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: It doesn't have to be DMCA
Exactly. There is no requirement that he file a DMCA-compliant take down notice to the actual infringers, nor is it even a requirement that a takedown notice be DMCA-compliant at all. It has to be if the service provider wants to make sure all i's are dotted and t's crossed to limit their liability, sure. But there is nowhere that states content can only be taken down with a DMCA-compliant notice.
Re: Prosecute him for improper DMCA takedown notice!
Yeah, he should be prosecuted for not having a video taken down.
Did you seriously get that confused? Mike writes an article about DMCA notices being used to takedown content they don't own, and you get it confused with a non-DMCA email asking for content to be removed (which didn't get removed by the way). One abuses the force of law to get someone else's content taken down, the other asks for someone to consider their own hypocrisy. No law states that DMCA compliant notices are required to take content down.
Perhaps, blue, you should spend a few more seconds in figuring out what is even going on.
Re: Re: @"the public do not respect copyright."
Actually, most of the public doesn't have a clue about copyright law, regularly get it confused with patents and trademarks, and generally think that it deals with attribution. That's why youtube lyrics videos start off with comments like "I don't own the copyright on this".
Why?
Because people think copyright has something to do with attribution. It doesn't. Why do they think this? Because people generally want credit for what they do. They want validation. That's innate in human beings. Wanting money or control over some idea of theirs is not innate. People simply respect copyright law today not because they get it and understand it and agree with it, but because they think it's something it's not and agree with that other something. The more I've taught people that what they are doing is infringement, the more I've found people hate copryight law.
What do you mean I can't copy this song and give it to my friend? I didn't change the artist?
What do you mean I can't copy this coloring book for my friends' kids? They know I didn't make it.
What do you mean I can't play the music/movie I bought at the block party for my neighborhood? I just told you I bought it.
No, the public at large generally hates copyright once they find out the basic things they think should be ok are punishable by up to $150,000.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
This just in:
Copyright law is in Title 17, Patent law is in title 35, while federal laws against murder are in title 18. If AJ gets to count the number of judges who agreed or disagreed with the eventual outcome of SonyCorp vs Universal then I think it's fair to say that murder laws are closer to copyright laws because the titles are closer.Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Fair use is the default. Copyrights infringe on fair use rights. By upholding the law, we all agree to that, so it's OK. But that doesn't change what it is.
Re: Re:
Those access controls can still be used. No law (neither in existence, nor proposed (including this one) will stop you from doing so. This proposal simply states that those copy protection measures no longer have the force of law. It does not lessen the punishments for infringements made by bypassing copy protection measures. It does not remove rights copyright holders have.
If nothing in 1201 affects the rights of copyright holders, repealing it cannot possibly affect those rights either.There are few (if any) copy protection measures that haven't been broken, and there is still the analog hole. No work that has copy protection measures is safe, nor would it be difficult to copy them. People who want to infringe on a work will do so regardless of the anitcircumvention clause. By removing it, all that is happening is that the rights of people are being given back to do things that are not otherwise illegal (such as unlocking phones, fair use copying, copying public domain works, etc). Those who violated the anticircumvention clause to infringe are still committing infringement, while those who violated it for non-infringing purposes are no longer breaking the law.
What exactly do you have a problem with in this case? How exactly is copyright law being weakened?
Not only that, but the law disagrees with you completely. Section 1201(c) states:
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I agree 100%. My point above was simply that even if it were to exist, it shouldn't be part of title 17 of the US Code.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If we added murder to copyright law does that mean murdering someone is an infringement of copyrights also? It doesn't belong there. You can debate about whether it should be a law, but it doesn't belong in copyright law. It is being used by all sorts of entities that have nothing to do with copyrights. It can be used to lock up non-copyrighted works, or even non-works (such as hardware). It is not a copyright law, so it's removal either from title 17 or from law altogether in no way weakens copyright law. That some copyright holders were able to use it is no different than that copyright holders are also protected by murder laws.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So you're talking about a case where someone has done nothing wrong except assert their fair use rights? Copyright has never been about stopping all forms of copyring and distribution. The antircircumvention clause tried to add that, and did so in such a way as to end run around fair use, and to include all sorts of circumstances where copyrights weren't involved at all. That's why the DMCA is cited by printer manufacturers and why it prevents unlocking phones. Those issues have nothing to do with copyright. The anticircumvention clause was misplaced in copyright law.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
What rights are lessened? You still have the right to add copy protection measures to whatever you want to (copyrighted or not). I still don't have the right to copy your copyrighted works under those certain circumstances, but now I would have the right to copy non-copyrighted works all the time or copyrighted works under those circumstances.
The only directions I see rights going here is an increase in rights the people should already have. But copyrights aren't weakened at all.
Re: Re:
But anticircumvention should never have been under copyright law. Note I'm not saying it should never have existed (it shouldn't have, but that's a different argument); I'm saying it should have been part of some other section of the law. Anticircumvention was a power grab by copyright law.
If SCotUS started to make treaties and Congress told them to stop, it wouldn't be a weakening of SCotUS, it would simply be putting them in their place. That anticircumvention was ever a part of copyright law is wrong (that it was ever a part of the law at all is another wrong for another discussion).
Re:
Copyright is solely concerned with infringement. That's what copyright law is all about. The whole basis of copyright law is to make it illegal for people to copy and distribute certain works under certain circumstances. Anticircumvention laws are only about making it illegal for people to circumvent technical reasons why they can't copy, but it doesn't take into account that copyright law is only about stopping the copyring/distribution of certain works under certain circumstances. Not all works and/or under all circumstances. Anticircumvention stops all works under all circumstances.
This isn't weakening copyright law; it's restricting copyright law to be just copyright law. If there were a section of copyright law that dealt with embezzlement and a bill was proposed to remove it from copyright law to it's own section, would you call that a weakening of copyright law as well?
Re: Re: Re:
You've made the claim. Now support it. Let's say I'm infringing copyright law in some way that is illegal now but won't be if this bill is passed. Now tell us, what am I doing?
(untitled comment)
I thought we were told that if we have nothing to hide then we have nothing to fear. Certainly the government wouldn't have anything to hide, right?
Right?
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).