Anti Piracy Day

[Mels_Smileys45]

While you're sorta sticking to the subject, you are still all over the place. Do you want copyright reform or do you want to abolish copyright? This is a very tricky, slippery slope and I hope you read this oh so long post in its entirety.


If all copy rights are abolished then all hell breaks loose. File sharing will be free game but any artist wanting to make a living is screwed. How so, you ask. (or perhaps you said bullshit, whatever) Here is a scenario.

Say that you're a Bruce Springsteen fan and you just can't wait for his new joint to drop so you can download and share it with friends. But I decide I want to call my new CD Bruce Springsteen too. You download it and I sound like pure shit and now you hate Bruce Springsteen and you vow to never see another Bruce Springsteen concert and you throw away your Bruce Springsteen tee shirt's. Well the real Bruce Springsteen is just SOL. His name and product is now just a little more worthless than it already is. This applies to DVD and software too. How do you control quality and such if their are no longer any rules that can be enforced.

Copyright Reform

This is the part no one in the P2P community EVER talks about because no one is really concerned with actually changing anything. They just know they want free stuff. I think a balance can be achieved if people are willing to follow a few not so simple rules.

The market must change to accommodate P2P and people must be willing to accommodate the laws that protect peoples rights to their work. Both are real tuffies. I think legal P2P can flourish and make artists rich if thats how they wish to market their product. I also think its perfectly fine if an artists wants to market their product under the existing laws if they fear their music might be misused in some manner.

An artist who chooses to use P2P will likely see a lot more profit if they can directly touch their fans by using the net as an outlet for distribution, as some artists have already tried. There still needs to be some aspects of copyrights left intact such as their name, logo and such but thats obvious. If these artists can direct their fans to their own site and ask donations for downloads, give info on concerts, sell their tee-shirts and whatever then they stand to eventually develop their own business model. This is how new artists should market themselves IMO. Myspace is a good step in the right direction.


But what about old music? Should there be limits to the amount of time an artist can hold onto their copyrights. I think everyone would say yes to this. Thats how I feel but I think the limit should be until they are dead and gone. Its too bad most artists sell off their rights to the big labels so they can party hearty and gack coke all night long. I don't know how to feel about this practice but it actually doesn't matter how I feel. Thats their choice and theyre free to snort up their entire catalog if they wish to do so.

Sorry I am rambling on here, I took my medication too early tonight so its hard to keep focused as usual. lol I have debated this subject so long I have logical counter points for any issue than can be brought up as long as we stick to intellectual copyright laws. Throwing in all the other issues of copyrights like DNA only deludes and confuses the real issues that need to be addressed although I do find DNA copyright a very interesting issue. I will definitely look into that and perhaps start a thread about it after I read up on it.


Debate is always good as long as people are willing to hear each other without getting mad. I have faced so many people that actually get mad and call me names for having an opinion about P2P. I find most people are unwilling to think about anyone else but themselves so most of the time the debate is useless. I like to hear peoples thoughts about this subject that are willing to give an intelligent, thought provoking opinion. You're one of the few people I would even bother to address with a post this long anymore. I know a play a tard 99% of the time at ZP but I hope you also respect my opinion as much I do yours. I can provide a somewhat coherent reply if I concentrate real hard although it gives me a migraine. I must go now before this post gets any longer.:icon_salu

[Mels_Smileys45]

Shit. I made that rambling post and did not address some of the aspects of your argument, although I do not feel all your issues strictly pertain to P2P. I am not going back and edit/reformat that long post so I will talk about the Youtube issue you mentioned in this post...so please forgive the double posties.


Youtube is a money making business and as such any copyright holder should have a say so in how his work is used and presented. If they feel its fine and let it be thats their call but if this right is taken away then all their rights are gone.

Say Steven Spielberg wants to use the same song in his new POS movie. If Youtube is allowed to make money by letting anyone post and broadcast an artists music contained in their home movie then Mr Spielberg should be able to use their song how he see's fit too without asking permission.

I am not sure anyone has been sued for listening to music so I will not address the Joe Plumber scenario. A public performance where money is earned solely by singing someone elses songs is an issue a copyright holder has the right to address.

Singing Happy Birthday is also not breaking the law. Making money on Happy Birthday is. Please do not get carried away.

And lastly, artist suing other artists because one song resembles another. Some lawsuits are seemingly justified and some are ludicrous. This sorta falls back to my last post. Are you willing to dismiss all the lawsuits or are you willing to hear each one on a case by case basis? If the right to pursue being ripped off is suspended then its open market on everyone's work to claim as an original piece of work.


Its not as cut and dry as some make it seem. Taking away one aspect of a persons right can directly affect another. Each must be look at and scrutinized. I can't agree and justify every aspect of the copyright laws either and thats not what I set out to debate. I hope you see the differences.

[mountain_rage]

I most definitely respect your opinion Mels, and I love a good debate. If you want to discuss music copyright exclusively, then I'll focus on music.

First off, artists name and logo is a trademark not a copyright. I fully support trademark laws, they are one of the few I.P. laws that help protect both consumer and owner. Trademarks allow the consumer the ability to identify a reliable company, and the owner the ability to market itself. Trademarks are well conceived and should be left the way they are.

Now on the topic of musical copyright. There are quite a few different issues with musical copyright, and quite a few ways of fixing it. Lets start with what music is and how its essence is affected by copyright.

Music is a structured assembly of sounds. If a composition is good, the sounds blend together and is pleasant to the listener. Psychologically good music follows a mathematical pattern, and in theory the more you deviate from these patterns, the worse your music will sound. There is a professor at my university that heavily studied the patterns of music, and computer aids that utilize these patterns for composing. There was an interview where he talked about how we are soon going to reach a limit to the variations we can achieve with current techniques, and his goal is to find new ways of composing. He even argued that artist are heavily influenced by other artists work and in fact they copy each other all the time. He did not touch on the idea of copyright reform, but clearly he understood music has limited variations.

So I'm sure you will find all this information interesting but what the hell does it have to do with copyright. Well copyright is in itself the right of an author to control their work. But from what I understand music in its nature is limited in how much variation it can have, its not just random sounds. Even more informative is how its created and how individuals are influenced by other artists work. Now what concerns me with this in relation to copyright is that we are limiting creativity and new artists under copyright. Here is an example. If an artist comes along and writes music, only to find its breaking copyright they are out of luck. It does not matter if they did created their own music on their own, someone else owns the copyright. So current laws prevents him from going any further with his work. It could be just a small part of their song that copies another work, does not matter. Either the artist would have to change his vision to accommodate the law, or not play it at all. This in my opinion is one of the biggest problems with copyright.

Now in my opinion there is a simple way of fixing this issue, and its not mind blowing either. During its inception I believe copyright had a 20 year term. Now its at 70 years beyond an artists death. Why have we extended copyright to such a astounding length, do we really need it to span 8 generations? well it was believed that the extra time would benefit the artists as well as the label. But a recent study refutes that and shows that after 20 years most copyright generates very little profit to the point of it being almost negligible. So I say revert copyright terms back to 20 years, which would open up a huge catalog to the public, and to artists. Even more favorable in my opinion, but possibly less balanced would be to put no limit on performance of copyrighted works and only limit the tune, or even the carbon copy of the artist work. So only the artist recorded performance would be protected. The original artist would still have the ability to sell their version exclusively, they could still perform it and build a market force with their recognition. The only real difference is that another artist could outshine them with a better compilation, but thats how a normal capitalist market works. This would not only solve the first problem I mentioned of limited variations, but it would also give more competition to the industry and push prices to a more logical level. It would also make social performances, such as the case the singing of happy birthday, or youtube performances legal solving another major issue with copyright laws.

Anyway I need some sleep, I'll review what I wrote in the morning. I still intend on touching on consumer rights, filesharing and maybe a couple other issues. Also I should touch on why people are not necessarily cheap.

[Mels_Smileys45]

Youre right about the trademark, my mistake. The logistics are so similar its easy to get off track, as you did in your previous post. I hope you saw my additional post on your other points. Trademarking a word or phrase. You agree with that but not copyrighting a song? Hmmmm. I find it funny that you agree with some I.P rights that benifit you and disagree with other rights that hamper your ability to get work for free. How is this not greed? To call the big labels greedy and then not be able to admit ones own greed is hypocritical IMO.

I did not want to actually debate all the aspects of copyright law at all. What I wanted to debate is how people view P2P as having no legal bounds. The deep subject of copyright laws would take months to debate properly and I just don't have the energy, desire or motivation to do that. Sorry lol

I felt the need to address some of your points though so you did not think I was ignoring them.


P.S. I agree with some of your points in your last post but again, its not the debate I had in mind. I am glad you took the time to analyze this complex issue and it was a good read. There are many gray areas that are hard to form a definitive, all encompassing blanket opinion on. At least for me.


Damn it. I can't stop editing this. Going back to your last post about limiting an artists rights to control a song they wrote by letting anyone take it for free and make money with it. I don't see any benefit in this for the artist at all. Sure, again you see a benefit in it for you. Is this going to be the gist of all your points? What is best for you only? If an artist can write and sing their own work thats what makes them special. I don't really have as much respect for a singer who can't write. Theyre monkeys IMO.

[SEY]

PFFT. wow. =)

[mountain_rage]

Clearly you and I share a different view of music Mels. Personally I see it as a cultural item, which can also be made into a product. You on the other hand see it as a product first, cultural item second. Not a big difference, but a huge difference when it comes to a debate on copyright. This makes me doubt that I'll convince you of my points, but at least I might inform you of some of the ridiculous realities of copyright. My solutions are not likely to be advantageous for the conventional artist, simply because its that system that I feel is flawed. My view of copyright is that its cheapened our cultural identity due to its overbearing rights. Such as the fact that you can be sued if you sing Happy Birthday to You in public. Its copyrighted, and your singing would constitute a public performance. Its not likely to happen, but under current laws you could, and thats the ridiculous part.

So in my mind lawsuits for what most consider non infringing use is an issue, and a serious one. We have given the right for authors to sue just about any individual that lived since the popularization of Happy Birthday To You. I mean who hasn't sang Happy Birthday to You in public? Even worse is the fact that a ton of videos, that could be of historical value could be cut from documentaries and tv shows, as was the case with Eyes on the Prize, which had its release blocked due to the inclusion of a scene involving the song. Even memorial videos shown at weddings and funerals would infringe on copyright if any of the scenes had background music playing, video playing or images on the walls. We need to shorten term lengths of copyright, or change what the author controls all together. Copyright was never meant to damage cultural material, and under current rules it has. Changing it will affect the traditional artists, definitely affect composers and greatly change the music industry but we need a change. Society is negatively affected by the current state of the laws, and anytime they want, a copyright holder could sue individuals for the above acts. If you have an alternative means of dealing with this problem by all means make your point.

This seems like a good place to jump into Youtube videos. Quite frankly, a Youtube video with an artists song in it will not negatively affect the profits, or ability to profit from a composition. Demanding compensation for these types of cases is overbearing. You should be able to profit from direct commercial use of the music, not secondary, tertiary, or further distance of commercial relevance. Which also involves my example of Joe the Plumber. In Scolland a garage chain was sued for their mechanics listening to music while they work. The copyright holder felt they should have to pay a license to listen to the music. Personally I could understand if it was a bar or a night club, but a car garage? Music does not play a direct role in the business and does not negatively affect sales, again its a over restrictive copyright rule.

Personally I would love to see music return to the state of a performance art, and there is money to be made under such a model. You still have movie rights, still have merchandising and concert revenue. Hell, Celine Dion, one of the most ridiculed artist of the 20th century, reportedly made 300 million dollars during her Las Vegas run. Kiss front runner, Gene Simons has created a huge profit machine from the sale of his merchandise. Pop artists like Miley Cirus, and Hillary Duff had their own line of kids clothing. Even without the profits from selling music, artsit can still make money off their music. From the loss of one profit stream, you reintroduce music to the masses. Anyone can perform their favorite music, remixers can have free reign to create interesting recompilations and some songs could reach iconic levels of recognition, which would not otherwise happen. As a cultural initiative it would be groundbreaking. Smaller acts would still be able to make money with gigs, and merch sales, they could also ask for donations. Most small acts do it as a hobby and not a day job, so even if its only small profits, it shouldn't change the market too much.

When it comes to filesharing I foresee three possible outcomes. Either we continue to restrict consumer rights to the point where we no longer have any control of the music we purchase, we continue along the current path criminalizing society, or we open it up to the masses. Suing individuals does not work, and only makes criminals of an ever growing majority. Penalties have been shown to not lower filesharing, society and artist have fought them and its alienating consumers. Due to this fact, the only logical direction we could take with music is lock it down or open it up. Most labels want it locked down, and most consumers what it opened up. Artists seems to fall under both categories, some want it open and others want it closed. Personally I fear that if we keep trying to lock down music we will have some work lost to DRM, law abiding citizens jailed for what would be otherwise acceptable acts and citizens continually faced with looming risk of bankruptcy.

Personally I understand your perspective Mels, although I disagree with it. This is probably due to my socialist leanings, and my strong beliefs that cultural items should remain as such. My feelings are that copyright has gone in the wrong direction, and doesn't serve its purpose and needs to be reformed. Artist should be allowed to make a profit from their work, but it should be reasonable and without restricting individuals rights. Only direct monetary gain should have to be licensed and all other uses should be allowed free of charge. Most citizens go to work and get paid by the hour, I see no reason why artists can't do the same.



Notes some of the logic behind linked information:

Rick Astley was made aware of his video Never Gonna Give You Up being used as an internet prank and said he was fine with it. If he had the sue them all attitude, Rickrolling would arguably have never reached its infectious popularity.

Jammie Thomas may finally have proven herself innocent, but the risk of lawsuits in the 200 000$ range is still real for a huge percentage of American citizens.

Youre right about the trademark, my mistake. The logistics are so similar its easy to get off track, as you did in your previous post. I hope you saw my additional post on your other points. Trademarking a word or phrase. You agree with that but not copyrighting a song? Hmmmm. I find it funny that you agree with some I.P rights that benifit you and disagree with other rights that hamper your ability to get work for free. How is this not greed? To call the big labels greedy and then not be able to admit ones own greed is hypocritical IMO.

Trademark laws are very different than copyright laws in that they don't really prevent others from offering products. The only time you ever see lawsuits for trademarks, is when there are two individuals using the same trademark, or someone is trying to purposely mislead the public. The benefits of trademarks are balanced between consumer and holder, which differentiates it from copyright. There are some downsides to trademark laws, but the benefits outweigh the bad, and I don't have any ideas on how to make it better. If we could however prevent abuse of trademark, such at the ones currently afflicting Shareaza, that would be great. But again I just don't know how to fix it.