Ok, this is something I have to write a speech for. Well, one of 5 somethings. Anyway, I find this very interesting, as I do the other 4 things I will post (at a later date)
I’m not here to ask you guys to do my homework for me. But as I was reading through these, I realized that they might illicit a few debates, which would be good. I respect all of your opinions, and would love to hear how you feel about these issues. Also, I am unsure of the ramifications, both negative and positive, that could happen if this bill was passed. (For my purposes, it IS a real bill. I have no idea if there are similar bills in Congress right now) Since I think better with a crowd, I thought I would get the smartest crowd I know involved.
So here is the first bill…
I. A Bill to Protect Media Artist’s Copyrighted Materials
Be it enacted that:
Section 1: The Federal government will create an agency
to enforce current and future laws concerning internet
piracy of copyrighted materials.
Section 2: This agency will have jurisdiction only over
American violators, but will notify foreign countries of
violators of these laws.
Section 3: The government will fund the college education
of students in applicable majors who agree to work for
this agency for a pre-determined term.
Section 4: This agency will be funded by a tax on media
companies protected by the agency and internet sites
that provide software for copying and distributing
music, video, DVD.
Section 5: Violators of these laws will be subject to
full prosecution and penalities as mandated in the laws
Man, I hate it when nit-picky people do this, but as an English major I CAN’T HELP MYSELF! Pep, it’s “elicit,” as in “to draw out,” not “illicit,” as in “forbidden.” You “elicit” information; you have “illicit” affairs. (Well, maybe not you personally. )
Having picked the nit, I feel obliged to post an actual opinion. I’ve given this approximately two minutes’ thought, but it appears that the bill lacked enforcement measures. It provides that an “agency” will be established for enforcement, but it does not say how enforcement will be (or could be) handled. I think that’s a pretty big oversight. It’s one thing to make something illegal, but without a way to enforce the law, it is worthless.
The most obvious/simplistic argument against the above bill would be the ol’ “Freedom of speech” thing (“Man, this is America, I can do whatever I want.”) The immediate counter to this argument should be, “Doing so violates someone else’s freedom of speech.” Simple argument, simple counter.
Other arguments against the bill would be, as has been mentioned, the fact that it’s vague. While I know that you don’t intend your fictional example to seem like a real bill, people will insist that what this agency can and can’t do be spelled out in full, and make sure that everyone knows who they answer to. After all, any sort of regulation dealing with the Internet will be met harshly (and rightly so, I would think).
Then there’s the old arguments for/against Mp3’s in general, for which I’m sure you can go scrounge up some of the old Napster threads (some of which I know you were involved in, Pepper :D).
Finally, Section 4 could conceivably raise hackles in the crowd… new taxes. Of course, in our current excellent economic status, it’s believed by some that new taxes wouldn’t be met with the same animosity as they would have fifteen years ago.
There ya go, m’dear… I hope I was helpful. Feel free to holler for me to come back and open the flood gates in my fevered brain, if you want.
Another problem is that the RIAA, the music industry and AOL-Time-Warner think that they should be the agency that controls internet copyrights, and have the government agree with that.
The movie industry also want dibs on controlling copyrights. Under no circumstances should we allow these conglomerates and ‘associations’ control internet content. And I’m sure that some people such as John Corrado trust the government even less concerning such controls. Let an adequate encryption system develop, that would cost $15 million to break its code; that’s the best way to protect copyrights.
The reason I said this is that that the companies don’t want to protect copyrights for the artists, but for the companies themselves. They already turned music artists into day laborers and slaves for them, thanks to new laws. (sorry about the 3x post).
Generally speaking, prosecution of copyright violations is not a violation of free speech (excluding, of course, satire and “fair use”).
The real difficulty with copyright violations vis a vis the Internet is the power necessary to enforce copyright laws. Given the distributed nature of the Internet, such an agency would need to monitor all traffic and verify the identity of each person on the internet. Such broad monitoring power is not only repellent, it is probably technically impossible.
Encryption cannot the save the copyright. Because any software (using the broader sense of the term to include video and sound recordings) must at some point exist in clear to be used, a person can copy that clear feed. Even with a perfectly non-reproducible encryption method (itself perhaps technically impossible), one need only record its output.
Joe, you’ve hit the nail on the head here. The Internet is inherently unregulatable, unless you install China-like restrictions on everybody worldwide. Eventually, someday, somebody will figure out a new way for artists and others to get paid for what they do.
Or maybe we’ll just be left with the musicians who do what they do for fun, rather than for the profit of big record labels.
There is already a tax on blank CDs,tapes and the like. The profits from that tax are distrubited to the Record Companies who pocket 90% of that fee you paid. Heck, Record Companies under current law own all your work. Period. You have no rights to it after you sign that contract.
Now, one problem is that the FBI already does investigate piracy cases. Another problem being, do you go after the 500K users of napster, or that guy in Chicago turning out 200 bootlegs a day of Popular movies? How do you positively identify each and every one of those 500k users, track them down, catch them in the act, build a case against them, and prosecute them?
People complain about losing the drug war, and we should make drugs legal. And yet we are talking about enforcing laws on this scale? Drugs kill people and yet there are arguments for ceasing enforcing those laws! But we are going to go after millions of copyright infrignement cases?
It boggles the mind. I understand your project, and my opinion is there is already agencies who do this. If you are talking about putting that power under one roof, so to speak, it will be hard. The sheer scope of survellence needed, legal powers needed, cooperation among the various agencies would be amazing.
You are both wrong. These statements are completely untrue. Let’s look at a few facts, here:
The record company, in a standard recording contract, owns the rights to the sound recordings, not to the songs. The rights to the songs belong to the songwriter and/or publisher, which, in the case of pop music, is rarely the record company.
So, for example, in the (in)famous Michael Jackson/Beatles catalog situation, Jackson was entitled to receive compensation for the use of songs from the Northern Songs catalog. He could tell Nabisco, for example, that they could use the song “Good Day Sunshine” in an Oreos ad. What he could not do, is tell them they can use the Beatles recording, the rights to which belong to EMI/Parlophone. OTOH, Jackson can record and perform “Good Day Sunshine” or give permission for someone else to do so anytime, in any medium, and EMI/Parlophone couldn’t say “boo” about it. So that should clear up that little shibboleth.
After a certain amount of time, the rights to the sound recordings revert from the label to the artist. I don’t know what the time is, and I’m not interested in looking it up.
Recently, the RIAA attempted to get Congress to enact modifications to the 1976 Copyright Act, one of which would have been to redefine sound recordings as “works for hire.” Under existing copyright law, “works for hire” are the property of the label in perpetuity; the rights never revert to the artist.
Several artist’s organizations fought the proposed modifications, and successfully convinced the RIAA, in an agreement reached on August 8, 2000 to abandon that course of action and to interpret all the copyright laws as if such modifications were never enacted.
So, in other words, things are as they always have been. The songwriters and publishers own the rights to the songs, the labels own the rights to the sound recordings for a limited time, after which those rights revert to the performer. Everybody clear on that?
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