Posted on 01/25/2012 7:41:26 PM PST by Rockerwolf
Because there was a discussion that i had with someone about SOPA/PIPA and i mentioned how the bill would in effect affect sites like Youtube,google,flickr,tumblr,and such. And the person turned it around to make it into about supporting music piracy.
And the whole time the person made me want to facepalm so hard over the person supporting SOPA/PIPA. Because under SOPA/PIPA,if i did a cover of a song and uploaded it to say,Youtube or simiar i would get into trouble,but the person kept turning it around and stuff.
Almost certainly, that and soft-headed folk who have bought into the rhetoric of people with vested interests and don't understand how the internet or a market economy actually works.
They may be budding film producers or musicians.
Not likely. Most of the new generation have actually embraced the internet as a way of breaking into the market and regard "piracy" as their fans sampling their work which they will later buy or support in other ways. The folks with vested interests are established studios and publishers (usually not the artists themselves) who expect the government to prop up their business model. Unfortunately the law of supply and demand naturally drives the price of any good which can be produced in arbitrary supply at zero marginal cost to zero, and digital text, images, video, . . . are goods of that nature. The budding film producers, musicians, artists, authors, . . . who grew up with the internet are adapting and finding business models that work (the usual one is abbreviated CwF + RtB "connect with fans plus reason to buy", though merchandizing and sale of advertising also work).
It’s the copyright owner’s responsibility to protect and uphold their property from theft, not the government.
Too many people look to government to protect them and their property, when in fact it is the responsibility of the individual to do.
Government’s only role is to defend the victims, and uphold their rights.
Perhaps so-called “artists” should get a real job and stop whining. When they know how it is to be working class, actually earn your money, work for a living only to be taxed to death and be spit upon by the govt and parasites, and the crony rich corporatists, then they might have some points.
Seconding and extending no-s’s remarks, I would note that ConservativeInPA’s assertion: “The constitution provides the power to the federal government to protect IP,” is false.
The notion of “intellectual property” was unknown at the time of the American Founding, first arising in the late 19th century. What the Founders had in mind when they wrote the relevant clause among the enumerated powers of Congress were the Law of Queen Anne granting copyright (the exclusive right to make or authorize the making of copies) to authors for 14 year, extendible at the request of the author (not his estate, not his publisher, the author) for another 14, and the Statute of Monopolies of 1624 which limited the right of Crown to grant letters patent (grants of monopolies) to those granted to inventors of new devices. Neither was understood as creating property rights. Both were understood as the creation of salutary state-granted monopolies (the latter even plainly stating it as such).
Had the Founders conceive of copyright and patent as property (which is transferable, inheritable, salable, and does not cease or become public simply with the passage of time) the would surely have written a clause something like “To secure in perpetuity to authors and inventors, their heirs and assigns, exclusive rights to their respective writings and inventions.” (The preambulatory “to promote progress. . . “ phrase would doubtless have been omitted since such an arrangement wouldn’t have done so, as even with the current terms, derivative works and inventions are impeded and progress in science and the arts harmed.) They did not. I’m afraid “intellectual property” is at best one of those emanations or penumbrae our latter day jurists attribute to the Constitution, and at worst a corruption of the Founders’ intent in the interest chiefly not of actual authors, scientists, artists and inventors, but of publishers and lawyers.
And, then of course, there is the fact that copying is not taking. Taking deprives the one of his item. Copying does not. Do you really think that the Old Covenant injunction “thou shalt not steal” is directed against the acquisition of the item by the effort of picking it up and carrying it off, rather than against depriving the rightful owner of the item?
I contend there is property involved, but I am not a lawyer. If I create an invention, it will take labor and capital (money). I will have to write or have someone else write the patent application. (more labor and capital) That is what the government looks at to provide ownership (exclusive rights) of the idea (my property) to me. If someone takes (steals) my idea (property), say China, and sells it, then they sold the results of my idea without the labor or capital needed to create the idea. That to me is stealing. There is no mention of criminal or civil law mentioned in the constitution in regards to this matter. But stealing (theft) is criminal law in my estimation.
The point in my first post is that we have too many laws on the books. Stealing is stealing. I’m not interested in splitting hairs over monikers, whether copyright, patent, IP or property. If you take something that I made without paying for it, it is stealing. SOPA is not needed if we recognize what stealing is. We don’t need an additional law that degrades/eliminates due process. We have too many laws, many of which encroach on individual rights.
Well said. I say after the original artist/creator/parties pass away, then the work in question should be public domain.
If not, then it’s a slippery slope and the “owners” themselves(who aren’t the original owners or creators) are themselves stealing, because they didn’t create it and are withholding from the public domain.
Great post! I agree.
Ok ... I give. The Reader David put it in a way that I could understand. I think I am around too many lawyers at work that talk about IP, which I thought was synonous with copyright (software in my case). Peace. I learned something tonight.
What is often overlooked is that people will eventually buy the entertainment. They like to own, not rent. They may use, for a time and not buy, but at some point, they do purchase what they use.
Pirating, for most people, merely delays their eventual purchase.
It's worse than that. What they want is, even if you have 'bought' it, all you've done is purchased a license for the intellectual property on the disk. It is not yours to resell, or transfer in any way.
Now that CDs and DVDs are declining in sales and digital downloads are getting to be the norm. They might actually and up getting what they want.
Labels have long been at war with radio stations that played entire albums because of home recording. Then came the used record/CDs sales at brick and mortar stores, then on-line, eBay, Amazon, etc. Ironically, label Promo and Sales guys have been some of the biggest suppliers to these resellers via "Promos" and "Cleans", which are supposed to be used as promotional (payola) items.
Counterfeiting for profit could be considered "copying". This is clearly something deprives the creator of proceeds, and we'd all agree is not a good thing.
But I have yet to hear a convincing argument of how on line sharing of music, movies, or, printed word is any different than what happens every day at the public library.
Anyone think this piece of statist/socialist excrement won't bring this up again or another bill that allows government to censor the Internet and destroy it.
These creeps hate the Internet because we can expose them here.
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