Copyright

Well, its like this...

Ideas and information are different in the eyes of the court. And idea that is not written down is not copyrightable because no tangible expression of that idea is available. If an idea were copyrightable, anyone could say "hey I had this idea for a movie where everyone lived in a dream world controlled by computers, thus Warner Bros owes me money for the Matrix".

The thing that the courts want to see is a tangible written form of an idea, preferably dated, documented, and filled with the copyright office though as discussed, that isn't necessary, but it helps proving a case. Many a lawsuit was won or lost once an original idea was put down on paper (or not as the case may be).

The word "information" is a large bucket that contains everything that exists and is somewhat meaningless to the courts. Music is information, the periodic table is information, the works of Shakespeare are information.

The thing that concerns the courts is "what does the information do/contain/mean/say/whatever?" If the information is a copyrighted work, then the courts will consider that work to belong to the copyright owner. And this is where things get really tricky.

Lets say you take the binary version of the MP3 file, print out the code, and put it on a t-shirt. You MAY be able to copyright that code/shirt. However, if someone were to recompile the code and play it via an mp3 player, they would be violating the copyright of the original owner. This stuff gets sticky, and the courts/lawyers are really having a tough time keeping up with it.

I'm not sure if this helps, but I hope I'm steering you in the right direction.

-P

Well yeah, I'm not arguing what the laws are, because I really don't know them very well. I think I have a good general understanding of what they do. All i'm saying is that I don't agree with what they do. To me they don't make sense. They don't fix a problem. They only create more problems.

"If I create something, invent something, or otherwise bring into being something that is soley the product of my own intellect, creativity, or skill... it's mine. You have no claim on it whatsoever... ever. You didn't think of it or create it. I did."
Chip Midnight
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me . . . ." Thomas Jefferson

Though copyright law has/was influenced by this line of thought, i not longer think it prevails. Just look at the conflictions in these two statements. Think to yourself and wonder, can we call this progress?


Prana says "Only a unique work of writing,music, artistry etc is copyrighted."
Unfortunately, the concept of copyright (to the best of my knowlege) does infact bleed-over to facts. Take DNA copyright for example. http://www.dnacopyright.com/
Then again maybe DNA isn't based on any facts...i could be wrong.

What I mean to say, and I realise I am doing so badly, is that information isn't really copyrighted for the most part, only the way in which it is expressed. As I said earlier, you can express love for someone, define love, draw a picture of it or write a song about it. You can talk about as much as you want to who ever you want. You just can't use my love song. When we create something, such as a work of art, we are sharing a little piece of ourselves. It's personal and intimate. Which is why I feel that it belongs to us and should only be used as we see fit. Becuase no one is stopping you from sharing information or expressing yourself, they are only stopping you from copying exactly my expression and saying it's your own. I mean, seriously, how can you express yourself with someone elses work? How is that even possible? It's an expression of who they are and what they feel, not you.

And frankly I get tired of seeing the same graphic all over the net or hearing the same song played everywhere I go. Isn't the point of the game for us to create unique imaginative forms of our own expression? How unique is it if everyone else has it too? How imaginative is it if you just swipe someone elses stuff? I would much rather see people at least attempt to express themselves as individuals. Get a paint program and try to do it yourself. In the end won't you be that much prouder and more fulfilled to have done it on your own? Seeing the same graphic everywhere burns me out. It's overexposure, and it makes that which should be something special into something ordinary. Which is why I am in favor of copyright law. Ask yourself, would the Sistine Chapel be as awesome to behold if half the people in your neighborhood had the exact same thing on thier ceiling? Or if we all had a statue of Donatello or a copy of the Mona Lisa. It would cease to be unique, one of a kind, special.

I think letting others use your work is great. I think open source code is great. The difference in that and this, is that in those cases people wanted to hand over thier products to the public. That's great for them, because it was of thier own free will. But not everyone wants just anyone to take something so personal and use it any way they want. I don't think I should be forced to just because some people do. It's like sex, it's great if it's mutual and horrible if it's just taken. No one should be forced to give of themselves against thier will, in art or anything else.

What it comes down to is this. When a person puts thier time and energy and love into something they created wholely of themselves, it should belong to them. It doesn't stop you from creating,sharing,expressing and informing. It doesn't hinder you in any way that I can understand. And after a number of years go by, you can use even the original. In the meantime you can use it for educational purposes or even in a collage under certain guidelines. You can still look at the work, be inspired by it. So how does it hinder you? You get the benefit of someone elses labor, isn't that enough? Why should you get credit for it too?

Creating a work of art is like having a child. It's a labor of love. You poor yourself into it, try to make it something of yourself and also something entirely differerent. You don't really own it, but you have control over it until enough time has passed that it can be shared with the world. After a number of years it's set free and anyone can change it, abuse it or love it. And all you can do is hope that in the time it was in your control, you did it justice and helped mold it into something that would bring about a positive change in the world, to make people think and feel.

I would no sooner just hand over a piece of my art to some stranger to do with as they pleased then I would hand over my own child. To you it is just information, but to me, it is everything.

Good luck and blessings, Prana

Don't people have better things to worry about than this?? Come on!!

Lets get this straight, so others are not confused...

Public Domain has a very specific legal meaning. Just because something can be easily copied does NOT make it Public Domain. Yes, a lot of copyrighted material has been placed on the internet and then downloaded in various forms by countless individuals. This doesn't not make it right, legal, or ethical.

I am no fan of the RIAA, but they did recently sue several university students for distributing music, and from what I read those students will be sending payments to the RIAA for the rest of their lives most likely.

Almost everyone (including myself) has carelessly uploaded graphics for a website, or into some environment such as SL that is copyrighted material. For the most part these infractions go unnoticed, and when noticed will result in, at most, a warning letter from a lawyer. But I don't think it is a good idea to tell your friends that "its OK, everyone does it". In the end, the person doing the uploading will be the one the court holds responsible, and it won't matter how many of their friends told them "its OK".

As for who should do the enforcement, I don't have a clue. SL could look at every texture uploaded, but there is no guarantee that they will spot every copyright violation. Better re-read your TOS (no, I haven't) but my guess is that the uploader is the responsible party. If Disney decides to sue you, I don't think Linden Labs will pick up half the tab for you.

Act responsibly, and ethically, avoid becoming a test case in the courts.

Nope, nope, NOPE!

Linux, both the kernel code and most, if not all, the thousands of components that make up a Linux system are copyrighted. The most common form of this is the GNU General Public License, or GPL which is a document (itself copyrighted) that you can read at http://gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html . If it were not for the fact that all of this code is copyrighted there would be nothing to stop Microsoft from downloading a version of it and selling it as their own software. They could make their version "closed" so that no one could ever again see it.

Copyright, as has been pointed out, is not exclusively about making money, nor is it about greed in the common sense of the word. Greed practiced to excess may be bad, but we are all to some extent greedy. If anyone here claims to not be greedy at all, please contact me privately and I will supply you with an address where you can send all your things.

What seems to be going on here is a game where one side says something like: "Here is a hole in the notion of copyrights. Since the system isn't perfect, we can throw the whole thing out and anything goes." The world doesn't work that way. Children have to have that explained to them. People old enough to be in the current Beta program, in theory should have learned that fact already. The discussion is interesting, because it brings out all the nuances of the issue, but I'm afraid of someone taking the side of most convenience to themselves and ending up in trouble over it.

There have been a number of good links on the subject posted already. If you are tempted to find a gimmick that will make you immune from the laws, I urge you to do your homework first and go read those links.

Some people who claim copyright on their works do not have the resources to enforce those claims. While all forms of theft are illegal, stealing from the rich is more likely to get you thrown in jail than stealing from the poor. That is an unfortunate fact of life. It does NOT make stealing from the poor OK though! All the more reason why decent people should shun the company of people who try and see just how much they can get away with.

I have strong feelings on this subject, it is likely that any creative person who has given it a sufficient amount of thought will too.

"What seems to be going on here is a game where one side says something like: "Here is a hole in the notion of copyrights. Since the system isn't perfect, we can throw the whole thing out and anything goes.""

I'll have to admit to this. Though not entirely. I don't beleive that the entire system is at fault. I do beleive that it gets stretched and pulled in questionable ways and must be kept in check. But I know i've must have said this before, so there's not real point of going over that again.
By the way, I retract what i said about DNA copyright. It doesn't really do this conversation any justice except drag it into different territory, though I find it very interesting.

please, can we stop mentioning that it's wrong to break a law because we don't agree with it. what i am doing is arguing the law. besides, i could argue that each one of us is constantly breaking the ideals of copyrights, because the idea of sharing information is so far reaching that every living cell does it. life itself consists of sharing information.

and mac, i didn't claim linux wasn't copyrighted. I said it was created for free. It proves, as you also stated, that the making of money need not be what drives intellectual work. We are already driven naturally to gain knowledge.

My point is that copyrights are not necessary, do not solve any problem and only create problems.

if anyone can give me one clear reason as to why copyrights are necessary, then you have proven me wrong. don't tell me what they do, or why they are desired. Why are they NECESSARY?

Since Ope is shifting the direction of the conversation, and asking a very good question, let me give my best knowledge of copyright history. For the record, I am not a lawyer, but since I have been given the task of "dealing with copyright issues" in Second Life, I have taken on quite a bit of knowledge about it, so here goes. (Side note: You have to love a product that forces you to increase your knowledge about... anything, be it 3d building, texture mapping, and in my case, copyrights. SL has had some very interesting side effects)


The idea of copyrights started around the same time that the printing press was invented in Europe. Only a few presses existed, and they were controled by a guild called the Stationers' Company. The guild had tacit agreement with each other to NOT print each others works, and thus maintain a monopoly on any work they agreed to print. Thus, a "private" law was created by the guild that let each printer own their own copyrights, as there were very few who could challenge that copyright. (You would need to own a printing press to do so.)

Various leaderships of various countries agreed to this private law as a fees were paid to the current ruler, and the current ruler maintained all censorship rights of any written material. Thus, no "dangerous" works would be printed, and the law was extended to "public" law so that the guild had the ability to shut down anyone who had managed to get theirs hands on a press without being a guild member.

Around the mid-to-late 1700's, a startup country needed to create their own laws, and realized that the copyright laws across the pond were used to both censor and and control the press. Not wanting the copyright laws to do the same thing in their brand new shiny country, they wrote that the purpose of a copyright would be to promote the progress of knowledge and learning.

Congress realized two things at this point:
1. No one will create if there is no incentive to do so.
2. Monopoly's on created works will NOT promote progress and learning, it will hinder it.

So, realizing that these two problems are in opposition, they chose to allow "for a limited time" a monopoly on newly created works so that authors and (by extension) creators, could reap the fruits of their labor. It's a delicate balance, and as we have seen recently, very easily tipped.

What copyright law did was give creators an opportunity to create thier works and benefit from them, while ensuring that "monopolistic stagnation" would not happen.

At first, Copyright laws were granted for 14 years with the possibility of another 14 year extension - 28 years at most.
Various industries have taken it upon themselves to influence the law makers to extend those rights. They currently stand at "the lifetime of the author + 70 years". An infinite number of arguments can be made for or against this length, none of which I will attempt to reproduce here. (There are many websites devoted to that arguement, most of them debate it much more intelligently that I am capable of.)

So, to answer the original question, the purpose of copyrights is to allow creators exclusive rights to their original works for a short period of time, with the intent of providing an incentive for original works. The secondary purpose is to allow the public a greater depth and breadth of knowledge and creative works from which to build the blocks of a greater society.

Now, having said all that (and my apologies for the long winded response) I suspect that all of us have varying opinions about the goals/purposes/additions/changes/etc of copyright law. As we continue to debate and discuss, please remember to be respectful and understanding. This has been a great thread which I enjoy reading and participating in.

Best wishes,

-Peter

Oh I agree Peter. I have a very strong stance on this, and I hope I haven't come across as if I'm attacking anyone. I'm attacking ideas, not people. And your post was great. I never knew about the actual history of copyrights.

But it didn't prove to me why copyrights are necessary. IMO it just helped my point more. It doesn't surprise me that it was started as a way to create a monopoly. It also doesn't surprise me that they were used to censor ideas.

And the two points that led congress to create copyrights. I agree with both of them. The problem is, they didn't realize that there was no need to create an incentive for intellectual work. The incentive already exists. We naturally want to learn and create. How and why was the printing press invented in the first place?

So it's a good explanation as to why they exist, but not why they are necessary.

Your implication was that the copyright was not important to Linux, and in fact it is very important. It gives the creator of the content the right (hence the name copyRIGHT) to determine how, or IF they are to be rewarded for their creation. You said it yourself in the earlier post:

"The desire to be rewarded for intellectual work, though, makes sense. Why else would I try to come up with something clever? But, who says that the reward must come in the form of money or recognition? "

I'm not sure what else there is that puzzles you about it. In the case of Linux, the copyright laws give Linus and the OSF the mechanism to prevent someone from taking their work, which they have made available to the public and subverting it, closing it up and trying to resell it as something new (when in fact it is derived). This is why Microsoft refers to the GPL as a viral license (sometimes they also call it a cancer) since it forces all work derived from the original to be as open as the original was.

To be clear on this: the copyright laws gives the creator the right to make the terms of the license whatever they want them to be.

Contrast Linux with the BSD version of Unix. It is also free. But, it uses a different license, one that allows you to modify the code and then make the modified version closed! That is exactly what Apple has done with OS X. they are under no obligation to share their changes to BSD with the public. In fact... they are PROHIBITED from sharing those changes with the public and still calling it BSD. BSD is run by a small group of people who want totall control over anything that has BSD in the name, so they require that all changes made by anyone be funneled through them. On the other hand if you want to take the BSD source code, change it and call it Second Life Unix, then you are free to do so (at least that is my understanding of the BSD license).

The point is that the inventor (or creator) of the work gets to call the shots however they want to for some limited amount of time.

I hope you have some idea now of why the copyright laws are usefull, but should it be that you still don't understand, keep in mind that the laws are still in place even if everyone in this forum agrees that they are bad. So, if you still think that way, the better way to approach it is by contacting your congress person. I think you're going to have to do a better job of explaining how a system without copyrights would work though. Using Linux as a sample case doesn't do it. Which was my point.

Thanks for the great history lesson Peter Very informative.

well my argument rests on my belief that information is free. some people believe that because something takes time and energy to make that it should cost money. this is not true. in a free-market system products are priced according to the law of supply and demand. simply put, people will only pay what they are willing to pay for something. it has nothing to do with how much it costs to make.

in terms of supply, information is essentially infinite if I already have it. and so demand is 0. and the price i am willing to pay is then 0.

edit:
oh i was responding to Chips deleted comment^

Oh, sorry Ope. On a second read I thought it sounded like I was slamming you and that wasn't my intent

Why are copyrights necessary?

They're not. Simple as that. But if i can get government to grant me the right to profit off my ideas, be it visual arts, inventions, etc... hey - why not? Of course then, it opens up all kinda of problems that it can never really solve since there is no underlying justification for it. Just look at how it's terms are identified in the Constitution..they're vauge and debatable to no end. We do know there's an incredible amount of profit to be had from the existance of these laws, and as long as money can be so influential in government, i wouldn't expect them to go away anytime soon.
Hey, i'm no saint, and i'm not saying this is really all that bad, but that's my honest evaluation.

Thats how I feel Zeb. Glad to see that someone agrees with me. I also don't have the optimism to believe that copyrights will be repealed anytime soon. They are a source of too much revenue. Too much power. But if we don’t begin to argue it and raise awareness of its fallacy, then it will never change.




Mac, you’re right. I was indirectly implying that copyrights were not important to the development of Linux. But I think you may have taken it the wrong way. I am referring to a copyrights ability to control information, and therefore the power that comes with it. This includes the power to make money. It is this power that makes copyrights useful, and desirable. And it is wrongly justified as a reward for creating intellectual work. My point is that this power to control information is not needed as a reward.


What about all the intellectual work that was created before copyrights existed? How could all that have been possible?

Don't get me wrong either....I know there is a tremendous amount of MISUSE of the copyright and patent laws. I'm very much against what the RIAA has done with music or Rambus did (or tried to do) with computer memory. One reason I use Linux for most of my computer work is that I don't like being held hostage to the whims of the next version of Windows. I think the amount of time that companies can take advantage of copyrights is WAY too long. For anyone who doesn't know, the primary reason that copyright limits have been extended (twice now) is so that Disney can keep control of the copyright on Mickey Mouse. This is outrageous in my opinion to have congress change a general purpose law for the benefit of one company.

One of the primary resources for information about misuse of patents and copyrights is Stanford U. Law Professor Lawrence Lessig who blogs about this subject at: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/

While the "bad guys" are winning at the moment, there is a growing movement to rationalize the copyright laws. One nice things about the global economy is that any country that lets its special interests have too much control over intellectual property is likely to lose business, and creative people, to contries with more sensible laws. It may take years, but I am confident that the situation will get better eventually.

I don't think you can blame the misuse and abuse of copyright law on the law itself. There's no justification for corporate greed that goes beyond fair profit for fair product. That even with the laws there's abuse is a clear indication of why the laws need to be there in the first place. It would be nice if we lived in a utopian society where everyone was honorable and fair, but that is definitely not the world we live in.

I agree in the underlying idealism that drives your point of view, but it's just that... idealism. And that by itself won't put food on my table. I depend on the intellectual property I create to pay my mortgage and every other life expense. Would you deny me the right to make a living? If I was unable to control the sale and distribution of my work I would be out of bunsiness. I'm self employed. I'm not a greedy mega-corp. The same laws that corporations abuse also protect me, the little guy, from being denied my ability to earn a living from my craft. It bewilders me no end why you have a problem with that. It's all the same issue whether we're talking about Disney or a starving artist. It really doesn't bother me that I can't steal mickey mouse from Disney and make my own mickey mouse cartoons. And when I log onto Kazaa to find some music, I don't pretend that what I'm doing is anything other than what it is... theft. If I like it I buy the album, and if I don't, I delete the file.

As with most things it comes down to personal integrity and being honorable... things that are sadly lacking in our society these days. I for one don't feel entitled to anything I didn't earn or pay for. If I think a product is priced unfairly or that the company that makes it is a greedy con artist then I vote with my wallet and I don't buy their products. I don't take it as a justification for stealing them instead. That's just my two cents.

Very nicely put.

If you don't like the way someone or some group or some mega corp acts then you can tell them so, you can refuse to associate or sponsor them (by buying their goods or any other way) and you can tell your story and your opinion to others. However it doesn't give you the right to steal.

Now that aside - the RIAA and MPA are being idiots on so many levels it really isn't funny. Copyright laws for many things, especially software, should be much much much shorter than they currently are. They are designed to protect the product for an amount of time to reasonably reward the inventor. The idea being if I know that as soon as I make something someone else can go claim it as their own or use it in any way they wish without rewarding me, why would I make it? So to prevent that we have copyright law. Its mine and you can't say you made it, you cant use it unless I say. And it is supposed to be that way for long enough that I can make a reasonable profit on it and get just reward from my work, and then it is supposed to be available to the public.

Disney is dead. Did anyone else miss that? The copyright of Mickey has lasted past the life of the person who created it (ok I don't know disney trivia, did he actually create mickey?). A duration that long is way past solving the 'I'm not gonna create because I won't get rewarded' problem. Way, way, way past it.

And software should be way shorter - a software copy right limit of 10 years would not harm anyone. Oh my god, the source to Win 3.1 and Dos 6.22 would be public domain. A limit to 5 years would drive innovation and foster competition - just now Win98 source (a windows no longer supported by MS or most games) would be available to the public. Which would mean new windows versions would have to offer a lot more than 98 did, because anyone could use the 98 code. And 98 hasn't been making MS $$ in the past 2 years anyways.

Ah I'm not a copyright lawyer, and I don't even think this conversation was about software copyrights. There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. And laws that last long enough can get morphed so much that instead of working toward the spirit of the law (in this case fostering invention) they actually hurt that spirit (in this case unnecesarily stiffling competition and innovation - why make something new when the old will make your rich forever).

Ah I ramble. Time for bed.

I'm going to sound off on a couple things here:

1. Copyright laws, as they exist today, need to be revised. While originally used as a monopolistic tactic, copywrite laws do give protections to artists to a certain extent. The problem has come about that corporations are using copyright laws to effectively steal from naive, or even knowing, artists. An example: Music group signs multiple record deal with corporation. In doing so, they sign the rights away to their music. Now, even the newest group will probably negotiate some type of small (and I forget the term) deal whereby if the record company sells their tune to, say, Mitsubishi, they will get some money from the side deal. However, the majority of the money involved goes to the record company, and the once insignifgant band gets to hear their music as a car races over it 5 times in a single hour when they watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, knowing, n that hour, they've earned says 5 cents, while the record company has received the other $499.95.

So whats to be done about this? I think the creator of a piece of art, defined however you want, should be able to retain the right to sell it how they see fit. In writing, publishers usually buy the "first serial rights," which gives them the right to publish it first. Especially with short stories, the author still retains control of the actual ownership of the piece. This needs to be extended to the music industry among others. Since I am woefully ignorant of paint, drawing etc forms of media distribution and rights I can't really comment on their state or what, if any changes need to be made from the standpoint of an individual artist.

2. Copyright laws, as they exist today need to be changed (2): This addresses the corporate side of things. For corporation sponsored projects, be they movies, in house advertising etc. Right now, as it stands, some corporations, the Mouse House being the most notorious are spending too much time "defending" their rights and are applying said defense unevenly.

Example: in 1982, Disney simultaneously released Tron the movie and, through a licencing deal with Bally, Tron the arcade game. Now, I don;t know if anyone has been to the Disney corporate website, but they have very strict standards on what liscences they will sell and how said licenses must be manufactured. With regards to the arcade game; Bally was sold several times and, for all intents and purposes, does not exist today. The problem is, the artwork on these Tron machines wears out. On any given day, you can usually find 3-4 "suppliers" or reproduction artwork on Ebay. The quality of this artwork is, to say the least, horrible. Badly printed on cheap materials. Within the arcade collecting community, there are probably 3 people who make reproduction artwork that is both visually exacting and as, if not more durable than the originals. One of those 3 people decided they wanted to do Tron reproduction artwork. They went through the whole corporate process to get the reproduction rights, even going so far as to identify all the people currntly selling reproductions without a license. Not only did Disney say no to the reproduction, they sent said person a cease and desist order. That's fine. But they didn't go after any of the people who, to this day, still do and sell bad reproductions of artwork Disney has no intention of reproducing themselves.

So what needs to be done? I think when a corporation purchases all ownership rights to a project, if they want to extend their copyright past the intial 14 years, they need to prove they are actively using and supporting the copyrighted material. If they do not, then specific rights should become public. I also think, in the case of a corporation purchasing rights from an artist that, if, at the 14 year mark, they do let the rights lapse, the artist or their estate should be given first rights to their work.

Now, it can be argued that, with the making of Tron 2.0 the video game, they are actively using the trademark. But they certainly aren't supporting the older trademark. By this I'm specifically referring to sideart.

Rant On

Finally, I want to add my own personal hate issue into this discussion. Specifically in terms of patents, since I see them being related to copyright.

Did you know that it's possible to patent a business idea? That you can come up with a fantastic product, but, if you don't patent the business idea as well, you can own the patent to the device all you want, but someone else has the rights to sell what you've created? This is a prime example of why there is entirely too much law within land. It's this type of law that is designed, even more than copyright laws, to stifle invention and make lawyers rich.

Rant off

yes, this idea is idealistic. so is the idea that we shouldn't murder eachother. i don't agree with the notion that because we don't live in a perfect world that we should just accept it. why do we have a democratic system? because we realize that we make mistakes and we need a way to fix them. copyrights are a mistake.



they have no logical backing but greed. theres no way to rationalize them other than to realize this.



i see things in a different way. if anyone is doing the stealing it is the copyright holder by charging us for something that is free.

play along with me on this:
imagine i went around my neighborhood and at everyones doorstep i left them a piece of fruit. the next day, i went back around and asked everyone whether they ate my fruit or not. some say they didn't like that type of fruit and threw it out. others say they didn't trust it and also threw it out. but a few of them loved the fruit, and ate it. to those people i hand a legal document which states that they now owe me $20 for eating the fruit.

who is stealing from who?

according to some arguments this would be a legitimate way to do business because "it puts food on my table". this doesn't make it right.

and when the fruit lovers catch on to the scheme:

"what fruit? i didn't eat any fruit." *wink* *wink*

Ama, and Raven... you both make really good points. As I said in my previous post I think there's a difference between the law and the people who bend and stretch the law out of greed. The RIAA seems to shoot itself in the foot every chance it gets. The Mouse House militantly defends its copyrights to the point of absurdity. Both are driven by greed, and the intent of copyright law is not to defend greed.

I almost brought up patent law earlier but didn't because I didn't want to steer the thread off on a tangent, but I think discussions about the merits of copyright usually get muddled with patent law and they are different beasts. Patent law is hugely abused. Corporations are constantly trying to file vague, nebulous, and ridiculously broad patents, not because they're trying to protect their inventions but because they're hoping to make a few extra million on the side by suing for royalties on things they have no right to collect royalties on. Some famous examples... Compton's Multimedia tried to patent the whole concept of multimedia and if they had succeeded then everyone who produces any form of interactive information that's delivered by computer would be forced to pay royalties to Comptons. Then there's Amazon who patented the idea of "one click" buying... something so blindingly obvious that it's an idea anyone could and would come up with on their own. Both of those cases were driven soley by greed and were not in the spirit or intent of the laws.

It seems the things that everyone has problems with, including me, is greedy monopolistic lack of integrity on the part of individuals and corporations. The blame for that doesn't lay in the law, it lies with the people who look for ways to abuse the law. Just because a law doesn't prevent every possible abuse doesn't somehow make abusing it an okay thing to do. The responsibility for being ethical lies with individuals. You, me, bill gates, and everyone else. I don't need someone to tell me that breaking into my neighbors home and stealing their belongings is wrong to know that it's wrong. I also know that without a law that punishes people for doing that it would only be a matter of time before someone breaks into my home and steals my belongings.

I'll give you a short example of how copyright law effects me as a working artist. Let's say a company hires me to make some 3d renderings of their product or building. We negotiate a price and I create the art. Part of the process involves giving them samples to get their approval on the accuracy of the models, textures, lighting, and animation. If there were no laws to protect me there would be nothing at all to stop that company from taking those images that were intended soley for approval purposes and using them in their advertising and then refusing to pay me the agreed upon fee for services rendered. They would have done nothing illegal. Without copyright laws any image I create would be just as much their property as mine. I would have no recourse to fight them on it. The sad thing is that naive artists who don't arm themselves with solid legal contracts get ripped off that way all the time.

I don't release the copyrights on any images I create to the companies I create them for. I give them unrestricted use of the images instead. That way it's still within my rights to use that work in my portfolio, or to use textures or models I created for that job in another job for someone else. If a client wants to hold the copyright for the images I create I'll do it, but I'll charge them 2-5 times as much as I would if I was going to retain the copyright. If a company won't agree to my terms, I walk.

Artists who work for studios like Disney are often hired under a "work for hire" arrangement which is designed to favor the studio over the artist. People who work at Disney are not allowed to display work they did while at Disney in any capacity... not even in their portfolio or on their demo reel. Is it Disney's fault that those artists are pretty much getting screwed? Well yes, and no. It's also the fault of the artist's who agreed to work under those terms. I've turned down plenty of jobs because I didn't agree with the terms of the contract. MY integrity isn't for sale. I'd sooner starve.

Here's another example... back when MTV networks was developing what is now known as Comedy Central some friends and I submitted an idea for a show, along with scripts and storyboards and a pilot episode we produced ourselves. We were going to be doing short comedy sketches to be used as filler. The network was then going to be known as Ha! Tv. At the same time HBO was developing Comedy Central and they sued MTV over Ha! because they felt that MTV was stealing their idea. When we submitted our materials to MTV we were asked to sign a submission contract that stated that we couldn't sue if MTV just coincidentally happened to come up with exactly the same ideas we submitted to them. Basically it was a license to steal. MTV was all set to hire us. We even moved to NYC. But the lawsuit with HBO froze all of Ha! TV's assets. Eventually MTV and HBO decided to jointly develop what is now Comedy Central and while that was all being sorted out we fell through the cracks. Sorry for the rambling but here's the rub... about a year or two later MTV came out with a comedy show called Pirate TV. They stole several of the skits we'd submitted to them almost word for word but because of that document we signed there was not a thing we could do about it. We were not compensated in any way. If I had the same thing to do all over again I'd have refused to sign the submission contract even though it would have meant not getting hired by MTV. If there were no copyright laws MTV could (and would) have done that to us even if we hadn't signed their contract.

I can understand how people who don't deal with copyright issues can look at it with cynical eyes and see it as simply a tool that big corporations use to take more of your money than they deserve. From my own experiences I can tell you that copyright law also protects me from the likes of MTV, or any other company that would steal my work without compensating me for it. Experience has also taught me that without those laws in place, I'd be stolen from constantly.

So in closing, make sure your ire is properly directed. From the sounds of the anti-copyright arguments being made here the real issue isn't copyright, it's the greed of corporations. Try to remember that copyright law also protects me, and you, from being ripped off by those same corporations. The real issue is ethics, not law.

And Ope, all I can say is that I'm damn glad that there are laws in place to protect me from people who think the way you do.

ouch Chip. hey i believe in ethics too. i'm sorta just playing the devil's advocate here. it's not like i'm on some crusade or something. but honestly i can't seem to make sense of what doesn't make sense. and i'm really enjoying this conversation a lot. i know this idea of free information is kinda out there. but, information physically is free.

you just brought up a crucial point too. the dilemma of proving your work. this dilemma also proves to me that information is undeniably free. if you don't show them your work, then how do they know they want to buy it? you have to show them your work to prove it. but then they already have the information they need and so there is no need to buy it. any way you cut it, information has no tradable value in the end.

in real practice though, there may be ways around this dilemma. as long as the information you provide as an example is enough to prove your skill, but not enough that it has any real value to the buyer, then the deal can go through. this is why having a portfolio can help. but this certainly will not work in every case. if there is no way to provide an example without revealing too much, then there will not be a deal. i just can't think of an example where this would happen. perhaps since you have industry experience you could expand....

i think the reason that this is so hard to accept is because we are so used to the status quo. careers and entire industries have developed around the presumption that ideas can be solely owned, even after they've been made public. one has to ask "what will happen to these careers?" of course this is purely speculation, but i can see how this would in the end help only the little honest guy, and remove the big greedy guy.

the one thing that a skilled worker owns and brings to the table is their skill. you can't take their skill away from them. if all information after being made public was then free to use for everyone, there would be no way to abuse the 'selling' of the little guys idea by anyone else. a typical transaction would involve the proof dilemma outlined above. assuming that his skill is proven, and a price negotiated, the little guy now has work. but no one will own his idea after he has released it and so no one else could make money off of it. this seems a lot more honest to me. a skilled worker would be the only one to make money off his ideas. and his ideas would have to be new. but maybe i'm missing something.....