Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: feppe on February 21, 2012, 04:44:15 pm
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Here's a well-argued piece for eternal copyright:
[what we hold dear in this country:] the right of a creator to benefit from their intellectual property, whether it be a song, book, film, or game. Without this assurance of compensation, we might not see any new creative works being produced at all, and so it's for this reason that we've continually lengthened copyright terms from 14-28 years as set out by the Statue of Anne in 1710 to "lifetime plus 70 years" today.
Yet now, as we've instituted decade-long jail terms and unlimited fines for copyright infringers, it's time to take the next step in extending copyright terms even further.
...it's clear that our current copyright law is inadequate and unfair. We must move to Eternal Copyright – a system where copyright never expires, and a world in which we no longer snatch food out of the mouths of our creators' descendants. With eternal copyright, the knowledge that our great-great-great-grandchildren and beyond will benefit financially from our efforts will no doubt spur us on to achieve greater creative heights than ever seen before.
Full article here (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/adrianhon/100007156/infinite-copyright-a-modest-proposal/).
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You've got to be joking.
I worked in creating distance education products for school children. We had 4 full time copyright officers getting permission to use images and other materials. It would take months to clear the materials and quite often images had to be removed as it was impossible to find the creator. Eternal copyright would be an eternal plague on publishing. Please don't wish that on us. The benefits to your heirs would far be outweighed by the additional costs they would have to pay for published materials.
Cheers,
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I dunno...sounds like a modest proposal to me...
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That position presupposes financial benefit as the only motivator for creativity. Not sure if that is the case in real life and in all cultures.
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Good idea. I think I can make a strong case, based on mitochondrial DNA, that one of my ancestors invented the wheel.
Hmmm, the only problem is that you could claim the same... Bad idea after all.
Any human notion that includes the 'perpetual' qualifier should be dismissed on sight.
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This article is hilarious - stating thoughts I often had when following copyright discussions.
Read (from the article):
However, to make it entirely fair, Eternal Copyright should be retroactively applied so that current generations may benefit from their ancestors' works rather than allowing strangers to rip your inheritance off. Indeed, by what right do Disney and the BBC get to adapt Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, and Sherlock without paying the descendants of Lewis Carroll, the Brothers Grimm, and Arthur Conan Doyle?
Thanks for posting this awesome piece of satire - made my day.
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Good case made, indeed!
And about the Brothers Grimm, that would be the end of a two-centurie robbery : copyrights could be, at last, returned back to the original inventors of the stories they heard and transcripted.
But wait! Wouldn't it guarantee a better creation system if we could extend copyright beyond eternity?
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Thanks for the nice satire of the follies of excessive terms of copyright restrictions, and the more extreme folly of retro-actively increasing terms of copyright protection.
It is sad though what a large proportion of commenters fail to recognize it as satire. Maybe some people need to spend less time reading hacks in blogs and forums, and more time reading time-tested out-of-copyright works, of Swift for example.
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Nope, I think that eternal copyright would be a great idea!
I see nothing ontoward about it; because it makes it difficult to trace things for present-day use doesn't matter in the least - why should it be easy? Nothing's easier than just doing it... which is, after all, simply another form of theft.
Were permanent copyright the recognized way, everybody would have been geared up to deal with that, so it's no big thing if some users had to scratch their heads for a while until the system was set up.
Better still, it would remove the issue of 'may I, may I not use this?' at one stroke: the answer would always be no, not without written permission. The end of rip-off culture and the horrid 'orphan works' notion that is nothing but grease to the elbow of the thief.
Great idea! +1 etc.
Rob C
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It is sad though what a large proportion of commenters fail to recognize it as satire.
I don't think so - maybe you didn't notice allenmacaulay's reference to "a modest proposal..." which undoubtly was an allusion to
A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick
by Jonathan Swift.
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Stop right there all of you!
One of my ancestors invented the alphabet, so you all owe me royalties! 8)
Eric
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I'm on the other side of the fence. I think all copyrights should last 10 years, and patents only 5. With these durations, the improvements in technologies, chemistries, life sciences and the arts would occur on a much quicker pace. As it is now, the only people making large financial gains are the lawyers for the artists and patent holders.
Hear an argument more from my side of the fence here (http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html).
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I'm on the other side of the fence. I think all copyrights should last 10 years, and patents only 5. With these durations, the improvements in technologies, chemistries, life sciences and the arts would occur on a much quicker pace. As it is now, the only people making large financial gains are the lawyers for the artists and patent holders.
What about people working on projects that take a long time?
I happen to be working on something at the moment where the first image was taken in 2005 and still intend to do more photography on subject before project is completed. So it may be 2013/2014 before it's complete. So if I were to then publish say a book on this subject, then some of the images would be out of copyright almost immediately.
Or what about a Howard Hodgkins painting? When would the copyright start as his painting can take ten years to finish? And if you say from the moment they are completed, what's to stop artists continually tinkering with their work to maintain copyright? With photos, the versions I'm outputting from RAW files shots 10 years ago are very different from the original files. SO where's the copyright there?
This is just a few of the reasons as to why copyright of just 10 years is not really workable. Besides the people who tend to benefit most from short or no copyright protection are the big corporations. Copyright protects the little man and in the creative industries way too much of the time, it is copyright that means one can eek out a living.
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Copyright protects the little man and in the creative industries way too much of the time, it is copyright that means one can eek out a living.
You must work for Mickey Mouse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act), eh?
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Hear an argument more from my side of the fence here (http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html).
Unfortunately that argument starts with a quote from someone who got it completely wrong as Sousa didn't realise that the new technology would benefit creators, not silence them.
As for the new remix culture that the speaker claims is now democratising creativity - utter nonsense. There's nothing new about that, that's how culture and creativity has always worked. Rather than my try and explain that at length, go and watch these entertaining films about this. (http://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/) The last one also touches on copyright in the modern world and if I recall correctly also mentions how people view copying of others work [perfectly OK] and how they view their own work being copied [completely not OK].
I find Larry Lessig's argument overall to be quite poor as he uses analogies by twisting and then misrepresenting them. I was surprised to see that he was a 'respected' lawyer as his arguments were so weak. He doesn't appear to have noticed hip-hop and notice how sampling was overtly used used in that musical form. Not to mention that he is also naive in the assumption that the 'youth' making remixes for YouTube are not involved in a commercial enterprise, which is exactly what YouTube is. And there is money to be made by those supplying content and by YouTube who provides a platform. This is why YouTube gets a cease and desist not the uploader. If the person whose content was being reused got a cut of the profits being made, then that would be very different, but they do not.
As for the kids being corrupted by being criminalised, grief, if shoplifting was as popular, would he also advocate decriminalising that too?
That's the worst TED presentation I've ever seen. Larry Lessig seems quite ignorant about remix culture and somewhat naive in general.
BTW I had a look at your website Chris, some very nice work there indeed, but I was then struck by the fact that you are a commercial photographer.
Now that type of photography would be little affected by a decrease in copyright as that type of work tend to have good rewards up front and not only you may also hand over copyright, but commercial work rarely has a use outside of the commission itself. Many other types of photographic business models tend to pay smaller amounts over longer periods of time, so are utterly dependent on the concept of photographic copyright. So do you think your views on freeing up copyright are influenced by the fact it wouldn't really affect you?
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You must work for Mickey Mouse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act), eh?
Actually Disney's stance and (ab)use of copyright is somewhat disingenuous and not reflective of my views.
Using a crazy stance to justify another polarised oppositional and equally extreme viewpoint is not the solution either.
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I wonder what Lessig would say about Richard Prince (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/23/richard-prince-artwork-copyright-breach), as he isn't exactly a youth, but does exactly what the youths he champions do. And is very rich from doing just that.
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I don't think so - maybe you didn't notice allenmacaulay's reference to "a modest proposal..." which undoubtly was an allusion to
I said "a large proportion", not all ... and I was mostly referring to comments at the original blog at The Telegraph, Eternal Copyright: a modest proposal (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/adrianhon/100007156/infinite-copyright-a-modest-proposal/). LuLa has of course a far more literate readership than The Telegraph.
By the way, I am opposed to excessive periods of copyright (and patent) protection, and in particular extensors of those terms after the create of a work, which totally lacks the justification of encouraging the creative effort, but I have no problem with more modest periods of coverage. At most, maybe copyright for "life, or thirty years, which ever comes later." Far less for technology patents; maybe about one or two typical product generations. because realistically, within that time frame, someone else would probably have thought of it too.
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Another vote for Everything is a Remix.
http://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/
I take the exact opposite tack, completely abolish all copyright and patents. This would make all artists and creators performers. That is where their money is made. Musicians make most of their money from concert tours, not CDs. Many Photographers today make their living teaching, not selling images. The teaching is their performance. Other photographers make their living on fine art prints. This too is an individual performance that is much harder than most laymen would imagine. Every company would be valued for it's ability to retain it ideas by retaining their talent and their success would be predicated on their ability to compensate their creative people to keep their ideas in house. Further, their success would come from the "performance" of manufacturing a great product. Authors are the tough one, but if you recall that Dickens first published his work in a weekly magazine. This too is a one-off performance.
"I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense." -- Henry Ford
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There's a hint to the nature of the article in its title...
It raises good points, giving perspective to the claims of those who think 50+ years of copyright is reasonable.
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Actually Disney's stance and (ab)use of copyright is somewhat disingenuous and not reflective of my views.
Using a crazy stance to justify another polarised oppositional and equally extreme viewpoint is not the solution either.
While I agree on your premise, this particular case is entirely valid, given that it is Disney who have been driving (I believe) every copyright extension in the US, making it by far the longest in the world. Some claim Mickey Mouse will never go out of copyright due to ever-increasing copyright length - and that's exactly what the article linked to in the OP alludes to.
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I take the exact opposite tack, completely abolish all copyright and patents. This would make all artists and creators performers.
it would make individual artists and small inventors victims of big players: an author would get to sell maybe a couple of copies of a book, but as soon as one of the customers is Amazon of Google, it would be out as an eBook, with not a penny more to the author. So the only way to earn anything as an author or inventor would as a wage-slave to a big content seller or major manufacturer.
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I take the exact opposite tack, completely abolish all copyright and patents. This would make all artists and creators performers. That is where their money is made. Musicians make most of their money from concert tours, not CDs.
Some musicians do. Many, many others do not. Making money from performing favours a few certain genres and marginalises many others. So effectively you are diminishing the range of music out there, by supporting this view.
And suggesting abolishing patents only underlines the fact you have zero idea of how patents work. No company is going to invest millions of pounds in research that they cannot then make money out of.
Many Photographers today make their living teaching, not selling images. The teaching is their performance.
And their audience would be vastly diminished by the lack of people wanting to be photographers if the career of being a photographer was simply to be a teacher, not to mention the fact that not all people who are good at something are good at teaching the subject. And who would be the pupils if all photographers were teachers?
Other photographers make their living on fine art prints. This too is an individual performance that is much harder than most laymen would imagine.
and whose market would be killed if no copyright existed.
So to repeat myself - So effectively you are diminishing the range of photography out there, by supporting this stance.
Every company would be valued for it's ability to retain it ideas by retaining their talent and their success would be predicated on their ability to compensate their creative people to keep their ideas in house. Further, their success would come from the "performance" of manufacturing a great product.
So what does that woolly concept actually entail?
Authors are the tough one, but if you recall that Dickens first published his work in a weekly magazine. This too is a one-off performance.
No it wasn't as the weekly episodes were collected into books and copyright meant he earned the money from his work not others parasiting over his talents.
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While I agree on your premise, this particular case is entirely valid, given that it is Disney who have been driving (I believe) every copyright extension in the US, making it by far the longest in the world. Some claim Mickey Mouse will never go out of copyright due to ever-increasing copyright length - and that's exactly what the article linked to in the OP alludes to.
And what I meant by a crazy stance, eternal copyright. Not quite as daft as no copyright though.
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I had a giggle reading the suggestion that stopping copyright would lead to frenzied activity from creative talents... yes, right, as if these same people aren't already working their asses off just to stay in the game!
Apply that to the medicine industry. So, who'd be investing millions to find a cure for the specific cancer (feel free to substitute with your own favourite) you're going to develop as you grow older unless there was a guarantee of success being rewarded long enough to return the investment and then create profit high enough to pay off patient (no pun intended) shareholders, salaries, laboratory expenses, investment in the next try, which certainly does not always come off; who'd pay for the failures, I have to ask again, were the companies not able to generate enough to speculate? Sure, some magical time-scale would then be invented, just to satisfy the envy lobby... how some people hate success in others.
Rob C
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Apply that to the medicine industry. So, who'd be investing millions to find a cure for the specific cancer (feel free to substitute with your own favourite) you're going to develop as you grow older unless there was a guarantee of success being rewarded long enough to return the investment and then create profit ...
Indeed, there seems to be plenty of evidence that fruitful lines of treatment not based on patentable approaches get neglected. Not to mention the sometimes disproportionate emphasis on discomforts of the affluent over more severe afflictions of less profitable patients. Consider the disease category added to our vocabulary a decade or two ago to justify "medications" like Viagra.
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Some musicians do. Many, many others do not. Making money from performing favours a few certain genres and marginalises many others. So effectively you are diminishing the range of music out there, by supporting this view.
And suggesting abolishing patents only underlines the fact you have zero idea of how patents work. No company is going to invest millions of pounds in research that they cannot then make money out of.
And their audience would be vastly diminished by the lack of people wanting to be photographers if the career of being a photographer was simply to be a teacher, not to mention the fact that not all people who are good at something are good at teaching the subject. And who would be the pupils if all photographers were teachers?
and whose market would be killed if no copyright existed.
So to repeat myself - So effectively you are diminishing the range of photography out there, by supporting this stance.
So what does that woolly concept actually entail?
No it wasn't as the weekly episodes were collected into books and copyright meant he earned the money from his work not others parasiting over his talents.
I agree that my suggestion is pretty radical and in many ways impractical. I don't have any way to refute your speculation about the outcome any more than you can back up your speculation. I might note that you are really advocating for the "traditional" view here, and "Tradition is the Backbone of the Spineless." (ooh, that was a mean rhetorical technique. haha)
I encourage you to watch Everything is a Remix that was linked above. It is a very thoughtful look at intellectual property and how when people lay claim to an invention or a piece of original artwork, they are always building on those who come before them. It is unfair for them to lay sole claim to that property. I will repeat Henry Ford's statement about his achievements, "I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense." -- Henry Ford
While it is certainly debatable whether large industries would invest the billions needed for something like an investment in a new medicine if there wasn't a patent process, there are certainly other market mechanisms that are equally harmful to the common good. Why, for instance do pharmaceutical companies rarely invest in vaccines? It is because preventing disease with vaccines is less profitable than treating diseases with drugs.
Finally, yes I do know a bit about patents, and I also understand that there are shell companies out there who produce no product, create no new intellectual property, and invent nothing new. Their entire interest is to purchase patents and then litigate to prevent others from developing on that technology. That is wrong. It is wrong that pharmaceutical companies have been awarded patents on sequences of the human genome. In a complex world like this, we don't need more lawyers running around creating obstacles to innovation. Due to the success of the open source movement, one of the most important things we can now understand about the nature of innovation is that you can actually create greater value by giving away your 'property' and then selling services to help people deploy processes built around that 'property.' IBM has had great success in that arena with Linux. Google also with android. Services and processes are what has value. An Engineer or an artist with a good idea but no ability to deliver is worthless.
I will leave with one last historical comment about the consequences of patent litigation. This is from Wikipedia and summarizes the Wright Brothers Patent Wars. Their intransigence is widely credited with creating a situation where the US forces in WWI were unable to field a domestically produced airplane.
In 1906 the Wrights received a patent for their method of flight control and fiercely defended it in the years afterward, suing foreign and domestic aviators and companies, especially Glenn Curtiss, in an attempt to collect licensing fees. The legal threat suppressed development of the U.S. aviation industry. Letters Wilbur Wright wrote to Octave Chanute in January 1910 offer a glimpse into the Wrights' proprietary feeling about their work: "It is not disputed that every person who is using this system today owes it to us and to us alone. The French aviators freely admit it."[4] In another letter Wilbur said: "It is our view that morally the world owes its almost universal use of our system of lateral control entirely to us. It is also our opinion that legally it owes it to us."[5]
Read more here, it is fascinating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wright_brothers_patent_war
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I agree that my suggestion is pretty radical and in many ways impractical. I don't have any way to refute your speculation about the outcome any more than you can back up your speculation. I might note that you are really advocating for the "traditional" view here, and "Tradition is the Backbone of the Spineless." (ooh, that was a mean rhetorical technique. haha)
Not mean, innaccurate. :P
Tradition is doing things in a certain way for no other reason than because 'that is the way things are done'. Supporting a system that works versus one that doesn't, has nothing to do with tradition. Find a better method and I'll support it straight away, suggest a stupid one and I'll call it stupid. And no copyright/patents is extremely stupid or naive in my view.
I encourage you to watch Everything is a Remix that was linked above. It is a very thoughtful look at intellectual property and how when people lay claim to an invention or a piece of original artwork, they are always building on those who come before them. It is unfair for them to lay sole claim to that property. I will repeat Henry Ford's statement about his achievements, "I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense." -- Henry Ford
If you'd actually read the posts in this thread properly, you would notice that I was the person who originally linked to "Everything is a Remix". But the thing about standing on the shoulders of giants is that those who are able to put the ideas of the past into new and interesting ways have created well, something new and interesting. If it were that easy, everyone would be inventing and creating stuff.
While it is certainly debatable whether large industries would invest the billions needed for something like an investment in a new medicine if there wasn't a patent process...
Actually, nothing to debate. Research and development costs money and unless you can recoup costs, there will simply be no R&D in private business.
.....there are certainly other market mechanisms that are equally harmful to the common good. Why, for instance do pharmaceutical companies rarely invest in vaccines? It is because preventing disease with vaccines is less profitable than treating diseases with drugs.
That's nothing to do with copyright/patents. Is is morally iffy, yes, but not relevant to your copyright free world argument.
Finally, yes I do know a bit about patents, and I also understand that there are shell companies out there who produce no product, create no new intellectual property, and invent nothing new. Their entire interest is to purchase patents and then litigate to prevent others from developing on that technology. That is wrong. It is wrong that pharmaceutical companies have been awarded patents on sequences of the human genome. In a complex world like this, we don't need more lawyers running around creating obstacles to innovation.
Quick let's legislate against kitchen knives, as some people have used them to murder their spouse and to skin kittens!
Just because some people abuse a system, it doesn't mean the system is in itself bad. Humans are devious fuckers and whatever the system is, the wicked people will always twist it to suit themselves and is why in reality capitalism, communism and socialism often end up looking very similar once those pesky humans get involved. And a copyright/patent free world will always benefit the bad people far more than the good guys without any doubt
Due to the success of the open source movement, one of the most important things we can now understand about the nature of innovation is that you can actually create greater value by giving away your 'property' and then selling services to help people deploy processes built around that 'property.' IBM has had great success in that arena with Linux. Google also with android. Services and processes are what has value. An Engineer or an artist with a good idea but no ability to deliver is worthless.
Google can give away Android for the same reasons Apple can sell their software for insanely low prices, neither are software companies. Google is an advertising company and Apple is a hardware and media sales company. The OSes and cheap/free programmes are effectively loss leaders. Someone has to be making money somewhere to support these 'free' things and until capitalism is replaced by a money free society where everything is free to anyone, that'll be how it works. And to bastardise Winston Churchill's comment on capitalism - "Copyright is surely the worst protective system, except for all the others that have been tried."
Oh and I think the open source 'success' is frankly overrated.
I will leave with one last historical comment about the consequences of patent litigation. This is from Wikipedia and summarizes the Wright Brothers Patent Wars. Their intransigence is widely credited with creating a situation where the US forces in WWI were unable to field a domestically produced airplane.
Read more here, it is fascinating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wright_brothers_patent_war
You can argue against anything by giving examples of how sometimes a rule/law/system has had unintended or unexpected effects. But unless you can suggest a better system, one that benefits more people than the current one, don't just criticise. Try and be constructive instead.
As far as regarding the Wright brother's interfering with the US war effort. Should people not patent things so their competitors can profit without investment, just in case a war breaks out? Allowing everyone to use other's ideas willy nilly is so much worse than patent trolls, as all you will have to do is wait for someone to spend time, money and effort inventing something and then market it yourself at a price undercutting the inventor.
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(http://www.gouptoday.info/avatar1.jpg)Thanks all my friends
Any time dear boy; glad to have been of help.
Rob C
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Here's an excellent example from today of a big company shamelessly stealing someone else's ideas and basically destroying their business.
This demonstrates exactly why copyright was developed.
Claire's accessories rip off (http://www.handbag.com/fashion/shopping/claires-accessories-tatty-devine-copy-230212)
Spot the difference (http://www.tattydevine.com/blog/2012/02/can-you-spot-the-difference/)
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Here's an excellent example from today of a big company shamelessly stealing someone else's ideas and basically destroying their business.
This demonstrates exactly why copyright was developed.
Claire's accessories rip off (http://www.handbag.com/fashion/shopping/claires-accessories-tatty-devine-copy-230212)
Spot the difference (http://www.tattydevine.com/blog/2012/02/can-you-spot-the-difference/)
I can't read the first link...it's blocked here at work, but the second....are you seriously holding up a dinosaur necklace as an example of the importance of protecting copyright and patent law? Is that idea so novel and unique that the creator deserves exclusivity? I can't imagine the court case where an individual tries to establish that they were the first and only person to put dinosaur bones on a necklace.
Copyright and patent are out of control. Their applicability is absurd and their length far longer than originally intended. While I can't honestly say that I want them fully abolished, they certainly need to be overhauled and probably weakened. For example: http://www.petapixel.com/2012/01/25/create-a-similarly-composed-photo-in-the-uk-risk-copyright-infringement/
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Well, in general, I guess if one's photographic life consists of ARAT, then there's not a whole lot to protect; in fact, one is probably treading on other more established toes already...
But then such radical thoughts are but one of my little idiosyncracies, of which there are many. But they're all mine.
Rob C
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Rob, every day I try to learn something new, so help me out please for today's dose: what the hell is ARAT?
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Yes, what is ARAT?
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ARAT
Another rock, another tree.
;-)
Rob C
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I can't read the first link...it's blocked here at work, but the second....are you seriously holding up a dinosaur necklace as an example of the importance of protecting copyright and patent law? Is that idea so novel and unique that the creator deserves exclusivity? I can't imagine the court case where an individual tries to establish that they were the first and only person to put dinosaur bones on a necklace.
The idea of a dinosaur on necklace is of course something that is not copyrightable. However it is not just another necklace it is a direct copy as are all the other copies of the various other designs. Just as bad as me putting my signature on the Mona Lisa or my photocopying an Ansel Adams and claiming it as my own.
Saying a dinosaur on a necklace is not original is like saying words in a book is not an original idea. Copyright protects the expression of an idea. Not the concept.
Copyright and patent are out of control. Their applicability is absurd and their length far longer than originally intended. While I can't honestly say that I want them fully abolished, they certainly need to be overhauled and probably weakened. For example: http://www.petapixel.com/2012/01/25/create-a-similarly-composed-photo-in-the-uk-risk-copyright-infringement/
You simply have no idea about copyright and use extreme cases to demonise it. As daft as banning kitchen knives because some people misuse them. I could ask to ban or restrict just about anything I could think of if I took your stance
As for the photo copying case, it not as crazy as it seems. The reason the infringer was punished is because he had previous long running dodgy form in trying to rip off the plaintiff. Not just because he took a similar photo. Context is important and that's what you keep missing in your attacks and criticisms.
And you've still not added anything constructive in what could replace or improve on copyright and patents.
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ARAT
Another rock, another tree.
;-)
Meowww!
And haha haha. ;D
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Re.ARAT
Can't claim it for my own, unfortunately, since the first time I came across it was courtesy a post elsewhere form WalterEG. At first I thought he was being biblical, but that clearly didn't quite fit.
On the credit side, I think I was the first to use/coin LuLa - if heads are to roll on that score, then maybe it should/can? be mine.
;-)
Rob C
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The idea of a dinosaur on necklace is of course something that is not copyrightable. However it is not just another necklace it is a direct copy as are all the other copies of the various other designs. Just as bad as me putting my signature on the Mona Lisa or my photocopying an Ansel Adams and claiming it as my own.
Saying a dinosaur on a necklace is not original is like saying words in a book is not an original idea. Copyright protects the expression of an idea. Not the concept.
You simply have no idea about copyright and use extreme cases to demonise it. As daft as banning kitchen knives because some people misuse them. I could ask to ban or restrict just about anything I could think of if I took your stance
As for the photo copying case, it not as crazy as it seems. The reason the infringer was punished is because he had previous long running dodgy form in trying to rip off the plaintiff. Not just because he took a similar photo. Context is important and that's what you keep missing in your attacks and criticisms.
And you've still not added anything constructive in what could replace or improve on copyright and patents.
You are a pretty strong defender of the traditional system of copyright and patent. Me, not so much. I have repeatedly said that I probably wouldn't support completely abolishing copyright and patent, but I really want to see it radically transformed.
You have claimed that I have only offered extreme anecdotes to "demonize" intellectual property. You are right that my method of argument has focused on anecdotal evidence because that is all we have. There are no double-blind scientific studies that can prove or disprove our different points of view. Your arguments, on the other hand, have only been assertions with no backup. You have claimed that all investment in R&D would cease. That isn't an unreasonable assertion, but it is without any substantiation--it relies on the opinion of people who have a lot to gain or lose. Your anecdote of the necklace as you admit doesn't rise to the level of a copyrightable idea or innovation.
It is very hard for either of us to prove whether intellectual property is good or bad because in the modern era, we have never really had an environment without intellectual property law to compare. What we can look at are examples of disruptive innovations that have spawned rapid development and growth--without intellectual property dragging it down. For example, we can look at the dot com period of the late 1990s. There was a massive increase in innovation growth and investment. Amazon wasn't able to patent online shopping because 500 people invented it at the same time, enabled by new, unpatented technologies that weren't present 1 year before. Those technologies were dropped on us by DARPA researchers--without patents. What is the most popular internet webserver? The open source webserver Apache. It has been for years. It is free to use, extend, modify and copy.
I would suggest that it could be really possible that weakening patent and copyright could have the unexpected effect of actually stimulating MORE innovation instead of less. The innovation may not like like the grand multi billion dollar develpoment projects that pharmaceuticals require, but they may be just as transformative, like the internet. BJL also mentioned this above:
Indeed, there seems to be plenty of evidence that fruitful lines of treatment not based on patentable approaches get neglected. Not to mention the sometimes disproportionate emphasis on discomforts of the affluent over more severe afflictions of less profitable patients. Consider the disease category added to our vocabulary a decade or two ago to justify "medications" like Viagra.
Fundamentally the creative impulse is NOT dictated by the desire for wealth. The human spirit is creative and inventive. Look at the millions of people contributing to youtube...granted 99 percent of it sucks, but frequently there is some great stuff put up that is innovative, creative or beautiful. ...and it is given for free.
Now JJJ, I must say this is a very interesting topic to me, but I am not a big fan of your style of argument. Your tone isn't pleasant to me. For example "You simply have no idea about copyright..." and "...suggest a stupid one and I'll call it stupid." Those are ad hominem attacks and they do nothing to advance your argument except trying to bully your debate partner. I am interested in continuing to discuss the merits of intellectual property rights, but we should stick to the topic.
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I am interested in continuing to discuss the merits of intellectual property rights, but we should stick to the topic.
Trailpixie,
I agree with most of your argument and would like to expand on it.
Currently, we know:
- The Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998 extended copyright terms in the United States by 20 years. Since the Copyright Act of 1976, copyright would last for the life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship. The Act extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier. Copyright protection for works published prior to January 1, 1978, was increased by 20 years to a total of 95 years from their publication date.
- This current copyright law requires vigilance on the part of the copyright owner to legally pursue any and all infringers of their property with the intention of ending any infringement. "Legally pursue" now includes legal entities (citizens and corporations) from one country arresting a legal entity in another country. The Megaupload arrests are the latest example of this. I'm not insinuating any innocence or culpability in this case, I'm merely using it as an example of how legal entities can now use their governments to pursue individuals in other countries (this in itself is frightening). The ultimate infringement here is loss of revenue to the content creators. If there was no loss of income, I doubt anything would have been done.
Entire legal teams exist only to pursue patent infringement. The latest example is in the crop fields of the USA where Monsanto sues farmers who inadvertently grow a few feet of Roundup Ready Soybean because a few seeds found their way onto the "infringing" farmer's land. Their actions are protected (and prompted) by our patent laws. (A dirt road typically separates one farmer's land from another).
BTW, Monsanto lawyers have shut down the majority of seed harvesters because kernels of their hybrids were found in the harvester's combines. This has effectively shut down the ability for farmers to grow heirloom food plants, drastically reducing the number of food varieties available to the consumer. These actions, too, are protected and prompted by our patent laws. A worst-case scenario from these actions would be entire crops wiped out (i.e., billions of acres) by a chemical-resistant strain of bug, weed or virus causing a massive, world-wide food shortage.
We have never lived in an economy or society with very short copyright and patent terms. Only speculation can be made as to what would occur. I speculate that innovation would occur at a logarithmic rate of increase. Some claim that innovation would cease. The classic example being that it wouldn't be economically viable to produce, say, a cancer cure. I speculate that if Company X declined to produce such a drug, then Company Y, Z or Ω would step in to provide the product.
I include these examples of patent protection because it and copyright protection both fall under laws for the protection of intellectual property, and legal arguments for one can be easily applied to the other. This is because the ultimate aim of these laws is to protect the revenue derived from the intellectual property.
When we talk about photography, the immediate inclination is to view the copyright as a tool that protects income. Back in the 1970's and 1980's stock photography expanded greatly and provided many photographers with a good income. Comstock being the highest profile in 1984, with the owners taking crews to the Bahamas and producing classic BIBOB (babe in bikini on beach) images which sold by the truckload. Production costs ran about $200,000 with total sales at $1,000,000 it wasn't a bad investment (source: PDN, 2/1984). All these images are protected under the copyright act, but now Comstock's library is a part of Jupiter Images, which is a part of Getty Images. Getty Images' revenue was about $400,000,000 in 2008.
All the content that created revenue is protected by copyright laws, but now the business model is being eaten away by royalty-free imagery. This move to a royalty-free business model is caused and/or motivated by two things: quick access to billions of images via the internet, and the democratization of images. More people are producing photographs now than at any time in history. It's a buyer's market out there, but the content is still protected by copyright laws. If copyrights were reduced to 10 years total, would it affect this business model? Not significantly, because the rate of image creation will keep accelerating, and a better or more appropriate image would soon be available.
Outside the world of stock photography, we have images from Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, for example. How is copyright protection a benefit to others? One way is that I can log onto the Ansel Adams gallery and buy a print from an original negative. The same is true for Weston's work. Because of the copyright laws, the gallery can retain control of the reproduction of the images and customers will receive a print that's been produced professional and with care to the content's reproduction. In addition to this benefit to the marketplace, the family heirs of both Adams and Weston receive financial revenue (Matthew Adams and Cara Weston, respectively). I speculate both Adams and Weston would appreciate this.
Lastly, I see, Trailpixie you copyright the content of your web site. As an advocate for minimal or zero copyrights, why do you do this? (I'm curious, not antagonistic).
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... I see, Trailpixie you copyright the content of your web site. As an advocate for minimal or zero copyrights, why do you do this? (I'm curious, not antagonistic).
Hehe... but of course!
We are all socialists/communists as consumers and capitalists as producers.
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Trailpixie,
I agree with most of your argument and would like to expand on it.
...
We have never lived in an economy or society with very short copyright and patent terms. Only speculation can be made as to what would occur. I speculate that innovation would occur at a logarithmic rate of increase. Some claim that innovation would cease. The classic example being that it wouldn't be economically viable to produce, say, a cancer cure. I speculate that if Company X declined to produce such a drug, then Company Y, Z or Ω would step in to provide the product.
I include these examples of patent protection because it and copyright protection both fall under laws for the protection of intellectual property, and legal arguments for one can be easily applied to the other. This is because the ultimate aim of these laws is to protect the revenue derived from the intellectual property.
When we talk about photography, the immediate inclination is to view the copyright as a tool that protects income. Back in the 1970's and 1980's stock photography expanded greatly and provided many photographers with a good income. Comstock being the highest profile in 1984, with the owners taking crews to the Bahamas and producing classic BIBOB (babe in bikini on beach) images which sold by the truckload. Production costs ran about $200,000 with total sales at $1,000,000 it wasn't a bad investment (source: PDN, 2/1984). All these images are protected under the copyright act, but now Comstock's library is a part of Jupiter Images, which is a part of Getty Images. Getty Images' revenue was about $400,000,000 in 2008.
All the content that created revenue is protected by copyright laws, but now the business model is being eaten away by royalty-free imagery. This move to a royalty-free business model is caused and/or motivated by two things: quick access to billions of images via the internet, and the democratization of images. More people are producing photographs now than at any time in history. It's a buyer's market out there, but the content is still protected by copyright laws. If copyrights were reduced to 10 years total, would it affect this business model? Not significantly, because the rate of image creation will keep accelerating, and a better or more appropriate image would soon be available.
...
Lastly, I see, Trailpixie you copyright the content of your web site. As an advocate for minimal or zero copyrights, why do you do this? (I'm curious, not antagonistic).
Interesting stuff. It is amazing how many ways people can inadvertently get caught up in these issues. I hadn't heard about the issues with corn growers. It is amazing how far the reach of lawyers can go!
While many are unhappy about it, I agree that stock photography, has been commoditized. The truth is that you don't need to be a "professional" to create work that is of professional quality. Even if most amateur stock photographers don't produce good quality, by crowd-sourcing something like stock photography you can end up with the same results at a fraction of the cost. Considering the recent CNN layoff of photo journalists , people are now thinking they can crowd source photo journalism. You can debate the issue on journalistic grounds, but there is no denying that any shlub with a cell phone camera can be more effective than a photo journalist who might take hours or days to arrive on the scene and then catch the aftermath.
Making a living at stock photography is dead. Copyright won't stop it and didn't cause it. Disruptive technologies killed stock photography. That may be seen as a bad thing, but disruptive technologies are where progress is made. Patents and copyright slow down the development of disruptive technologies.
Photography as an art, as a service, or as a performance has a bright future. People want fine art photography for their marketing, for their wedding, and for their walls. For this work to be profitable, it needs to be one-of-a-kind. You can't use stock photography for your wedding album. You can't use stock photography for your band's promotional posters. These photo shoots are a service that a photographer can provide and make a living at, particularly if they are excellent at their craft and at selling themselves. There is nothing here about protectionism or copyright. Photography as a service is most of what is left (except perhaps teaching workshops as our benefactor here does).
As for putting copyright on my website...good observation, by the way...even though I have copyright, I am not fiercely proprietary about the low resolution images. I make a small amount on large prints of very high resolution images. The capture, processing, and print is my performance. It is difficult for someone to steal THAT from me unless I foolishly posted my 60 MP images online. You can call my behavior hypocritical or you can call it flexible. If one of my photos becomes famous for some bizarre reason, I potentially have a lot to gain by copyrighting my work, just as many of the other talented LuLA photographers do. I work the system as it is today to my best advantage. If the rules ever change, we will all be forced to adapt.
When people are faced with the use of something they feel they own or created (see Everything is a Remix Part IV), they can get pretty emotional--even though the emotion isn't really based in any truly moral issue, but instead based on a perceived entitlement.
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Hehe... but of course!
We are all socialists/communists as consumers and capitalists as producers.
That is a good way to put it. What is important is that as rational actors we learn to appreciate the both points of view.
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Outside the world of stock photography, we have images from Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, for example. How is copyright protection a benefit to others? One way is that I can log onto the Ansel Adams gallery and buy a print from an original negative. The same is true for Weston's work. Because of the copyright laws, the gallery can retain control of the reproduction of the images and customers will receive a print that's been produced professional and with care to the content's reproduction. In addition to this benefit to the marketplace, the family heirs of both Adams and Weston receive financial revenue (Matthew Adams and Cara Weston, respectively). I speculate both Adams and Weston would appreciate this.
I am curious about something, which may be slightly off-topic; the paragraph above reminded me of it. My questions concern works that are in the public domain, like Dickens or Shakespeare, etc. If someone decides to re-publish a Dickens work, where do they get the source material? Do they hire someone to re-type a Penguin classic? Do they borrow the author's original manuscripts? From who? Are they curated in a museum? Is the media in a delicate condition that would preclude lending them out? Do the curators provide "official" copies to work from? What if 2 publishers want them at the same time?
Once the copyright runs out on Adams or Weston works, the people who hold the negatives now will still hold them. Printing from the originals will still reside with them, regardless of copyright status.
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People who create modern editions of titles that are out of copyright can get it wherever they want...one place is from the Guttenbertg project, but there is nothing to stop them from rekeying it from a Penguin edition. On the other hand, these book manufacturers manage to create the illusion of a copyrighted work by creating a new introduction or dedication by some notable related author. That section is copyrighted, but not the text. Further, they can copyright the layout, typesetting, cover and frontmatter of the new book.
As for historical negatives, Yes, I think you are right. Those who hold the negatives will be the only ones able to make good prints, unless of course someone has been foolish enough to release high-quality digital scans of the negs. Owning the negatives is actually more valuable to posterity and more protective than a copyright ever could be.
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... As for historical negatives, Yes, I think you are right. Those who hold the negatives will be the only ones able to make good prints, unless of course someone has been foolish enough to release high-quality digital scans of the negs. Owning the negatives is actually more valuable to posterity and more protective than a copyright ever could be.
Seriously!? You people never heard of scanners? Or digital cameras?
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Re.ARAT ... At first I thought he was being biblical, but that clearly didn't quite fit.
Another Rock, Another Ruin, Another Tree?
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Interesting stuff. It is amazing how many ways people can inadvertently get caught up in these issues. I hadn't heard about the issues with corn growers.
Set aside a few bucks and 93 minutes and watch this (http://www.youtube.com/movie?v=jRp71BwRW8c&ob=av1n&feature=mv_sr).
I work the system as it is today to my best advantage. If the rules ever change, we will all be forced to adapt.
What I read here is that you'll gladly use the system which you disagree with. Any chance this year of you being pro-active about what you believe in? Again, I'm not being antagonistic, but it is a nudge. Complacency dooms all dreams.
One of my clients writes up a renewable contract every 10 years. If awarded, I become an "approved" vendor and get a lot of work from them. One of the stipulations, naturally, is a buy-out of all rights. When negotiating this contract last year, I stipulated that any image not selected for final use will have its copyright revert to me. The legal team had no idea that a simple shot of a few people in a corn field was only one selected from many and circled the wagons. I was brought in for a face-to-face. No designers, no art directors, no art buyers, no creative directors were there. Just me and two of their lawyers.
The lawyers wanted all the "data" even though the company only wanted to pay for final selected images. The contract is worth up to $1,000,000 of revenue. What would you do? Would you handle it differently if the copyright laws were different?
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You are a pretty strong defender of the traditional system of copyright and patent. Me, not so much. I have repeatedly said that I probably wouldn't support completely abolishing copyright and patent, but I really want to see it radically transformed.
And yet despite repeatedly being asked, you offer no better alternative. It's very easy to criticise, a lot harder to be constructive.
You have claimed that I have only offered extreme anecdotes to "demonize" intellectual property. You are right that my method of argument has focused on anecdotal evidence because that is all we have. There are no double-blind scientific studies that can prove or disprove our different points of view. Your arguments, on the other hand, have only been assertions with no backup. You have claimed that all investment in R&D would cease. That isn't an unreasonable assertion, but it is without any substantiation--it relies on the opinion of people who have a lot to gain or lose. Your anecdote of the necklace as you admit doesn't rise to the level of a copyrightable idea or innovation.
My Bold.
Two things
It is not an anecdote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdote), it is a specific example of copyright infringement.
I said you cannot copyright an idea e.g. dinosaur necklace. However the expression of the idea is copyrightable i.e. that specific design and that is what is being infringed in this example.
This is just another demostration of why I say you do not understand copyright. Which is not an ad hominen attack, just an observation because you simply keep posting things like this showing you are not fully aware what copyright actually is.
Also to be specific, I said expensive R+D would cease and it definitely would as if you cannot pay for it then it won't be done, outside of Government research or very rich philanthropists of which there won't be so many if patents and copyright are gotten rid of. :P
It is very hard for either of us to prove whether intellectual property is good or bad because in the modern era, we have never really had an environment without intellectual property law to compare. What we can look at are examples of disruptive innovations that have spawned rapid development and growth--without intellectual property dragging it down. For example, we can look at the dot com period of the late 1990s. There was a massive increase in innovation growth and investment. Amazon wasn't able to patent online shopping because 500 people invented it at the same time, enabled by new, unpatented technologies that weren't present 1 year before.
Again, you've got your facts completely wrong. Amazon applied for a patent for 'One Click Shopping' and not online shopping and was successful in doing so. I'd also be curious to know about these unpatented technologies that suddenly allowed online shopping.
BTW - I should point out that Amazon's idiotic applications for patents and all the other daft ideas that companies try to patent is very much not something I support. My suggestion is that you tackle the abuses of the system, not remove the system and replace it with nothing.
I would suggest that it could be really possible that weakening patent and copyright could have the unexpected effect of actually stimulating MORE innovation instead of less. The innovation may not like like the grand multi billion dollar develpoment projects that pharmaceuticals require, but they may be just as transformative, like the internet.
The internet was tranformative with our current laws, so you are very misplaced in thinking it was a patent free zone. And it was driven very much by the desire to make money and do not underestimate how expensive it can be to develop software. Even something as 'simple' as Angry Birds cost more than €100, 000 and the company did more than 60 prior attempts at a money spinner..
It should also be pointed out a lot of 'internet innovation' is not even subject to patenting in the same way that books are not subject to patenting, as content and presentation is the main thing. Though devices that produce books or allow the internet to work are usually patentable.
Fundamentally the creative impulse is NOT dictated by the desire for wealth....
True for some people, but not for others and not actually relevant. Personally, I'm not motivated by money, but a lack of money can seriously limit your creativity. Hard to take photos without a camera, process them without a computer or pay for film and developing.
....The human spirit is creative and inventive. Look at the millions of people contributing to youtube...granted 99 percent of it sucks, but frequently there is some great stuff put up that is innovative, creative or beautiful. ...and it is given for free.
This is a very naive and again not really relevant argument. Most of YouTube's content cost virtually nothing to make and is mostly done by people who have other income to be able to afford the limited gear you need to post on YT, besides you can make a lot of money from YouTube if you have a hit or if you get work as a result. And is exactly why a great deal of YT content is produced.
Now JJJ, I must say this is a very interesting topic to me, but I am not a big fan of your style of argument. Your tone isn't pleasant to me. For example "You simply have no idea about copyright..." and "...suggest a stupid one and I'll call it stupid." Those are ad hominem attacks and they do nothing to advance your argument except trying to bully your debate partner. I am interested in continuing to discuss the merits of intellectual property rights, but we should stick to the topic.
It you do not want me to say you do not know anything about copyright, stop posting stuff that demonstrates exactly that or use examples that are simply made up. Also bear in mind that things may sound much harsher when typed than if said in person. I actually find these debates fun and stimulating.
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Entire legal teams exist only to pursue patent infringement. The latest example is in the crop fields of the USA where Monsanto sues farmers who inadvertently grow a few feet of Roundup Ready Soybean because a few seeds found their way onto the "infringing" farmer's land. Their actions are protected (and prompted) by our patent laws. (A dirt road typically separates one farmer's land from another).
BTW, Monsanto lawyers have shut down the majority of seed harvesters because kernels of their hybrids were found in the harvester's combines. This has effectively shut down the ability for farmers to grow heirloom food plants, drastically reducing the number of food varieties available to the consumer. These actions, too, are protected and prompted by our patent laws. A worst-case scenario from these actions would be entire crops wiped out (i.e., billions of acres) by a chemical-resistant strain of bug, weed or virus causing a massive, world-wide food shortage.
This is simply an example of corporate money using lawyers and deep pockets to crush smaller and far less rich opposition. And the case in many countries would probably be chucked out of court as it is absurd. I hate Monsanto for many reasons, this is just one of them.
We have never lived in an economy or society with very short copyright and patent terms. Only speculation can be made as to what would occur.
Not true We do so currently. Drugs have relatively short patent lives, currently 12 years [in USA]. So companies hope to make their money back before patent expires.
I speculate that innovation would occur at a logarithmic rate of increase. Some claim that innovation would cease. The classic example being that it wouldn't be economically viable to produce, say, a cancer cure. I speculate that if Company X declined to produce such a drug, then Company Y, Z or Ω would step in to provide the product.
So if company X decided it would lose money if it proceeded, then do you really think other companies would step in to lose money instead. That is not how businesses work.
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As for putting copyright on my website...good observation, by the way...even though I have copyright, I am not fiercely proprietary about the low resolution images. I make a small amount on large prints of very high resolution images. The capture, processing, and print is my performance. It is difficult for someone to steal THAT from me unless I foolishly posted my 60 MP images online.
One could simply buy a print and copy it. Job done.
You can call my behavior hypocritical or you can call it flexible. If one of my photos becomes famous for some bizarre reason, I potentially have a lot to gain by copyrighting my work, just as many of the other talented LuLA photographers do. I work the system as it is today to my best advantage. If the rules ever change, we will all be forced to adapt.
You do not have to do anything to copyright your work. It is covered as soon as you create it. You are not working the system at all, you are simply selling photos that as of yet, you do not know if they have been used to line other's pockets.
If you found someone else selling your photos, what would you do?
When people are faced with the use of something they feel they own or created (see Everything is a Remix Part IV), they can get pretty emotional--even though the emotion isn't really based in any truly moral issue, but instead based on a perceived entitlement.
Funny that you think people perceive that they should be paid for work that they have done is not a moral issue. Shoplifting reduces profitability of a shop, maybe even closing it, taking people's copy written work could far more easily destroy their livelihood.
I think you entirely missed the point made about theft in that video. The author said people get very upset when it is their work is stolen, but often don't see any problem with stealing other's work. Which he pointed out was hypocritical.
If you think your business of selling prints is safe, don't. People can make reproductions of prints or copy your photos off the web and display them on their photo frames or TV instead of buying a print.
It's also interesting that you promote a reduction in copyright whilst you think your business would not be affected.
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Seriously!? You people never heard of scanners? Or digital cameras?
Apparently not.
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Set aside a few bucks and 93 minutes and watch this (http://www.youtube.com/movie?v=jRp71BwRW8c&ob=av1n&feature=mv_sr).
Not getting link to anything!
Is is the rather excellent Food Inc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food,_Inc.) by any chance?
......The lawyers wanted all the "data" even though the company only wanted to pay for final selected images. The contract is worth up to $1,000,000 of revenue. What would you do? Would you handle it differently if the copyright laws were different?
That sounds normal for corporate work, you get paid well enough not to need to resell images and often they are not really that useful to anyone else.
As long as you can use them for portfolio work, most photographers would be quite happy with that. Particularly if paid that much. ;D
However, when magazines that pay rubbish rates try and claim your copyright as has happened in the UK, then photographers get pissed off.
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Is is the rather excellent Food Inc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food,_Inc.) by any chance?
Yes.
That sounds normal for corporate work, you get paid well enough not to need to resell images and often they are not really that useful to anyone else.
You didn't answer the questions, but I'm guessing you'd be okay with the contract as offered.
You do not have to do anything to copyright your work.
To pursue someone in court, the work needs to be registered with the Library of Congress Copyrights Office before the date of first infringement. Therefore, an artist must register the work to protect himself even from possible future infringements.
Not true We do so currently. Drugs have relatively short patent lives, currently 12 years
Maybe for you 12 years is short (you must be 120 years old, eh?). To me, a span of time that would allow for profit making and innovation -- within the walls of the cathedral -- would be 5 years (otherwise known as a 2-version update cycle). The principle behind such short times is the freeing of information that provides for a logarithmic increase in innovation.
Where innovation stops completely is in the software industry. What would the world of retouching be like if Adobe released its source code 10 years ago? (To some, this is blasphemy).
Your posts, puttputt, are indicative of a corporate lawyer protecting his company at any cost. Is this your day job? I'm not reading any innovative ideas put forth by you, just a lot of huffing & puffing that you're satisfied with the way things are. If you've got some brave ideas, let's hear them. We promise that we'll butcher them. That seems to be the modus operandi here.
So if company X decided it would lose money if it proceeded, then do you really think other companies would step in to lose money instead. That is not how businesses work.
It's not how bloated businesses work. Your assumption -- all companies need decades to innovate and billions in profit -- is false.
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Wow, it's hard to be a moderate in this world. Chris_Brown has me from one side as not having strong enough convictions. and JJJ gets me from the other as being "naive."
Chris, to answer your question about how I should pursue something like this with more conviction. Simply put, I try not to be self righteous about everything I believe. When true injustice faces the world in the form of starvation, human trafficking, war, suppression of free speech, or poverty, it is hard to see a debate about intellectual property as something worthy of self-righteousness. It is the tendency for hyperbole in all debates that creates the toxic political environment we have today and makes compromise and progress impossible. Few are likely to starve due to the lengthening or shortening of copyright. I will advocate and politely pursue my point of view, but I am not taking to the streets for THIS issue.
And now onto JJJ's littany:
I'd also be curious to know about these unpatented technologies that suddenly allowed online shopping.
I specifically mentioned one: Apache server. Do you want some others? TCP/IP, PHP, or Perl. Though I disagree, you said that software doesn't count (I think you said that somewhere above). If I recall correctly, you diminished open initiatives as unimportant because they are software and all of these had some large manufacturer backing as a loss leader. I don't think that is true of these technologies. As for one-click shopping, we agree that this is another absurd example of a dumb patent.
As for digital copies of my work, you said...
One could simply buy a print and copy it. Job done.
It is impossible to create a second generation copy of a print that equals the first generation. Each subsequent digital rendering loses data and diminishes quality. With all the very sophisticated printing and imaging discussions here at LuLa, I would have thought that everyone would understand that a copy of a print would always lose quality in each subsequent version. My product is the highest quality print, not a low-res knockoff. The type of customer that I seek (and many of us here) values the highest quality. If you are referring to stock photography, yes fine. But for fine art prints, copies will not be good enough.
It you do not want me to say you do not know anything about copyright, stop posting stuff that demonstrates exactly that or use examples that are simply made up.
Could you please tell me what examples I have sited that are made up?
And yet despite repeatedly being asked, you offer no better alternative. It's very easy to criticise, a lot harder to be constructive.
What you don't see is that I AM being constructive. I have mentioned several times that by lowering barriers to copyright and patent, you would stimulate more disruptive technologies. You would also reduce the wasteful impact of all these bad patents and patent wars. This would increase efficiency of our economies so we could focus on actually inventing and building things instead of arguing about them and paying lawyers more money. This IS being constructive, though you don't see the wisdom in it.
Actually, it really appears that you are the one lacking in ideas. You have offered very little outside of 'reforming' intellectual copyright laws, but you haven't given any sort of idea what that might entail. How would you prevent patents on "on click shopping" from tyrannizing the market of ideas?
Fundamentally the creative impulse is NOT dictated by the desire for wealth....
True for some people, but not for others and not actually relevant.
Personally, I'm not motivated by money, but a lack of money can seriously limit your creativity. Hard to take photos without a camera, process them without a computer or pay for film and developing.
....The human spirit is creative and inventive. Look at the millions of people contributing to youtube...granted 99 percent of it sucks, but frequently there is some great stuff put up that is innovative, creative or beautiful. ...and it is given for free.
This is a very naive and again not really relevant argument. Most of YouTube's content cost virtually nothing to make and is mostly done by people who have other income to be able to afford the limited gear you need to post on YT, besides you can make a lot of money from YouTube if you have a hit or if you get work as a result. And is exactly why a great deal of YT content is produced.
You like to call people naive. That is almost the definition of a demeaning word choice...now on to the substance of your comment. Well, actually, you didn't say much true here. Science has repeatedly proven that humans don't increase creative and analytical performance based on financial incentives.
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
...and if you need me to draw a picture for you...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
You say this isn't relevant, but it is. The purpose of copyright and patent is to motivate people to create and innovate. Increasing monetary profit doesn't increase performance and won't increase innovation in our society.
I actually find these debates fun and stimulating.
Another point on which we can agree.
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Chris_Brown has me from one side as not having strong enough convictions. and JJJ gets me from the other as being "naive."
We share a cubical. :D
When true injustice faces the world in the form of starvation, human trafficking, war, suppression of free speech, or poverty, it is hard to see a debate about intellectual property as something worthy of self-righteousness.
Agreed. It's not worthy of self-righteousness (did I imply that?), but it is worthy of discussion and negotiation in our day-to-day lives. Anything you believe in is worthy of discussion. I don't expect to change your mind, or puttputt's, but I do expect critical thinking from those I work with and negotiate with. It is in these daily negotiations and experiences that one's private opinion is formed, and thus the public opinion.
We here are more informed about copyrights than any talking head on cable news blathering for a paycheck. It is here and in professional associations (ASMP, APA) where intelligent discussion takes place. It is in our workplace where true changes occur.
Like it or not, you are on the front line.
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We here are more informed about copyrights than any talking head on cable news blathering for a paycheck. It is here and in professional associations (ASMP, APA) where intelligent discussion takes place. It is in our workplace where true changes occur.
Like it or not, you are on the front line.
Exactly! And that's why I find it so odd that there are souls here who think protecting the little we have left is somehow flawed, an anchor chain on progress.
Stock had once been fondly imagined as being the greater part of my pension; what a cute idea that turned out to be! I'd probably have been far better off spending the time and money getting drunk.
Rob C
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To pursue someone in court, the work needs to be registered with the Library of Congress Copyrights Office before the date of first infringement. Therefore, an artist must register the work to protect himself even from possible future infringements.
Not true at all. Remember most people do not live in the US and what the US copyright registration means is that you get a bigger payout in a US court.
Maybe for you 12 years is short (you must be 120 years old, eh?).
Hardly, but 12 years is short compared to lifetime + 70 years that copyright has.
To me, a span of time that would allow for profit making and innovation -- within the walls of the cathedral -- would be 5 years (otherwise known as a 2-version update cycle). The principle behind such short times is the freeing of information that provides for a logarithmic increase in innovation.
Yet other companies may need longer time periods to recoup costs and make money. Plus you need to make a decent amount to further future research.
Where innovation stops completely is in the software industry. What would the world of retouching be like if Adobe released its source code 10 years ago? (To some, this is blasphemy).
Yeah, there's been no innovation at all in software in last 15 -20 years, if only anybody could use other's work....
Your posts, puttputt, are indicative of a corporate lawyer protecting his company at any cost. Is this your day job?
My day job is photography which would take no effort for you to discover. And I feel part of my job is to be knowledgable about my industry including tedious legal crap. And do you really think mangling my business name helps you win an argument?
I'm not reading any innovative ideas put forth by you, just a lot of huffing & puffing that you're satisfied with the way things are. If you've got some brave ideas, let's hear them. We promise that we'll butcher them. That seems to be the modus operandi here.
Actually the onus on suggesting new ideas is on those who want things changing. I do think copyright and patents are fundamentally a good thing but that doesn't mean I approve of patent trolling and copyright daftness. The issue is not in fact the system, it's the people abusing the system and whatever the system people will abuse it. This you would have known if you'd read my previous posts. Clamp down on abuse of patents and such like is a far more sensible and practical approach in my view.
So if company X decided it would lose money if it proceeded, then do you really think other companies would step in to lose money instead. That is not how businesses work.
It's not how bloated businesses work. Your assumption -- all companies need decades to innovate and billions in profit -- is false.
Again try actually reading the words in my post, preferably in the order they were written before replying. All I said was that business want to make a profit. I gave no timeline nor did I state any amount of money. No business will pursue a modus operandi unless it is thought to result in making money. That is the only reason they exist.
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Wow, it's hard to be a moderate in this world. Chris_Brown has me from one side as not having strong enough convictions. and JJJ gets me from the other as being "naive."
Er you are not being moderate. Your ideas are to my mind a tad extreme.
Chris, to answer your question about how I should pursue something like this with more conviction. Simply put, I try not to be self righteous about everything I believe. When true injustice faces the world in the form of starvation, human trafficking, war, suppression of free speech, or poverty, it is hard to see a debate about intellectual property as something worthy of self-righteousness. It is the tendency for hyperbole in all debates that creates the toxic political environment we have today and makes compromise and progress impossible. Few are likely to starve due to the lengthening or shortening of copyright. I will advocate and politely pursue my point of view, but I am not taking to the streets for THIS issue.
And this particular quote is ironically,a perfect example of hyperbole.
In case you hadn't noticed, caring about one particular subject does not stop you caring about other aspects of life which may be less or more important. And as it happens, if you do not earn money from one's work, putting food on your table gets a bit tricky. Local supermarkets do not accept bylines in exchange for groceries. :(
And now onto JJJ's littany:
I specifically mentioned one: Apache server. Do you want some others? TCP/IP, PHP, or Perl. Though I disagree, you said that software doesn't count (I think you said that somewhere above).
What I said was you cannot patent software like you can gadgets. Software is usually protected by copyright.
"Within European Union member states, the EPO and other national patent offices have issued many patents for inventions involving software since the European Patent Convention (EPC) came into force in the late 1970s. Article 52 EPC excludes "programs for computers" from patentability (Art. 52(2)) to the extent that a patent application relates to a computer program "as such" (Art. 52(3))." Though some companies have tried and succeeded to finagle patents for software.
If I recall correctly, you diminished open initiatives as unimportant because they are software and all of these had some large manufacturer backing as a loss leader. I don't think that is true of these technologies.
Not really what I said. So was no-one involved in creating these open source initiatives, not employed by anyone else. As it's easy to do free work if you are being subsidised by a day job. Now if you dismiss patents and copyright a lot of people in work, suddenly won't be.
As for one-click shopping, we agree that this is another absurd example of a dumb patent.
Actually do you know what would solve a lot of problems with copyright and patents? Ignore the crazy American legal system which allows these abuses to take place. It's far less of an issue in rest of the world, just as suing Raleigh, a bike company for an accident caused by the rider cycling a night without lights or MacDonalds getting done by someone who spilt a hot coffee over themselves whilst driving. Here in the UK, the driver would simply get done for careless driving and the cyclist told off for riding withoutl ights.
As for digital copies of my work, you said...It is impossible to create a second generation copy of a print that equals the first generation. Each subsequent digital rendering loses data and diminishes quality. With all the very sophisticated printing and imaging discussions here at LuLa, I would have thought that everyone would understand that a copy of a print would always lose quality in each subsequent version. My product is the highest quality print, not a low-res knockoff.
You really think a high quality copy cannot be made of your prints? Of course it can. Technology is quite clever now. :P
The type of customer that I seek (and many of us here) values the highest quality. If you are referring to stock photography, yes fine. But for fine art prints, copies will not be good enough.
Lots of people have spent a lot of money on fake works of art. And no I was not referring to stock imagery - which actually demands pretty high levels of quality. And the beauty [and drawback for some] of digital, is that copying does not degrade information, unlike analogue data recordings.
Could you please tell me what examples I have sited that are made up?
"Amazon wasn't able to patent online shopping because 500 people invented it at the same time," was one of several inaccurate statements.
What you don't see is that I AM being constructive. I have mentioned several times that by lowering barriers to copyright and patent, you would stimulate more disruptive technologies. You would also reduce the wasteful impact of all these bad patents and patent wars. This would increase efficiency of our economies so we could focus on actually inventing and building things instead of arguing about them and paying lawyers more money. This IS being constructive, though you don't see the wisdom in it.
Abolishing Copyright/patents is not constructive, it is destructive. Tell you what I will abolish all those pesky laws that impede my business progress and stop paying all those lawyers money. Robbing banks, of course I should be allowed to do that as then I can afford to buy a camera then, because with no copyright, I won't earn very much money from photography itself. Other laws that annoy me and impede my progress as a business are things like custom's tax. Why can't I simply buy things from abroad with out paying import duty, after all if everyone could do that people would shop more and stimulate the economy. Except it wouldn't as loads of other people would lose money locally and would make my countrie's economy suffer really badly. Technology has been continually disruptive over last few years even with patents in place. So much so, that it's a full time job keeping up and you think it should be even faster! Not to mention the big flaw in your plan that even a short 5 year patent would be irrelevant when things change annually or faster.
Another thing to bear in mind is that patents/copyright was brought is as no copyright/patents didn't work/was unfair.
Actually, it really appears that you are the one lacking in ideas. You have offered very little outside of 'reforming' intellectual copyright laws, but you haven't given any sort of idea what that might entail. How would you prevent patents on "on click shopping" from tyrannizing the market of ideas?
Copyright and patents are a good idea in principle. So why do I have to suggest a better solution as I already approve in principle of this system despite its flaws. The US allowing just about anything to be patented is the real issue.
You like to call people naive.
Only naive people. :P
That is almost the definition of a demeaning word choice...now on to the substance of your comment. Well, actually, you didn't say much true here. Science has repeatedly proven that humans don't increase creative and analytical performance based on financial incentives.
And I'd also be the first one to argue that financial rewards are not key to improving productivity or whatever. But unless money is made overall, businesses will fail. Which is the important issue here, not individuals motivation within a business. I am not primarily motivated by money, but am very aware that if I do not make make money I don't get to be creative or get to feed myself. Copyright allows people to be creative as they benefit from the fruits of their labour. Copyright is simply a wage for work done. We live in a world where money is needed and until that changes.......
Not really sure how to respond to rest of this point as the English doesn't much sense make. ;)
As for the Dan Pink talk you referenced (http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html). On the whole I'm very much in accord with motivation as described in this talk, but do not think it relevant to copyright protection. As removing copyright/patent protection is more akin to stopping people's entire wages and not their bonuses.
As it happened I solved the candle issue in about two seconds and the reason why offering money slowed people down when solving this problem is that it then put a stress on people to perform, as opposed to just letting them do things in their own time. Which is what the control group did. The erroneous and simplistic conclusion stated by Dan Pink in the early part of his talk is that money was the problem, whereas money was just the symbol of the pressure. Money could be replaced by a variety of other stress risers and you'd get the same results.
Seth Godin wrote an interesting article on motivation a while back and spoke about very similar things.
You say this isn't relevant, but it is. The purpose of copyright and patent is to motivate people to create and innovate. Increasing monetary profit doesn't increase performance and won't increase innovation in our society.
The purpose was for those who do create to be able to benefit from their work and to prevent others taking advantage of them. People do object to themselves being exploited. I'm not money motivated, but I'm buggered if someone else is going to profit out of my labour with recompensing me. People do not feel exploited when adding to wikipedia, but if Wikipedia stated charging money and made billionaires out of their business, then people would be far less inclined to help.
My girlfriend's uncle is typical of those who do photography as a hobby and are not bothered about getting paid for it and as a result is thoroughly exploited by some businesses who now do not have to pay a pro to do it for them. Yet he can only do this as he had a well paid job already. Now if the photographers offered to do his job for nothing as it was fun, he'd be out of a job and would have to charge for his photography and he'd be really pissed off.
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Stock had once been fondly imagined as being the greater part of my pension; what a cute idea that turned out to be! I'd probably have been far better off spending the time and money getting drunk.
Or buying Apple stock in 1997!
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Er you are not being moderate. Your ideas are to my mind a tad extreme.
And this particular quote is ironically,a perfect example of hyperbole.
In case you hadn't noticed, caring about one particular subject does not stop you caring about other aspects of life which may be less or more important. And as it happens, if you do not earn money from one's work, putting food on your table gets a bit tricky. Local supermarkets do not accept bylines in exchange for groceries. :(
What I said was you cannot patent software like you can gadgets. Software is usually protected by copyright.
"Within European Union member states, the EPO and other national patent offices have issued many patents for inventions involving software since the European Patent Convention (EPC) came into force in the late 1970s. Article 52 EPC excludes "programs for computers" from patentability (Art. 52(2)) to the extent that a patent application relates to a computer program "as such" (Art. 52(3))." Though some companies have tried and succeeded to finagle patents for software.
Not really what I said. So was no-one involved in creating these open source initiatives, not employed by anyone else. As it's easy to do free work if you are being subsidised by a day job. Now if you dismiss patents and copyright a lot of people in work, suddenly won't be.
In the US patents are awarded for software too. Several of my coworkers have been awarded patents as part of their work developing software. Unfortunately, none of them have really benefited from their innovation because the company owns their work.
Actually do you know what would solve a lot of problems with copyright and patents? Ignore the crazy American legal system which allows these abuses to take place. It's far less of an issue in rest of the world, just as suing Raleigh, a bike company for an accident caused by the rider cycling a night without lights or MacDonalds getting done by someone who spilt a hot coffee over themselves whilst driving. Here in the UK, the driver would simply get done for careless driving and the cyclist told off for riding withoutl ights.
There is a lot of craziness in this world, but the McDonalds Coffee one is not a good example. http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0122-11.htm I've never heard of the cyclist story. I guess the UK doesn't have frivolous lawsuits. That must mean you guys are better than everyone else. ;-)
You really think a high quality copy cannot be made of your prints? Of course it can. Technology is quite clever now. :P
Lots of people have spent a lot of money on fake works of art. And no I was not referring to stock imagery - which actually demands pretty high levels of quality. And the beauty [and drawback for some] of digital, is that copying does not degrade information, unlike analogue data recordings.
Don't agree.
"Amazon wasn't able to patent online shopping because 500 people invented it at the same time," was one of several inaccurate statements. Try again.
Amazon WAS awarded a patent for the "invention" of one-click shopping in the US. That is what I was referring to. Later that patent was reviewed and some aspects of the patent were rescinded. http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0122-11.htm I guess the UK doesn't have frivolous patents. That must mean you guys are better than everyone else. ;-)
Copyright and patents are a good idea in principle. So why do I have to suggest a better solution as I already approve in principle of this system despite its flaws. The US allowing just about anything to be patented is the real issue.
Lots of things are good in principle, but they turn out to be bad in practice. Increases in penalties for drunk driving resulted in increased incidence of hit and run. Sometimes things don't have the positive effect you are looking for. When this happens, you need to change the rules. You have repeatedly mentioned reforming, but you have never said anything about how to do it.
Seth Godin wrote an interesting article on motivation a while back and spoke about very similar things.
The purpose was for those who do create to be able to benefit from their work and to prevent others taking advantage of them. People do object to themselves being exploited. I'm not money motivated, but I'm buggered if someone else is going to profit out of my labour with recompensing me. People do not feel exploited when adding to wikipedia, but if Wikipedia stated charging money and made billionaires out of their business, then people would be far less inclined to help.
My girlfriend's uncle is typical of those who do photography as a hobby and are not bothered about getting paid for it and as a result is thoroughly exploited by some businesses who now do not have to pay a pro to do it for them. Yet he can only do this as he had a well paid job already. Now if the photographers offered to do his job for nothing as it was fun, he'd be out of a job and would have to charge for his photography and he'd be really pissed off.
It sounds like you better get out of the photo business fast. It is obviously a sinking ship. Really, it is! Unless you differentiate your photography as a value added SERVICE, the low cost of equipment and the reasonably high quality of amateurs will drive you into poverty. Copyright and/or patent won't save you or the photographers who want to sell their intellectual property. It was put on the path to ruin by technology innovations, just like John Henry, the Steel Driving Man. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI0D44zYP-Q
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You have repeatedly mentioned reforming, but you have never said anything about how to do it.
Again you seem really confused, you are the one who keeps going on about reforming not me. The problems in the current system are human greed, which would only get worse if your reductions in protection i.e. reforms were to take place.
Copyright and/or patent won't save you or the photographers who want to sell their intellectual property.
Dumbest comment yet.
Burglar alarms and window locks won't prevent a determined burglar either, but leaving doors and windows wide open will allow anyone to help themselves.
Amazon WAS awarded a patent for the "invention" of one-click shopping in the US. That is what I was referring to.
Except that was very definitely not what you said.
You said ""Amazon wasn't able to patent online shopping because 500 people invented it at the same time"
So seeing as you canot even agree with yourself or see where you make mistakes, what's the point in debating anything further.
You seem quite a selfish person with little empathy as you are calling for reform that will not really affect your business, but will cripple or destroy many others and with no real benefits to those who create.