American Censorship Day

[Blue Protoman]

You can disable smilies, I think.


Anyway, SOPA sucks, bitch bitch moan, etc.

 

[Binky]

No, no, no! You're supposed to say:

SOPA is eevil

the end of civilization is nigh

it proves that america is ruled by muslamic Regans

the interwebs are doomed!

 

[Prometheus]

Whoops.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Now I almost want to see SOPA pass.

 

[T.T.]

I love irony

 

[Klumpen]

Wikileaks' leaked document about TPP is relevant:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-final-leaked-secret-tpp-text-is-all-that-we-feared-top-down-control-of-the-internet/5481702

 

[b_o_b]

A bunch of crappy decisions... and some of them are just ridiculous.

Expansion of Copyright Terms
Perhaps the biggest overall defeat for users is the extension of the copyright term to life plus 70 years (QQ.G.6), despite a broad consensus that this makes no economic sense, and simply amounts to a transfer of wealth from users to large, rights-holding corporations.

 

 

[___]

my girlfriend showed me this documentary yesterday:
The story of technoviking
https://vimeo.com/140265561

It's very interesting but also perfectly fits the discussion about SOPA and censorship. It's more in regards to personal rights then pirated material, but talks a lot about fair use and the need to overcome old paradigms of ownership. Very interesting stuff indeed, especially if you are interested in memetic evolution and internet culture. I highly recommend you guys to watch this!

 

[levi]

I don't have an issue with the creators owning their creations.  I have issues when big corporations adopt that ownership and extend the hell out of it purely for profit, not for anyone's cultural benefit.  Consequentially, I don't really accept these life-plus copyright terms, as old as they are.  I guess originally they were invented so that the family of the author would continue to receive the benefits they were used to, but that still strikes me as morally dubious, to make a living from your dead relative.

I do tend to think ownership should be more nuanced though.  Music shouldn't become public domain just because the singer dies; everyone from the musicians and producer down to the engineer should have ownership, and something should only go public domain once they're all gone.  And books are written by their author and their editor IMO.

 

[Haraldur]

I, on the other hand, AM against the idea of ownership. Firstly, if copyright was abolished, then we would not have all these problems. Secondly, we, the common not-producing-much-culture-of-note people, do not gain much of significance from the current arrangement any more: perhaps I am just getting old, but I increasingly find that there are more worthy games to play, films to watch and tunes to hear than I shall ever have time for (believe me, I have written interminable lists for games and films to experience, while I cannot foresee having a shortage of music on YouTube etc.) -- so why on Earth should I subsidize through taxes (via a state that upholds copyright law -- and tries to impede me in the process, through takedowns, internet censorship etc.) the creation of even more content? If all new production stopped tomorrow, I would be quite happy for quite a while, with the main exception being news broadcasting, for which I doubt copyright has much benefit (and such things tend to be funded, or have funding guaranteed, by the state). Perhaps in 30 years I might get through my backlog.

Of course, new production shall never just stop. Content is produced by hobbyists, by public institutions (like the BBC) and via crowdfunding -- if there are not enough  horror films for the aficionados, I am sure they would fund some via the likes of Kickstarter.

I am not a fanatic, though. I could just about accept the existence of copyright, with an absolute term of about 15 years from first publication (which, IIRC, is something Richard Stallman supports in order to keep the GPL relevant). Happily, most of the stuff I am interested in is older than 15 years. B)  I tend to completely ignore anything published in the last five years, bothering only with older stuff that I have heard people mention often enough for me to judge that it has "stood the test of time". In practice, few things are younger than 10 years on my games list, with my films list being even older on average.

 

[rygD]

if there are not enough  horror films for the aficionados, I am sure they would fund some via the likes of Kickstarter.

I regularly go and rewatch a lot of my favorite horror and science fiction films.  It seems that the more stuff that is made the less of the new stuff I like.  There is some new stuff that is really good, just as there is old stuff that is really bad (my opinion, of course), however I am much more likely to go and watch the original The Twilight Zone episodes for the 50th time than to watch Continuum again, and I really like both (haven't finished up Continuum yet, though). (Continuum is also a lot cheesier than The Twilight Zone.)

I don't really want to get into the ownership thing, however I do feel that at the very least the person that made something should get credit for it.  Too often I see people's work get ripped off so that others can profit from it.  Yesterday I was reading a review of something and someone that replied to it stated that their artwork was used for the cover/box for the item without their permission.  There is a blog (Propnomicon) I read that covers some really interesting art and techniques, and the person behind it has made and shared their artwork to be used by others for making stuff for their own use, yet someone attempted to use that art on Kickstarter rewards, and it has been put on t-shirts and sold for profit with nothing going back to the person that made the images that were used, and not even an acknowledgement that it was their work.  People are making money off of the work of others without their permission, and I do have a problem with that.  

This is a tiny part of why I keep things I do to myself.  It isn't hard to take a random picture from a Google image search and get someone to print it on items, and when money is involved I think at least some of that money should go back to the people that made it possible.  This is much easier when it is a picture or written work, or anything with one or a small number of people that contributed.  With games and films, and sometimes even music, it probably isn't that simple.  

I am a part of the problem, though.  I don't mind getting a copy of something for my personal use without paying for it.  Often, if it is something I really enjoy I will want to pay for it, but then I run into the problem where the people that did most of the work get little of the money if, for example, I buy a CD.  It isn't as bad as it used to be, with some musicians releasing stuff themselves.  Many years ago I bought some films by a handful of people through Amazon thinking I was supporting their work (they were not professional actors and filmmakers).  Now I wonder how much of the money I paid they actually got.

Unfortunately, the stuff this thread is actually about won't get people more money for their work and it won't prevent people like me "stealing" from those people.  I wish it was easier to cut out some of the middle men and corporations.  Too many people can sue me.  I really just want the people that make the things I like to get what I feel is fair and what they deserve.

 

[Klumpen]

I don't have an issue with the creators owning their creations.  I have issues when big corporations adopt that ownership and extend the hell out of it purely for profit, not for anyone's cultural benefit.  Consequentially, I don't really accept these life-plus copyright terms, as old as they are.  I guess originally they were invented so that the family of the author would continue to receive the benefits they were used to, but that still strikes me as morally dubious, to make a living from your dead relative.

I do tend to think ownership should be more nuanced though.  Music shouldn't become public domain just because the singer dies; everyone from the musicians and producer down to the engineer should have ownership, and something should only go public domain once they're all gone.  And books are written by their author and their editor IMO.

Exactly. People who did nothing to create the item in question (not even funding it), shouldn't have any possibility to get the rights to it, neither big corporations nor the sons and daughters, they didn't do anything for cultural benefit and are therefore not entitled to profits. If all the involved people are dead, it should go public domain automatically, that's what I've been saying for a long time.

 

[DrHAX]

Going on ownership of content.. As an author its my biggest fear having my work stolen. I had a nightmare once one of my stories was stolen and ended up becoming a movie direct by micheal bay and every actor was the opposite of the character  was in the story. I woke up in a cold sweat and my hands shaking almost screaming.

The nightmare about having my entire block getting killed off by military didn't effect me as much as that nightmare... and my dreams are hyper realistic .

Its also why I have trouble sharing my work with others because it is a fear of mine. I can imagine what an artist must feel like spending 15 hours on a piece and having it be knicked and sold without their permission or them getting any table scraps. Granted literary work I don't think is as easy to steal.. but if something is unpublished officially and shared it would be easy to simply take every character do "Find and replace" and change every name of every major character and tweak minor details. Fuck, that's how fifty shades of grey was published. IT was a twilight fan fiction the author of it just changed the names and modified a few things ( I hope). 

So imagine my fear when something took over 4 years of my life to make.. and alot of the times if something is stolen the thief usually gets the upper hand... 

Call me paranoid but its always my second greatest fear... my first greatest fear is of having people being told my first greatest fear.

 

[WizardStan]

Firstly, if copyright was abolished, then we would not have all these problems.

And we'd have an entirely new set of problems.  If you write a relatively successful novel, without any form of copyright there is nothing preventing a major studio from taking your novel and turning it into a high grossing movie without attributing you at all.
Or you may not even get that far, maybe you mail your novel to a publisher but someone in between reads it, copies it, and publishes it themselves before you have a chance.  Or other possible scenarios that I'm sure you could imagine.
Plus many other problems which copyright was originally supposed to solve, way back when it was individuals doing most of the content creation.  If you abolish copyright there will be new problems that need to be solved in legally enforceable ways. Ultimately you wouldn't really be abolishing copyright, you would be rewriting it.
You're looking at content copyright from a mass-producer/consumer perspective, but I can imagine a future in which I've made a game or written a novel or produced a short film on a meager budget and want to be safe knowing that some big company isn't just going to take my hard work and publish it with a bigger marketing budget against my will.  In the world without copyright, producer vs producer becomes your battle and we little guys will always lose.

 

[Haraldur]

Firstly, if copyright was abolished, then we would not have all these problems.

And we'd have an entirely new set of problems.  If you write a relatively successful novel, without any form of copyright there is nothing preventing a major studio from taking your novel and turning it into a high grossing movie without attributing you at all.

Or you may not even get that far, maybe you mail your novel to a publisher but someone in between reads it, copies it, and publishes it themselves before you have a chance.  Or other possible scenarios that I'm sure you could imagine.

Plus many other problems which copyright was originally supposed to solve, way back when it was individuals doing most of the content creation.  If you abolish copyright there will be new problems that need to be solved in legally enforceable ways. Ultimately you wouldn't really be abolishing copyright, you would be rewriting it.

You're looking at content copyright from a mass-producer/consumer perspective, but I can imagine a future in which I've made a game or written a novel or produced a short film on a meager budget and want to be safe knowing that some big company isn't just going to take my hard work and publish it with a bigger marketing budget against my will.  In the world without copyright, producer vs producer becomes your battle and we little guys will always lose.

If copyright is abolished, then everything previously considered "copyright infringement", including "piracy", is legal by default.

Person writes a novel ---> company takes novel and makes a film without paying the novelist ---> consumers watch the film, (mostly -- somehow the first copy must reach the internet) without paying. How does the company make up for the cost of making the film? Crowdfunding is one answer (and in that situation, fans of the novel would likely demand that the original author was involved with the process, as they would want the adapation to please them as the novel did). Assuming the film is considered good (after being successfully crowdfunded), the novelist may get crowdfunded to write a sequel. Or a public institution, like the BBC, may make an adaptation, for the sake of Art. In which case, they may pay the novelist some amount to advise on some aspect of the adaptation. In any of these cases, it is highly unlikely for anyone to be able to "steal" profits from the novelist, as there would not, likely, be any significant "profits" to be had. Copyright abolition would apply to everyone -- no high-grossing movies -- no "profits" for anyone! Totally equal, totally fair.

The Disney company would probably collapse, and EMI and Warner Bros. and FOX (yay!) and Electronic Arts (yay!) and Activision and on and on and on. We may be left just with crowdfunded games and FOSS-games, plus any made with public funds (the BBC could very well make games, methinks), with the same for films, serialized drama, books and music. The problem of people claiming other people's works as their own in order to get crowdfunding for sequels would not arise -- laws against fraud (I imagine plagiarism counts, especially in this case) would apply.

There are no significant disadvantages: the laid-off employees (assuming there are many that are not taken up by publicly-funded institutions) would mostly be rather well educated types, writers, engineers, and so on, and would have relatively little difficulty in finding new jobs or creating new businesses. The singers, usually less well educated, could still make money from live performance. And even if I am wrong, well, Margaret Thatcher (not my favourite politician) decided that UK coal production had no future without permanent subsidy -- the same applies, more in fact, to the copyright industries.

Besides, even if I am wrong, then perhaps people will be deterred from creating new novels? Would that be so bad? There are already more novels (in English even!) than any one person will read, and that any film company will adapt. No loss, for the consumer. There is no social need for more novels as we have plenty already.

Who pays the publisher? If it gets to the internet, the price become $0, £0, 0 euro, 0. Why would you bother with a publisher in the first place? Just put the stuff up on your blog, if you have one. Or 4chan or USENET or Tumblr or The Pirate Bay.

On the internet, everyone is potentially a "mass-producer", with viral video and all that crap (fewer people are quality producers, of course). In fact, there are so many mass-producers that the mass-consumers are swamped.

 

[pmprog]

How does the company make up for the cost of making the film? Crowdfunding is one answer (and in that situation, fans of the novel would likely demand that the original author was involved with the process, as they would want the adapation to please them as the novel did).

You assume people are going to crowdfund something that would become instantly free upon completion?
 

The problem of people claiming other people's works as their own in order to get crowdfunding for sequels would not arise -- laws against fraud (I imagine plagiarism counts, especially in this case) would apply.

Fraud is not like plagiarism. I also find it interesting that in your idea of no-copyright that people couldn't legally homebrew their own sequels to games/films/books that they enjoy without any repercussions.
 

There are no significant disadvantages: the laid-off employees (assuming there are many that are not taken up by publicly-funded institutions) would mostly be rather well educated types, writers, engineers, and so on, and would have relatively little difficulty in finding new jobs or creating new businesses. The singers, usually less well educated, could still make money from live performance. And even if I am wrong, well, Margaret Thatcher (not my favourite politician) decided that UK coal production had no future without permanent subsidy -- the same applies, more in fact, to the copyright industries.

They'd go into new jobs doing what? Clearly not what they were previously doing, otherwise that company will fail and they'll be made redundant again. You'll then basically kill off jobs of that nature - because there's no incentive to get involved. Why spend months/years of your life writing a book/creating a computer game/etc. when you can't feed your family from it?
 

Besides, even if I am wrong, then perhaps people will be deterred from creating new novels? Would that be so bad? There are already more novels (in English even!) than any one person will read, and that any film company will adapt. No loss, for the consumer. There is no social need for more novels as we have plenty already.

Possibly - but your job of stacking shelves at your local supermarket is about to become cutthroat for people desperate for work
 

Who pays the publisher? If it gets to the internet, the price become $0, £0, 0 euro, 0. Why would you bother with a publisher in the first place? Just put the stuff up on your blog, if you have one. Or 4chan or USENET or Tumblr or The Pirate Bay.

This might be new to you, but not everybody is on the internet... and some actually prefer it that way.
In addition, publishers have uses beyond physical distribution. Firstly, they seperate a lot of wheat from the chaff. Secondly, if the publisher only publishes a particular genre or something, they become a hub for readers to find authors similar to ones they already like.

Oh, and finally (probably NSFW)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudgBUmSsSY

 

 

[WizardStan]

Haraldur, you are missing the point.  As has been said, not everyone is on the internet, some people still enjoy going out to theatres to watch movies, some people like being able hold a physical book or a shelf full of movies.  Beyond the physical there are large numbers of people that happily pay for things that they can get for free because they are willing to contribute to something they enjoy.
Despite what the media would try to tell you, piracy is not a problem.  If copyright vanished there may be a slight uptick in downloads but it is my honest opinion that people would still buy DVDs, they would still go to movie theatres, they would still get their music from iTunes.
If piracy were abolished there is nothing currently in our society that would suggest we would see some kind of second renaissance.  You would solve the one way producer-consumer problem but it's naive to think that the world would naturally become a communication utopia: with one problem gone you would introduce several others.
I'm not going to waste time giving examples, I tried to give a general example and you blew it off with a specific solution; that's not how general examples work, we'd be back and forth for weeks.  Instead I will encourage you to think for yourself: if you cannot come up with a single instance where a complete lack of copyright results in a bad scenario for the general public that would necessitate further legislation to fix then we absolutely cannot continue this discussion because you lack the imagination necessary to appreciate it.

 

[WizardStan]

I would like to address one thing you said directly, though.

Besides, even if I am wrong, then perhaps people will be deterred from creating new novels? Would that be so bad? There are already more novels (in English even!) than any one person will read, and that any film company will adapt. No loss, for the consumer. There is no social need for more novels as we have plenty already.

Yes, yes it would be bad. It would be very, very bad.  Society is arguably as much a living thing as anything else, metaphysically speaking: it lives, it consumes, it reproduces, it changes.  Changes in society are reflected in the media we create and in turn the media we consume alters our society.  You may never read every novel, watch every movie, play every video game, or listen to every song but every piece of work created is influenced by and has influence on the world around it.  Even the things that never get published, someone had an idea for a story and they started writing it and even if it never gets finished simply thinking about it, their characters the the experiences they would have changed that persons behavior ever so slightly, or perhaps not so slightly: this is how our brains work, manifold ideas all layered up leading to behavior.
If there's a chance that abolishing copyright would lead to a world where production came to a trickle, where only big names could crowdfund movies and novels and a young woman chooses to stop writing because she knows there's no way she'd get the recognition for it then I will fight you on it with every breath I have.  That is not a world I want to risk living in.
Abolishing copyright doesn't fix the world, it changes the playing field and creates new problems.

 

[Haraldur]

You assume people are going to crowdfund something that would become instantly free upon completion?

Yes. The original point of sites like Kickstarter was that people could give money to projects for products that would not otherwise exist. I have backed several role-playing games on Kickstarter, because I wanted them to exist. I would still have done so if they were free. In fact, I would have given even more money if the games were to be GPLed, but that is just me.

This was a situation where, specifically, turn-based, party-based RPGs with reasonably modern graphics and decent quality were hard to find, so I backed Wasteland 2. There exists at least one community of people with exactly the same attitude as me (http://www.rpgcodex.net). If the gaming industry, as we know it, collapsed as a result of copyright abolition (a doomsday scenario used by the defenders of copyright), there surely would be people thinking "I would like a new game of type X" who would be willing to donate to a project for a free (and perhaps FOSS) game. There already have been such situations for non-GAME FOSS programs. Some people, evidently, donate to EvilDragon to help the Pyra project -- why could that not work for computer games? The only real difference with crowdfunding through the likes of Kickstarter is the funding threshold mechanism, which is beneficial as, well, $10 is not going to do much, while $100,000 can.

Fraud is not like plagiarism.

Is it not? Perhaps in the particulars of the law (which varies by jurisdiction, by the way), it is not precisely the same, but anyone saying "I made X, so please help to fund my project to make a sequel called Y" would clearly be doing something illegal if they did not, in fact, make "X", with or without copyright law. It seems like fraud to me. Or false advertising, which is also illegal.

 I also find it interesting that in your idea of no-copyright that people couldn't legally homebrew their own sequels to games/films/books that they enjoy without any repercussions.

I do not follow. Of course they could. They simply could not take credit for the original work for the purpose of getting crowdfunding money. There is a big difference between saying "I made X, so please help me make a sequel" (especially when that is false) and saying "I really like X, so please help me make a sequel".

They'd go into new jobs doing what? Clearly not what they were previously doing, otherwise that company will fail and they'll be made redundant again. You'll then basically kill off jobs of that nature - because there's no incentive to get involved. Why spend months/years of your life writing a book/creating a computer game/etc. when you can't feed your family from it?

Yes, the jobs may go. Driverless cars may mean many fewer taxi drivers (or Uber drivers). My point is that these people are a relatively skilled part of the workforce, who could better cope with the disruption than unskilled manual labourers. We certainly should not preserve copyright just so that jobs may be preserved and neither should we hinder automation and robotics (including driverless cars) just to preserve jobs in other areas of the economy -- in the long term, everyone should simply work less (I would welcome this future!); it is estimated that about half of all jobs in the USA will be automated in the next few decades. There will be an abundance of automated labour, just as we alrady have an abundance of entertainment -- copyright law just attempts to induce an artificial entertainment scarcity, in order to imbue entertainment/art with (bogus) value.

Why spend month/years making books/music/games/films, indeed? As I said before, there is already more of all this stuff than anyone is likely to consume in their entire life. Even if I restrict myself just to opera (which I have for much of the last year), I will likely never run out -- over the last few centuries, over 40,000 operas (or so I have read) have been created, of which perhaps a quarter survive (10,000). Most of those that survive have at least one recording, and mostof them last between 2 and three hours, so make that 20,000 hours, or more than two years worth if listended to/watched non-stop with no repetition, doing nothing else. In reality, the amount of time people spend, per day, listening to, or watching, only stuff they have not experienced before, is much much less than 24 hours. Let us say 2 hours. So now we have 24 years worth of opera, either with rewatching favourites quite often or only watching new stuff and having, in addition, a social life (I do not really have one, but I believe they are time-consuming). Then, in the case of opera, one must consider that all the moderately popular ones will have multiple different recordings with different conductors, orchestras and singers, being different in their own way, so, really, there is at least 30 years of opera for all but the most extreme neophiles. And most of this is available, for free, on YouTube and other places if one is willing to spend a little time looking. There is no scarcity of opera recordings.

There is more opera available than I can ever consume. There is no need for a legal subsidy for new opera.
There is more rock music than I can ever consume. There is no need to promote its creation with copyright law.
I shall never have enough time just to watch all the good films that have been made. Let us not worry about film piracy stopping the flow of new films.
There is more entertainment out there than any one person can ever consume. We need no more. We need not promise creators money for creation, through copyright law, of stuff that is now so unimportant, so worthless, because of its abundance.

It is not my problem if some novelists cannot fee themselves through writing more novels that I shall, realistically, never read. I am a socialist, but, damn it, this is capitalism and they should get real jobs. Like farming or system administration or nursing or logistics. Something useful.

Possibly - but your job of stacking shelves at your local supermarket is about to become cutthroat for people desperate for work

I do not stack shelves. :angry:  (Besides, in 20 years, shelf-stacking robots...?).

More seriously, yes, there is the possibility of a significant increase in the supply of labour, greater than any increase in demand. That is likely to happen anyway, though, as a result of automation of the workplace. This will require a political solution, likely one that involves much shorter working weeks (perhaps 16 hours per week?) -- my proposal would be socialism, perhaps in the form of workers' cooperatives plus a basic income.

This might be new to you, but not everybody is on the internet... and some actually prefer it that way.

If that group is no more than a few percent (in the developed world, that is, though the number is falling quickly in poorer countries too), then they should not really be considered in a broad-sweeping discussion like this. There is not enough time in one's life to account, in one's discussions, for every kind of eccentric in the world -- as an eccentric of multiple kinds myself, I understand that very well; indeed, everyone who purchases a Pandora or Pyra is likely quite far from the mainstream.

The only person I know, who does not use the internet routinely, is my 90-odd-year-old grandmother and, whenever they may come to pass, our speculations will never have a significant effect on her, one way or the other.

Incidentally, as a socialist, I think a relatively decent cable internet connection should be provided to every household for free, just as water and electricity are in many places.

In addition, publishers have uses beyond physical distribution. Firstly, they seperate a lot of wheat from the chaff. Secondly, if the publisher only publishes a particular genre or something, they become a hub for readers to find authors similar to ones they already like.

Ah, but publishers are already woefully inadequate. Earlier I discussed 10,000 surviving published operas. I am a (retro-)gamer, and there are more published games than I will ever consume, even good ones. As a result, I rely, a lot, on top-N* lists and personal recommendations (oh, and the soundtrack to Breaking Bad, and similar shows, for music: about 70% of that stuff I would class as good). 20 years ago one was limited (and helped) by the collection in a local shop, itself limited by the publishers, while now almost everything is available without standing up.

This one is good: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/rpg-codexs-top-50-crpgs-results-and-reviews.89680/

Oh, and finallyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudgBUmSsSY 

But there is so much good music that was produced before the year 2000 I shall never need to care*! B)

*whether this guy is right or not -- people (teenage females?) still seem to lap this shit up.

 

[_jr_]

An interesting point, but perhaps not relevant today (from Wikipedia on copyright): Copyright law was enacted rather late in German states, and the historian Eckhard Höffner argues that the absence of copyright laws in the early 19th century encouraged publishing, was profitable for authors, led to a proliferation of books, enhanced knowledge, and was ultimately an important factor in the ascendency of Germany as a power during that century.

I think I've seen economic models claiming similar things as long as the cost of copying doesn't actually drop to zero (which AFAICT is not possible; even with telepathy or something there will be opportunity costs involved)