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Author Topic:   SOPA/PIPA and 'Intellectual Property'
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


(1)
Message 166 of 303 (650268)
01-29-2012 2:54 PM
Reply to: Message 164 by ramoss
01-29-2012 12:20 PM


Re: Problems with the current copyright model
Just call them halflings instead.
"Halfling", as it turns out, was also coined by Tolkien and is technically infringing, but the estate opted not to pursue the claim.
Personally, I'd like my rights of free speech to rest on a little more than the benevolent neglect of rightsholders.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 164 by ramoss, posted 01-29-2012 12:20 PM ramoss has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 179 by caffeine, posted 01-30-2012 9:39 AM crashfrog has not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 167 of 303 (650272)
01-29-2012 3:45 PM
Reply to: Message 165 by crashfrog
01-29-2012 2:50 PM


Re: Great logo, shame about the cause
On the snow issue. Virtually everyone in the UK has swallowed the myth of the clearing and non clearing of snow - like there was a law on snow clearing. There is no law.
The law is about having a duty of care, particularly if you're a business and have the paying public gaining access to your premises. In that case, the restaurant needed to have a safe way of doing that - it seems that they had bad steps which they made worse. If they'd left the snow and someone fell on it, is likely they would have been claimed against too. But that's the culture you guys live in - if there's blame there's a claim.
As far as the public doing their bit to help clear snown on the sidewalk (which was my point), it's virtually impossible a citizen clearing snow could be found guilty for doing it - they would have had to have created such a threat to life and limb that a reasonable person would shudder at the thought of it. It's never happened and never will, but millions think it's a real threat.
To the contrary, I've demonstrated that a world without copyright has little, if any, additional piracy to the one we have now. But what it does have is greater freedom and a much less inconvenient experience for consumers.
Really, I must have missed that. Can you point me to where you demonstrated it? (Apart from piracy being impossible if there is no copyright, no one has yet explained how Lethal Weapon 18 gets funded.
It may not actually be possible to release something into the public domain any more.
sheesh, your paraonoia knows no bounds......

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 165 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 2:50 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 168 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 5:18 PM Tangle has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 168 of 303 (650279)
01-29-2012 5:18 PM
Reply to: Message 167 by Tangle
01-29-2012 3:45 PM


Re: Great logo, shame about the cause
On the snow issue. Virtually everyone in the UK has swallowed the myth of the clearing and non clearing of snow - like there was a law on snow clearing. There is no law.
Well, ok, but I did give an example of a business that was sued because they made snow clearing efforts. Again, we may be talking about differences between the UK and the US.
But that's the culture you guys live in - if there's blame there's a claim.
Well, we certainly have a litigious culture. Or, another way to think of that is, we have a culture where people are proactive about asserting their rights under the law.
Which means we need to be very fucking careful about what rights we enshrine into law, because they're invariably going to be asserted in ways that are detrimental to society in the aggregate. Sometimes the benefit of the rights is worth it; sometimes, it isn't.
Can you point me to where you demonstrated it? (Apart from piracy being impossible if there is no copyright, no one has yet explained how Lethal Weapon 18 gets funded.
It gets funded the same way it gets funded now - by people choosing to patronize the artists who produce work that they enjoy. I mean it's not like you can't now get a perfect digital copy of a movie the day of its release, for free. The world that proves that art can survive rampant piracy is the world we currently live in, where piracy is rampant and effectively unchecked, yet Hollywood continues to rake in billions every year.
I've pointed this out several times but you have not yet responded. DRM and restrictive copyright law has done nothing to combat piracy, because even when enforcement isn't super-sketchy, you can always pirate from any one of a dozen nations that have no legal copyright whatsoever, or a dozen others that don't extend copyright to foreign works, or a dozen others that are theoretically signatories to our copyright treaties but in practice turn a blind eye to piracy in order to privilege their own native arts.
So we already live in the world of untrammeled piracy, and yet there is no shortage of art or artists; Hollywood still makes Hollywood movies the Hollywood way, Justin Beiber's enriched himself on a career of copyright infringement, and so on. Despite the ready easy of piracy, people continue to believe that there's a moral obligation, or at the very least a self-interest, in patronizing the artists who produce work that they enjoy - even in spite of content creators' assembled attempts to punish them for doing so. In light of this it makes the most sense to assume that the elimination of copyright laws would increase revenues for content creators, not diminish them.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 167 by Tangle, posted 01-29-2012 3:45 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 169 by Tangle, posted 01-29-2012 6:05 PM crashfrog has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 169 of 303 (650283)
01-29-2012 6:05 PM
Reply to: Message 168 by crashfrog
01-29-2012 5:18 PM


Re: Great logo, shame about the cause
It gets funded the same way it gets funded now - by people choosing to patronize the artists who produce work that they enjoy.
Nope, I'm still not getting it.
It's 2020. Copyright was abolished in 2012 under a law that came to be known as Crashfrog's Law. Now anybody can copy anything they like and give it to anyone they like. The internet is ubiquitous, high speed and any and all content that has ever been produced is easily accessible instantly and at high quality. There is no guilt or fear associated with getting and using it. Everybody does it; it's now the way we get all film and music, TV, software, books and, well, everything.
I'm the director of LW18 and I need $40m to make it. Who do I call and how do they get their investment back?

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 168 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 5:18 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 172 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 6:57 PM Tangle has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 170 of 303 (650284)
01-29-2012 6:07 PM
Reply to: Message 161 by crashfrog
01-29-2012 10:27 AM


Re: Problems with the current copyright model
Who gives a shit what you approve of, Nukes? You're not the arbiter of where copyright law is "rightfully" applied. Some blame has to be laid at the feet of the system that makes these abuses possible; all the more so when the system, apparently, views these abuses as "working as intended."
No, I'm not a final arbiter. It happens that I do know patent and copyright law considerably better than do you, as a result of having practiced in those areas. It's certainly legitimate for you not to take me word for anything I post. That's why I backed up my position by posting the statutes in question and discussing the issues that were necessary to establish copyright infringement based on the actual law.
My opinion is based on what I know of the statutory and case law. It is not based on looking at what law suits are filed because baseless law suits are filed all of the time and in every area of law. Your position is akin to saying that if some tort liability suits are groundless, then we should remove the ability to sue for any and all torts.
In this case, there is no evidence that the judicial system has approved the law suit against Beyonce. A law suit was filed, and the filing was reported most likely because the defendant is famous and the plaintiff wanted publicity. That's all we've got so far. No judge has made any ruling as to whether the law suit has merit, and the suit may well be dismissed the first time a judge gets around to looking at it.
It depends on the fidelity of the description, now doesn't it? And whether or not it's a "performance in public" depends on how many people choose to listen to me.
An oral description of a visual movie scene would never infringe on the actual scene. On the other hand, a reciting of the dialog word for word, or as best you can remember might constitute infringement if performed in public.
But again, so what? Even if we removed liability for public performances, and choreography, and software from the statutes, and even if we reverted to copyright law of 200 years ago, downloading copyrighted movies from the internet would still being infringing. And the duration of copyright back then was between 14 and 28 years.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 161 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 10:27 AM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 174 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 7:19 PM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 171 of 303 (650285)
01-29-2012 6:32 PM
Reply to: Message 158 by crashfrog
01-29-2012 10:13 AM


Re: Problems with the current copyright model
Not only can I not legally talk about your car, you can't legally talk about your car. It's shape, it's design, the function of its parts - that's all copyrighted material that belongs not to you, but to the car company.
That's complete nonsense. Nothing in copyright law prevents me from describing my car. I am prevented from distributing a description of my car authored by you unless I have your permission, but nothing keeps me from creating and distributing my own.
In fact, copyright protects the expression and not the factual content of text. And copyright does not protect function of your car at all (See 17 USC 102b, reproduced below).
quote:
(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
It is perfectly legit to obtain a copy of someone's description of a car, strip away the facts from the creative expression and to use those facts to write your own manual.
The above "clean room" process is used frequently to write clones of existing software. There can be no doubt that it works.
I do not doubt that some industry does exert some control over the details of how to repair cars. But it cannot using copyright law in the manner you say, because copyright law does not prevent you from describing things, explaining how things work, or duplicating the function of objects.
There are problems with copyright, and I believe your point regarding your inability to create a work set in Hobbit land, or whatever it is called is a legitimate complaint. Most of the rest of the stuff you've said about the extent of copyright law has been completely wrong.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 158 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 10:13 AM crashfrog has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 172 of 303 (650286)
01-29-2012 6:57 PM
Reply to: Message 169 by Tangle
01-29-2012 6:05 PM


Re: Great logo, shame about the cause
Nope, I'm still not getting it.
Well, let me see if I can break it down for you: somebody wants the latest Justin Bieber track, and because they like Bieber tracks and want there to be more of them, they pay BMI 99c for the track instead of getting it for free on the internet. Or maybe they already have it for free, decided they really liked it, so they pay the 99c and just don't bother to download the track. People who want the track but don't think it's worth 99c or don't care whether or not there ever are more Bieber tracks, just download it for free (but they were never going to pay for it, anyway.) Justin Bieber only stays in the business of making music if he's able to produce product that people want to pay 99c for. But that's the same as it is, now.
I'm the director of LW18 and I need $40m to make it. Who do I call and how do they get their investment back?
Well, I'm not sure I understand. Are you a filmmaker or an investment banker? When I pay $9 to go see a film in the theater, in what sense is that an investment that I'm "getting back"? If you want to be in the business of investing people's money, what on Earth do movies have to do with it?
Edited by crashfrog, : I can't believe I don't know the difference between 99 cents and .99 of one cent.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 169 by Tangle, posted 01-29-2012 6:05 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 173 by Tangle, posted 01-29-2012 7:09 PM crashfrog has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 173 of 303 (650288)
01-29-2012 7:09 PM
Reply to: Message 172 by crashfrog
01-29-2012 6:57 PM


Re: Great logo, shame about the cause
I'm going to ignore your mp3 stuff for the moment because I asked a different question to the one you answered. I asked about LW18. Again.
Well, I'm not sure I understand. Are you a filmmaker or an investment banker? When I pay $9 to go see a film in the theater, in what sense is that an investment that I'm "getting back"? If you want to be in the business of investing people's money, what on Earth do movies have to do with it?
I'm the filmaker. If I can't get $40m, I can't make my movie. So how do I persuade someone to give me the dosh?

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 172 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 6:57 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 175 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 7:23 PM Tangle has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


(1)
Message 174 of 303 (650289)
01-29-2012 7:19 PM
Reply to: Message 170 by NoNukes
01-29-2012 6:07 PM


Re: Problems with the current copyright model
An oral description of a visual movie scene would never infringe on the actual scene.
I don't know how people around you talk about movies, but it's certainly the case that people "describe" movie scenes by reciting the dialog to the best of their memory, usually like "so the one guy says ' It's a record we've been listening to and enjoying, Barry,' and the other guy says 'Well, that's unfortunate, because it sucks ass. '".
In other words, people "describe" movies by, to varying degrees of fidelity, performing them.
That's all we've got so far. No judge has made any ruling as to whether the law suit has merit, and the suit may well be dismissed the first time a judge gets around to looking at it.
And you keep ignoring the point that it's only as a result of Beyonce's wealth that the suit is even going to get before a judge where it can be dismissed. If she had only the resources of a regular person, with little to no ability to afford the team of lawyers to repel this nuisance suit, she'd have little recourse but to settle regardless of the merits of the suit. As so many regular citizens have been forced to settle with the RIAA.
Again, there needs to be some blame apportioned for a system that allows moneyed interests to coerce behavior simply by the threat of lawsuit; a system that assumes these spurious claims are reasonable until a judge determines otherwise. Until a judge rules - and frequently it never gets to that point - a spurious lawsuit is just as much a threat as a legitimate one.
And the duration of copyright back then was between 14 and 28 years.
I'd be ok with that. That's a reasonable compromise between the selfish interests of content creators and the interest of the public as a whole. The system we have now is deeply, deeply lopsided against the public interest. I'm in favor of any movement in the balance-restoring direction.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 170 by NoNukes, posted 01-29-2012 6:07 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 177 by NoNukes, posted 01-29-2012 10:39 PM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 175 of 303 (650290)
01-29-2012 7:23 PM
Reply to: Message 173 by Tangle
01-29-2012 7:09 PM


Re: Great logo, shame about the cause
I'm the filmaker. If I can't get $40m, I can't make my movie. So how do I persuade someone to give me the dosh?
Ok, that's a different question than you asked, though. The way you get your $40 million is by convincing enough people that the existence of your movie is worth $40 million dollars. For instance, you could convince 4.5 million people to each buy a $9 ticket. Or 2.25 million people to each buy two such tickets. And so on.
It's worth pointing out that "convincing some number of people that the existence of your movie is worth $40 million" is the exact same problem you'd have in Hollywood today.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 173 by Tangle, posted 01-29-2012 7:09 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 176 by NoNukes, posted 01-29-2012 7:36 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 178 by Tangle, posted 01-30-2012 6:07 AM crashfrog has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 176 of 303 (650295)
01-29-2012 7:36 PM
Reply to: Message 175 by crashfrog
01-29-2012 7:23 PM


Re: Great logo, shame about the cause
Ok, that's a different question than you asked, though. The way you get your $40 million is by convincing enough people that the existence of your movie is worth $40 million dollars. For instance, you could convince 4.5 million people to each buy a $9 ticket. Or 2.25 million people to each buy two such tickets. And so on.
You are making this harder than it needs be. All you really have to do is convince a few people with capital that enough people will buy tickets to make the venture worthwhile. You don't actually have to convince movie goers until it is time to actually pony up the money for a ticket.
Of course I think that Tangle's problem regarding how you are going to get the money from theaters has not been addressed. Why wouldn't theater managers simply download the movie free instead of paying MGM any kind of fee. That way they could keep the profits to themselves. I don't see high budget movies getting made unless this problem is solved.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 175 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 7:23 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 180 by crashfrog, posted 01-30-2012 9:54 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 177 of 303 (650304)
01-29-2012 10:39 PM
Reply to: Message 174 by crashfrog
01-29-2012 7:19 PM


Re: Problems with the current copyright model
And you keep ignoring the point that it's only as a result of Beyonce's wealth that the suit is even going to get before a judge where it can be dismissed.
I haven't ignored anything. You just mentioned it and I'll deal with the issue now.
Law suits can be dismissed at the pleading stage for very little expense. I'd also note that poor people don't get choreography law suits levied against them.
Copyright law is no different from any other area of law in this respect. Million dollar law suits have been filed against dry cleaners for losing a single pair of pants. Sometimes those suits don't get dismissed and the dry cleaner has to incur some legal costs. The blame for the filing of spurious law suits lies squarely on the litigants. There is no screening process for law suits other than asking the judge to dismiss the law suit.
As so many regular citizens have been forced to settle with the RIAA.
I don't see how this makes your case.
Are you suggesting that most of the suits filed by the RIAA were without legal merit? Yes, there were a few suits against moms and grandmas when their grandchildren were actually the people using Limewire, Napster, or whatever, but the overwhelming majority of those law suits appeared to accurately finger infringers.
And accordingly, the overwhelming majority of those suits were not going to get dismissed for being meritless because the suits accurately targeted copyright infringers. Some people got off because the process for serving them with the complaint was faulty, but only a few people ever managed to escape liability due to actually not having done the uploading/downloading of copyright protected music that they were accused of.
I'm not aware of any significant number of people being wrongly accused of downloading movies. Do you know differently?

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 174 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 7:19 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 181 by crashfrog, posted 01-30-2012 10:00 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 178 of 303 (650321)
01-30-2012 6:07 AM
Reply to: Message 175 by crashfrog
01-29-2012 7:23 PM


Re: Great logo, shame about the cause
Ok, that's a different question than you asked, though. The way you get your $40 million is by convincing enough people that the existence of your movie is worth $40 million dollars. For instance, you could convince 4.5 million people to each buy a $9 ticket. Or 2.25 million people to each buy two such tickets. And so on.
Like I've said before, good luck with that.
In a world where films are free, the sane thing to do is let someone else pay $9 then get it anyway. Then there's the small administrative matter of getting $9 from 4.5m people 3 years in advance.... hopeless.
It's worth pointing out that "convincing some number of people that the existence of your movie is worth $40 million" is the exact same problem you'd have in Hollywood today.
Cobblers. It's a damn sight easier convincing a handful of money men who are hoping to turn their $40m investment into $400m than 4.5m people you don't know and just think it might be a good idea to part with $9 to see if they get anything in three years time. That isn't the way I want to buy my movies.
But if someone thinks it'll work, there's nothing stopping them trying anyway.
This is the problem with your entire argument. You can't come up with a replacement business model that generates the same content but if you could, it could be done anyway without having to remove copyright from everyone else.
Until you can sort that one out, you're stuck in a dreamword.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 175 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 7:23 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 182 by crashfrog, posted 01-30-2012 10:08 AM Tangle has replied
 Message 183 by crashfrog, posted 01-30-2012 10:12 AM Tangle has not replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 179 of 303 (650335)
01-30-2012 9:39 AM
Reply to: Message 166 by crashfrog
01-29-2012 2:54 PM


Re: Problems with the current copyright model
'Halfling' is actually a word from Scots English that predates Tolkein by a century or two, meaning either a short person or a young person.
I'm not that sympathetic to NoNukes' position, but to be fair the topic you're arguing here is a bit of a seperate one to the whole debate. I think you'll find few people, beyond the holders of the rights involved, that wouldn't agree the length of some intellectual property is ridiculous. There is no justification for hobbits, Superman or Mickey Mouse not being in the public domain, their creators all being dead for some time. Whether a film produced in 2011 should still be protected by copyright law is a wholly seperate question.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 166 by crashfrog, posted 01-29-2012 2:54 PM crashfrog has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 180 of 303 (650337)
01-30-2012 9:54 AM
Reply to: Message 176 by NoNukes
01-29-2012 7:36 PM


Re: Great logo, shame about the cause
Of course I think that Tangle's problem regarding how you are going to get the money from theaters has not been addressed. Why wouldn't theater managers simply download the movie free instead of paying MGM any kind of fee.
Why would people who want to patronize artists patronize a theater that doesn't patronize artists? And why would people who don't want to patronize artists pay for a ticket at all?
I just don't see the issue. Maybe with theater operators who claim that they patronize artists but actually don't, but that would be fraud.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 176 by NoNukes, posted 01-29-2012 7:36 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 213 by NoNukes, posted 01-31-2012 4:20 PM crashfrog has replied

  
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