Respecting copyright laws

[allix]

I noticed in a few recent interviews the topic of respecting copyright was brought up.
The point being , if we want people, business and other large organisations to respect and abide by the gpl ,other free software licences and the creative commons licence we should abide by their proprietary and media content licences.

What's everyone's thoughts on this?

[Tsuroerusu]

I noticed in a few recent interviews the topic of respecting copyright was brought up.
The point being , if we want people, business and other large organisations to respect and abide by the gpl ,other free software licences and the creative commons licence we should abide by their proprietary and media content licences.

What's everyone's thoughts on this?

As long as the RIAA and MPAA, continually, are going out of their way to restrict the public with repressionist copyright laws, I am never gonna respect them, in any shape or form. There's a great quote, from a banner on the web-page of the Xbox-Linux project: "the DMCA is a war on education", which could not be more true.
Also, even if we bend over, and abide by ever Gestapo-like copyright law out there (Which involves not listening to music you've paid for on another media than you got it for, not lending a book to a friend, not lending a DVD to a friend etc. etc. etc.), people would still violate the GPL. Just ask the BusyBox guys! Companies are violating their copyright all the time, the amount of GPL violation suits they have filed recently is just the very tip of the iceberg.
I'm a realist, I don't live in a utopian paradise where everybody respects each other reciprocally. I'm not gonna respect the DMCA or software patents, I'm just not, because those legislations are unjust and should be abolished entirely.

Sony, a film studio, violated the GPL with their rootkit, which used parts of the source code for LAME, without properly releasing the source code.

Thinking that people are magically gonna abide by the GPL if "we respect their license", is just being naive and unrealistic. There's always gonna be greedy corporations who just wants to use other people's code for free (as in beer), without any responsibility or respect to whatever license conditions it might have, in the case of the GPL (This includes version three), those being very very minor, fair and simple in my opinion.

I don't believe in total pacifism (Not defending yourself if you're attacked), when people do wrong to you, in my opinion it's best to fight back. In the case of these greedy bastards over at the RIAA and MPAA (Who buys laws to take away our freedom), they don't deserve to have their "licenses" respected, what they deserve is bankruptcy, it's simple justice!
I'm not saying that artists don't deserve to be paid for good work they do, but I'm not gonna abide by licenses that does nothing but ass-raping the end-user.

People violate the GPL all the time, it happens a lot more than what we see, and you know what! Thanks to the DMCA, it's illegal for free software authors to find out!! Yes, it's illegal for free software authors to track down violations of their copyrights, because the DMCA prohibits reverse engineering of anything that's encrypted, or part of a DRM system, or other similar scenarios.

Respect is never something you can get by force (The lawsuits the RIAA is doing, has done nothing but the opposite of their intent), it's something you earn, and that's the case anywhere in life. My favorite example these days, are all the fundamentalist assholes who say that Denmark (My country) should abolish free speech to cater to their idiotic fundamentalist agendas, or otherwise they're gonna light cars, buildings and other things on fire. The thing that they want, is respect from the native Danish population, and you know what, by doing all they're doing, they're getting the opposite of that, and I can assure you that people are gonna look down on these guys, and be hostile towards any argument they might come up with.

[greggh]

I can respect copyright, but not the law as it is currently written in the US. When the founding fathers included the concept of copyright in the constitution they borrowed it from England where it began with "The Company of Stationers" and later the "Statute of Anne". The founding fathers had the idea, and wrote as much, that the purpose of granting copyright was to promote for society the useful arts and sciences, and it should be for a limited time. I can't respect what the law has been perverted into by selling out the interests of the citizens to the corporate highest bidders to get the term up to something like 150 years now. Congress keeps adding 20 years retroactively to the terms every 20 years. If corporate interests have their way, and citizens' interests continue to be sold out, nothing will ever fall into the public domain again

[Tsuroerusu]

I can respect copyright, but not the law as it is currently written in the US. When the founding fathers included the concept of copyright in the constitution they borrowed it from England where it began with "The Company of Stationers" and later the "Statute of Anne". The founding fathers had the idea, and wrote as much, that the purpose of granting copyright was to promote for society the useful arts and sciences, and it should be for a limited time. I can't respect what the law has been perverted into by selling out the interests of the citizens to the corporate highest bidders to get the term up to something like 150 years now. Congress keeps adding 20 years retroactively to the terms every 20 years. If corporate interests have their way, and citizens interest's continue to be sold out, nothing will ever fall into the public domain again

I could not agree more!
Today's copyright system flies in the face of it's original intent, by stifling and restricting innovation in the name of corporate interests.

[greggh]

Tsuroerusu, I think you would like this speech that Stallman gave in Norway

Richard Stallman - Copyright and Community

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... arch_type=

It's in 12 parts and a little long but I thought it was great.

Starting in part 7 at 6:55 and ending after the first minute of part 9 he talks about the music industry and music sharing on the web. I think he had an interesting take on that.

Stallman: "I read that in the US the average person spent $17 or so on recorded music per year. And this is about the price of one CD. And of that, we can estimate that on the average 4% goes to musicians, which is about $1, less. And most of that is going to the superstars."

[Tsuroerusu]

Tsuroerusu, I think you would like this speech that Stallman gave in Norway

Richard Stallman - Copyright and Community

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... arch_type=

It's in 12 parts and a little long but I thought it was great.

Starting in part 7 at 6:55 and ending after the first minute of part 9 he talks about the music industry and music sharing on the web. I think he had an interesting take on that.

Stallman: "I read that in the US the average person spent $17 or so on recorded music per year. And this is about the price of one CD. And of that, we can estimate that on the average 4% goes to musicians, which is about $1, less. And most of that is going to the superstars."

It's pretty funny you mention it, because I've watched that entire speech like three or four times!
One can't blame Richard Stallman for not doing his research for his speeches.

[greggh]

Tsuroerusu, I think you would like this speech that Stallman gave in Norway

Richard Stallman - Copyright and Community

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... arch_type=

It's in 12 parts and a little long but I thought it was great.

Starting in part 7 at 6:55 and ending after the first minute of part 9 he talks about the music industry and music sharing on the web. I think he had an interesting take on that.

Stallman: "I read that in the US the average person spent $17 or so on recorded music per year. And this is about the price of one CD. And of that, we can estimate that on the average 4% goes to musicians, which is about $1, less. And most of that is going to the superstars."

It's pretty funny you mention it, because I've watched that entire speech like three or four times!
One can't blame Richard Stallman for not doing his research for his speeches.

That is pretty funny. I'll probably end up watching it a couple of more times myself.

I just now started watching a new Stallman speech posted yesterday to Youtube that he gave near your neck of the woods in Lund

http://www.youtube.com/user/bfb72

So far only the first 7 parts have been uploaded. Hopefully the guy will add the rest of the speech soon. Edit: I just noticed that this is from the same guy that upped the copyright speech.

[davijordan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sJUDx7i ... re=related

[greggh]

no comment.

I don't understand the relevance of your attachment? Or is there supposed to be any?

[allix]

some interesting points made. If the artist is well known i have no guilt in just downloading the album from tpb or wherever, smaller artists that actually need the money i feel i should financially support them and buy their music. I personally have never paid for digital downloads because i enjoy the sound quality of a cd/vinyl. If Flac, Wav, monkey or even ALAC were available i *may* have a different opinion.

In regard to films its pretty much the same, although dvd rips on the most part never look like retail dvds , all sorts of artefacts show up.
A lot of the video content i download illegal is not even available to buy because its recorded from tv in non-english speaking countries and when the media is put onto DVD, there is the cost of shipping from another country which can be quite pricey. However time to time I buy DVDs from small labels because i know without people like me paying they are not going to be able to release great material so often.

There is a advertising kind of model going on in China because they have giving up in trying to stop piracy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p ... 251211.stm

Of course that type of model is not realistic for everyone wanting to make a living from music....as well as not being everyones choice for various reasons...

[Tsuroerusu]

If the artist is well known i have no guilt in just downloading the album from tpb or wherever, smaller artists that actually need the money i feel i should financially support them and buy their music.

In any of the scenarios you mention, I don't feel bad at all, nor do I think anybody should feel bad about downloading music from the Internet. I don't really care how small an artist may be, if they're going through the big music labels, they don't deserve anything good, because they're part of the big mafia business that is doing racketeering and repression of the public. If businesses can't respect the rights of the public as a whole, then they don't deserve any sort of respect from the public, what they deserve is bankruptcy, which I seriously doubt that file sharing is ever gonna cause them to experience.
Also, if an artist is very small and makes a good song or some other form of music (Who in their right might would pay for crap! Yeah I know most of what gets produced these days is crap, but still!), chances are that they might actually benefit from having that available on The Pirate Bay or something, or some of these newer ways for an artist to make a living.

I personally have never paid for digital downloads because i enjoy the sound quality of a cd/vinyl. If Flac, Wav, monkey or even ALAC were available i *may* have a different opinion.

You ought to take a good look at magnatune.com, I have paid for music there before.

A lot of the video content i download illegal is not even available to buy because its recorded from tv in non-english speaking countries and when the media is put onto DVD, there is the cost of shipping from another country which can be quite pricey. However time to time I buy DVDs from small labels because i know without people like me paying they are not going to be able to release great material so often.

Especially in the case where something is not available, I can not even in the smallest possible way see why it is "hurting" anybody!

There is a advertising kind of model going on in China because they have giving up in trying to stop piracy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p ... 251211.stm

Of course that type of model is not realistic for everyone wanting to make a living from music....as well as not being everyones choice for various reasons...

"To catch a fish, you gotta think like one, see like one. They go with the flow. They use the water surrounding their bodies to sense what'll happen next. If you move against the flow of the water, the fish feels it, and darts away at the last minute. But, if you don't fight the current, and flow with it instead..."

[davijordan]

no comment.

I don't understand the relevance of your attachment? Or is there supposed to be any?

I put that thee just as a place holder till i could find the lyrics, Actually I was thinking about Alice's Restaurant and how linux and the gpl will survive. You might be too young to remember, but:

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singing a bar of linux and the gpl walking out. They may think it's an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of linux and the gpl and
walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.....
Apologies to Arlo Guthrie and Alices Restautant

[davijordan]

Public Interest Group fighting for user rights.

http://www.publicknowledge.org/