LewRockwell.com – Can anyone please explain to me how someone can be a just owner of something, yet not be allowed to exercise his or her ownership rights over it? He can throw rancid tomatoes at the painting, but not duplicate the pattern that makes the painting a painting, rather than just canvas and paint? Or, to use a different type of copyrightable pattern, how can someone own their own brain yet not own the part of it containing a song they memorized?
What we’re looking at is protectionism in disguise – government giving preferential treatment to one specific industry at the expense of the rest of society. Now, let’s go back to the copyright holder, the mysterious third party who was hurt by me copying the CD’s contents. What I’ve done by copying my friend’s CD is violate a government-imposed monopoly on copying the CD’s contents, the monopoly belonging to the copyright holder. Hence, according to the idea of intellectual property, I’m a thief. I’ve had the audacity to compete with the beneficiary of the monopoly. That is the sense in which I’ve supposedly hurt a third party.
Quite long, but it makes you think.
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@#1: “The Congress shall have Power [. . .] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for LIMITED Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
Constitutional guarantees are LIMITED as expressed in first related law derived from this very principle.
“Copyright Act of 1790 secured an author the exclusive right to publish and vend “maps, charts and books” for a term of 14 years, with the right of renewal for one additional 14 year term if the author was still alive. The act did not regulate other kinds of writings, such as musical compositions or newspapers and specifically noted that it did not prohibit copying the works of foreign authors.”
We should revert to it, hopefully one of items on the revert-to-Constitution-to-do-list of our next President, who likely won’t be owned by Hollywood after we see what those people are doing for the current one.
The article is so full of crap. The statement that the industry has turned against it’s “customers” is the LIE. Customers BUY things. Thieves TAKE or COPY things. They keep saying this bullcrap about turning against their customer base, and it’s laughable.
Copyright law protects people while encouraging creation of works. It DOES NOT ALLOW a holder to prosecute someone who simply copies for themselves, personal use, as it’s allowed, but distribution rights belong to the holder, not the THIEF. If you copy for yourself, you are not a thief. File sharing to millions of people is DISTRIBUTION. Sharing a file with a friend for personal use is not distribution. These web sites that are all about file sharing have mostly gone over the line, but they protect themselves by making people agree to not share copyrighted materials. And the rampant copying through these networks is affecting these holders. So what do you expect them to do, stick their heads in the sand while these networks legally assist people in the distribution of their works?
#2 dusanmal
While your absolutely right. The Constitution also limits the Authority of the Federal Government to a specified list of Authorities. But the constitution is only as good as those who enforce it. And in our lifetime no one has. So while your factually correct it’s also completely irrelevant.
DU post neglected to credit the author: “Vedad Krehic is a student studying digital media production in Norway.”
I’ll bet the music industry thought vinyl records and CD’s (before computers had CD-ROM drives) seemed relatively benign and profitable at the time of their introduction. Before that, it was probably very difficult to have a copy of a musical performance, and there wasn’t an easy way to copy vinyl or CDs (default DRM).
Nowadays, we have gotten used to possessing/making copies, and the industry hates this! They’re probably especially embittered now that the technology has finally evolved to on-demand streaming which allows for consumption without ownership.
I’m sure the entertainment industry wants to reverse course and not allow us to own any copies, but to gleefully switch to pay-per-use. Trouble is, they have to get us over the desire to possess, which they helped get us used to. Good luck with that! Religions have been harping on that for millennia with mediocre success.
Unintended consequences…
#5 Breetai
That sir is why I have no compunction about file sharing. It is also why I encourage everyone to use full disk encryption. No proof, no conviction. The United States government and its corporate owners can byte my shiny metal hiney.
Rockwell is off the mark here. You don’t OWN any IP that you purchase. You LICENSE it.
Intellectual property is irrelevant. The minute they let the digital genie out of the virtual bottle, it was doomed. It’s not such a bad thing really. Those that stand something to lose because they can’t or won’t adapt, can cry and stamp their feet all they want. The world is changing, you can hide behind the laws shout how right you are to defend your rights, but it won’t change the world, and it probably won’t save your business either. Change is the universal constant and the filter for evolution, adapt or die. OTH the potential and promise for new business and distribution models is great for those smart enough to embrace the digital age.
I like #1’s statement. Maximum of 28 years makes sense to me, plenty of time to make money.
#10 Blashy
I am sure Rupert Murdoch, Disney Corp, Apple Corp et al. would strongly disagree with you.
#11
Nothing like stating the blindingly obvious. They’ve invested a lot in their politicians so of course they want a decent return on their investment.
It may be blindingly obvious but the voters are still oblivious. Your educational and propaganda tax dollars at work.
I suppose all those in agreement think they should own the TV station because they paid their cable bill.
tHE law IN THE usa WAS that you could only USE the original copy as long as you OWNED it.
But we all played alittle bit with making a few copies for friends.
The AVERAGE piracy rate was/is <10%.
The problem is HOW to measure it.
Here and in other countries its all different. and the LAWS are different. There ARE no laws in some countries.
Then comes PRICE.
Then comes being JUST POOR..
Then those that JUST hijack it.
I believe that the PRICE could go down. IF the corps would do the WORK themselves. Even as the Boot leg market and the SMALL companies did. the PRICES can be dropped AT LEAST by 1/2.
And if these poor SLOBS really looked into it, and MODIFIED distribution, they could cut costs by 2/3's very easily.
#1, copyright and patent law … … have a constitutional guarantee to exist in some way or another.
Just because the power is granted doesn’t mean that it must be exercised.
A good book on the subject is Against Intellectual Property. The book is downloadable online. Here is the link.