gamedevlists-general

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Crosbie F. <cr...@cy...>]

Or, even simpler, just abolish copyright and patents.

It'll happen eventually.

It's just a question of when enough folk say 'enough is enough'.

Does published work belong to the publisher or the public?

Your answer defines which side you're on.

The laws of nature will determine which side wins.

If you know anything about computers you might have an inkling as to the
laws of nature when it comes to the diffusion of information across public
networks.

If you know anything about publishing corporations you might have an inkling
of the lengths they will go to to assert their laws of copyright and patent.

So sit back and enjoy the show, or pick a side and get stuck in.

Feel free to copy me - you don't need my permission.

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Crosbie F. <cr...@cy...>]

> From: Bob
> You've got it wrong -- it's the corporations that need 
> abolishing.

I'd agree that corporations shouldn't be considered equal to human beings,
and thus should have no rights except those arising from their human
constituents.

> Copyright (and other forms of IP) is a fine thing, so long as  it 
> belongs to creators, rather than (undying and polymorphous) employers.

You believe that a person has the natural right to prevent any other from
copying or making derivatives of their published works?

NB An author has a natural right not to be plagiarised or otherwise
misattributed, but this right isn't protected by copyright.

> Nonetheless, the reality is that neither such broad 
> reformation is within reach.

Unless each of us outstretches our arms instead of believing ourselves
congenitally enfeebled.

> 
> However, I believe Jon's concern was that the bill in 
> question empowers IP holders in ways that overstep reason.

And I'm suggesting that if you support corporations' commercial privileges
such as copyright and patent you can't complain when the corporations'
representatives take steps necessary to enforce their privileges against
continued violation by the public - and those nefarious businesses that
facilitate such violation.

Do you allow members of the public to make unauthorised exchanges of
copyrighted works? Do you allow them to store their unauthorised copies on
your premises? Do you even facilitate their making of unauthorised copies or
derivatives?

To both support copyright and yet decry measures necessary to secure its
enforcement should be recognised as Doublethink
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink

Either copyright is wholesome and you should embrace the stormtroopers when
they assist you in performing an impromptu audit of your premises and your
customers' data that you store, or you should recognise the bug in your
brain and make the paradigm shift: the public has a natural right to
cultural liberty, to freely share and build upon published works.

Despite the incredible human faculty for Doublethink, I don't think it's
healthy for one's sanity. 

There is a 300 year old bug in the law and it has set governments and the
corporations they represent against the public.

Legislators make law. Lawyers understand, document, and explain it. Judges
interpret it. No-one is employed or empowered to debug it. We just wait
until the anachronism (currently a white elephant in the living room) gets
to the size of a StayPufft Marshmallow Man and rampages across the city - a
joke, but it still tramples over thousands of poor citizens who happen to be
in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Copyright is a fricking great positive feedback loop (persecute the public
to protect the ability of publishing corporations to provide benefit to the
public) and you're midway through its crescendo. Either the bug gets fixed
or the system crashes. The GPL was just a partial workaround that has
reduced the pressure from the software industry for a while (excellently
coded by Stallman et al). Creative Commons also helped out slightly (not
quite as good, having been written by a lawyer rather than a programmer).
Unfortunately, the pressure's still increasing, the temperature's rising,
and the noise is getting louder.

There is no fix left except abolition.

So, either the problem is that copyright isn't being sufficiently enforced
and the Pro-IP bill is the appropriate remedy, or there's a far more
fundamental bug in the law and both copyright and the Pro-IP bill should be
rejected.

In other words, either it is in human nature to share and build upon others'
published work (art or invention), or such behaviour is to be considered
anti-social thievery (to be prohibited and held as the sole preserve of the
privileged author or copyright holder).

Folks, it's 'make your mind up' time...

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Bob <ma...@mb...>]

> You believe that a person has the natural right to prevent any other from
> copying or making derivatives of their published works?
>
> NB An author has a natural right not to be plagiarised or otherwise
> misattributed, but this right isn't protected by copyright.

We're getting used to the idea of free copying these days, with all the 
digital scanners, video rippers, and mp3 compressors making our lives easier 
and our houses less cluttered, but the issue of copyright is not so much 
about the private individual making copies for personal use. We can, I hope, 
reform copyright in a way that protects our individual personal rights --  
that is, chuck the mess and keep the baby. Because the issue that copyright 
protects against is very valid.

Have you ever seen those big collections of "classic" films on DVD for a few 
dollars? Those are collections of movies that were distributed with the tiny 
oversight of lacking a copyright notice -- without that protection, 
regardless if the film was released just this year, scavengers can make 
cheap copies and reap a pure profit on the work while dramatically 
undercutting legitimate publishers.

And frankly, it shouldn't matter if the work was produced last year or last 
decade. While a probable majority of copyrights belong to corporations now 
by default, making the argument seem archaic, it is perfectly legitimate for 
the (flesh and blood) creator of a work to expect ownership of the 
commercial potential of the work for the rest of his life (even a bit beyond 
that, since people can die suddenly, or produce worthwhile works late in 
life).


> To both support copyright and yet decry measures necessary to secure its
> enforcement should be recognised as Doublethink
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink

I don't think it is necessary to allow interference with the operation of 
services in the name of an investigation -- without even needing to making a 
formal criminal charge -- whether the alleged crime in question is copyright 
violation or mass murder plots. Yes, I did notice the similarity to 
ant-terrorist legislation in operation here. Or illegal porn, to pick a 
hysteria closer to home.

Copyright in particular is necessary, else no author or artist has any 
commercial potential and may as well go lay bricks or do some other work 
that doesn't take a lifetime of study to develop the skills for. And there's 
no longer any difference between a chart-topper like Stephen King who long 
ago left the trailer park behind as a reward for his abilities, and the 
average day-wage vanity book hack with no hope of ever leaving his 
sub-basement apartment.


Extended Intellectual Properties are more of a problem. But once again it's 
about protecting artists, not corporations. While it's wrong that we allow 
corporations to own (not just license) IPs, the individual needs this.

For example: back in 1983, a couple of guys in New Jersey came up with an 
idea for a self-published comic-book series. Producing and marketing their 
little comic-book, when not an all-out losing prospect, was a hand-to-mouth 
affair that barely sustained itself. But their comics gained a cult 
fllowing, and started selling sufficient numbers to avail hiring the 
occasional high-profile talent for small inserts. In 1985, those two guys 
licensed their creation to Hasbro (and later Pizza Hut). Their IP ownership 
gave them the leverage to demand a major marketing campaign and a Saturday 
morning cartoon show, while taking in several million dollars on a five year 
toy license. Because they had these protected rights of ownership, they were 
able to turn their creation into a pop-culture phenomenon, retain control, 
and reap the rewards time and again over the next twenty years.

Had their Intellectual Property not been protected, those guys would never 
have been able to achieve more than a passing wage as cartoonists, and only 
so long as they worked twelve hour days cranking out the material. And with 
no guarantee that their work would still sell when all the people who in the 
real world of 1985 were only emulating that property could have been free to 
produce their own versions.

Of course, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle story is rare, but it makes a 
great case justifying IP ownership (by legitimate creators, anyway).

Passing properties along to anyone but the original creator seems an abuse 
of the original intent, and in the long run (as real human beings eventually 
die) results in perpetual corporate controlled properties like Batman and 
Superman, that otherwise would be as public domain as Jesus of Nazareth and 
Hercules by now. No offense to true believers, intended. Even in the short 
run, it can leave the likes of H.R.Giger unable to reap the proper rewards 
of the very creation Fox so fiercely guards (and there's a real problem in 
that, because so many times a creator has one great design and that's it for 
them -- Shoji Kawamori is another good example, with his giant robot design 
for Macross, though he didn't lose his ownership so completely).



> Either copyright is wholesome and you should embrace the stormtroopers 
> when
> they assist you in performing an impromptu audit of your premises and your
> customers' data that you store, or you should recognise the bug in your
> brain and make the paradigm shift: the public has a natural right to
> cultural liberty, to freely share and build upon published works.
>
> Despite the incredible human faculty for Doublethink, I don't think it's
> healthy for one's sanity.
>
> There is a 300 year old bug in the law and it has set governments and the
> corporations they represent against the public.
>
> Legislators make law. Lawyers understand, document, and explain it. Judges
> interpret it. No-one is employed or empowered to debug it. We just wait
> until the anachronism (currently a white elephant in the living room) gets
> to the size of a StayPufft Marshmallow Man and rampages across the city - 
> a
> joke, but it still tramples over thousands of poor citizens who happen to 
> be
> in the wrong place at the wrong time.
>
> Copyright is a fricking great positive feedback loop (persecute the public
> to protect the ability of publishing corporations to provide benefit to 
> the
> public) and you're midway through its crescendo. Either the bug gets fixed
> or the system crashes. The GPL was just a partial workaround that has
> reduced the pressure from the software industry for a while (excellently
> coded by Stallman et al). Creative Commons also helped out slightly (not
> quite as good, having been written by a lawyer rather than a programmer).
> Unfortunately, the pressure's still increasing, the temperature's rising,
> and the noise is getting louder.
>
> There is no fix left except abolition.

I hope you are wrong.

In theory, the Lawyers and Judges, in concert with the public (or our 
legislative representatives), are supposed to be "debugging" the Laws, but 
alas, they're too often inept or crooked, and subject to the Darwin's Pond 
of beurocracy.

If you are looking for the root cause of the problem, though, it's not 
Copyright or Intellectual Property.

Maybe it's the modern Corporation.

Or maybe it's just Capitalism (no mystery how so many artists lean left).


--bob 

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Mike S. <mik...@gm...>]

On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 11:59 AM, Bob <ma...@mb...> wrote:
> Have you ever seen those big collections of "classic" films on DVD for a few
> dollars? Those are collections of movies that were distributed with the tiny
> oversight of lacking a copyright notice -- without that protection,
> regardless if the film was released just this year, scavengers can make
> cheap copies and reap a pure profit on the work while dramatically
> undercutting legitimate publishers.

In any country that is signatory to Berne Convention, mere authorship
is sufficient to establish the author's rights; explicit notification
can affect damages (or help prevent violation out of ignorance), but
isn't required for protection.

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html is worth reading.

Mike

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Jon W. <hp...@mi...>]

Bob wrote:
>
> Have you ever seen those big collections of "classic" films on DVD for a few 
> dollars? Those are collections of movies that were distributed with the tiny 
> oversight of lacking a copyright notice -- without that protection, 
>   

Even without a copyright notice, you have implicit copyright. However, 
in most of the world, copyright expires 50 years after the author's 
death. Because corporations may never die, copyrights owned by 
corporations expire 50 years after publication. Thus, in most of the 
world, any movie made in 1958 or later is now free of copyright. 
However, in the U.S, the Disney corporation keeps lobbying Congress to 
extend the length of protection, so I don't know where we're currently 
at. Personally, I think 50 years should be sufficient for anyone. 
Infinite copyright (which is what Disney wants) certainly isn't right.


> Passing properties along to anyone but the original creator seems an abuse 
> of the original intent, and in the long run (as real human beings eventually 
>   

If you can't sell it, then you don't own it. And it's not property if 
you don't own it. In fact, if you couldn't at the very least license it, 
then you couldn't make money off of copyright ownership. Once you allow 
licenses, then you have to allow perpetual, exclusive licenses with 
right of sublicense, which is just a name difference from selling.

The fact that corporations can own original copyright is a convenience, 
because it allows corporations to not have to track the lifetime of all 
the creators of each individual work -- something which was next to 
impossible 50 years ago, and even today, what with databases and 
whatnot, might still be fraught with risk. The trade-off, for the 
corporation, is that the 50 years (or whatever the term is) starts 
ticking on the date of publication. I think that's a reasonable trade-off.

What I disagree with on a personal level is the disproportionate 
attention it's getting in Congress, because of the media lobbying 
groups, and the disproportionate enforcement provisions, which could be 
argued goes against the "unreasonable search and seizure" constitutional 
amendment. I also, personally, feel that "fair use" has long been pretty 
well defined, but lately a large campaign has been mounted by monied 
copyright holders to push that back, to the detriment of the common 
good. That's where we need to take a stand and say "enough is enough."

Arguing to abolish copyright, or corporations, or the justice system, 
will just mark you as someone who can't work within the system that the 
majority of humanity has created over the last thousand years, and thus 
will tend to invalidate your entire argument before it's even started. 
Whether that's right or wrong doesn't matter -- that's how it is.

Sincerely,

jw

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Bob <ma...@mb...>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jon Watte" <hp...@mi...>
To: <gam...@li...>
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2008 2:47 PM
Subject: Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!


> If you can't sell it, then you don't own it. And it's not property if 
> you don't own it. In fact, if you couldn't at the very least license it, 
> then you couldn't make money off of copyright ownership. Once you allow 
> licenses, then you have to allow perpetual, exclusive licenses with 
> right of sublicense, which is just a name difference from selling.
> 
> The fact that corporations can own original copyright is a convenience, 
> because it allows corporations to not have to track the lifetime of all 
> the creators of each individual work -- something which was next to 
> impossible 50 years ago, and even today, what with databases and 
> whatnot, might still be fraught with risk. The trade-off, for the 
> corporation, is that the 50 years (or whatever the term is) starts 
> ticking on the date of publication. I think that's a reasonable trade-off.


This thread got me interested in reading up on Copyright -- it has been twenty to thirty years since I did so in any studious way, and then I was mostly limited to the school and public libraries. At the time, I believe Copyright in the US was limited to life+20 years. Now, according to Project Gutenberg, it ranges from life+50 to life+70 years, leaving little published since the 1920s in the universal public domain.

So, I've been trolling the 'net and came across this very lawyerly interpretation of Copyright as a "public service."

Now, if this is the popular interpretation -- in short, that Copyright protection only exists only to promote further work from an author -- then perhaps we are already far outside the intent by allowing it's existence beyond the lifetime of the author at all. With the convergence of Copyright with Trademark, Patent, and other, more recent, delineations of IP, this definition doesn't seem to fit -- but I'm no lawyer.

I can only say that this frames my own consideration of the subject differently and I thought it may be of interest to others following this thread.


--bob

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created content providers, beware!

[Bob <ma...@mb...>]

> In any country that is signatory to Berne Convention, mere authorship
> is sufficient to establish the author's rights; explicit notification
> can affect damages (or help prevent violation out of ignorance), but
> isn't required for protection.
>
> http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html is worth reading.

Thanks for the link. I have seen more recent works (even from this decade) 
included in those collections, equally without notice or attribution. It may 
also be a matter of unscrupulous pragmatism, as when an original small 
publisher has dissolved, leaving nobody to contest the issue.

However, abolish Copyright and we're in worse shape than pre-Berne 
Convention loopholes, as every work produced  becomes fodder for the 
parasites.

--bob 

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created content providers, beware!

[Mike S. <mik...@gm...>]

On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 12:41 PM, Bob <ma...@mb...> wrote:
> Thanks for the link. I have seen more recent works (even from this decade)
> included in those collections, equally without notice or attribution. It may
> also be a matter of unscrupulous pragmatism, as when an original small
> publisher has dissolved, leaving nobody to contest the issue.

Sadly, laws don't prevent illegal acts, they just frame the recourse
if one is committed, detected, and successfully prosecuted.

Mike

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created content providers, beware!

[Troy G. <tro...@gm...>]

> Sadly, laws don't prevent illegal acts, they just frame the recourse
> if one is committed, detected, and successfully prosecuted.

And that's the real problem. It's not that IP and copyright is bad, it
worked exactly as it should up until the recent digital age. It's that
the notion of "fair use" has been diluted by the copyright holders
(and that the copyrights have been extended arbitrarily as previously
outlined).

Where does copyright issue really come into play in most people's
daily lives? They want to be able to copy a music track that they
purchased (through CD, online music store, etc.) to a different device
or machine. This should be fair use. Copyright tweaks to plug this
hole only cause more problems and reinforce the wrong aspects of
copyright protection.

If I want to mash up video clips from my favorite movies, mix it to my
favorite songs, and throw it up on YouTube, well, that's a little
different. YouTube is effectively public performance, which fair use
doesn't allow for. That's understandable. As an artist, if I created a
song my ability to protect its public performance directly benefits my
paycheck. Otherwise, what would I retain?

Sharing songs on the old Napster? We all knew that was illegal for the
majority of songs shared. Something for nothing when it normally costs
$15 is clearly not "honest" regardless of how much we chant "data
wants to be free." We can argue that it's a great business model for
the artists, and that's a valid point, but that doesn't make it
"right," it just means that artists would be sensible to explore it as
an option.

Copyright is a practical matter. If created a game and sold it to
someone, without copyright protection that person could turn around
and sell as many copies as they wanted, at whatever price they wanted,
undercutting me in the process. I think we can agree that that's
simply not sustainable. Digital works don't have a natural resource
cost as does, say, a hamburger or a stereo. Those items can't be
magically cloned at zero cost. Digital IP can be, and copyright is
essentially society's gentleman's agreement to treat freely (as in
beer) copyable things as if they have a natural cost (established by
the owner of the IP).

Think of it like a hamburger. McDonald's can't really say anything if
you purchased 1000 burgers from them each day, carried them over to
your hamburger stand, and sold them for 2x the price. Realistically,
they probably would try to say something, but you get the point.

But, if I sell a *copy* of something I created to someone, then they
make 1000 free copies and sell those at half the price, they make 500x
off a 1x investment in my stuff. Just because they have potentially
better marketing, or a built in market.

Fair use is the real remedy. Corporations trying to prevent fair use
is the problem (DRM). And IP rights being assigned to corporations
indefinitely is also a huge problem. I think Bob is right, if IP was
only assigned to individuals (who could then license it to their
employer, for example) or if assigned to corporate entities (in the
case of work-for-hire), it should have a "natural" lifetime (50-75
years).

And for those bashing corporations: there are lots of problems, but
there are also benefits to corporations being defined as equivalent to
individuals. For one, if I'm injured because of a worker's
incompetence, I can hold the corporation responsible as opposed to
some hourly teenager. Also, programmers should really like the concept
of a corporation: it's polymorphism. We had all of this "code" (laws)
written for individuals. Instead of writing all new "code" for
corporations, we wrote one piece of code that established an is-a
relationship between corporations and individuals and magically all of
the existing code "just worked." Of course, as we all know, it's
usually not *that* simple, so we've need to patch things here and
there. But fundamentally, the *abstraction* is sound, it's just it's
use and misuse that's broken (just like copyright laws).

Which comes back to what I originally quoted from Mike: laws, rules,
locks, DRM, anti-piracy controls, etc., are all circumventable
ultimately. They only work on honest people, which are exactly the
people who we should be least concerned with. The goal is to find the
balance that fairly defines the rules of the game but then allows
referees to diagnose the gray areas. But we have to have those rules
in order to *clearly* define what's outside their bounds.

Troy.

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Crosbie F. <cr...@cy...>]

Other reading - for those wondering if copyright's establishment 300 years
ago by a monarch known as Queen Anne, despite being popular with printers
might not have been the most libertarian of legislative acts: 
http://questioncopyright.org/promise <http://questioncopyright.org/promise> 
http://libertariannation.org/a/f31l1.html
<http://libertariannation.org/a/f31l1.html> 
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm
<http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm> 
http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387
<http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387> 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uneasy_Case_for_Copyright
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uneasy_Case_for_Copyright> 
 

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Troy G. <tro...@gm...>]

> http://questioncopyright.org/promise

Just an initial thought... the point is made here that copyright
"serves no one's interests but the publishers'." Of course, this
article uses "publishers" in the same vein as the RIAA uses "file
sharer", that is they vilify it to serve the purposes of their
argument.

In fact, they stress time and again that the Internet has brought
about "instantaneous, costless sharing" which apparently is
justification enough for not charing for information -- something I
don't quite understand: why is that because something is "costless"
(even though it's not *actually* costless, but it's pretty close for
most scenarios) it's wrong to charge for it anyway? I mean, it doesn't
cost me anything to play my guitar, but I'd certainly not be in the
wrong to charge people to listen to a performance (and that seems to
be the "solution" for artists offered up by copyright-squashers).

But something I don't see addressed... in this "Internet-era" we see
many, many more artists that are also self-published. So, these
arguments and vilification of "publishers" and championing of artists
kinda breaks down in a world where there are a great many
self-published artists. In effect, you could substitute artist for
publisher in many of this article's statements with the result being
an argument for stripping *artists* of control over their work and
their ability to derive income from it! Yikes!

Explain to me this: in a world where copyright is abolished, how does
an author earn an income? Let's say Tom the author writes a book and
sells a copy to Bob. Bob works for Random House. He goes to work and
hands Random House Tom's book. He says, "I wrote this. Let's publish
it." Random House prints thousands of copies and with their marketing
strength drowns out any attempt by Tom to promote and sell his own
work. And without copyright, he has no recourse because Random House
has done nothing wrong ("information wants to be free, man...").

So, tell me, practically, given the world we live in today (or
tomorrow, or 10 years from now), how would a creator of IP earn a
living?

Troy.

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Jon W. <hp...@mi...>]

Troy Gilbert wrote:
> don't quite understand: why is that because something is "costless"
> (even though it's not *actually* costless, but it's pretty close for
> most scenarios) it's wrong to charge for it anyway? I mean, it doesn't
>   

Because students and other layabouts with loud mouths and no family to 
feed don't value human time?

After all, human time is the only resource that is always fully limited. 
Any other resource, you're likely to be able to get as much as you need, 
for some price. However, with human time: Once consumed, there is no 
more! You get 30,000 days on this earth (give or take), and that's it. 
Make sure you spend it well!

Sincerely,

jw

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Crosbie F. <cr...@cy...>]

The QuestionCopyright article uses 'publishers' in the sense of 'traditional
publishers' for whom copyright was intended to most benefit. Copyright is
actually impotent in the hands of self-publishers (web authors).
 
It is understandable that traditional publishers will villify those who
ignore their monopolies through file sharing, and that file sharers will
villify those publishers who exert tortuous litigation against them
(especially when those monopolies were never intended to prosecute the
public at large).
 
As for authors selling their work to their audience without relying upon
copyright, I'll summarise what I've been up to in that area below, and then
list a few links to Mike Masnick's ideas below that.
 
However, do bear in mind that the issue isn't whether we rely upon copyright
for another century or do without it. That decision has already been made.
The issue is how we do without it, because it's no longer even effective,
let alone reliable. I propose abolition not because that will stop people
using unethical privileges, but because it would stop many people getting
unnecessarily persecuted by litigous publishers grinding metal long after
all tyres have burnt off (their copyright vehicle having reached a wall of
ineffectiveness).
 
So, what am I up to in trying to solve the problem of how to earn a living
from one's art without copyright?
 
Rather than advertising, the niche I'm focusing on is facilitating bargains
between artist and audience, given these two parties seem most interested in
an exchange of art for money.

I started thinking along these lines when wondering how on earth one could
enable members of the public to sell 3D art in a virtual world if it was
completely decentralised (lawless wild-west):
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/article_display.php?category=14
<http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/article_display.php?category=14>  

I then proposed an auction mechanism whereby an audience could haggle with
an artist and all arrive at an agreeable price (that all successful bidders
would pay), sooner or later.
http://www.digitalartauction.com/ <http://www.digitalartauction.com/>  
 
For gamers here's a spin-off article I wrote for Develop magazine:
http://tdaa.digitalproductions.co.uk/history/bcbm.htm
<http://tdaa.digitalproductions.co.uk/history/bcbm.htm> 

I then decided something simpler would be better: http://www.quidmusic.com/
<http://www.quidmusic.com/>  

Convinced I was on the right track, but not convinced I was best placed to
take QuidMusic forward, I decided to create an engine that would support all
manner of sites that needed to enable trading between artist and audience,
i.e. http://www.contingencymarket.com/ <http://www.contingencymarket.com/>
. This, being commission free, would then enable anyone to use it in support
of their own site.

I'm now working on an even simpler site than quidmusic: 1p2u.com . It's in
very early stages of development, but this will test/debug/demonstrate the
contingencymarket. I'll then use it to replace the engine in quidmusic, and
finally implement digitalartauction, and others, e.g. quidgames.
 
See my site http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk
<http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk>  for other links, e.g.
http://micropledge.com <http://micropledge.com> 
 
 
Here's Mike Masnick's articles from TechDirt (for another approach entirely)
 
The Grand Unified Theory On The Economics Of Free
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070503/012939.shtml
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070503/012939.shtml> 
 
Others:
*	Economics  <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061026/102329.shtml>
Of Abundance Getting Some Well Deserved Attention

*	The  <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061025/014811.shtml>
Importance Of Zero In Destroying The Scarcity Myth Of Economics

*	The  <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061115/020157.shtml>
Economics Of Abundance Is Not A Moral Issue

*	A Lack Of  <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061129/010043.shtml>
Scarcity Has (Almost) Nothing To Do With Piracy

*	A Lack Of  <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061206/011155.shtml>
Scarcity Feeds The Long Tail By Increasing The Pie

*	Why The  <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061213/234018.shtml>
Lack Of Scarcity In Economics Is Getting More Important Now

*	History  <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070110/004225.shtml>
Repeats Itself: How The RIAA Is Like 17th Century French Button-Makers

*	Infinity Is
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070118/013310.shtml> Your Friend In
Economics

*	Step One To
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070125/004949.shtml> Embracing A Lack Of
Scarcity: Recognize What Market You're Really In

*	Why I Hope  <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070201/004218.shtml>
The RIAA Succeeds

*	Saying You  <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070215/002923.shtml>
Can't Compete With Free Is Saying You Can't Compete Period

*	Perhaps  <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070222/002451.shtml>
It's Not The Entertainment Industry's Business Model That's Outdated

*	An  <http://www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20070301/005837>
Economic Explanation For Why DRM Cannot Open Up New Business Model
Opportunities

*	Recognizing
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070315/013313.shtml> That Just About Any
Product Is A Bundle Of Scarce And Non-Scarce Goods

*	Scarcity  <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070322/024237.shtml>
Isn't As Scarce As You Might Think



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Troy Gilbert [mailto:tro...@gm...
<mailto:tro...@gm...> ]
> Sent: Tuesday, 27 May 2008 9:47am
> To: gam...@li...
> Subject: Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house:
> User-created conte nt providers, beware!
>
> > http://questioncopyright.org/promise
<http://questioncopyright.org/promise> 
>
> Just an initial thought... the point is made here that copyright
> "serves no one's interests but the publishers'." Of course, this
> article uses "publishers" in the same vein as the RIAA uses "file
> sharer", that is they vilify it to serve the purposes of their
> argument.
>
> In fact, they stress time and again that the Internet has brought
> about "instantaneous, costless sharing" which apparently is
> justification enough for not charing for information -- something I
> don't quite understand: why is that because something is "costless"
> (even though it's not *actually* costless, but it's pretty close for
> most scenarios) it's wrong to charge for it anyway? I mean, it doesn't
> cost me anything to play my guitar, but I'd certainly not be in the
> wrong to charge people to listen to a performance (and that seems to
> be the "solution" for artists offered up by copyright-squashers).
>
> But something I don't see addressed... in this "Internet-era" we see
> many, many more artists that are also self-published. So, these
> arguments and vilification of "publishers" and championing of artists
> kinda breaks down in a world where there are a great many
> self-published artists. In effect, you could substitute artist for
> publisher in many of this article's statements with the result being
> an argument for stripping *artists* of control over their work and
> their ability to derive income from it! Yikes!
>
> Explain to me this: in a world where copyright is abolished, how does
> an author earn an income? Let's say Tom the author writes a book and
> sells a copy to Bob. Bob works for Random House. He goes to work and
> hands Random House Tom's book. He says, "I wrote this. Let's publish
> it." Random House prints thousands of copies and with their marketing
> strength drowns out any attempt by Tom to promote and sell his own
> work. And without copyright, he has no recourse because Random House
> has done nothing wrong ("information wants to be free, man...").
>
> So, tell me, practically, given the world we live in today (or
> tomorrow, or 10 years from now), how would a creator of IP earn a
> living?
>
> Troy.

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Bob <ma...@mb...>]

Sorry to be blunt, but your storefront doesn't solve any problem. Certainly, you may create the eBay of artwork, centralizing commerce (you would not be much of a pioneer in that field now), but without copyright protection one sale is enough to completely devalue the work. The artist would be better served working on commission for business companies, where they still only make one sale, but themselves determine (often through bidding) the value of their work.

The problem is not how to charge for a work of art. Nor even how to keep people from copying a work that is on the internet for private use. It is, rather, how to avoid having your labour (and I do mean labour, as any 3d artist can tell you that a decent model represents often hundreds of hours of eye-straining, wrist-damaging work), exploited for the profit of others without compensation.


--b


From: Crosbie Fitch 
  To: 'gam...@li...' 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 4:42 AM
  Subject: Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!


  The QuestionCopyright article uses 'publishers' in the sense of 'traditional publishers' for whom copyright was intended to most benefit. Copyright is actually impotent in the hands of self-publishers (web authors).

  It is understandable that traditional publishers will villify those who ignore their monopolies through file sharing, and that file sharers will villify those publishers who exert tortuous litigation against them (especially when those monopolies were never intended to prosecute the public at large).

  As for authors selling their work to their audience without relying upon copyright, I'll summarise what I've been up to in that area below, and then list a few links to Mike Masnick's ideas below that.

  However, do bear in mind that the issue isn't whether we rely upon copyright for another century or do without it. That decision has already been made. The issue is how we do without it, because it's no longer even effective, let alone reliable. I propose abolition not because that will stop people using unethical privileges, but because it would stop many people getting unnecessarily persecuted by litigous publishers grinding metal long after all tyres have burnt off (their copyright vehicle having reached a wall of ineffectiveness).

  So, what am I up to in trying to solve the problem of how to earn a living from one's art without copyright?

  Rather than advertising, the niche I'm focusing on is facilitating bargains between artist and audience, given these two parties seem most interested in an exchange of art for money.

  I started thinking along these lines when wondering how on earth one could enable members of the public to sell 3D art in a virtual world if it was completely decentralised (lawless wild-west):
  http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/article_display.php?category=14 

  I then proposed an auction mechanism whereby an audience could haggle with an artist and all arrive at an agreeable price (that all successful bidders would pay), sooner or later.
  http://www.digitalartauction.com/ 

  For gamers here's a spin-off article I wrote for Develop magazine: http://tdaa.digitalproductions.co.uk/history/bcbm.htm

  I then decided something simpler would be better: http://www.quidmusic.com/ 

  Convinced I was on the right track, but not convinced I was best placed to take QuidMusic forward, I decided to create an engine that would support all manner of sites that needed to enable trading between artist and audience, i.e. http://www.contingencymarket.com/ . This, being commission free, would then enable anyone to use it in support of their own site.

  I'm now working on an even simpler site than quidmusic: 1p2u.com . It's in very early stages of development, but this will test/debug/demonstrate the contingencymarket. I'll then use it to replace the engine in quidmusic, and finally implement digitalartauction, and others, e.g. quidgames.

  See my site http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk for other links, e.g. http://micropledge.com


  Here's Mike Masnick's articles from TechDirt (for another approach entirely)

  The Grand Unified Theory On The Economics Of Free
  http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070503/012939.shtml

  Others:
  a.. Economics Of Abundance Getting Some Well Deserved Attention

  a.. The Importance Of Zero In Destroying The Scarcity Myth Of Economics

  a.. The Economics Of Abundance Is Not A Moral Issue

  a.. A Lack Of Scarcity Has (Almost) Nothing To Do With Piracy

  a.. A Lack Of Scarcity Feeds The Long Tail By Increasing The Pie

  a.. Why The Lack Of Scarcity In Economics Is Getting More Important Now

  a.. History Repeats Itself: How The RIAA Is Like 17th Century French Button-Makers

  a.. Infinity Is Your Friend In Economics

  a.. Step One To Embracing A Lack Of Scarcity: Recognize What Market You're Really In

  a.. Why I Hope The RIAA Succeeds

  a.. Saying You Can't Compete With Free Is Saying You Can't Compete Period

  a.. Perhaps It's Not The Entertainment Industry's Business Model That's Outdated

  a.. An Economic Explanation For Why DRM Cannot Open Up New Business Model Opportunities

  a.. Recognizing That Just About Any Product Is A Bundle Of Scarce And Non-Scarce Goods

  a.. Scarcity Isn't As Scarce As You Might Think 


  > -----Original Message-----
  > From: Troy Gilbert [mailto:tro...@gm...]
  > Sent: Tuesday, 27 May 2008 9:47am
  > To: gam...@li...
  > Subject: Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house:
  > User-created conte nt providers, beware!
  >
  > > http://questioncopyright.org/promise
  >
  > Just an initial thought... the point is made here that copyright
  > "serves no one's interests but the publishers'." Of course, this
  > article uses "publishers" in the same vein as the RIAA uses "file
  > sharer", that is they vilify it to serve the purposes of their
  > argument.
  >
  > In fact, they stress time and again that the Internet has brought
  > about "instantaneous, costless sharing" which apparently is
  > justification enough for not charing for information -- something I
  > don't quite understand: why is that because something is "costless"
  > (even though it's not *actually* costless, but it's pretty close for
  > most scenarios) it's wrong to charge for it anyway? I mean, it doesn't
  > cost me anything to play my guitar, but I'd certainly not be in the
  > wrong to charge people to listen to a performance (and that seems to
  > be the "solution" for artists offered up by copyright-squashers).
  >
  > But something I don't see addressed... in this "Internet-era" we see
  > many, many more artists that are also self-published. So, these
  > arguments and vilification of "publishers" and championing of artists
  > kinda breaks down in a world where there are a great many
  > self-published artists. In effect, you could substitute artist for
  > publisher in many of this article's statements with the result being
  > an argument for stripping *artists* of control over their work and
  > their ability to derive income from it! Yikes!
  >
  > Explain to me this: in a world where copyright is abolished, how does
  > an author earn an income? Let's say Tom the author writes a book and
  > sells a copy to Bob. Bob works for Random House. He goes to work and
  > hands Random House Tom's book. He says, "I wrote this. Let's publish
  > it." Random House prints thousands of copies and with their marketing
  > strength drowns out any attempt by Tom to promote and sell his own
  > work. And without copyright, he has no recourse because Random House
  > has done nothing wrong ("information wants to be free, man...").
  >
  > So, tell me, practically, given the world we live in today (or
  > tomorrow, or 10 years from now), how would a creator of IP earn a
  > living?
  >
  > Troy.




------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  -------------------------------------------------------------------------
  This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft
  Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008.
  http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  Gamedevlists-general mailing list
  Gam...@li...
  https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
  Archives:
  http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Crosbie F. <cr...@cy...>]

A few more links...

To Kevin Kelly in his recent discussion of business models based upon direct
audience/artist funding:
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/04/the_reality_of.php
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/04/the_case_agains.php
links to:
http://www.scottandrew.com/wordpress/archives/2005/04/5000_fans.html
comment links to:
http://questioncopyright.org/promise
mentions 'threshold pledge'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Crosbie F. <cr...@cy...>]

No need to apologise for being blunt. It's good to get to the point rather
than skirt the issues to avoid hurting people's feelings (this is
gamdevlists, not Facebook).
 
I may be hopelessly unclear, but I am trying to implement mechanisms that
allow artists to be compensated for their labour.
 
However, after the artist has been equitably compensated, their labour can
then be exploited by anyone else - royalty free.
 
If you have difficulty with the idea that it could be possible for someone,
having been equitably compensated, to permit others to use and build upon
their work royalty free, you should check out the world of Free Software,
GPL, GNU/Linux, etc.
 
Incidentally, someone has implemented the Digital Art Auction, i.e.
http://www.propagateltd.com <http://www.propagateltd.com>   so this could
well be the eBay for digital art. Life's too short to worry about being a
pioneer.
 
You say the artist would be better served working on commission for business
companies. All I'm exploring is the same thing, but with the company
disintermediated. So, instead of accepting a commission from one business
company, you accept one from all or any of your audience (which may well
include several business companies that might outbid other members of your
audience). The difference is though, that instead of the company asserting
their copyright over the work, it is neutralised such that anyone who
receives it is free to use it as they wish (a la GPL).
 
 



  _____  

From: Bob [mailto:ma...@mb...] 
Sent: Tuesday, 27 May 2008 4:29pm
To: gam...@li...
Subject: Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte
nt providers, beware!


Sorry to be blunt, but your storefront doesn't solve any problem. Certainly,
you may create the eBay of artwork, centralizing commerce (you would not be
much of a pioneer in that field now), but without copyright protection one
sale is enough to completely devalue the work. The artist would be better
served working on commission for business companies, where they still only
make one sale, but themselves determine (often through bidding) the value of
their work.
 
The problem is not how to charge for a work of art. Nor even how to keep
people from copying a work that is on the internet for private use. It is,
rather, how to avoid having your labour (and I do mean labour, as any 3d
artist can tell you that a decent model represents often hundreds of hours
of eye-straining, wrist-damaging work), exploited for the profit of others
without compensation.
 
 

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Tom H. <to...@ve...>]

One of the biggest myths about GPL is that you can "use it as you  
wish", which simply isn't true. It's "free" as long as you feel like  
re-defining Free to be their definition of "free". You can use it  
without charge, but only if you're able and willing to make the  
results "Free" as well. Which of course you can't do in many situations.

To be clear - no copyright or ownership would mean that I could take  
all of the various GPL code on the net, integrate it into my products,  
call it my own, charge for it, and have it be totally closed source.  
Which currently, you're not allowed to do. I could do this because I  
would have just as much of a right to their source as they do.

Without copyright, someone using one of your sites could lift the  
images from the web site, use it, resell it, whatever without any fear  
and without paying the artist who created the work (not even the  
initial purchase).

Without ownership of the images / IP / whatever the items cease to be  
property. As such, theft is meaningless and no longer a crime. If  
someone steals your images / art off your computer they might be  
charged for the act of hacking your system, but they would be able to  
do whatever they wanted with the digital assets that they've stolen.  
If they then take those assets, and put them up on the internet for  
everyone to use, there would be _nothing_ anyone could do about it.  
The original artist would get ZERO compensation.

That is just a trite example ... imagine when big corporations are  
suddenly given unfettered access to anything and everything they can  
get their hands on. The amount of damage that some individuals with  
file sharing or whatever can do is miniscule when compared to the  
amount of damage that corporations could do. Imagine the recording  
industry being able to take the work of smaller artists, lifted  
directly from their web site, package it, market it, and sell it to  
the masses without ever paying the original artist anything. The more  
exploitative they are, the more profitable they will be. Of course  
this kind of activity is ultimately self destructive, but it can turn  
a quick profit with minimal investment so it would be done massively  
until everything has been sucked dry.

Without a system of checks and balances and a reasonable legal  
response to people who abuse others you end up with absolute chaos.  
When there's chaos, no one makes money. If no one makes money  
(companies or otherwise), then they can't feed themselves by  
performing that activity and they have to get a job elsewhere.  
Everyone either turns cannibal, gets out of the game entirely, or it's  
relegated to hobby only style work.

Innovation and creativity would all but stop and the digital age and  
all future progress would stall.

I'm not suggesting that things like GPL or even what you're doing with  
your sites are going to be the downfall of everything. They can only  
exist because they have the protections that copyright and other IP  
laws provide them, and as long as those laws exist the "Free" license  
folks can continue to co-exist with the closed source systems.

I'm also not suggesting that Copyright, Patents, etc aren't massively  
flawed ... they are ... but throwing them out entirely instead of  
working to fix the problems is asinine. They exist for a very good  
reason, they're just not keeping pace with the massive changes in the  
way things are created, used, and distributed.

Tom

On May 27, 2008, at 9:24 AM, Crosbie Fitch wrote:

> No need to apologise for being blunt. It's good to get to the point  
> rather than skirt the issues to avoid hurting people's feelings  
> (this is gamdevlists, not Facebook).
>
> I may be hopelessly unclear, but I am trying to implement mechanisms  
> that allow artists to be compensated for their labour.
>
> However, after the artist has been equitably compensated, their  
> labour can then be exploited by anyone else - royalty free.
>
> If you have difficulty with the idea that it could be possible for  
> someone, having been equitably compensated, to permit others to use  
> and build upon their work royalty free, you should check out the  
> world of Free Software, GPL, GNU/Linux, etc.
>
> Incidentally, someone has implemented the Digital Art Auction, i.e. http://www.propagateltd.com 
>   so this could well be the eBay for digital art. Life's too short  
> to worry about being a pioneer.
>
> You say the artist would be better served working on commission for  
> business companies. All I'm exploring is the same thing, but with  
> the company disintermediated. So, instead of accepting a commission  
> from one business company, you accept one from all or any of your  
> audience (which may well include several business companies that  
> might outbid other members of your audience). The difference is  
> though, that instead of the company asserting their copyright over  
> the work, it is neutralised such that anyone who receives it is free  
> to use it as they wish (a la GPL).
>
>
>
> From: Bob [mailto:ma...@mb...]
> Sent: Tuesday, 27 May 2008 4:29pm
> To: gam...@li...
> Subject: Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created  
> conte nt providers, beware!
>
> Sorry to be blunt, but your storefront doesn't solve any problem.  
> Certainly, you may create the eBay of artwork, centralizing commerce  
> (you would not be much of a pioneer in that field now), but without  
> copyright protection one sale is enough to completely devalue the  
> work. The artist would be better served working on commission for  
> business companies, where they still only make one sale, but  
> themselves determine (often through bidding) the value of their work.
>
> The problem is not how to charge for a work of art. Nor even how to  
> keep people from copying a work that is on the internet for private  
> use. It is, rather, how to avoid having your labour (and I do mean  
> labour, as any 3d artist can tell you that a decent model represents  
> often hundreds of hours of eye-straining, wrist-damaging work),  
> exploited for the profit of others without compensation.
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft
> Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008.
> http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/_______________________________________________
> Gamedevlists-general mailing list
> Gam...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
> Archives:
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Crosbie F. <cr...@cy...>]

> From: Tom Hubina
> To be clear - no copyright or ownership would mean that I could take  
> all of the various GPL code on the net, integrate it into my 
> products,  

Yes, and this is good. Anyone should be able to build upon published works.

> call it my own, 

This would be plagiarism, misrepresentation, misattribution, fraud, a
violation of the respective authors' moral rights to be recognised as the
authors of their works, etc.

Copyright does not protect attribution.

> charge for it, 

Of course.

> and have it be totally closed source.  

If you wished, but then without copyright there's no need to persuade people
to provide the source code when they sell their software. Given binaries
cost nothing to make or copy, there would be no market for binaries. You'd
only get paid for selling source code - since no-one with their head screwed
on would pay for software to be developed if the source code representing
the work they'd paid for wasn't delivered to them. Inevitably, the binary
would serve as a free demo for the software.

> Without copyright, someone using one of your sites could lift the  
> images from the web site, use it, resell it, whatever without 
> any fear  
> and without paying the artist who created the work (not even the  
> initial purchase).

Yes, of course. Given the images have been released to the public, the
public are free to share and build upon public culture.

Without copyright, artists would obviously be careful to ensure they'd been
adequately compensated for their work prior to releasing it.

> Without ownership of the images / IP / whatever the items 
> cease to be property.

Yes. However, copyright is not about ownership but about reproduction
privileges. Intellectual property doesn't cease without copyright, it just
means the copyright holder no longer has the privilege of preventing the
owners of copies from making further copies or derivatives.

Intellectual work still remains property, otherwise you can't sell it.

> As such, theft is meaningless and no longer a crime.

Not at all. Intellectual works are highly valuable and to be paid for, and
any theft punished with appropriate restitution. Copyright is about having a
monopoly and prosecuting infringers, not about ownership of intellectual
works and prosecuting their theft.

> If someone steals your images / art off your computer they might be  
> charged for the act of hacking your system, but they would be 
> able to  
> do whatever they wanted with the digital assets that they've stolen.  
> If they then take those assets, and put them up on the internet for  
> everyone to use, there would be _nothing_ anyone could do about it.  
> The original artist would get ZERO compensation.

I quite agree. But again, copyright is not about securing IP against theft,
but about preventing people from making copies of the IP they've purchased.

> That is just a trite example ... imagine when big corporations are  
> suddenly given unfettered access to anything and everything they can  
> get their hands on. The amount of damage that some individuals with  
> file sharing or whatever can do is miniscule when compared to the  
> amount of damage that corporations could do. Imagine the recording  
> industry being able to take the work of smaller artists, lifted  
> directly from their web site, package it, market it, and sell it to  
> the masses without ever paying the original artist anything.

If you are classifying the restoration of liberty and an emancipated public
as damage, then this is a strange way of looking at things.

As for corporations exploiting smaller artists without giving them fair
compensation, many would say this is the situation with copyright. The
recent US Orphan Works act is even fairly blatant in effectively allowing
corporations to ignore the copyrights of 'smaller artists'.

> The more  
> exploitative they are, the more profitable they will be. Of course  
> this kind of activity is ultimately self destructive, but it can turn  
> a quick profit with minimal investment so it would be done massively  
> until everything has been sucked dry.

So without the monopolies that copyright provides them, you feel
corporations would suddenly make colossal profits?

If that was the case, I suspect copyright would have been abolished already,
instead of the corporations' lobbying for the introduction of ever more
draconian reinforcement.

> Without a system of checks and balances and a reasonable legal  
> response to people who abuse others you end up with absolute chaos.  
> When there's chaos, no one makes money. If no one makes money  
> (companies or otherwise), then they can't feed themselves by  
> performing that activity and they have to get a job elsewhere.  
> Everyone either turns cannibal, gets out of the game 
> entirely, or it's relegated to hobby only style work.

I agree, but I wouldn't put it quite so dramatically.

> Innovation and creativity would all but stop and the digital age and  
> all future progress would stall.

Because copyright became unviable and was abolished, or because there was no
system of checks and balances?

> I'm not suggesting that things like GPL or even what you're doing with  
> your sites are going to be the downfall of everything. They can only  
> exist because they have the protections that copyright and other IP  
> laws provide them, and as long as those laws exist the "Free" license  
> folks can continue to co-exist with the closed source systems.

Given that the GPL provides a means of restoring the freedoms that copyright
and patent removes from free software developers, without copyright and
patent there is no need for the GPL.

It would be strange if in order to allow people the freedom to copy we
needed a law that suspended that freedom.

> I'm also not suggesting that Copyright, Patents, etc aren't massively  
> flawed ... they are ... but throwing them out entirely instead of  
> working to fix the problems is asinine.

I'm suggesting that their ineffectiveness will soon become so obvious, that
the needless prosecutions that continue in the name of their enforcement
should be stopped - consequently demonstrating the case for abolition.

However, if you think copyright and patent remain eminently functional and
are the keys to your continued success, I'm not going to try and change your
mind.

I'm talking to those who are beginning to notice that 'something is rotten
in the state of Denmark', and are wondering if anyone's been working on
solutions...

> They exist for a very good  
> reason, they're just not keeping pace with the massive 
> changes in the way things are created, used, and distributed.

They exist because of things that happened 300 years ago with a
communications infrastructure far more easily subject to the crown's
control. Certain state and commercial interests found good reasons for
copyright, but even then they weren't good reasons for the public, and
they're certainly not very good reasons today.

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Bob <ma...@mb...>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Crosbie Fitch" <cr...@cy...>
To: <gam...@li...>
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 2:28 PM
Subject: Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!


>> From: Tom Hubina
>> To be clear - no copyright or ownership would mean that I could take  
>> all of the various GPL code on the net, integrate it into my 
>> products,  
> 
> Yes, and this is good. Anyone should be able to build upon published works.
> 
>> call it my own, 
> 
> This would be plagiarism, misrepresentation, misattribution, fraud, a
> violation of the respective authors' moral rights to be recognised as the
> authors of their works, etc.
> 
> Copyright does not protect attribution.
> 
>> charge for it, 
> 
> Of course.
> 
>> and have it be totally closed source.  
> 
> If you wished, but then without copyright there's no need to persuade people
> to provide the source code when they sell their software. Given binaries
> cost nothing to make or copy, there would be no market for binaries. You'd
> only get paid for selling source code - since no-one with their head screwed
> on would pay for software to be developed if the source code representing
> the work they'd paid for wasn't delivered to them. Inevitably, the binary
> would serve as a free demo for the software.
> 
>> Without copyright, someone using one of your sites could lift the  
>> images from the web site, use it, resell it, whatever without 
>> any fear  
>> and without paying the artist who created the work (not even the  
>> initial purchase).
> 
> Yes, of course. Given the images have been released to the public, the
> public are free to share and build upon public culture.
> 
> Without copyright, artists would obviously be careful to ensure they'd been
> adequately compensated for their work prior to releasing it.
> 
>> Without ownership of the images / IP / whatever the items 
>> cease to be property.
> 
> Yes. However, copyright is not about ownership but about reproduction
> privileges. Intellectual property doesn't cease without copyright, it just
> means the copyright holder no longer has the privilege of preventing the
> owners of copies from making further copies or derivatives.
> 
> Intellectual work still remains property, otherwise you can't sell it.
> 
>> As such, theft is meaningless and no longer a crime.
> 
> Not at all. Intellectual works are highly valuable and to be paid for, and
> any theft punished with appropriate restitution. Copyright is about having a
> monopoly and prosecuting infringers, not about ownership of intellectual
> works and prosecuting their theft.
> 
>> If someone steals your images / art off your computer they might be  
>> charged for the act of hacking your system, but they would be 
>> able to  
>> do whatever they wanted with the digital assets that they've stolen.  
>> If they then take those assets, and put them up on the internet for  
>> everyone to use, there would be _nothing_ anyone could do about it.  
>> The original artist would get ZERO compensation.
> 
> I quite agree. But again, copyright is not about securing IP against theft,
> but about preventing people from making copies of the IP they've purchased.
> 
>> That is just a trite example ... imagine when big corporations are  
>> suddenly given unfettered access to anything and everything they can  
>> get their hands on. The amount of damage that some individuals with  
>> file sharing or whatever can do is miniscule when compared to the  
>> amount of damage that corporations could do. Imagine the recording  
>> industry being able to take the work of smaller artists, lifted  
>> directly from their web site, package it, market it, and sell it to  
>> the masses without ever paying the original artist anything.
> 
> If you are classifying the restoration of liberty and an emancipated public
> as damage, then this is a strange way of looking at things.
> 
> As for corporations exploiting smaller artists without giving them fair
> compensation, many would say this is the situation with copyright. The
> recent US Orphan Works act is even fairly blatant in effectively allowing
> corporations to ignore the copyrights of 'smaller artists'.
> 
>> The more  
>> exploitative they are, the more profitable they will be. Of course  
>> this kind of activity is ultimately self destructive, but it can turn  
>> a quick profit with minimal investment so it would be done massively  
>> until everything has been sucked dry.
> 
> So without the monopolies that copyright provides them, you feel
> corporations would suddenly make colossal profits?
> 
> If that was the case, I suspect copyright would have been abolished already,
> instead of the corporations' lobbying for the introduction of ever more
> draconian reinforcement.
> 
>> Without a system of checks and balances and a reasonable legal  
>> response to people who abuse others you end up with absolute chaos.  
>> When there's chaos, no one makes money. If no one makes money  
>> (companies or otherwise), then they can't feed themselves by  
>> performing that activity and they have to get a job elsewhere.  
>> Everyone either turns cannibal, gets out of the game 
>> entirely, or it's relegated to hobby only style work.
> 
> I agree, but I wouldn't put it quite so dramatically.
> 
>> Innovation and creativity would all but stop and the digital age and  
>> all future progress would stall.
> 
> Because copyright became unviable and was abolished, or because there was no
> system of checks and balances?
> 
>> I'm not suggesting that things like GPL or even what you're doing with  
>> your sites are going to be the downfall of everything. They can only  
>> exist because they have the protections that copyright and other IP  
>> laws provide them, and as long as those laws exist the "Free" license  
>> folks can continue to co-exist with the closed source systems.
> 
> Given that the GPL provides a means of restoring the freedoms that copyright
> and patent removes from free software developers, without copyright and
> patent there is no need for the GPL.
> 
> It would be strange if in order to allow people the freedom to copy we
> needed a law that suspended that freedom.


Three hundred years ago be damned. How many artistic works were produced three hundred years ago? More than that, from that small body of work, how many of the authors were able to support themselves on the income form this heady, intellectual sort of work? Yeah, practically zero. The creation of copyright, was, as you have repeatedly stated, in an era of expensive publishing, and therefore has served a class of middle-man business owners for the majority of the last 300 years.

Things definitly are changing in the digital age. I personally don't focus on the proliferation of "piracy" in the last decade or two so much as the rapid decrease in publishing expenses, not in the matter of duplication but in all areas of production. I studied (computer aided) design in college back in the early 90s, and even then there was a great deal of mechanical work involved in pre-press and printing that has since evaporated -- there is practically no technical knowhow, much less physical expense, to any of those tasks today. This means that publishers are the dodo facing extinction as more and more authors come to realize they don't need them. All of a sudden, Copyright is directly serving authors in the movement to break away from the parasitic industry of publishers!

Copyright laws probably do need to be stripped of aspects that have already been added to serve the unique purposes of incorporated publishers, but it is nonetheless empowering for authors. The notion that public has "liberty" to claim anyone's creative work without recompense solely on the basis of the ability to lay hands upon it is truly unethical, and at the same time counter to the good of society (if you consider growth of creative production a good thing). Diffusing the problem of intellectual property value that authors rightfully earn, not just in their immediate labour but in the great deal of study and expense necessary to the learning of these sophisticated crafts, by pointing judgemental fingers at the middlemen tasked with reproduction, marketing and distribution, is a deceptive tactic.


>> I'm also not suggesting that Copyright, Patents, etc aren't massively  
>> flawed ... they are ... but throwing them out entirely instead of  
>> working to fix the problems is asinine.
> 
> I'm suggesting that their ineffectiveness will soon become so obvious, that
> the needless prosecutions that continue in the name of their enforcement
> should be stopped - consequently demonstrating the case for abolition.
> 
> However, if you think copyright and patent remain eminently functional and
> are the keys to your continued success, I'm not going to try and change your
> mind.
> 
> I'm talking to those who are beginning to notice that 'something is rotten
> in the state of Denmark', and are wondering if anyone's been working on
> solutions...


The fact that you seek only to sway the undecided doesn't say much for the validity of your argument. If anything such a claim belies a lack of confidence in your position. I've got a few books on the subject of propaganda (dating back to Schopenhauer) that identify fence-sitters as the most receptive to emotional appeal and hyperbole. ;)

Mind, I have no fear of Copyright being abolished. It is a fantasy scenario. Even if I agreed with you that Copyright is rotten to the core, it would be a matter best pursued in increments, and ultimately settled in compromise. Law is not painted in broad strokes.

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Tom H. <to...@ve...>]

I guess this is all just so absurd that I'm having difficulties coming  
up with the will to debate it. It's like trying to explain why  
calculus is important to someone who wants to get rid of algebra (and  
hence all higher math) because they don't like word problems. I'm sure  
such a concept would appeal to high school students everywhere because  
it would make their lives easier in the short term, but in the long  
term all of society would suffer from such actions.

Fundamentally, people need to be able to create original works and  
profit from those works so they can reap the rewards of the effort,  
which allows them to earn a living and continue to provide society  
with the benefit of future works. Society at large also must be able  
to use those works that they've purchased fairly. The trick is making  
sure that both sides get proper value based on the price they pay. If  
it is skewed too heavily in one direction or the other, it creates a  
pressure point in the market which instigates change. The RIAA fought  
that change tooth and nail instead of embracing it, and they're  
feeling the pain as a direct result.

The solution isn't to throw out all laws that govern these things, but  
to find laws that fit properly and ensure both short term and long  
term health of the affected markets. If you want to put together a  
petition to strike down bills that allow ridiculous abuse of due- 
process, let me know and I'll be happy to sign it. If you want to work  
on patent and copyright reform that is more representative of the  
world we have today, show me where to sign up. If you want to promote  
dumping all the protections and the ability to penalize people who  
violate those protections, then I have to think that not only have you  
lost all touch with reality, but you'll do more damage than good to  
those that want to make effective changes.

Tom

On May 27, 2008, at 12:28 PM, Crosbie Fitch wrote:

>> From: Tom Hubina
>> To be clear - no copyright or ownership would mean that I could take
>> all of the various GPL code on the net, integrate it into my
>> products,
>
> Yes, and this is good. Anyone should be able to build upon published  
> works.
>
>> call it my own,
>
> This would be plagiarism, misrepresentation, misattribution, fraud, a
> violation of the respective authors' moral rights to be recognised  
> as the
> authors of their works, etc.
>
> Copyright does not protect attribution.
>
>> charge for it,
>
> Of course.
>
>> and have it be totally closed source.
>
> If you wished, but then without copyright there's no need to  
> persuade people
> to provide the source code when they sell their software. Given  
> binaries
> cost nothing to make or copy, there would be no market for binaries.  
> You'd
> only get paid for selling source code - since no-one with their head  
> screwed
> on would pay for software to be developed if the source code  
> representing
> the work they'd paid for wasn't delivered to them. Inevitably, the  
> binary
> would serve as a free demo for the software.
>
>> Without copyright, someone using one of your sites could lift the
>> images from the web site, use it, resell it, whatever without
>> any fear
>> and without paying the artist who created the work (not even the
>> initial purchase).
>
> Yes, of course. Given the images have been released to the public, the
> public are free to share and build upon public culture.
>
> Without copyright, artists would obviously be careful to ensure  
> they'd been
> adequately compensated for their work prior to releasing it.
>
>> Without ownership of the images / IP / whatever the items
>> cease to be property.
>
> Yes. However, copyright is not about ownership but about reproduction
> privileges. Intellectual property doesn't cease without copyright,  
> it just
> means the copyright holder no longer has the privilege of preventing  
> the
> owners of copies from making further copies or derivatives.
>
> Intellectual work still remains property, otherwise you can't sell it.
>
>> As such, theft is meaningless and no longer a crime.
>
> Not at all. Intellectual works are highly valuable and to be paid  
> for, and
> any theft punished with appropriate restitution. Copyright is about  
> having a
> monopoly and prosecuting infringers, not about ownership of  
> intellectual
> works and prosecuting their theft.
>
>> If someone steals your images / art off your computer they might be
>> charged for the act of hacking your system, but they would be
>> able to
>> do whatever they wanted with the digital assets that they've stolen.
>> If they then take those assets, and put them up on the internet for
>> everyone to use, there would be _nothing_ anyone could do about it.
>> The original artist would get ZERO compensation.
>
> I quite agree. But again, copyright is not about securing IP against  
> theft,
> but about preventing people from making copies of the IP they've  
> purchased.
>
>> That is just a trite example ... imagine when big corporations are
>> suddenly given unfettered access to anything and everything they can
>> get their hands on. The amount of damage that some individuals with
>> file sharing or whatever can do is miniscule when compared to the
>> amount of damage that corporations could do. Imagine the recording
>> industry being able to take the work of smaller artists, lifted
>> directly from their web site, package it, market it, and sell it to
>> the masses without ever paying the original artist anything.
>
> If you are classifying the restoration of liberty and an emancipated  
> public
> as damage, then this is a strange way of looking at things.
>
> As for corporations exploiting smaller artists without giving them  
> fair
> compensation, many would say this is the situation with copyright. The
> recent US Orphan Works act is even fairly blatant in effectively  
> allowing
> corporations to ignore the copyrights of 'smaller artists'.
>
>> The more
>> exploitative they are, the more profitable they will be. Of course
>> this kind of activity is ultimately self destructive, but it can turn
>> a quick profit with minimal investment so it would be done massively
>> until everything has been sucked dry.
>
> So without the monopolies that copyright provides them, you feel
> corporations would suddenly make colossal profits?
>
> If that was the case, I suspect copyright would have been abolished  
> already,
> instead of the corporations' lobbying for the introduction of ever  
> more
> draconian reinforcement.
>
>> Without a system of checks and balances and a reasonable legal
>> response to people who abuse others you end up with absolute chaos.
>> When there's chaos, no one makes money. If no one makes money
>> (companies or otherwise), then they can't feed themselves by
>> performing that activity and they have to get a job elsewhere.
>> Everyone either turns cannibal, gets out of the game
>> entirely, or it's relegated to hobby only style work.
>
> I agree, but I wouldn't put it quite so dramatically.
>
>> Innovation and creativity would all but stop and the digital age and
>> all future progress would stall.
>
> Because copyright became unviable and was abolished, or because  
> there was no
> system of checks and balances?
>
>> I'm not suggesting that things like GPL or even what you're doing  
>> with
>> your sites are going to be the downfall of everything. They can only
>> exist because they have the protections that copyright and other IP
>> laws provide them, and as long as those laws exist the "Free" license
>> folks can continue to co-exist with the closed source systems.
>
> Given that the GPL provides a means of restoring the freedoms that  
> copyright
> and patent removes from free software developers, without copyright  
> and
> patent there is no need for the GPL.
>
> It would be strange if in order to allow people the freedom to copy we
> needed a law that suspended that freedom.
>
>> I'm also not suggesting that Copyright, Patents, etc aren't massively
>> flawed ... they are ... but throwing them out entirely instead of
>> working to fix the problems is asinine.
>
> I'm suggesting that their ineffectiveness will soon become so  
> obvious, that
> the needless prosecutions that continue in the name of their  
> enforcement
> should be stopped - consequently demonstrating the case for abolition.
>
> However, if you think copyright and patent remain eminently  
> functional and
> are the keys to your continued success, I'm not going to try and  
> change your
> mind.
>
> I'm talking to those who are beginning to notice that 'something is  
> rotten
> in the state of Denmark', and are wondering if anyone's been working  
> on
> solutions...
>
>> They exist for a very good
>> reason, they're just not keeping pace with the massive
>> changes in the way things are created, used, and distributed.
>
> They exist because of things that happened 300 years ago with a
> communications infrastructure far more easily subject to the crown's
> control. Certain state and commercial interests found good reasons for
> copyright, but even then they weren't good reasons for the public, and
> they're certainly not very good reasons today.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft
> Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008.
> http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/
> _______________________________________________
> Gamedevlists-general mailing list
> Gam...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
> Archives:
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Bob <ma...@mb...>]

You've got it wrong -- it's the corporations that need abolishing. Copyright 
(and other forms of IP) is a fine thing, so long as  it belongs to creators, 
rather than (undying and polymorphous) employers.

Nonetheless, the reality is that neither such broad reformation is within 
reach.

However, I believe Jon's concern was that the bill in question empowers IP 
holders in ways that overstep reason. Take the real example of Fox's 
notorious protection of their Aliens IP -- back in 1994 they got 
heavy-handed over a little modification for Doom, and served threats against 
anyone they could find hosting the files (with almost 100% compliance). At 
the time there was a lot of speculation whether the corporation was within 
their rights threatening actions every much as described in this bill 
against ftp services such as cdrom.com, but it wasn't a danger to iD and 
thankfully, Fox didn't have to power to seize hardware and interfere with 
those companies' operation without warning.

These days, a lot of publishers and/or developers avail distribution of 
user-generated content on their own networks, and would themselves be the 
recipient of such threats should another Aliens Doom come along. And if Jon 
is correct about this bill, server operators could be wishing for 
old-fashioned threats, as their hardware gets hauled away without warning. 
As well, an unscrupulous publisher could use this kind of law to cripple 
competitors. In an industry with sales windows measured in weeks, a 
month-long interference in online services the moment a Porsche appears in 
that unlicensed racing game or a Marvel superhero appears in that FPS, could 
do massive damage regardless of the outcome of the "investigation."



--b


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Crosbie Fitch" <cr...@cy...>
To: <gam...@li...>
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2008 7:05 PM
Subject: Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte 
nt providers, beware!


> Or, even simpler, just abolish copyright and patents.
>
> It'll happen eventually.
>
> It's just a question of when enough folk say 'enough is enough'.
>
> Does published work belong to the publisher or the public?
>
> Your answer defines which side you're on.
>
> The laws of nature will determine which side wins.
>
> If you know anything about computers you might have an inkling as to the
> laws of nature when it comes to the diffusion of information across public
> networks.
>
> If you know anything about publishing corporations you might have an 
> inkling
> of the lengths they will go to to assert their laws of copyright and 
> patent.
>
> So sit back and enjoy the show, or pick a side and get stuck in.
>
> Feel free to copy me - you don't need my permission.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft
> Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008.
> http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/
> _______________________________________________
> Gamedevlists-general mailing list
> Gam...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
> Archives:
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557
> 

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Jon W. <hp...@mi...>]

Bob wrote:
> competitors. In an industry with sales windows measured in weeks, a 
> month-long interference in online services the moment a Porsche appears in 
> that unlicensed racing game or a Marvel superhero appears in that FPS, could 
> do massive damage regardless of the outcome of the "investigation."
>   

I hope you understand that, even in the most cursory investigation, if 
your property is seized, the time taken before you can get your 
equipment back is measured in years, not weeks. And if it ever goes to 
trial -- even if you win! -- you may not get it back until the statute 
of limitation has expired, because if it's submitted as evidence to the 
court, it has to be preserved for any future re-examination of the case.

Sincerely,

jw

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Bob <ma...@mb...>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jon Watte" <hp...@mi...>
To: <gam...@li...>
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2008 2:34 PM
Subject: Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte 
nt providers, beware!


> Bob wrote:
>> competitors. In an industry with sales windows measured in weeks, a
>> month-long interference in online services the moment a Porsche appears 
>> in
>> that unlicensed racing game or a Marvel superhero appears in that FPS, 
>> could
>> do massive damage regardless of the outcome of the "investigation."
>>
>
> I hope you understand that, even in the most cursory investigation, if
> your property is seized, the time taken before you can get your
> equipment back is measured in years, not weeks. And if it ever goes to
> trial -- even if you win! -- you may not get it back until the statute
> of limitation has expired, because if it's submitted as evidence to the
> court, it has to be preserved for any future re-examination of the case.


I'm sure that varies. I've had property seized for an investigation before 
(after a burglary), and it was returned in about two months. Had to employ a 
lawyer, though. It was a bit of an odd situation, because (a) the burglary 
was interrupted, so the police confiscated items that were taken out of the 
house in a box and dropped, and (b) nobody was ever arrested or charged.

I imagine that it would be possible to create a similar nuisance over 
Copyright or IP violation claims, even with nothing ever coming of it.


--bob 

Re: [GD-General] Pro-IP bill passed the house: User-created conte nt providers, beware!

[Jon W. <hp...@mi...>]

Crosbie Fitch wrote:
> Or, even simpler, just abolish copyright and patents.
>
>   

Right.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, we work with the system as is given, 
and do our best to push it in the direction that works best. Personally, 
I don't think a total abolition of IP protection will work best, much as 
I don't believe a society totally without police will work best.

Our society has spent thousands of years coming up with laws and customs 
that make society work as well as it does. Throwing it all away and 
starting over is not the right engineering (or re-engineering) approach.

Sincerely,

jw