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Speaker: Copyright Must Change

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  • jon_knox,

    the whole lobbying to get ISP’s into the mix has only just happened and that would have been a bleeding obvious first port of call you would have though.

    I asked a former Internet Architect for Xtra, about the suggested ISP responsibilities.

    He laughed. Not practical to technically implement. Not by a long shot.

    Perhaps worryingly the ISP's may see this as an option for entrenching their positions in the NZ marketplace and as a means to guarantee a stream of revenue....so let's think about that. Reduces the ability of new entrants into the ISP marketplace because of the requirments of the ISP responsibilities and drives up costs for the consumer.

    Belgium • Since Nov 2006 • 464 posts Report

  • jon_knox,

    So rather than viewing filesharing as the form of theft labelled 'copyright infringement', if we consider the deprivation it creates as akin to not watching the ad's in the middle of our favourite (free-to-air) TV program, we may begin to understand the relative worth that much, (dare I say 'most') of society is putting on copyright infringement as an indication of how much effort should be consumed in enforcement? (particularly in the case of TV that has been broadcast via free-to-air somewhere that we then subsequently download sans ad's).

    Does this work any better than the swimming pool analogy?

    And yeah I am aware that advertisers are aware of the fact those most people will do almost anything else to avoid watching the ad's that they're paying for and accept that risk...there's seemingly no such knowledge for non-TV content providers, or is even that risk now reasonably forseeable?

    Belgium • Since Nov 2006 • 464 posts Report

  • Simon Grigg,

    Mark, firstly apology accepted.

    Going thru a few things.

    1. I've not studied the industry data in any great detail mostly because, based on on my personal experience and understanding of the way people consume music garnered over some years, I'm confident that I'm right.

    2. Another example I can throw into the mix is that of the working DJ. It's been many years since I did that but I have close and much more recent experience of how such people work and acquire music. In years gone by a DJ would spend up to $200 a week buying records. Most working DJs I know now spend virtually nothing..perhaps 10% of the earlier spend. This applies to names across the board, big and small. It's a fact and it's global. That is lost income and sales.

    3. As I stated earlier the major downturn in sales came after 2004/5 when broadband became widely available. Before that I regard much of the moaning as little different to the cries of home taping is killing music. But data from before 2004/5 is thus dated and less relevant

    4. There has been a dramatic drop in sales. That's inarguable. You argue, without evidence at all that there is no proof that piracy is a factor in this. I dispute that for the reasons above but I also temper that by saying I think the big lobby groups, which represent some 60-70% of the market share, grossly overstate their case and there are a multitude of other factors in play. I would argue that my premise is slightly more realistic than the one you are pushing

    5. The claim I made was not that my daughter's generation believe it's not stealing to download tracks..quite the opposite, they know damn well it is but they do it anyway to fulfill their desire to acquire the sort of music we used to purchase because they have exactly the same desire to own a copy as we did. That is quite a different thing. And it logically equates to lost sales. Me 1970=I want it so I buy it. Teens 2008=I want it so I will download it. Now whether every track downloaded is a lost sale, RIAA would argue it is which is blatantly false, but I'd argue it's just as dishonest to make a blanket assumption it is not. A percentage, assuming that passion for music is the same across the generations (and live figures are evidence of that), is. Hell, if one sale was lost due to piracy I am, at a stretch, correct.

    6. Just to throw one more bit of non-science into the mix..witness the death of the DJ mix album. What's largely replaced them? The downloadable mix online. Mix albums used to sell in vast quantities but hit a brick wall about 2004 with the explosion of unlicensed mixes online and, you guessed it..broadband. What used to cost $40 can be found on blogs, forums, speciality sites and so on. And DJs give them away because the monies from them used to go, mostly, to the licensing labels and were primarily profile raisers for DJs. Now DJs can raise their profile by giving away mixes without any royalty or licensing fee being paid. I released a bunch of such albums some years back. One the the DJs who I released for now gives a free CD away at just about every gig he plays. Why would I bother to release another?

    I could go on but I've got a plane to catch.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report

  • jon_knox,

    A teenager, recently brought the following words to my attention, words that ring true when I see people dis'ing others here.

    Avoid distraction, for distraction lodges in the bosom of the fool

    This statement typifies the approach of Simon and Russell, ignoring or not (often) dignifying objectionable statements with a response.

    I can't begrudge passion with which people are clinging to their beliefs, but it may be useful to be able to suspend those beliefs for a bit, particularly if you know you're right. I just read a scathing description of the Falklands War by Jorge Louis Borges as “Two bald men, fighting over a comb” and though I’m not suggesting that we’ve got 2 bald men here, I am suggesting that there is a similar lack of humility. If we always start with the assumption that we are right, I think it makes learning quite challenging.

    Using Rob as an example in this case, though I know he's standing up for what he believes and in many cases is bringing a great deal of value to the discussion in representing his ideas as perhaps representative of those of the music industy and as a valuable counterpoint to the ‘society view’ that some of us non-creatives/non music industry have.

    I think Rob could more postively contribute to this part of the discussion if he'd let go of the ISP responsibility angle on the 'response to Lessig' side of the discussion and just let the discussion take it’s course. Shouting all others down and hanging all hope on just the one model, is turning people away from this discussion regardless of merit. Vice-versa for people on the other side of the argument (consider that the Lessig type approach does not exist for a bit...please go write about your ideas on the other thread).

    Now liberated from that stuff, what does Lessig's view look like? Is Lessig, still:

    more a bored, smooth talking lawyer with no greater task he can apply himself to

    For me when I read Matt's post on Lessig, I got that he's realised the enforcement path is futile and that he's keen to find a way that provides benefit to the creators of works, rather than merely trying to rip creatives off, or turn himself into a legend in his own lunchbox.

    Matt's original post describing Lessig's introduction resonated with the approach that I read in the one of Robert Fisk's books, the idea that without history to provide a base for the moral compass, we are stuck repeating history. Simon’s comment is indicative (to me) of this:

    Before that I regard much of the moaning as little different to the cries of home taping is killing music.

    I don’t really need to see too many examples of prohibition & an enforcement model to know that it can be bung. Is the Creative Commons type approach the best we can do, or is it case of we've struggling free of one box, only to constrain ourselves immediately in another pretty similar box?

    Simon wrote:

    Reign in the fuckers drafting this stuff. You won't get a lot of argument from a lot of the recording industry.

    As part of reigning them in, I’d suggest we need to have a better model that they can look to employ.

    and would like to see properly defined a fair use proviso (although such has been handily given a helping hand by the Lennon ruling of recent). I'm just nervous about where the demarcation comes.

    An example (or 2) here may help to let the rest of us understand your nervousness, but understand you gotta run...me too.

    Belgium • Since Nov 2006 • 464 posts Report

  • James Harton,

    FYI. Lessig's entire talk on Archive.org

    Auckland • Since Nov 2007 • 51 posts Report

  • Kyle Matthews,

    He laughed. Not practical to technically implement. Not by a long shot.

    A little off topic, but I've noticed over the past few months my ISP has been doing some pretty aggressive traffic throttling.

    But my downloads went from anywhere between 50 - 150 K/second, to 1 - 10 K/second. Evenings were a waste of time, overnight if you were lucky you'd get up to 20K or so. It was taking a couple of days to download a 700 MB file.

    I did a bit of googling and switched my torrent application from bittorrent, to Vuxe, which had encoding. Since then it's jumped back up and I'm happily torrentting again.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Mark Harris,

    @Kyle
    Which, as you say, is not about copyright but about traffic costs. But it does illustrate the problem with trying to apply a technical solution to a total problem. And that was why the technician laughed.

    If you had been torrenting a movie or the latest album by someone an old fart like me has never heard of, it would have inconvenienced you momentarily, but you found a way round it so it's hardly a good way of preventing piracy, is it?

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

  • Kyle Matthews,

    If you had been torrenting a movie or the latest album by someone an old fart like me has never heard of, it would have inconvenienced you momentarily, but you found a way round it so it's hardly a good way of preventing piracy, is it?

    No. But if SkyTV got NHL back on TV, I would be much of a pirate. I still buy most of the music that I want on CDs.

    I still haven't seen anything in any of these threads which has jumped out and I've thought "ooh, that's a good possible solution". But keep talking past each other, at least RB is collecting advertising revenue.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • robbery,

    to Vuxe, which had encoding. Since then it's jumped back up and I'm happily torrentting again.

    all depends which isp you're using kyle.
    xnet (naked dsl) completely filters out all peer to peer, even with vuse encoding and as much fiddling as you can come up with. I've heard on no way around that. They've absolutely killed it dead.

    likewise slingshot had a crippling peer to peer policy I couldn't get around a couple of years back but maybe vuse and encoding bypasses it. don't know, i'll never go back to them, their customer service was appalling.

    xtra shapes traffic but doesn't cut it off completely, just chomps it back a bit. you could pull down 60 gig running full time over the course of a month if you were lucky.

    judging from xnet and traffic totals I wouldn't count on being invincible.

    new zealand • Since May 2007 • 1882 posts Report

  • robbery,

    Using Rob as an example in this case,

    jon, I have to say I'm disappointing in you. With your off the wall angles and wildly variant interpretations of what is on topic,..... and here you are picking the bleeding obvious, I just expected more from you in your choice of an example of badly behaved,
    so in the interests of fairness and balance perhaps you'd care to critique the behaviour of sacha and mark, sacha for his condescending attitude and this

    and mark for his ........ well you could take your pick but mark's a big boy and can look after himself, but if you had to pick something you could have a go at not listening to the voice of knowledge and experience.

    in many cases is bringing a great deal of value to the discussion

    make up you mind,

    if he'd let go of the ISP responsibility angle

    I made a small mention of it in direct relation to a comment and you bought it up yourself up page. make up your mind. you want it in or out of the convo. its completely relevant to the issue of change in copyright. it may well have a serious impact on how people view free-for-all downloading. I know I'd stop grabbing the next installment of dexter if I got a stop it or we'll cut you off letter.
    as kyle mentioned there's shit happening right now to stop peer to peer. your mate at xtra is underplaying easy, already existing examples of traffic shaping (how to stop you doing the things you want to which may involved downloading a movie or tv episode. 700 meg eh kyle, that's suspiciously the same size as a movie file) peer to peer filtering closes the gate on big stuff but it's unlikely to filter out music copying though, but those who do it will probably get caught in the same net that filters out movie traffic)

    representing his ideas as perhaps representative of those of the music industry

    no no no no no no no no no no no.
    I spent my whole life distancing myself from those people and I can prove it. I am not coming from an industry perspective in the alleged "fat cat money grabbing balls of evil" way you portray them as.

    I'm aware of their position as is simon, but you really do have to take heed of what simon said about people not getting the depth and variety of components involved in media, creation, distribution etc. The thing is if someone like me can see things like this (and I'm pretty far to the left as far as "airy fairy be kind to your aunty" type people) then how far left do you think it is realistic and viable to sit in this discussion.

    valuable counterpoint to the ‘society view’ that some of us non-creatives/non music industry have.

    That's a big one of my points. I don't see sacha, mark, matthew or lessig as pushing a society view. I get the vibe from some that it's a self serving motive rather than the betterment of society that some comments come from. (note I said some not all, exclude yourselves if you wish)

    I've said it a few times, I'm all for a sharing caring society so long as it applies across the board. What seems to be an underlying theme in these threads is class structuring. Creatives and their needs are not a central part of the equation here, they're more an incovinence.
    Our society is definitely not acting in the interests of creators with the media free for all going on at the moment. We're having too much fun to consider its effects. Given that why would you think society is going to act favorable without a serious fight.

    Presently we do not live in a fully caring sharing world. Tell me I'm wrong. NZ is better than most (or it was) but we've got a long way to go before we reach full socialism which is what the free media part of the picture is aiming for without insisting that everyone else come along for the ride.

    My understanding of society is we look after everyone equally. I'm seeing tokenism in the concessions made to creators. 'we'll throw them a few crumbs but they can't have control. Some dj wants to sample their work without credit or recompense and we can't have the dj's right infringed on'. It just doesn't add up, yet.


    comments like these show naivety

    When he spoke of commercial remixing, he illustrated the point by referring to the granting of movie rights for a new Grisham novel: it is undesirable for just anyone to make a big-budget movie based on someone's novel.

    Undesirable? so in the new free world of media who's going to police that. shall we have self monitoring? that didn't work so well for music and copyright did it.
    shall we have quality police? "your movie sucks, we're going to confiscate it".
    here's an idea, how bout we have a system where by the author maintains the rights to their creation and they get to decide who understands their vision enough to be granted 'rights' to make a movie of said work. I think we'll call that process "grants" rights, no wait, not that, ... thinking of a word that means to duplicate someone's work. copyright? hmm could work.

    copyright is changing, simon says it, I'm observing it. Don't be mislead to think that I do or don't support the direction things are going, I'm just observing that there are things that can happen which don't involve all of us putting daisies in our hair.
    I'd like to see copyright change to longer control of artist content.
    I'd like to see the stupid extremes rights holders have backed off. so what if a track is on a tv in the background. leave it alone. but if the music is a full an integral part of a piece pay it forward. I'd like to see that $218 movie and see just hope intergral the music is to it.

    And while I'm at it I'll question the $218 price tag. did she buy her home editing unit for that price? tapes, time, masters. If you know anything about movie production costs you know that figure is manipulated, and if you're going to manipulate that for the uninitiated then what else are you conveniently leaving out to put your point across? call me skeptical,....
    It's marginally possible that his total cash outlay was that but that is not the cost of a project. If you're not going to factor in labour, equipment used and sundry production costs (transport, consultations, favours and materials) then you're misrepresenting the cost and effort it takes to make these things, which was most likely intentionally for promotional purposes. great way to sell a movie, I made it for a fraction of the cost of hollywood, yay, but you didn't pay labour.

    more a bored, smooth talking lawyer with no greater task he can apply himself to

    well I got the bored bit right, he's moving on if you can believe wiki or a lawyers word.

    At the iCommons iSummit 07 Lessig announced that he will stop focusing his attention on copyright and related matters and will work on political corruption instead


    now jon, if you'd like to pop up on the couch and we can perhaps have a little chat about your urge to come in late to a discussion and assume a moderator position. Very controlling of you.
    Were there any issues of abandonment in your past? A dominant older brother? perhaps we should talk about your relationship with your mother, I've heard that can be an important factor in these kind of behavior patterns.


    bombs away

    new zealand • Since May 2007 • 1882 posts Report

  • robbery,

    sorry, typos

    "I'd like to see that $218 movie and see just how intergral the music is to it.

    And while I'm at it I'll question the $218 price tag. did he buy his home editing unit for that price?"

    new zealand • Since May 2007 • 1882 posts Report

  • Kyle Matthews,

    700 meg eh kyle, that's suspiciously the same size as a movie file

    NHL ice hockey games.

    I've never downloaded a movie over the internet. I have several drawers of videos and dvds which I've bought, and I hire anything that I want to see but don't think I'll want to see more than once. Or catch it when it makes it to TV.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • robbery,

    sorry kyle, not meaning to dump you in it,
    i've already admitted a liking for pre screening copies of dexter which I justify to myself that it will be on free t anyway so all I'm doing is time shifting (although I know its not that simple), and I'm sure someone owns the rights to the hockey.
    I'm not criticizing (which would be hypocritical anyway), just noting how it is. Is this stuff screened in nz anyway?

    new zealand • Since May 2007 • 1882 posts Report

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Is this stuff screened in nz anyway?

    Only the final series - last 7 games out of about 1600 in the season.

    Sky used to show some as ESPN had the rights, but past three years the rights are owned by a different company in the states, so we get nothing. More poker. Cheerleading. Craploads of soccer from Europe. Etc.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • robbery,

    music in Tarnation
    apparently mr $218's use of music is not quite as incidental as he might have us believe. a thread from people who specifically noticed and enjoyed the music in the film. I'd call that adding value to his product. mostly alternative and indie stuff too.

    new zealand • Since May 2007 • 1882 posts Report

  • jon_knox,

    (how to stop you doing the things you want to which may involved downloading a movie or tv episode. 700 meg eh kyle, that's suspiciously the same size as a movie file) peer to peer filtering closes the gate on big stuff but it's unlikely to filter out music copying though, but those who do it will probably get caught in the same net that filters out movie traffic)

    Please can we let that stuff rest? I don't think we really do anyone any favours getting bogged down in that. Time will tell what the outcome is.

    care to critique the behaviour of sacha and mark

    Yeah I could have picked Mark, or Sacha, but it was an example. I am sorry for picking you, if you feel I've done so unjustly, and/or done so in a disrespectful manner. I've tried to play the ball, not the man regardless of my own stance.

    make up you mind

    I can see that you've added benefit greatly in the discussion, but I can see that you're also preventing the discussion moving on. Neither of these are mutually exclusive and yes by no means are you the only one who has a monopoly on this. I don't think it's fence-sitting.

    So are we cool with this as 'response to Lessig'?

    Belgium • Since Nov 2006 • 464 posts Report

  • robbery,

    So are we cool with this as 'response to Lessig'?

    its matthew pooles thread, ask him.
    I don't know how much of this thread you've read jon but my response was directly to lessig and matthew's comments on him.
    I'm not really sure what you're getting at. is this one of you're oblique conversation starters again?? cunning. I like that.
    listen jon , why don't you discuss the points you want to discuss, jump in there and go for it. if there are people that have thoughts to contribute to those lines then you'll get a conversation, if not, it'll peter out and go silent.
    these are seasoned internet users, they can handle multiple threads in one comments section.

    and you haven't offended me, my skin is thicker than that, and I do have a sense of humour.

    new zealand • Since May 2007 • 1882 posts Report

  • jon_knox,

    Watched the vid of Lessig today. Very slick. Liked the hybrid theory, but not totally convinced about "quoting for the modern age"....I don't see many people quoting an entire book (particularly in 20 words), but I can see people trying to do that with music.

    What is to occur when a non-commercial work containing "quotation", suddenly becomes commercially valuable?

    Should there be any allowance for direct vs indirect monetization?

    @robbery

    A dominant older brother?

    Just watched the final epsiode of season 1....lol!

    Belgium • Since Nov 2006 • 464 posts Report

  • robbery,

    Just watched the final epsiode of season 1....lol!

    of dexter?

    new zealand • Since May 2007 • 1882 posts Report

  • jon_knox,

    of dexter?

    yeah

    Belgium • Since Nov 2006 • 464 posts Report

  • jon_knox,

    Here's a link to the Kim Hill interview with Lessig that Nat mentioned.

    Belgium • Since Nov 2006 • 464 posts Report

  • robbery,

    I just had a listen to the Kim Hill interview which was quite well done

    lessig says copyright is an incentive to writers to writer more works, like giving a pet a snacky treat to get them to do tricks. Dead writers can't produce anything new so he thinks their rights should be removed.
    In this view of copyright there is no acknowledgment of ownership of creation as seen if you create anything else, a table, a chair, a house. His view of copyright is condescending in nature. If you start from that viewpoint ie a disrespect of other peoples efforts you end up fighting for the removal of their control over the results of their labour.

    He doesn't think all copyright is bad though, just that some of it needs adjustment, although he doesn't approach the subject like someone who wants to adjust things.
    his big hobby horse is re mixing. using other peoples work in a non commercial way to create new art for fun. There's nothing wrong with this and it works perfectly well when done for ones own amusemen,t but with technology people want to put it up on you tube and then it becomes a public performance. its a difficult road to travel. yes some media owners are responding too heavily to use of their content but should this reaction be cause enough to campaign to remover their control of their work. Take the recent examples of people using musicians work to promote political views that may differ from the creators. (our own don McGlashan, and various US musicians objecting to McCain's appropriation of their work for his message)
    To put it in terms an individual not involved in media creation might understand, how would you feel if someone used a photo of you to promote something that you were against? Something that offended you. would you support their right to freely use your image? In a way it becomes an either or situation. Throw out copyrights protection to control the use of their work to allow some legitimate use but open the flood gates to wholesale abuse as we've already seen.
    Perhaps establishing some sort of process to contesting judgments would be a better course of action rather than tearing the system down.

    he says the system is broken due to modern technology and says if copyright owners would just embrace the conditions they could profit from it then goes on to cite projects like flickr as a way of making money through the sharing culture.

    What he neglects to address is that 'people' plural inclusive don't make money form these types of things, a very small group of powerful money men make money at the expense of the many, and these positions of top dog owners of good ideas are few and far between.
    what we're seeing from his ideal world of sharing is an even more bottom heavy structure where there a many at the bottom and a few global businesses at the top, buying up the control and sucking up the money to be shared amongst even fewer people. If he's trying to knock down big business then this is the wrong way to go about it.

    new zealand • Since May 2007 • 1882 posts Report

  • Mark Harris,

    lessig says copyright is an incentive to writers to writer more works, like giving a pet a snacky treat to get them to do tricks.

    The opening para of the Statute of Anne (or the Copyright Act 1709) reads:

    An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned."

    and the third para reads

    For Preventing therefore such Practices for the future, and for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books;

    This is the very basis of copyright law in countries that inherited the English Common Law (e.g. us and the US), to incentivize creators to produce more work.

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

  • robbery,

    but we don't live in the 18th century any more mark.
    they still had slavery then.

    my position is that it is incorrect to hold these views knowing what we know now living in the world we live in now.

    new zealand • Since May 2007 • 1882 posts Report

  • Mark Harris,

    Your position does not accord with the law as it stands.

    Waikanae • Since Jul 2008 • 1343 posts Report

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