Inauspicious Start For Chris Dodd At MPAA; Starts Off With 'Infringement No Different Than Theft' Claim
from the they-pay-you-$1.5-million-to-lie dept
No surprise, really, but former Senator Chris “I won’t become a lobbyist” Dodd has begun his new tenure as a lobbyist for the MPAA on an inauspicious note — by falsely claiming that infringement is no different than “looting.”
“You know if you walk down main street people would arrest you if you walk into a retail store and stole items,” Dodd said. “It’s called looting in some cases. That’s exactly what is happening with intellectual property. It’s being looted and that needs to stop.”
So, it looks like more of the same from the MPAA: more focusing on the wrong problem. More blaming everyone else for their own failures to adapt. More playing the victim. And, for that, they’re “only” paying Dodd $1.5 million, an increase from the $1.2 million they paid predecessor Dan Glickman. The entire MPAA budget is about $100 million per year, and they spend almost none of that money on actually helping the industry adapt, but throw tons of money away lobbying for laws that won’t help (and that trample the rights of others). Can’t we just skip ahead to the inevitable failures and try something different?
Filed Under: chris dodd, lobbying
Companies: mpaa
Comments on “Inauspicious Start For Chris Dodd At MPAA; Starts Off With 'Infringement No Different Than Theft' Claim”
Exactly!
Bonus points to Mr Dodd for not only equating copyright infringement to theft, but also compounding the error. At least he didn’t say ‘That’s literally what is happening’, I suppose.
Re: Exactly!
“At least he didn’t say ‘That’s literally what is happening'”
No that would be far too punny.
Re: Exactly!
There’s a huge difference. Stealing a CD is a misdemeanor and a $200 fine. Using P2P costs you millions…
Re: Re: Exactly!
Indeedy. Do they really want it to be genuinely considered theft under the law when there’s, like, zippo profit in it?
They’re really bad at this.
It's exactly like looting
I usually have to open several windows to maximize my infringing. Usually they open with a simple right-click, but sometimes I have to break them. Or sometimes the scripts in the background break them. Either way, open windows=free stolen stuff!
I don’t leave nearly as much damage behind now that I’ve accustomed myself to tabbed browsing. But the gung-ho looting spirit is still alive and well!
Integrity? The dickens you say!
What he really meant was: I will say anything for 1.5 million dollars!
Nice paycheck to pull for having all your thinking done for you.
Re: Integrity? The dickens you say!
Ahem:
I will say anything (once) for 1.5 million dollars.
If the spoken thing is bad enough, I will then change my name and retire to a small country with a good exchange rate.
Re: Re: Integrity? The dickens you say!
Ha! That would be hilarious – he makes this one statement, cashes his check and is never heard from again.
As much as I'd like them to get it...
They won’t. I’m just wondering how much they will destroy in their death throes.
Re: As much as I'd like them to get it...
Maybe it’s time we destroyed them first for once. Just a thought.
Re: Re: As much as I'd like them to get it...
oh oh oh oh!
can we use a battleship?
Pleeeeeeeeeeeease?
The MPAA are like belligerent drunks in trouble with the police. Nothing is their fault, it’s all someone else’s fault.
Theft and Infringement
Theft and Infringement
A lesson on the difference between physical property and intellectual property, between theft and infringement.
1. Physical property is any tangible thing that you own. The piece of paper on your desk is your physical property.
2. Intellectual property is an idea or expression of an idea that you own. In your mind, think of an imaginary creature that no one has ever seen before. You own that thought?it is your intellectual property.
3. Draw your imaginary creature on your paper. You now own both the paper (physical property) and the creature on it (intellectual property).
4. A property right is the freedom you have to do whatever you want with anything you own.
4. My physical property rights mean that I can do whatever I want with my piece of paper. I can draw on it, write on it, fold it into a little hat, tear it up, or eat it. You can do whatever you want with your paper, too!
5. My intellectual property rights mean that I can do whatever I want with my imaginary creature. I can give him a name, write stories about him, draw more pictures of him, or make a movie about him. You can do whatever you want with your creature, too!
6. Infringement is preventing someone from exercising his rights. If I prevent you from drawing on your paper, I am infringing on your physical property rights. If I prevent you from writing a story about your imaginary creature, I am infringing on your intellectual property rights.
7. Theft is the act of stealing, or taking something without permission. If I take your paper without your permission, I have committed a theft. You no longer have the paper?I do. By stealing your paper, I have prevented you from doing anything with it, so I have infringed on your physical property rights.
8. What happens if I draw an imaginary creature that looks just like yours on my paper? Have I taken your creature from you? If you still have the idea of the creature, and you still have your drawing of the creature, then I have not taken it?I have not committed theft. Have I prevented you from drawing more pictures of him? If I have not prevented you from exercising your rights, I have not infringed. Drawing a picture of your creature is neither theft nor infringement; it is exercising my physical property rights to my paper.
9. What happens if you try to prevent me from drawing an imaginary creature that looks just like yours on my own paper? Look at paragraph 6. Preventing me from exercising my rights would be infringement; you would be infringing on my physical property rights.
10. If you can do anything you want with your imaginary creature, and I can do anything I want with your imaginary creature, then who really owns your imaginary creature? Who holds the intellectual property rights? The answer is nobody! It is impossible to own an idea. You cannot have property rights to an imaginary creature because it is imaginary. Even if your imaginary creature is really, really original, and you thought about it for years before you drew it, and you actually spent millions of dollars on fancy pencils to draw it with?it?s still imaginary, still an idea, and you cannot own an idea.
11. Unfortunately, that?s not how the law works. Legally, you can prevent me from exercising my physical property rights by accusing me of infringement. If I use my paper to draw a copy your imaginary creature, you can sue me, or even have me arrested–for infringement. And yet, it is you, not me, who is preventing someone from exercising their rights.
12. Obviously, the law is wrong.
Re: Theft and Infringement
As a law student who happens to love the government and everything they do you are clearly wrong. LOL!
Re: Re: Theft and Infringement
so your response is, “I
Re: Re: Re: Theft and Infringement
woop.
your response is “I heart teh USG and they can do no wrong”?
way to lawyer it there, buddy. really quick argumentative wit you got.
Re: Re: Re:2 Theft and Infringement
you’re assuming that a responce that obviously mocking is serious.
sadly, entirely understandable as people do say things like that seriously :S
Re: Re: Re:2 Theft and Infringement
I think it was someone imitating one of our less(more?) popular ACs, who i have named THAT AC so i can go hey look at THAT ACs post what a raptorphile, or THAT AC’s irony level are two high and we are mistaking it for /sarc. If its really you THAT AC yell FUD or ASTROTURF so we know your ok.
Re: Re: Theft and Infringement
Everything? Really? You don’t have a single criticism at all of the government? I mean, even those running it hate other parts of it. You must have a very naive view of the government.
If ignorance is bliss, you sir, are a very happy man.
And I don’t envy you one bit.
Re: Re: Theft and Infringement
As a law student who happens to love the government and everything they do you are clearly wrong. LOL!
I sincerely hope that this is sarcasm (and maybe bit of a jab at AJ).
Re: Re: Re: Theft and Infringement
Nailed it!
Re: Re: Re:2 Theft and Infringement
Woo hoot! FTW!
Re: Re: Theft and Infringement
“2. Intellectual property is an idea or expression of an idea that you own. In your mind, think of an imaginary creature that no one has ever seen before. You own that thought?it is your intellectual property.”
That’s close, but not quite correct. The expression of your idea is protected against unauthorized duplication and distribution. The idea and the expression are not your property. The paper is your property, the copyright is your property, but the idea and its subsequent expression is not your property.
Re: Re: Theft and Infringement
If you’re going to be a lawyer you have to learn how to present logical arguments to a jury.
Your recent post was your first assignment on that topic, and you failed miserably!
Re: Theft and Infringement
You also infringed the number “4.” It appeared twice. 😀
Re: Re: Theft and Infringement
It’s bonus material – he’s adding value to a nicely reasoned product!
Unfortunately we lose
While the MPAA and RIAA are certainly wrong in their claims they have the deeper pockets and plenty of government officials stuffed in them to prove it. Despite what should be happening companies are successful at stripping our rights away one victory at a time, day by day. I doubt we will have much left in another ten years that isn’t ‘licensed’. At this rate we will be modifying the flag for a Tyco symbol by 2020.
Re: Unfortunately we lose
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is freedom.
Stop fearing the government and go make them afraid of you!
Re: Re: Unfortunately we lose
Caveat: Violence is NEVER EVER EVER the answer.
Re: Re: Re: Unfortunately we lose
“Caveat: Violence is NEVER EVER EVER the answer”
Well that’s simply not true….
Re: Re: Re:2 Unfortunately we lose
indeed. there is very little that cannot be solved with the proper aplication of explosives. (note: using as much as you can get hold of and make fit is usually not the proper aplication)
gotta watch out for those unintended consiquences though.
Re: Re: Re:2 Unfortunately we lose
It may be the only way to end their “suffering” fast and clean…
Anyone got a sniper, a few “Pulic Domain” bullets and the address of their next meeting ?
Re: Re: Re: Unfortunately we lose
If you think violence isn’t the answer, it’s possible you’ve asked the wrong question.
Re: Re: Re: Unfortunately we lose
Of course violence isn’t the answer.
I GOT IT WRONG ON PURPOSE.
Our legal systems have no other way to describe it. You obtain something that is for sale without paying for it, you have had to steal it, even if you are only stealing a copy.
Let’s take it further. If you went into your local bestbuy, and started ripping DVDs onto your laptop, and then left with those ripped movies on your machine, do you not think you have stolen something? You came in with a laptop, and left with a laptop full of movies. Did you not obtain “something for nothing”?
You can tapdance on the head of a pin, but in the end, you have something that you didn’t pay for, don’t have the rights for, and obtained without permission. That pretty much all adds up to theft.
Remember, when you “buy” a DVD, you aren’t buying just the shiny plastic disc, but you are also buying “rights”. Even if you replicate the contents of the disc, you still have not purchased the rights. Thus, you have stolen something.
I know, you guys will kick it around and around and say it isn’t theft, nothing was stolen, blah blah… it’s all self-justification at it’s finest.
Re: Re:
“Our legal systems have no other way to describe it.”
Actually it does. It’s called infringement (hence the term “copyright infringement”). The debate is “is it a bad thing?” The answer is “no.”
Calling it “stealing” is the same thing you claim we are doing; self-justification. You justify violating human rights by claiming something was stolen.
Re: Re:
That’s a pretty bold statement. Especially when it was our legal systems that created infringement in the first place. Long before there was government, people were claiming other people stole their stuff. The cavemen had no concept of copyright infringement. For thousands of years after governments were instituted, there was still no concept of copyright infringement, but there was still very much the legal concept of stealing someone’s property.
Then governments started codifying copyrights and lo and behold, they did not use the already codified stealing and theft laws to enforce it. Instead, they created a whole new concept of copyright infringement. So yes, thankyouverymuch, our legal system has a way to describe it. It’s called copyright infringement, and it doesn’t involve the taking of someone else’s property. It involves the illegal duplication of someone’s creative works.
As for your Best Buy analogy, I ask, what did you take? Nothing. Best Buy still has the DVDs. You made copies of copyrighted works. Hence theft isn’t in the equation. You made a copy of a work you weren’t supposed to make a copy of. That is called copyright infringement for a reason. Theft requires you take something from someone else. Copyright requires that you copy something without permission. It’s all very simple, and our legal system very much has ways to describe it.
Re: Re:
How many times do I have to say this? Nobody gives a shit about you any more! Go complain about something elsewhere.
Re: Re: Re:
Hey Ron… I think I hear your mommy calling. Go away.
Re: Re:
No, the legal definitions are completely different. I mean, so different they even have different subsets of the Penal Code.
Re: Re:
theft is two parts legally. Taking and keeping you from it.
UK law (Theft Act of 1968): “A person shall be guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.”
US Law, Federally it’s just Larcency: “larceny is the trespassory taking (caption) and carrying away (asportation, removal) of the tangible personal property of another with the intent to deprive him or her of its possession permanently” (Source: Wikipedia)
While at the state levels in pretty much every state it’s defined the same way with differences being what constitutes grand theft and petty theft.
Since me making a copy of something doesn’t deprive them of possession, it’s pretty difficult for me to “Steal” music.
I could of course go in and lobotomize the musicians so they can no longer play the music, destroy all other copies of the music and make a copy of myself, and that would very well fit the definition, and would be a good thing to do if it’s Justin Beiber, no jury in the world would convict you.
Re: Re: Re:
Stealing a CD or DVD is stealing a copy also. They’re copies manufactured on plastic.
By your logic, the only way real theft could occur would be if you stole the master tape of an album or master print of a movie so that no copies could ever be made again.
That’s why everyone just rolls their eyes when you say “it’s not theft, it’s just a copy.”
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Again you are wrong. Stealing a CD or DVD is stealing a physical item with a copy on it. Copying the contents of the CD or DVD and leaving those bits of plastic alone otherwise would not be stealing. It would be copyright infringement.
You can steal a CD. You can infringe the copyrights of a song. You can even steal a CD for the express purpose of infringing on copyrights. But those are still two different acts. If you steal the master copy, you have taken a physical thing. That is stealing. If you make copies from the master copy but leave it alone otherwise you have committed copyright infringement. If you steal the master copy and make copies from it, you have committed two crimes – namely theft and copyright infringement.
Once again, they aren’t the same thing.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
You’re confused. Whether you realize it or not, shoplifting a CD or DVD is not only theft, but also copyright infringement.
It is an internet meme that piracy isn’t theft, it’s only infringement. It’s both. Here’s why:
Someone below was nice enough to point out the legal definition of theft, “person shall be guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.”
So the meme is that since the owner still appears to have his property, that he hasn’t been permanently deprived of it. The problem is that part of the basic tenets of property is control, and what we are concerned with legally is constructive possession. When a copy is made illegally, that makes a change to the property. In both tangible and intangible ways.
So indeed, the owner no longer has the same property he had prior to the illegal copy being made. It has, in effect, been stolen from him.
You’re welcome.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
The problem is that part of the basic tenets of property is control, and what we are concerned with legally is constructive possession. When a copy is made illegally, that makes a change to the property. In both tangible and intangible ways.
Sigh, please elaborate… how has the holder’s property changed “In both tangible and intangible ways.” because.. well one control is relative, you control the medium, but not what people do with it. If said copy was derived from a legal one, then your argument falls apart.. Second it’s utter nonsense.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Sigh, please elaborate… how has the holder’s property changed “In both tangible and intangible ways.”
When it comes to property, control is everything. It is the fundamental legal right of property.
Real property, personal property, and intellectual property are all subsets of property law. But control is common to all three.
Let’s say the creator of a DVD or CD decides to press 1000 copies. Those copies, along with the original work, comprise the tangible definition of that particular piece of property. The intangible aspect is how many more he can choose to make at his discretion, which will affect its scarcity, and thus its value. Either way, he has control.
If someone makes copies without his permission it fundamentally changes the value of the property, and thus the property itself.
So you can’t say an owner has still kept his property untouched when a copy is made without authorization. Therefore trying to dismiss the theft analogy doesn’t work.
control is relative, you control the medium, but not what people do with it.
Wrong. On the back of every CD/DVD are the terms of what you can and can not legally do with it.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
I guess that explains why nobody commits copyright infringement because it’s against the law.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Price and value are 2 different things.
No it clearly doesn’t. It may affect wider demand for new recreations of that item, but it does not change the original item at all. By the same token chair makers should get to exclude people in exactly the same way as copyright.
And people continue to do the things they’re not supposed to en masse. Just because you have legal control does not mean you have effective control, without which the legal aspect becomes useless. See: prohibition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition#Prohibition_in_the_United_States
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Price and value are 2 different things.
So what? So is copyrighted music and chairs. See below.
It may affect wider demand for new recreations of that item, but it does not change the original item at all.
Yes, it does. I just showed you the tangible and intangible ways that it does.
By the same token chair makers should get to exclude people in exactly the same way as copyright.
This might be the most moronic analogy I’ve ever seen on this site. Congrats, junior.
And people continue to do the things they’re not supposed to en masse.
So stop whining about the fact the law is finally being enforced.
Facepalm.
End of convo…
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
Finally? Where have you been for the last ten years? Oh, you mean by the Untied States government. They have money left?
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
I cannot accept your tangible change to a physical object by copying it, as no actual physical change has been made to the original object. You’re trying to twist words and the conversation in ways that science does not support.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
No you didn’t. There is no connection between the change in demand of an item and a change in an item itself. There is no tangible change that occurs through others being able to create/duplicate their own version, only a difference in the price that the original owner may charge, though that depends on a dozen and one other factors.
Congrats on not even being able to understand your own logic.
If property is solely a means to control value of property, then it’s equally justifiable under your own argument in favour of copyright to ban any other chair makers other than the original from making one, as the production of a variety of other chairs either decreases value of the original chair, something the original creator apparently should have a means of controlling by restricting entirely independent individuals and creators from doing so, regardless of their own effort, materials and money used entirely separate from your own.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
If you sell a popular service, and I start offering a much cheaper competing service of equal or better quality, I have fundamentally changed the market for your service. I have directly affected your ability to sell your service at its current price by creating competition.
Have I infringed on your rights in this case? Are my customers criminals because they didn?t buy your service? Of course not. You are still free to try and sell your service at any price you want. You can even make use of any efficiencies my entrance to the market may have created or highlighted. If you fail to compete, that?s your fault, not mine or my customers?.
This is effectively what happened with electronic file sharing. The old media method was slow and expensive. The new method is fast and cheap. No prizes for guessing which option the consumers prefer.
It?s competition, not theft.
Re: Re: Re:5 There aren't EULA's for CD/DVD's .... yet.
Actually there was a case not too long ago where the music industry tried to prohibit a person from reselling demo CD’s on E-Bay (UMG vs. Augusto). The record companies were trying to make the same argument that you are, namely that they could change your rights by affixing a sticker to the CD.
In that case since the sticker said you couldn’t resell it, it was illegal for it to be resold. The court didn’t buy it.
The only terms that matter when it comes to what you can do with a CD/DVD is copyright law, tempered by the First Amendment. No matter what the producer of a CD would like you to do, it’s perfectly legal to do all sorts of things;
for example: shred it, shoot it, create abstract art with it, line your bird cage with it. You know things like the First_Sale_Doctrine.
Even when it comes to copying, you are allowed to space shift (make an mp3 out of it), use it in a parody, transform it, etc. You know that Fair Use thing.
So no, what you wrote is a self serving fiction.
On the back of every CD/DVD are the terms of what the producer wants you to think you can and can not legally do with it. [there, I fixed it for you.]
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Just like manslaughter is murder. They’re the exact same thing, logically speaking.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
I know im late to the game but i just want to point this out
quoting Chosen Reject:
“You can steal a CD. You can infringe the copyrights of a song. You can even steal a CD for the express purpose of infringing on copyrights. But those are still two different acts. If you steal the master copy, you have taken a physical thing. That is stealing. If you make copies from the master copy but leave it alone otherwise you have committed copyright infringement. If you steal the master copy and make copies from it, you have committed two crimes – namely theft and copyright infringement.” [my emphasis]
Quoting AC:
“You’re confused. Whether you realize it or not, shoplifting a CD or DVD is not only theft, but also copyright infringement.
sounds like someone is confused….wait is it me?
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Because he stole a product but did not reproduce it, I’m thinkin’.
If he stole it and copied it then he’d be guilty of both.
Yes?
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
If you steal the master copy (or even some other copy) AND reproduce it, you have committed two crimes. In the first case (the part before the bolded and) you are guilty of theft. In the second case (the part after the bolded and) you are guilty of copyright infringement. If you only do on side of the bolded and, you are only guilty of one crime. If you steal a CD or DVD and never make an illegal copy of it, you are only guilty of theft, no matter how much the AC wants to twist his words.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
well then all copyright holders are thieves too, because to uphold their rights they are depriving others from their own rights.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
First, stealing a physical CD is not copyright infringement, and I challenge you to prove where in our legal code it says otherwise.
Secondly, the courts have said infringement is not theft, that the two concepts are distinct and separate, so… you’re welcome.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
First, stealing a physical CD is not copyright infringement, and I challenge you to prove where in our legal code it says otherwise.
When you shoplift a CD you just infringed the right of the owner to sell that copy.
US Code Title 17 s106
Secondly, the courts have said infringement is not theft
“deliberate unlawful copying is no less an unlawful taking of property than garden-variety theft. “
– US Supreme Court, MGM v Grokster.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
So it’s not copyright infringement but larceny? Good to know!
Re: Re: Re:5 Congrat, you just proved the point you were trying to disprove
You wrote:
‘Secondly, the courts have said infringement is not theft
“deliberate unlawful copying is no less an unlawful taking of property than garden-variety theft. “
– US Supreme Court, MGM v Grokster.’
Looks to me like the Supreme Court is saying that unlawful copying is just as unlawful [a.k.a. that they are both against the law] as theft, not that unlawful copying is theft.
Thanks for playing….
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Amusing. 17 s106 isn’t cited in any shoplifting case, so I still call bullshit on this. Since section 106 lists exclusive rights in copyrighted works and has nothing to do with the theft of a physical object, I’d say this fails. Try again?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
It’s not theft, it’s copyright infringement, which is also against the law but doesn’t have the same moral heft to it as stealing does.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“Stealing a CD or DVD is stealing a copy also. They’re copies manufactured on plastic.”
Yes, you ridiculously ignorant oddball, but it’s not ONLY stealing the copy, but the physical product along w/it. That’s why it’s different. You’ve taken a copy AND something physical. Sheesh, talk about specious arguments.
“By your logic, the only way real theft could occur would be if you stole the master tape of an album or master print of a movie so that no copies could ever be made again.”
Listen to yourself, please, and realize how your old-world thinking does not apply and the grand awesomeness of digital media. You basically said, “People make copies, but you steal the master copy (physcial thing, so you’re already wrong again) and prevent people from making any more copies”.
Okay, here’s all the things wrong with your statement. First, stealing a master, ostensibly recorded on something, means you’re taking something physical. If you’re only copying it, you can’t prevent other copies (a la filesharing). Second, even if you somehow stole this master, any copies already made could be used to make OTHER copies to make sure the culture lives on. That’s the sweet-motherfuckin’-titty-goodness of all this. You can’t kill the culture through theft!
“That’s why everyone just rolls their eyes when you say “it’s not theft, it’s just a copy.””
Those people you see rolling their eyes are doing so at someone else’s arguments. Wanna guess who?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Yes, you ridiculously ignorant oddball, but it’s not ONLY stealing the copy, but the physical product along w/it. That’s why it’s different. You’ve taken a copy AND something physical. Sheesh, talk about specious arguments.
Nothing specious in the least. And there’s nothing different about the two at all. You’re just apparently unable to deal with logic.
You seem to think theft can only occur with something physical, which is incorrect and ignorant of the law.
You say it’s stealing the copy and the physical product. But the product is the copy of music; the physical aspect, plastic, is only the medium.
Just like that MP3 you swiped was a copy of music; and the 0s and 1s are only the medium.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
“You seem to think theft can only occur with something physical, which is incorrect and ignorant of the law.”
Talk about being ignorant of the law. The law defines theft as the act of taking something away which, in doing so, deprives the owner of their lost property. How, in any way, does making a copy (which actually makes more of something, not less) result in the rights holder having less than what they had previously? Copying a copyrighted work is an infringement of the author’s copyrights applied to that work, nothing more. You’re obviously trying to conflate infringement and theft to intensify the social stigma against infringement.
Copying is the majority act of infringement. If you want to make the law treat it as theft, then you’re going down a dangerous path that would criminalize the act of copying regardless of intent or purpose. Creative works are not property, that’s why it’s not theft and it’s that way for a reason. They were very careful to call the copyright property and not the thing it applies to. Why? It’s because after the copyright expires (because it’s not your property, that’s why it’s “temporary”), it reverts to the public domain which is everyone’s property.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
They were very careful to call the copyright property and not the thing it applies to. Why? It’s because after the copyright expires (because it’s not your property, that’s why it’s “temporary”), it reverts to the public domain which is everyone’s property.
So you’re saying when the copyright holder owns it it’s not his property, but once in the public domain it’s everyone’s property?
Nonsensical.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
The public domain is the rule and copyright is the exception to that rule. Culture 101.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Freetard culture 101.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
Says the shilltard.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
No, actual culture, don’t you know anything? About history or the arts?
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
“So you’re saying when the copyright holder owns it it’s not his property, but once in the public domain it’s everyone’s property?”
I said no such thing, you’re trying to claim I said something you can easily refute. I’m saying that the art was never your property to begin with because it already belongs to everyone, but the temporary right to control that art is your property. You own the rights, not the art.
Copyrights are your property.
Intangible art is everyone’s property.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Sometimes these new AC’s (I know i’m an AC) make me think they are plants (or Mike’s evil alter ego) posting to fire people up. No one in their right mind could post such dribble and be honest.
If it’s sarcasm, Good Play Sir (or madam)!
If they are plants, Good Play Mike!
If not, you’re agenda is showing.
Mike, keep it up. “The Man” has finally decided you’re blog is important enough to pay some poor idiot (obviously this person is not an idiot, just playing one when its a good argumentative tactic) to troll it.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
First they ignore the public and then they laugh at the public and then they fight the public and then the public wins.
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Hm no… If I steal a CD/DVD, I have deprived you of said CD or DVD. Sure you may be able to obtain a copy, but you still have lost the thing. If I let you copy a CD that belongs to me, nobody has been deprived of anything without their consent.
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By your logic, the only way real theft could occur would be if you stole the master tape of an album or master print of a movie so that no copies could ever be made again.
If you mean “theft of content”, then perhaps. Otherwise, It’s quite easy to see that stealing a CD deprives the rightful owner of his physical property (the CD), even if he can burn more afterwards.
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Our legal systems have no other way to describe it.
You mean like “copyright infringement”?
If you went into your local bestbuy, and started ripping DVDs onto your laptop, and then left with those ripped movies on your machine, do you not think you have stolen something?
I may have committed vandalism, if I damage their physical property while doing it (for example, by removing the shrink wrap or scratching the disk).
I am perhaps guilty of trespassing, if they had previously told me to leave.
I might even be guilty of breach of contract, if I agreed beforehand not to rip content while I was in the store.
But guilty of theft? No.
Did you not obtain “something for nothing”?
Sophistry will get you nowhere. Getting “something for nothing” is not the definition of stealing. Removing something owned by someone else is. Copying is not removing, and it is therefore not stealing.
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BUT COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT!!!
Re: Let's review this carefully
If you went into your local bestbuy, and started ripping DVDs onto your laptop, and then left with those ripped movies on your machine, do you not think you have stolen something?
The discs are still in the store, aren’t they? So I sure didn’t steal them, so what exactly happened to the movies on my hypothetical hard drive.
They were copied. Copying is not the same as stealing.
You can tapdance on the head of a pin, but in the end, you have something that you didn’t pay for, don’t have the rights for, and obtained without permission. That pretty much all adds up to theft.
Copyright infringement has to do with the improper use of the expression of an idea. Once an idea is expressed, what natural right does anyone have to keep it? Once you sing a song, how do keep another from remembering it or singing it themselves or their friends? Once you assemble a dress, and it hits the catwalk, what rights do you truly have to dispense permission for others to use the color scheme on it?
The rights and permissions that you assume are so inseparable from ideas exist only because of laws. As a matter of morality isn’t it reasonable to find it opressive and forceful, and therfore wrong, for one to express an idea, then spend time preventing others from using it?
Remember, when you “buy” a DVD, you aren’t buying just the shiny plastic disc, but you are also buying “rights”. Even if you replicate the contents of the disc, you still have not purchased the rights. Thus, you have stolen something.
Since IP has more to do with laws, than good and evil, it makes sense to understand what the purpose of the law is for. A generally accepted definition is an exlusive right to copy, adapt and distribute an original work. That’s pretty exclusive, right? I write a book, and I legally get to decide who makes a copy, how it gets out there, and even who can write something based off it? That is a monopoly on an idea, and in many countries, including this one, monopolies are frowned upon as potentially bad for consumers and markets.
So why allow something that we normally see as counter-productive? In the US, the reason was to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”.
IP laws are business arrangements. You get a temporary monopoly, you produce something useful for us. Some people, quite a few, I’d imagine, think that this arrangement has gone out of whack. Instead of an incentive to create, it’s an economic bludgeon used to,its worst expressions, extort and suppress. And even worse, these monopolies are becoming even longer. These are bad laws imparting bad rights.
They may be laws, and I may be a person lawful enough to follow them, but that doesn’t mean that they are good laws.
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what if i walk into a best-buy and write down the configuration of a bad-ass gaming computer they have on display, go home, and build the same machine with my own parts? have i stolen their computer? or have i just copied their configuration?
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I don’t pay for water or air am I stilling anything?
If I go to Walmart and “steal” the idea from something and make my own with my own resources and undermines their sales producing and distributitng that same thing am I stealing anything?
Not in my mind, further how people can sleep at night claiming sharing anything is a crime?
The real problem is that imaginary property is not real property and it has no way of being defended in the same way, why do people create this absurd abstract constructs and try to enforce it? People did it before in the middle ages it got so absurd that many revolts started and many many noblemen and clergy got hanged, beheaded, this is not a concept that will endure, and it cannot endure, it harms progress, innovation and society.
Anyone who says I can’t share anything with somebody for me is a crazy person. These laws are laws that I don’t mind breaking although I find myself in the comfortable position that I don’t need to, but if I ever need it you can bet I will not blink an eye to bypass any such nonsense, law or no law I don’t care, copywrong is evil.
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Quote:
That is funny, because that is exactly what Japanese people do and you will be hard pressed to find a clerk that will enforce any law on them.
The most educated and respectful people on earth don’t care about copyrights apparently as they promptly take their cellphones cameras and take pictures of books, magazines and the like, also it is a custom to get inside a store and open the magazines and read it right there and don’t buy it and no one changed that behavior as of yet.
So what I see is some dude trying to create a new set of mores and trying to impose those to others.
I know only one thing, if you or any other person depends on me following those mores you are screwed.
Locking away Intellectual Property, and denying our society its culture, by creating and continually expanding ridiculous Intellectual Property laws, is far more egregiously immoral than any infringement of those laws, IMHO.
This is why I actively avoid paying for any movie that will trickle funds back to these asshats.
they spend almost none of that money on actually helping the industry adapt
This statement is incorrect. As the only thing the movie/music industries need to “adapt” to is people taking their product without paying, they are adapting to the situation perfectly: they are insisting law enforcement enforce the law.
You love piracy, so you don’t like what they’re doing, but that’s just really too bad, isn’t it?
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As the only thing the movie/music industries need to “adapt” to is people taking their product without paying, they are adapting to the situation perfectly: they are insisting law enforcement enforce the law.
That’s not adapting, that trying to enforce the unenforcable status quo, and it won’t work.
You love piracy, so you don’t like what they’re doing
Even if you don’t like illegal copying, there are reasons to be worried about the means being used to combat i. Much like “terrorism” has become the go-to phrase that magically allows the government broad leeway in any unconstitutional scheme they can dream up, the phrase “intellectual property” is rapidly becoming similar. And just like powers granted to the government to “fight terrorism” can be used in an insidious manner for other purposes once that door is opened, so to will the powers we grant them to “fight infringement”.
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Sorry, but you’ve just resorted to FUD here. Next.
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sorry, but you’ve just resorted to being an ignorant arsehat here. next.
(about as useful and polite as the above comment, but more accurate.)
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You can call it FUD if you want, I guess, in the sense that I am afraid, uncertain, and doubtful of where we’re headed as a country. I would, however, prefer to call it by a more common name: the slippery slope.
You can just scream “FUUUDDD!!!” every time a slippery slope argument pops up, but dismissing arguments out of hand isn’t constructive. It just gives you a huge blind spot. 🙂
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This statement is incorrect. As the only thing the movie/music industries need to “adapt” to is people taking their product without paying, they are adapting to the situation perfectly: they are insisting law enforcement enforce the law.
How’s that working out for them? My impression is that there are still no major movies or pieces of music that cannot be found on the Internet for free and piracy is increasing, not decreasing. So maybe they should consider looking to spend their money on something that will actually have a positive ROI.
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If enforcing the law were the only thing the MPAA and their ilk were asking, I might have a little more respect for them. But that’s not what they are doing. They lobby for longer copyright terms, and retroactive at that. They lobby for penalties far beyond even ten times what actual damages are. They use shady practices to bring lawsuits (see Media Defender). They have been known to steal property (BREIN, I’m looking at you). And the list goes on.
Sure, ask law enforcement to do their job. No problem. Create ridiculous laws and use shady means to do so. Major problem.
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Imagine how the world would be today if medieval monks had had the money and lobbyists that the “content industry” has today. They could have made the printing press illegal. Arguably, we would still be in the dark ages.
Same is true with every revolutionary new technology. The Old Guard doesn’t want to let their position slip, but it’s inevitable. Carriage makers can learn how to make automobiles or go broke. They can’t stay in business by outlawing cars and forcing people to buy their carriages. So STOP TRYING.
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Well they did and they enforced those laws forbidding anybody from copying the Bible and a few other books, they all ended up with their heads in pikes.
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Our chief weapons are three: surprise, lack of due process, and wiretapping…
…and felony-making. Our four chief weapons are surprise, lack of due process, wiretapping, felony-making…
…and heads on pikes. Our weapons are…
I’ll come back in again.
Theft
Theft is:
” person shall be guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.”
There is no act of even for a moment depriving somebody in the case of infringement.
It could actually be argued that, as copyright law continues to push for longer terms, that the various copyright agencies (RIAA, MPAA, …) are colluding with the government on the wholesale theft of IP from the general population.
Moar IP stupidity
Dodd has a friend in the land of delusion:
http://torrentfreak.com/white-house-streaming-should-be-a-felony-wiretap-infringers-110316/
White House: Streaming Should Be a Felony, Wiretap Infringers
President Obama?s so-called ?IP Czar? Victoria Espinel yesterday delivered a 20-page white paper containing her recommendations for future legislation, calling on Congress to make changes in order to make it easier to clamp down on copyright infringement. Among the recommendations are calls to turn streaming into a felony alongside authority to wiretap in copyright cases.
Re: Moar IP stupidity
White House: Streaming Should Be a Felony, Wiretap Infringers
We covered that yesterday. 🙂 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110315/08424413499/administrations-new-ip-enforcement-recommendations-will-only-serve-to-make-ip-less-respected.shtml
Isn’t it strange that the media business is so slow to adapt? The old business models don’t work and yet they continue to try to force those square pegs down the round holes. In the meantime everyone makes it work for them besause who wants to wait another 60 years to see if they’ll get it?
I confused Chris dodd with Antoine Dodson and read the quote to myself in the Antoine voice. It made this post significantly better.
Why change?
The MPAA acts on the behalf of the studios, at their combined direction. Why would you think that a change in MPAA staff would shift the focus of the problem in the studios eyes?
It’s the studios that must change, not the MPAA (or the staff that comprise the MPAA).
A strange game...
The content industry is playing tic-tac-toe. Sometimes it wins, sometimes it loses, but nothing it does really matters in the end.
What they need is leadership smart enough to figure out that the only winning move is not to play.
Re: A strange game...
I disagree completely.
They are not winning. Even when they “win” lately, they have inadvertently hurt their own business. Their continued failure to adapt to the digital world is actually making it harder for them to long-term. They are getting laws imposed that will actually hurt them later. Can you imagine if the entertainment industry had prevented the VCR from being sold all those years ago?
And, unfortunately, everything they have been doing matters because it is slowing our technological and economic progress and funneling money into our legal system. Is that really where we want all of this money going?
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And, unfortunately, everything they have been doing matters because it is slowing our technological and economic progress and wasting our tax dollars on impotent litigation.
There, I fixed for you.
Gee, an elected representative acting as industry lackey? Can't be!
It’s pretty common, if not universal, for duly elected representatives to disown or abandon their constituencies the moment they take office. This is just yet another case, among many, many, many cases. It’s how things work in DC and elsewhere, and always will. Money talks, period.
dodd
Hollywood hopes to pry open China movie quotas for fun and profit, but
will Communists allow them in? NO!
OPED for New York Times, NYC
WASHINGTON — DC
Former U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd, who is now director of the
Motion Pictures Association of America, will fly to China this month for
talks with Chinese officials there about increasing the number of
Hollywood movies allowed to be shown inside the communist behometh.
Dodd is seeking to elevate the association?s profile in Washington,
and he has made opening doors in China one of his top priorities since
assuming the job in March. While visiting the Shanghai International
Film Festival this month fro a week in mid-June, Dodd hopes to
schmooze with motion picture
bureuacrats in China in an effort to build relations with film officials there.
But will China open up its vast movie theater audiences to more
Hollywood product that the current quotas allow, or as Time magazine
recently put it in a candid headdline: “Can Hollywood Afford to Make
Films China Doesn?t Like?”
The answers to both questions will be telling, and while Time didn’t
answer the question its headline posed, time will tell. Most likely,
China will not open up to Hollywood any more than it has to, according
to World Trade Organization regulations, and while Hollywood would
love to crack the China market for its overseas releases — in
addition to its gold mines in Japan and
Taiwan — the people who run Hollywood’s studios and distribution
groups have little patience for comnunist dictators and censorship.
Then again, money talks.
At the moment, China allows only about 20 popular Western films into
the communist country each year, but under a new set-up being
discussed with Hollywood movers and shakers, Beijing would allow in as
many 40 foreign films per year, according to sources in the film
industry.
And if all goes as planned under this more generous plan, Beijing
would agree to provide greater market access to Hollywood by allowing
an additional company to distribute foreign films. Currently, the
Chinese Communist Party-controlled China Film Group dominates the
import of foreign movies into China.
Dodd hopes to up the ante and bring some good news back to Los Angeles
and Washington after he concludes his visit to Shanghai and Beijing.
It’s true that China?s growing influence is reaching Hollywood, and
Dodd is aware of this. American producers and directors are now
factoring in the China market when making movies,
just as they did when they eyed the lucrative Japanese market earlier
this century. But while Japan did not censor Western films and allowed
anything to be shown there, as befits a
democratic country, China has other issues with Hollywood and the
West. Censorship and Western film quotas are still the rule inside
China proper, although Hong Kong and Macao
are still allowed some semblance of freedom when it comes to screening
Hollywood and European flicks.
China is another story. However, since the film market in China is so
huge, some changes might be in store, some good and some bad,
according to sources in the film industry.
China is now the fifth largest market for Hollywood films, and
Hollywood producers would like to crack that market bigtime, and the
sooner the better.
So if China’s movie handlers tell Hollywood not to export films that
champion freedom or themes of the underdog or the little guy, studio
executives just might go along.
Look at the bottom line: Did you know that China was the second
highest earnings market for james Cameron’;s blocklbuster “Avatar”,
just behind the North American market
and higher than Japan or Taiwan? Yes, according to Artisan Gateway, a
Beijing entertainment-business consultant firm. Some Hollywood
insiders are now saying that China’s box office would overtake the
U.S. market within the next tens years. That means that by 2020, China
might be Hollywood’s most important overseas market, and films might
be tailor-made (read: self-censored) for viewers and motion picture
propaganda chiefs in China. It won’t be a pretty picture if that
happens.
China does not have a film-rating system, and all movies — both
domestic and foreign — must secure government approval from
government censors before being shown commercially. Hollywood movies
about Tibet or Tiananmen Square won’t pass muster, of course.
When Brad Pitt made the 1997 film ”Seven Years in Tibet,” playing a
character who crosses the border that separates India from Tibet and
this making a Hollywood connection with the Dalai Lama, China’s
propaganda chiefs were not amused and they have banned Pitt from ever
settting foot in China again. The Chinese mindcontrollers didn’t like
Hollywood’s sympathetic portrait of the Dalai Lama, and they surely
won’t let in any new Richard Gere movies in any time soon, either.
In the end, I don’t think liberal Hollywood will give in to communist
China’s movie theme demands. But there will be pressure to do so. Just ask
Christopher Dodd.