• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

The Copyright Wars of 2017

Dusty Ayres

Commodore
You’re 17. You’re busy with your computer, your pager, your cell phone. Doing what comes naturally. You play games. You share information. You explore, imagine and invent. You use the tools at hand. You cut, you paste, you copy, you surf, you talk, you link, you download, you upload, you remix, you mash-up, you code. It’s your culture. You’re having fun. You’re learning. You’re working. You’re creating your world.
Then your dad, your teacher, your boss arrives and suddenly the script gets flipped. He watches and sputters as he sees you steal, conspire, loot, ruin and attack. Nothing’s changed. You’re still doing what comes naturally, but suddenly the handcuffs are out, the lawyers are at the door, the judge is weighing the evidence. Are you a kid or a criminal? Or a kid and a criminal?
Now inflate this picture by a factor of a million, or a 100 million or more. Because the size of connected culture is staggering. We send 100 billion email messages every day! Ask yourself: What happens to the American economy if copyright is obliterated by cut-and-paste culture? Sounds to me like a good excuse for a Bush-style war. But who, exactly, would be the enemy? Who are the copyright terrorists, who are the pirates? That’s right, the kids.


The Copyright Wars of 2017
 
The world is changing. And who's not aware of it?

THE WORLD, that's who. Kicking and screaming though it may be, the world will eventually come along.
 
A bit alarmist, I'd have to say. I didn't read the whole thing, but why 2017? File sharing certainly caused both harm and good. The world is adjusting to the change slowly. Simply making it illegal is unlikely to work, but people have found ways to legally profit from it too.

EDIT: After reading the entire thing, I guess it's not that alarmist (the opening thing was just one possible perception, the rest is fairly balanced).
 
Last edited:
Eh. It's up to businesses to figure out how to make money off technology and culture, wherever they might lead, whatever opportunities and obstacles might present themselves. Whining and kicking and sending in the lawyers is just admission of lack of imagination and smarts.

That's really what this is all about: businesses are scared because their old models are collapsing and they need to find new ones. Most likely, the winners in this evolving scenario will be new companies we haven't heard of yet. Just capitalism's usual advance via chaos.
 
The RIAA is working with internet providers to stop people who download illegally (just talked about it recently here).

MySpace has partnered with Gracenote and implemented some kind of program that won't let you put up copyrighted music. I was talking with a musicians who performed on a film score and he couldn't even load an example from a score he played on because of Gracenote. I tried altering the ID3, I tried recording it as it played, I even inverted the music, but I still couldn't get passed what ever the hell Gracenote did -- and this guy can't even show his experitese with that example and has to try others. Sad.


And some news sites diable right clicking (which is easily worked around).


I think it's only a matter of time before DVD makers start writing programs into DVDs (or work with computer makers) that alert comnies via the web each time you try ti rip a DVD. Microsft stores your name and address, and even telephone number, hidden in the registry, so if Microsft were to partner with studios, the hypothetical program could take your user info and submit it when you try to copy the DVD. That's assuming they haven't already implemented such and are hiding it.


But I have to say these new generations of kids are becoming more and more less caring about theaft of commercially available material. They see it ways like, "I can't afford it, so I'll just download it", "don't care", and "who cares?". Some of thes kids think it's funny and that it doesn't matter to download entire movies and shows and never do it legally or buy later. Jailed? No, too early to e so severely punished. Maybe fined and/or made to do community service, with use of a computer denied for a time (like doen to hackers sometimes).
 
Thie whole business of sampling music is where it all started to go wrong for me, so all the rest of it is just piling on. When I hear sampled stuff, I keep thinking, 'yeah, melville is public domain, so when does somebody write the updated MOBY DICK with lumps of Meliville in it, only at the end now, Ahab gets a bionic leg and beats the whale to death with it? (actually that was my complaint with 'choose you own' interactive programming awhile back, but it is just as valid here, since it still invalidates original art, or at the very least, compromises it.)

The number of times my published work (mostly about tech filmmaking stuff, lots on trek) has been ripped is annoying as hell, especially when it is mangled in the rewriting/plagiarizing. Out of a couple hundred articles (maybe more), I've gotten about three fees for licensed reprints, none since the late 90s. In some instances it is okay because I wrote with the copyright assigned to the publisher, but most of the time that isn't the case.

I don't download (read: steal) movies or music period. I don't even think about it as shifty or 'oh well it won't hurt anybody' or any of that. It is just ethics to me, and, as a personal code, that is all it can be. Once you inflate ethics to become a globalized code of behavior, it gets diluted down into some moralistic dogma that is like comparing real justice to the actual legal system -- another process that destroys what it is trying to honor.

Nobody at my day job gives a shit about illegal downloading. And even the intelligent ones, after hearing my position on it, have no qualms, because they feel entitled, like the world's information fountain is something they're entitled to check out without reprisal, like borrowing a library book for 30 years and not feeling guity about it. It's a viewpoint I find appalling, but far too widespread to check or pull back.

Man, it's early, I woke up to walk the dog, and now I'm REALLY tired and going back to bed. Maybe for a couple days. Wish I hadn't clicked on this.
 
Thie whole business of sampling music is where it all started to go wrong for me, so all the rest of it is just piling on. When I hear sampled stuff, I keep thinking, 'yeah, melville is public domain, so when does somebody write the updated MOBY DICK with lumps of Meliville in it, only at the end now, Ahab gets a bionic leg and beats the whale to death with it? (actually that was my complaint with 'choose you own' interactive programming awhile back, but it is just as valid here, since it still invalidates original art, or at the very least, compromises it.)

The number of times my published work (mostly about tech filmmaking stuff, lots on trek) has been ripped is annoying as hell, especially when it is mangled in the rewriting/plagiarizing. Out of a couple hundred articles (maybe more), I've gotten about three fees for licensed reprints, none since the late 90s. In some instances it is okay because I wrote with the copyright assigned to the publisher, but most of the time that isn't the case.

I don't download (read: steal) movies or music period. I don't even think about it as shifty or 'oh well it won't hurt anybody' or any of that. It is just ethics to me, and, as a personal code, that is all it can be. Once you inflate ethics to become a globalized code of behavior, it gets diluted down into some moralistic dogma that is like comparing real justice to the actual legal system -- another process that destroys what it is trying to honor.

Nobody at my day job gives a shit about illegal downloading. And even the intelligent ones, after hearing my position on it, have no qualms, because they feel entitled, like the world's information fountain is something they're entitled to check out without reprisal, like borrowing a library book for 30 years and not feeling guity about it. It's a viewpoint I find appalling, but far too widespread to check or pull back.

Man, it's early, I woke up to walk the dog, and now I'm REALLY tired and going back to bed. Maybe for a couple days. Wish I hadn't clicked on this.


I know just what you mean, I visited a university recently and one of the courses was run with what amounted to a photocopied version of one of my books - it was about 60% of it! Pissed me off to no end.
 
Thie whole business of sampling music is where it all started to go wrong for me, so all the rest of it is just piling on. When I hear sampled stuff, I keep thinking, 'yeah, melville is public domain, so when does somebody write the updated MOBY DICK with lumps of Meliville in it, only at the end now, Ahab gets a bionic leg and beats the whale to death with it? (actually that was my complaint with 'choose you own' interactive programming awhile back, but it is just as valid here, since it still invalidates original art, or at the very least, compromises it.)

The number of times my published work (mostly about tech filmmaking stuff, lots on trek) has been ripped is annoying as hell, especially when it is mangled in the rewriting/plagiarizing. Out of a couple hundred articles (maybe more), I've gotten about three fees for licensed reprints, none since the late 90s. In some instances it is okay because I wrote with the copyright assigned to the publisher, but most of the time that isn't the case.

I don't download (read: steal) movies or music period. I don't even think about it as shifty or 'oh well it won't hurt anybody' or any of that. It is just ethics to me, and, as a personal code, that is all it can be. Once you inflate ethics to become a globalized code of behavior, it gets diluted down into some moralistic dogma that is like comparing real justice to the actual legal system -- another process that destroys what it is trying to honor.

Nobody at my day job gives a shit about illegal downloading. And even the intelligent ones, after hearing my position on it, have no qualms, because they feel entitled, like the world's information fountain is something they're entitled to check out without reprisal, like borrowing a library book for 30 years and not feeling guity about it. It's a viewpoint I find appalling, but far too widespread to check or pull back.

Man, it's early, I woke up to walk the dog, and now I'm REALLY tired and going back to bed. Maybe for a couple days. Wish I hadn't clicked on this.


I know just what you mean, I visited a university recently and one of the courses was run with what amounted to a photocopied version of one of my books - it was about 60% of it! Pissed me off to no end.

I guess you could just be flattered by their choice, but the truth is you can't eat flattery, and I haven't found anyplace to bank it either.
 
The real problem here is that the phrase "The Copyright Wars of 2017" has already been trademarked, so the name won't be free to use until at least 2018.
 
Funny, since I'm the AHAB quote guy and my wife thinks I'm about 8 parts Peter Griffin (and two parts John Doe from SE7EN.)

Actually that sounds like a mirror universe version of Reg Barclay, doesn't it? Man, I shoulda saved this for Halloween, that thought is really SCARY.
 
I do not see any reason in downloading movies and TV shows that are legitimately available, since I can see the obvious dishonesty in that and I can expect much more reliable quality from the genuine product anyway.

But with TV shows that are not available at all through legitimate channels I have much less sympathy for the copyright holders if these shows are instead being taken on torrent or through pirate DVDs. If the consumers can't find something they want from a provider they move on and get it somewhere else no matter what, it is that simple.

However as tempted as I am, I'm patient and honest enough to hold on until these dithering companies get their act together and snip away or change the more counterproductive forms of copyright that don't work in this multimedia digital age. Eventually everybody can get paid well for movies and TVs that can downloaded in very high quality, but I wouldn't be surprised that a few corporate toes would stepped upon on the way (they're more likely committed to a losing strategy in the market now, Sony being one of them).
 
Teenagers who have grown up in the digital age are vastly younger than the business exectutives and authors who own the content they're trying to plug, so it is no surprise the prehistoric providers would be so out of touch from the young providers so the copyright holders have far less of a grasp on digital technology so they would be more inclined to be ignorant and draconian enough to ruthlessly restrict copyrighted content even if it is already available anywhere on the Internet (did somebody call the Internet the 'Universal Theft Machine' once?).

Plus businessmen in recent decades are intrinistically short-sighted and ultra competitive bean counters, so they would more likely to aggressively push on with a poorly thought through strategy (which is why Sony decided not to pay the music content on Dark Skies [yep, here I go again ;) ] to its own detriment and the detriment of music holders demanding too much, forcing impatient people to get that old show on torrent so nobody makes any money and people with no computer access get fucked).
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top