White House Wants New Copyright Law Crackdown 652
An anonymous reader writes "The White House is concerned that 'illegal streaming of content' may not be covered by criminal law, saying 'questions have arisen about whether streaming constitutes the distribution of copyrighted works.' To resolve that ambiguity, it wants a new law to 'clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances'""
Paying back those Hollywood donors (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like Obama is paying another installment on the debt he owes to his Hollywood buddies [go.com].
Between Democrats in bed with Hollywood and Republicans in bed with big business, wouldn't it be nice to have at least *one* choice in an election who doesn't support draconian DRM, Feds kicking in our doors because little Jimmy downloaded an advance screener of The Dark Knight, and ISP's tracking and archiving our every click on the internet? Would that be too goddamn much to ask?
Re:Paying back those Hollywood donors (Score:5, Interesting)
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There may be plenty of choices, but corporations only give the real campaign money to two of them. That makes it pretty easy for those two to drown out everyone else.
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Why do people think Democrats aren't in bed (Score:5, Insightful)
with big business? What in the hell is Wall Street then? If that is not the top end of big business then I don't know what is. Who is GE, who is Google? They are both in bed with big business. This is President Wall Street, from his cabinet picks to the bills that pass. Oh sure, they have ominous we are going to rein in big business names, but you can be damn sure all those contribute are immediately exempt, like how none of the big unions are subject to the new health care law.
We can't change the Democrats or Republicans so we need to work on the American people. They need to learn that the only way change will occur is if they elect people who don't ascribe to the party line of either the D or R side. Trouble is, far too many are interested in getting everything handed to them while at the same time decrying its cost. The American people need to change before their government will.
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WOW, well, the media has certainly won this war then. Thanks for proving that point.
Sure, crazy people will associate with groups. Do you think all republicans are racist and bomb abortion clinics? Do you think that all democrats are communists that think that making money is evil? Because such people are certainly in both parties. Just because a few migrated into "fringe" parties doesn't make that party automatically support them. The problem is this: if you can't accept a party that's just a bunch o
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Except you idiots (yes, we know MPAA and RIAA post here all the time on every copyright story) want to make copyright infringement a felony.
So, if you go to some website and watch an illegal infringing ad hosted by Google, the viewer, Google, and the ad poster are now felons, subject to wiretapping!
This can get even worst as a DDoS. Face it, your lobbied and money laundered law is useless because you want to crush fair use and make everyone a felon, intentionally. There won't be anyone to buy your crap in
Re:Paying back those Hollywood donors (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that to goddamn much to ask?
Yes. I think that having the government involved in non-commercial infringement at all is way over the line.
If Sony wants to sue my kid for copyright infringement, fine. If my kid is selling copyrighted materials and the government arrests him, fine. But having the government do Sony's contract enforcement is just plain horrid.
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avoid said illegal material yourself, and you will be fine
Oh, so if I'm good and law-abiding, does it mean that I don't have to put up with DRM bullshit on every piece of media I own? Is it going to exempt me from them forcing my ISP to archive all my web surfing (which the Feds can now access anytime they want, without a warrant)? Is that going to take the region coding on my blu-ray/DVD player away?
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The only reason third-parties don't gain any traction is because of your lazy, defeatist attitude.
No, it's because the U.S. uses a first-past-the-post electoral system, which makes a two-party dominant system almost inevitable.
Re:How does that Hopey-Changey horseshit taste? (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite the opposite (Score:4, Insightful)
If more and more of the 'silent majority' - if you will - stays home, then the only result is more bug-fuck crazy fringe candidates being elected by an increasingly influential bug-fuck crazy fringe electorate.
Re:How does that Hopey-Changey horseshit taste? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well that is one of the advantages of the USA over others. term limits on the president.
Now we just need term limits for all elected officials and maybe we can finally start making some progress.
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Term limits mean nothing. The next candidate will also play ball. They all will. They must, because if they don't, those who support "Prohibition III - Now You Are All Criminals" will finance their opponents and third party PR firms. The Citizens United ruling has opened the doors to infinite amounts of corporate money.
The only thing that could stop this - and it should have been done ten years ago - is to remove contributions to political campaigns entirely, public and private. Publicly finance campaigns.
Re:How does that Hopey-Changey horseshit taste? (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens if you actually happen to find someone who is doing the country some good? Would it not be better to allow them to stay in power?
Not worth the risk, IMHO. Nobody can hold The Ring for that long and not be corrupted by it.
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Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
Re:Paying back those Hollywood donors (Score:5, Insightful)
The US will never go all 'Egypt' on itself. Too many people just don't care about the things you and others do. Too many people have somewhat decent lives. If anything, there will be a couple small riots that only hurt the rioters, they will be put down by police using less then lethal means, and because a good portion of the US is property owners, they will cheer the cops on for helping protect their property.
The US is no where near the situation that made Egypt even viable let alone work.
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It depends on how you define "never".
At some point in time, Egypt itself was the biggest civilization known to man, much like the US has been. And it was one of the World Powers for more than 2000 years. The US total existence, in contrast, barely lasts 250 years.
The proportion of people with "somewhat decent lives" in the US is diminishing, while the differences between the rich and the poor increase. If that tendency continues, "never" can be really a short-term period, historically speaking. "This centur
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The US Government tightly controls ALL media, the Internet and foreign news are the only way Americans can access the truth about ANYTHING!
Most Americans are kept happily distracted by lots of shiny new toys they cannot afford and tend not to care about or understand almost everything.
Due to the USofA's atrocious educational system (fund prisons not schools) 60% of college educated Americans (undergraduate) can't find their location on a geographical map (no text) or tell you what the three branches of gove
WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Someone noticed that something popular is not illegal. ...
2) Lobby to have it made illegal.
3)
4) Profit.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
You left one out (Score:3)
1b) Will a large company/group of companies benefit if 1 is illegal?
So, this is what America has come to? (Score:5, Interesting)
You can no longer compete on the world stage in terms of products, don't innovate anything, and have more or less given up on educating your people.
But, the biggest priority of the White House is to ensure that streaming content is a fucking felony???
Enjoy your decline into irrelevance and the dark ages. I used to greatly admire what America stood for.
Re:So, this is what America has come to? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing how Stood is past tense, you still can admire what America "Stood" for (whatever you think that was).
However, if you think that this is the only thing the government is concerned with or doing at the moment, or that it's even the biggest priority you would be sorely mistaken. You see, I can say "I want X, Y, and Z, done, oh yea, do A also" and it wouldn't make A a priority. However, because A is something you are concerned with, you might hear about it by itself. It still doesn't make it a priority of government.
Now I understand that it might ultimately be a higher priority then what you want to happen. But that's really a indication of your priorities, not the governments.
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Yes, it's also interested in a continued war on some drugs, keeping people from receiving affordable medication from Canada, holding people illegally in Cuba, and molesting children in the airport.
Re:So, this is what America has come to? (Score:4, Insightful)
http://tribes.tribenetwork.com/america/thread/2f215d2a-8c88-437c-82ec-cc78ee7588df [tribenetwork.com]
Take away enough people's right to bear arms, vote or otherwise have a say in society and the remaining population is much easier to control. Pretty soon just disagreeing with the government position will be a felony, thereby removing that position from the debate and allowing our corporatist overlords complete control while being able to claim the US is still a democracy (or republic, or whatever term your prefer).
America better wake up soon or it'll be too late (if it's not already).
Freedom of speech is probably safe (Score:3)
Pretty soon just disagreeing with the government position will be a felony
That's the one thing I'm pretty sure they won't do. Speaking as a non-American, my observation is that Americans have it pretty much imprinted in their heads that freedom of speech equals freedom. As long as he can criticise the government, the President, the "clowns in Washington", etc, to his heart's content, it will never occur to the average American citizen that he's not free even if, say, the incarceration rate for the USA is th
Incorrect use of language. (Score:2)
other similar new technology? (Score:2)
wheres my reparations? (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't wait 'til we get Duh Bush out! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sick of him selling-out to these megacorps. Damn Republican. What we need is a Democrat president who is not a puppet of the corporations.
Re:Can't wait 'til we get Duh Bush out! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sick of him selling-out to these megacorps. Damn Republican. What we need is a Democrat president who is not a puppet of the corporations.
Same problem, different president, different corporations.
I think you'll find that the position lends itself to corruption.
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I think you'll find that the position lends itself to corruption.
Yet America does not try to fix the position, so that it becomes less corrupted... we live with it and pray for a person who isn't as corruptible as the last.
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What we need is a ... president who is not a puppet of the corporations.
Ahahahaha
hahahahaha
ahahahahaha
*wheeze*
ahahahaha
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*wheeze*
Damn ... people on SlashDot really are getting old.
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Why does it have to be a Democrat or Republican? What we REALLY need is a viable alternative.
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What we need is a Democrat president who is not a puppet of the corporations.
Yeah, being tied to public labor unions and intellectual property companies (Hollywood) is at least 3 times the awesome.
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I'm sick of him selling-out to these megacorps. Damn Republican. What we need is a Democrat president who is not a puppet of the corporations.
Hate to break it to you, but until people can run for office without needing millions of dollars, corporate interests will always take precedence, since they're the only ones that can pay for it.
It's getting bad, even at the local level - to make a serious run in my city's last election was in the $100K range for mayor, $60K for alderman. You don't get that kind of cash together without owing a few favors.
Civil law, not criminal law. (Score:5, Informative)
Copyright infringement is supposed to be CIVIL LAW, not CRIMINAL LAW.
If the USA is to continue this trend of criminalizing everything under the sun, then perhaps the next thing we need to criminalize is when elected and appointed government officials violate the US Constitution. Let's make that a felony.
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First Up: Public Key Encryption (Score:2)
Scarier is wiretap (Score:5, Informative)
The death penalty soon! (Score:2)
How could media ever survive... (Score:4, Insightful)
with free shows paid for by advertising, like TV or radio? Uh, wait a second....
Still no justice for... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody has gone to jail for crashing the world economy.
Nobody has gone to jail for authorizing or committing acts of torture.
Nobody has gone to jail for placing unconstitutional wiretaps.
Yet we have room in our prisons for people who share files. It is more clear than ever that the US justice system exists to protect the powerful against the less powerful. There is no justice system, there is an exploitation system.
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Beauty of the scheme is, felons can't vote. Josef Stalin only dreamt of shit like this.
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Madoff had nothing to do with the financial crisis.
Re:Still no justice for... (Score:5, Insightful)
To be more specific: Madoff went to jail for personally scamming and lying to the rich and powerful, costing them money.
The trail between him and his victims is very clear. The trail between the victims and the perps in the more recent problems isn't as clear. Also: Madoff did scam the rich and powerful, whereas the more recent financial crises have worked out quite well for those who already had money. Bonuses are bigger than ever on Wall Street, but "Main Street", not so much.
Re:Still no justice for... (Score:5, Insightful)
AWOL Whitehouse (Score:3, Funny)
I am so glad the Pres and Co. have sorted out the middle east, the world economy and that pesky natural disaster in Japan and have time to focus on enriching their pals in the MAFIAA. Barry you are truly the best benevolent ruler ever.
"Illegal streaming not covered by criminal law"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Constituents (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wonder how many constituents wrote letters to the President about this serious problem? Of course, none did. We need a separation of Corporations and State, now.
Just who do you think the constituents are? You didn't imagine you were one of them, did you? Of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations. I believe the congressmen from Monsanto have the floor...
Streaming? (Score:2)
Will they go after sites like Orb.com, Slingbox, and PlayOn that stream things not necessarily intended to be streamed or in ways they didn't approve of (even over 3G not just your home network)? Seems content providers are trying to lock down their content too tightly. By doing so they lose the ability to id and track the product, our eyeballs, as we work around them.
The damning text (Score:3)
Page 10 of the actual whitepaper.
I like how "appropriate" is not spelled out.
Lots of Fun Provisions (Score:5, Informative)
If all this paper did was suggest categorizing streaming as distribution rather than performance, that would be small potatoes. It also recommends:
The article focuses on streaming, but the real meat here is in the use of government funds and police powers for the private benefit of rights-holders.
Sigh. (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, I'd have some sympathy if pirates had a "cause" anymore.
Years ago, we said "we're pirating music because they won't let us download it!"
And they made download stores.
Then we said "we're pirating music because they won't sell individual tracks!"
And they let us buy single tracks.
Then we said "we're pirating music because they add DRM!"
And they stopped adding DRM.
Then we said "we're pirating music because 128kbps is crap!"
And they gave us 256kbps+ tracks.
Then we said "we're pirating music because the major labels have a monopoly!"
And now any indie artist can get on iTunes and other major music stores.
And we still pirate.
Because all along, we really just wanted stuff for free.
I'm all for copyright reform, but really: The latest music, movies, and games are not vital liberties, and they take a lot of time and money to make. If someone wanted to give their content away for free, they would have done so. So ask yourself: If a person who made something you want expects compensation, why do you deserve to have it for free?
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There will always be someone who pirates. But every time a company added one of those features you mentioned, they converted some percentage of pirates to customers. Not everyone has this all or nothing mentality that you see to have.
Re:Sigh.Back at you. (Score:3)
What if 'we' defines a different set of people each time? What if 'we' represents a smaller number of people each time?
I think you're taking specific points and assuming they represent everyone's opinion here, when in reality this site, and every other gathering of more than one person, is made up of individuals. ESPECIALLY a site with lots of readers.
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Actually, I did stop pirating music once 256kps drm-free mp3s came along. It's just no longer worth the effort. If they become sensible with video, they'll probably get me to stop there too.
But then I never saw it as a war until today. Convenience and saving a buck were my reasons for it in the past. But now there's so much cross-pollination between the government and the MPAA/RIAA, and the industry have used this to build upon patriot act wiretapping provisions, that I'll never be able to support them agai
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You ask: Why do you deserve to have it for free?
I ask: Why should it be a felony?
How is this jackass different from the previous... (Score:3)
jackass?
Wars without end: Check
Spending us into default: Check
Harsh punishments for minor crimes: Check
Bush sucked. Obama sucks. To be fair, pretty much all politicians are egomaniac control freaks with a certain amount of charisma.
At least it's a bipartisan trait :/
Vote with your money, bug your reps (Score:3)
Commenting on Slashdot makes you feel witty, but doesn't accomplish much. Write your reps, vote with your money.
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Re:Warez (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to admit that copyright infringement is a major problem that needs to be handled one way or another.
Why? If people create content regardless of copyright infringement, which is the purpose of copyright, I fail to see why it's a major problem that needs to be handled.
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That's not a sale. That's a license.
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Yeah it does. You can demand any sort of ludicrous concession you like as an added rider to selling me that CD. You can say that I can only listen to it in the dark hopping on one foot while wearing nothing but boxers and a smile. But the only thing that makes that enforceable is a license.
Why is Copyright Good? (Score:5, Informative)
> Why? If people create content regardless of copyright infringement, which is the purpose of copyright, I fail to see why it's a major problem that needs to be handled.
Because the United States creates a great deal of IP, as do many countries. The people pirating are not only the people who would not pay for it--so market size decreases, GDP decreases, and trade imbalances increase. The biggest long-term threat to the United States, after Global Warming and possibly after spiraling healthcare and higher education costs, is the trade imbalance. We send more and more money outside the country to buy things. A bigger economy means more money for the few people at the top, but MOST of America is NOT at the top, and sending money out means that capital leaves and goes to buy things, putting other people at the top, leaving us in a worse and worse position (except for a very few) as the gini coefficient increases.
That being said, making copyright law on that basis is arguably unconstitutional. The only reason Congress is empowered to make copyright law is to promote the development of copyrightable works. (The terminology is actually "science and the useful arts, IIRC, but as it was understood two hundred years ago). They also have the power to regulate commerce between the states and with foreign nations, but making copyright law under the Commerce Clause is reading the IP clause entirely out of the Constitution, which should not be legitimate under any reasonable principles of interpretation. But most if not all courts would probably accept it anyway.
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Copyright is economically equivalent to a sales tax (the fact that it's privately collected makes no functional difference). We could tax air as well and create a whole industry around breath measurement, or the classic burying and digging up of money and create a whole lot of artificially inflated GDP through that. That does not necessarily mean we're getting any extra wealth into the economy, nor any desirable work done. Unqualified claims that copyright is good for the economy is basically the same as un
Re:Warez (Score:5, Insightful)
They're free to release their content and for free if they want to.
His point wasn't that people can't create content freely.
His point is that the purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of creative works. Today, with the existing system, there are PLENTY of creative works being produced. Therefore, copyright certainly does not need to be made more restrictive, and in fact the opposite may be true.
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I need more people like you. People seem to think that copyright is about "compensating" people or "being fair". The funny thing is that people who claim to be conservative and for small government often seem pro-copyright. Which is bizarre, since it is really one of the first socialist policies enacted by the young US government, along with patents, the postal service, and postal roads. I'm at a loss... :)
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It's also strange that many leftists seem to adore copyright, even though it's a system designed around a monopoly on thought and removal of freedom.
Greed makes for strange bedfellows, I guess.
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> I need more people like you. People seem to think that copyright is about "compensating" people or "being fair". The funny thing is that people who claim to be conservative and for small government often seem pro-copyright. Which is bizarre, since it is really one of the first socialist policies enacted by the young US government, along with patents, the postal service, and postal roads. I'm at a loss... :)
Well, to be fair, one rationale of copyright--not the primary one or the stated one, but one that
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Protecting property rights is all the state is doing, and it is one of the basic fundamental functions of government. That is different than granting a commercial monopoly. Maybe you're confused by the "Intellectual Property" term. That's intentional, because the things that fall under that definition are not really "property" at all. The term is just a clever trick by corporate lawyers to confuse the issue.
If I build a pool in my back yard, I have monopoly control over who uses the pool.
And if you didn't, you would never build the pool. Why put your own time and resources into somet
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First and foremost, copyright exists to FAIRLY reward creation by means of COMPENSATION. Only after the creator has been FAIRLY COMPENSATED is the public at large intended to receive the works. I
Compensated? As in monetarily? Copyright law at its core says no such thing. Copyright law is about control, and nothing more - that is, a temporary monopoly over control for a period of time before which it goes back to the public... control to do with it as the owner sees fit - selling it, giving it away under particular terms, etc. Case in point: People copyrighting their works to prevent it from being ripped off by others in some form, but allowing free distribution/sharing of said work [or doing
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You're drinking the cool-aid if you think it's progressives leading the charge towards feudalism.
You mean "Kool-aid"? All I hear from progressives is "more government, no spending cuts, more regulation, bigger taxes", etc. No delusions at all.
Conservative economic policies are what protect the wealthy 'feudal lords' you're talking about. Their regressive tax structures make social mobility much more difficult, which is useful for keeping the wealth concentrated in as few hands as possible.
I don't know what you are talking about here. Only about half the population in the US pays income tax at all. The top 2% pay more than the bottom 95%. Corporate welfare and complicated tax incentives, breaks, and all that crazy crap isn't "conservative economic policy" - balanced budgets and smaller government that gets out of the way are what conservative p
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You mean "Kool-aid"? All I hear from progressives is "more government, no spending cuts, more regulation, bigger taxes", etc. No delusions at all.
I thought you'd be more sensitive to trademark infringement in a copyright infringement thread. Seriously though, explain to me why any of those are bad things. More government is what pulled the US out of the great depression, and this is the worst economic slump since then. No spending cuts isn't a bad thing, espicially when you consider the fact that the conservative definition of "spending cuts" means "social program cuts, but absolutely no cuts to the unending torrent of cash poured into the gapin
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Because it destroys small businesses and seriously hurts medium sized business.
If a small-to-medium business's leadership has chosen an unsustainable business model that's disconnected from reality, then it's their own fault if the business goes under. There can be new businesses if a given model doesn't work out. That's how our economic system works.
Re:Warez (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, our choices are "perpetual copyright" or "self-entitled bastards who think they should get everything for free"? WTF ever happened to *sane* copyright law instead? Say backing it down to a level where creators have plenty of time to make money off of $WORK but it does eventually enter the public domain, preferably within a generation or so.
Say 50 years total from date of first presentation, or 5 years per term with an increasing fee schedule for each successive term purchased (with the first four being dirt cheap, then ramping up dramatically each time -- that way it eventually becomes unreasonable as a business decision to renew Steamboat Willie again)
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Re:Warez (Score:4, Interesting)
Go back to pulling numbers out of your ass. 14 year copyright, 14 year patent, end of story. Even that's too long for most people to benefit... I would agree to a 6 year copyright with three filed extensions: up to 24 years. The first would be a cheap ($100) re-file; the second, moderately expensive ($1000) because if you're not making the cash in 12 years something is wrong. Besides that, you need to file all direct source material: all of the products of labor that went into the final product. This means all computer source code (but not necessarily design documentation), all the master tracks (but not necessarily sheet music, lyrics sheets, etc), computer source document files for books, etc. Where the line is drawn between "creating" and "assembling" ... writing words, formatting them, etc, is "creating," while "Converting to PDF, printing," and so on is "assembling."
So if you want that big 18 or 24 year copyright, your software is getting PD'd open source, your master tracks are getting released, your word documents are being handed out, and any in-house proprietary tools you wrote or commissioned that are essential for building your work (remember, running a tool to convert X into Y is not creating, it's assembling) are also getting dumped with them.
Also, a record of all tools needed is included, and who owns the rights; upon filing, these rights holders are contacted for a copy of their tool, if not on file already in another copyright extension. If they don't extend their copyright, then that tool is released; if they do extend their copyright--twice, past the 12 year first extension--then they are also required to release all source material. This is to ensure that such tools are on file, in case someone keeps a "very specialized" piece of software NDA'd and shifted to only a few clients (a couple dozen corporations have it). The software would still go out of copyright in 6 or 12 years, but only a few people would have it to release; those corporations may well not care anymore about that particular iteration of that tool by then, and it may be lost, and incompatible with old work, and now you lose that functionality. So we want it on record: what you used, who owns it, and a copy of it.
I should run for office.
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But the only way this could happen is if pirates made pay-apps economically non-viable - which means that without piracy, most of those adware programs would be ad-free but require some level of payment instead. As things are now, they are mostly available in both ad-funded and for-pay, adless versions. So if your conclusion is accepted, it
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Well this is the same thing, except it's indirect revenue via ads. It is still, however, making money with warez.
Which is why the consumers love it so much. If there's really so much money to be made reselling 'warez' with ad-raised revenue, why don't the big companies do that instead?
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That's a dumb argument. The people selling warez are doing so off other people's work without incurring any of the effort or cost that goes into creating the content or software. Taking the cost out of the equation obviously makes it easy for them to profit at price points that wouldn't otherwise make sense.
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That's every parties mantra apart from possibly the libertarians.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5IDqAvzv44&playnext=1&list=PLB94072AB718726CB [youtube.com]
Like this. This is obviously illegal and you should buy the DVD, not watch this for free.
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I think they're targeting people who rehost streams of sporting events. There was already a guy arrested [worldtvpc.com] for just such a site.
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Re:I want my vote back. (Score:4, Informative)
He did an about face on telecom immunity before the election. If you thought he would listen to the people, you either were not paying attention or are stupid.
Re:Like, watch a YouTube video? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Like, watch a YouTube video? (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone commits crimes on a regular basis. It's just that most of them are so trivial that there is no reason to enforce the law, even when in princible there could be a jail term of many years.
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As bad as the music business is today, imagine no copyrights. I write a great new song, perform it a few times while I'm working out the kinks, saving up for studio time, etc.
Yeah, think of all the music that would never have been written if Mozart or Beethoven had had to work in a world where music wasn't copyrighted!
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Complete abolition of patents and copyright (and mostly trademark, just keeping it around as an anti-fraud tactic only) is much much better, even under your doom and gloom worst-case scenarios, than what we have today.