MGM gave the film away because cinemas would still pay even though they didn,t have to. Etc

Crashfrog has said that getting rid of copyrights wouldn't have the dramatic effects some are claiming, but he also said that he doesn't want to actually get rid of copyright, just reform the rules of copyright.Huntard is claiming that in countries without as drastic copyright protection as in the US, they still pay. He may be arguing for abolishing copyright entirely, but I didn't say he wasn't.

I don't think it will "destroy Hollywood" because people want to patronize the artists they enjoy, and Hollywood exists because of the positive network effect of having the nation's filmmaking resources concentrated in a single area. Unregulated consumption of content isn't going to change that.But even if it did somehow "destroy Hollywood", why should anyone care about that? Would the destruction of Hollywood mean less movies? There are already more movies than anyone can watch. Would it mean worse movies? I doubt it. Would it mean cheaper movies? Possibly, but would that mean worse movies? Again, not likely.Maybe what it means is that you'll have to buy a ticket to the movie you want to see three years in advance, so that it can be made. But that's not a big deal.

I think this is a recognition that without copyright, the film industry couldn't raise the cash to make the movie in the first place isn't it?I doubt your inovative pricing model will work, in fact I'm absolutely sure it wouldn't, but even if it did work, I fail to see why we should replace a working system that's reasonably efficient at producing and distributing films with a speculative one.And yet again, anyone wanting to fund a film by selling tickets to people 3 years before it's made, can attempt the trick today without changing anything.

I'd definitely buy an early ticket to see this movie made:

For me, a major concern with the current copyright protection business model is the huge amount of public resources being made available to prop up the model.Both copyright and patents allow civil suits, financed by the owner of the intellectual property, to recover lost profits from misappropriation. Your rights extend to what you are willing to go to court, and pay the cost to defend.But it is only the copyright regime (and to a lesser extent trademark law) that dedicates huge amounts of public resources to propping up a business model that has huge technological holes it it.For example there are provisions for criminal prosecution of copyright infringement where no such provisions exists for even willful and egregious patent infringement. The well monied can ask the Department of Justice, and local federal prosecutors to go after copyright infringers who have made more than X amount of copies or infringed Y number of works. The RIAA or Apple might be able to get federal help in conducting copyright raids on citizens, while Joe podunc software company is forced to sue in civil court at his own expense.SOPA and PIPA are pieces of legislation design to allow copyright holders an even greater ability to get public officials on public money to protect rights that they would otherwise have to go to court and spend their own money to enforce. Yest the DOJ is unlikely to want to bother when the local software little guy needs to get paid because some local government official decides not to honor a contract.In short, the enforcement of copyright law has become a government grant of public money, police protection, and PR for a bunch of wealthy interests. Those interests are the most well positioned to pay their own costs for enforcing their rights.

No, I'm simply explaining how that's not the only way to make a movie. It's already a successful paradigm for filmmaking, in fact.Again, the burden of evidence is actually on you to explain why filmmakers have no choice but to punish the people who choose to patronize them. I fail to see it, too. You'd have to ask the authors of the DMCA, and SOPA/PIPA, and ACTA, why they want to replace a successful system with a speculative one that punishes audiences. That's certainly not what I'm proposing. I'm proposing that we keep a system already in place, a system that funded filmmaking and other artistic endeavors for centuries - people simply voluntarily patronize the artists they enjoy, and are not punished for doing so.

Right, the question isn't just "do we have Hollywood or not"; the question is do we have free speech on the Internet or not. Tangle seems to believe that Hollywood cannot exist in the face of a free Internet. I fundamentally disagree with that premise, but even if it were true - and no evidence has been provided that it is - it would nontheless be the case that a free Internet is more important than Hollywood.

I would disagree with that characterization. It is possible to have free speech (which in my view is essentially speech as allowed under the first amendment) without allowing people to post MGM's movies with impunity. SOPA and PIPA don't manage to do that, but other measured do.I simply don't agree that there is any moral imperative that requires allowing people to distribute movies for free, just because they don't want to pay the asked for compensation. There simply isn't anything essential about being able to watch LW18. But I also don't believe that a high priorty for the government should be chasing down infringers on behalf of Hollywood in ways that crush speech completely unrelated to any infringment.The law includes lots of balancing acts between free speech and the copyright holder's interest. Copyright is limited by first sale doctrine which allows people to sell, lease, and rent copyrighted material that they have purchases (with some limits), fair use which allows uses like comentary, critique, parody, time and medium shifting, the Audio Home Recording Act, provisions for classroom use, etc. But those provisions still allow copyright holder's to make money by controlling the copying and distribution of copyrighted materials. SOPA and PIPA go much further in disturbing the balance between protected activities and money'd interests.I agree with Tangle. Nothing is stopping you or anybody else from seeking other business models for their music, movies, and other art.

Nobody's talking about posting "MGM's" movies with impunity, they're talking about posting copies of their own movies, which they have freely purchased from MGM. It's not clear why MGM should be allowed to prevent them, or why anyone who doesn't have a contractual relationship with MGM should be prevented from downloading those copies.I think the problem, here, is that we've allowed the fictious construct of "intellectual property" to override our rights with respect to our own real property to the detriment of everyone except a small group of powerful, well-monied rightsholders. The "moral imperative" is that you can't own an idea, a memory, because to do so means controlling what's in people's heads. After all, the only difference between a recording of a film and my memory of it is the accuracy of my memory. Similarly, the only difference between transmitting a recording of a film and your buddy re-enacting it as he tells you about seeing it last night is the fidelity of the transmission. Culture belongs to the people, not to the creators; that's why copyrights were meant to expire. The only reason that we, the public who owns all ideas, all art, all communications, extend copyright in the first place is for the same reason patents exist - to foster the development of the arts and sciences by awarding content creators a limited-time monopoly to profit from their work.Copyright was never meant to create an IP that would produce royalties forever, even when you passed the IP along to your children or grandchildren. At some point we're supposed to regain unfettered access to our own culture, because now that he's dead, I should be as much the owner of The Hobbit - a work that was incredibly influential to my development as a young person - as JRR Tolkien ever was. I'm as much the creator of that work's cultural significance as he is.And "allowing" is exactly wrong. MGM is free to put whatever DRM they want on their movies, to punish the people who decide to pay for it. I propose no law against restrictive DRM technologies that result only in an inconvenience for the customer. They have no right to demand that the government enforce that, or make it illegal for someone to circumvent rights technologies on content they've legally purchased. It's a far cry from "requiring someone to allow people to distribute movies for free." And nothing is stopping MGM from attempting a business model of "punish people who choose to patronize our art with restrictive, inconvenient DRM." They're free to do that in a world where we recognize that intellectual property is a fiction. I propose no law against DRM. But what they absolutely should not have the right to do is enforce a fictional set of "rights" at the point of the government's guns.The only people proposing a system that coerces people into something they don't want is you and Tangle, with your support for draconian laws against unauthorized copying.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

No. That is not what you are proposing.I don't see a single person here defending SOPA, PIPA, or the portions of the DMCA that cover DRM. Most of the remaining portions of the copyright system, other than the length of copyright, are essentially the same thing the US adobed back in the 18th century. Of course even a 28 year copyright term would prevent you from downloading Lethal Weapon 18 before the film industry had a chance to make a profit from the movie.'So IMO, if you really want to persuade people away from their posted positions, it is you who needs to explain why the copyright system datingf from at least the founding of this country and largely inherited from Great Britain, isn't good enough for you.The anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA do make it illegal to rip DRM protected material like DVDs, but it is has never been legal to post the ripped material to a public forum even before DMCA was enacted.

Wow, I've never seen so many straw men stacked up all in one pile before!Copyright has zip to do with free speech. Talk all you like.And I'm positive that Holywood can exist with the internet and can even benefit from it. Certainly music and musicians have a lot to gain.What the world and Hollywood can't survive without is copyright and so far no-one has even come close to a reason why it even should.Your argument is about how copyright is enforced, not about copyright itself.

That's true, but you seem to object to protecting LW 18 for even a few months. Again, your position seems to extend way beyond the point which your arguments justify.ABE Does your memory record a film in a tangible medium of expression capable of being distributed or copied? Because copyright law does not protect anything else.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

What if I want to talk about The Hobbit?Oops! There goes your argument. Copyright enforced at the barrel of a gun stops us from being able to talk about, reference, or remix our own culture. We own ideas, not the people who write them down. JRR Tolkien stopped being able to meaningfully control the dissemination of the ideas in The Hobbit the instant he shared it with anyone. The fiction of IP is just an attempt to put that genie - all genies - back in the bottle. Can't be done. But what can be done is an enormous amount of violence to free and open communication in a society.When you put the government in a position to say "this idea is OK for you to know; that one is not", when you create the mechanism that enforces those distinctions, you're creating the mechanisms for restriction of speech. That we're heading down this path at the behest of entertainers is what's truly amazing.