Should unreleased material be not-subject to copyright laws?

[Newbunkle]

Artists produce something of great value and generate a tremendous amount of wealth. If anything, they should be compensate more than they are now, though that's up to the artists themselves to negotiate with publishers. No one, artist or otherwise, should be obligated to do anything for free.

What's with all the hippies on this forum?

Agreed, and the same is true for writers, video game designers, movie makers, etc.

They're not hippies though, they're just greedy - wanting to enjoy things that people worked hard on for free.

 

[innonimatu]

Artists produce something of great value and generate a tremendous amount of wealth. If anything, they should be compensate more than they are now, though that's up to the artists themselves to negotiate with publishers. No one, artist or otherwise, should be obligated to do anything for free.

No artist is obligated to do anything for free. But some have become crying babies, demanding that states enforce, for their sake but at the state's expenses, monopolies on ideas, something clearly impossible - ownership on ideas. Their business model consists on using the state for a mob-like enforcement of their "intellectual property".

As for the value they produce... you're confusing production with monetary values. Do they get more money to move around? I believe they do? Does that make their produce more valuable? No.

As for providing some alternative arrangement - that's the artist's problem! Why the **** should my taxes go to support a repressive system meant to allow artists to collect some rents?
If some artists themselves cannot come up with a viable economic system - and there are obvious ones which they do use and have always used, such as changing a wage to the people who order their works in the first place - then screw them. It's not my task to provide them with a police force to censor the use of their ideas.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

Both released and unreleased material are currently beyond copyright law in any meaningful sense. How about we come up with laws that are both just and enforcable, because the current ones are neither.

 

[LesCanadiens]

No artist is obligated to do anything for free. But some have become crying babies, demanding that states enforce, for their sake but at the state's expenses, monopolies on ideas, something clearly impossible - ownership on ideas. Their business model consists on using the state for a mob-like enforcement of their "intellectual property".

I think you have no idea what you're talking about. You're stuck on this notion that all artists are Puff Diddy Daddys living up in mansions collecting royalties and using them to fill their 34 pools. You know most artists don't make enough money to live solely off their art, right? As in, 99.99999999999999% of them. This whole notion that artists are money grubbing crybabies is a pathetic strawman. Drop it.

As for the value they produce... you're confusing production with monetary values. Do they get more money to move around? I believe they do? Does that make their produce more valuable? No.

Actually, it does. All told the literary industry in the United States alone is worth billions, the music and film even more.

As for providing some alternative arrangement - that's the artist's problem! Why the **** should my taxes go to support a repressive system meant to allow artists to collect some rents?
If some artists themselves cannot come up with a viable economic system - and there are obvious ones which they do use and have always used, such as changing a wage to the people who order their works in the first place - then screw them. It's not my task to provide them with a police force to censor the use of their ideas.

I think it's obvious you have no idea what you're talking about. Your taxes do not support copyrighting, at least no more than they do any other set of laws. When I make something, the copyright automatically goes to me. I don't have to go to a lawyer and file some paperwork, and I don't have to go to some publicly funded copyright office. All I have to do is write at the bottom some where ( [copyright symbol] Jon Doe 2008 All Rights Reserved) or something like that. That's it. All rights are assumed to be held by the owner of the work (and that's me, and never you) unless sold. I don't have to go to some bureaucrat to certify that I own my own work, and the idea that you do is laughable.

Your beliefs are so hilariously backwards. They're not based on anything even remotely resembling reality. Learn a thing or two about this stuff before spouting your own ill-informed opinions.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Copyrights on audio / video is nearing death. Just look at the hard drive of people 18-29.

Patents are very important. However I think they should expire much like patents for medication expire.

In the US both patents and copyrights are required to expire, but nobody seems to care about this.

they're just greedy - wanting to enjoy things that people worked hard on for free.

Soooo many ways I could rip this statement to pieces.

1) I could indulge P.T.Barnum-style showmanship and show your statement off as an example of something horrid.
2) I could sarcastically ask if your side wasn't supposed to be in favor of greed.
3) I could point out that it's a hateful generalization that's vacuous where it isn't false.

But I think the most effective is to simply show how your statement is at odds with reality - the "greedy" ones are the MAFIAA with their salami tactics of infinite copyright extension. And we who want to enjoy things that people worked hard on for free have reason to believe that more people will work hard on things for free that we can enjoy if the copyright regime is relaxed. Take Beauty and the Beast, for instance. Under the current copyright regime, it would have been illegal or hideously expensive to create, as it's clearly derivative of tales like The Bear Prince.

One suggestion I'd read (probably from Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig) is that every X years, you have to re-file to continue your copyright, and it costs a dollar. Otherwise, it's public domain. It's a nominal fee, but it shows that the person actually has some interest in the work. If you're not willing to pay a dollar, it goes public.

It wouldn't quite cover the stuff you're talking about, but I bet it would be surprising how much would enter the public domain.

Cleo

This.

 

[El_Machinae]

Should unreleased material be not-subject to copyright laws?

Of course it should be. How do you collect unreleased material without violating concepts of privacy? I can't steal your diary and publish it for my profit. If you give me your diary, it can be given to me on your terms.

If you haven't released something, though, you can't whine if someone else releases something awfully similar.

 

[Shadylookin]

No artist is obligated to do anything for free. But some have become crying babies, demanding that states enforce, for their sake but at the state's expenses, monopolies on ideas, something clearly impossible - ownership on ideas. Their business model consists on using the state for a mob-like enforcement of their "intellectual property".

The same could be said for anything the state does. Why should I have to pay taxes to the government so they can hire a police force to annoy me with their draconian laws. Why should I pay taxes so roads that I'm never gonna use get built.

In fact because of the fines they can charge for copyright violation I imagine the government brings in a net profit even if you completely ignore the fact that IP has allowed industries to grow thus resulting in more tax dollars.

As for the value they produce... you're confusing production with monetary values. Do they get more money to move around? I believe they do? Does that make their produce more valuable? No.

computer software exists because people are able to get copyrights I don't think computer software is an industry that's just a middleman that produces nothing of value. Since you're on a forum dedicated to the Civ series which would never have happened without IP.

As for providing some alternative arrangement - that's the artist's problem! Why the **** should my taxes go to support a repressive system meant to allow artists to collect some rents?
If some artists themselves cannot come up with a viable economic system - and there are obvious ones which they do use and have always used, such as changing a wage to the people who order their works in the first place - then screw them. It's not my task to provide them with a police force to censor the use of their ideas.

How would you get people to collectively pool in for video game production?

 

[innonimatu]

Actually, it does. All told the literary industry in the United States alone is worth billions, the music and film even more.

Make people pay for the privilege to breath. Or in a more manageable way, make people pay for the privilege of producing CO2. Our oh-so-bright economists and politicians have already came up with that, as far as certain industries are concerned, it would be a simple matter to extend it to every human - just legislate it, as you argue for copyright... And you'll have an "industry" worth billions, trading on those rights. Utterly useless, but it shows up as "economic growth"...

I think it's obvious you have no idea what you're talking about.

And I think it's obvious you have a vested interest in copyright.

Your taxes do not support copyrighting, at least no more than they do any other set of laws. When I make something, the copyright automatically goes to me. I don't have to go to a lawyer and file some paperwork, and I don't have to go to some publicly funded copyright office. All I have to do is write at the bottom some where ( [copyright symbol] Jon Doe 2008 All Rights Reserved) or something like that. That's it. All rights are assumed to be held by the owner of the work (and that's me, and never you) unless sold. I don't have to go to some bureaucrat to certify that I own my own work, and the idea that you do is laughable.

Oh, how simple. AND HOW THE . .. .. .. . DO I USE YOUR WORK? Oh, right, I have to buy it. I need to rack you as the author. I need some infrastructure (physical or virtual) to buy it, I need someone overseeing the distribution and sales, accountants, lawyers for the contracts, bank accounts, I need time to read those contracts, etc. If all that happens to be too expensive, your precious works, copyrighted by defaults, are supposed to just rot away somewhere - a fitting end, I believe. Look at how copyright is advancing the arts!

Your beliefs are so hilariously backwards. They're not based on anything even remotely resembling reality. Learn a thing or two about this stuff before spouting your own ill-informed opinions.

They are based on the reality of millenia of human history, millenia during which most of those works considered the masterpieces of human art and ingenuity were produced, in the total absence of even the notion of copyright.

You absolutely cannot claim that copyright is necessary. You can claim that it is economically useful, and if you ever try to argue about that with real arguments instead of a blanket statement ("the literary industry in the United States alone is worth billions" - so is the mob's business, drug dealing, etc.) I'll be happy to respond. You can claim that it is socially useful by increasing the "progress of arts and science", but I'd like to see you try to prove it. Or you can simply say that you like copyright because you believe it serves your interests, and you can guess what I'd answer to that.

 

[innonimatu]

The same could be said for anything the state does. Why should I have to pay taxes to the government so they can hire a police force to annoy me with their draconian laws. Why should I pay taxes so roads that I'm never gonna use get built.

That is a good point. But the question remains valid, and it applies to every law: "why should I pay and support the state in enforcing this particular law?"
We'd have far fewer dumb laws if people questioned this more often.

computer software exists because people are able to get copyrights I don't think computer software is an industry that's just a middleman that produces nothing of value. Since you're on a forum dedicated to the Civ series which would never have happened without IP.

Wrong. Computer software was being written without any legal protection whatsoever at least until the 1970s. Even the roots of one of the most successful early software packages, the UNIX operating system, were based on sharing the code, freely. Eventualy it forked between commercial versions (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, etc.) and the free version (BSD). Most commercial versions have died, the last relevant one has recently been made free too. BSD, on the other hand, has prospered and is under no risk of disappearing. It's license (it has one just because it must have one, so the law dictates) basically says "you can do whatever you damn well please with this".

How would you get people to collectively pool in for video game production?

Oh, I don't know....

You have many models, from charging a subscription for a service (Blizzard could easily open its software and still make a lot of money just from that model), to all kinds of collaborative projects.

 

[LesCanadiens]

Oh, how simple. AND HOW THE . .. .. .. . DO I USE YOUR WORK? Oh, right, I have to buy it. I need to rack you as the author. I need some infrastructure (physical or virtual) to buy it, I need someone overseeing the distribution and sales, accountants, lawyers for the contracts, bank accounts, I need time to read those contracts, etc. If all that happens to be too expensive, your precious works, copyrighted by defaults, are supposed to just rot away somewhere - a fitting end, I believe. Look at how copyright is advancing the arts!

Yes, you do pay for it. BECAUSE IT'S MINE, and you have no right to simply take the fruits of my labor at will. If you want to read my work, you pay for it. If you didn't have to pay for it, and if I didn't have sole ownership over my work, what's the point? Why work for months and months to produce something when some random jerkoff can simply walk along, steal it, sell it under his own name, without give me a cent of his profits or even some recognition?

Copyrights are necessary, otherwise the amount of time and effort it takes to produce most art isn't worth it.

They are based on the reality of millenia of human history, millenia during which most of those works considered the masterpieces of human art and ingenuity were produced, in the total absence of even the notion of copyright.

Non sequitur. When it comes to literature, up until very recently the vast majority of the population was too poor or too illiterate to be a threat, and literature moved far too slowly anyways. If you want to go back to 99% of America living in squalid poverty, with slaves all around, and nothing more advanced than a typewriter, sure. But stop drawing all these moronic false equivalences.

You absolutely cannot claim that copyright is necessary. You can claim that it is economically useful, and if you ever try to argue about that with real arguments instead of a blanket statement ("the literary industry in the United States alone is worth billions" - so is the mob's business, drug dealing, etc.) I'll be happy to respond. You can claim that it is socially useful by increasing the "progress of arts and science", but I'd like to see you try to prove it. Or you can simply say that you like copyright because you believe it serves your interests, and you can guess what I'd answer to that.

So you've just openly stated that you're not willing to hear arguments alternative to your own, and will dismiss them out of hand. Okay, have fun. I'm not going to argue with a brick wall.

Did you just compare the literary industry to...drug dealing? Is there any point at all in discussing this with you?

 

[innonimatu]

Yes, you do pay for it. BECAUSE IT'S MINE, and you have no right to simply take the fruits of my labor at will. If you want to read my work, you pay for it.

So long as you don't give or sell a copy to anyone else, your "intellectual property" is indeed yours only, and you have full control over it. But as soon as you let go of that control, you've done it for good. You will still own your copy of the work, but you cannot expect to control any other copy. At this time and age, it is impossible.

If you didn't have to pay for it, and if I didn't have sole ownership over my work, what's the point? Why work for months and months to produce something when some random jerkoff can simply walk along, steal it, sell it under his own name, without give me a cent of his profits or even some recognition?

"Steal it" is false here. Even if someone copies a copy of your work, you still have it. And for someone to have a copy of it you had to sell of give away in the first place. That's your opportunity to make money. Work on commission. Provide a service. There are plenty of ways to earn money writhing. In fact the vast majority of commercial writers on the world are journalists, and have their work constantly copied and reproduced without being paid per copy - and yet they have their wages because they sell their work as a service. The people buying that service mostly buy the newspapers of see the channels that employ them, regardless of copies, because its more convenient and offers the reassurance of an known source. They can and do claim copyright today, but their business model will endure even without it.

Non sequitur. When it comes to literature, up until very recently the vast majority of the population was too poor or too illiterate to be a threat, and literature moved far too slowly anyways. If you want to go back to 99% of America living in squalid poverty, with slaves all around, and nothing more advanced than a typewriter, sure. But stop drawing all these moronic false equivalences.

I see no lack of good classic literature, and that could be economically produced for a small literate population without copyright. It should be much easier today to sell even without copyright, with a more literate population. As I mentioned, the vast majority of professional writers does just that, as journalists.

So you've just openly stated that you're not willing to hear arguments alternative to your own, and will dismiss them out of hand. Okay, have fun. I'm not going to argue with a brick wall.

No, I said that your arguments stink. You'll have to come up with something better.

Did you just compare the literary industry to...drug dealing? Is there any point at all in discussing this with you?

Me? No, actually you compared it, or invited the comparison. You offered as argument only that it "is worth billions". My answer is that your argument means nothing when it comes to the desirability to protect a business, and that was what we were arguing about.

 

[Shadylookin]

That is a good point. But the question remains valid, and it applies to every law: "why should I pay and support the state in enforcing this particular law?"
We'd have far fewer dumb laws if people questioned this more often.

because it promotes the technological advancement of society

Wrong. Computer software was being written without any legal protection whatsoever at least until the 1970s. Even the roots of one of the most successful early software packages, the UNIX operating system, were based on sharing the code, freely. Eventualy it forked between commercial versions (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, etc.) and the free version (BSD). Most commercial versions have died, the last relevant one has recently been made free too. BSD, on the other hand, has prospered and is under no risk of disappearing. It's license (it has one just because it must have one, so the law dictates) basically says "you can do whatever you damn well please with this".

Computer software was trivial and largely in the hands of the government or universities until 1970. Unix and the rights to it were owned by AT&T(it may have been open but it wasn't free) and is now in the hands of Novell. FreeBSD is and was up in legal limbo but currently Novell has stated they have no intention of suing over Unix. Of course a large portion of their software is written under the GPL because not many people want to work their asses off only to let apple take everything.

Oh, I don't know....

You have many models, from charging a subscription for a service (Blizzard could easily open its software and still make a lot of money just from that model), to all kinds of collaborative projects.

Open source software exists solely because of copyright laws. The GNU GPL, BSD, CDDL, Apache, Mozilla, and all other licenses that define open source are in fact copyright licenses granting various degrees of freedom.

Blizzard would lose insane amounts of money because they would no longer have the ability to shutdown illegal third party servers so everyone would just use free third party servers.

Free Civ is copyrighted under the GPL and is a knockoff of civ2 made by bored CS students in their spare time. It's not exactly the next mass effect.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

inno, LesC, kindly stop arguing. The both of you are talking past one another, selectively misinterpreting one another, and strawmanning. This is greatly detracting from my enjoyment of this thread. If you insist on posting further, kindly read Politics and the English Language by George Orwell first. The writing advice contained therein may help you to be clearer.

 

[innonimatu]

because it promotes the technological advancement of society

Care to show it?

Computer software was trivial and largely in the hands of the government or universities until 1970. Unix and the rights to it were owned by AT&T(it may have been open but it wasn't free) and is now in the hands of Novell.

Computer software was far from trivial. AT&T had the ownership of UNIX fall on their lap quite accidentally, a by-product of two lab workers. Initially it could not even sell software, so it rented it. The guys from the UC at Berkeley, and others, greatly improved it, to a point where most of the code originated mostly from these contributions. A lawsuit followed, which resulted in AT&T recognizing those contributions and relinquishing all claims over BSD, in exchange for being allowed to continue to use those improvements on its won versions. Those got sold (entirely) to several companies. Sun fully owned Solaris, and IBM fully owned AIX, for example. Novell only eventually bought the trademark "UNIX" and some old code.

Go research on the history of UNIX and you'll find out just how wrong you were. And this is the kind of mess that fully illustrates why having "ownership" over software is a very bad idea.

FreeBSD is and was up in legal limbo but currently Novell has stated they have no intention of suing over Unix. Of course a large portion of their software is written under the GPL because not many people want to work their asses off only to let apple take everything.

FreeBSD is not in a legal limbo, all legal questions were settler nearly 20 years ago - to the point where Apple did not hesitate on building its new operating system partially on top of FreeBSD.
The BSD distributions still follow the rule of privileging the BSD license for their packages (OpenBSD requires it), and Apple is quite free to take whatever it wants, and it does give back the improvements to the kernel. Abolish copyright and Apple would have to give back all its improvements too (or refuse to sell a single copy).

Open source software exists solely because of copyright laws. The GNU GPL, BSD, CDDL, Apache, Mozilla, and all other licenses that define open source are in fact copyright licenses granting various degrees of freedom.

Read the BSD license. It exists only because the law automatically makes everything copyrighted, forcing people who wish their creations to be freely shared to write a license for that specific purpose. The GPL exists as a reaction against copyright, to prevent the use of copyright to close what would otherwise be free and open source. Abolishing copyright would immediately attain the purposes of both these licenses.

Blizzard would lose insane amounts of money because they would no longer have the ability to shutdown illegal third party servers so everyone would just use free third party servers.

Indeed it would. But blizzard already makes insane amounts of money. It wouldn't go bankrupt, simply because their current clients have already shown their willingness to pay for well-managed and updated servers, and that is a service which Blizzard can provide better that any possible competitor. Some would move away in order to save money, to cheaper servers or hobbyist servers, but certainly not all. Some might be taken by new competing companies, developing forks of blizzard's original game.. hey, guess what - the arts would have been furthered!

Free Civ is copyrighted under the GPL and is a knockoff of civ2 made by bored CS students in their spare time. It's not exactly the next mass effect.

So what? It proves that there can be free games. And I'd still pay for civ4, just as I paid despite being quite able to download it for free if I so chose. That's another thing you are missing: even in the absence of copyright, companies would still make and sell games, because we consumers will continue to find it convenient. The internet offers a perfect platform for the original company to market and sell its games, reducing the risks of other business simply copying and selling it - I believe that all the people on these forums would make a point of buying from Fireaxis - and they in turn would have a far stronger incentive to answer to feedback from its costumers, and provide patches and changes.

inno, LesC, kindly stop arguing. The both of you are talking past one another, selectively misinterpreting one another, and strawmanning. This is greatly detracting from my enjoyment of this thread. If you insist on posting further, kindly read Politics and the English Language by George Orwell first. The writing advice contained therein may help you to be clearer.

Hey, its a political discussion, what did you expect?

I could instead talk about Lessig's ideas, but he did a fine job of publishing those already.
Anyway, at least Orwell's work is not copyrighted...

 

[Shadylookin]

Care to show it?

computer software is the obvious example.

Computer software was far from trivial. AT&T had the ownership of UNIX fall on their lap quite accidentally, a by-product of two lab workers. Initially it could not even sell software, so it rented it. The guys from the UC at Berkeley, and others, greatly improved it, to a point where most of the code originated mostly from these contributions. A lawsuit followed, which resulted in AT&T recognizing those contributions and relinquishing all claims over BSD, in exchange for being allowed to continue to use those improvements on its won versions. Those got sold (entirely) to several companies. Sun fully owned Solaris, and IBM fully owned AIX, for example. Novell only eventually bought the trademark "UNIX" and some old code.

Go research on the history of UNIX and you'll find out just how wrong you were. And this is the kind of mess that fully illustrates why having "ownership" over software is a very bad idea.

had AT&T not been able to make money off of Unix it would have went nowhere and the BSD's would never have existed.

FreeBSD is not in a legal limbo, all legal questions were settler nearly 20 years ago - to the point where Apple did not hesitate on building its new operating system partially on top of FreeBSD.
The BSD distributions still follow the rule of privileging the BSD license for their packages (OpenBSD requires it), and Apple is quite free to take whatever it wants, and it does give back the improvements to the kernel. Abolish copyright and Apple would have to give back all its improvements too (or refuse to sell a single copy).


Read the BSD license. It exists only because the law automatically makes everything copyrighted, forcing people who wish their creations to be freely shared to write a license for that specific purpose. The GPL exists as a reaction against copyright, to prevent the use of copyright to close what would otherwise be free and open source. Abolishing copyright would immediately attain the purposes of both these licenses.[/qoute]

Actually no abolishing copyright would not make or keep software opensource hence the provisions of the GPL. Some one could take the linux kernel add something and make a closed source kernel and never give anyone the source if copyright didn't exist. The developers used copyright licenses because they thought it would be best instead of just putting it into the public domain

Indeed it would. But blizzard already makes insane amounts of money. It wouldn't go bankrupt, simply because their current clients have already shown their willingness to pay for well-managed and updated servers, and that is a service which Blizzard can provide better that any possible competitor. Some would move away in order to save money, to cheaper servers or hobbyist servers, but certainly not all. Some might be taken by new competing companies, developing forks of blizzard's original game.. hey, guess what - the arts would have been furthered!

that's rather short sighted. Hey we can get all the current games for free yippie without realizing that without the motivation of profit companies would stop making new games and progress would stagnate. Sure you might screw Blizzard out of WoW but they'll go backrupt once you rip off all their software and then they won't make any more video games.

So what? It proves that there can be free games. And I'd still pay for civ4, just as I paid despite being quite able to download it for free if I so chose. That's another thing you are missing: even in the absence of copyright, companies would still make and sell games, because we consumers will continue to find it convenient. The internet offers a perfect platform for the original company to market and sell its games, reducing the risks of other business simply copying and selling it - I believe that all the people on these forums would make a point of buying from Fireaxis - and they in turn would have a far stronger incentive to answer to feedback from its costumers, and provide patches and changes.

They wouldn't have any incentive to be in business at all because there's no money to be made in making games so everyone and their brother can take a copy for free without worrying about violating copyright laws. So there'd be no freeciv because civ would have never came to be