Karl 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: NYTimes OpEd Explains Why Infringement Isn't Theft

    Karl ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2012 @ 09:52am

    Re: Re: Re:

    I've talked with a few people who think it is

    I just thought of the perfect example, that I'm betting has been claimed in this very thread (though I haven't looked through it all).

    You hear people, all the time, describe copyright as "the right to copy." That's not what copyright is.

    Copyright is "the right in the copy." It is the legal right for copyright holders to dictate what can be done with copies that are not in their possession.

    Without copyright, everyone would have "the right to copy." Publishers could sell books, labels could sell music, etc., and none of what they were doing would be against the law. On the other hand, nobody would have "the right in the copy." It's a crucial difference.

  • On the post: NYTimes OpEd Explains Why Infringement Isn't Theft

    Karl ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2012 @ 09:37am

    Re: Re:

    "Public domain" is not a "property right" in the slightest. It is, in fact, the absence of a property right

    Again, completely false. It is the absence of restrictions on property rights. It's just that those rights are common property rights, instead of private property rights. You can treat any work in the public domain exactly as if it was your own personal property. The only thing you can't do is prevent others from doing the same.

    If property rights in public domain works didn't exist, nobody at all could do any of what is enumerated in 17 USC 106. Nobody would be able to copy, distribute, perform, display, or create derivative works to public domain works.

    The government didn't "grant me a right" to download books from Project Gutenberg. I wouldn't need them to "grant me a right" to copy and distribute them, even for profit. There is not even a single statute that explicitly grants me the right to do any of these things. It is a property right that I naturally have.

    Without property rights in public domain works, copyright would be nothing but a legal license to publish. That is anathema to an open society, and certainly not what copyright was ever intended to be. (Though, believe it or not, I've talked with a few people who think it is).

    since the law no longer recognizes the right of exclusion conferred by copyright law.

    The "right of exclusion conferred by copyright law" is hardly the only property right that exists. It's also not exactly what is granted by copyright laws - see e.g. statutory royalties, which eliminate the "right of exclusion" altogether.

    If you want to get technical, copyright is not a "property" right at all. It's a "de jure" monopoly, granted by the government. Unlike the property rights to public domain works, that monopoly wouldn't exist at all if the public (through Congress) didn't create it.

    It is treated as if it is a property right, because it legally convenient to do so. But it is not property, any more than Bell System's pre-1984 monopoly on telephone service made the phone lines Bell System's "property."

  • On the post: NYTimes OpEd Explains Why Infringement Isn't Theft

    Karl ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2012 @ 06:16am

    An underpinning of copyright law is the incentive to create and disseminated original works of authorship so that the ideas and information they express can be assimilated by others.

    ...And so that that body of work will eventually pass into the public domain, so that everyone can use the works without restriction.

    This underpins another point, which I don't think has been made in this thread. The only reason copyright is granted is so that society in general can use that "property."

    It is a funny kind of property, where "stealing" it is the only reason it exists in the first place.

    Hell, I've been doing a lot of this recently. I have a new smartphone, and I like to read books on it while I'm on the subway. I don't want to pay for these books, so I've been reaping the benefits of Project Gutenberg. I've burned through books by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

    I took something, without permission of the authors (or their families), and nobody got compensated for their labor. Am I then a "thief?" Is my phone full of "stolen property?"

    one cannot "steal" that which is owned by no one, i.e., copyright no longer pertains to the work.

    That is completely false. A work in the public domain is not "owned by no one," it is owned by everyone.

    Without copyright, any person who owns a copy of the work would have a natural property right to do whatever they pleased with that work. That includes making copies of it, using it to create derivative works, and performing or displaying it publicly, whether for profit or not. Without copyright, everyone has the rights that are granted in 17 USC 106.

    Copyright is a "negative right," a right of exclusion: it does not convey any additional property rights upon the copyright holder, only the ability to take away some of the natural property rights of everyone else.

    Thus copyright itself is, in a very literal sense, theft. It is taking away property from the people it belongs to - everyone. It may be that society in general benefits by allowing this form of theft, which is the only reason this theft is legal; but theft it is.

    That is the reason people are so upset with Disney. Disney has no problem using "property" that is "owned" by everyone - including the commenters. And none of the commenters here begrudge Disney for doing so; they have as much of a right to do it as anyone else.

    But Disney does not want other people to have the same rights that it did, so it lobbied for laws that would allow its own theft from the public to continue. Notably, if the current copyright laws were in place when Disney started, the majority of Disney's source material would not be in the public domain.

    It is Disney's hypocrisy, selfishness, and thievery that people are upset with. Nobody cares that they used works without permission or compensation, because that is copyright's ultimate goal; they only care that Disney won't allow anyone else the same courtesy.

  • On the post: NYTimes OpEd Explains Why Infringement Isn't Theft

    Karl ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2012 @ 07:55pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You'd be surprised...

    It does not bother me. That is the point. If what they are doing is not "stealing," then neither is using any other content without permission. Using content is the entire purpose of copyright law.

  • On the post: NYTimes OpEd Explains Why Infringement Isn't Theft

    Karl ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2012 @ 05:48pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You'd be surprised...

    Is there a specific title from the public domain you have in mind when you state that Disney has kept others from creating their own work based upon the public domain title?

    Disney loses suit over Good Times' 'Aladdin' Video

    I'm sure I could dig up more, if I had time.

  • On the post: NYTimes OpEd Explains Why Infringement Isn't Theft

    Karl ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2012 @ 05:44pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You'd be surprised...

    Perhaps you would be willing to provide the names of those works Disney used without permission of the copyright holders.

    Everything they did that was in the public domain:
    The Little Mermaid
    Sleeping Beauty
    Alice in Wonderland
    The Hunchback of Notre Dame
    ...etc.

    Apparently, that's "stealing," since they got something they "don't have permission to have, and obtained in a manner that is not permitted" by the original copyright holders or artists.

    According to that definition, of course, fair use is "stealing" too.

  • On the post: NYTimes OpEd Explains Why Infringement Isn't Theft

    Karl ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2012 @ 01:06pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You'd be surprised...

    Disney, just like anyone else is legally able to do, has taken "things" from the public domain

    ...which they did without permission of the original authors (or copyright holders); thus, according to your own definition, Disney are "thieves."

  • On the post: NYTimes OpEd Explains Why Infringement Isn't Theft

    Karl ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2012 @ 01:03pm

    Re:

    one unilaterally acquires goods or benefits without being entitled to do so

    "Unilaterally" might be the sticking point here. The one infringing on copyrights has traditional property rights over his or her own copy. In order for infringement to occur, that person must willingly (though unlawfully) distribute copies of it to others.

    In this way, it is entirely unlike every other thing that you call "stealing." The people who recieve the copy are not, themselves, getting anything without permission. They are not "stealing." For example, I don't know a single person who would call a someone who bought a bootleg a "thief," even colloquially.

    In this case, it's the person who is gaining something by distributing copyright material that is the "thief." And, again, this completely falls down when talking about digital infringement - since most of it is completely non-commercial, and the people who distribute the material are not gaining anything.

    In this case, "unlawful sharing" (or some variant) is really the only way to phrase it. I always use the term "unlawful file sharing" myself, or the (more general) "infringement."

    But, I'll ask you the same question. What is the "broader concept" that you would use for someone, who:
    - Buys a knock-off handbag?
    - Buys "grey market" drugs from Canadian pharmacies?
    - Makes a mix tape for a friend?
    - Creates mash-ups?
    - Writes fan fiction?
    - Reverse-engineers software?

    All of these are (or could be) infringement. In all these cases, "one unilaterally acquires goods or benefits without being entitled to do so." But I've never heard anyone at all call them "stealing."

  • On the post: Hollywood Up And Comers Recognizing That The Big Gatekeepers May Be More Of A Threat Than Silicon Valley

    Karl ( profile ), 30 Mar, 2012 @ 05:16am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Id like to keep my job

    Right up there with "Cube" as far as I'm concerned.

    "Cube" was indeed a good movie, but it wasn't made for under $30K. The others were.

    Don't watch the sequels, by the way. (Especially Cube 2: Hypercube.)

  • On the post: NYTimes OpEd Explains Why Infringement Isn't Theft

    Karl ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2012 @ 03:53pm

    Re:

    Illegally providing a file for download IS INFRINGMENT - that much of the article is TRUE. The person actually doing the download is committing THEFT.

    This is completely false. They are committing infringement -and then, ony if they are making their own copy. (For instance, buying a bootleg DVD is not "theft," nor is it in any way unlawful, as far as I can tell.)

    It is not "theft," because theft requires that the victim not have the thing that was stolen. Likewise, "theft" isn't merely gaining or using something without the owner's permission, because then fair use would be "theft," and public libraries would be offering stolen goods.

    The question to be asked is why, psychologically speaking, the populice [sic] doesn't associate file sharing with theft.

    Probably because every single moral code says that creating abundance from scarcity is morally good. See e.g. the parable of the loaves and the fishes from the New Testament. When people are sharing files, they are doing nothing different than what Jesus did, morally speaking.

    If the fishmongers and bakers went to the Romans and claimed Jesus is putting them out of business, that would not make the feeding of the 5000 less moral. It would make the fishmongers and bakers immoral.

  • On the post: Righthaven Case Gets Even More Bizarre: CEO Files Statement About How Righthaven's Own Lawyer Won't Respond To Him

    Karl ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2012 @ 07:01am

    Re:

    Who the f*ck was dumb enough to hire this moron during the collapse of his last "firm"?

    Yeah, no kidding. Have his current employers even read Righthaven's court documents? I can't imagine anyone letting him within spitting distance of a courtroom ever again.

    Oh, and Righthaven wasn't a law firm... or at least they weren't supposed to be. Which is partly why they're in such hot water now (the "unauthorized practice of law" charges).

  • On the post: Hollywood Up And Comers Recognizing That The Big Gatekeepers May Be More Of A Threat Than Silicon Valley

    Karl ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2012 @ 09:01pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Id like to keep my job

    Playing devils advocate here, but Is this what the world really needs? A thousand times more hours of low production value video?

    Even even one out of those thousand are films like "Following" or "Primer," I'd say the answer is a resounding yes.

  • On the post: Hollywood Up And Comers Recognizing That The Big Gatekeepers May Be More Of A Threat Than Silicon Valley

    Karl ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2012 @ 07:49am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Id like to keep my job

    On average a theatrical motion picture only makes 25% of its revenue from N. American box office.

    How much is due to global box office revenues? Because those have been steadily increasing, as well. There's also no indication that most other income streams (e.g. toy licensing) are on the decline.

    Regardless, that's not the point. Box office sales are perceived (for whatever reason) as the indicator of a film's success; it is what determines whether more films of that nature are going to be produced. Higher box office scores mean more green-lit films, meaning more work.

    And much of the increase has been from higher ticket prices, not greater ticket sales.

    Who cares? Either way, people are spending more money going out to see films.

  • On the post: Hollywood Up And Comers Recognizing That The Big Gatekeepers May Be More Of A Threat Than Silicon Valley

    Karl ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2012 @ 10:56pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Id like to keep my job

    I don't think he's not talking about

    Uh, "I don't think he's talking about." Gotta be careful of those double negatives.

  • On the post: Hollywood Up And Comers Recognizing That The Big Gatekeepers May Be More Of A Threat Than Silicon Valley

    Karl ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2012 @ 10:52pm

    Re: Re: Re: Id like to keep my job

    350,000 has been given as the number of people employed by the U.S. film industry. You could think of this as the number of workers who receive most or all of their year's income from their work in the industry.

    That number comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That number includes all of the janitors, security guards, receptionists, waiters and waitresses, cashiers, riggers, ushers, couriers, etc. that earn their income from the motion picture industries, within the entire nation.

    You'll be interested to know that you're one of the higher-paid workers in that industry. 50% of motion picture industry employees (176,170 people) earn less than $18.81 per hour.

    I'm not entirely sure which occupational category your job falls into. But, "riggers" are in the category of "Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations," so I'm guessing it's lumped in with that one. The industry employs only 1,460 people in that entire job category, nationwide.

    Now, it's true, "a $30,000 straight to Internet project" is probably not going to hire as many people as a $30 million blockbuster. On the other hand, there are going to be a thousand times as many of those "straight to Internet projects" as there will be $30 million blockbusters.

    You said that blockbuster hires "hundreds of people" to do jobs like yours. If each of those thousand "straight to Internet" projects hires even one worker, that's already a net gain of hundreds of jobs. I'm pretty sure they can at least hire 1500 people nationwide.

    Besides, when Mike talks about "replacing" Hollywood, I don't think he's not talking about forcing Hollywood out of business. He's talking about the younger filmmakers eventually taking over Hollywood, and adapting it to their way of thinking.

    In any case, I'm pretty sure your job is as safe as ever. The yardstick of a film's success (especially those $30 mil films) has always been ticket sales, and box office revenues have done nothing but increase in the past ten years.

  • On the post: Microsoft Spying On Live Messenger Messages, Censoring Any Pirate Bay Links

    Karl ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2012 @ 06:45am

    Re:

    It could be worse! Messenger could popup a message with "Are you sure you want Messenger to block access to this site?" with only a "Yes" option.

    It could be even worse than that.

    "It looks like you're trying to download something from the Pirate Bay. Would you like..."

    "SHUT THE HELL UP, CLIPPY!"

  • On the post: Wanted: The Truck Driver Who Lost His Job Due To File Sharing

    Karl ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2012 @ 10:12pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Apologies for the late reply, if you care.

    I am assuming that Itunes isn't filling the gap

    If you're pushing "hit singles," it's no surprise that consumers would rather pay a la carte for a single song, rather than pony up $18 for a full-length CD just to get a single track. It's why labels deliberately tried to kill singles.

    But that's completely immaterial. Even if people spent billions of dollars more on iTunes than they ever did on CD's, that truck driver would still lose his job, under your theory, because you don't need truck drivers to distribute MP3's.

    nor is the money "going elsewhere" that is useful to content production.

    First, I never said it needed to be "going elsewhere" that is useful for content production. Just that it was "going elsewhere" that also hired truckers.

    Second, you're wrong. That money is being spent elsewhere in the music industry. That's why the overall music industry has been growing, more than offsetting the losses of the recording industry. (And those portions of the music industry, unlike the recording industry nowadays, do need truck drivers - to haul equipment, ship merch, etc.)

    I think there are less boxes of CDs and DVDs shipped.

    Who cares if they're CD's or DVD's? As long as something is in a box that needs to be shipped, the truck driver will keep his job.

    Any other increase to this Best Buy in boxes for, say, TVs would likely be offset by a decline to other retailers in the area.

    That makes absolutely no sense at all. When Tower was around, the amount of cargo shipped to Best Buy was zero (since it wasn't even there). Now they're shipping more cargo to Best Buy than they did to Tower. How does that equate to a truck driver losing his job?

    I know a common criticism is that "big box" retailers often take away business from smaller competitors, because the smaller retailers can be undersold on the price. That doesn't mean that fewer TV's would be shipped, just that they would be shipped to Best Buy instead of Jeff and Akbar's TV Hut. In fact, since the prices are cheaper, more buy TV's, resulting in more TV's being shipped to that area.

    Incidentally, if you think Best Buy isn't good for the economy, then it's the record labels that shoulder part of the burden for that - since they deliberately stopped dealing with record stores, in order to focus on just such "big box" retailers as Best Buy.

    And absolutely none of that has a single thing to do with piracy.

    So, I'm afraid you haven't given even a theoretical reason why a single truck driver would lose his job to piracy. Much less shown that it's actually happening... which it isn't.

  • On the post: Righthaven Completely Stops Showing Up In Court, Loses Key Case, Key Appeals And 'Big Name' Lawyer Who It Still Owes Money To

    Karl ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2012 @ 04:28am

    Piercing the corporate veil

    Wasn't there some talk a while back about "piercing the corporate veil," and allowing Righthaven defendants to go after Steve Gibson and Stephens Media directly?

    What ever happened with that? The laws about "piercing the corporate veil" are handled by state laws in the Eighth Circuit, and it is notoriously difficult to do in Nevada.

    However, since outright fraud was committed here, it might be possible. Anyone know any details?

  • On the post: We Don't Want Everything For Free. We Just Want Everything

    Karl ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2012 @ 09:52pm

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

    the only difference between "civil" and "criminal" is one is against the state and one againt an individual or private company.

    That is a very big difference. If you lose a civil lawsuit, you don't go to prison, you don't lose your voting rights, you can still legally own firearms, you can get a visa, you can run for public office, you don't have to inform prospective employers that you're a convicted felon, etc.

    There's also a huge legal difference between criminal copyright infringement and civil copyright infringement. Criminal infringers can be accused of racketeering and money laundering, while civil infringers cannot; civil and criminal infringement has different seizure laws; and so forth.

    The difference is huge. Calling civil infringers "criminals" is complete hyperbole.

  • On the post: We Don't Want Everything For Free. We Just Want Everything

    Karl ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2012 @ 03:11pm

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

    The mythical "exposure" model?

    Yeah, it's so "mythical," that record labels paid criminal investigations for paying for this kind of exposure. It's called "payola," and it wasn't just limited to radio play.

    Maybe that's why many promotions departments in labels actually send music to music-sharing blogs, such as Dajaz1, fully aware that it will be shared. Or why Viacom employees uploaded Viacom content to YouTube, and did it in such a way as to make it appear it was "grassroots" (e.g. by uploading from coffee shops under a fake profile).

    If the "exposure" model was mythical, there would be no such things as advertising agencies. In fact, there would be no such things as record labels - since "exposure" is quite literally the only thing they ever had to offer. Artists didn't (and don't) sign because they just want records pressed. They signed because that was the only way to get their songs on the radio, onto billboards, on display in record stores, etc.

    Widespread availability of media helps not only your specific media (the song you wrote, the movie you made), but creates value for all media (songs in general, movies in general). The more that music (say) is ubiquitous, the more importance it has in peoples' lives, and the more valuable it becomes. The entire theory behind advertising is that it creates value in the marketplace; that value can then, in theory, be exploited to turn value into income.

    Not sure that helps out when there is nobody left to buy.

    That would be a good point if it were true that piracy causes people to buy less. That's not true, and no reputable study anywhere has found that it is. They've found the opposite: that people who pirate are also the people who pay the most for media. People don't pirate "instead of" buying, they pirate "in addition to" buying.

    Now, the shift from physical to digital certainly has caused a shift in consumer purchasing habits. They buy MP3 singles from Amazon or iTunes rather than full-length CD's, for example. It costs less for a single MP3 than a full-length CD, so record labels make less money. But that doesn't mean people make fewer purchases. In fact, the number of purchases has gone up - drastically - since file sharing became commonplace.

    And the money that people save by buying MP3's vs. CD's does not vanish. It is a consumer surplus, and it is spent in other areas - often within the same industry. The money that people save on CD's goes to, say, seeing live shows, buying merch, or what have you. That's why the overall music industry is growing, and people are spending more money on music, than they did before file sharing became popular. The same is true for all the other content industries: they're making more money... even in an economic downturn.

    But, leaving aside economics for the moment:

    what exactly is piracy doing that is so damn good?

    - The infrastructure that allows piracy has also produced legal business models that unquestionably help both artists and consumers (YouTube, Soundcloud, CD Baby, iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, etc).

    - Both the aforementioned business models, and often "pirate" sites themselves, lower the barrier to entry for artists who are not part of a corporate media industry. Because of digital distribution, indie label market share has steadily increased.

    - Most importantly, without the specter of digital piracy, it's unlikely that traditional media industries would have entered the digital market in the first place. (Even now, they are only reluctantly doing so.) Without piracy, the labels would never have worked with iTunes, for example.

    But, leaving aside the benefits to artists that file sharing causes, it unquestionably benefits society in general.

    - It is increasing access to the arts, especially among people who can't afford to pay for it. Essentially, it's acting like a global public library.

    - It is creating a consumer surplus, which can then be re-invested into the industry (or the economy in general).

    - Most importantly of all, it is inseparable from a culture that values open access to expression of all kinds. (You can't have the Arab Spring without also having file sharing.)

    I'd say that it's a damn good thing for humanity that file sharing is here to stay.

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