Why online piracy isn't theft

huntjump said:
Actually Chris, it is completely RIGHT and pursuant to international law that New Zealand signed on to. It's known as the Berne Convention [...]
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Actually the Berne Convention is not concerned with extradition at all. All it stipulates is that New Zealand recognizes the copyright of foreign authors in the persecution of domestic copyright infringement in New Zealand. That's it.

Arguing that it then also provides for arbitrary shipping of infringers between signatury countries is a big stretch.

China for example does not see this agreement as binding, though signed it (and we all know how much China respects copyright hah).
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There are some interesting things happening in China currently. There is a draft law on the table discussing copyright of music within China: http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2012-04/06/content_25077760.htm

The proposal is that after the publication of a piece of music, it should enjoy copyright protection for only three months. After three months, anyone should have the right to make recordings of music created by others, whether or not the original copyright holder consents, as long as one pays a state-set, one-time usage fee, which then gets redistributed to copyright holders, similar to the ACLS fees from which Roger financed his M9.

It's interesting to see how China is positioning itself. This is not really concerned with private copying so much as with the creation of derivative works. Nevertheless it's pretty crass - three months is not a lot of time to establish an original piece of music on the market, and I can see how artists are not enthusiastic about this proposal. Authorities seem pretty set on this, however, and it will be interesting to watch how it plays out and what the results will be.
 
Authorities seem pretty set on this, however, and it will be interesting to watch how it plays out and what the results will be.
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This will indeed be interesting. Since the 'forties, China has been, allegedly, a Communist state, so it is coming from a totally different starting point. The essence of Communism is that the workers jointly own the means of production and the fruits of their work, while the state exists only to see fair play. I'm sure that many readers will give a hollow laugh at this point but that is the current myth.

It would seem to follow, then, that the three month offer is remarkably generous, in the view of the committed Communist, because the individual should share the means and the fruits of production with everyone else who made it possible, such as the people who educated him, the people who produce the food he eats and so on.

Of course, the Chinese elite have long since taken crypto capitalists under their wing and decided that Communism is for people who do not work for their friends. I anticipate that this is the start of China repositioning itself to do business with the rest of the world in the entertainment sphere.
 
Paul T. said:
Worth pointing out, as well, that we people in the publishing industry - which in the UK is the last great manufacturing industry - subsidise those in academia. There's a beautiful irony in the fact they think we should give our work away.
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There are a lot of beautiful ironies here. I've never been based in the UK, so the deindustrialization of the country and the resulting shifts in whose taxes subsidize whom don't affect me much. But one of those delightful ironies is that you call the UK publishing industry a "manufacturing industry", when much of the revenue stream you're putting so much effort into defending doesn't revolve around manufacturing anymore than does, say, the finance industry - which, incidentally, in terms of taxes contributes much more heavily to the financing of UK academia.

Another, less beautiful, but much more serious (and for some parts of your industry probably fatal) irony is that this publishing industry that you praise so loudly has in the last ten years been abysmally bad at keeping good relations with the academics that produce part of your content. That publishing industry of yours, for example, is lobbying very hard in countries like the US to remove regulation that research that is paid for with public funding needs to be publicly accessible; I'm sure you're aware of the protests over the last few months where thousands of scientists protested against publishing houses like Elsevier because of this. At the same time, it is not uncommon at all nowadays that you have to sign away the copyright of a paper already when submitting it for peer review. At this point nothing has been published, yet the publisher can do anything they want with your paper and its results. Then when you want to read your own paper in the journal it's published in, you better hope that you're affiliated with an institution whose library has an (extremely expensive, incidentally) bulk electronic subscription with the publisher, otherwise you end up paying significant amounts for the right to download your own paper. So as a content creator, not only do you not get any share of the revenue your content generates, in fact you have to pay to access it yourself. It is therefore hardly surprising that a lot of academics find open access models increasingly attractive - if you're not going to get any of the revenues for your own paper anyway, then why should some commercial entities get those revenues only to restrict access to your paper for everybody including yourself, when the alternative is open access which gives you the same revenue (zero minus zero again), the possibility of much more visibility, while merely denying the revenue from your paper to a few greedy sharks in suits, who aren't interested in your work anyway except as a cash cow. People in many branches of academia despise scientific publishers with a passion. Given that the content in question is actually produced by the academics themselves, rather than the "publishing industry", your derisory attitude is IMHO entirely unjustified.
 
Once you release an item into the ether it goes to all corners of the globe. You can not control what becomes of it nor into what uses it falls.

Not all recognize US law. And you had better believe that the citizens of 'signatory countries' will not take kindly to their friends and neighbors being absconded to foreign lands for imprisonment.

Copyright in the US was originally established for a short and finite time. Of course Disney has led the effort to stretch that time.

When a law becomes unenforceable, it ceases to be a law.

Only a world government with huge resources would be able to enforce trivial matters around the globe. The people of that era will consider it a waste of resources to pursue.

If you don't want something 'stolen' then don't post it. That is your only protection.
 
PKR said:
I have no idea. The info in the piece seems correct from my experience with copyright and photos over the past 30+ years or I wouldn't have posted it. Ya never know with lawyers.. many bad, a few really good ones..

"From The 7 Deadly Myths of Internet Copyright"
by Los Angeles Attorney David L. Amkraut

Email: CopyrightFacts@Earthlink.net
Fax: (818) 637-7809

Law Offices of David L. Amkraut
2272 Colorado Blvd., #1228
Los Angeles, CA 90041

It looks like the guy you cite.. The addresses match.

http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/90041-ca-david-amkraut-38495.html

It doesn't mean the info presented is incorrect though.. but worth a further search for those interested.
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I only ask because the website you referenced looks like one of those websites that posts pseudo-information on a topic when it is really just an advertisement for the guy that is mentioned. He even includes his contact info. Kind of like those websites that offer free information on how to lose weight, then they off-handily mention a supplement that "works great too."
 
wblynch said:
Once you release an item into the ether it goes to all corners of the globe. You can not control what becomes of it nor into what uses it falls.

Not all recognize US law. And you had better believe that the citizens of 'signatory countries' will not take kindly to their friends and neighbors being absconded to foreign lands for imprisonment.

Copyright in the US was originally established for a short and finite time. Of course Disney has led the effort to stretch that time.

When a law becomes unenforceable, it ceases to be a law.

Only a world government with huge resources would be able to enforce trivial matters around the globe. The people of that era will consider it a waste of resources to pursue.

If you don't want something 'stolen' then don't post it. That is your only protection.
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Well put. Technology and the internet have provided convenient means to distribute and air your work to a large proportion of the world population but also to copy it. Irrespective of rights, wrongs and laws that means you've given anything uploaded to the scrupulous and the unscrupulous. Unless you upload it with some means of control in-built, you cannot expect it not to be stolen directly. This reflects reality. If I point a gun at you and threaten to shoot you, would it be better to appease me, grovel, negotiate etc or better to point out that actually I could end up in prison for pulling the trigger?

If I were an artist, I would simply not upload usable-resolution photos, whole music tracks and so on. Even then, of course, some legitimate purchaser will likely do so. Digital files aren't secure, period. Time for a new approach and no, I can't say I have the answer to that problem.
 
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