Slightly OT: Good article about copyright

riredale wrote on 10/20/2014, 9:03 PM
In the New Yorker. A long but great article.

The irony is that as copyright law becomes stronger it becomes weaker because everyone feels more justified in ignoring it. One source says there were 40 BILLION copies and downloads per year on the internet a few years back and that 94% of them were blatant violations of copyright law.

If there were a simple and cheap way pay to use prior art I would use the service. But there isn't. There once was, but there isn't now.

By the way, some claim that my use of the hyperlink in the first line is also a violation of copyright, since I am using someone else's work without payment or permission.

Comments

PeterDuke wrote on 10/21/2014, 12:34 AM
You haven't copied any copyrighted work that I can see. All your words look like an original work to me.

If you point to a painting in a gallery, you aren't copying it.
ushere wrote on 10/21/2014, 12:38 AM
i gather the main driving force behind increased copyright control comes from big business seeking to squeeze every penny they can from their ip.

whilst i fully applaud the idea of copyright, if you create you deserve a return, there has to be some mechanism where access to, and fair payment for use of material is easily and clearly defined. as it stands at the moment big business is more concerned with screwing it down (and gathering it in) rather than making it available more widely.

then again there is the matter of outdated corporate thinking, especially when they stagger releases, or give exclusive distribution to limited media managers - eg. game of thrones in australia.on foxtel.

VidMus wrote on 10/21/2014, 4:48 AM
Do you want to know about copyright? Ask all the lawyers in the world and you will get as many answers as there are lawyers. It depends on where the money flows!

Only God owns the copyright and patents to ALL things!!!

Danny Fye

https://vimeo.com/channels/cocnwp

TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/21/2014, 5:52 AM
More laws remove rights, not extend them. The ONLY copyright law needed is "if you don't own it, you don't have any rights".
Only God owns the copyright and patents to ALL things!!!
"Thou shalt not steal." does answer all copyright questions.

There's a reason a couple hundred years ago the first rights in the Bill of rights and the first 10 amendments are short & the newer ones are long: because they meant what they said and didn't want a bunch of loopholes. Copyright is now full of loopholes where "thou shalt not steal." sums the whole law up in four tidy words.
kmr wrote on 10/21/2014, 6:35 PM
For a great discussion on the purpose of copyright, see pages 46-55 in last Friday's 11th Circuit Court ruling in Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton.

http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201214676.pdf

If only Congress could ever be made to understand, and then stop extending copyright terms to forever and a day.
PeterDuke wrote on 10/21/2014, 6:46 PM
When a work moves into the public domain, and how much you can copy under fair use can become murky areas. If you create a large work with a phrase from another large work, is that stealing?

Stephen Sondheim was actually pleased when a newspaper used the phrase "everything is coming up roses" because it meant that a phrase of his had become part of the vernacular. Should the paper have got his permission first? (BTW, it is permission, not whether money or kind has changed hands, that is important.)

I have recently been researching a song called, "The lass from the low country". The arrangement that my choir has says that it is an English folk song. The arranger said that she got this information from a respectable catalogue of folk songs. However, it would appear that it was really written and composed by John Jacob Niles, to whom the title alone was inspired by two lines of a "garbled" song he once heard. He then expanded it into three whole verses.

This would seem to parallel what happened with "I wonder as I wonder", in which he claimed to have discovered a folk song, presumably for the fame it gave him. He later claimed authorship to gain royalties. (Niles claimed to have "discovered" many other folk songs as well, in which the true origins are now in doubt. As someone put it, is is better to have discovered a natural gem than to have made an artificial one.)

Are a few words and a complete reconstruction an authentic folk song or a new work in its own right? Bear in mind that folk songs normally evolve as they are passed on and there are no clear correct versions, or who first created them.
Rainer wrote on 10/21/2014, 7:15 PM
I think most people are sweet with "thou shalt not steal", but they may have a bit of difficulty with the authority for "thou shalt not copy".
GeeBax wrote on 10/21/2014, 8:31 PM
[I]'Only God owns the copyright and patents to ALL things!!!'[/I]

If you don't believe in god, then is it a free-for-all, since he cannot enforce his rights?
ushere wrote on 10/21/2014, 9:51 PM
boy oh boy, you'd better be watching for that lightening bolt geoff ;-)
musicvid10 wrote on 10/21/2014, 10:49 PM
Why do people copy things? Because they can.

There's never been a media copy protection system that lasted very long.
Internet music producers are finally starting to get it. Free music, not-so-free advertising may foretell a larger role for corporate patronship of media arts.

Rob Franks wrote on 10/22/2014, 6:34 AM
Happy friar:"Only God owns the copyright and patents to ALL things!!!"

And if you can prove God actually exists... but that's another thread.. and shouldn't be in this one [hint, hint]

riredale:
"If there were a simple and cheap way pay to use prior art I would use the service. But there isn't. There once was, but there isn't now."

YUP.
I don't believe copyright infringement is JUST all about bad people downloading without paying. I think it also has a lot to do with greedy studios and such in the high prices they place on the material.

Interesting study showed that when gas prices spike then so does the theft of gasoline, and when gas prices go down, then so does its theft. Now that's not to say that theft of ANYTHING is justifiable, but it does indicate a pattern that people will resort to theft (and the risks involved) if they THINK it's justifiable.
MikeyDH wrote on 10/22/2014, 7:35 AM
And now "Stairway to Heaven" is in a copyright battle between Led Zepplin, the band who made it popular and the band Spirit, the band who claims it as their's. Maybe it is a God thing....Spirit in heaven....;)