Yes, wrong. I can play this game as long as you can.
Whatever the hell that means …
the system does not work magnificently it is broken. It limits creativity in many ways. It nees to change. It prevents artists who sample the work of other artists from coming up with new art, in the name of protecting copyright.
I see copyright law as headed down the same road as patent law, a scam used by lawyers to fleece businesses and individuals. It’s time sensible people realized that not everything that is legal is moral, and that it is often very immoral.
That’s not limiting creativity and it’s no different from the situation in the pre-digital world. If you want to “sample” (i.e., copy from) someone’s work, you need to get permission, and, indeed, plenty of people are sampling with permission. The system works perfectly.
Just because sampling is easier than it used to be in a technological sense is no reason to declare the system “broken.” You are in the same position you were always in. If you want to use someone else’s work, you ask for permission or you do without. There have always been people who took from other people’s work without wanting to get permission for it; nothing’s different just because digital technology exists, and their legal position shouldn’t change because it does either.
This is nothing but hysterical hyperbole. If you can do now what you could in 1970, then you’re no worse off, regardless of whether breaking the law has become easier. There is no scamming going on. The basic fact remains that a creator has rights and those rights should be enforced. They are legal rights in the United States, and they are also moral rights in my opinion. When someone has created something, they should (and do under our law) have the moral right to prevent uses that they object to, whether it’s sampling or use in advertising or whatever.
And that’s why I’m torn. As the writer of a fairly obscure yet groundbreaking (in a field no one cares about) article written to a small (like tens of people, maybe 100-200 people max), I should be the one to decide whether or not to allow further copies to be made.
Yet it’s those sort of articles, songs, movies, etc. that I’m most interested in having copies of. I don’t think Tuff Darts has re-released “Your Love (is Like a Nuclear Waste)” so what can I do if I want a copy? Yes I’ll pay the $.99 to iTunes if it were there but it’s not. So what if I could get it through other means if legitimate ones are not available? Very tempting.
If it is ethical and zero-harm to pirate a work that is no longer in print, is it equally ethical and zero-harm to profit from a work that is no longer in print?
This has little to do with the creators. They aren’t likely to be the copyright holder or see any money from anything sold, or lose money from anything pirated.
Only to people who want something for nothing.
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No, it’s broken for people who want something and are willing to pay too.
Yes, that’s a very good example. Have you seen the so-called art? It’s just defacing a series of photographs. That’s the kind of thing one morally should have to get permission to do. It’s like the work of that huckster and professional thief, Jeff Koons.
Morally, I somewhat agree with you. It’s a (highly abstract) “crime against humanity” when a writer instructs the executor of his estate to “burn all my manuscripts.” It’s wrong. It’s entirely legal, but it impoverishes our entire culture.
But, then, think of it this way: he might not have written it in the first place, and we are equally impoverished.
Hear hear. Theft is theft, and duplicating copyrighted files is one form of it.
As for art sampling of a similar nature, I dont see a lot of it happening. The music sampling generally is a small part of a song that is way different from the original, though I 'm sure some have simply copied songs outright. I’d hate to see all those music samplers set back.
It’s legal, and immoral. Therefore the law must be changed.
If you had not written that sentence, I would not have had to have written this response. Which is to say, your point is pointless, on the scale of “What if Spartacus had had a Piper Cub?” I mean, if my hands were made of metal, it might mean SOMETHING.
Immorality is one of the worst reasons to outlaw something. Who’s morals are we going to use? Because there was a time when homosexuality, adultery, and a host of other things were illegal because someone thought they were immoral.
ETA: I don’t agree with even the underlying premis that it IS immoral.
…just because you aren’t familiar with “art sampling” doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of it happening. If you want to even consider changing copyright laws you need to consider the impact on all industries, not just “music samplers.”
There are reasons beyond financial that a creator may want to stop the distribution of a work. For example, Stephen King pulled a novella named ‘Rage’ because a kid shot up a school with a copy of the book in his pocket. The book is about a kid shooting up a school. I can fully understand why King wanted the book sales stopped.
Another possible reason would be dissatisfaction with the work. If the creator decides that the work is not up to his or her standards, pulling it seems just fine to me.
Or a creator may change their position on a work. For example, if an athiest author wrote a book based on atheism and then became religous, pulling the work seems fine to me.
I guess there’s some irony here, because, while you seem to be saying I failed to make myself clear…you are failing to make yourself clear.
The world is impoverished, in a real and factual way, because Sir Richard Burton’s widow burned all his papers.
The world is also impoverished, but only in an abstract and subjunctive sort of way, because Mozart died young, and might have gone on to write a lot more music. The only difference is that Mozart, had he lived, might not have written music, but, instead, could have gone on to become the greatest billiards player the world has ever known.