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Author Topic:   SOPA/PIPA and 'Intellectual Property'
Tangle
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Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 12 of 303 (649066)
01-20-2012 9:06 AM


If it became legal to copy and distribute, say a movie, why would Hollywood make any?
Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

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

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


Message 33 of 303 (649206)
01-21-2012 1:29 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by crashfrog
01-21-2012 1:05 PM


crashfrog writes:
We need free access to our own culture more than we need shitty movies like Lethal Weapon 18
I think you're missing the point a bit.
There's absolutely nothing stopping anyone who wants to from releasing their art into the world for free and without copyright, particularly now that we have a fabulous way of distributing a lot of it for free too.
Those who want to do it simply for the love of it can - but many more want to do it for a business or just to eat. Those that want or need to sell their work, have to have their work protected, otherwise they won't do it, or if they do, you won't get to hear or see it.
Without a way of protecting their work by copyright, the majority of entertainment couldn't be produced. There would be no film, TV radio; few books, very little software and without patent laws the industrialised world and modern society as we know it just wouldn't exist.
Having said that, there's some great examples of no copyright (or very limited copyright) stuff around, Linux and the world wide web being great examples.

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

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


Message 43 of 303 (649225)
01-21-2012 3:32 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by crashfrog
01-21-2012 1:46 PM


crashfrog writes:
In a world without SOPA or the DMCA they're free to do so. They don't even need DRM to do it - Louis CK recently made about four million dollars releasing a comedy video on his website - no DRM, no nothing. If you wanted to copy it for free he made no effort to stop you. As it turned out, he didn't need to - enough people were fans of Louis CK that they didn't need to be legally forced with the government's gun to their heads to open their wallets and patronize him.
So they have a new distribution and business model - that's great, if it works for everybody copyright laws will be unnecessary. So if you believe it, you have no problem.
It can't work for everybody though can it? And it can't work at all for patents.

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

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


Message 47 of 303 (649230)
01-21-2012 4:06 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by crashfrog
01-21-2012 3:52 PM


crashfrog writes:
I just want to be clear, I'm neither opposed to patents nor to copyright protection. But they both need to be reformed to meet the original Constitutional intent
Your concerns are justified, over here in Europe, we look at the way you guys patent simple minded stuff then set legal armies out to enforce them and wince.
Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

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

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


Message 57 of 303 (649290)
01-22-2012 8:39 AM
Reply to: Message 55 by crashfrog
01-22-2012 8:21 AM


crashfrog writes:
There is no "copyright holder right to be paid for a copy." MGM has no right to force people to buy copies of their movies. They can only try to convince people in the marketplace that Lethal Weapon 18 on DVD is worth 18 dollars.
The obvious problem you have with this argument is that if MGM's output could be legally copied and easily distributed for free, they would sell only one copy and everyone would get it for nothing. Economic theory tells us that the demand for a free good is infinite. This means that MGM no longer exists and Lethal Weapon 18 never gets made.
Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

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

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


Message 58 of 303 (649293)
01-22-2012 8:50 AM
Reply to: Message 56 by crashfrog
01-22-2012 8:23 AM


Re: Eleven Herbs and Spices
crashfrog writes:
I'm not sure what your point is.
That patents should not be awarded to extremely trivial inventions, or be issued so broadly that a single patent covers all possible solutions to the same problem. The One-Click patent is an example of both, and the fact that it has survived almost all challenge is further evidence of a patent system in need of reform.
Couldn't agree more - this seems to be more a problem in US than elsewhere though.

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

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


Message 65 of 303 (649310)
01-22-2012 11:52 AM
Reply to: Message 60 by Huntard
01-22-2012 9:45 AM


crashfrog writes:
Why would that be the case? Evidence abounds that they would sell no less copies than they would under our system of legally-binding anti-consumer DRM.
And
Huntard writes:
But distributing and obtaining free copies is already incredibly easy, and yet people still go to theatres and still buy dvds. If you are trying to argue that the only reason people do this is because it is illegal to get these free copies, I'd like to point out that in my country, it is perfectly legal to download movies and music, and yet, people still go to the theatres and still buy dvds here as well. In fact, the theatres never made more money than they did last year in a country where it is legal to download movies.
You have to put yourself into a world where there is no copyright protection. If you think about Lethal Weapon 18 being released into that world and being available for free with no legal consequences why would anyone pay for a copy? Can you think of a good reason why they should? To have a nice DVD case on the shelf? Not in a digital world where this stuff is increasing on your hard drive and can be written to DVD anyway. No way, if free became normalised, everyone would take it, not just the relative few that do it now.
As for going to theatres - I assume you mean cinemas? Well yes, of course people will go to cinemas to watch LW18 because of the big screen, the sound and the night out - all added value. They'd also go because it would be really cheap because without copyright protection, the cinemas don,t need to pay MGM royalties.
So MGM get nothing for their work.

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

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Replies to this message:
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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 68 of 303 (649319)
01-22-2012 1:07 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by Huntard
01-22-2012 12:09 PM


For the same reason people in my country still pay for movies and music, even though it is legal for anyone here to download them for free.
You are in the Netherlands? If so, the laws of copyright are virtually identical to everywhere else in the Western world - you signed the Berne Convention. Your government currently sees downloading (file sharing) as fair use, but it's not clear how long they'll be able to hold that position.
In any case, it seems that the downloading of music and movies is now practiced by 30% of the Dutch population. I'm betting that that proportion is the majority of consumers of those products. If your law doesn,t change, how many people do you think will pay for a free product in say 10 years time?
As for cinemas, they will continue to flourish - as I say, people enjoy a night out and they add value. But currently the cinemas pay a royalty to MGM for LW18. If you abolish copyright, they will get nothing.
There is absolutely no doubt that if copyright is abolished, LW18 will not get made. That may be a good thing......

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

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 Message 66 by Huntard, posted 01-22-2012 12:09 PM Huntard has replied

Replies to this message:
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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 72 of 303 (649325)
01-22-2012 1:42 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by Huntard
01-22-2012 1:17 PM


huntard writes:
probably change, even if the people are still able to download stuff for free in ten years time. Like you said, 30% of the population are downloading stuff legally right now, and yet, music and movies are still being sold, and profits are still being made
I'm not going out on a limb; I can guarantee with 100% certainty, that if downloading of all movies and music was freely and easily available in Holland in 10 years time it would have become the norm. It would have been adopted by almost everyone - there would be absolutely no reason to buy it. As far paying the artist - that's bonkers, no-one is going to feel a moral obligation to pay MGM...
It will work on a boutique level, some people will pay something to individual artists for some of their work, but that will not replace Hollywood.
It would be interesting to see some figures on the Dutch market. I wonder if how much revenue has been lost when 30% of the population get it for free. Do you actually know?
With your cinema example, you are confusing the personal downloading of content with the business use of it. Cinemas pay MGM for LW18, they can't download it and screen it (even in Holland), if they could, in your world without copyright, MGM would not make the film because they would get no revenue from it. (People would still want to go to cinemas and be prepared to pay, but if MGM got no royalties, they wouldn't make the film.)

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

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Replies to this message:
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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 74 of 303 (649329)
01-22-2012 2:22 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by Huntard
01-22-2012 2:03 PM


Huntard writes:
You know what would be really cool, if you could support that assertion with some evidence.
I have. 15 years ago there was no downloading, now 30% of the Dutch population do it. We also know that there is a shift from physical content to digitally distributed content, we know that there is a shift to increasing penetration of broadband and to faster broadband. We know that there is increasing connectivity between the internet on the devices used to play music and movie content.
From 101 Economics we also know that demand increases as price decreases and when a valued good is available for free, demand is theoretically infinite.
So, I'm willing to bet you the hand of my virgin daughter, that if copyright law is abolished and some multibillionaire lunatic still produces digital content, then more people will blag it than pay for it. What will you bet?
Of course I do
can you present some then please.
Cinemas are only able to make money if there are movies for them to show
Which is rather my point.

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

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Replies to this message:
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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 82 of 303 (649343)
01-22-2012 4:02 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by Huntard
01-22-2012 2:38 PM


Huntard writes:
Which is not what this is about. This is about whether or not no one will pay for content when it is freely available. Not if less people will pay for it
Don't be rediculous. This is about whether *enough* people will pay for the content so that people will continue to produce it.
In a world without copyright law, mass and near instant access plus good content, of course they won't pay for it.
There are lots of examples like Iron Maiden, but Iron Maiden got globally famous by the traditional music industry who paid them advances and promoted their events and music and made a profit by selling their protecting material. They are already a known brand.
In a future world of no copyright plus digital distribution, small independent artists can self-publish and will attract an audience, some of whom will feel the desire to pay them something and some of them will make a living from sales and performances. It might even be a better business model than the old - i certainly hope so. Those artists can do it now and they are - there's nothing stopping them and i think it's great.
But I'll keep saying this until you get it. it can't and won't work for MGM and all similar companies. It may work for small, independant artists that have low to zero costs of production but you'll never see a blockbuster movie that needs ten of million of dollars invested up front again - because there's no way to get your money back.
My point was that even if there was no copyright law, cinemas would still pay for the movies they'd show, because if they didn't there wouldn't be any movies for them to show. Making your point moot.
You're not getting it at all. The movie industry depends on a flow of income. It goes:
Theatrical release (ie cinemas)
Premium TV (ie pay to view)
Satelite and cable
DVD
Rental
Terestrial broadcast
Then re-releases, special editions and follow-up
At each point they get income. The income pays the initial advance - which can be hundreds of millions but is typically $20m. When they make the movie they have no idea whether it's actually going to pay back.
If the studios can't guarantee that income because as soon as they release their blockbuster it's available to everyone globally in hi-def for nothing, no investor is going to invest. You'd have to be a raving idiot to put your money up.
And as for video games - apart from paying for playing a game on line, that industry would die overnight as every kid in world piled in. (Playing online only, is the equivalent of copyright protection, as everyone that wants to play it has to pay for it.)

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

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Huntard, posted 01-22-2012 2:38 PM Huntard has replied

Replies to this message:
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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 88 of 303 (649351)
01-22-2012 5:48 PM
Reply to: Message 83 by Huntard
01-22-2012 4:40 PM


Huntard, Crashfrog
The point you are both missing for some reason is that if the no copyright business model works then it'll happen. No-one is forcing anyone to copyright anything. For some things it will work but in my opinion for anything that needs a large pre-investment and a big company that people can't identify with, it mostly won't.
What is it you actually think needs to be done? You can make your movie and give it away anytime you want. You can write your book, play or song and free publish it on the internet now.
You don't need to make any claims on the past for any of this, so even if you disagree with copyright, why do you care?

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

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


Message 92 of 303 (649357)
01-22-2012 7:09 PM
Reply to: Message 90 by crashfrog
01-22-2012 6:48 PM


crashfrog writes:
Nothing needs a "big company that people can't identify with."
You've just done away with Hollywood and most of book publishing. I quite like a lot of their products and am happy to pay for the ones I want. if you don't like them, why should you get them for free and why would you want to?
I think we need to punish rights holders who opt to punish those who attempt to patronize artists.
I'm missing a really big point somewhere. Artists have survived throughout history on patronage. But they don't have to if they don't want to. They can follow your ideal model and self publish. They're free to do whatever they like with their own copyright.
Some of them are doing it quite successfully and I'm sure the new self-publishing models will do well for some people in some media. (Though I note they're generally also quite happy to revert to the legacy publishing model as soon as they're offered a large advance when they make it big on youtube or whatever.)

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

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 99 of 303 (649372)
01-22-2012 11:11 PM
Reply to: Message 97 by crashfrog
01-22-2012 8:36 PM


crashfrog writes:
Sure. Fuck 'em! Why does content have to come to us through the controlled bottleneck of a small number of elite tastemakers?
As I've explained several times now, it doesn't anymore. The artist can self publish which appears to be what you want. (And so do I)
Before the internet the artist's work could not get to market without the 'controlled bottleneck'. The publisher provides the finance, distribution and marketing that the artist needs to get read/heard/watched/played and it's my contention that for major film and game making (and anything that needs a large investment by the creators) we still need that model and removing copyright would destroy it. I quite like movies and games but if you don't you can stick to finding the content from self published boutique film makers.
You'll also notice that in big projects like film - and to some extent games - the 'controlled bottleneck' is also the content creator.
The question isn't what they're free to do, it's what they're asking the government to force me to do - for instance, to ensure that my own DNS servers (yeah... I have one) don't contain IP address resolution entries for any of a list of websites determined by the FTC, without review or opportunity for appeal, as linking to "infringing" content. What is the FTC's criteria for "infringement"? Somebody with an expensive suit comes in and says "my company holds this copyright, and this website is infringing."
Well that's an entirely different issue to abolishing copyright and one that we're in agreement over.

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

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


Message 100 of 303 (649385)
01-23-2012 5:52 AM
Reply to: Message 83 by Huntard
01-22-2012 4:40 PM


Huntard writes:
Look, I can repeat myself again, but until you show some evidence, I don't think there's a point to it. Please show your assertions to be the case, I tried to give you evidence of mine. (I showed you a person who got famous without any investment, and is now making money for a record company, I showed you that the most expensive movie ever made over here was a total success, and yet, all you do is assert that what I say cannot be the case).
Ok, let's have a look at your examples and some more evidence.
Ok, another example, Esmee Denters is a Dutch singer who became famous because she herself placed videos of herself singing on youtube. Only after she got famous did she get picked up by a record company. Free content actually made her career, and people bought her CD, despite all of the material being available online for free. No money was spent by any company to make her famous. In fact, if SOPA had passed, stories like these would become impossible.
There are a few examples like this, a couple in the book world too. I'm hoping and predicting that there will be a lot more. The internet allows people to reach an audience that they wouldn't have reached before.
But I note that she sold out to the record company (and so did the authors). What was it that they sold? They sold their copyright. How do they do that if copyright has been banned?
Without selling her copyright she could have gone on the way she was - giving it away - and I suspect she may have made a living at it somehow. We'll just have to wait and see whether the no-copyright model of music publishing works and for how many. It's not as easy for authors though. Generally I think it's a very good thing. But it can be done without making any changes to copyright law.
Your Zwartboek example is also interesting and also an extreme. The film was exceptional but it had great difficulties being funded at all and was almost forced into bankruptcy when it didn't pay its crew. It also received government funding and rather interestingly:
Before the film was released, the rights for distribution had been sold to distributors in 52 countries
Again, what did they sell? Copyright and distribution rights.
Even after all that it doesn't seem as though it was a big commercial success. It cost 18m to make and despite being the biggest box office success in Dutch history it only took 6,953,118 gross (ie before costs and payments to rights holders) at the Dutch box office.
International sales may have doubled that and sell through to video will have added more but it's not an obvious financial success - and this is the biggest and most successful movie the Dutch have ever made. It would have been utterly impossible to make without copyright protection.
Because of financing problems the filming did not start as planned in 2004 but was delayed until August 2005.[8][9] In this month it was announced that Black Book received about 2,000,000 support from the Netherlands Public Broadcasting, the CoBO Fund, and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.[10] There were also several foreign investors, which made the film a Belgian, British, and German coproduction. With a final estimated budget of 18,000,000 the film was the most expensive Dutch film ever, at the time of its release.[3]
In October 2006 twelve crew members and businessmen started a lawsuit in which they demanded the bankruptcy of Zwartboek Productie B.V., the legal entity founded for the film. Some of them were already waiting for more than a year to get their money, in total tens of thousands of euros. Production company Fu Works settled the case and promised to pay the creditors.[11]
You're right, I don't read Dutch so your paper wasn't a great help to me. I did look at the pictures though, which appears to tell you everything you need to know about what happens when you have the choice of paying for something or getting it for free. Unfortunately, it's not an image so I can't post it, but it shows music sales falling from 500m in 2000 to 215m in 2010 whilst sales of downloads totalled 20m.
Similar numbers here:
It's not surprising that sales of goods fall when the same goods are available for free - in fact it would be absolutely extraordinary if they didn't. It's also not surprising that some people will continue to pay - markets are never perfect. But I can see no reason at all why a market should grow so quickly from zero to 30% penetration then stop dead. Can you?
Now, having said all that, it's not totally accepted that downloading has CAUSED the drop in revenues. Other reasons have been given and there's quite an interesting paper that says that downloading is helpful to the music industry. Here's its conclusions:
VII. Conclusion
We find that file sharing has no statistically significant effect on purchases of the average album in our sample. Moreover, the estimates are of rather modest size when compared to the drastic reduction in sales in the music industry. At most, file sharing can explain a tiny fraction of this decline. This result is plausible given that movies, software, and video games are actively downloaded, and yet these industries have continued to grow since the advent of file sharing. While a full explanation for the recent decline in record sales are beyond the scope of this analysis, several plausible candidates exist. These alternative factors include poor macroeconomic conditions, a reduction in the number of album releases, growing competition from other forms of entertainment such as video games and DVDs (video game graphics have improved and the price of DVD players or movies have sharply fallen), a reduction in music variety stemming from the large consolidation in radio along with the rise of independent promoter fees to gain airplay, and possibly a consumer backlash against record industry tactics.26 It is also important to note that a similar drop in record sales occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and that record sales in the 1990s may have been abnormally high as individuals replaced older formats with CDs (Liebowitz, 2003).
Our results can be considered in a broader context. A key question is the impact of file sharing (and weaker property rights for information goods) on societal welfare. To make such a calculation, we would need to know how the production of music responds to the presence of file sharing. Based on our results, we do not believe file sharing will have a significant effect on the supply of recorded music. Our argument is twofold. The business model of major labels relies heavily on a limited number of superstar albums. For these albums, we find that the impact of file sharing on sales is likely to be positive, leaving the ability of major labels to promote and develop talent intact. Our estimates indicate that less popular artists who sell few albums are most likely to be negatively affected by file sharing. (Note, however, that even for this group the estimated effect is statistically insignificant.) Even if this leads record labels to reduce compensation for less popular artists, it is not obvious this will influence music production. This is because the financial incentives for creating recorded music are quite weak. Few of the artists who create one of the roughly 30,000 albums released each year in the U.S. will make a living from their sales because only a few albums are ever profitable.27 In fact, only a small number of established acts receive contracts with royalty rates ensuring financial sufficiency while the remaining artists must rely on other sources of income like touring or other jobs (Albini, 1994; Passman, 2000). Because the economic rewards are concentrated at the top and probably fewer than one percent of acts ever reach this level (Ian, 2000), altering the payment rate should have very little influence on entry into popular music.
If we are correct in arguing that downloading has little effect on the production of music, then file sharing probably increases aggregate welfare. Shifts from sales to downloads are simply transfers between firms and consumers. And while we have argued that file sharing imposes little dynamic cost in terms of future production, it has considerably increased the consumption of recorded music. File sharing lowers the price and allows an apparently large pool of individuals to enjoy music. The sheer magnitude of this activity, the billions of tracks which are downloaded each year, suggests the added social welfare from file sharing is likely to be quite high.
27Major label releases are profitable only after they sell at least a half million copies, a level only 113 of their 6,455 new albums reached (Ordonez, 2002). 52 records account for 37% of the total sales volume (Ian, 2000). Twenty-five thousand new releases sold less than one thousand copies in 2002 (Seabrook, 2003).
Page not found - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
That was in the USA where file sharing is illegal so there is still a reason not to do it. But I suggest that if there was no copyright protection at all, then the model would change and nothing much would get sold.
That's not to say that it would be a bad thing - well only for the big music moguls - it may well work well for the artists themselves because only a very small number of artists every get wealthy on their copyright anyway, but as I keep saying, they can do it now if they like, they don't need the abolition of copyright protection to try.

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

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Replies to this message:
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