Monday, October 13, 2008
In Defense of Piracy
WSJ.com: "How is it that sensible people, people no doubt educated at some of the best universities and law schools in the country, would come to think it a sane use of corporate resources to threaten the mother of a dancing 13-month-old? What is it that allows these lawyers and executives to take a case like this seriously, to believe there's some important social or corporate reason to deploy the federal scheme of regulation called copyright to stop the spread of these images and music? 'Let's Go Crazy' indeed!"
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10 comments:
:: applauds the WSJ for this article ::
Attacking and trying to repress the growth of technology is rarely effective. In this case, not only is the technology of the internet ever growing, it also is a means of communicating ideas. Singling out the exchange of information over a digital network is just as futile and ridiculous as prosecuting people for whistling in the street.
When we stifle an exchange of creativity, especially in a new medium, we are only hurting ourselves. Not only was I cited for using a Kansas song in a YouTube video, but my valedictorian speech was criticized as well for using material from The Beatles. Plagiarism may be easier than ever with resources a google-click away, but our definitions of what is unethical are growing more and more strict. What if Shakespeare had never stolen a plot? What if there had been no exchange of styles of music in the early 20th century? Where do we draw the line between inspiration and stealing? Our culture is growing more and more ridiculous and the people who could benefit the most are the ones that suffer.
XKCD agrees.
i guess i understand both sides... kind of. but it is still frustrating to see it happens. i hate when things get way out of the context, i guess. when i learned that the non-profit including the education settings have to follow the copyright laws, I was a little shocked. it's very obscure.
I think the copyright laws are still a bit ridiculous. Everyone knows this stuff exists and can get expose to it however there is no point to yell at people who basically advertise large corporations music and videos and then get mad and demand congress to do something. They are losing a very small amount of money. Yes these are hard times but really? Also I amazed that Girl Talk has not been sued yet. He basically takes hundreds of songs by well known artists and creates a "mashup" of them. This I'm sure is illegal. What is so surprising is that you can buy his cd in cd stores. Maybe the length of the samples are short enough so he gets away with it but corporations should take action on that kind of thing and not infants dancing to Prince.
it's politics like this that are giving the arts a bad name. fortunately, there have been a brave few artists who have told their record companies where to shove it and broken contract.
sure, it's not good to steal music, but it's part of human culture to share things with friends. next thing we know, it'll be illegal for a friend to plug in another controller to the nintendo and join in as player 2 without owning a copy of the game himself.
I understand technology is a new issue with America but we need to start accepting it as the new wave of communication (which is a text form of speech). I understand this is a matter of copyright, but it also sort of become a matter of freedom of speech which could also be translated into the freedom of expression. These laws are infringing on certain rights with all these gray areas we have in new laws with old laws.
Lessig seems like a concise guy with good pragmatic ideas. We do need to keep (make?) art production financially sustainable, but not in a way that limits creativity and 1st amendment rights. Good work has been done to accomplish this through different business models, where copyright is not integral. Hopefully this can spread further. Certainly war on the people who pirate, if it's even ideologically sound, is completely ineffective. I hope we see things start to move towards Lessig's goals, although recent legislation has seemed to suggest the opposite. I wonder if the reason profitability (or sustainability) is such an issue is the sheer number of middle-men inserted into the studio/label/trade association culture built up by the MPAA and RIAA. No coincedence that they were leading supporters of the recent bill.
Honestly, I'm really glad someone finally got some attention on this one. YouTube is, as well all know is a breeding ground for the most epic legal battle over copyrights to come some day. In cases like the little kid dancing, music companies need to learn to chill out some. It's 30 seconds of a baby dancing, say "awww, how cute" and them move on.The woman is making no money, the song is getting some exposure, and its not even the entire song. The music industry looses nothing by letting little Holden dance.
Situations like the one described here make it so hard to draw the line of when something should be illegal and when, like in this case, it is completely ridiculous to take action. It is to expected that soon guidelines will have to be set as to how make a separation between cases that require legal action, and the ones that should not be considered an issue.
This is so dumb. I don't understand how stuff like this happens. Some things go undetected and unnoticed for awhile, like the scores of free movies and tv shows available on the internet on obscure japanese websites, and then they freak out over something so small and simple.
This is exactly the kind of law that needs to be written. An agreement that allows artistic interpretation in which neither party gains or loses money. The way this is laid out is clear and concise. the only question I have is how well this could be enforced by congress. The internet is not physical and tracking is therefore difficult. Which means that if a law like this does pass there is still going to be legal battles across the board and I have no idea how to solve that. This is a big step though towards a clean package.
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