Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 21:16:36 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> Cc: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>, Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, "Victor R. Cardona" <vcardona@home.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stallman stalls again Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20010313205518.00e2da30@localhost> In-Reply-To: <15021.56450.940181.638227@guru.mired.org> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010312215702.0445f5f0@localhost> <4.3.2.7.2.20010311235053.00e26140@localhost> <4.3.2.7.2.20010311230800.00e19bd0@localhost> <4.3.2.7.2.20010311193801.0441d3c0@localhost> <4.3.2.7.2.20010306122244.04477f00@localhost> <20010305200017.D80474@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010305123951.04604b20@localhost> <20010305205030.G80474@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010305125259.00cfdae0@localhost> <20010305142108.A17269@marx.marvic.chum> <4.3.2.7.2.20010306011342.045fb360@localhost> <20010306081025.A22143@marx.marvic.chum> <4.3.2.7.2.20010306092612.00b79f00@localhost> <20010306174618.N32515@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010312215702.0445f5f0@localhost>
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At 01:38 AM 3/13/2001, Mike Meyer wrote: >So? One of the first things the US did with the constitution was >change it. By adding the Bill of Rights, which conferred explicit rights upon the people. You're proposing to take rights away. >Not only are you once again assuming the solution is what you want it >to be rather than discussing the issue, you're also making a false >claim. You have the right to create copies of your works and give >them away without any copyright laws at all. If there are no copyright laws, I have no right to ask that they not be copied further. I make nothing from my work and have less incentive to create more. That's not good. > You also have the right >to requires those receiving them to adhere to whatever restrictions >you require of them. That's the basis of trade secret protection. Trade secret laws protect information, not specific expressions of ideas. There are other problems with relying on trade secret protection as well. It's very weak, legally. In fact, to obtain such protection, one must generally require recipients to sign ironclad non-disclosure agreements. What's more, if the information "gets out" due to theft, or any action on the part of a party other than the person who signed the NDA, I have little or no recourse. >I already said the creators had the right to control recording a >performance. performance, but that right is *not* granted by title >17. Actually, it is. Creating a fixation of the performance without permission is a violation of copyright. As is doing a performance for profit without compensating the author. >Yup. And when roads became ubiquitous, buggy whip manufacturers >folded. That's what happens when there are major technological >changes. This is a poor analogy. Music, art, prose, etc. are the products, and they are same as they ever were. >> I doubt that libraries will cease to be. > >The librarians don't agree with you. Yes, they do, actually. The director of our local library is heavily involved in the NLA, and we've spoken about this subject. She, like me, is concerned that libraries will be most hurt by the fallout of war between content distributors and content consumers, not by the existence of copyright or copyright laws. >The fundamentals aren't sound - they economic balances which are no >longer true. There is nothing in the fundamental principles that specifies any particular economic balance. >So simply make high bandwidth data connections illegal. That makes >more sense and is violates fewer rights than the existing >practices. Of course, the reality is that high bandwidth data pipes >don't make it impossible to protect those rights. The existence of >publicly available copying equipment makes it impossible to protect >those rights. Publishers gave up trying to enforce it for audio >cassettes, and got a similar compromise with royalties on audio cd's >(which you pay even if your recordings are all fair use or original >material). That's why the publishers aren't trying to simply ban high >bandwidth connections, they are placing technological limits on >peoples ability to make copies, such that I can't, for instance, put >anything better than VCR quality videos of family on DVD-RAMs to share >with my family. This is part of the fallout of the Content War. A large number of people are -- like you -- claiming that there should be no copyright, and many (e.g. the users of Napster, Gnutella, Freenet, etc.) are distributing copies of copyrighted works far and wide without paying for them. The content distributors' response is to act as if there already IS no copyright and restrict content via other means. Had people like Stallman and Barlow not instigated and escalated the war, the publishers would not have felt as if they had no choice but to deploy these "weapons." >This isn't a new thing - it's been going on since the >publishers managed to delay the introduction of DAT tapes to the US >market SCMS is pretty much ineffectual. Any "professional" deck can be set to ignore it, and most consumer decks can be easily hacked to do the same. >while they discussed audio watermarking and other violations of >the public and artists rights. Watermarking isn't a violation of anyone's rights. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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