That’s false. I can buy a CD and resell it as I please.
But aside from that, bits can move around without it being distribution. I can buy an MP3 and copy it to any of my own devices legally. I can even copy it over the Internet to, say, my Dropbox account. I don’t own those data lines or Dropbox’s hard drives, but because it is “my” account it is all perfectly legal.
This service is equivalent to leasing a DVR and antenna system hosted elsewhere. Just moving bits over the net doesn’t mean it’s automatically distribution.
But not an ebook that is restricted by DRM to only one account. Similarly, you cannot read the ebook on any other device, even if it is just you that’s reading it. You could if you could disable the DRM, but that’s illegal, so you can’t. That’s how broad copyright law effectively is right now.
It is no longer possible to live what many consider a reasonable life while always obeying copyright law. So many traditional freedoms have been trampled by making DRM illegal to remove that breaking the law is vital to enjoying what we pay for in the way we choose. The last thing we need is to make copyright law prohibit things that aren’t even mentioned in the law.
I didn’t say it was. You stated flatly that one cannot distribute without permission; I merely cited an example showing that those rights aren’t absolute.
Dropbox and any number of other companies sell me a service. They can do so even though they store copyrighted material they have no distribution rights on, because they are set up as a “dumb” filesharing service, which from my perspective looks like a networked hard drive. Likewise, Aereo’s service looks like a networked DVR.
Yes; this is why I find statements such as Baal’s “In the digital age, the pendulum has certainly swung against copyright sanctity” so absurd. The rights we get with eBooks and the like are far less than what we had with print. You generally can’t even loan an eBook to a friend.
An E-book has capabilities far surpassing an ordinary book. You want the benefit of those capabilities without any balancing benefit to the copyright holder. Essentially while the utility of the product goes up, the ability of the copyright holder to exercise his or her rights evaporate. DRM and licensing rather than sales of goods is a perfectly rational response. If you want the flexibility that a paper book gives you, then stick with the paper book. If you want the flexibility of digital media, then you have to accept the copyright holder’s terms.
You phrase that like a general statement, but it’s only true in one specific instance: the digital nature of eBooks enables trivial copying, which does erode the ability of copyright holders to enforce their rights.
None of the other features of eBooks, such as their usability on eReaders and tablets, or their searchability, or the ability to change formatting, etc. impact copyright holders at all.
It’s not clear to me why these features need to be balanced against additional restrictions on what I can do with the book. The copyright holders didn’t invent the features; they shouldn’t benefit from them.
Now your argument is just circular. I have to accept the terms because I have to accept the terms? No, I don’t think copyright holders should have that right in the first place.
There’s nothing circular about it and it’s not unique to creative works. If a seller do wishes he or she can convert every sale into a license or lease. Your choices are to accept the terms or refuse the transaction. And it’s no tragedy if you have to do without a particular work if the terms were unacceptable to you.
I think they get what he is saying, and that is exactly the problem with it. What is a new means of distributing IP? As Tellyworth asks, is each new program a new means, each new version of an existing program, each new line of code? What needs to be realized is that computers copy bits, which often are someones IP. The Internet lets computers remote to each other copy bits (IP) from one computer to another. That is what it does, and in some sense, that is all it does. Every time I come to this page, my computer is copying other people’s messages, to which they hold copyright, from a computer someplace which is storing them, to my computer. My computer copies that IP around to it’s memory, hard disk, and video memory. That’s what it does every single time I open a web page which contains copyrighted information, or download a file, or stream a movie…
So, no more computing devices without specific acts of congress. No more adding of computers to non-computerized devices without congress and the IP lobby’s approval. No more new features on existing computers. And any other innovative thing you can think of which can possibly used to cause digital or hardcopy information to appear someplace else.
Now the unreasonableness. I say fuck it, do away with copyright completely. I know that will never happen, but I think it would be a fun experiment for society to try. To all the content creators? Too bad, nobody ever said you’d be guaranteed a paycheck. Why should you be any different than all those people who used to have manufacturing jobs?
Just today I had somebody come into my office looking for solutions to play her legally purchased media on an external monitor (from her laptop). She can’t do it, because the monitor she has is not connected with the proper cable. How does this promote the progress of science and the useful arts? How does it do anything except drive her to replace a perfectly functional monitor with one that supports HDCP?
You could say the same thing to the publishers: you want the flexibility of digital media, then you have to accept the customer’s terms.
If we want lots of new quality content, we have to find some way of financially compensating people who create high quality content. Otherwise all we’ll have is stuff created for fun by amateurs, like this crap we write for each other on the Straight Dope.
But the “copy” portion of copyright, that was supposed to provide a way to roughly compensate creators based on use, was a pretty good legal method back in the days when copying and distributing text, images, audio and video required a substantial industrial capital investment.
Those days are over, copying and distributing computer files is cheap and trivial. And it turns out that means the marginal cost of creating and distributing one more copy of a digital work is essentially zero. That’s the marginal cost of course. The cost and effort to create the digital work in the first place is certainly not zero. But it used to be that the cost of creation of the work was a fraction of the cost of copying and distributing it, and so we compensated creators not for creating the work, but for copying and distributing the work.
But in the computer era such a method is insane because it can’t be enforced. And attempts to enforce it, by making every new technology illegal unless the creators can prove that the technology can’t be used to violate copyright, is like cutting off your foot to cure an ingrown toenail.
Copyright goes far beyond normal contract law. If I receive a copyrighted work from a third party, then I have not broken any terms of an agreement (since there never was one between me and the copyright holder), but I (may have) violated copyright.
I don’t accept that there is any natural right to protection of creative works. There are only the rights we grant them, and only those felt to advance the public interests by enabling creative types to make a living from their work. It is–unlike freedom of speech or rights to physical property–a very conditional and provisional right.
This isn’t generally reflected in the actual consumer pricing to a significant extent. List price often reflects substantial difference, but after discounting, typical selling prices of paperback and kindle versions on amazon are often equal or near equal.
This guy almost certainly (given his role) has a great depth of knowledge of copyright and almost certainly (given his role) at least a fingernail grasp of information technology*. He almost certainly (again, given his role) is of at least reasonable intelligence and eduction.
You can either believe that someone with these characteristics is actually suggesting what you believe he is suggesting, or you can believe that the message has got confused.
Believing the former means believing this guy is mental illness grade stupid or ignorant. I’m sure that’s kind of fun to believe, if you have a mind to do so.
I think you are probably better off getting a grip, and taking a deep breath, and surmising that his position is likely to be rather more nuanced than the OP suggests.
*and that is all it takes to understand the problem you raise
No one is questioning his intelligence. We’re questioning his motives. His life has essentially been dedicated to the defense of strong copyright. This also happens to be a period in which there was–in my opinion–a massive and unjustified increase in the scope and terms of copyright. On the other hand, Mr. Oman has, as best I can tell, never been on the side of technology.
It is precisely because he is not stupid that I will assume the worst in the presence of ambiguity. He has been an enemy for over 30 years and I no evidence that this has changed.
A fanatic, a psychopath, tyrannical, totalitarian a person with evil motives, an enemy, AN ENEMY FOR OVER 30 YEARS! – He will enslave the world in order to protect precious copyright, I tell you!
Not just someone who might sincerely and rationally disagree with you. Not just someone who has spent a lifetime learning and protecting a craft, expending resources on its protection, and wanting to offer a product in the marketplace. It’s someone who wants to enslave the world!
The echo chamber really does radicalize Netizens.
Actually, I know Ralph Oman personally. He’s not a personal friend, but he’s something of a colleague with whom I’ve spoken with on several occasions. He’s a soft-spoken and thoughtful scholar and an academic. He’s a retired civil servant and a college professor. He isn’t a radical or a fanatic or a psychopath. He doesn’t have ulterior motives and he’s not being paid under the table to advocate policies for corporate monsters. I don’t agree with him on everything, but I don’t think he’s a radical, a fanatic, or a psychopath.
I don’t know whether a lifetime-plus-70-year copyright term is the optimal policy choice, but I don’t see that it’s somehow geometrically disproportionate compared to lifetime-plus-50-years, which was the previous term, such that only fanatics and psychopaths would support it. I do think that 28 years seems much too short and that the original author’s lifetime should be the bare minimum, but then again that’s my opinion, and, according to some here, I might be a fanatic or a psychopath, so that that for what it’s worth.
It’s very simple. If the customer doesn’t like the terms on offer, then he or she rejects them. And then the vendor decides whether to offer new terms that the customer might then accept. If the vendor fails to offer any terms that the customer wants, then the vendor no longer generates income and then goes out of business. And then other vendors move in to offer terms that are more attractive to consumers.
That’s how you determine value. What instead you have is some consumers who say, “I don’t like your terms, but I still want your product, so I’m going to go ahead and take it and do whatever I want, even if it violates the terms.” That’s what is unacceptable. If the consumer still wants the product enough that he or she will go ahead and enjoy it, then that proves that the product has more value than the consumer is pretending.
This reminds me of the same arguments that libertarians and anti-regulation conservatives make. Why can’t you give it a chance? As if we have no experience of what the world is like without it.
We currently live in an era with an abundance of creative works to enjoy. You can sign up for Netflix and for $7 a month get access to more creative works than you could reasonably enjoy in several lifetimes. Creative works are more abundant, more sophisticated, more advanced, more available to the public, more everything than they have ever been in human history. And this situation has been brought about precisely by strong intellectual property protections.
We know what the world was like before. For the vast majority of people, there was very limited access to creative works. In the Western world, perhaps the sole work many people had access to was a family Bible. Only the rich, those who could afford to buy or patronize creators, had access to some variety of works. And, maybe, if that patron chose to share some of that experience with a limited portion of the public, then, maybe, a handful of people might hear a Bach composition performed live.
Otherwise, what did people do? They relied on themselves or their immediate circles to entertain each other. People had access maybe to a couple of people who could sing well, or maybe play the fiddle. And those people rarely composed new works, but maybe performed a handful of traditional folk works. Maybe slightly wealthier people had access to a theater or an orchestra.
How different are lives are just 100 or 150 years later. We have what was previously unthinkable access to a previously unthinkable variety of works. And it is IP law that incentivizes such levels of creation.
The mantra is “nobody owes you a paycheck.” But unless you have some reasonable expectation of getting a paycheck, you never go into the profession. You never dedicate the time and effort to honing your skills – mostly because yo have to do something else for a living.
An explosion in creativity is not brought about by the fortuitous birth of a few geniuses who would do what they do no matter what their lives are like. It’s based on the fact that the system incentivizes a large number of people to take the risk to try to become successful creators in the first place. The vast majority of them will fail, or produce a few mediocre works and then move on to something else. But this critical mass of creativity is fueled by masses of people entering the creative professions, pushing boundaries, pushing technologies (yes, because technological development would be pointless without good content).
We now live in among an embarrassing wealth of creativity, brought about by IP laws, and now people are sitting around saying, “There is so much good stuff out here, what do we need IP laws for?”
No creator is asking for a guaranteed paycheck. What they are saying – and this is perfectly fair, in my view – is that if you don’t think my work is worth the terms I’m asking, then refuse them, and I go out of business and find another way to get a paycheck. But so long as you still value my work so much that you will use it and enjoy it anyway, you should adhere to the terms I’m offering. I offer, you accept or reject. What’s unfair is for you to reject the terms and still go ahead and benefit from the very value that I created my work for.
In manufacturing, I lose my job at the auto plant, because people have started buying someone else’s cars and have rejected mine as not worth the terms I ask. The analogy is: My work isn’t worth the terms I’m asking? Go enjoy someone else’s work, someone who is offering terms you like.
But we’re not talking about copyright terms, we’re talking about halting technological progress because it might be used to violate someones copyright. Go ahead and say I’m exaggerating, but as far as I can tell, that’s what was asked for. All new technology needs to be banned. New things can be approved on a case by case basis to insure that IP isn’t harmed.
That’s exactly what has happened, and guess what? The vendors have continued to make money, even when their competition offers the same thing for free.
That only works in a free market. Copyright, patents, and other IP is the opposite of free market. It is a government granted monopoly over the distribution of a work or idea. In this case the consumer (what a terrible term to use when discussing rights, I’m a citizen, not a consumer) doesn’t agree to the terms the publisher dictates, and so the other option is free and unrestricted. I see the consumer making a perfectly valid market decision. Perhaps the answer isn’t to stomp on our rights to eliminate the freeloaders, but to offer the product under conditions that will attract most of the people. Apple seemed to make a few billion dollars by selling music at about $1. Music which could easily be obtained for free. Seems like lots of movie studios are doing just fine, even with some people getting to watch movies for free.
All of these arguments have to do with content distribution, not creation, and that is exactly the problem here. These are content distributors fighting to maintain relevance in a time when their role is greatly diminished by technology. People didn’t only have a Bible in their home because that was the only book written, but because they could only afford one book, so that was what they had. Now, the incremental cost of creating another copy of an ebook, music file, or even movie, is near zero. Most people who write books don’t make any money at all from it. How would things change if they gave the book away?
What’s unfair is for you to legislate the terms, so it’s impossible for me to reject them.
No, in manufacturing you lost your job because somebody else could make the car cheaper; the stock holders of the company lost their investment because nobody wanted to buy the cars.
What I get from many of the people on the pro-IP side of the argument is a huge sense of entitlement. They’ve created something (great!) and now they’ll be damned if they let anybody see it without getting paid. The only way to guarantee that nobody gets to use your creation for free is by not ever making it available. Keep it secret, and then it will never be “infringed.” When art is released, and becomes popular, it becomes part of culture, and the artist has now lost control of it. That is the price of success.