Chosen Reject's Favorite Techdirt Stories Of The Week
from the don't-reject-these dept
Welcome to my little soiree, hosted graciously by The Mazburglar, who I'm sure copied the keys to this place using some illegal number his friends at Big Search found for him. Unfortunately, the hors d'oevres are harder to copy, so you'll have to be content with cake and other such lies.
I'll start off with introductions. I'm The Chosen Reject. If you google my nom de plume, you'll find that I am not alone in being a Nirvana fan. To pay for my own bread and circuses, I develop software. Since introductions are done, let's skip ahead to the entertainment in this repastless fete.
I'm a believer in the free market, and using government regulation only where necessary to obtain that free market (such as laws against fraud, false advertising, antitrust, etc). An important aspect of keeping markets free are low barriers to entry. Which is exactly what the government doesn't do when it grants monopolies, whether those are for electrical service, internet service, or the so called intellectual property laws.
But I don't see the free market as the end unto itself, but mostly a means to better the public good. That is why I'll allow encroachments onto the free market if those encroachments actually do the public any good, which is what I believe the free market does. But if those encroachments don't do the public any good, then they need to be eliminated and shunned. Now you might know why I feel the way I do about IP. I'll allow for it, if it helps the public good, but it ought to be done away with if it doesn't help.
With that being said, let's look at all the reasons from just this week why copyright laws ought to be abandoned for sake of the public good:
- Universal Uses Copyright To Censor Bad Lip Reading Parody; Why Not Embrace It?: In which a government granted monopolist ignores the parody exception in the very same laws that granted it the monopoly it has.
- The Many Killers Of The Film Industry: Volumes One through Keep 'em Coming: In which we learn, yet again, the many ways that the government granted monopolists freak out when others help them.
- EU Politician Wants Internet Surveillance Built Into Every Operating System: In which we learn that an idiot somehow got elected. More seriously, we learn that some people would like to ignore reality, and would really like everyone to be tracked at all times just in case someone might do something that a government granted monopolist might freak about. Keep in mind that we already learned that they'll freak out about anything, even if it helps them.
- House Trying To Rush Through Its Version Of PROTECT IP; Tech Industry Asks Why?: In which we learn, yet again, that politicians don't put much weight into what they actually say.
- UK Court Upholds Its First Web Censorship Order: BT Has 14 Days To Block Access To Newzbin2 & Gets To Pay For The Privilege: In which we learn, yet again, that some judges choose censorship of the public at all costs because the government granted a monopoly at the cost to the public. Lots of costs, none of them actually being paid by the government granted monopolists.
- Comcast, Verizon Ordered To ID Subscribers In Copyright Trolling Suit: In which we learn that some judges see extortion as preferable to violating the government granted monopolies, whether or not the monopolist suffered any harm through said violation.
- Hollywood's Kinder, Gentler DRM: UltraViolet, Getting Slammed In Reviews: In which we learn, yet again, that monopolists tend not to care about their customers, much less the general public, and will screw you even when you pay them money. Wait, isn't that the definition of an illegal act?
- High Prices, Lack Of Availability Driving Lots Of Infringement: In which we learn that the general public actually likes to support artists and even their chosen middlemen, so long as the stuff they want is available and affordable. These are things the free market tends to be good at. Monopolies? Not so much.
- PROTECT IP Renamed E-PARASITE Act; Would Create The Great Firewall Of America: In which we learn that all bad names will be outdone, and that you need to make the check out to Lamar Smith.
- Leading French Presidential Candidate Would Repeal HADOPI But Keep Net Surveillance: In which we learn that some politicians have listened to the public, but have decided that the surveillance put in place for copyright sure is nice to have. It's like copyright law is a gateway drug.
- Warner Bros. Hates Libraries, Wants To Embargo DVD Sales To Libraries For A Month: In which we learn that Warner Bros really does not want any one to see their stuff for 28 days. It's OK, I'm happy to oblige them.
- Just As Valve Shows That You Can Compete With Piracy In Russia, Russia Starts Cracking Down On Piracy: In which we learn, yet again, that providing what the customers want at the price they find reasonable actually means the customer will give you money in a mutually pleasing transaction.
- Hardware Store That Doesn't Play Any Music Has To Fight Off Collection Society Demanding A License Fee: In which we learn, yet again, that when given the power and legal justification to extort money from anyone, many people will take it.
- How Copyright Infringement Turned Vampires Into Big Business: In which we learn, yet again, that copyright harms society, but ignoring copyright helps to create new and interesting works, like Nosferatu, Count Chocula, and Twilight. Wait...maybe I should reconsider.
- Rep. Blackburn, Co-Sponsor Of E-PARASITE, Explains Why Regulating The Internet Is Terrible: In which we learn, yet again, that politicians don't put much weight into what they actually say. That sounds really familiar.
Patents also took some time this week to show that they also can be abused. So let's take a moment to see why patents ought to be abandoned for sake of the public good:
- US Trying To Force Governments To Pay Much Higher Prices For Needed Drugs Through Secretive TPP: Here we have a situation where publicly funded research is locked up by the government so that monopolists can charge higher prices to the public that funded them. This wasn't enough, so the monopolists are getting the government to jack up prices to the citizens of other countries that didn't fund that research.
- Failed Company, Now Patent Troll, Sues Apple Over Transferrable Playlists For A Third Time: An interesting case where Apple finally listened to CmdTaco's 10 year old request and added wireless syncing, but gets sued for it.
- Jay Walker Continues Quest To Sue The Internet Into Oblivion With Patents: Jay Walker (arrest that man) has decided that without his awesome abilities that no one had heard of until recently that no one would have ever figured out how to display ads on the internet.
Not to be outdone, monopolists have even taken the consumer protection laws known as Trademark law, and turned it around, not just to hurt the public, but even to hurt the very customers businesses strive for. Let's take a look.
- Sony Ericsson Shows How Not To Connect With Fans: Forces Shutdown Of Xperia Fan Blog: Because, if you're a true fan, you won't talk about our products using our name.
- ICE Seized 20 Domain Names For The NFL Over The Weekend: Because a true fan of our teams would only buy the properly licensed, higher priced goods, whether or not they could afford them.
Finally, let's not sit around thinking that government granted monopolists are the only idiots in this world looking to make life worse for the public. Heavens no. The biggest, meanest monopolists of all are sure to want to get their share of the fun. And of course, we're talking about governments.
- State Government In Australia Seeks To Issue $12k Fines If You Insult Its Gaming Minister Michael O'Brien: This is justifaction for the US Bill of Rights. Some of the founding fathers feared that a Bill of Rights would mean the government would think that only those rights existed. Thankfully some knew that governments already think the public's rights have to be explicity stated if they want to have a right. Sorry Australia, you can't say anything mean about Michael O'Brien, like that he's a thin-skinned idiot, a weasily malcontent, and a pompous ninny.
- Court Tells Users They Can't Use RECAP: Heaven forbid that you make public domain materials available freely to others.
- California Politician Discovers That You Can't Ban Specific Type Of Music; Admits 'I Didn't Know What Was Going On': I think ravers are weird, but a politician that thinks it's OK to ban certain types of music is even weirder. No, that's not the word. Par for the course is what I meant. One that thinks banning things like binkies and LED gloves will prevent kids from drug overdoses is really odd. Dang it, I meant the norm. A politician that doesn't know what they were doing is right out. And by that I mean, the usual. And one that admits it is quite ordinary. I mean, down right strange. Kudos to admitting it Fiona Ma, but you should have used that as your first clue that continuing on with your legislation wasn't actually going to do anything.
- Justice Department Wants To Be Able To Lie In Response To Freedom Of Information Requests: Why in the world would we expect our government, the Department of Justice no less, to be honest with us? That's just crazy think-of-the-public nonsense.
- Google Reveals 70% Increase In Requests For Content Removal; Including Law Enforcement Wanting To Hide Police Brutality: Of course, no list of abusers of monopoly power would be complete without those who have the monopoly on violence. Thank you for trying to protect my weak sensibilities from having to see you beat, injure, maim and kill others in your quest for more power to abuse.
- The Non-Existent 'Cyber War' Is Nothing More Than A Push For More Government Control: I wonder when they'll quit trying to be quaint, and just tell us we're at war with the public.
So there you have it. My list. But I don't want to be the sole life of our little party, so comment away down below.
Re:
Easy. No one should ever have to pay money to find out what laws/rules/edicts they have to obey. Given that, you can either remove the copyright from the standard or grant a free-to-publish license to that standard. Done (unless you feel that charging for access to laws is valid).
Re: You just admitted the basis of copyright:
You don't know what common law is do you?
Nor do you know that copyright doesn't require attribution, do you?
Re:
They didn't say anything about what emulators in general were created for. They said emulators created for the purpose of playing illegally copied Nintendo software is blah blah blah. They don't say anything about emulators in general, nor do they say anything about emulators created to play non Nintendo software, and nor do they say anything about emulators created to emulate Nintendo hardware for the purpose of running custom software that runs on Nintendo hardware. Also of note: they aren't saying anything about emulators created to play legally copied Nintendo software.
Re: Re:
I'm not sure I follow what you are saying. I'd prefer copyright law to be scrapped. None of these people will offer reasons for why it ought to be scrapped. They all have jobs that rely on copyright existing in some form or another. While some of their arguments might include why people are angry, none of their arguments will actually look at the whole of the system.
If you aren't willing to look at reasons for scrapping the whole copyright system, then you really aren't looking at the right thing. You have to look at all of the data and question the reason for it's existence to begin with. I fully concede that others may come to different conclusions than me. I'm just saying that if they aren't even willing to look at the core, then anything else is just window dressing to keep their jobs while placating the populace.
Re:
LAW IS LAW!
(untitled comment)
Where's the representation of people who will actually consider all possibilities? I don't see anyone on that list who would argue that the whole concept ought to be scrapped. Instead, I see a bunch of people who will make arguments for why their job needs to stay. Changed? Sure, but none of them will be willing to accept that maybe it's not necessary anymore (if it ever was).
Re: Re: Re: Awesome!
Yes, but if you know that what you have done is illegal, and that it's being referred to the authorities, then why don't they just leave. They're not on bail. That I know of, nothing is stopping them from taking a vacation to France and once there asking for asylum a la Roman Polanski.
I've never done this (nor felt the need to) so I don't know how hard it would actually be.
Re: Awesome!
While I enjoy watching these guys get put to the fire, I can't help but wonder why they haven't left the country. There are several decent countries that probably wouldn't extradite them for the things they could be charged with. Either they are really stupid, or extremely confident that they will be exonerated. It's not likely they're going to be getting a lot of business as lawyers after this anyway, so having to learn a new skill set in a different country isn't much different than staying here.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A Bit Upset With Netflix Here
It's not DRM if the customer can decrypt at will (besides playing the content through the approved player). If the consumer knows, or even can know, one of the keys, then it's not DRM. The only way I know of to hide the key from the consumer without hiding it from the player is to obfuscate the key. Open source prevents that. Partly because you can read the code, and partly you can also compile your own version that just prints out the key.
I don't think it's a matter of simplicity, but rather feasibility. Stack overflow seems to be in agreement. Open source DRM is probably not possible.
Re:
The RIAA insisted on DRM and made Apple into a near monopoly power that the RIAA hated.
Publishers insisted on DRM and made Amazon into a near monopoly power that the publishers hated.
Netflix is a bit different since they are upfront about only renting content where Apple and Amazon were giving appearances to selling content (DRM means you aren't selling anything).
Re: Re: Re: Re: A Bit Upset With Netflix Here
I don't think it's possible (though I admit this is not my area of expertise). Public/Private works by someone using your public key to encrypt something that only you can decrypt with your private key. In the case of DRM, the content owners would use their private key to encrypt so other's could use their public key to decrypt. But if the key is public, then the DRM is effectively dead.
They could try encrypting the content with their customer's public keys, so the customers can then decrypt it with their private keys, but then you have to re-encrypt the content for every purchaser, and you still haven't solved the main problem: the consumer can decrypt the content at will.
The problem with DRM is that it tries to hide those keys from the same people being shown the content. It has to do this so that they can't get the keys to decrypt the content at will. So far, that's been done by having closed-source, proprietary and obfuscated solutions. With an open source solution, it would be trivial to find where the keys are hidden by reading the source code, or even easier, compile your own version that just prints the key out. Once you have the keys, you decrypt the content once, and now it's decrypted for always.
Re: Hmm...
Cops have never been about preventing crime. Law enforcement has always been about dealing with people after they've committed a crime. Occasionally they might stop a crime in progress, or just their presence might be enough to deter a crime from starting or escalating.
In other words, law enforcement's responsibility in terms of the Boston bombers was to catch them after the crime occurred and then to deal with them. And look, law enforcement did just that. So why is there a need for more cameras? Why is there a need to reduce privacy?
I say let's make a deal. The only way privacy is off the table is if absolute security from crime is provided. If they can provide that, then maybe we can allow a loss in privacy. And I mean absolute security. No Boston-like bombers can ever occur again. No homicides, 1st degree, 2nd degree, or manslaughter. No robbing, stealing, thieving, or any of the like any more. I should be able to leave buckets of money in plain view on my front lawn and not have to worry at all about any of it going missing.
If that's not the level of security that can be provided, then privacy is not off the table.
That is what Franklin meant by his famous quote. You don't deserve safety if you give up liberty, because you can't get safety by giving up liberty. Thus, if you're willing to trade liberty for nothing (which is what you get from the trade) then you don't deserve liberty.
(untitled comment)
The innovations being made here are innovations in communication. Copyright is an attempt to incentivize publishing works. People will create whether copyright exists or not. People will communicate whether future innovations occur or not. But creation becomes easier when communication is easy. Publishing is easier when communication is easy. Life gets better, wrongs get righted, and people are happier (in general) when communication is easier.
If I had to choose either incentives to innovate on communication or incentives to publish creative works, I'd choose innovation in communication every single time. That's partly because communication is important on so many other levels than creative works, but also because communication breeds creative works. So the one (communication) improves both, while the other (copyright) impedes one and may not be improving the other[1]. That means if copyright hinders innovation in communication in even the least degree, it should be abolished. And it does, so abolish it.
[1] Show me proof that copyright is necessary for creative works.
Re:
No, it's true. There is a button that will make porn disappear. It's on the back of the WiFi access point. If it's not there, there is probably a little switch on the surge protector it's plugged into. If a surge protector isn't being used, you might find the switch in a box with a lot of other switches that look similar (only some of those switches turn off the lights in the kitchen).
My guess is that at some point the government will require one or more of these buttons be employed. For the children of course.
(untitled comment)
Right now if you go to the trouble of trying to hide your bittorrent activities you are seen as a copyright infringer and nothing else. As more and more movie studios (and labels, game studios, publishers, etc) start using bittorrent to distribute promotional material like this, hiding your bittorrent activity will be seen the same as blocking tracking cookies. It'll be interesting to see how long privacy advocates are lumped in with piracy advocates.
(untitled comment)
1-800-CONTACTS is suing in Utah because it's convenient for them. I know they used to have a huge presence in the south Salt Lake area (that might be their HQ, but I'm not sure). Suing in California would have been inconvenient for 1-800-CONTACTS, suing in Utah is inconvenient for Ditto, suing anywhere else would have been inconvenient for both parties. So it makes sense that the suing party would choose a location that is most convenient to themselves. At least it wasn't East Texas.
It's despicable what they're doing, but I thought I'd just explain why they're suing where they are.
Re: Re: Freedom of information
To be fair, there is a difference between the state publishing the information and an employer using the information to never hire someone for some minor infraction of the law. I also recognize, however, that it's much easier for the state to just not publish the information then it is to change the attitudes of every hiring manager.
(untitled comment)
Well of course the dentist wasn't "just kidding". It was a pun.
No, no...not a pun. It was a palindrome.
Re:
I'm not convinced the photo even deserves a copyright. I don't see much in the photo that is "creative" on the part of Masck. He didn't choose where to be sitting in relation to Howard, he didn't choose the lighting, he didn't choose the pose, he didn't choose the relative position of other players. The only thing Masck chose was when to take the picture, of what, and the framing. The framing is easily dropped by someone taking his photo and changing the framing (zooming in or whatever). Everything creative in this picture comes from Howard or sheer luck on Masck's part.
Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about photography will prove me wrong. But as of now, if I were the judge, I'd be asking Masck why this photograph deserves copyright status at all.
Re: Keepin' it classy, minion.