Posted on 04/02/2005 4:37:22 AM PST by billorites
Holding to the rights to songs you wrote is not *a kind of monolopy*; it's called private property. Without which there would be little incentive to create. We don't need socialized music.
"Holding rights to songs...", not "holding to the rights to songs..."
The Constitution isn't a riddle. The Founders left us with plenty of material to inform us what they meant.
Do you think "limited" means "a few more years every time Mikey is about to go out of copyright protection?"
Bankrupt the RIAA and MPAA members, and they won't have the money to buy illegitimate laws like that.
Good! Then let's go back to the copyright term BEFORE the Socialist New Deal, eh?
While it makes a nice sound byte to toss around terms which you apparently don't understand, a 15% rate of return on invested capital is considered normal.
DING! We have a winner.
THIS is why it is different from your house. Your house is NOT about adding to the common store of art and science. The ONLY basis - and the explicitly cited basis - for copyright and patent protection is to add to a shared heritage.
Um, No. You are advocating shutting down the manufacture of a mere technological tool that is used by some to violate copyrights, and not by others.
As I said above, that is no different than blaming gun manufacturers for gun crimes.
So it should be only for the common good? What the hell does that mean? Copyright is for the protection of private property. Otherwise you are saying the artist has no right to their creations and it is the property of the *community*. That is insanity, and it is socialism. What the hell is the *common store of art and science*? By implication that means that NO copyrights should be given, that we are not entitled to the fruits of our labors, and that we are all slaves to whatever is considered the common good or the public interest. Nonesense.
Great point!
BZZZZT, wrong. Thanks for playing the Constitution game. Your consolation prize is a copy of the USA PATRIOT Act, redaced, of course.
Try reading the copyright and patent clause.
Oh, and if the copyright and patent clause were not in the Constitution, there would be NO intellectual property rights. (For a bonus two points, those of you who have not flunked out of the game can tell me how that differs from real property.)
I don't think that is quite accurate. The purpose of copyright was not to secure rights ad infinitum. It was to allow the person who created a work to profit from it, with the eventual work benefitting society.
There is a reason limits were put on copyrights and patents. If they were enforced forever, they would eventually stifle creativity.
Take the example of 'Mickey Mouse'. That creation should have entered the public domain some time ago. But enough palms have been greased to twist the copyright.
Imagine if pharmaceutical companies were allowed to have patents enforced on the drugs they create for the lifetime of the company. They could charge any price they like, and agressively nail anyone who might use a portion of the formulation to create or enhance new drugs. That does not benefit anyone. In fact, that would be more like corporatism than a free market.
I'll try, because intelectual property in the public domain belongs to society? hands shaking on keyboard.
There is a fine line in there, I think. And it has been debated on other threads such as this one before.
Is it moral or legal to make a tape and share it with a friend? If not, then why play music on the radio? Someone could copy the music to tape. Yes, I know the radio stations have agreements, etc.
However, college radio stations ( at least years ago ) used to get advance copies of music to play, in the hopes that people listening would like the music and purchase the album.
Contrast the above with someone who makes a tape ( or other recordable medium ), then sells it. They have indeed violated a copyright. I could even ( vaguely ) see a case for the RIAA to go after people who have huge libraries of music available on a peer-to-peer network. At that point, one could argue that the person is not just sharing certain songs they think are 'cool', but are in a strange sense, a commercial business.
However, I do know people out there with personal libraries of music who do not share on a peer to peer network, who willingly burn a CD or make a tape for friends. However, they aren't selling the work, and aren't intending it to be used commercially. Is this stealing? I'm not so certain.
The problem I have is that the RIAA is couching arguments in the terms of 'copyright' and 'protecting the artist'. But the way they are pursuing this issue smacks more of protecting a de facto monopoly.
If you look at things like iTunes, people are willing to buy the music. The market has determined that that business model is reasonable ( and, I suspect, will correlate to a decline in file-swapping ).
One of the signs of monopoly gone bad is when services, prices, or product supplied become substandard or not serving the customer, but the customer has no other choice. I look at the movie and music industries, and the product supplied ( IMHO ) falls into this category. I won't use this to justify burning entire albums and putting them on a network to 'bring down the man', but I will point out that such an activity should be setting off some lightbulbs in a music executive's mind that something is definitely wrong.
The issue isn't intellectual property in the public domain, it's intellectual property that someone just created. If i write a song today it is MINE; nobody else should be able to profit from it but me. It is not public domain or part of our musical heritage, it is my creation and I am entitled to make money off of it for a certain number of years. The length of time is up to debate. If someone else tries to distribute my song online without my consent (let's say it's just the lyrics and sheet music even), they are thieves. If I sell my song and Brad Paisley records it and it sells a million copies, the distribution of my lyrics and sheet music without my consent and without compensating me is theft, whether it is online or on a street corner. It doesn't matter if I already made tons of money and don't *need* anymore; I am still entitled to the benifits of my creation.
Seems to me the more money entertainers make, the worse their music is--this is what happens when technology artificially enables a small group of businessmen to control an art.
People will always do what they enjoy doing--whether they are paid for it or not.
I am not paid to give you this advice, for example, and what I write here is not protected by copyright--yet I give and write it anyway.
Were I a musician today, I'd give my music away for free on the internet.
I'd use the internet to publicize my work.
Then if what I create people like enough, I would then use the internet to sell tickets to live performances.
For that and such things as selling autographs, doing soft-drink commercials, etc., I would make a comfortable living to say the least.
Well if you don't want to share, don't write it.
No one pays me to type this either.
Yet I do not begrudge that people may take my ideas here for free.
The day is coming when technology and bio-engineering will change things even more.
Once day, we will all be endowed with photographic and phonographic memory: We see or hear a work of art once, and can then play it over and over again in our heads perfectly.
How will you stop that?
The day will also come when a couple of guys with capes will be able to make the equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster like the Lord of the Rings, in their backyard with the help of a video camera and a desktop computer to generate artificial actors and extras.
Then we can all make movies to give away for free on the net.
How will Hollyweird compete with that?
Change is coming, and with it democratization and improvement of art.
I remember that there was this church in Europe that had the only copies of some sacred music.
It was then illegal for anyone to have a copy--no scribes were allowed to make a copy and anyone caught attempting to write it down while listening to it would be punished.
Mozart attended one performance of it.
And when it was over and Mozart was safely away from the church, he wrote down the entire long work from memory.
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