Copyright Laws and Intellectual Property

[TheLastOne36]

Over the weekend Moss stickied a thread involving a reminder regarding one of the rules that until now, have not really been enforced, citing that there has been recent concerns over copyright infringements. (Take a read if you haven't already) By coincidence, In one of my night classes, I had been given the link to a video and the task to write a 5 page essay over the weekend about the very subject. (No, I am not looking for essay ideas if that was what you were thinking. I've already handed it in. ) I thought that copyright laws aren't as big of a discussion topic as they should be and was hoping to get the CFC brain in on the discussion.

The documentary is about how copyright laws started, how they are today, copyright infringements, intellectual property, pirating, usage of copyrighted materials, who controls the media and culture of America and how they rose to power, and the ethics and morals of the issue in a fun and easy to understand way. The link to the film.

For those tl;dr people, basically his four points are:

• Culture always builds on the past.
• The past always tries to control the future.
• Our future is becoming less free.
• To build free societies, you must limit the control of the past.

Movie Questions:

1) What are your views on piracy in the music and film industry?* Is what Girl Talk and other mash-up artists doing OK?
2) Do you think the current copyright laws are necessary for the protection of ideas? What about in media?
3) Do copyright laws at present need to be rewritten or modified to suit the information age?
4) And, in an ideal world, how would copyright laws function?

General Questions:

1) What is your idea of intellectual property?
2) What are your thoughts over the recent copyright concern regarding the quotation of articles on CFC?
3) And of course... Is there a conspiracy? Do the media companies control our culture?
edit: 4) Do copyright laws need to be shortened and/or heavily modified to support the growth of the economy and advancement of science and technology?

* Keep in mind CFC's rules regarding Piracy:

We have zero tolerance for piracy. This includes posting pirated material, linking to pirated material, telling people how to avoid copy-protection etc, or even advocating piracy.

 

[innonimatu]

Well, I don't advocate invading other people's ships either.

Oh, you mean violating copyright? I'm sure I do it every day, and so do most people in the "advanced" countries. Laws which are routinely ignored shouldn't exist in the first place. Quoting somebody else, when the majority of the people is found to be infringing some law that law was likely to be biased against the general interest.

 

[warpus]

Copyright laws are necessary, but there is a fine balance between a system that works and one that unnecessarily punishes legitimate customers.

Lately (last 15 years?) there's been a huge push by media companies for stricter laws, DRM-type copyright enforcement, crackdowns, etc, mostly as a reaction to the internet. This usually happens when there is an introduction of a new, game-changing technology to the market, so I guess in that sense the push by the media companies we are experiencing is inevitable.

These media companies also have a certain level of control over American politicians, though, so they are able to influence actual laws, to a scary degree. The result is that a lot of people are actually driven to piracy. For example, say I wanted to watch a movie in HD. I could purchase it at Best Buy, but then have to sit through advertisements, warnings, previews, etc. OR I could download it off the internet for free and get a lot more enjoyment out of it, not to mention immediate access - no previews, no ads, just the media that I wanted.

Piracy is never going to go away, people are always going to download stuff for free. What you don't want to do though is inconvenience your already paying customers, in the name of copyright protection. Embrace your customers! Make it easier for them to access the media that they bought from you! They are probably willing to buy even more media off you.. so why inconvenience them? It will make them think twice about purchasing another blue ray or game.

There *should* be copyright protection, but it *shouldn't* inconvenience the user.

A company like Valve realized that you can never get rid of piracy and have actually incorporated piracy into their business model. How? They view pirates as potential customers, instead of unwanted thieves.

How do you compete with piracy? How do you win over a pirate who has been enjoying media for free? You offer him a business model that costs money.. but offers far less hassles than piracy.
You'll never convert everyone, but you will get a lot of paying customers out of a business model like that.

And I know that some of you hate Valve or whatever, but that's just one example.

This balance between having good protection of copyright and easily accessible media for the customer is something that isn't quite so balanced.. due to the unfair and undemocratic access that media companies have to American politicians. And let's be fair - whatever copyright laws get enacted in the U.S., these media companies (and the politicians they have legally paid off) will try to spread elsewhere around the world. This has already happened with New Zealand's new copyright law, modelled after uhh.. that American copyright law that I can't remember the name of.

Case in point - why does Walt Disney's copyright ownership of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, etc. get extended each time it's about to expire? Those things should have been in the realm of public domain decades ago! The politicians that end up voting to have them extended do not do so with interests of the American people in mind - they only care about the interests of those who finance their campaigns.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Copyrights today are insane. When technology made it easier to spread ideas quickly, it made it easier to profit quickly. This shortens the duration of government backed monopoly required to promote progress. The duration of copyrights should have consistently decreased since they were first created, not increased.

I really don't see a good reason to allow music to be copyrighted at all.



Patents are much more necessary, but are also taken much too far today. Most patents now are for things that were either obvious or in common use before the patent was issued, and thus legally should not have been issued. Patents tend to last too long too, but they are not as abused as copyrights.


Anyone seeking the privilege of intellectual property should be required to prove that doing so would serve the purpose outlined on the Constitution.

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.

"Science" and "useful arts" is an older way of saying "knowledge" and "technology" respectively. It should not really apply to entertainment content at all.

Allowing intellectual property to be extended indefinitely is patently unconstitutional.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

1) What is your idea of intellectual property?

In the realm of intellectual property the author should be the king, all middlemen his humble serfs, and consumers mere commoners on the land of his majesty.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Case in point - why does Walt Disney's copyright ownership of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, etc. get extended each time it's about to expire? Those things should have been in the realm of public domain decades ago! The politicians that end up voting to have them extended do not do so with interests of the American people in mind - they only care about the interests of those who finance their campaigns.

And this is exactly what happened to the Copyright Law in the first place. Disney got the president to extend the copyright to it's current length to retain ownership of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and friends.

Another question I probably should've asked is, Do copyright laws need to be shortened and/or heavily modified to support the growth of the economy and advancement of science and technology?

 

[History_Buff]

1) What are your views on piracy in the music and film industry?* Is what Girl Talk and other mash-up artists doing OK?

They're getting what's coming to them. That's not to say it's ok, but I don't think anyone should be surprised. Technology finally caught up, and prices never responded. A drop in legitimate demand is guaranteed.

2) Do you think the current copyright laws are necessary for the protection of ideas? What about in media?
3) Do copyright laws at present need to be rewritten or modified to suit the information age?

I'm not up on American copyright law, so I won't comment on that. But I think we have two disputes at play here.

First: the over-publicized battle between the RIAA/MPAA and every day consumers. The laws are in no way adequate to protect what industry claims its rights to be. However, I doubt very much that what they are claiming is in the best interest of society at large. To hit on 3, there's no point. In this case, I'm confident that allowing industry to protect its claimed rights and the maintenance of due process are mutually exclusive goals. Priority to due process.

Second: copyrights, trademarks and patents in the business world. These are fine. The laws are adequate, the the processes clear, and almost every party is capable of funding the requisite court battles. Especially in Canada.

4) And, in an ideal world, how would copyright laws function?

Protection for a limited, non-extendable quantity of time (7-10 years. Maybe authors life+7). After that, public domain, all rights lapse. Some provision would be needed to allow for continuously expanding content (I'm thinking of MMOGs here).

1) What is your idea of intellectual property?

Non-physical property definitely exists. An actual definition of intellectual property is very tricky, and I'm not going to try it here.

2) What are your thoughts over the recent copyright concern regarding the quotation of articles on CFC?

Seems silly, but I'm ok with it. Websites do need their advertisement money after all.

3) And of course... Is there a conspiracy? Do the media companies control our culture?

No conspiracy. That would imply some sort of limited disclosure. IP owners will fight for maximum profits, and pay to do so (both in the legal system, and in lobbying). Unless a strong counterbalance exists from the public (I would say it does not), then the government will follow the money. Government has always been like this. Large public media are even more dangerous, as they've proven very good at distracting and misleading the public should they so choose.

edit: 4) Do copyright laws need to be shortened and/or heavily modified to support the growth of the economy and advancement of science and technology?

Likely yes. I'm not sure how. And again, I believe the goals of the MPAA/RIAA are impossible to enforce without a police state.

 

[Silurian]

I really don't see a good reason to allow music to be copyrighted at all.

I like watching live bands which this would boost.

Music that can not be preformed live would not do so well.

 

[warpus]

I like watching live bands which this would boost.

Music that can not be preformed live would not do so well.

I pay for all my music now - I get it from rdio.com, which is awesome.

I don't get to *keep* the music, but that is a moot point. I can log in and listen to whatever I want, whenever, from any sort of device you can think of.

$2.50 a month. Great way to fight piracy.

 

[illram]

C
How do you compete with piracy? How do you win over a pirate who has been enjoying media for free? You offer him a business model that costs money.. but offers far less hassles than piracy.
You'll never convert everyone, but you will get a lot of paying customers out of a business model like that.

This sums up what could be a long discussion for me. Basically, we do need protections on content, but they should offer more value, not less. If I create something new, someone else shouldn't be able to just take it without giving me fair value for it. But the corollary is if I am not famous already or in the system of big agents and big media rights holders already, all these new fancy DRM and DMCA and SOPA and other big money protections don't mean anything, and I am stuck in basically 1976 copyright land. Which really isn't that bad for most people.

But lately the protections we have seen for big media holders are "lazy." Lazy in the sense they are simply more draconian and following a fear based approach rather than a market based one. iTunes is a great example. Before iTunes music companies did not know what to do. They were lazy. They thought "well if we just sue everyone and scare the bejeezus out of everyone maybe people will stop this extremely convenient, free, and easy way of getting music and go back to going to the store to buy a $20.00 CD encased in a giant flattened shoebox." Gee, why did that strategy not work? In comes Apple, who gives people the option to do what they wanted to do--that is, sit at their computer, listen to music, and buy individual songs for a cheap price rather than overpriced albums. They shot themselves in the foot with overburdening DRM and I have lots of problems with their overall lock-in strategies but generally this is the perfect example of non-lazy value based content protection that at the time was quite revolutionary, and music companies did not at first embrace this model at all. It was all legal, everyone was making money, and the user felt that they were getting something for their money--i.e. convenience, organization, etc. Just not the "free" part. Valve is another example that warpus alluded to.

The movie and TV revolution is next. We are seeing the same pattern. Draconian lazy laws (SOPA) are being placed while at the same time we are seeing non-lazy companies rolling out convenient streaming media content online, which is really the convenient future people want, which is what people get via the freetv and free movie websites that SOPA is focused on. Although some companies like some of the major US broadcasters are now offering episodes online, they are also actively fighting a complete switch over to truly internet based TV such as GoogleTV, and I believe this is a huge mistake. People want a la carte television. People don't want $130.00 cable bills for 1000 channels of stuff they never watch. People want Tivo. People don't want to just sit and watch whatever the broadcaster chooses to throw at them chock full of stupid ads. In my opinion the only way these companies truly get rid of piracy is by offering more convenient and value added methods of getting content that match the behavior of so called "pirates" (e.g., people who just want to watch the last episode of Mad Men and would happily pay $2 per episode to watch on demand sans advertising) rather than nervously clutching content and forbidding users from taking it in the convenient manner that the user wants it. (And then encouraging them to pirate it by pissing them off and/or frustrating them.)

 

[innonimatu]

Hey, guess what else some american companies and, possibly, judges are trying to turn into "intellectual property": decisions made during medical practice!

Oblivious Supreme Court poised to legalize medical patents

The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in a case that raises a fundamental question: whether a physician can infringe a patent merely by using scientific research to inform her treatment decisions.

Unfortunately, this issue was barely mentioned in Wednesday's arguments. A number of influential organizations had filed briefs warning of the dire consequences of allowing medical patents, but their arguments were largely ignored in the courtroom. Instead, everyone seemed to agree that medical patents were legal in general, and focused on the narrow question of whether the specific patent in the case was overly broad.

This should make the nation's doctors extremely nervous. For two decades, the software industry has struggled with the harmful effects of patents on software. In contrast, doctors have traditionally been free to practice medicine without worrying about whether their treatment decisions run afoul of someone's patent. Now the Supreme Court seems poised to expand patent law into the medical profession, where it's unlikely to work any better than it has in software.

The case focuses on a patent that covers the concept of adjusting the dosage of a drug, thiopurine, based on the concentration of a particular chemical (called a metabolite) in the patient's blood. The patent does not cover the drug itself—that patent expired years ago—nor does it cover any specific machine or procedure for measuring the metabolite level. Rather, it covers the idea that particular levels of the chemical "indicate a need" to raise or lower the drug dosage.

The patent holder, Prometheus Labs, offers a thiopurine testing product. It sued the Mayo Clinic when the latter announced it would offer its own, competing thiopurine test. But Prometheus claims much more than its specific testing process. It claims a physician administering thiopurine to a patient can infringe its patent merely by being aware of the scientific correlation disclosed in the patent—even if the doctor doesn't act on the patent's recommendations.

[...]

 

[illram]

The headline is a little misleading--the crazy thing they want a patent on is not "poised" for anything, the court is considering it like any other case. And hopefully denying that it is patented to that broad of an extent.

 

[innonimatu]

The headline is a little misleading--the crazy thing they want a patent on is not "poised" for anything, the court is considering it like any other case. And hopefully denying that it is patented to that broad of an extent.

True, but the fact is that the the case already reached the highest court in the country, and apparently that company got what it wanted from the lower court! It does not bode well.

 

[wolfigor]

Second: copyrights, trademarks and patents in the business world. These are fine. The laws are adequate, the the processes clear, and almost every party is capable of funding the requisite court battles. Especially in Canada.

I am not sure about specific Canadian law but the patents system, especially in technology, is now use to block competition and often abuse by companies.

The recent "patent" wars involving Apple, Samsung, HTC, Microsoft and many others is a good example how patents can be used to block legitimate competition and how the system is often widely abused:
1. patents are too broad
2. patents are too long
3. patents are awarded without implementation
4. patent trolls

The rest of my post about the topic of patents is hidden in the spoiler because is very specific and very different from the issue of Copyright.

Spoiler :

The first problem with patents, especially in consumer electronic and information technology is that patents are awarded are too broad in their scope and may cover very general idea, becoming a kind of copyright.

The very first example of it was the "1-click buy" patent by Amazon, that started a large number of similar "patents".
We arrived to the point where Apple is quite literally saying that they own the rights to any portable device that is large, rectangular, and has a touch screen. (copy of the patent file)

That's simply ridiculous, however it was used by Apple to try to block the sames of competitors' devices in some countries.

The second problem is the length of patents: 25 years are an eternity in high tech.
Some ideas/design that may have been innovative 25 years ago, are today something quite common.
Technological evolution is too fast to have such length in patents.
Example of this type of patent claimed by Apple (and used to block HTC).
The patent essentially "protects" the idea that a system module may be able to recognize structures in a text (e.g. a phone number) and serve it to other modules to perform actions (e.g. click on it to make a phone call).
Apart being too broad for my taste, it is also a very old patent: files in 1996 and issued in 1999.

Third problem is that patents can be awarded even if the idea is never implemented.
You can get a broad idea without any means of capacity to implement it... keep it rest for many years and then use it to reap money.
This is completely against the reason of existence for patents!


Fourth problem is the patent troll like Acacia Research that does nothing else than buying patents and using them to reap money from companies that actually produce something.

 

[Mise]

In addition to what Warpus and Illram said, I think piracy in Europe would be greatly reduced if American companies stopped releasing things here 10 months later and with a 50% markup compared to US release. They're slowly starting to do that, but I still can't legally watch most US TV programmes in the UK, even though I'm perfectly willing to pay for watching the latest season of Community, Curb Your Enthusiasm, etc. What's baffling is that most US corporations have no possible way of influencing European law, and yet they still insist on releasing things later (or not releasing them at all), at a 50% higher price. It doesn't make any sense. I'm sure the situation is similar in other continents too. Even if they do win the copyright war in the US, all this does is create a rich and flourishing market for pirated products in the RoW. In some countries, the idea of pirating media has become so entrenched that there's no way American companies can ever make money in them. Why would they want to wipe themselves from even more markets? Baffling.