Karl 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Too Much Copyright: This Generation's Prohibition

    Karl ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2012 @ 04:46pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It's limiting both sides...

    No, it's more like people doing it for living are entitled better guarantee that there is some money available than the people who spend their free time for it.

    No such "entitlement" is anywhere in copyright law. It is also completely incompatible with the idea of an open market. Additionally it would completely destroy a thriving artistic culture.

    Worst of all, we are talking about expression, so anything that limits expression to "professionals" is a direct violation of free speech.

    This is certainly not even close to the goal of copyright law. If that is the effect of the current laws, then the current laws must be changed immediately.

    Thankfully it is not. It is completely legal for amateurs to have just as much power in the marketplace as professionals. Just the way it should be.

  • On the post: Too Much Copyright: This Generation's Prohibition

    Karl ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2012 @ 02:37pm

    Re: Re: Re: It's limiting both sides...

    The pyramids are still way much better than anything your amateur artists have managed to create.

    So, your argument is that we should not let anyone build a pyramid unless they use slave labor?

    Considering that "professional" artists are the ones who don't own their own copyrights, and that the ones who make money off of royalties are the publishers rather than the authors, that seems to be exactly what you're saying.

    Unless you're saying that "professional" artists can't compete with "amateur" artists in an open market. If that's the case, then those artists have no business being "professional" in the first place.

    Even if what you say is true, then so what? Perhaps "professional" artists would make less money (though there's no evidence that this is the case), but we're not just talking about any product. We're talking about culture. A vibrant artistic culture is far more important than protecting some professional artists' incomes. Even professional artists would agree with that.

    In fact, that's the sole reason copyright exists: to benefit the public, by promoting the widespread availability and use of artworks. If amateur artists can accomplish this better than professionals, then it's better for everyone that they do so. If some professional artists make less money because of it, tough shit for them.

    Of course, it's not true; professional artists make more money with an unrestricted and open artistic culture. No professional artist I know about has ever felt threatened by amateurs. It's just the reverse: they encourage amateurs, both because they revere the art form, and because they know that widespread amateur production can only benefit the pros.

  • On the post: Too Much Copyright: This Generation's Prohibition

    Karl ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2012 @ 01:52pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It's limiting both sides...

    People are evaluated by how much money they can get.

    I have never known any industry, artistic or not, where this is true. Hell, if what you said is true, there would be no need for college degrees, industry awards, or accreditations.

    People are evaluated by how good their (artistic) labor is. A higher evaluation may enable them to demand more money, but the reverse certainly isn't true.

  • On the post: Too Much Copyright: This Generation's Prohibition

    Karl ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2012 @ 01:30pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: It's limiting both sides...

    If so, this

    Oops. "If so, then". I guess I shouldn't criticize grammatical mistakes when I make them myself.

  • On the post: Too Much Copyright: This Generation's Prohibition

    Karl ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2012 @ 01:27pm

    Re: Re: Re: It's limiting both sides...

    Copyright prevents certain kinds of products to enter the markets. One such product is a product that was copied in it's entirety.

    I go to an electronics store. I can either buy an iPod, or a cheap Chinese-made MP3 player for less than half the cost. It is perfectly legal.

    If Apple sells fewer iPods because of those cheap MP3 players, that's not a failure of the marketplace. It's a failure of Apple's business model.

    Same here. If someone can copy your product in its entirety, a free market dictates that they should be allowed to do so. If you can't compete with them, then you have a problem with your business model. That's not a "failure" of the marketplace - it's a success. The end result is maximum value for consumers, and maximum opportunity for companies to make money (just not your company).

    It certainly does not mean that "authors have no position in the marketplace." Authors have something nobody else has: the ability to produce new works. That should be rewarded, but there's no requirement that the reward should come only from selling copies of the works. (And, even without piracy, it usually doesn't: most artists get the majority of their income by accepting a fee or salary for their labor, not from copyright royalties.)

    Also:
    http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe

    Another product is such that was created by using people's free time.

    You're actually saying that copyright should prevent artworks from entering the market that were created "using people's free time?"

    If so, this you are a total moron. Even the most hardened copyright maximalists don't believe this (or claim not to, at any rate).

    It also goes against the 1976 Copyright Act, which granted copyright to anyone who creates a work, using their free time or not.

    If "amateur" artists can enter the market, they should do so. If the market accepts their work more than the "professionals," the market should do so. This is not a problem. "Fixing" it is a problem.

  • On the post: Too Much Copyright: This Generation's Prohibition

    Karl ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2012 @ 12:46pm

    Re: It's limiting both sides...

    The _professional_ word is important here. In case you can't do it with creative industry, you should stay silent. If you receive no money for your creative output, stay silent.

    I'd just like to point out how utterly and completely bogus this attitude really is.

    First of all, "amateur" art is often better art than "professional" art. This is especially true the closer you get to "pure" art, such as music and writing, as opposed to things like graphic design or computer programming.

    As I look at my music collection, for example, the vast majority of my CD's, LP's, and MP3's are done by musicians who made their living working a "day job."

    There's a good reason for this. If you're making art for a living, you have to limit your art to only that art that you think will make a profit. This means going with tradition, and producing whatever will appeal to the lowest common denominator. If you don't depend on it for your income, however, you're not as limited. You can take risks; you can make unpopular statements; you can make art that is significant, rather than art that is designed solely to be a consumer product.

    This is probably why none of the significant music genres in the past century were created by "professional" artists. They were all created by "amateurs." Every single one of them.

    In fact, this is the biggest conflict that concerns "professional" artists. It's not a conflict between pros and amateurs; it's between professional artists and their publishers/labels/studios. The pros want to do art that they consider important, or at least of higher quality. The publishers won't let them because it's "too risky." Or, when they do green-light the projects, they screw them up in order to make them more "commercially viable."

    Hell, the pros love the amateurs. I've yet to meet one that didn't. For most pros, that's because the amateurs are producing art for the reasons they always wanted to in the first place. The more cynical of the pros (there are only a few, thankfully) like the amateurs for one simple reason: they know they'll be ripping off those same "amateurs" in a few years.

    Limiting art to those who make their money only on that art would result in the death of art itself. You'd have nothing but a cultural wasteland, a vast dead landscape dotted here and there by the barbed-wire enclaves of multinational corporations. Culture is not something you buy at the Disney store.

    Second of all, the "professional" artists are the ones who are the least likely of anyone to actually hold the copyrights on their works. Recording artists do not hold the copyrights on their albums. Actors do not hold the copyrights on the films they're in. Even most professional authors do not hold the copyrights on their articles and books.

    Such artists usually don't make enough on royalties to live off of. They must take other "jobs," which don't rely on copyright, in order to make ends meet. Musicians need to play live or sell merch; authors need to take speaking engagements. Many of these people will not be able to make money at that, either, and will have to take non-artistic "day jobs," even when under contract with publishers or labels. According to your criteria, then, even most musicians on a label are not "professional musicians."

    Of course, many artists work under a "work-for-hire" basis. Studio musicians, commercial jingle writers, newspaper copywriters, etc. But, again, these artists do not hold the copyright on the works that they produce. Probably not coincidentally, these artists also make much more money from their art. They're paid a flat fee rather than a percentage of royalties; and for most artists, these fees dwarf royalties by an order of magnitude. These jobs are very often unionized, and because of their rarity, they're highly coveted. They are able to get these fees, not by threatening to withhold their copyright, but by threatening to withhold their labor. Just like most other workers.

    Acting is a good example, as actors earn both statutory wages, and some royalties. Taking a bit part in a TV show will earn you a couple of grand from your labor. The royalties you'll earn from that part might net you enough to buy a cup of coffee, if that.

    And, of course, those "work-for-hire" jobs are often the only ones available the further you get from "pure" art. I've never heard of a graphic designer or a computer programmer who earned royalties.

    Third of all, this statement is provably false:

    The real problem is that internet people assume that they can compete against professionals while using their free time. It just does not work like that.

    The reason the "internet people" assume that, is because the internet itself shows it does work like that. The internet would simply not exist without open source software, which is often created by people "using their free time." Wikipedia is doing pretty well, and those entries are written entirely by people "using their free time."

    If the internet has shown us anything, it's that people "using their free time" not only can "compete against professionals," but that they win the competition. The Encyclopedia Britannica, despite being written by "professionals," is closing its doors precisely because it can't compete against Wikipedia, which is done by people "using their free time."

    Now, open source software is not done entirely by people "using their free time." Though "amateur" programmers contribute the most, there are quite a few who get paid a salary, and make quite a bit of money.

    And this brings me to my last objection. That's the notion that you have to protect your works in order to make money.

    This is absolutely false. In the open source world, the reason people are able to make more money is because the authors intentionally do not use copyright protections. If you look at the industry as a whole, the plain fact is that the fewer copyright protections you demand, the more money you will make.

    This is not just true of the individual programmers, either. By creating software that wasn't restricted by copyright, and didn't require expensive licenses, the open source world allowed the software world in general to explode and grow. The internet would simply not exist as it is today without open source, and that is the fastest-growing industry in the country, resulting in many more programmers earning much more money than they ever would had copyright protections been enforced.

    And this is true of other forms of art as well. To cite one of many examples, Trent Reznor made much more money by putting his music under a CC license than he made in the entire time he was signed with a label. Not only does copyright protection harm the art world, it ends up harming the very artists it is theoretically supposed to encourage.

    And, just like the open source world, fewer copyright protections will enable a better artistic scene as a whole. If you look at all the relevant music that was created in the last century - blues, jazz, rap, punk, metal, grunge, whatever - you'll notice one thing in common: everyone was copying everyone else. Sometimes blatantly. And this was accepted, and usually encouraged, by the artists themselves.

    Even when you talk about blatant copying by non-musicians (your traditional form of "piracy"), the lack of enforcement of copyright within those scenes usually caused those scenes to grow. Hell, I'm a noise musician - a genre almost nobody likes (with good reason) - and I've had more lucrative gigs, and gotten more records released, than I ever did before the internet. That's because widespread piracy enabled the scattered fans across the world to communicate with each other, share music, become a community, and (if you want to be cynical) create a market through word-of-mouth advertising. In fact, even the "classic" noise/industrial bands from the 80's and 90's are coming out of retirement because there's more demand for their music now than there ever was. It is the widespread dissemination of music that made this possible - the same widespread dissemination of music that would not be possible if everyone involved was enforcing their copyrights.

    Loosening copyright restrictions results in the democratization of art. This is good for the public, good for consumers, and (perhaps most importantly of all) good for the artists themselves. Yes, even "professional" artists.

    So, sorry for the long reply. But that philosophy is so wrong-headed, for so many reasons, that I got a bit pissed off.

  • On the post: It's Time To Re-Establish That If A Patent Blocks Progress, It's Unconstitutional

    Karl ( profile ), 20 Apr, 2012 @ 12:35am

    Re:

    Does the entire patent system promote the progress? That's the question, and the answer is obviously yes

    You're right, that is the question.

    And looking at the patent system as it stands now, the answer is an unqualified "no."

  • On the post: How Can You Be Register Of Copyrights If You Don't Even Understand Copyright's Most Basic Purpose?

    Karl ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2012 @ 02:36pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    You do realize that the Takings Clause only applies to property. So if you're now arguing that infringement can be a taking,

    I am not arguing this. I am replying to the notion that "Infringement is not a taking."

    If patents were property subject to the Fifth Amendment, then infringement would be subject to the "takings clause," because (according to Crozier v. Krupp) the government, by infringing a person's patent, "had taken his property."

    But, the court in Crozier - like in Zoltek - found that the actions of the government were not subject to the takings clause. In fact, they did so for the same reason the Zoltek court did. "Prior to the passage of the act of 1910 [...] no right of action existed..."

    Are you now admitting that copyright is property? And if so, do you agree that Mike Masnick is being deliberately manipulative when he: (1) admits that copyright is property is property under the Constitution, (2) but then proceeds to claim categorically that copyright is not property?

    Copyright is not property "under the Constitution." The Constitution does not grant property rights to artists (or anyone else, in fact). It grants a right to Congress, restricted by the condition that it must be in the public interest.

    Copyright is property under the statutes that Congress enacted, but they were not, and are not, required to do so. The "property rights" that Congress created are solely monopoly rights, conferring no other benefit to the "property owner." As such, they are far more restricted than traditional, common-law property rights (which neither Congress nor the Constitution created).

    Furthermore, Mike usually talks about property from an economic, rather than a legal, sense. And in that sense, copyright is not property; economically, property is created to solve inefficiencies in the allocation of scarce resources, something that copyright (like all other government-granted monopoly rights) is not even supposed to do.

    And Mike is certainly being less manipulative than people who claim infringement is "stealing," and that copyrights can and should be treated like every other form of property. It is not the same under the law, it exists for a different purpose, and pretending otherwise is purely disingenuous.

  • On the post: Fight Is On Between Oracle And Google Over Java API Copyrights

    Karl ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2012 @ 11:36pm

    Re:

    remember also that a big part of the GPL's strength is based on derivative works

    The biggest part of the GPL's strength is the fact that programmers can legally reverse-engineer functionality.

    This is pretty much what Google did here.

    The fact that the FSF sided with Google (for the most part) shows how far your opinions are from the majority opinion of the free software community.

  • On the post: Fight Is On Between Oracle And Google Over Java API Copyrights

    Karl ( profile ), 17 Apr, 2012 @ 11:29pm

    Re: Re: De minimis or not...

    I think it is pretty obvious (at least, I hope so) that the actual sorting algorithm itself is not subject to copyright.

    Thus, the only thing that Google could have infringed upon was the actual expression of the code itself - things like variable names &etc.

    Admittedly, they do look pretty much alike. But how much do you want to bet that they were named that way in the Python code that Tim created?

    If they were, that pretty much destroys any "IP" claims that Oracle might hold.

    Even if not, these snippets are so tiny that the "de minimus" standard would probably hold.

  • On the post: Jesse Townley's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

    Karl ( profile ), 16 Apr, 2012 @ 06:38pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: anti sopa etc

    If it's clearly a fan blog we usually contact them beforehand- especially for the KBD/super-obscure reissues. We say, "Hey, thanks for keeping this band's music alive, we've just released a great sounding version of this and other songs by this band and the band is getting royalties. Please replace the d/l link with a link to their record on our website." It works 95% of the time.

    This exactly how those blogs should be handled.

    The fact that the blogs will comply 95% of the time, shows that the vast majority are not "freetards" but music fans, who just want to share what they love with others.

    There are a ton of blogs like that out there, focusing on obscure (or, at the very least, under-appreciated) and out-of-print releases. I go to a lot of them, because it's really the only way you can get certain releases (especially noise and experimental). And even the most anti-piracy musicians I've ever met have zero problem with them, especially regarding out-of-print albums.

    Pity half of them shut down when the Megaupload seizure happened.

    This is what I really despise about the framing of all these copyright laws. The defenders of things like the website seizures, focus entirely on the (entirely alleged) wrongdoings of the sites themselves, their business models, or whatever. But the people who will be harmed by this are not commercial infringers, but ordinary fans.

  • On the post: Jesse Townley's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

    Karl ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2012 @ 08:38pm

    Re:

    Jesse, thank you for getting the part about the "new" creativity. Quantity is never a good substitute for quality.

    This argument is hardly new. In fact, it was particularly viciously leveled against the punk scene in the 80's. "They're just a bunch of kids who don't know how to play their instruments."

    And, frankly, those accusations were true, at least for the majority of punk bands. The thing is, without the incredible democratization of underground music that happened because of it, you wouldn't have half of the great bands that started out around that time. I don't just mean bands like the Dead Kennedys or the Misfits; I'm also talking about Big Black, Sonic Youth, Swans, Nirvana, or R.E.M. It could be argued that underground metal wouldn't have been possible, meaning we'd have no bands like Metallica. You certainly wouldn't have had bands like Tragic Mulatto, Dog Faced Hermans, the Butthole Surfers, or the Phantom Limbs.

    It's a mistake to think of quality and quantity opposing each other. In fact, quantity leads to quality.

    That's the funny thing about a misting rain. If enough of it falls, you're going to get deep pools of water.

  • On the post: Jesse Townley's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

    Karl ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2012 @ 02:06pm

    Re: Re: Nice

    And same goes for you too, Karl.

    Ha, the last thing I need right now is another excuse to avoid studying.

  • On the post: Jesse Townley's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

    Karl ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2012 @ 01:53pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    You are not that far off when it comes to the exercise of eminent domain over real property. Mrs. Kelo, in the matter of Kelo v. City of New London, learned this only too clearly when 5 justices on the Supreme Court upheld the taking of her home in order to facilitate private development.

    That was an interesting case. The question was whether the government's actions were considered a "public use" of the property. If it was, it would be subject to the Fifth Amendment, which allows the government to take property, so long as the property owners are compensated. If it was not a public use, it would be unlawful for the government to take it at all.

    The Kelo decision is actually not that surprising. When the government takes property, it has no choice but to provide a benefit to private individuals. For example, the government doesn't own construction companies; it subcontracts the building projects to private construction companies. Additionally, lots of court cases have shown that "public use" is about as wide a definition as you can possibly get.

    Having said that, it was pretty clearly a mistake, if not in terms of law then in terms of "public use." Pfizer closed its plant in New London (said plant was the impetus for taking the land); the redeveloper failed to get financing for the project; and none of the supposed jobs or income ever materialized.

    None of the property was deeded back to the owners, so the property stood vacant and abandoned. Right now it is being used as a dump for the garbage from Hurricane Irene.

    The only good thing to come out of it, is that the Federal Government, and several states individually, enacted statutes that expressly forbid this kind of situation.

  • On the post: Jesse Townley's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

    Karl ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2012 @ 10:42pm

    Nice

    Jesse: You should write here more often.

  • On the post: Jesse Townley's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

    Karl ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2012 @ 10:41pm

    Re:

    To be accurate it should read "Yes, Property's Sole Purpose Is To Benefit The Public."

    Not really, at least not under the theories the Founding Fathers held.

    In the U.S., a property right is pretty much an inalienable right:

    Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty. [...] The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.
    - John Adams

    The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.
    ? Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval

    Contrast this with Thomas Jefferson's portrayal of patents:
    Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.
    - Thomas Jefferson to Isaac MacPherson

    So, most property rights would exist without the federal government's protection. They are not "statutory rights," but fundamental rights; they are not created by the government, but sanctioned by it. "Property interests, of course, are not created by the Constitution" (Board of Regents v. Roth).

    This is not true of copyrights and patents. Those are only statutory rights, that were created entirely by the Constitution; there is no common-law copyright, and unless Congress creates it, it does not exist. "Congress, then, by this act, instead of sanctioning an existing right, as contended, created it" (Wheaton v. Peters).

    Furthermore, "the progress of science and art" is a "Constitutional requirement" for copyright (Feist v. Rural). That's certainly not true for real estate, or for most forms of property.

    I don't know if you're claiming that copyright is just as much a "natural right" as the right to own real estate; or if you're claiming the opposite (that any ownership, even of real estate, must be for the public good just as much as copyright). But, here in the U.S. at least, it's not true.

  • On the post: How Can You Be Register Of Copyrights If You Don't Even Understand Copyright's Most Basic Purpose?

    Karl ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2012 @ 08:41pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Nope. Infringement is not a taking,

    I know this is over, but just in case you're still paying attention, you should read this:

    In other words, the situation prior to the passage of the act of 1910 was this. Where it was asserted that an officer of the Government had infringed a patent right belonging to another ? in other words, had taken his property for the benefit of the Government ? the power to sue the United States for redress did not obtain unless from the proof it was established that a contract to pay could be implied ? that is to say, that no right of action existed against the United States for a mere act of wrongdoing by its officers.
    - Crozier v. Krupp
    So, according to that case, at least, infringement by the government is a "taking of property for public use."

  • On the post: Is There Any Merit To Neil Young's Plan To Improve The Quality Of Digital Music?

    Karl ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2012 @ 03:14am

    Re: Re: Confusion

    To summarize: higher sampling rate doesn't make the "shape" of the resulting wave any more accurate (assuming good playback equipment). Higher sampling rate only affects the cutoff point (frequencies higher than the cutoff point are eliminated from the music).

    Actually, that's not exactly true.

    For example, say you recorded some sound in nature without providing any processing. You record it as-is with a 44.1 KHz sample rate.

    Now, there are sounds that are certainly higher than 22.05KHz in nature. Our ears can't process them, and we don't need them, but obviously they exist.

    What will happen is that if you just sample those sounds as-is, you will get aliasing around the Nyquist frequency. Say, for example, that you have a sine wave at 48KHz. If you don't filter it out, and sample it at 44.1KHz, you will also get sidebands at 20.1 KHz, 18.15 KHz, etc. (In digital imaging, it is known as a Moire pattern.)

    Here is an (exaggerated) example in Ogg format.

    So, in order to not have this sideband noise, you need to filter the original signal so that it does not contain any frequencies above 22.05KHz.The steeper the filter, and the closer it is to the Nyquist frequency, the better the audio will sound. In fact, you need the same type of filter to play it back, or else the "square" peaks of the digital waveform will also result in aliasing.

    This is where digital audio can go wrong. Crappy DAC's and ADC's can result in absolutely horrific artifacts. In both pro and "prosumer" equipment, this is taken care of (both by better filters and by "oversampling"), but the soundcard that is built into your motherboard probably cheapened out on the DAC's (not surprisingly, since most people don't listen to digital audio above CD quality).

  • On the post: Is There Any Merit To Neil Young's Plan To Improve The Quality Of Digital Music?

    Karl ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2012 @ 07:45am

    Re: Re: Proprietary formats are dead

    Lumping anyone who uses cloud storage as "stupid and gullible" is stupid and gullible.

    It depends upon if the Pono distribution system is cloud-only (no backups). If so, that's at least unwise, though I wouldn't go so far as to say "stupid and gullible."

  • On the post: Is There Any Merit To Neil Young's Plan To Improve The Quality Of Digital Music?

    Karl ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2012 @ 07:38am

    Re: Re: Digital is pure sound

    he modern version of that card can do 24-bit/128KHz

    That's a typo: it can do 24-bit/192 KHz (in stereo).

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