do "public domain" works exist... not really, thinks USA gov.

[holly]

Too many of these forum battles are etherial. Name the band that has suffered because of the evil copyright protections (maybe "we already have 3 bands in that slot" is polite code for "your band sucks. get an audience and we will be happy to sign you"). Name the film that has suffered because of P2P (Matrix 12 only did $20Billion overseas, and if it weren't for P2P piracy it would have made $20.01Billion...). If you always want to use abstractions and refuse to cite specifics then you are fighting ghosts and there is nothing to do but spout rhetoric and ultimatums. *yawn*.


I haven't used P2P yet because I can't think why I would want to download and watch the next HarryPlotter movie when it will be on cable non-stop in a few months.... Likewise, surfing P2P for mp3s is like listening to really really bad radio. I can't find ANYTHING that I want to listen to-- no jazz, nothing eclectic, just more pop (s)hits. It's the same as radio without the commercials (which in my opinion as a consumer is GOOD).

These networks are the future domain of the generic mainstream. When I am making so much money that I am mainstream I will consider whining about the $0.0002 I lose everytime someone doesn't want to buy my crappy album or see my shlocky movie. Until then the real battle for artists is to diversify and get interesting. P2P will NOT service the underground.... These megacorps have had their run. The recording industry didn't exist 100 years ago and in the last 50 years it has killed the viability of live music and pick-up musicians making a living. Now, P2P is making the recording industry unprofitable and irrelivant: the worm has turned. Only little kids use P2P so they can spend more money on clothes.... Adults will start to look locally for live entertainment and we will not have to put up with LA cheesewhiz movies and London pop acts masquerading as music.

[Rovastar]

Holly you misunderstand as to who uses P2P and what is available on it.

I have friends with thousands of films and TV shows download and hundreds of thousands of hours of music downloads.

It is really easy to get films, music, software, etc on it.

I admit I have used P2p for music as I can get the music I want easier on there before it comes out in the shops. And even feel guilty about downloading music from very small labels.

Tbh just about *any* music can be found with the right P2P software. Once on the winamp forum there was a thread about ultra rare recordings that no-one could find anymore and within a few minutes I downloaded all of them.
It is about what software you use.

" I can't find ANYTHING that I want to listen to-- no jazz, nothing eclectic, just more pop (s)hits. It's the same as radio without the commercials (which in my opinion as a consumer is GOOD).
"

Maybe you are just getting old babe. You are turning into your parents.



Sometimes defending copyright is tricky it could have been maybe people like Disney have abused their copyright (like there works going out of copyright). Mickey Mouse, etc become brands like Coca Cola, etc I can understand the motivation to defend the brand.

I defend the right for copyright though and the right use creative commons rights too. If you want too. If you own something then you can do what you want with it. Public domain, etc.

If you think of the Snow White fairy tale case that was brought up. The fairy tail is public domain you can retell the story yourself, animate it add a few twists in there and it is your work. That is what Disney did. Disney will not stop you making a animated version of Snow White but if you start giving the same names to the, *sigh* I best be PC, ?vertically challenged people? as Disney did then you will be in trouble.

All Disney had to go on was:

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm053.html

And they changed a public domain story a far bit from the hour + cartoon. You would be able to use all the quotes from the original Grimm version from the link but not the Disney songs.

But copyright is here to help us all if Microsoft or Disney want to use my copyrighted stuff without permission then I?ll get a lawyer and fight the case. Without copyright law this would not be possible??at all.

The copyright law is in general a good one (you own the rights to anything you create unless you say otherwise)

But to be fair this case isn?t about that 99.9999% of people using P2P S/w are using for there own gain not for a political satire message.

[DrEskaton]

rova,

the original purposes of copyright and patent law was to ensure that creative works and technical inventions would eventually get released into the public domain and be available for all. Compensation for the artists was only a secondary reason for them.

prior to these laws people would keep exact details of music compositions or inventions a secret and sometimes those secrets were lost with the death of the originator.

so copyright was meant to be a mechanism to fairly compensate the creator, but more importantly ensure after a period that work becomes available for everyone to draw on as a creative base and cultural legacy and is not lost to all.

modern copyright law has been perverted to only provide compensation for the author but to never allow release of material to public domain (as they keep extending copyright duration).

sure there should be copyright, I'd like to make some money off selling loops or vj mixes one day, but, the term should be severely shortened to say 20 years after which it becomes public domain and selling media in a way that prevents peoples legal fair use should be illegal.

Sure Disney's 1937 version of Snow White was an original creative work (derived from a work now in pubic domain) and they deserved copyright protection. But now 70 years later it should in the public domain, they've made their money back off it a long time ago and it should now be available for anyone to copy freely or create derivative works from.

All art works this way, new works are based on old with endless copying and recycling, the current attempt to artifically restrict that is unnatural and hurts artists more than it helps them while only benefiting large publishing companies.

[holly]

Originally posted by Rovastar
Tbh just about *any* music can be found with the right P2P software. Once on the winamp forum there was a thread about ultra rare recordings that no-one could find anymore and within a few minutes I downloaded all of them.
It is about what software you use.

Ooooh, then let's make this a USEFUL discussion! What/which networks are the interesting things on? Which software puts me on those specific networks? All I really know is LameWire (and Acquisition on the mac side). That P2P has nothing of interest... (well, ok, I found Meco's "The Wizard of Oz" a few weeks ago). I used one of the old ones for a while (where you were just on people's servers and there was no search engine), I forget what it was called but eventually it was creepy. It was just a bunch of lonely guys trying to hook-up in the chat part.

Originally posted by Rovastar
I have friends with thousands of films and TV shows download and hundreds of thousands of hours of music downloads.

Which they obviously can't listen to or watch in their lifetimes. I know people with Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder, too. It's because of these people that gambling, drugs, and prostitution are illegal. Thousands of films? Hundreds of thousands of hours of music? This is what they call a "hungry ghost". You know that is abnormal. They are trying to fill their meaningless lives with possessions, but because they are network-savvy the "possessions" take the form of downloaded files. Point them in the direction of a psychiatrist.

I'm undoubtedly old, but I'm also a bit of a minimalist (certainly NOT my parents who seemed to think possessions made them important). The possessions I want (honest friends, artistic/job growth, and hardware, generally) just can't be downloaded. *shrug*

P2P is the new word-of-mouth. Before the BrothersGrim and WDisney slapped their ownership on SnowWhite she was owned by everyone and grew more interesting each time the story was retold.

[alangeering]

"Too many of these forum battles are etherial"

I was talking about the future, which by necessity is etherial.

I've never been against copyright or it's enforcement.

In my lifetime I'm much more likly to output more programs/devices/inventions than works of art. I am concerned about the scope of the case before the court (the fact that a new interpretation of the sony case is being sought) and what it means for things I make in the future.

over the last year I've been working on a lecture capture project. It's a device to record high defenition / high resolution audio and video. It could easily be re-purposed for recording protected HD video.

As the law stands (with its current interpretation) my device is legal and my work is legitamate as there is a use for it that is not infringing copyright.

As the law could be re-interpreted after this case; whether my product is legal or not depends on what people do with it. (requirement is for commercially significant non-infringing use, and significant is a relative term). I become liable for making a product that can be misused. I'm (almost) an accessory to a crime.

Now, this is absurd. If this logic were to prevail I would expect gun manufacturers and not P2P developers to be targeted first. But, this is the US and priorities are lead by financial concerns.

[holly]

But, it's the responsibility of the mediacorps to keep inventing copyprotection schemes like CSS, Macrovision,... and what was the one Sony recently put on CDs? It was rumored to destroy your CD player/computer and immediately tanked (no doubt losing some serious R&D dollar$).

Alan, I agree that the wording looks grim, but these are scare-tactics like the RIAA lawsuits. As soon as these technology schemes are put in place someone comes along and defeats it. It is the industry's treadmill that will eventually consume them. Remember CDs and DVDs weren't introduced because they sounded better (benefit to consumer), they were introduced because they were cheaper to manufacture (better for megacorps). It is their own fault. They swiched to digital and promoted it as "better" for the consumer. There are plenty of people that think "digital" means "higher-quality", but anyone who works with media files knows that isn't necessarily true.

Besides, if it is illegal to defeat Macrovision, et al, then why can you buy a little Edirol box designed to defeat it?

Because, as you say, it has a ligitimate purpose which is easy to defend. If small artists are not embracing P2P it is likely because they are lost within the 1000000+ hours of obsessive/compulsive downloads and it does them no good.

[Amukidi]

the original purposes of copyright and patent law was to ensure that creative works and technical inventions would eventually get released into the public domain and be available for all. Compensation for the artists was only a secondary reason for them.

I'd love to see some evidence underpinning this statement.. I was always led to believe it was to protect the commercial rights...

[DrEskaton]

Originally posted by Amukidi
I'd love to see some evidence underpinning this statement.. I was always led to believe it was to protect the commercial rights...

ok I guess it's debateable which was the "primary purpose".

but according to the US constitution copyright protection must be for a "limited time", there was a clear intention to allow works to pass into the public domain after that time.

Laws have been conveniently passed to keep extending copyright whenever there is danger of any major Disney works (themselves ironically based on out of copyright public domain fairytales) passing into the public domain.

see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain

Here is the relevant text from Article I of US consitution:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

so it's clearly stated that the purpose of copyright is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" not to compensate authors.

[holly]

Then the current copyright laws (the Sonny Bono laws?) are un-constitutional. I'm not sure if they have been tested in court. Do we know an actual case? Congress can pass all the ridiculous laws they want (ban same-sex marriage, too) but if it's unconstitutional any judge can dismiss it out of hand.

[DrEskaton]

it was tried and failed Holly in 2003. The copyright extenstions are not "unlimited" so they were deemed constitutional.

see "Eldred vs Ashcroft"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft

Want to get famous?

make a remix DVD of Disneys WWII propaganda Donald Duck cartoons, overdub it with political messages and some flash animation comparing bush to the nazis. Start selling it on ebay, then send Disney a copy.

Now contact the EFF and ask them to represent you pro bono in an attempt to have your work declared protected satire and the copyright extensions unconstitutional.

I guarentee you'll get media coverage, could make a career for a US based VJ.