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)
Re:Ha. (Score:5, Insightful)
If only we had better coverage of the issue offline. The mainstream media is wroth to anger their corporate overlords.
But millions of people are discovering the war on freedom through websites online...
Hence the need for an INTERNET KILL SWITCH!
Honestly, it's nearing the point where we should physically confront these politicians and smack them upside the head. The farcical pretense of democracy has been stretched so damn far that it might just tear down the middle.
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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.
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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.
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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,
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Honestly, it's nearing the point where we should physically confront these politicians and smack them upside the head.
Nearing the point? Only in the sense that we're so far past that point now that we've actually circled the earth and it is once again looming on the horizon.
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They will determine how this thing ends.
No they won't, the people with the shekels will decide how this thing ends, as always. And thats not some greedy corporation my friend, that's you and me.
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Re:Ha. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you know music artists? I am one, and I know a lot of them. I don't know any who think they "automatically deserve to be paid for producing their music". Most are thrilled when they can make a living from their music, but none expect to. Most musicians I know make WAY more money from shows and t-shirt sales than from CD or MP3 sales.
In fact, many, like myself, give the music away for free (I license it under the Creative Commons) in order to get more fans, so to have more people at shows and sell more merch.
Get my music for free at http://theexperiments.com/ [theexperiments.com]
Making music is a labor of love, and anyone who does it expecting to get rich is an idiot.
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Re:Ha. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ha. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Ya know that new CD you bought? ASCAP and RIAA won't let you copy it to your iPod."
"What?!?!?"
"That's right. They expect you to buy the song twice - once on CD and again for your iPod and then a third time for your computer. It's nuts." - That's how you get people to pay attention.
Re:Ha. (Score:5, Insightful)
Too mild.
"you know that New CD you bought? ASCAP and RIAA think that you are a stinking dirty THIEF scumbag if you put it on your ipod."
"They also think you are a complete douchebag that needs to go to jail and be raped if you loan the CD to someone..."
That is the approach you need to take, it get's attention far more than "they dont want to let you"
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ASCAP doesn't really have a horse in that race. They don't represent composers or publishers in licensing of mechanical rights.... If they are expressing an opinion at all, they're kind of exceeding their bounds. Either way, they are not a party to such transactions, making their leadership's opinions largely if not wholly irrelevant.
Re:Ha. (Score:4, Insightful)
too optimistic.
The way this generally goes is :
"you know that New CD you bought? ASCAP and RIAA think that you are a stinking dirty THIEF scumbag if you put it on your ipod." "hmm ... don't care really. I didn't buy a CD, I have it in iTune. by the way, do you have an idea how I could copy the track to my non-apple mp3 player?" "that's what I'm telling you. they won't let you do it" "yeah yeah ... [ rolls eyes ] ... nothing to do with me. I just want to copy it to my mp3 player. Anyway" double-face-palm
Face it : most people don't care a bit about copyright issues or changes to the system which might affect them. Sometimes I wonder whether it's because they just don't actually understand the concept. Copying music, movies or games isn't something people give tyo thoughts about. If it works, then great. if it doesn't they'll just bugger any halfway knowledgeable person they know until they can do it, without thinking twice about any legal implication. They just assume that ~something was broken~ and look for a fix. (incidentally, they are right : the copyright system is broken). Many never heard of the RIAA, MPAA and any attempt to explain what ACTA is and how it might be bad for them is met with a sardonic grin and some smartass remark about conspiracy theories
Another standard line I often hear? "hey... do you know where I can download free music?" "try jamendo.com or archive.org. Some very nice stuff there. Archive even has classic movies and tv-shows!" "hmm ... but nobody I ever heard about, so it sucks. I meant real music!" "nope, sorry. you'll have to pay for it and it's just better known, but not necessarily better. You could try torrents of course, but it's illegal" [their eyes go all glazy just before the mention of illegality. basically they didn't even register the word] "oh ... and how does it work?"
Re:Ha. (Score:4, Insightful)
This. My own wife was one of the rolleyes crowd right up until the WalMart store cancelled all the tracks she had purchased. THEN the lightbulb came on, and she got it. However, she only now checks that they are mp3's, so you couldn't necessarily call her a copyleft champion or anything.
ASCAP is (Score:2)
ASCAP = All Sound Cr@p Always Prevails .....?
Re:ASCAP is (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's easier than that.
AS = Ass.
CAP = Hat.
They're just a bunch of asshats. I don't think there is an actual composer or author left in the group; ASCAP years ago drove anyone with any common sense into either individual publishing and licensing, or the arms of rival groups.
I mean seriously. These are the same group of dickfaces who tried to sue 5-year-olds for singing songs at summer camp. [steinski.com] No joke.
David Bollier (Score:5, Informative)
I mean seriously. These are the same group of dickfaces who tried to sue 5-year-olds for singing songs at summer camp. [steinski.com] No joke.
For those who are not going to click the link, the material referenced there is from David Bollier [bollier.org]'s book "Brand Name Bullies".
That is still on my bookshelf, but I can highly recommend Bollier's work [bollier.org] generally, as a promotion of the concept of a "commons" - "Silent Theft" being a prime example, or, for those who prefer shorter reading matter, Bollier's paper, which gave rise to the book, "Public Assets, Private Profits" [bollier.org].
(As a lawyer with a keen interest in this area, I'm a big fan of David's work, and his easy-to-access writing style.)
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Personally, I do have a radical agenda (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that copyright should exist to promote the creation of content. Once the money involved in creating that content has been paid, copyright should automatically expire.
This isn't just about money. It's gotten to the point where I can't go a month without hearing someone mention something they'd like to do, or would like to track down, or would like to show others, but can't because of short-sighted copyright laws. How many books, movies, TV-shows, radio plays, and other content, is irretrievably lost for all time, not because of a lack of technology or willingness required to preserve it, but because of some insane and nonsensical copyright laws which prevent archival of content whose monetary incentive was long-since paid? This must end. Culture is dying.
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That tears it - I want to see your sources.
I'm sorry, but I actually work in the publishing industry, and I own a publishing company, and I think you're talking through your ass. So, I'm calling bullshit on these claims.
Aside from which, not only are most books edited (that's a key part of the publishing process), but whether they're edited has no bearing whatsoever on whether you can copy them. That's faulty logic on the level of South Park's Chewbacca defense.
So, provide your sources, or stop making the
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:Personally, I do have a radical agenda (Score:4, Insightful)
Orphan works are a major problem (Score:4, Insightful)
You claim that shortening copyright would have no impact on the availability of (many) books because there is no demand for them in the first place.
You then support your claim that there is no demand for them by claiming, presumably, that the cost of a limited print run would be so low that were there any demand, it could profitably be met.
I don't really buy this. Isn't the entire problem with thousands and thousands of orphaned works that the copyright holder can't even be easily identified? So that even if there is demand, and the costs of a limited print run are small enough that I decide it would be profitable to do it, I can't find the copyright holder (who may be dead, have gone out of business, or simply forgotten or lost the records pertaining to the copyright).
There are a huge number of books that are out of print but still under copyright. Wasn't one of the benefits of the Google Books scanning project to make these widely available at essentially no cost to interested readers? I could turn your argument around and say, look, if the copyright holders weren't exploiting their copyright and selling the book in the first place, clearly they didn't think it was worthwhile to do so, so what's the harm in Google scanning it and making it available?
Furthermore, there are other reasons to have access to the text of old books than just for passing interest or pleasure of reading them. Lots of scholars would love to have full-text search capability of old, out-of-print works, if only for statistical analysis. It doesn't make sense to do this with limited print runs, and it would be prohibitively expensive. Just scanning everything, OCR, and archival makes much more sense.
On the issue of film preservation, a letter from the National Film Preservation Foundation discusses the problem of orphan works again:
"In an environment of scare resources... Copyright status becomes part of the preservation decision-making process... I believe that important parts of America's film heritage will become lost to educators and the general public unless some simpler, more structured and cost-effective system can be developed for ascertaining the rights status of orphan works." (source [copyright.gov])
If copyright were shorter, there would be fewer orphan works, and at least according to that group, more preservation and dissemination of cultural material.
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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.
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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 c
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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. Dis
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"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."
So, let me get this straight - you're actually sayi
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 contin
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It disturbs me just how easily you talk about taking somebody's rights away. And frankly, that "intangible property" doesn't seem so intangible when you've spent months working on it.
How about this - take the time and effort to write a book of your own. Spend some time dealing with publishers, get it published. And THEN see what you think about how intangible it is.
Copyright isn't some inalienable right possessed by creators of works. It's a limited right granted by the government for a (supposedly) limited period of time, for the specific purpose of "promoting the progress of science and useful arts." The publishing industry has lobbied for and continually been granted extensions and expansions of the duration and scope of copyright, to the point where the public sees little benefit from the bargain in the first place. I hardly see it as some terrible thing to rol
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As far as availability goes, that has to do with economics of demand. So long as the demand is present, the book is available
How do you know there is demand for a book (ie people are interested in it and will read it) if there is no supply?
Chickens and eggs; although in this case the eggs can be made available for pennies each in digital form.
Mmmmm digital eggs .... need breakfast.
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How can there be sales figures for an out-of-print book?
The content has to be available for there can be any "sales", but there have to be "sales" before the publishers are willing to continue making the content available. That's why I went for chickens and eggs.
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Well, I've got to concede the movie stuff to you - frankly, the studio system is insane.
I'm afraid you're wrong about the publishing, though. The price of distribution isn't actually that high - generally, it's placed in the hands of a wholesaler such as Ingram (that's how I get the distribution for the books my company publishes). And, particularly when you're dealing with large print runs, the printing cost per book is pretty low.
(For that matter, in a lot of cases, most of the costs of the book occur b
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...
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Maybe we should all discuss the most appropriate expiration for copyright (say 10 to 30 years), and then create a website and try to change copyright to the new limit.
Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda (Score:4, Insightful)
Please do not say all companies cheat or use shells
I did not say all companies cheat or use shells. I said that major movie studios do, because they do. The author of Forrest Gump the novel was entitled to a share of the profits from Forrest Gump the movie. He should have been given a check for a very large sum of money, given the overwhelming commercial success of the movie, but he was never paid a dime -- the profits were converted into a net loss by the movie studio, by using the sorts of tactics I described. This is not the sort of business practice that "makes the world go round," it is deliberately reporting a loss despite the fact that a profit was turned, in order to deny someone the money they were legally entitled to under the current copyright system.
These same companies, of course, point to the suffering of the people they cheat whenever the issue of file sharing comes up.
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In the 80s (and early 90s) at least, I know the CBC still had originals - though doubtful they would be allowed to air them if they still did.
You certainly cannot buy the DVD's as they originally aired.
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That's unrelated to ASCAP. ASCAP does not have any part in negotiating synchronization rights. Those are negotiated individually between the composer, the publisher, and the company wanting to do the synchronization. All ASCAP can do in the matter is provide contact information for the publisher and composer.
The problem is not unusual. Most TV shows don't pre-license the rights for subsequent DVD release, and when they decide they want to do so, the publishers feel like they have them over a barrel, and
Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda (Score:5, Insightful)
Art, like science, is built on what has come before. Nothing is created in a vacuum; culture feeds on itself. If the Grimm Brothers' work had still been under copyright at the time, most early Disney cartoon could not have been made. This journal [slashdot.org] is a violation of copyright, for example, but it shouldn't be; the copied part is 35 years old. Copyrights should be short so the work can pass into the public domain, like they are supposed to.
ASCAP and their ilk are against fair use and the public domain. Who's the radical extremist here?
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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 t
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Basically, it works like this - so long as a work is a steady seller, the distributor keeps it in print.
You mean, it used to work like that. It shouldn't still work like that, but the monopolists have been doing everything they can to stop progress.
once it's in the public domain, unless it has stood the test of time, it has no champion and truly is lost.
Now it's our turn to call b.s. What do you think libraries are for? You don't mention them at all, as if you want to forget about them. Which would conveniently make the publishing industry the only repository of content.
And I'm not talking only about libraries as you know them. We very much need to move to digital libraries, but it isn't legal to do so. C
wrong product and/or wrong line of work (Score:3, Insightful)
if you want to sell air, don't bother the politicians, the law makers, and law enforcement with your "intellectual property" security concerns.
the politicians are supposed to serve the people. the greater good. not the good of companies with ideas that are akin to selling me a license to breath the air in my own house.
if you can't create works that you or a service provider can't secure, then you need to find another product to sell, or job to do.
I'd love to be paid every time someone used the word "yeppers". and with enough money and attorneys and influence in the district of columbia, I could probably get it to pass.
Then I'd start suing all the john does...
Re:wrong product and/or wrong line of work (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, every time something like this happens we scramble to find that line, and it's nowhere to be found.
And some of us can scarcely remember what it looked like.
What we have now is a global Corporatocracy, the compromise between government and corporation.
What have the compromised? Our rights.
If we don't fight ACTA, our grandchildren will have no idea that a line ever existed at all.
Welcome to the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
While you are here, do try to follow all our laws. Unfortunately, there are so many of them, that nobody is even sure what the exact number of those laws are, and most people wind up breaking them anyway, but you should at least try to follow them.
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Extremism (Score:5, Insightful)
...is their word to associate us with terrorists in the public's mind.
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A Canadian politician used the same language a week ago, coincidence?
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Up here in Canada, we've got a new copyright bill [michaelgeist.ca] coming down the pike. It's been spearheaded by two Cabinet ministers, Tony Clement (Industry) and James Moore (Canadian Heritage). While Clement has been sensitive and seems open to suggestions [michaelgeist.ca], Moore has definitely taken a more combative approach.
In fact, in a recent speech, Moore decried copyright "radical extremists [www.cbc.ca]" with a "babyish" attitude toward copyright.
Notice the same phrase?
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And if this war breaks out and the EFF shows they can stand their ground I will support them (i'd rather give all my money to the EFF than let a dime go to these thugs), and I hope many others will because of this.
The EFF is just a tool of the hardware guys (Score:2, Funny)
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I am having a very difficult time making sense of this comment. Elaborate?
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an unwieldy collective sharing system that's incredibly bureaucratic
"Pool all the money and divide among the scavengers who claim their part of the loot"... seems to me this bureaucratic part is already being done with the tax on CD-R's. And that sure as hell wasn't an idea from the EFF!
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So they're just a tool of big hardware? Somewhere, Nathan Lane's ears just perked up.
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).
Re:Radical extremists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have to agree. Since when is it considered illegal for me to give away my own content, if I chose to do so? How is that forcing anybody else to give away content? How is that stealing anything?
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Since when is it considered illegal for me to give away my own content, if I chose to do so?
It isn't. ASCAP's position is that it should be.
Re:Radical extremists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when is it considered illegal for me to give away my own content, if I chose to do so?
It isn't. ASCAP's position is that it should be.
That's very true. ASCAP (and the RIAA, and all other such abominations) feel that they are entitled to a piece of every sale or performance of every copyrighted work. Doesn't matter if they have no rights to such works. Doesn't even matter if the work is under an expired copyright, is public domain, or was released under some other terms. So far as they're concerned, we owe them for the right to "consume" creative material, whatever the source because, well, we just do that's all. Bloodsuckers, all of them.
And they call Public Knowledge and the EFF "extreme"?
Their level of hypocrisy is just stunning, really, it is.
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It's practically impossible for you to create your own content without infringing on some copyright that we already own (since we own a copyright on practically anything that has been created or will be created), we are therefore protecting you from yourself by prohibiting you from giving away things for free. If you're a composer, you cannot create music without using at least one two-note sequence that we've already copyrighted. Very similar for books. We clearly have a copyright to the phrase "he said
Re:Radical extremists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Moreover, their own extreme position is the real motivator behind their opinion of the opposite side of the debate. It's similar to debates in the culture wars or similar debates where one side accuses the other of having an "agenda" when in reality it is they who have ulterior motives beyond the matters at hand.
Essentially what is going on here is that the copyright industry is trying to label those in favour of reform as extremists in an effort to shut them out. It's actually surprising that its taken them this long to reach this strategy. As history has shown, such tactics work very well--in the US in particular--where you can turn a debate completely on its head by proclaiming the exact opposite of what's going on. The best example of this is: "The Media has a Liberal Bias."
The ultimate objective here is to make copyleft illegal and ensure that copyright is legally the only game in town. It's not implausible that ASCAP et al may succeed in this endeavor.
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I see a large amount of cognitive dissonance in your post.
Essentially what is going on here is that the copyright industry is trying to label those in favour of reform as extremists in an effort to shut them out.
This, at least, is true.
As history has shown, such tactics work very well--in the US in particular--where you can turn a debate completely on its head by proclaiming the exact opposite of what's going on. The best example of this is: "The Media has a Liberal Bias."
Hmm. Oddly enough, a long-term poli
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I'm sorry, rationality and human compassion have a liberal bias.
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Of course, they arrived at that figure by assuming that the 2005 congress was "centrist", and comparing everything between 1995 and 2005 to them. Anything to the right of the Republican controlled congress was considered "liberal". I am curious how that exact same study would work if the 1995-2005 coverage were compared to the current congress, or, for that matter, if the 2000-2010 coverage were compared to the current congress.
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Nah. I think Steven Colbert got it right when he said, "reality has a well-known liberal bias."
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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.
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.
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I can confidently say that most movies, books and songs don't make money at all (though it's hard to back up with stats). But the lure of the gravy train is strong.
The sad thing is that it isn't just some evil lawyers behind this. Would-be artists want to think of themselves as "professional", and will support mandatory licensing, copyright violation detectors in every device, suppression of speech and knowledge, whatever it takes. Even though they themselves are hurt far more by it than they ever stand to
Helpful Links (Score:3, Informative)
Support the EFF: http://www.eff.org/helpout [eff.org]
Support Creative Commons: https://support.creativecommons.org/ [creativecommons.org]
In some ways this is a good sign (Score:3, Insightful)
Too late. (Score:5, Insightful)
'anybody who has spent more than 5 minutes on our website or talking to our staff knows that these things are not true.'
That, in a nutshell, is why the public in general will ever know what is true. We've pretty much reduced our collective thinking to ingesting media prepared "sound bites" and have no motivation to think beyond that point. I heard a politician or campaign manager once summarize the problem with the statement: "if you're explaining, you've lost" (or something to that effect.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have this problem a lot when trying to have political conversations with my friends. They get pointed the same news stories on the same topics by people close to them, so regardless of the context of the information inside, which they don't actually examine with a critical eye (if they read it at all!), they're led to beli
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.
Greed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (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: (Score:3, Funny)
everybody has a right to their opinion. the ASCAP believes that the invisible pink unicorn are real, even though nobody is seeing or hearing them. or are you one of those who thinks if a tree falls in the woods it makes no sound unless there's someone there to hear it?
you, sir, are the perfect example of a radical extreme terrorist! the way you say "invisible pink unicorn" makes me think that you don't even like unicorns, so you are obviously a very bad man.
the dollar bill says "In God we trust". and everyb
Two Words (Score:3, Funny)
Untapped revenue. All your sound waves (and their reflections) are belong to us!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You'd better just hope that you don't listen to your music someplace that has an echo or you'll really need to pay. And if you watch a video on your smartphone in one of those store dressing rooms with mirrors on opposing walls (creating an "infinite" array of reflections) you'll go bankrupt pretty quickly.
Irrelevant. (Score:5, Insightful)
Beat 'em at their own game (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyrights are government granted monopolies contrary to the free market. That should be the argument against ASCAP's belief that anyone who disagrees with them are radical anti-copyright extremists.
The EFF should be hammering it: Why does the copyright industry need increased government handouts and draconian government monopolies to survive? Let the free market sort it out. If they can't survive in a free market without massive government help and an erosion of our rights, so be it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Creative Commons, for one, is NOT anti-copyright. Look at the "no commercial use" clause in particular: people who use that CC license are relying on copyright law to keep large corporations from using their work without royalties.
CC's best strategy is not to take down copyright or even to take down ASCAP and their like, but to displace them. Persuade enough artists to take out copyright licenses that allow for non-commercial copying, and persuade enough people to prefer artists who do, and the draconian
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If they're too classy to tell the truth about copyrights, they'll certainly lose. (Heck, they'll lose anyway, the copyright industry is way too powerful.)
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The ASCAP is waging a war against culture, rationality and freedom. In war there are no rules, it only matters that you win. The time to play nice and be respectful is over. With all due respect, they are due negative.
There goes a donation to the EFF (Score:3, Informative)
They should find a better use for my money than the music industry.
Here's the EFF donation [eff.org] page, for those who'd want to contribute as well.
Libraries (Score:2)
To be fair, I'm sure they think my local library has an extremist, leftist agenda.
I'd say the opposite... (Score:3, Insightful)
EFF is pretty much moderate copyright/freedom balance organization.
OTOH, ASCAP is a rabid extremist radical pro-copyright agenda.
More telling (Score:3, Insightful)
What's more telling is rather than defend their positions with facts, economic or otherwise, they are simply name-calling groups that are attacking them. "They're stupid because their ideas are stupid" Bonus points for using words like 'extremist' to label their opponents in there too.
Part of the strong-copyright groups problem is that they have been producing reports in their favor for years, and folks are finally coming around to realizing that those reports were wildly inaccurate, and skewed heavily in favor of their position.
The art of debate in politics and policy has been lost. No --- the art has simply been reduced to kindergarten-like school fights.
John Perry Barlow (Score:5, Informative)
Some of the older Slashdotters here may remember, but one of the founding members of the EFF was John Perry Barlow, who is intimately associated with the Grateful Dead, having collaborated as a lyricist, primarily as a partner with Bob Weir (Garcia tended to collaborate with a poet named Robert Hunter). The reason this is relevant is because the Dead is perhaps one of the best examples of the model that "free culture" advocates promote. The band pretty much encouraged bootlegging of concerts, sometimes even letting the occasional fan tap into the mixing board. There are millions of bootlegged recordings available, yet they still sell tonnes of records. More importantly, they were a huge concert draw and one of the biggest touring acts prior to Garcia's death. The spin-off bands with the remaining members, such as Dark Star and Rat Dog continue to go pretty strong, as do bands who were culturally influenced by them, and not just musically influenced, such as Phish.
While EFF is probably more famous around here for providing defense funds for MOD hackers in the late 80s and early 90s, outting NSA wiretapping programs, and stuff like that I think it really is kind of important to remember that from their founding, they were probably the most qualified organization to take a stand on this particular issue.
Re:John Perry Barlow (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, and that's why Metallica are sell-outs and their music has been all down hill since they kicked out Dave Mustaine
Going About This Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Typical. Instead of just defining what copyleft is and isn't we get into a dickering match with people that have more money and resources. Let's get to the point already. In small bites so your grandma can understand in less than 2 minutes.
Here's a start, under typical creative commons copyleft:
Copyright - a way to make sure nobody plagiarizes your material, so you get credit for your work, usually with a motive to make profit.
Copyleft - a way to make sure nobody plagiarizes your material, so you get credit for your work, with little regard to how that material is used, copied, improved, changed, etc.
The main difference being copyright can be used in a Daffy Duck method. "MINE! MINE! MINE!" and copyleft is generally a "Hey, if you want to use this to do something else with, go ahead. Just make sure I get credit."
Flame on.
Why won't ASCAP or BMI people show themselves? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a musician, one of the people ASCAP claims to be helping. I don't feel helped. ASCAP and BMI shakedown establishments who hire live music. Either they pay this extortion or no cover tunes can be played there. If you post your rendition of a cover tune online to promote your fledgling local band, you may be sued or extorted. Sure makes it more difficult to get a band off the ground.
I despise these sons of bitches and I'm sure I'm not alone. I also think ASCAP and BMI people are aware that their policies and activities make them unpopular. I've never seen or heard anyone who identifies themselves with ASCAP. I understand why.
Re:Why won't ASCAP or BMI people show themselves? (Score:5, Informative)
This is exactly the problem. If you're an ASCAP member, but aren't getting air time on the radio you'll see little to nothing from them. ASCAP shakes down every establishment that has live music for a license fee to make sure that their members get paid for "your use of their material to enhance your business."
But if you're a member with a local following, playing your own stuff in a venue that has paid up. You won't see any money from them because your not being broadcast, or selling a significant number of CD's or downloads from the legal channels. As that is how they determine the distribution of the money from these fees.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Which means that ASCAP only has to pay out to performers who are *already* making enough money to hire lawyers to threaten ASCAP if said performer doesn't get paid in a timely manner.
It follows that all the performers who aren't rich exist only to indirectly fund ASCAP.
naah, EFF is not extremist enough (Score:2)
That's not extremist, here is an extremist: [slashdot.org]
For whatever reason the governments of the world got into misguided attempts to 'promote' wealth creation by actually limiting human ability to do so by copying, these misguided attempts include copyrights and patents (though trademarks are really not such a big problem).
Having a good working economy relies on production, not on consumption, and when society starts artificially limiting human ability to produce by copying or in any other way, that society starts lo
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.
"Radical extremist" (Score:3, Informative)
No, that wasn't a misquote from the NMPA, that's a quote from Canada's Heritage Minister James Moore [www.cbc.ca] in response to reasoned opposition to his Bill C-32, which introduces DMCA-style IP laws, labelling any opposed to it or in favour of a more balanced approach, like Michael Geist, as "radical extremists."
Unsurprisingly, these inflammatory words come from the ruling party which takes as many pages from the neo-conservative playbook as they can.
The phrasing is so similar that Moore should sue the NMPA for willful copyright infringement.
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)