ASCAP War On Free Culture Escalates 335
An anonymous reader writes "After ASCAP declared war on free culture and Creative Commons responded on the incident, the war of words is escalating. Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid has been following this story closely. The EFF responded to the ASCAP letter, saying 'we don't think that ASCAP characterized EFF and its work accurately. We believe that artists should be compensated for their work, and one proposal we have for that is Voluntary Collective Licensing.' The response from the EFF came with a study and a letter written by one irate ASCAP member who donated to the EFF and to Public Knowledge as a result of the ASCAP letter. Public Knowledge also responded to the letter, saying, 'It's obvious that the characterization of Public Knowledge is false. Public Knowledge advocates for balanced copyright and an open Internet the empowers creators and the public. What we oppose are overreaching policies proposed by large corporate copyright holders that punish lawful users of technology and copyrighted works.' Now the National Music Publishers Association has weighed in to support ASCAP, saying that organizations like Public Knowledge and the EFF 'have an extremist radical anti-copyright agenda,' according to a transcript of a speech posted on Billboard. Public Knowledge has dismissed those allegations, saying 'anybody who has spent more than five minutes on our website or talking to our staff knows that these things are not true.'"
Ha. (Score:5, Interesting)
Radical extremists? (Score:5, Interesting)
It looks to me like it's the established music (and film as well) industry whose position on copyright is radical and extreme.
ASCAP itself is an incredibly mafia-like entity. I've known bartenders who have been shaken down by ASCAP thugs for fees that they clearly didn't owe, as bands that performed in those bars played their own, non-ASCAP compositions. The bar owners soon find out that the ASCAP fees are far cheaper than the legal fees.
And these lying, theiving sociopaths have the gall to say that the EFF is radical and extreme? I'd laugh if it weren't so pathetic. ASCAP execs belong in prison for their extortion of bar owners (and likely other establishments).
What % of $$ is made in the first year? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know, but I suspect that most money from movies, books, or songs, is made in the first year.
Buffer Copies? (Score:5, Interesting)
From the speech, item #7 on the list of reasons they hate the EFF et. alia: 'They favor the elimination of the songwriter and publisher rights for server, cache and buffer copies.'
I am actually rather shocked that ANYONE can rationalize royalty fees for 'server, buffer, and cache' copies of content. This is content that people are not seeing or hearing. These are invisible pink unicorn copies.
Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda (Score:1, Interesting)
Almost nothing is lost in modern societies where there are publicly funded institutions that have the job of preserving works, so that they can be studied and eventually enjoyed when they pass into the public domain. I.e. when hell freezes over.
The problem is not that works are lost, the problem is the part about hell freezing over before anything passes into the public domain.
Copyright would basically work as intended if it was limited to about 15 years and if it was enforced only by the police and never by made-up private police forces.
Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda (Score:5, Interesting)
Once the money involved in creating that content has been paid, copyright should automatically expire.
It sounds to me like you are unfamiliar with Hollywood Accounting. Have you ever wondered how the MPAA can claim that the companies it represents keep losing money, yet somehow those companies never seem to go out of business? The movie studios never post profits, because they deliberately spend money on nonexistence services -- they have contracts with shell companies that simply hold their money and use it to fund the next movie. The purpose here is to cheat actors out of their fair share of the profits. Any copyright system that maintained monopolies on works up to the break even point would only result in even more widespread use of these tactics.
Really, copyright terms should be shortened, reined back to 20 years, maybe even less. This would be a compromise that helps establish a strong public domain without eradicating copyrights entirely. Of course, that will never happen, since the copyright lobbyists have more power in congress than the rest of the population...
Greed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Extremism (Score:3, Interesting)
A Canadian politician used the same language a week ago, coincidence?
Re:Buffer Copies? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps a demo of what happens to the average streamed MP3 without buffering and with no caching. Or without allowing access to server copies.
Re:Ha. (Score:3, Interesting)
it seems to be going in the wrong direction. for some reason eff and public knowledge are _defending_ themselves, so they look half-guilty and inefficient.
calling ascap greedy thieves who are doing blackmail would be more appropriate and effective. couple that with stories of their wrongdoings, and it is more likely to touch the common person.
My Opinion: Bite Back (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that the time has come for the members of our community (individual and organizational) to stop holding ourselves to a higher standard of decency. The simple, ugly fact is that these kinds of battles are won by those who are willing to fight according to the rules of the game -- ie: dirty.
These fascists are bent on corrupting our legislative process to put more power into the pockets of copyright lawyers and labels with no regard for the artists they manipulate beyond their own corporate self-interest, let alone the interests of other artists or society as a whole. That is, perhaps, as it should be. Corporations are supposed to be purely rationally self-interested. But do not let them pretend the moral high ground.
Let us put this argument on the ground it should be on. Do not merely defend our position that copyright should be designed to maximize artistic productivity and reach within our society as a whole -- expose their rationally self-interested fascism and corruption for what it is. They do not have the interest of the advance of science and the useful arts at heart. They want the progress of the useful arts strictly controlled in a manner that maximizes their corporations' acquisition of wealth.
I do not begrudge them this desire. They are what our economic system designs them to be. But it is entirely necessary that we, in our public discourse of such matters, consider them as they truly are. In short, they have made this a matter of public opinion. Tell the public what these vicious animals are, in the harshest and most unflattering light possible.
another license != copyright elimination/extremism (Score:2, Interesting)
Creative Commons is a LICENSE. It's built on and entirely dependent on copyright. ASCAP deals with licenses all the time. Creative Commons and similar licenses are another variety of copyright license with different terms. If ASCAP wanted to provide some legal advise for artists and claim it isn't a good license, fine, but why go to ridiculous extremes such as claiming it undermines copyright itself? Why?
It's obvious what the real problem is. Creative Commons and similar options are a special kind of license that ASCAP must care deeply about because it's an option that artists can choose to apply to their own copyrighted work -- without involving ASCAP. This is why ASCAP is fearful. It leaves them out of the equation. They worry that artists will choose to distribute their works using some other license option on the Internet.
It's a scary proposition when your racket is being threatened, and they're lashing out at it as maliciously as possible. Thus, ASCAP must misinform artists about alternative licenses, and scare artists into thinking copyright is under threat if these licenses are used. It's nonsense. Artists are free under copyright law to choose whatever license they want. Copyright itself is untouched. ASCAP must paint institutions that support alternative licenses as having ulterior (and false) goals such as eliminating copyright. Also nonsense, given that these institutions use copyright every day in their own works.
Basically, ASCAP hopes artists won't come to understand what the Internet can do: get rid of the middlemen. Thus, ASCAP is against choice when it comes to artists and copyright licenses.
So, how does it feel, artists, to have "your" interests being taken care of by ASCAP?
Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda (Score:5, Interesting)
That states that in Canada there are more original titles published every year than reprints. Apart from having a number of titles doubling every year, the only explanation for that is that some (most in fact) books go into oblivion after their first print (I mean, is there a single person claiming that the majority of books are reprinted several times ?)
It happened to me several time to pick old books on garage sales, and when liking it, looking for books of the same author. When the book is 50+ years old, it is incredibely difficult ! There is one author that I liken to Saint-Exupery, but with more humor, that is completely unknown and unpublished as of today. Thanks to internet, it is now possible to find used copies, but for how long ? The one I have is losing its yellow pages.
Even famous people like Henri Laborit have some of their works unfindable today. (I am willing to pay twice the normal price if you find me the book "La Nouvelle Grille"). And don't get me started on comic books and roleplaying games (Amber, Circus, Bitume, Starwars D6, very good games out of print for other reasons than lack of success). Current copyright laws may allow some authors make a living, but they are also erasing a volume of culture that should qualify as "vandalism against humanity". That is something that is important to correct.
Re:wrong product and/or wrong line of work (Score:1, Interesting)
Posting as anon since I already modded this article.
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
-- Benito Mussolini
Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda (Score:3, Interesting)
Most books are not edited anymore, but copying them instead of letting the content die is forbidden.
I too did not understand the editing point. However, if one replaces "edited" with "published", then it makes more sense - only a fraction of the literature that has even been written is still published or sold - there are many, many works which one can no longer buy, otherwise than finding a copy in a second hand bookshop or the like.
However, despite these works not being available on the market (i.e. the knowledge within the works cannot be further disseminated to society), it remains an infringement of copyright to copy them - copying them, making their otherwise-unavailable content available once again, is forbidden, in favour of the letting the work, and its knowledge, die away (at least until the term of protection of copyright expires).
I suppose that some would look to promote a claim of "moral rights" - that the author should be permitted to allow the book to sit, unavailable, after a limited print run, although I struggle somewhat with this, if protection really is granted for the advancement of learning, society and knowledge. Were the law to provide proceeds of resale to authors, then, I could understand this more (i.e. that, by maintaining artificial scarcity, the price of the few copies available is artificially elevated above that which would be supported in a market in which the number of copies was not restricted, with the author receiving part of each onwards sale), but, it does not - otherwise than a feeling of control, does an author really benefit, if he has no plan to reissue the work? (I appreciate that this is what some do- in particular, media companies which periodically release, then withdraw, their works, so that, when re-released, a new generation buys them, having previously been unable to do so.)
(I do not necessarily support a system based on this practice, but merely could understand the claim against copying unavailable works more if it were the case.)
Re:naah, EFF is not extremist enough (Score:5, Interesting)
Calling something "extremist" is an attempt to slide the Overton Window [wikipedia.org] away from that position.
A silly example of how this works:
Party A: This bill proposes that we kill 10 puppies a day, just for the fun of it!
Party B: That's horrible! Why would you ever do such a thing?
Party A: Ok, ok, we'll compromise - how about only 5 a day?
Party B: In the interests of bipartisanship, we'll go along with that.
Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, where the hell do people get this idea of creative artists sitting on their work like evil geniuses, expressly to prevent somebody else from using it? That's not the way it works. Hell, I challenge you to name one author who has done it, just one.
As far as availability goes, that has to do with economics of demand. So long as the demand is present, the book is available - it does the publisher and its author no good if it's sitting in a vault. Once the demand goes away, the book goes out of circulation. Most books do not stand the test of time, but that's cultural attrition, not copyright. Even if copyright was only for twenty years, most books would still go out of print and stay there. At least while a book is in copyright, it has somebody to champion it and try to keep it in print.
And, just because Disney does this with their DVD releases of movies, it doesn't make it the general rule.
Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, where the hell do people get this idea of creative artists sitting on their work like evil geniuses, expressly to prevent somebody else from using it? That's not the way it works. Hell, I challenge you to name one author who has done it, just one.
I'm sure it's not the general rule at all - I talk to authors regularly (mainly to say thank you for books I enjoy, but also as part of research), and I have yet to come across any who would sit on a work, as you suggest, to prevent publication. Disney, as you say, sounds like the exception - but a powerful one - although, since I have only spoken with a small sample of authors, I could not be sure that there were not more. That being said, many authors are keen to exploit the monopoly of control granted by copyright - relatively few authors dedicate their latest book to the public domain.
But, the system, if not the authors, does not support the making available of books once the initial rush has died down - as you say, it is a matter of economics as to what gets published. However, if it is no longer economic to publish, then the author no longer makes any money from sales (since the books are not available to buy new, once stocks are depleted), and so it strikes me that there is very little reason to maintain a restriction over the book.
However, perhaps the author is not the person capable of making the decision - that the decision for this kind of release is reserved to the publisher, either under the agreement to publish, or else by assignment of the copyright to the publisher. Perhaps if the author were to retain the rights to reissue the work under his own terms once publication ceases, we would have a far healthier system of older books and works. Or, better still, divest the work to the public domain once the book is no longer published, although this is likely to raise the not-inconsiderable hackles of those who do want to use control as a mechanism for raising price / sustainability. The strength of opposition to Google Books suggest that at least some publishers and/or authors are against making texts available.
Re:Ha. (Score:3, Interesting)
That's an interesting observation. EFF and Public Knowledge are usually defending ideals, not themselves. And defending themselves does tend to make them look guilty of something which is probably the plan since "public opinion" invariably targets "middle ground." By making these accusations and negative assertions, it shifts the perceived middle further away from the freedom-fighting EFF and PK.
Re:Ha. (Score:3, Interesting)
Just remember, corporations are evil, shareholders are evil, and the fact that they often do society a great deal of good should never confuse anyone to the fundamental immorality of these groups. You're average corporate shill would stab you in the back, cut your heart out and eat it if general societal mores weren't in the way. They are deviants that should be controlled, and one way to do this is that when one of them makes this sort of claim, they should be seized and dropped somewhere in the Pacific, preferably with a large number of sharks, as a reminder to all the other corporate sociopaths that society tolerates you so long as you don't try to fuck us over too much.
Re:Ha. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda (Score:2, Interesting)
You are talking about dropping a book into the public domain once the sales are no longer enough to keep it in print, and in order to do that, you have to strip all rights the author has to their own book away. So, if the author wants to try again, they can't - the book is in the public domain, and they no longer have any say in the matter.
No, you are not putting words into my mouth - that was exactly what I was proposing in the post above.
The fact it is in the public domain does not stop the author from republishing it at all, since not everyone wants to download a copy, or use a print-on-demand facility, but it does mean that those who want it, but cannot get it through normal sales channels, since it is no longer available, can do so.
all rights the author has to their own book away.
I think this is probably the crux of the difference in our views - I struggle with the notion that the law should grant a property right, enabling ownership, of something intangible like a story, or contents of a book. The physical book, yes; the content, no. Perhaps some form of right over what someone produces is a necessity, perhaps it is not - I've yet to see sufficient evidence to be persuaded either way on this, but I do not consider there to be an intrisic (i.e. non-positive law) right, such as ownership, afforded to the developer of an intangible.
Re:Radical extremists? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've known bartenders who have been shaken down by ASCAP thugs for fees that they clearly didn't owe, as bands that performed in those bars played their own, non-ASCAP compositions.
Ever daydream that you're on a jury, and you get to convince your fellow jurors to acquit the biker gang who just beat an ASCAP representative into retardation? And afterward, the gang buys you a beer out of gratitude, and it turns out that they're pretty OK guys who just didn't want someone shaking down their favorite hangout?
Yeah, me neither.
Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda (Score:3, Interesting)
Copyright prevents non-profit archiving and redistribution of the unprofitable works. There is a huge gap between 'not work printing more' and 'no one wants'. For a trivial example, look at all the torrents (or for that matter, ebay auctions) for TV shows that the owners do not consider worth reprinting but the viewers consider valuable enough to obtain and distribute themselves... or even make bootlegs and sell them on ebay. It is not hard to find instances where economic demand exists but the rights owners still do not consider it profitable enough to redirrect their limited resources into.
Re:Welcome to the USA (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not an "all or nothing" choice (Score:3, Interesting)
You are talking about dropping a book into the public domain once the sales are no longer enough to keep it in print, and in order to do that, you have to strip all rights the author has to their own book away. So, if the author wants to try again, they can't - the book is in the public domain, and they no longer have any say in the matter.
You do realize there are alternatives to just "all or nothing", right? For example, bringing back copyright renewal accompanied by a registration fee (which in fact used to be the way it was done in the U.S.). Statistical evidence shows that the vast majority of works were not renewed, indicating that the copyright owners did not think the fairly small renewal fee was worth it.
That sort of system both enhances the public domain and allows authors who believe their work has continued economic value to continue to exploit the copyright. In fact, one proposal by Posner (7th Circuit Appeals Court Judge, famous for law and economics) and Landes (a well-known IP academic) actually makes a case for indefinite copyright. See: Landes, William M, and Richard A Posner. “Indefinitely Renewable Copyright.” University of Chicago Law Review 70 (2003): 471.
Re:Ha. (Score:2, Interesting)
the fact that they often do society a great deal of good should never confuse anyone to the fundamental immorality of these groups.
is it really a fact that they do society a great deal of good? Is overpopulation driven by more efficient means of goods movement really a good thing? Is bringing a bunch of black stuff up out of the ground just so we can go to very similar places from where we used to be very quickly also a really good thing? Is destruction of a dynamic ecosystem with use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers a very good thing? Similarly for GMO products whose potential long term deleterious effects were never tested by any government, are they good for society? "Too big to fail" banks and investment companies are good for the society upon whose back their "mistakes" were placed? Unless I missed your sarcasm, I argue that you overrate the value or contributions of corporations to society.