ePiracy (was Re: HARLAN ELLISON:LOVE AIN'T NOTHING 1a/3)
ePiracy Committee
trouble right here in River City. :-)
Anyway, I'm Andrew Burt, chair of SFWA's ePiracy Committee.
I don't know who the trolls are these days, or how much time I can spare
for prolonged debate (as enjoyable as that is), but I wanted to say a few
things about the recent rash of pirate postings.
1... I certainly hope Mr. Anonymous Pirate (and anyone else interested)
heads over to
http://www.sfwa.org/epiracy/faq.htm
and reads our newly crafted FAQ, attempting to be comprehensive in
rebutting the usual pirate justifications while maintaining respect
for customers and customary uses of books (fair use, first sale, etc.).
The common "but it helps authors" is in there, Baen does it, libraries
do it, etc. so I won't repeat all that. It's a work in progress, and
I hope to incorporate input as I get it. (I do have a batch of changes
to make in response to Cory Doctorow's comments, but haven't made those
yet, making it clearer that we have no desire to deprive readers of
uses they've had for hundreds of years, while making it also clear that
someone reading a pirated version without compensation to the copyright
owner is not a good thing for anyone. So watch that space. :-)
2... One of the greatest concerns I have is regarding quality of pirated
works. One case with Vonda McIntyre recently showed that pirate editions
may well be altered to include the pirate's own philosophy, spin, etc.
So a warning to potential readers of same... You can't really trust that
you're reading what the author wrote. (Yikes.) I haven't compared any
of these r.a.s.w. postings to Ms. Bujold's originals, or the others,
but I wouldn't be surprised if there were differences.
3... I personally have no interest in shutting down any anonymyzing
remailers. I'm a strong believer in first amendment rights, and while I
believe folks should stand behind their words, I support the existence of
anonymity. (Geez, I founded a site that specialized in it, Nyx.net, which
was the first free ISP, giving out semi-anonymous accounts for free speech
purposes. Go see Nyx's free speech policy if that's still on the site.)
4... I don't see the mission of our ePiracy Committee as trying to play
whack-a-mole on every pirate. (Though those who charge money...grr!)
Rather, I see our role as helping to establish policies that minimize
the harms from piracy while maximizing respect for customers. (Which is
a different approach than, say, the RIAA.) Of course, any given member
of SFWA may have their own opinion and do their own thing. Harlan feels
very strongly about making pirates' personal lives a living hell, and
that's his choice. I actually think that _with the copyright owner's
permission_ there's free advertising in them thar hills, and we're making
progress on that angle. I see our mission as having a large educational
component, and would thus...
5... Like to invite you to join our ePiracy Awareness Campaign:
http://sfwa.org/epiracy/public/graphics.htm
Grab a button/banner/slogan there that suits your views and help us
educate folks not to cause harm. These represent many views (they were
created by many different SFWAns), but if you don't see a phrasing there
that you like, feel free to suggest (serious) ones. I hope you'll adopt
some of these for your signatures, web sites, etc. --Thanks!
--
Dr. Andrew Burt == Comp.Sci. Dept, University of Denver == ab...@aburt.com
Critters Workshop == 3,000 writers and counting == www.critters.org
Chair, ePiracy Committee, SFWA ~~ www.sfwa.org/epiracy
Vader said, "Luke, I am your feather." Bothered by typos? Avoid pirated ebooks.
John Pelan
wrote:
A regrettable attitude.
> I'm a strong believer in first amendment rights, and while I
>believe folks should stand behind their words, I support the existence of
>anonymity.
Also an unfortunate stance. The sort of poltroons that hide behind the
veil of an an anonymous remailer would do far less harm if they didn't
have the illusion of security.
>(Geez, I founded a site that specialized in it, Nyx.net, which
>was the first free ISP, giving out semi-anonymous accounts for free speech
>purposes. Go see Nyx's free speech policy if that's still on the site.)
>
>4... I don't see the mission of our ePiracy Committee as trying to play
>whack-a-mole on every pirate.
In other words you will wring your hands and say "tsk-tsk"....
> (Though those who charge money...grr!)
Doesn't matter, the crime is the same whether a profit motive exists
or not.
>Rather, I see our role as helping to establish policies that minimize
>the harms from piracy while maximizing respect for customers.
In other words, spout platitudes and do nothing of any consequence.
I see that the money I would have spent on SFWA dues serves a far
better purpose buying lattes and playing pinball.
> (Which is a different approach than, say, the RIAA.)
While I disagree with the RIAA on many issues, particularly what
consitutes a reasonable length for copyright, at least they are taking
steps instead of wringing their hands and tut-tutting like a bunch of
harmless old biddies.
>Of course, any given member of SFWA may have their own opinion and do their own thing. Harlan feels
>very strongly about making pirates' personal lives a living hell, and
>that's his choice.
One of the few things I agree with Ellison on.
> I actually think that _with the copyright owner's permission_ there's free advertising in them thar hills, and we're making
>progress on that angle.
One generally employs a publicist for this purpose, not some anonymous
wanker posting through a remailer.
> I see our mission as having a large educational
>component, and would thus...
>
>5... Like to invite you to join our ePiracy Awareness Campaign:
>
> http://sfwa.org/epiracy/public/graphics.htm
>
>--
>Dr. Andrew Burt == Comp.Sci. Dept, University of Denver == ab...@aburt.com
> Critters Workshop == 3,000 writers and counting == www.critters.org
> Chair, ePiracy Committee, SFWA ~~ www.sfwa.org/epiracy
>Vader said, "Luke, I am your feather." Bothered by typos? Avoid pirated ebooks.
I see... Verminious filth like this Melon creature threaten to
jeopardize the very way in which we writers and publishers earn a
living and you want I should wear a button??? Get real, your
"educational program" may reach a very few honest folk that simply
don't know any better but it does less than nothing to discourage the
malicious mischief being wreaked by the actual pirates.
Good day to you.
John Pelan
Chairman of the Board - HWA
J Greely
>>3... I personally have no interest in shutting down any anonymyzing
>>remailers.
>A regrettable attitude.
IIRC, the first anonymous remailer was set up to facilitate open
discussion by adult survivors of child abuse (I shared an office for a
while with the guy who wrote it). While their most common uses today
are *cough* "less than noble", I don't see how you can prevent the bad
uses without also preventing the good ones.
>The sort of poltroons that hide behind the veil of an an anonymous remailer
Ah, the famous "honest people have nothing to hide" argument. I
consider the consequences of that line of thinking to be far more
dangerous than anonymous speech.
-j
Jonathan Hendry
"J Greely" <jgr...@corp.webtv.net> wrote in message
news:ynvheh3...@corp.webtv.net...
In this day and age, it's not real hard to get sufficient anonymity for the
abuse survivor-type users, without resorting to remailers. It's unlikely
that anyone's going to take Hotmail to court to get the identity of
a user of an abuse survivor list. I should think that, for that to happen,
the abused person would have to make accusations against a specific
person which would possibly be enough information to determine the
poster's identity, thus losing anonymity anyway.
Such use of anonymous remailers seems to be more appropriate for
an earlier period where more people obtained access through work
or school, and didn't have much freedom in choosing their online user id's.
These days, I'd wager more child abus_ers_ use remailers than the abused do.
Other applications, such as 'resisting political oppression', seems unlikely
to work. Investigators just need to get the email before it gets to
the remailer, before it's anonymized. That may be difficult in the
(increasingly less) free US, but shouldn't be much of a problem for,
say, China, or other countries where civil rights aren't even given
lip service.
Mike Schilling
news:bdcf9470.02090...@posting.google.com...
> Howdy all. Been a while since I've posted hereabouts, but I hear there's
> trouble right here in River City. :-)
>
> Anyway, I'm Andrew Burt, chair of SFWA's ePiracy Committee.
I'll ask you, then: has google been requested not to archive the pirate
postings?
Anonymous
"Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
SOVIET ERA CENSORSHIP IN ACTION !
It will never succeed.
Anonymous
Andrew Burt wrote:
>3... I personally have no interest in shutting down any anonymyzing
>remailers. I'm a strong believer in first amendment rights, and while I
>believe folks should stand behind their words, I support the existence of
>anonymity. (Geez, I founded a site that specialized in it, Nyx.net, which
>was the first free ISP, giving out semi-anonymous accounts for free speech
>purposes. Go see Nyx's free speech policy if that's still on the site.)
>
>4... I don't see the mission of our ePiracy Committee as trying to play
>whack-a-mole on every pirate. (Though those who charge money...grr!)
>Rather, I see our role as helping to establish policies that minimize
>the harms from piracy while maximizing respect for customers. (Which is
>a different approach than, say, the RIAA.) Of course, any given member
>of SFWA may have their own opinion and do their own thing. Harlan feels
>very strongly about making pirates' personal lives a living hell, and
>that's his choice.
Actually the person Ellison probably hurts most is himself.
The poor sap has already wasted $250,000 on his fruitless crusade.
As far I'm concerned Harlan's given me nothing but a huge measure of entertainment over the years, watching his
hopeless,hilarious , futile and misguided Net Antipiracy Crusade.
Basically the guy wants to shut the net down. Good luck to him.
He's made himself a laughing stock with his antics.
> I actually think that _with the copyright owner's
>permission_ there's free advertising in them thar hills, and we're making
>progress on that angle. I see our mission as having a large educational
>component, and would thus...
>
An eminently sensible approach. And that's not something I thought I'd ever say about the SFWA "antipirate dept.". But it
appears there's been a change of management. Who know all too well the limitations of enforcing copyright on the net. It is
probably not a coincidence that this guy Andrew Burt is
(a) a computer scientist
(b) appears to have some respect for freedom
>5... Like to invite you to join our ePiracy Awareness Campaign:
>
> http://sfwa.org/epiracy/public/graphics.htm
>
ermmm, I'll pass on that one :)
>
Secret Squirrel
Niemand Nirgendwo
"Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>"ePiracy Committee" <epi...@sfwa.org> wrote in message
>news:bdcf9470.02090...@posting.google.com...
>> Howdy all. Been a while since I've posted hereabouts, but I hear there's
>> trouble right here in River City. :-)
>>
>> Anyway, I'm Andrew Burt, chair of SFWA's ePiracy Committee.
>
>I'll ask you, then: has google been requested not to archive the pirate
>postings?
>
Why bother ? Google is but one of hundreds of sites that archive rasfw.
John Pelan
wrote:
>jpe...@cnw.com (John Pelan) writes:
>>>3... I personally have no interest in shutting down any anonymyzing
>>>remailers.
>>A regrettable attitude.
>
>IIRC, the first anonymous remailer was set up to facilitate open
>discussion by adult survivors of child abuse (I shared an office for a
>while with the guy who wrote it). While their most common uses today
>are *cough* "less than noble", I don't see how you can prevent the bad
>uses without also preventing the good ones.
Other technology now exists for the good and proper uses you're
referring to. "Hotmail" comes readily to mind as does any Yahoo list
one might wish to create from a Hotmail account.
>
>>The sort of poltroons that hide behind the veil of an an anonymous remailer
>
>Ah, the famous "honest people have nothing to hide" argument. I
>consider the consequences of that line of thinking to be far more
>dangerous than anonymous speech.
>
>-j
You're attempting to conflate a reasonable level of personal anonymity
with the use of a technology that now exists only for spammers and
criminals. This line of thinking is ludicrous at best.
Bzzzt. Thanks for playing.
Cheers,
John Pelan
Terry Austin
> You're attempting to conflate a reasonable level of personal anonymity
> with the use of a technology that now exists only for spammers and
> criminals.
Presumes facts not in evidence. Or, more to the point, ignores facts
that are in evidence. An so obviously so, that you have to either
a troll, or a liar.
> This line of thinking is ludicrous at best.
>
Yes, you line of thinking is. So glad to see you admit it.
Terry Austin
Terry Austin
> Andrew Burt wrote:
>
>> 3... I personally have no interest in shutting down any anonymyzing
>> remailers. I'm a strong believer in first amendment rights, and
>> while I believe folks should stand behind their words, I support the
>> existence of anonymity. (Geez, I founded a site that specialized in
>> it, Nyx.net, which was the first free ISP, giving out semi-anonymous
>> accounts for free speech purposes. Go see Nyx's free speech policy
>> if that's still on the site.)
>>
>> 4... I don't see the mission of our ePiracy Committee as trying to
>> play whack-a-mole on every pirate. (Though those who charge
>> money...grr!) Rather, I see our role as helping to establish
>> policies that minimize the harms from piracy while maximizing
>> respect for customers. (Which is a different approach than, say,
>> the RIAA.) Of course, any given member of SFWA may have their own
>> opinion and do their own thing. Harlan feels very strongly about
>> making pirates' personal lives a living hell, and that's his choice.
>
> Actually the person Ellison probably hurts most is himself.
> The poor sap has already wasted $250,000 on his fruitless crusade.
>
> As far I'm concerned Harlan's given me nothing but a huge measure of
> entertainment over the years, watching his hopeless,hilarious ,
> futile and misguided Net Antipiracy Crusade. Basically the guy wants
> to shut the net down. Good luck to him. He's made himself a laughing
> stock with his antics.
Heh. Even retards guess right once in a while.
Terry Austin
J Greely
>Other technology now exists for the good and proper uses you're
>referring to. "Hotmail" comes readily to mind as does any Yahoo list
>one might wish to create from a Hotmail account.
I wouldn't use either Hotmail or Yahoo for anything that is even
remotely sensitive. Yahoo in particular actively monitors the contents
of their groups and takes action based on what they find, with
sometimes surprising results.
>You're attempting to conflate a reasonable level of personal anonymity
>with the use of a technology that now exists only for spammers and
>criminals.
No, you're asserting that that techonology only exists for spammers
and criminals, and making dubious claims about commercial services
that collect personal information being somehow better for legitimate
privacy.
>This line of thinking is ludicrous at best.
Right back at ya.
-j
J Greely
>In this day and age, it's not real hard to get sufficient anonymity for the
>abuse survivor-type users, without resorting to remailers. It's unlikely
>that anyone's going to take Hotmail to court to get the identity of
>a user of an abuse survivor list.
I think it's also unlikely that Hotmail has sufficient guarantees of
privacy to make it a comfortable choice for such uses. I just reread
their privacy statement, and I wouldn't trust it for anything serious.
>These days, I'd wager more child abus_ers_ use remailers than the abused do.
No, no, they all switched to PGP, didn't you hear? Better shut down
that technology fast!
-j
Peter D. Tillman
Niemand Nirgendwo <anon...@cotsebay.cotse.net> wrote:
Yes, but Google is the one that almost everyone uses...
Mike Schilling
news:36801e88ae5016e5...@paranoici.org...
Yes, one private body making a request of anohter -- that was the secret of
Soviet power.
Moron.
Scott A Crosby
> On 5 Sep 2002 15:55:34 -0700, epi...@sfwa.org (ePiracy Committee)
> wrote:
>
> Also an unfortunate stance. The sort of poltroons that hide behind the
> veil of an an anonymous remailer would do far less harm if they didn't
> have the illusion of security.
They don't have the illusion of security. They have security.
Anonymous remailers are pretty much immune to everything but major
governmental action... They're a good thing for when the powerful try
to censor and control the weak.
Ever read www.cryptome.org? He specializes in collecting and
publishing censored and secret documents from around the world. He
serves a wonderful resource of the powerful trying to hide the truth,
hide inconvenient facts, and hide just about anything they want.
> I see... Verminious filth like this Melon creature threaten to
> jeopardize the very way in which we writers and publishers earn a
> living and you want I should wear a button??? Get real, your
Its called progress. Nobody has a guarentee that progress won't affect
their industry and their lives. It happened to telephone operators,
buggy whip manufacturers, physicists, farm laborers, and many
others. It'll soon be happening to television stars and movie
stars. ('digital spokemen/women') Overall, its a good thing.
We're RASFW!!! Why are we fearing change? Why are we fearing the
future so much?
> "educational program" may reach a very few honest folk that simply
> don't know any better but it does less than nothing to discourage the
> malicious mischief being wreaked by the actual pirates.
The LOC is about 20 terabytes of text[4]. $20k of drivespace could
purchase enough drives to hold it all right now.[1] With blu-ray
discs[2] and/or future drive technology in 5 years[3], you could have
a home storage system large enough to hold it all for under $1000.
Imagine the LOC in a box under your bed for half the cost of a laptop.
Imagine a full text index of the entire LOC? I'd love it; what a boon
for research and exploration.[5] Of course, when tens of millions of
people can hold the entire library under their bed, its going to be
IMPOSSIBLE to restrict the flow of information unless every device has
a censorship/digital control chip attached.
This is not an equilibrum situation. Some sort of change will be
coming, and much faster than we expect. Whether we want it or not.
Scott
[1] About $1/gig... http://www.pricewatch.com/1/26/4321-1.htm
[2] 27gb/disc. Assume say, about $.25 each, the current retail cost of CDR.
[3] Drivespace has gone from 6gb or so to 120gb in 5 years, and is
likely to increase at about the same rate for a few more years. Just
today Maxtor announced 80gb platters, so you can expect 320gb drives
within a year.
[4] http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020605.html
[5] I love the internet.. Just about any research paper in computer
science (and most Ph.D thesises) worth reading is available online and
about 40 seconds away. MUCH easier than going to a library. I'd like
to be able to do the same thing in sci-fi.. Whats the book about
visiting a species that lives on a neutron star where their perception
of time is 1000000x faster?
Anonymous
I've been asking myself the same question. Perhaps :
Because many of the "main" inhabitants of this group are a bunch of middle aged old biddies who are essentially nothing more
than "neo-luddites" at heart. Probably an indecent proportion of Neoconservative Republicans here too.
>> "educational program" may reach a very few honest folk that simply
>> don't know any better but it does less than nothing to discourage the
>> malicious mischief being wreaked by the actual pirates.
>
>The LOC is about 20 terabytes of text[4]. $20k of drivespace could
>purchase enough drives to hold it all right now.[1] With blu-ray
>discs[2] and/or future drive technology in 5 years[3], you could have
>a home storage system large enough to hold it all for under $1000.
>
Soon hard drives will become informational ecologies in their own right.
>Imagine the LOC in a box under your bed for half the cost of a laptop.
I've imagined it all too often. The day is dawning (sooner than most believe) when it will become a reality. I want our
children to take it for granted that any book can be accessed anytime and anywhere. In the same way that today we access the
very air we breath. In the future the air will be thrumming with wireless transmissions carrying the equivalent of many
Libraries of Congress per second ! And of course that is why Hollywood and the major Industrial Combines are terrified. Too
much power to the masses. The Great Unwashed should know their place as supplicants to the altar of Hollywood ! Not.
>Imagine a full text index of the entire LOC? I'd love it; what a boon
>for research and exploration.[5] Of course, when tens of millions of
>people can hold the entire library under their bed, its going to be
>IMPOSSIBLE to restrict the flow of information unless every device has
>a censorship/digital control chip attached.
Which is precisely the aim of the new wave of post-DMCA legislation.
They (i.e. The MegaCorps) can see the future as clearly as you or I can. And it frightens the hell out of them. They see
themselves losing control in a very major way. They fear being erased out of existence. Hence their desperate attempts to
maintain a chokehold on all channels of information promulgation. Whatever the cost to our freedoms as a society.
>
>This is not an equilibrum situation. Some sort of change will be
>coming, and much faster than we expect. Whether we want it or not.
>
And isn't it deeply ironic that most of the people here are desperately against this new wave. of all the groups on the
net, rasfw should be one of the nost receptive. Alas, the opposite obtains.
>Scott
>
>
>[1] About $1/gig... http://www.pricewatch.com/1/26/4321-1.htm
>[2] 27gb/disc. Assume say, about $.25 each, the current retail cost of CDR.
>[3] Drivespace has gone from 6gb or so to 120gb in 5 years, and is
>likely to increase at about the same rate for a few more years. Just
>today Maxtor announced 80gb platters, so you can expect 320gb drives
>within a year.
>[4] http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020605.html
>[5] I love the internet.. Just about any research paper in computer
>science (and most Ph.D thesises) worth reading is available online and
>about 40 seconds away. MUCH easier than going to a library. I'd like
>to be able to do the same thing in sci-fi.. Whats the book about
>visiting a species that lives on a neutron star where their perception
>of time is 1000000x faster?
Hallelujah Brother ! :)
The Copyright Funeral Man
xganon
Scott A Crosby <scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote:
>
snip
>
>Imagine the LOC in a box under your bed for half the cost of a laptop.
>Imagine a full text index of the entire LOC? I'd love it; what a boon
>for research and exploration.[5] Of course, when tens of millions of
>people can hold the entire library under their bed, its going to be
>IMPOSSIBLE to restrict the flow of information unless every device has
>a censorship/digital control chip attached.
>
Even if that happens here (and it likely will), it is extremely unlikely that the rest of the world will follow suit. Very few
countries have vested interests with as much power as Hollywood and the all-powerful multimedia combines of the likes of Time-
Warner. So Americans could end up in the unique position of being the information have-nots of the new age. And of course it
will be largely self-imposed. We are already one step on the road to this of course, with the passing of the DMCA. The current
DRM Jihad bring waged by Hollywood only brings this day closer. We have to realize that we have Copyright Taliban in our midsy.
The Copyright Funeral Man
Dennis L. McKiernan
Many pirates say that information should be free. Yet, many forms of
entertainment are not free (e.g., computer games, books, films, etc.)
Each of these forms of entertainment employ lots of folks ... they are
industries unto themselves.
Pirates would make these forms of entertainment free.
If there were no monetary incentives in producing entertainment, the
book, film, computer game, and so on, industries would dry up. Then
there wouldn't be those high-quality forms of entertainment left. Only
the amateurs would be cranking out inferior products for free. There
would be no Lord of the Rings movies made (not enough bucks to produce
such epics), no wide selection of really good novels in whatever genre
you'd care to name (the pros would shift to different fields, for they
can't make a living at writing), no really good computer games (it takes
big bucks to have a stable of software folks who make a living at
cranking out games for Nintendo and Xbox and Playstation and PCs and
Macs).
So, I see the pirates much in the same light as mistletoe, a parasite
that slowly sucks the lifeblood from the tree host it settles on,
eventually killing the tree and thereby committing suicide in the
process, for once the tree dies, so dies the mistletoe.
Yes, information should be free, but information is raw data, and when
it comes to books, all the raw data is in the dictionary. It is the
intellect that turns raw data into a useful product ... and it is the
intellect that creates intellectual property in the form of
entertainment, and I claim that if entertainers cannot make a good
living at creating their forms of pleasure for the rest of us, then the
world will be a much poorer place for it.
I guess this might not matter to the pirates, who, in spite of their
claims to the contrary, and whether they see it or not, are acting in a
way to kill the very thing they cherish.
---Dennis
r.r...@thevine.net
>
> Scott A Crosby <scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 06 Sep 2002 02:46:32 GMT, jpe...@cnw.com (John Pelan) writes:
>>
>>> On 5 Sep 2002 15:55:34 -0700, epi...@sfwa.org (ePiracy Committee)
>>> wrote:
>>
>>We're RASFW!!! Why are we fearing change? Why are we fearing the
>>future so much?
>>
>I've been asking myself the same question. Perhaps :
>Because many of the "main" inhabitants of this group are a bunch of middle aged old biddies who are essentially nothing more
>than "neo-luddites" at heart. Probably an indecent proportion of Neoconservative Republicans here too.
>
Because change isn't always good. There is a downside to almost every
invention, despite the rosy prognostications of the inventors. For
example, the guy who invented the machine gun thought that it would
dramatically lower the number of people killed in wars, because one
person with a machine gun has the fire-power of several people with
rifles. He didn't think it through to the logical end, which is that
it takes many more people to take out a machine gun nest than to take
out riflemen. There is nothing wrong with society taking a hard look
at new changes and trying to figure out the impact of them before
rushing headlong into them. And, this _is_ rasfw. I don't know about
what you read, but much of what I read is cautionary tales about
societies disrupted and destroyed by technology. SF doesn't
necessarily consider all change to be good, so there's no reason that
the readers of it should.
>>Imagine the LOC in a box under your bed for half the cost of a laptop.
>
>I've imagined it all too often. The day is dawning (sooner than most believe) when it will become a reality. I want our
>children to take it for granted that any book can be accessed anytime and anywhere. In the same way that today we access the
>very air we breath. In the future the air will be thrumming with wireless transmissions carrying the equivalent of many
>Libraries of Congress per second ! And of course that is why Hollywood and the major Industrial Combines are terrified. Too
>much power to the masses. The Great Unwashed should know their place as supplicants to the altar of Hollywood ! Not.
This may not be as good of a thing as you think. For one thing,
anything that is cheaply and easily gotten is considered, by most
people, to be worth less than something expensive or difficult to get.
Parents use this when they make their children work to get something
that the parent could easily give them, because the child will value
and take of something that they had to work for more than they will
for gifts. You can also see it in the difference in respect accorded
free newspapers vs ones that you have to pay for. And I know that I
have entirely different expectations for my free Shakespeare in the
Park performances than I do for ones I buy a ticket to. So, by making
every book acessible anytime, anywhere, by anyone, you may very well
devalue every book, and lead to some new form of information-sharing
that isn't so easily accessible, and thus becomes perceived as more
valuable and important than books. Humans are perverse creatures, and
it does well to remember that.
Rebecca
--
Tell your troubles to cats,
The night-walking cats,
The black cats of Althea Jane
John Pelan
Nicely put.
Cheers,
John
Bud Webster
> So, I see the pirates much in the same light as mistletoe, a parasite
>that slowly sucks the lifeblood from the tree host it settles on,
>eventually killing the tree and thereby committing suicide in the
>process, for once the tree dies, so dies the mistletoe.
Works for me as a metaphor, Dennis. Let's hang the pirates from the
ceiling come Christmas.
Hell, I'd even kiss Austin in the doorway under one of those.
Danny Sichel
> [5] I love the internet.. Just about any research paper in computer
> science (and most Ph.D thesises) worth reading is available online and
> about 40 seconds away. MUCH easier than going to a library. I'd like
> to be able to do the same thing in sci-fi.. Whats the book about
> visiting a species that lives on a neutron star where their perception
> of time is 1000000x faster?
That'd be _Dragon's Egg_, by Robert Forward, available from many
legitimate bookstores and from Amazon.
In case Anonymous Coward has any ideas about posting _DE_ next, I'd just
like to point out that Forward apparently has less than a year to live,
and this really isn't the time to steal from him. Wait until he's buried
to dig up his grave, eh?
Scott A Crosby
> Scott A Crosby wrote:
>
> > [5] I love the internet.. Just about any research paper in computer
> > science (and most Ph.D thesises) worth reading is available online and
> > about 40 seconds away. MUCH easier than going to a library. I'd like
> > to be able to do the same thing in sci-fi.. Whats the book about
> > visiting a species that lives on a neutron star where their perception
> > of time is 1000000x faster?
>
> That'd be _Dragon's Egg_, by Robert Forward, available from many
> legitimate bookstores and from Amazon.
He did 'Saturn Rukh' too, didn't he.... Very cool book. Thanks for the
reference. I'll have to find a copy of it... Does it have a sequel?
Thanks!
> In case Anonymous Coward has any ideas about posting _DE_ next, I'd just
> like to point out that Forward apparently has less than a year to live,
Oh my! How old is he? A few months ago I worked for the person who
invented the Christmas Tree Bush... He had a model in his
lab. Supposedly Moravec is cited as the source of it in... Was it
'Trapped on Eden'?
Anyhoo. Thanks again.
Scott
Scott A Crosby
> Is there a difference between information and entertainment?
> Many pirates say that information should be free. Yet, many forms of
> entertainment are not free (e.g., computer games, books, films, etc.)
> Each of these forms of entertainment employ lots of folks ... they are
> industries unto themselves.
Not really.[1]
> Pirates would make these forms of entertainment free.
Fewer controls on duplication would alter the economic climate by
which creative works are distributed.. Which doesn't imply that.
> If there were no monetary incentives in producing entertainment, the
> book, film, computer game, and so on, industries would dry up. Then
Refutable.[2]
> there wouldn't be those high-quality forms of entertainment left. Only
> the amateurs would be cranking out inferior products for free. There
Define inferior. Many people consider sci-fi inferior or at least
pointless. Things will change, but why automatically assume that
they'll change for the worse? Perhaps things will be better if we,
say, didn't have mega-stars anymore. More viewpoints. More
perspectives.
And you'd be surprised how much 'free' is valued.[3]
> would be no Lord of the Rings movies made (not enough bucks to produce
> such epics), no wide selection of really good novels in whatever genre
> you'd care to name (the pros would shift to different fields, for they
> can't make a living at writing), no really good computer games (it takes
> big bucks to have a stable of software folks who make a living at
> cranking out games for Nintendo and Xbox and Playstation and PCs and
> Macs).
Actually, for modern games, the programmers are usually not very
involved. Most of the work is done by model designers, graphic
artists, etc. The era of a single programmer making PACMAN is over.
And in games, you get amateurs making their own mods. New skins. New
weapons, even new games. (See the Half-Life modding community or
Quake's modding community.) Some of which have turned professional.
> Yes, information should be free, but information is raw data, and when
> it comes to books, all the raw data is in the dictionary. It is the
> intellect that turns raw data into a useful product ... and it is the
> intellect that creates intellectual property in the form of
I'd call it 'intellectual creation'. The current legal climate gives
the holder certain [excessive] controls over it.. Its not property,
but those controls may be sold as property.
> entertainment, and I claim that if entertainers cannot make a good
> living at creating their forms of pleasure for the rest of us, then the
> world will be a much poorer place for it.
Could you elaborate your reasoning for this claim, by explaining two things?
1. Why couldn't different regimes not offer creators incentive to
create?
2. What are the real incentives to create. Evidence suggests in many
cases, it is their own ego. :)
Thanks..
Scott
[1] ''Content is not King''
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_2/odlyzko/
Check out the tables there...
People care much more for communication than to have pre-made stuff
piped to them. The telephone industry makes more in 2 weeks than the
movie studio's make in theater revenue each year.
More is spent on cellphones than on cable TV.
Yes, its an important industry, but in economic terms relatively
small.. Besides, what is usenet/mailing lists other than us making our
own entertainment? :)
[2] Fairly easily refutable: See the current ongoing thread
''Filtering by Publishers'' and the other threads about piles of
'hideous slush'. :)
[3] Estimated value of, say, Linux (my operating system) is in the ten
billion range. ''The Linux codebase consists of about one hundred
million lines of code, which at the accepted industry rate of
$100/line, represents an effective capital investment of ten billion
dollars.'' [http://muq.org/~cynbe/rants/lastdino.htm]
Alan Barclay
>> That'd be _Dragon's Egg_, by Robert Forward, available from many
>> legitimate bookstores and from Amazon.
>
>He did 'Saturn Rukh' too, didn't he.... Very cool book. Thanks for the
>reference. I'll have to find a copy of it... Does it have a sequel?
Starquake would be the sequal to Dragon's Egg.
William December Starr
Scott A Crosby <scr...@cs.rice.edu> said:
>> In case Anonymous Coward has any ideas about posting _DE_ next,
>> I'd just like to point out that Forward apparently has less than a
>> year to live,
>
> Oh my! How old is he?
The ISFDB says he was born in 1932.
-- William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
David Dyer-Bennet
> 1. Why couldn't different regimes not offer creators incentive to
> create?
They could. Things don't *have* to be the way they are now. However,
the current crop of pirates are simply involved in pirating the work
of creative people, and have made no suggestions about any alternate
system of incentives. It's possible to have a reasonable discussion,
one that creative people won't automatically all be on one side of,
about ways other than the current way to do things. It's *not* very
likely to get anywhere by simply declaring that their work has no
value.
> 2. What are the real incentives to create. Evidence suggests in many
> cases, it is their own ego. :)
Cite examples of widely-loved works of literature, cinema, music, art,
and so forth created by people who didn't make a living at it. There
are a few examples in the art world, but I can't think of a single one
from any of the others, and the ones from the art world aren't
recent.
In any case, even if our favorite writers would write just for their
egos -- if they had to work a day job too, they wouldn't write nearly
as *much*, so that would still be a great loss to me as a reader.
(And same thing for other forms of art).
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd...@dd-b.net / http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info
DomDawes
the amateurs would be cranking out inferior products for free. >>
I see "inferior products" put out by highly-paid authors every day. Does the
name "Stephen King" mean anything to you?
<< no wide selection of really good novels in whatever genre you'd care to name
>>
How about science fiction? I've seen little hard sf in the last decade. If you
go into a bookstore, 75% (or better) is fantasy. Where's the next Asimov? The
next Brackett?
The "we want copyright" extended battle is being promoted by corprations like
Disney, who refuse to let the established copyright law stand and keep trying
to extend their control over fictional properties, while milking public domain
characters (which wouldn't be PD if the copyright laws were set up the way they
wanted them previously.) like Cinderella, Captain Nemo, and Aladdin for all
they can.
D
Robert Whelan
> Is there a difference between information and entertainment?
> Many pirates say that information should be free. Yet, many forms of
> entertainment are not free (e.g., computer games, books, films, etc.)
And many people say that man should be free, yet in certain parts of the
world, slavery exists.
> Each of these forms of entertainment employ lots of folks ... they are
> industries unto themselves.
Which industries have survived, and employed lots of folks....and are
industries unto themselves, even though "piracy" of these works, on
the personal level of making a copy of a game, record, movie, has
existed for years. You imagine that huge untapped wealth is waiting
for authors and filmmakers and gamemakers if only piracy is stamped
out? The fact is, all these industries became possible in the first
place because they grew in "piratical" communities that shared
information. The first computer games were made for fun, and distributed
for free. Without these free progenitors, people would never have known
that computer games could be fun. There would have been no market for
the commercial games had not the way been paved by free games, since
people would have acquired no taste.
> Pirates would make these forms of entertainment free.
The kind that post polemics to Usenet blow a lot of smoke, mainly to
irritate paranoid and insecure authors, whose work is just not good
enough to be worth pirating. Without the pirating impulse, the impulse
to share with others a tale one thinks is worth sharing, all authors
would dry up and blow away from lack of attention. I'd like an example,
one single example, of a game, record, film, that has lost money due
to having a popular pirated form.
> If there were no monetary incentives in producing entertainment, the
> book, film, computer game, and so on, industries would dry up. Then
> there wouldn't be those high-quality forms of entertainment left. Only
> the amateurs would be cranking out inferior products for free.
Inferior products (in the entertainment field) don't get pirated.
Piracy is the sincerest form of flattery. The fanatical anti-pirates
seem to imagine that there is bottomless wealth out there, being sat
on by the fat-cat pirates out of pure greed, as oppose to the reality...
that the person who downloads a free game he finds on the Internet
somewhere could blithely afford to pop the commercial price for it,
and would, if only the free doorway were shut to him/her. The fact is,
were the doorway shut, the vast majority of such people would look
at the price, and not even bother TRYING the game. They'd simply
do without.
There
> would be no Lord of the Rings movies made (not enough bucks to produce
> such epics), no wide selection of really good novels in whatever genre
> you'd care to name (the pros would shift to different fields, for they
> can't make a living at writing), no really good computer games (it takes
> big bucks to have a stable of software folks who make a living at
> cranking out games for Nintendo and Xbox and Playstation and PCs and
> Macs).
From what I hear, this is already happening. Pro-writers cannot really
make a living at writing. It's getting harder and harder. Not because
of e-piracy, but because of movies, television, computer games. Readers
just aren't being raised anymore, in sufficent quantities to support any
but the most broadly appealing material.
> So, I see the pirates much in the same light as mistletoe, a parasite
> that slowly sucks the lifeblood from the tree host it settles on,
> eventually killing the tree and thereby committing suicide in the
> process, for once the tree dies, so dies the mistletoe.
Except in the case of literature, and science-fiction in particular, the
tree is already dying, and has been dying for years, and will continue
to die due to being outdazzled by film and television. About the only
hope that the book industry (and particularly the science fiction ghetto)
has is that the video-game generation will rediscover books in the context
of the new medium, in a manner that allows them to recommend and make
easily available to eachother examples of the material. I foresee a
future where new authors go online and anonymously post pirated copies
of their own works, to try and get buzz going among those most likely
to spread word of it.
> Yes, information should be free, but information is raw data, and when
> it comes to books, all the raw data is in the dictionary. It is the
> intellect that turns raw data into a useful product ... and it is the
> intellect that creates intellectual property in the form of
> entertainment, and I claim that if entertainers cannot make a good
> living at creating their forms of pleasure for the rest of us, then the
> world will be a much poorer place for it.
Don't be so sure you know what is going to help them make a good living.
> I guess this might not matter to the pirates, who, in spite of their
> claims to the contrary, and whether they see it or not, are acting in a
> way to kill the very thing they cherish.
Or to keep alive a medium that would otherwise die a horrible death, in
an increasingly illiterate culture.
Lee Ann Rucker
<scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote:
> [5] I love the internet.. Just about any research paper in computer
> science (and most Ph.D thesises) worth reading is available online and
> about 40 seconds away. MUCH easier than going to a library. I'd like
> to be able to do the same thing in sci-fi.. Whats the book about
> visiting a species that lives on a neutron star where their perception
> of time is 1000000x faster?
As I've discovered in trying to find answers to Linux questions, if the
question is sufficiently common, for every website worth reading Google
will turn up 1000 that aren't.
Oddly enough, I never had anything near this much trouble finding
answers to questions about non-free OSes.
Scott A Crosby
> Scott A Crosby <scr...@cs.rice.edu> writes:
>
[[ Context restored ]]
> > Someone else (not Scott Crosby) wrote:
> > > entertainment, and I claim that if entertainers cannot make a
> > > good living at creating their forms of pleasure for the rest of
> > > us, then the world will be a much poorer place for it.
> > Could you elaborate your reasoning for this claim, by explaining two things?
> > 1. Why couldn't different regimes not offer creators incentive to
> > create?
>
> They could. Things don't *have* to be the way they are now. However,
> the current crop of pirates are simply involved in pirating the work
> of creative people, and have made no suggestions about any alternate
> system of incentives. It's possible to have a reasonable discussion,
> one that creative people won't automatically all be on one side of,
> about ways other than the current way to do things. It's *not* very
> likely to get anywhere by simply declaring that their work has no
> value.
The problem is... that that is the truth....
Any rule against noncommercial copying can be no stronger than social
convention; it is not enforcable. So, by that metric, no words can
have a value that is *forced* to be greater than its value as raw bits
of bandwidth/storage.[4]
To end my digression, you haven't explainded the claim that there is
no other way outside the current system by which entertainers can have
incentive to create. There are many such systems that many have
suggested (including the poster that you lament). None may be the
answer you may want to hear, but that doesn't mean that they're
unworkable.
> > 2. What are the real incentives to create. Evidence suggests in many
> > cases, it is their own ego. :)
>
> Cite examples of widely-loved works of literature, cinema, music, art,
> and so forth created by people who didn't make a living at it. There
Irrelevant.
I asked 'What are the real incentives to create.'.
Its obvious that a 'widely read' work almost always must be produced
professionally. A work will usually not become widely read unless it
is widely known. *That* usually requires either exceptionality of the
work, or professional marketing.
Perhaps you are conflating 'professionally created artistic work' with
'artistic work'?
It *is* tautological that _professional_ works are made
professionally, and the incentive to make a professional work is
frequently money.[5] Thus, they *could* be impacted by changes in the
current regime. But, how many works, of all those created, are
professionally created?
If it is relatively few, then the origional claim:
> > > entertainment, and I claim that if entertainers cannot make a
> > > good living at creating their forms of pleasure for the rest of
> > > us, then the world will be a much poorer place for it.
would be refutable.
So, again I ask the question.. What is the real incentive to create.
To digress a little (and bring up a few more references), there are
many works created by those who don't make a living at it.
Well, given the stories I've read about starving writers earning well
under minimum wage[1].... How many writers/musicians can really claim
make a living at it? :(
There are several online comic strips that have strong online
followings.[2] If you are willing to accept stuff that caters to a
somewhat limited audience, there are many good quality works created
by amateurs.[3]
> In any case, even if our favorite writers would write just for their
> egos -- if they had to work a day job too, they wouldn't write nearly
> as *much*, so that would still be a great loss to me as a reader.
> (And same thing for other forms of art).
A question for you (and for everyone): Which is better? 10 novels with
1k copies each published or 1 novel with 20k copies? The first leaves
10x the cultural heritage to our future. The second makes more money.
Scott
[1] Sorry. No reference for this statement on writer's income. Anyone
willing to volunteer one to me? I'm guessestimating this from the
stories I've heard. I do have:
http://www.reel-big-fish.com/milano/faq.htm
'' Band member net income each: $ 4,031.25
The band is now ? of the way through its contract, has made the
music industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the
hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned
about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got
to ride in a tour bus for a month.
''
[2] Kevin & Kell, Userfriendly, Megatokyo, Freefall, Sluggy Freelance.
[3] Various software code like Linux. Various non-sucky furry
literature. 'Human Memoirs' (Gregory Howell) is a nice story, About
90th percentile of the novels I've read. There's also the
Transformation Story Archive, which is also about half-neat.
[4] Unless one gets to schemes that have statuatory royalties on, say,
bandwidth or storage. An interesting political fight for that, and
very prone to abuse.
[5] And occasionally Ego... I saw Stephan Wolfram's _A new kind of
Science_ in the bookstore a week ago. :)
Frog
r.r...@thevine.net wrote:
>On 7 Sep 2002 10:21:00 +0200, Anonymous <nob...@paranoici.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> Scott A Crosby <scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>On Fri, 06 Sep 2002 02:46:32 GMT, jpe...@cnw.com (John Pelan) writes:
>>>
>>>> On 5 Sep 2002 15:55:34 -0700, epi...@sfwa.org (ePiracy Committee)
>>>> wrote:
>>>
>
>>>We're RASFW!!! Why are we fearing change? Why are we fearing the
>>>future so much?
>>>
>>I've been asking myself the same question. Perhaps :
>>Because many of the "main" inhabitants of this group are a bunch of middle aged old biddies who are essentially nothing
more
>>than "neo-luddites" at heart. Probably an indecent proportion of Neoconservative Republicans here too.
>>
>Because change isn't always good. There is a downside to almost every
>invention, despite the rosy prognostications of the inventors. For
>example, the guy who invented the machine gun thought that it would
>dramatically lower the number of people killed in wars, because one
>person with a machine gun has the fire-power of several people with
>rifles. He didn't think it through to the logical end, which is that
>it takes many more people to take out a machine gun nest than to take
>out riflemen. There is nothing wrong with society taking a hard look
>at new changes and trying to figure out the impact of them before
>rushing headlong into them. And, this _is_ rasfw. I don't know about
>what you read, but much of what I read is cautionary tales about
>societies disrupted and destroyed by technology. SF doesn't
>necessarily consider all change to be good, so there's no reason that
>the readers of it should.
>
That still doesn't change the fact that many of the people here are a bunch of over-cautious middle aged old biddies. With
a smattering of aging burnt out hippies to boot. Who've become over familiar with their armchairs.
>>>Imagine the LOC in a box under your bed for half the cost of a laptop.
>>
>>I've imagined it all too often. The day is dawning (sooner than most believe) when it will become a reality. I want our
>>children to take it for granted that any book can be accessed anytime and anywhere. In the same way that today we access
the
>>very air we breath. In the future the air will be thrumming with wireless transmissions carrying the equivalent of many
>>Libraries of Congress per second ! And of course that is why Hollywood and the major Industrial Combines are terrified. Too
>>much power to the masses. The Great Unwashed should know their place as supplicants to the altar of Hollywood ! Not.
>
>This may not be as good of a thing as you think. For one thing,
>anything that is cheaply and easily gotten is considered, by most
>people, to be worth less than something expensive or difficult to get.
You are making vast overgeneralizations and perhaps underestimating peoples' intelligence. Having said that though :
This line of reasoning is sadly the prevalent today in our consumer society. That doesn't mean we have to conform to this
idiocy.
>Parents use this when they make their children work to get something
>that the parent could easily give them, because the child will value
>and take of something that they had to work for more than they will
>for gifts.
>You can also see it in the difference in respect accorded
>free newspapers vs ones that you have to pay for.
No, I don't judge a book by its cover but by its content.
> And I know that I
>have entirely different expectations for my free Shakespeare in the
>Park performances than I do for ones I buy a ticket to. So, by making
>every book acessible anytime, anywhere, by anyone, you may very well
>devalue every book, and lead to some new form of information-sharing
>that isn't so easily accessible, and thus becomes perceived as more
>valuable and important than books.
Books and Shakespeare performances are entirely different creatures. A concert or play changes everytime and depends upon
the quality of its performers, its location and a host of other factors. Most requiring serious doses of money. A book's
content is immutable and unchangeable once written. And can be infinitely reproduced for near zero cost. The whole concert
attending experience cannot so easily be reduced to 1's and 0's that can be easily traded on a file-sharing network.
Then there's your claim that by making books free we devalue them. Which is patently ridiculous. Are you seriously
suggesting that if you were given 20 books for free you would value them less than if you had paid for tthe same 20 books ?
By your logic the more you pay for them the more you value them. I thought you had more intelligence than that. Are books in
libraries less valuable ? Do the readers in libraries value them less ? I think not.
Some of today's generation would value a Britney CD, say, more than a good book. So books are already as less valuable in
many quarters. But that certainly is not the fault of free books. In addition: anyone who is stupid enough to think that
because books are free they are less valuable is unlikely to be much of a bookreader in the first place.
>Humans are perverse creatures, and
>it does well to remember that.
>
That's true enough. And some are perverse enough to not fall for the old canard that making things free devalues them.
The air we breath is free.
Laughter is free.
Sex is free. [and if you have to pay for it almost everyone would agree it is of less "value". So there you have something
which is EVEN more valuable when free. Sadly having children is not free as some of us discover all too late :( ]
A hike through the woods is free.
Do we value these things less because they are free ?
Only a perverse idiot would think so !
But then you said that "Humans are perverse creatures," and you are right.
Some are. That does not mean we should pander to their perversity.
>Rebecca
Deann Allen
> >3... I personally have no interest in shutting down any
> >anonymyzing remailers.
>
>
> > I'm a strong believer in first amendment rights, and while I
> > believe folks should stand behind their words, I support the
> > existence of anonymity.
>
> behind the veil of an an anonymous remailer would do far less
> harm if they didn't have the illusion of security.
Right, there was that anonymous poltroon a couple centuries back.
What was the coward's name? Oh, yeah, I think it was "Publius."
Be wary of sweeping generalities.
> > I see our mission as having a large educational component, and
> > would thus...
> >
> >5... Like to invite you to join our ePiracy Awareness Campaign:
> >
> > http://sfwa.org/epiracy/public/graphics.htm
> >
> >--
> >Dr. Andrew Burt == Comp.Sci. Dept, University of Denver ==
> > ab...@aburt.com
> > Critters Workshop == 3,000 writers and counting ==
> > www.critters.org
> > Chair, ePiracy Committee, SFWA ~~ www.sfwa.org/epiracy
> >Vader said, "Luke, I am your feather." Bothered by typos? Avoid
> >pirated ebooks.
>
> I see... Verminious filth like this Melon creature threaten to
> jeopardize the very way in which we writers and publishers earn a
> living and you want I should wear a button??? Get real, your
> "educational program" may reach a very few honest folk that simply
> don't know any better but it does less than nothing to discourage
> the malicious mischief being wreaked by the actual pirates.
Ah. You might want to check your assumptions. Those who don't know
better will benefit from being made aware of the problems. Those
who think nothing of stealing will steal; those who find that
unacceptable will not. The figures from the Baen Free Library tend
to show that the latter are the overwhelming majority. Of course,
the works in the BFL are there *with the authors' permission.*
[glare Anonymous]
D.
--
It may be time to water the tree.
-----------------------------------------
Nomen Nescio
"Peter D. Tillman" wrote:
> Niemand Nirgendwo <anon...@cotsebay.cotse.net> wrote:
>
>> "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >"ePiracy Committee" <epi...@sfwa.org> wrote in message
>> >news:bdcf9470.02090...@posting.google.com...
>> >> Howdy all. Been a while since I've posted hereabouts, but I hear there's
>> >> trouble right here in River City. :-)
>> >>
>> >> Anyway, I'm Andrew Burt, chair of SFWA's ePiracy Committee.
>> >
>> >I'll ask you, then: has google been requested not to archive the pirate
>> >postings?
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>Yes, but Google is the one that almost everyone uses...
What are you scared of ?
Aren't you clutching at straws more than a bit ?
And what do you or the others here hope to achieve by acting as chief Net censor ?
You cannot dam the seven seas.
Information really does want to be free, as cliched as that may seem.
Your actions are just as contemptible as the Chinese government who have recently (a couple of days ago) blocked access to
Google.
You and your ilk are ultimately doomed to the same fate as the Luddites. The big difference here is that you had a chance to
educate yourself about the coming realities but deliberately chose to ignore them and remain wedded to your outmoded
copyrightism.
Blithely believing that your repression of free information flows had a chance of succeeding. In your own way you net
copyrightists are as bad as the Taliban. Both stick to irrational beliefs. Both are fanatically wedded to them. Both want to
impose their beliefs on others, by indoctrination if possible, but by force if necessary.
There is a day coming, far sooner than you think, when there will exist tools enabling people to put up ANY type of material
on the web.
And it will be impossible to remove. Good luck in your pathetic attempts until then anyway. Just like Harlan Ellison you
give me some entertainment watching you scurrying hither and thither desperately trying to close down sources of information
that harm nobody, but potentially benefit many. A far better use of your (plural) time would be going after pedophiles on
the net. Or failing that just chilling out and not getting high BP.
The Copyright Funeral Man
Anonymous
"Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>"Anonymous" <nob...@paranoici.org> wrote in message
>news:36801e88ae5016e5...@paranoici.org...
>>
>> "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >"ePiracy Committee" <epi...@sfwa.org> wrote in message
>> >news:bdcf9470.02090...@posting.google.com...
>> >> Howdy all. Been a while since I've posted hereabouts, but I hear
>there's
>> >> trouble right here in River City. :-)
>> >>
>> >> Anyway, I'm Andrew Burt, chair of SFWA's ePiracy Committee.
>> >
>> >I'll ask you, then: has google been requested not to archive the pirate
>> >postings?
>> >
>>
>> SOVIET ERA CENSORSHIP IN ACTION !
>> It will never succeed.
>
>Yes, one private body making a request of anohter -- that was the secret of
>Soviet power.
>
Very much so.
Precisely. Indeed it was.
>Moron.
>
Yes you are. You have to be a moron in the fullest sense of the word if you think that you can solve anything by going after
Google. The material in question has been archived by hundreds of other sites. Permanently. Are you going to go after each
of these ? Then there are the million or so readers of this group who have downloaded this material. Are you going to go
after them? Can you stop them emailing any of this stuff to their friends ? If you can't, and you can't, then you are a
moron to the power of 3 for trying to go after after google. They are the end source, not the primary. I am the primary.
But since you know you can't stop me, you thrash about in frustration and you have the bright idea of going after
google.Largely in an effort to make yourself feel better about your helplessness and inability to stop my posting of books.
If that makes you feel better go ahead. Be my guest. Whatever. Right now I'm going on a camping break with my girlfriend for
the weekend. I've left my 3 comps on sharing well over 600 Gigs of copyrighted files. When I return I will have uploaded
around 20 gigs worth of stuff : books, movies, music. Can you stop me and millions of others ? No. Do you have a hope in
hell? No.
The cat is already out of the bag and there ain't nought you can do to push it back in. You think you can, but then you're
a certified idiot.
This is one battle you cannot hope to win. Ever. You are fighting against the laws of physics and of entropy. You cannot win.
Copyright is dead. Long live copyright.
The Copyright Funeral Man
Anonymous
domd...@aol.com (DomDawes) wrote:
><< Then there wouldn't be those high-quality forms of entertainment left. Only
>the amateurs would be cranking out inferior products for free. >>
>
>I see "inferior products" put out by highly-paid authors every day. Does the
>name "Stephen King" mean anything to you?
>
><< no wide selection of really good novels in whatever genre you'd care to name
>>>
>
>How about science fiction? I've seen little hard sf in the last decade. If you
>go into a bookstore, 75% (or better) is fantasy. Where's the next Asimov? The
>next Brackett? was reputed
>The "we want copyright" extended battle is being promoted by corprations like
>Disney, who refuse to let the established copyright law stand and keep trying
>to extend their control over fictional properties, while milking public domain
>characters (which wouldn't be PD if the copyright laws were set up the way they
>wanted them previously.) like Cinderella, Captain Nemo, and Aladdin for all
>they can.
>
How true. All ideas are built one upon the other. Like the rungs of a ladder every idea relies on its preceding fellows.
That ugly word misnomer "Intellectual Property" seeks to create little ghettos where each man jealously guards "his"
information. This goes against the grain of the laws of physics, of human nature (which seeks to share its ideas) and
against all the trends that helped bring the age of Enlightenment and Renaissance into being. Think where we'd be if Sir
Isaac Newton had patented gravity. (If he were alive today there'd be some clever little IP lawyer who would be crazy enough
to suggest he do precisely that in order to "maximize revenue" ). Or E=mc^2
>D
The Copyright Funeral Man
Anonymous
Scott A Crosby <scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote:
snipped
>[5] I love the internet.. Just about any research paper in computer
>science (and most Ph.D thesises) worth reading is available online and
>about 40 seconds away. MUCH easier than going to a library. I'd like
>to be able to do the same thing in sci-fi.. Whats the book about
>visiting a species that lives on a neutron star where their perception
>of time is 1000000x faster?
Wasn't that a book by Robert Forward ? Can't remember the title. "Dragon's Egg" ?
Around ten years since I read it. The Cheela ?
Now there's another good argument for having every single book available in full text.
Steve Taylor
> What are you scared of ?
I'm scared of your inability to format text in a readable manner.
Matt Ruff
> Is there a difference between information and entertainment?
> Many pirates say that information should be free. Yet, many forms of
> entertainment are not free (e.g., computer games, books, films, etc.)
> Each of these forms of entertainment employ lots of folks ... they are
> industries unto themselves.
> Pirates would make these forms of entertainment free.
> If there were no monetary incentives in producing entertainment, the
> book, film, computer game, and so on, industries would dry up.
I realize your main goal here is just to rant against pirates, but I
can't resist pointing out that (a) eliminating or altering copyright
isn't the same thing as eliminating all monetary incentives for
producing entertainment, and (b) there are in fact some pretty neat,
labor-intensive products that are given away for free -- like, for
instance, the Web browser I am currently using.
> Then there wouldn't be those high-quality forms of entertainment
> left.
Things would certainly be different without copyright, but I tend to
doubt that quality entertainment would disappear. It's too popular.
> There would be no Lord of the Rings movies made
Or, there would be a lot more Lord of the Rings movies made -- since
anyone who wanted to could make one, without having to negotiate for the
rights. In the way of things, a lot of these would probably suck, but
you might also get some interesting innovations that could never exist
under copyright.
And, hey, other people besides George Lucas could make Star Wars prequels...
> no wide selection of really good novels in whatever genre
> you'd care to name (the pros would shift to different fields, for they
> can't make a living at writing),
Well, most of us can't make a living at writing anyway. We still do it.
> no really good computer games (it takes big bucks to have a stable
> of software folks who make a living at cranking out games for
> Nintendo and Xbox and Playstation and PCs and Macs).
Even now, there are plenty of talented programmers who put a lot of time
and effort into creating games and game mods for free.
> So, I see the pirates much in the same light as mistletoe, a parasite
> that slowly sucks the lifeblood from the tree host it settles on,
> eventually killing the tree
Except that this gives pirates too much credit, since they haven't come
close to destroying copyright and/or publishing, and won't.
-- M. Ruff
Matt Ruff
>
> From what I hear, this is already happening. Pro-writers cannot really
> make a living at writing. It's getting harder and harder. Not because
> of e-piracy, but because of movies, television, computer games.
Actually, the real culprits are the landlords, grocers, etc., who
perversely insist on charging us money for goods and services.
-- M. Ruff
Mike Schilling
news:070920022308410209%lru...@mac.com...
You make an interesting point. I've been trying to learn about .NET
recently, and almost every question I've had is answered either on an
existing web page or within a day of posting the question on one on the
microsoft.public newsgroups.
William Clifford
>> wrote:
>
>> I see... Verminious filth like this Melon creature threaten to
>> jeopardize the very way in which we writers and publishers earn a
>> living and you want I should wear a button??? Get real, your
>
> their industry and their lives. It happened to telephone operators,
> buggy whip manufacturers, physicists, farm laborers, and many
> others. It'll soon be happening to television stars and movie
> stars. ('digital spokemen/women') Overall, its a good thing.
> We're RASFW!!! Why are we fearing change? Why are we fearing the
> future so much?
What Anonymous is doing actually antagonizes opponents of free speech
and open communication and goads them into action. Any action they
choose to take endangers this community. In this sense, I fear the
future very much.
Furthermore, it's littering--posting books here is off topic.
And they're poorly formatted (vandalism?).
--
William Clifford wo...@mindspring.com http://wobh.home.mindspring.com
"Another start-up here is going to revolutionize casual sex - I can't
tell you more, because I'm sworn to secrecy - but you can probably guess
if I list the following buzzwords: Bluetooth, vibrating phone, and
'location based services'." http://www.theregus.com/content/7/26151.html
Mike Schilling
news:c18de2cb7807760f...@dizum.com...
>
> "Peter D. Tillman" wrote:
> > Niemand Nirgendwo <anon...@cotsebay.cotse.net> wrote:
> >
> >> "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >"ePiracy Committee" <epi...@sfwa.org> wrote in message
> >> >news:bdcf9470.02090...@posting.google.com...
> >> >> Howdy all. Been a while since I've posted hereabouts, but I hear
there's
> >> >> trouble right here in River City. :-)
> >> >>
> >> >> Anyway, I'm Andrew Burt, chair of SFWA's ePiracy Committee.
> >> >
> >> >I'll ask you, then: has google been requested not to archive the
pirate
> >> >postings?
> >> >
> >>
> >> Why bother ? Google is but one of hundreds of sites that archive rasfw.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Yes, but Google is the one that almost everyone uses...
>
> What are you scared of ?
Do you know what the word "request" means? I seriously doubt Google wants
to be your accomplice.
how...@brazee.net
effect in printing novels or making movies or putting on plays. Does the
fact that Shakespeare doesn't demand royalties increase the likelihood of
producing one his plays in a community production?
Jim Lovejoy
news:slrnann27...@helium.barsoom:
> In <oydk7ly...@bert.cs.rice.edu>,
> Scott A Crosby <scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote:
>> On Fri, 06 Sep 2002 02:46:32 GMT, jpe...@cnw.com (John Pelan) writes:
>>
>>> On 5 Sep 2002 15:55:34 -0700, epi...@sfwa.org (ePiracy Committee)
>>> wrote:
>>
>>> I see... Verminious filth like this Melon creature threaten to
>>> jeopardize the very way in which we writers and publishers earn a
>>> living and you want I should wear a button??? Get real, your
>>
>> Its called progress. Nobody has a guarentee that progress won't affect
>> their industry and their lives. It happened to telephone operators,
>> buggy whip manufacturers, physicists, farm laborers, and many
>> others. It'll soon be happening to television stars and movie
>> stars. ('digital spokemen/women') Overall, its a good thing.
>>
>> We're RASFW!!! Why are we fearing change? Why are we fearing the
>> future so much?
>
> What Anonymous is doing actually antagonizes opponents of free speech
> and open communication and goads them into action. Any action they
> choose to take endangers this community. In this sense, I fear the
> future very much.
>
> Furthermore, it's littering--posting books here is off topic.
>
> And they're poorly formatted (vandalism?).
Nah. Vandalism implies malice. Incompetence is *much* more likely.
r.r...@thevine.net
I'm not sure that Shakespeare is a good example. After all, he is one
of the biggies in playwriting, and I think the same people would be
doing him if they had to pay royalties, just because you are expected
to do some Shakespeare. What you really need to look at is someone
who has just recently entered the public domain, and see if there is a
sharp up-swing in the number of adaptations as people who had been
waiting for it to hit that stage do their work.
Rebecca
--
Tell your troubles to cats,
The night-walking cats,
The black cats of Althea Jane
Jonathan Hendry
"David Dyer-Bennet" <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote in message
news:m2heh1b...@gw.dd-b.net...
> Scott A Crosby <scr...@cs.rice.edu> writes:
>
> > 1. Why couldn't different regimes not offer creators incentive to
> > create?
>
> They could. Things don't *have* to be the way they are now. However,
> the current crop of pirates are simply involved in pirating the work
> of creative people, and have made no suggestions about any alternate
> system of incentives
They have, actually.
They'd have authors and musicians working for tips. There have been
attempts to set up internet 'tip jars' whereby listeners can contribute
nickels and dimes (or more) to their favorite artists.
These have not done well, to put it mildly.
The pirate/free-sharing folks have not yet suggested a realistic
or adequate system to replace the current one.
Jonathan Hendry
"DomDawes" <domd...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020907225928...@mb-ct.aol.com...
>
> The "we want copyright" extended battle is being promoted by corprations like
> Disney, who refuse to let the established copyright law stand and keep trying
> to extend their control over fictional properties, while milking public
domain
> characters (which wouldn't be PD if the copyright laws were set up the way
they
> wanted them previously.) like Cinderella, Captain Nemo, and Aladdin for all
> they can.
And having Mickey Mouse under copyright is damaging society _how_?
The lack of access to the Mickey Mouse image doesn't seem to have
inhibited the people who came up with Barney the Dinosaur. Or Pokemon.
Or the Powerpuff Girls.
Jonathan Hendry
"Anonymous" <cri...@ecn.org> wrote in message
news:5d74829c1588d97e...@ecn.org...
>That ugly word misnomer "Intellectual Property" seeks to create little
ghettos where
> each man jealously guards "his" information. This goes against the grain of
the laws
> of physics, of human nature (which seeks to share its ideas) and
> against all the trends that helped bring the age of Enlightenment and
Renaissance into
> being. Think where we'd be if Sir Isaac Newton had patented gravity.
I take it you wish to return to the days when little was created except that
which was funded by a few aristocratic patrons?
How egalitarian.
Jonathan Hendry
"Matt Ruff" <storyt...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:3D7B74D5...@worldnet.att.net...
>
> > There would be no Lord of the Rings movies made
>
> Or, there would be a lot more Lord of the Rings movies made -- since
> anyone who wanted to could make one, without having to negotiate for the
> rights. In the way of things, a lot of these would probably suck, but
> you might also get some interesting innovations that could never exist
> under copyright.
Why would they be made, if every additional version was likely to
earn less money? Where's the production money going to come from?
The Peter Jackson trilogy doubtless wouldn't have been made if
Troma had done a trilogy in the mid 90's.
And, which Lord of the Rings? If there were no copyright, there'd be
multiple versions of the story.
People complain about movies being true to the source *now*...
> > no wide selection of really good novels in whatever genre
> > you'd care to name (the pros would shift to different fields, for they
> > can't make a living at writing),
>
> Well, most of us can't make a living at writing anyway. We still do it.
Would you do it if you knew there was not, and never would be,
any chance of making money at it? I assume you're not just writing
for the web now.
Actually, maybe an author could make money by going around and making
live appearances and paid signings. But if you're famous enough to make
money that way, you probably are famous enough to be making money
in the current system.
Jonathan Hendry
<how...@brazee.net> wrote in message
news:IoNe9.15430$LI2.1...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
Guys and Dolls ought to still be under copyright, and that's a
frequent favorite. The Music Man? Grease? 'Dreamcoat'?
These are all frequently produced. Probably as often, or more
often, than Shakespeare, especially in schools.
Jonathan Hendry
"J Greely" <jgr...@corp.webtv.net> wrote in message
news:ynv65xi...@corp.webtv.net...
> "Jonathan Hendry" <j_he...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> >In this day and age, it's not real hard to get sufficient anonymity for the
> >abuse survivor-type users, without resorting to remailers. It's unlikely
> >that anyone's going to take Hotmail to court to get the identity of
> >a user of an abuse survivor list.
>
> I think it's also unlikely that Hotmail has sufficient guarantees of
> privacy to make it a comfortable choice for such uses. I just reread
> their privacy statement, and I wouldn't trust it for anything serious.
Um, in the early days of remailers, users would have been sending
mail through their work or school systems. Any number of things
could have resulted in mail messages being exposed for reading
before getting anonymized. Anyone could have poked around
in the outgoing mail spool.
Scott A Crosby
> In <oydk7ly...@bert.cs.rice.edu>,
> Scott A Crosby <scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote:
> > On Fri, 06 Sep 2002 02:46:32 GMT, jpe...@cnw.com (John Pelan) writes:
> >
> >> On 5 Sep 2002 15:55:34 -0700, epi...@sfwa.org (ePiracy Committee)
> >> wrote:
> >
> >> I see... Verminious filth like this Melon creature threaten to
> >> jeopardize the very way in which we writers and publishers earn a
> >> living and you want I should wear a button??? Get real, your
> >
> > Its called progress. Nobody has a guarentee that progress won't affect
> > their industry and their lives. It happened to telephone operators,
> > buggy whip manufacturers, physicists, farm laborers, and many
> > others. It'll soon be happening to television stars and movie
> > stars. ('digital spokemen/women') Overall, its a good thing.
> >
> > We're RASFW!!! Why are we fearing change? Why are we fearing the
> > future so much?
>
> What Anonymous is doing actually antagonizes opponents of free speech
> and open communication and goads them into action. Any action they
> choose to take endangers this community. In this sense, I fear the
> future very much.
I hate to say it, but they were already in action LONG before 1995.
The whole AOL versus MSN war of the mid-90's was over who would *own*
the internet.[1] They both knew it was coming. They both knew it would
be *BIG*. They both knew that by being the gatekeeper, controlling
access and software, that incredible profits could be made. They both
thought it'd be in the guise of proprietary controlled
networks. Fortunately, both lost out because the public open
NSFNet/ARPANet beat both of them... For which we can thank god.
There is also the Audio Home Recording Act (1992) which required that
all digital audio systems had to support flags 'copy-once'
'copy-never'.... Note that current deployed systems mark ALL
analog-input as 'copy-once'.[2] So if you, say, record your sisters
wedding in a MiniDisc, and make them a copy, their copy is marked
uncopyable.[3]
DVD's (about 1995) were designed with an encryption technology.. The
implementation was flawed, but it was attempted. The purpose of that
was to be able to use contractual restrictions on player manufacturers
('you don't get a key unless you do what we say') to put arbitrary
controls of their own devising.. For example, region coding, or the
inability to fast-forward through parts of the DVD.
They've *BEEN* goaded into action ever since the hideous defeat of
'Sony v. Universal Studios (1984)', which ruled that the VCR was legal
(by a 5-4 vote). The copyright fiefdom lost in the courts (barely) and
only because congress didn't have a SPECIFIC law to cover the
situation. So, new laws had to be bought and paid for.. 'Compromises'
that wouldn't restrict/censor the population overly much (AHRA)[5]
'Compromises' that required that all VCR's have Macrovision[6]
'Compromises' that included statuatory royalties on recordable
media.[7]
And, 4 years ago, a law intended to gut that ruling entirely.[4]
So, they were already goaded into action 18 years ago, when technology
blindsided them. They've been busy reclomping down on us with legal
and technical controls ever since.
Scott
[1] By 'internet' I mean the communications network that everyone will
use for communications, purchasing, etc.
[2] This may or may not be a requirement of the law. I believe it may
be so, (Sec 1001 (11))
[3] However, there's an exception for 'professional' equipment.. IE,
pay 4x as much for a DAT deck thats physically the same as the cheap
version, and it ignores any such flags.
[4] Yes, Martha, you have a right to sell/use/manufacter/import a
device to copy. However, its illegal for that device to bypass *any*
'protection' measure, for *any reason*, no matter why you want
to. Even one as simple as changing a single bit. Even if you hold the
copyright in the work. Even if you're blind and trying to get this
digitally-restricted ebook to go through text-to-speech.
This is the core essence of the true *EVIL* in the DMCA.
[5] Making the recording of your wedding uncopyable isn't 'overly much'.
[6] A copy prevention technology to keep you from making backups of
videotapes to protect yourself from them wearing out. This was written
into one of the copyright laws in the late 80's. I forget which one.
[7] If you want to know why I think thats silly... Imagine a
statuatory royalty on paper, at, say, $.001/sheet because the
invention of the photocopy machine.
Scott A Crosby
> "DomDawes" <domd...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20020907225928...@mb-ct.aol.com...
> >
> > The "we want copyright" extended battle is being promoted by corprations like
> > Disney, who refuse to let the established copyright law stand and keep trying
> > to extend their control over fictional properties, while milking public
> domain
> > characters (which wouldn't be PD if the copyright laws were set up the way
> they
> > wanted them previously.) like Cinderella, Captain Nemo, and Aladdin for all
> > they can.
>
> And having Mickey Mouse under copyright is damaging society _how_?
Would losing access to Santa Clause or Uncle Sam be damaging to
society? Thomas Nast died in 1902. Under current copyright law, they'd
been under a heriditary fiefdom till 1977. Or, would having
Shakespeare under copyright damage society? Are you over 35? Can you
imagine a childhood without Santa?
I'd say yes, but only a little.. Every time an artist is blocked from
using an aspect of culture, harm has occured. An artistic work has not
been created. Or, the creation of a new artistic work has been slowed
down. ('Wind Done Gone'//'Gone with the Wind')
How many Mickey Mouse cartoons have never been created?
Or, to ask a counter-question:
'' And freeing Mickey Mouse from copyright would damage society _how_? ''
But, its not Mickey Mouse... Eldritch wrote, for example that the
reason he's against term extensions is because.... 6000 books were
written in 1922. Of those, only 100 are in print now, barely a
half-dozen make any money. How are we enriched by blocking 5900
80-year-old-and-moldering-away works from being copied?
Scott
John Pelan
wrote:
>On Sat, 7 Sep 2002, Dennis L. McKiernan wrote:
>
>> Is there a difference between information and entertainment?
>> Many pirates say that information should be free. Yet, many forms of
>> entertainment are not free (e.g., computer games, books, films, etc.)
>
>And many people say that man should be free, yet in certain parts of the
>world, slavery exists.
And what, pray tell does this have to do with the issue at hand?
>
>> Each of these forms of entertainment employ lots of folks ... they are
>> industries unto themselves.
>
>Which industries have survived, and employed lots of folks....and are
>industries unto themselves, even though "piracy" of these works, on
>the personal level of making a copy of a game, record, movie, has
>existed for years. You imagine that huge untapped wealth is waiting
>for authors and filmmakers and gamemakers if only piracy is stamped
>out?
Certainly not, most of us aren't paid anywhere near what we should be,
the pirates could make it impossible for writers and publishers to
earn a living. They are parasites of the worst sort and deserve the
same sort of treatment I'd accord to a wood-tick if I found such a
noxious creature on my person after a stroll in the woods.
>The fact is, all these industries became possible in the first
>place because they grew in "piratical" communities that shared
>information. The first computer games were made for fun, and distributed
>for free. Without these free progenitors, people would never have known
>that computer games could be fun. There would have been no market for
>the commercial games had not the way been paved by free games, since
>people would have acquired no taste.
Nonsense.
>
>> Pirates would make these forms of entertainment free.
>
>The kind that post polemics to Usenet blow a lot of smoke, mainly to
>irritate paranoid and insecure authors, whose work is just not good
>enough to be worth pirating. Without the pirating impulse, the impulse
>to share with others a tale one thinks is worth sharing, all authors
>would dry up and blow away from lack of attention. I'd like an example,
>one single example, of a game, record, film, that has lost money due
>to having a popular pirated form.
I'll not embarass any of the authors that foolishly posted a tale on
their own or another person's website for "exposure" and then had me
reject the story from an anthology due to prior publication. Suffice
it to say, while I may have wished to buy the stories in question my
contract stipulated "original publication" and stories that had
appeared on the 'net were not acceptable. Now this is a case oof poor
judgment on the part of the writer and not piracy, but the same
principle applies.
The risk is clear, while I would never opt for an e-text over a nicely
produced book, others would. If a publisher makes the assumption that
enough others have had free access to a book, they'll elect not to
reprint it. It doesn't really matter whether you want to call it
"free advertising" or not... I'll go real slow here so that you can
follow along , as you seem rather obtuse.
It's... not... your... intellectual... property...
Is this concept really so hard to understand? It works like this, if I
wish to have one of my publishers post a story or excerpt of a novel
as advertising, that's my choice (and one that I would make only after
congferring with my agent). If *you* do it without my permission, I
guarantee that your life will become a living hell. Simple, no?
>
>> If there were no monetary incentives in producing entertainment, the
>> book, film, computer game, and so on, industries would dry up. Then
>> there wouldn't be those high-quality forms of entertainment left. Only
>> the amateurs would be cranking out inferior products for free.
>
>Inferior products (in the entertainment field) don't get pirated.
>Piracy is the sincerest form of flattery. The fanatical anti-pirates
>seem to imagine that there is bottomless wealth out there, being sat
>on by the fat-cat pirates out of pure greed, as oppose to the reality...
>that the person who downloads a free game he finds on the Internet
>somewhere could blithely afford to pop the commercial price for it,
>and would, if only the free doorway were shut to him/her. The fact is,
>were the doorway shut, the vast majority of such people would look
>at the price, and not even bother TRYING the game. They'd simply
>do without.
Nonsense.
>
> There would be no Lord of the Rings movies made (not enough bucks to produce
>> such epics), no wide selection of really good novels in whatever genre
>> you'd care to name (the pros would shift to different fields, for they
>> can't make a living at writing), no really good computer games (it takes
>> big bucks to have a stable of software folks who make a living at
>> cranking out games for Nintendo and Xbox and Playstation and PCs and
>> Macs).
>
>From what I hear, this is already happening. Pro-writers cannot really
>make a living at writing. It's getting harder and harder. Not because
>of e-piracy, but because of movies, television, computer games. Readers
>just aren't being raised anymore, in sufficent quantities to support any
>but the most broadly appealing material.
Bullshit. According to my accountant, I'm not doing too badly for a
guy that primarily writes short fiction and publishes limited editions
of less than 500 copies.
>
>> So, I see the pirates much in the same light as mistletoe, a parasite
>> that slowly sucks the lifeblood from the tree host it settles on,
>> eventually killing the tree and thereby committing suicide in the
>> process, for once the tree dies, so dies the mistletoe.
>
>Except in the case of literature, and science-fiction in particular, the
>tree is already dying, and has been dying for years, and will continue
>to die due to being outdazzled by film and television.
Nonsense. Do you even have a clue what you're talking about?
>About the only hope that the book industry (and particularly the science fiction ghetto)
>has is that the video-game generation will rediscover books in the context
>of the new medium, in a manner that allows them to recommend and make
>easily available to eachother examples of the material. I foresee a
>future where new authors go online and anonymously post pirated copies
>of their own works, to try and get buzz going among those most likely
>to spread word of it.
>
>> Yes, information should be free, but information is raw data, and when
>> it comes to books, all the raw data is in the dictionary. It is the
>> intellect that turns raw data into a useful product ... and it is the
>> intellect that creates intellectual property in the form of
>> entertainment, and I claim that if entertainers cannot make a good
>> living at creating their forms of pleasure for the rest of us, then the
>> world will be a much poorer place for it.
>
>Don't be so sure you know what is going to help them make a good living.
You do realize that you're talking to people that make their living in
this business?
>
>> I guess this might not matter to the pirates, who, in spite of their
>> claims to the contrary, and whether they see it or not, are acting in a
>> way to kill the very thing they cherish.
>
>Or to keep alive a medium that would otherwise die a horrible death, in
>an increasingly illiterate culture.
Despite the seeming omnipresence of the terminally stupid such as
yourself, literacy is actually at an all-time high.
As has historically been the case, most genre authors do not make a
great living, but they *do* make a living, a living that you and the
rest of the ticks and chiggers would seek to jeopardize for your own
selfish gratification.
Good day to you.
John Pelan
Michael Kube-McDowell
>Information really does want to be free, as cliched as that may seem.
Piffle. Information doesn't "want" anything. This silly little slogan
is a bit of linguistic sleight-of-hand, misleading people about the
underlying realities:
Some people want information to be free*; they can't or don't want to
pay for it. Some people want their entertainment to be free; they
can't or don't want to pay for it. Some people want to use or acquire
other people's property for free; they can't or don't want to buy
their own.
The ethical and intellectual forebears of this philosophy are the
people who used to crawl under the edge of the circus tent, slip in
the side door of the theater, and hide in the trunk to get into the
drive-in.
K-Mac
*How large the fraction represented by "some" is depends a lot on
whether "want" is understood to read as "I wish" or as "I expect."
--
No "is" implies an "ought." - David Hume
Michael Kube-McDowell
>
>"DomDawes" <domd...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:20020907225928...@mb-ct.aol.com...
>>
>> The "we want copyright" extended battle is being promoted by corprations like
>> Disney, who refuse to let the established copyright law stand and keep trying
>> to extend their control over fictional properties, while milking public
>domain
>> characters (which wouldn't be PD if the copyright laws were set up the way
>they
>> wanted them previously.) like Cinderella, Captain Nemo, and Aladdin for all
>> they can.
>
>And having Mickey Mouse under copyright is damaging society _how_?
That's a really good question that doesn't get asked often enough.
My own prejudice is that copyright law should protect 'natural
authors' better than it does corporate authors, but my concern is that
the system ought not favor turning all creative people into corporate
wage-slaves working on collectivist art. It really doesn't cramp my
creative style to not be able to publish a STAR WARS or BATMAN or LILO
& STITCH novel without permission.
>The lack of access to the Mickey Mouse image doesn't seem to have
>inhibited the people who came up with Barney the Dinosaur. Or Pokemon.
>Or the Powerpuff Girls.
Copyright doesn't even mean lack of access--it doesn't rule out the
artistic/creative/commercial use of the Mickey Mouse image. See WHO
FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?, ferinstance. You can ask permission; if it's
important enough, you can try to buy permission.
K-Mac
--
Michael Kube-McDowell, author and packrat
New novel! VECTORS, coming October 29 from Bantam Spectra
Preview at http://www.sff.net/people/K-Mac/Vectors.htm
Jonathan Hendry
"Michael Kube-McDowell" <K-...@sff.net.seereplyto> wrote in message
news:OvRe9.409379$UU1.64307@sccrnsc03...
> On Sun, 08 Sep 2002 22:22:33 GMT, "Jonathan Hendry"
> <j_he...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >"DomDawes" <domd...@aol.com> wrote in message
> >news:20020907225928...@mb-ct.aol.com...
> >>
> >> The "we want copyright" extended battle is being promoted by corprations
like
> >> Disney, who refuse to let the established copyright law stand and keep
trying
> >> to extend their control over fictional properties, while milking public
> >domain
> >> characters (which wouldn't be PD if the copyright laws were set up the way
> >they
> >> wanted them previously.) like Cinderella, Captain Nemo, and Aladdin for
all
> >> they can.
> >
> >And having Mickey Mouse under copyright is damaging society _how_?
>
> That's a really good question that doesn't get asked often enough.
>
> My own prejudice is that copyright law should protect 'natural
> authors' better than it does corporate authors, but my concern is that
> the system ought not favor turning all creative people into corporate
> wage-slaves working on collectivist art. It really doesn't cramp my
> creative style to not be able to publish a STAR WARS or BATMAN or LILO
> & STITCH novel without permission.
Agreed on the natural authors bit. I personally think corporations should
have their rights restricted until they're much more limited than those of
humans, but that's just me.
>
> >The lack of access to the Mickey Mouse image doesn't seem to have
> >inhibited the people who came up with Barney the Dinosaur. Or Pokemon.
> >Or the Powerpuff Girls.
>
> Copyright doesn't even mean lack of access--it doesn't rule out the
> artistic/creative/commercial use of the Mickey Mouse image. See WHO
> FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?, ferinstance. You can ask permission; if it's
> important enough, you can try to buy permission.
Likewise, 'Steamboat Willie' has been parodied in the 'Itchy & Scratchy'
segments
in the Simpsons. I hear, anyway. Also, I think Shrek had some 'cameos'.
My argument actually comes from a weblog post:
http://d-squareddigest.blogspot.com/2002_09_01_d-squareddigest_archive.html#811
41573
He has some good points. Like, kids don't really like Mickey all that
much anyway, not anymore.
Another good point he makes:
"I don't see a problem here, other than for those people who can't really get
off
on a story about a random cartoon mouse having it off with a random cartoon dog
unless they know it's Mickey and Goofy."
Jonathan Hendry
"Michael Kube-McDowell" <K-...@sff.net.seereplyto> wrote in message
news:OvRe9.409379$UU1.64307@sccrnsc03...
> <j_he...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >"DomDawes" <domd...@aol.com> wrote in message
> >news:20020907225928...@mb-ct.aol.com...
> >>
> >> The "we want copyright" extended battle is being promoted by corprations
like
> >> Disney, who refuse to let the established copyright law stand and keep
trying
> >> to extend their control over fictional properties, while milking public
> >domain
> >> characters (which wouldn't be PD if the copyright laws were set up the way
> >they
> >> wanted them previously.) like Cinderella, Captain Nemo, and Aladdin for
all
> >> they can.
> >
> >And having Mickey Mouse under copyright is damaging society _how_?
>
> That's a really good question that doesn't get asked often enough.
>
> My own prejudice is that copyright law should protect 'natural
> authors' better than it does corporate authors, but my concern is that
> the system ought not favor turning all creative people into corporate
> wage-slaves working on collectivist art. It really doesn't cramp my
> creative style to not be able to publish a STAR WARS or BATMAN or LILO
> & STITCH novel without permission.
Agreed on the natural authors bit. I personally think corporations should
have their rights restricted until they're much more limited than those of
humans, but that's just me.
>
> >The lack of access to the Mickey Mouse image doesn't seem to have
> >inhibited the people who came up with Barney the Dinosaur. Or Pokemon.
> >Or the Powerpuff Girls.
>
> Copyright doesn't even mean lack of access--it doesn't rule out the
> artistic/creative/commercial use of the Mickey Mouse image. See WHO
> FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?, ferinstance. You can ask permission; if it's
> important enough, you can try to buy permission.
Likewise, 'Steamboat Willie' has been parodied in the 'Itchy & Scratchy'
ePiracy Committee
> And they're poorly formatted (vandalism?).
Nor has it hasn't been established that these _are_ what
Lois and the others wrote. They may well be, but especially when
someone comes on strong with an Agenda it's possible that the
works themselves have been altered to match said Agenda; it's
happened before.
Pirate works may serve as (unauthorized) teasers or promos for
the real thing, but without comprehensive analysis of each file,
that's all they really amount to. (And teasers of unknown quality,
at that -- if you like it, the "real" thing might be better, and
if even if you don't like the teaser, you'd still have to check the
real one to verify it was the same as what you didn't like.)
Reminder to check out http://www.sfwa.org/epiracy/faq.htm ...
Many of these arguments are addressed there.
--
Dr. Andrew Burt
SFWA ePiracy Committee chair
Frodo expounding on the Middle East, not Middle Earth?
Read what the author intended. Buy approved ebooks.
Bill Snyder
<K-...@sff.net.seereplyto> wrote:
>On 8 Sep 2002 14:03:43 +0200, Nomen Nescio <nob...@dizum.com> wrote:
>
>>Information really does want to be free, as cliched as that may seem.
>
>Piffle. Information doesn't "want" anything. This silly little slogan
>is a bit of linguistic sleight-of-hand, misleading people about the
>underlying realities:
No, no, information really *does* want to be free.
Just like shoes want to be rich, fences want to be happy, clouds want
to be famous, and pencils just want to be loved uncritically.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
<K-...@sff.net.seereplyto> wrote:
>On 8 Sep 2002 14:03:43 +0200, Nomen Nescio <nob...@dizum.com> wrote:
>
>>Information really does want to be free, as cliched as that may seem.
>
>Piffle. Information doesn't "want" anything. This silly little slogan
>is a bit of linguistic sleight-of-hand, misleading people about the
>underlying realities:
There's a point you fail to address here:
Novels are not "information". Novels are work.
Putting works of art into the same category as the data on the number
of political prisoners in Somewheristan is ludicrous. And that's what
gremlins like the semi-literate one here do.
Posting somebody's work for free is taking away one of the basic human
rights - "the right to own, trade, and dispose of their property
freely, and not be deprived of their means of subsistence".* In other
words, the "fighters for the freedom of information" behave just like
those they say they fight against.
Ob(kinda)SF: http://www.michaelswanwick.com/fiction/pirates.html
* <http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cpr.html#Article 1.2> plus the part of
the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, "copyright,
patent, and trademark protection for intellectual property" at
<http://www.hrweb.org/legal/escr.html#Article 15.1.3>.
--
_Neither Fish Nor Fowl_
http://www.webart.hr/nrnm/eng/
http://www.michaelswanwick.com/
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr
A.Melon
Bill Snyder <bsn...@iadfw.net> wrote:
>On Sun, 08 Sep 2002 23:25:02 GMT, Michael Kube-McDowell
><K-...@sff.net.seereplyto> wrote:
>
>>On 8 Sep 2002 14:03:43 +0200, Nomen Nescio <nob...@dizum.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Information really does want to be free, as cliched as that may seem.
>>
>>Piffle. Information doesn't "want" anything. This silly little slogan
>>is a bit of linguistic sleight-of-hand, misleading people about the
>>underlying realities:
>
>No, no, information really *does* want to be free.
>
>Just like shoes want to be rich, fences want to be happy, clouds want
>to be famous, and pencils just want to be loved uncritically.
No, no, information really *does* want to be free.
Just like water pours from a tap, or an apple falls off a tree so information in a network tends to spread.
Good memes spread faster than lesser memes etc. , etc.
Jonathan Hendry
"A.Melon" <ju...@melontraffickers.com> wrote in message
news:65659698b607585a...@melontraffickers.com...
So post your credit card information. It wants to be free, too.
Michael Kube-McDowell
<vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote:
>On Sun, 08 Sep 2002 23:25:02 GMT, Michael Kube-McDowell
><K-...@sff.net.seereplyto> wrote:
>
>>On 8 Sep 2002 14:03:43 +0200, Nomen Nescio <nob...@dizum.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Information really does want to be free, as cliched as that may seem.
>>
>>Piffle. Information doesn't "want" anything. This silly little slogan
>>is a bit of linguistic sleight-of-hand, misleading people about the
>>underlying realities:
>
>There's a point you fail to address here:
>
>Novels are not "information". Novels are work.
That's certainly been my experience, anyway. <rueful g>
>Putting works of art into the same category as the data on the number
>of political prisoners in Somewheristan is ludicrous. And that's what
>gremlins like the semi-literate one here do.
I join you in your objection; however, I think it's important to say
"I saw you palm that card." It doesn't matter if we call it
information, entertainment, work product, or Bob--it has no desires or
behavior of its own.
>Posting somebody's work for free is taking away one of the basic human
>rights - "the right to own, trade, and dispose of their property
>freely, and not be deprived of their means of subsistence".* In other
>words, the "fighters for the freedom of information" behave just like
>those they say they fight against.
Seems as though they're fighting for an 'ethical principle' we'd
recognize as involuntary what's-yours-is-mine communism in any other
context.
K-Mac
William Clifford
[many other examples snipped]
Yeah, so? We're at war. I know that already. Viva la revolution and all
that. How does that justify some loon in my foxhole jumping up and down
shouting, "Hey! Over here! Shoot at me! ME!"
Fortunataly or unfortunately, the analogy breaks down in that I don't
have the same recourse as real soldiers might have in the same
situation.
J Greely
>Um, in the early days of remailers, users would have been sending
>mail through their work or school systems.
I know. I was there.
>Any number of things could have resulted in mail messages being
>exposed for reading before getting anonymized.
Indeed, one of the stories from those days (told by the guy who wrote
that first anonymous remailer) was about the bounce message that went
to postmaster one day containing the words (roughly) "darling, at last
we've found a way to communicate in complete privacy".
>Anyone could have poked around in the outgoing mail spool.
The simple truth is that in the old days, your privacy on the Internet
was protected mostly by the fact that the sysadmins just didn't have
*time* to be nosy, even if they lacked the ethics to guarantee it.
These days, politicians and lawyers have nothing better to do than
snoop. I felt a lot safer back then.
-j
Scott A Crosby
> On Sun, 08 Sep 2002 23:25:02 GMT, Michael Kube-McDowell
> <K-...@sff.net.seereplyto> wrote:
>
> >On 8 Sep 2002 14:03:43 +0200, Nomen Nescio <nob...@dizum.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Information really does want to be free, as cliched as that may seem.
> >
> >Piffle. Information doesn't "want" anything. This silly little slogan
> >is a bit of linguistic sleight-of-hand, misleading people about the
> >underlying realities:
>
> There's a point you fail to address here:
>
> Novels are not "information". Novels are work.
>
> Putting works of art into the same category as the data on the number
> of political prisoners in Somewheristan is ludicrous. And that's what
*laugh* Collecting and collating facts is *hard* work. I hold its
products to a much higher esteem than I'd hold most 'art'.
> gremlins like the semi-literate one here do.
It is those 'semi-literate gremlins' that have lead to our scientific
culture... You may hold facts and their analysis in a low esteem. I
don't. You try doing it.
> Posting somebody's work for free is taking away one of the basic human
> rights - "the right to own, trade, and dispose of their property
> freely, and not be deprived of their means of subsistence".* In other
Thats a wrong reading of the 15.1.3 as noted below, 'right !=
interest'.
This presupposes an the axiom that 'ideas' may be labeled as property,
which is at the minimum a bald assertion. Unlike almost all other
forms of property, an idea can never be 'used up'. You knowing my idea
does NOT in any way diminish my knowing my idea.
The most it may diminish is my ability for you to hold and control my
idea as my private fiefdom for monopoly rents.
My teaching you how to swing side-to-side by alternately pulling on
the two chains (US Patent #6,368,227) doesn't diminish my own ability
to do the same. It may however diminish the ability of the 7-year-old
inventor of US Patent #6,368,227 to write a book to do the same..
BTW, given the way you're reading the declaration of human
rights. would you agree that Henry Ford violated the human rights of
buggy whip manufacturers?
> * <http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cpr.html#Article 1.2> plus the part of
Inapplicable:
''
All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural
wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising
out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle
of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be
deprived of its own means of subsistence.
''
'people' in the last sentence is the plural form, not the singular
form.
> the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, "copyright,
> patent, and trademark protection for intellectual property" at
> <http://www.hrweb.org/legal/escr.html#Article 15.1.3>.
Fascinating! I've been so focused on the atrocities in american law
that I'd forgotten completely about them being embedded into
international laws.
''
15.1.3. To benefit from the protection of the moral and material
interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic
production of which he is the author. ''
''
Fortunately at least they talk about 'moral and material interests',
which quite different from 'moral and material rights'.
If it was that, it'd be frightening.. Twisting around the notion of
'copyright bargain' to mean that society is somehow obligated (via
'moral rights', whatever those are) to prevent the expression and
creation of certain new ideas (the 'immoral ones' or ones against the
'material interests' of the author). Apparently in perpetuity?
Scott
PS: My own viewpoint on creation is that I do it because I want to
enrich the world and the future.. I don't want heriditary intellectual
fiefdoms. Nor do I want to found one.
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
<j_he...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> No, no, information really *does* want to be free.
>>
>> Just like water pours from a tap, or an apple falls off a tree so
>> information in a network tends to spread.
>> Good memes spread faster than lesser memes etc. , etc.
>
>So post your credit card information. It wants to be free, too.
Heh. :-)
RASFW Award, which, if it doesn't exist, I establish here and now.
vlatko
warchild
Being 'information' implies a set of facts or common knowledge that any one
could acquire by observation, study or compilation, given time and effort.
Scientific principles, statistics, observations about the natural world and
such.
A written story, such as those being stolen and distributed in this forum,
are individually created works of art. The poster could not have created
these works himself, under any circumstance, as he has not the wit,
intelligence, will, experience, or determination that motivated the creators
of these works.
In most cases, the effort it took to create these works was a task that took
all of these creator's personal effort. It is necessary that these works
generate an income for the author's, else they could not afford to devote
their lives to the creation of the work. With the likelihood that not each
new work will produce the same level of income, it also necessary that older
works continue to generate income for the creator. It is a completely
reasonable expecation, not to be forgone just because the internet makes it
easier for unscrupulous and ethically retarded individuals to publish the
the work without compensating the artist.
All these discussions about Google, anonymous remailers, the DMCA and
corporate organizations are a blind. The persons who are distributing the
artist's works without compensating them are not doing it out of altruistic
motives, rather they are doing it because the technology at hand has made it
easy. It is the same slovenly and lazy reason that most crimes are
commited, because it is easier than working. Creating these original works
of art was hard, distributing them on the internet against the wishes of the
artists is easy. The anonymous poster takes the SF dictum, 'Who who can
destroy a thing, controls a thing', to heart. He is like the vandal, while
creating nothing of value himself, tries to deprive the creator of a work of
art and the rest of us, of the right to view the work as the artist
intended.
Warchild
"Vlatko Juric-Kokic" <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote in message
news:hfionus24uc76co58...@news.cis.dfn.de...
revek
"warchild" <warc...@warchild.com> wrote in message
news:alivum$27...@cui1.lmms.lmco.com...
<snip>
> All these discussions about Google, anonymous remailers, the DMCA
and
> corporate organizations are a blind. The persons who are
distributing the
> artist's works without compensating them are not doing it out of
altruistic
> motives, rather they are doing it because the technology at hand has
made it
> easy. It is the same slovenly and lazy reason that most crimes are
> commited, because it is easier than working. Creating these
original works
> of art was hard, distributing them on the internet against the
wishes of the
> artists is easy. The anonymous poster takes the SF dictum, 'Who who
can
> destroy a thing, controls a thing', to heart. He is like the
vandal, while
> creating nothing of value himself, tries to deprive the creator of a
work of
> art and the rest of us, of the right to view the work as the artist
> intended.
>
> Warchild
>
The whole thing is a red herring. Folks have overlooked the fact that
Anonymous, Mixmaster, A. Melon (or whatever) and all their pals have
been thru this group before. Several times, in fact. Whatever else
they are, they are first and foremost trolls. They don't give a damn
about e-piaracy or repressive laws or anything else. They just
finally found this group's hot button and are laughing their asses off
watching us fall for it.
--
revek
Revolvers are for people who believe that more than six holes in an
assailant
is excessive.
David Cowie
>>
> The whole thing is a red herring. Folks have overlooked the fact that
> Anonymous, Mixmaster, A. Melon (or whatever) and all their pals have
> been thru this group before. Several times, in fact. Whatever else
> they are, they are first and foremost trolls. They don't give a damn
> about e-piaracy or repressive laws or anything else. They just
> finally found this group's hot button and are laughing their asses off
> watching us fall for it.
I thought this group's hot button issue was Heinlein.
--
David Cowie david_cowie at lineone dot net
So high, so low, so many things to know.
Warchild
"revek" <nunaur...@youdontneedtoknow.invalid> wrote:
I think that the opposite is true: arguments about the poster's motives
is the red herring. The fact of their criminal acts is all the
justification that a reasonable person needs to decry their actions.
Warchild
"revek" <nunaur...@youdontneedtoknow.invalid> wrote:
I don't think that you are saying anything at odds with my point. The
possibility that the posters do not have the courage of their
convictions doesn't excuse their desire to cause harm.
r.r...@thevine.net
<j_he...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>"A.Melon" <ju...@melontraffickers.com> wrote in message
>news:65659698b607585a...@melontraffickers.com...
>>
>> No, no, information really *does* want to be free.
>>
>> Just like water pours from a tap, or an apple falls off a tree so
>information in a network tends to spread.
>> Good memes spread faster than lesser memes etc. , etc.
>
>So post your credit card information. It wants to be free, too.
>
Piggy-backing, since I don't have the original post on my server. All
of these people who claim that "information wants to be free", and
that information in a network tends to spread, have obviously never
worked with a bunch of R&D engineers who are busy defending their own
turf. A vast part of my job is figuring out who knows what, and then
figuring out how to get the information out of them. Because many
people are under the assumption that, if someone else knows everything
you know, there is more incentive for the company to lay you off when
the going gets rough. Also, some people just like to hoard
information, so that people have to come by and ask them for their
accumulated wisdom. So, in my not-too-small experience, information
does NOT want to be free.
Rebecca
--
Tell your troubles to cats,
The night-walking cats,
The black cats of Althea Jane
revek
Yep. I just wanted to remind people that they've been here before--
and failed to get a rise out of us then. If we ignore them they'll
stop. While what they're doing is wrong in more ways than one we
can't make them stop by reacting to them in any way--neither yelling
nor reason nor lively debate will make them behave. Unfortunately,
getting everybody to drop the subject and kill file the twits is is a
good idea but its probably too late--- like closing the barn door
after the horses have got out.
--
revek
f 5'2.25" 40yrs 165 (lost 10 on lowfat)
Induction June 25 2002 155/148/115
www.geocities.com/tanirevek/LowCarb.html I am not an expert YMMV
revek
> On Tue, 10 Sep 2002 09:23:05 +0000, revek wrote:
>
>>>
>> The whole thing is a red herring. Folks have overlooked the fact
>> that Anonymous, Mixmaster, A. Melon (or whatever) and all their
>> pals have been thru this group before. Several times, in fact.
>> Whatever else they are, they are first and foremost trolls. They
>> don't give a damn about e-piaracy or repressive laws or anything
>> else. They just finally found this group's hot button and are
>> laughing their asses off watching us fall for it.
>
> I thought this group's hot button issue was Heinlein.
Who said there was only one? :)
revek
Decry. Once. Over and over and over again? That's playing their
game (ask Terry Austin). Arguing whether what they're doing is moraly
justifiable or sheer hooliganism is beside the point. Nobody is going
to change their minds on no matter what side they come down on. Ms
Bujold and others can take legal action if they want to. Letting
those twits ruin our newsgroup with their scat by reacting to them
*is*.
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
wrote:
>On Mon, 09 Sep 2002 09:34:24 +0200, Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> writes:
>
>> Novels are not "information". Novels are work.
>>
>> Putting works of art into the same category as the data on the number
>> of political prisoners in Somewheristan is ludicrous. And that's what
>
>*laugh* Collecting and collating facts is *hard* work. I hold its
>products to a much higher esteem than I'd hold most 'art'.
Anybody said anything about analysis? I was talking about novels and
stories.
>> gremlins like the semi-literate one here do.
>
>It is those 'semi-literate gremlins' that have lead to our scientific
>culture... You may hold facts and their analysis in a low esteem. I
>don't. You try doing it.
Again, a novel is not information.
>> Posting somebody's work for free is taking away one of the basic human
>> rights - "the right to own, trade, and dispose of their property
>> freely, and not be deprived of their means of subsistence".* In other
>
>Thats a wrong reading of the 15.1.3 as noted below, 'right !=
>interest'.
>
>This presupposes an the axiom that 'ideas' may be labeled as property,
>which is at the minimum a bald assertion. Unlike almost all other
>forms of property, an idea can never be 'used up'. You knowing my idea
>does NOT in any way diminish my knowing my idea.
Why are you so intent on the wrong reading of the part of the charter
I quoted?
What the fuck is *idea* in a finished novel? Yeah, I can tell you the
idea of about a hundred novels. It still doesn't make me the owner of
the novels, or gives me the right to give away copies of the novels
without a compensation to the author.
> 15.1.3. To benefit from the protection of the moral and material
> interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic
> production of which he is the author. ''
>
>Fortunately at least they talk about 'moral and material interests',
>which quite different from 'moral and material rights'.
>
>If it was that, it'd be frightening.. Twisting around the notion of
>'copyright bargain' to mean that society is somehow obligated (via
>'moral rights', whatever those are) to prevent the expression and
>creation of certain new ideas (the 'immoral ones' or ones against the
>'material interests' of the author). Apparently in perpetuity?
Scott, I can only conclude that you're deliberately trying to muddy
the water. Novel =/ idea. Plus, you don't understand why the article
was created. Go and analyse history.
>PS: My own viewpoint on creation is that I do it because I want to
>enrich the world and the future.. I don't want heriditary intellectual
>fiefdoms. Nor do I want to found one.
Excuse me, it's bullshit. I might discuss it if you wanted to write a
novel set in a copyrighted universe. Then your conclusions might be
aplicable. But that's obviously not the intention, neither yours nor
the OP's.
You are absolutely free to invent a universe and let anybody play in
it. That's "disseminating an idea". The finished stories are not
"ideas".
vlatko
Deann Allen
>
> On Sun, 08 Sep 2002 22:22:33 GMT, "Jonathan Hendry" <j_he...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
[snip]
> > And having Mickey Mouse under copyright is damaging society _how_?
> How many Mickey Mouse cartoons have never been created?
>
> Or, to ask a counter-question:
>
> '' And freeing Mickey Mouse from copyright would damage society
> _how_? ''
>
> But, its not Mickey Mouse... Eldritch wrote, for example that the
> reason he's against term extensions is because.... 6000 books were
> written in 1922. Of those, only 100 are in print now, barely a
> half-dozen make any money. How are we enriched by blocking 5900
> 80-year-old-and-moldering-away works from being copied?
There is a difference between arguing that copyright currently
holds for too long a period, and arguing that because technology
make it easy to violate, it should be done away with entirely.
D.
--
Who thinks current copyright terms are *way* too long, and that
corporation-held copyrights should have the same term as patents.
-----------------------------------------
Robert Sneddon
needtoknow.invalid> writes
>David Cowie wrote:
>> On Tue, 10 Sep 2002 09:23:05 +0000, revek wrote:
>>
>> I thought this group's hot button issue was Heinlein.
>
>Who said there was only one? :)
This group has more hot buttons than an incendiary accordion.
--
Robert Sneddon nojay (at) nojay (dot) fsnet (dot) co (dot) uk
William Clifford
> William Clifford <wo...@helium.barsoom.invalid> wrote in message news:<slrnann27...@helium.barsoom>...
>> And they're poorly formatted (vandalism?).
>
> Nor has it hasn't been established that these _are_ what
> Lois and the others wrote. They may well be, but especially when
> someone comes on strong with an Agenda it's possible that the
> works themselves have been altered to match said Agenda; it's
> happened before.
Frankly I'd be more interested in them if I knew that they were altered.
I already have the official dead tree edition of most of all the Bujold
books--but that doesn't mean they're perfect either. Publishers are
human. I've read enough here about spelling and grammatical errors that
bug some people (not me, it happens that I hardly notice). What if
somebody helpfully fixed those in one of these unofficial, electronic
ones?
And frankly what if he does have an agenda and rewrote parts of the book
to reflect that? That might make it a little more interesting to me.
What about a remix? Might a time-shuffled version of the events in _The
Vor Game_ be interesting? Hey, we've been talking about these books for
years. There's lots of ideas for alternatives floating around in the
google archives. With a little application we could see some of those
implemented. Wouldn't that be fun?
But, no. I'm afraid that Anonymous and co. are vicious trolls. They may
not even have read the books they post. They may not have gotten it up
to even vandalize the text in any way. I doubt they are truly interested
in communicating them to interested parties. If they were surely they
would fix the line lengths, compress the files, and post them to the
appropriate groups (detailing their modifications if any).
And if they were truly interested in protecting usenet as a medium of
free speech they wouldn't be doing this either. They'd be writing their
own content to be freely read, discussed, passed along, and modified.
> Pirate works may serve as (unauthorized) teasers or promos for
> the real thing, but without comprehensive analysis of each file,
> that's all they really amount to. (And teasers of unknown quality,
> at that -- if you like it, the "real" thing might be better, and
> if even if you don't like the teaser, you'd still have to check the
> real one to verify it was the same as what you didn't like.)
This FUD would carry a lot more credibility if we could see diff files
generated from an official version...
Still, good job with the thought provoking and interesting website
(http://www.sfwa.org/epiracy/) and good luck with the campaign.
I'm curious though about this "Tagging & Samplers" project. Anything you
can tell us about it?
Scott A Crosby
> On 09 Sep 2002 13:32:23 -0500, Scott A Crosby <scr...@cs.rice.edu>
> wrote:
> What the fuck is *idea* in a finished novel? Yeah, I can tell you the
I apologize for being sloppy. 'idea' in this case would refer to a
'fixed creative work' or 'production'. Would you be willing to reply
to my prior message under that interpretation?
> Go and analyse history.
Got a reference? Please post in the reply to my prior message and
explain what on earth *this* means.
Statements like 'go and read history' don't progress a conversation or
a debate. They make one appear kookish and look like an idiot.
> >PS: My own viewpoint on creation is that I do it because I want to
> >enrich the world and the future.. I don't want heriditary intellectual
> >fiefdoms. Nor do I want to found one.
>
> Excuse me, it's bullshit. I might discuss it if you wanted to write a
> novel set in a copyrighted universe. Then your conclusions might be
> aplicable. But that's obviously not the intention, neither yours nor
> the OP's.
Huh? This reads like utter nonsense.
I don't see why my creations (such as this message or the presentation
I did, or any of the other work I do) have to do with copyrighted
universes. (or has RASFW/the Internet become a copyrighted universe
that one can't write within?)
Scott
Jonathan Hendry
"Scott A Crosby" <scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote in message
news:oydptvo...@bert.cs.rice.edu...
> > news:20020907225928...@mb-ct.aol.com...
> > >
> > > The "we want copyright" extended battle is being promoted by corprations
like
> > > Disney, who refuse to let the established copyright law stand and keep
trying
> > > to extend their control over fictional properties, while milking public
> > domain
> > > characters (which wouldn't be PD if the copyright laws were set up the
way
> > they
> > > wanted them previously.) like Cinderella, Captain Nemo, and Aladdin for
all
> > > they can.
> >
>
> society? Thomas Nast died in 1902. Under current copyright law, they'd
> been under a heriditary fiefdom till 1977. Or, would having
> Shakespeare under copyright damage society? Are you over 35? Can you
> imagine a childhood without Santa?
Sure. Last I checked Jews aren't real big on Santa.
> I'd say yes, but only a little.. Every time an artist is blocked from
> using an aspect of culture, harm has occured. An artistic work has not
> been created. Or, the creation of a new artistic work has been slowed
> down. ('Wind Done Gone'//'Gone with the Wind')
The creation wasn't slowed down. The publishing was. But the book seems
to have been pretty minor anyway.
> How many Mickey Mouse cartoons have never been created?
How many non-Mickey Mouse cartoons have never been created? Vastly more.
> Or, to ask a counter-question:
>
> '' And freeing Mickey Mouse from copyright would damage society _how_? ''
> But, its not Mickey Mouse... Eldritch wrote, for example that the
> reason he's against term extensions is because.... 6000 books were
> written in 1922. Of those, only 100 are in print now, barely a
> half-dozen make any money. How are we enriched by blocking 5900
> 80-year-old-and-moldering-away works from being copied?
How many of those 6000 books are being actively cited or mentioned
today?
Jonathan Hendry
"Scott A Crosby" <scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote in message
news:oyd65xe...@bert.cs.rice.edu...
> On Tue, 10 Sep 2002 09:29:57 +0200, Vlatko Juric-Kokic
<vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> writes:
>
> > On 09 Sep 2002 13:32:23 -0500, Scott A Crosby <scr...@cs.rice.edu>
> > wrote:
>
> > What the fuck is *idea* in a finished novel? Yeah, I can tell you the
>
> I apologize for being sloppy. 'idea' in this case would refer to a
> 'fixed creative work' or 'production'. Would you be willing to reply
> to my prior message under that interpretation?
No, that's not an 'idea'. A 'fixed creative work' or 'production'
is a _specific expression of an idea_, and likely consists of
many, many ideas.
Ideas are not protected. But then, ideas are a dime a dozen.
An idea is something like "there's this artificial boy who wants to
become real, and he goes through adventures on a quest to do that".
One expression of that is idea Pinocchio. Another expression is "AI".
An idea is "There's these people, and they're having problems with
dragons. Hero goes to kill the dragon(s)."
One expression of that is "Dragonslayer". Another is "Reign of Fire"
Each implementation of the idea consists of many, *many* *distinct* ideas
combined - the creative process - to result in the finished product.
It is those many distinct choices which separate one work from others,
and which make a work *unique*.
Dragonslayer has the dragon functioning in a medieval society.
Reign of fire has the dragons terrorizing people in England
after a dragon apocalypse wipes out the world as we know it now.
That's a combination of the 'dragon-slaying' idea with an idea
about a post-apocalyptic setting. Yet Reign of Fire is still different
from other post-apocalyptic movies like 'Mad Max'.
You're using an idiosyncratic definition of 'idea' which,
while convenient for your argument, stretches it beyond
any reasonable use of the term. Is that out of intention
to cloud the issue, or out of ignorance?
Dennis L. McKiernan
$100 bills?
I mean, the technology is good enough to produce a near-perfect copies
(just as it is to make near-perfect copies of books).
Oh, oh. I get it. To pass a $100 bill, the ePirate might get
caught. It's difficult to use an anonymous remailer to commit that
crime, whereas to send the copy of a book through an anonymous remailer,
that's okay because it's much harder to get caught.
Okay, okay, why not send near-perfect copies of the $100 bills through
an anonymous remailer? I mean, the $100 bill is a collection of various
forms of information, and information that wants to be free, doesn't it?
Oh, wait a minute, the government might really get pissed and go after
the advocate of pirated dissemination of copies of $100 bills, whereas
they don't seem to care nearly as much over books. After all, the
dissemination of $100 bills might affect the economy of the USA, whereas
the dissemination of a book merely affects the economy of an author.
It's a difference in scale ... but not in kind.
<sigh>
---Dennis
Martin Soederstroem
came down to Earth to reveal:
>Posting somebody's work for free is taking away one of the basic human
>rights - "the right to own, trade, and dispose of their property
>freely, and not be deprived of their means of subsistence".* In other
>words, the "fighters for the freedom of information" behave just like
>those they say they fight against.
>* <http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cpr.html#Article 1.2>
"All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural
wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out
of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of
mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be
deprived of its own means of subsistence."
"The States Parties to the present covenant recognize the right of
everyone:[...] 3. To benefit from the protection of the moral and
material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic
production of which he is the author."
I think you misread this article. It talks about "peoples". That seems
to me to indicate a group, rather than an individual. In other
articles "human being", "person", "persons" and "alien" are used.
> plus the part of
>the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, "copyright,
>patent, and trademark protection for intellectual property" at
><http://www.hrweb.org/legal/escr.html#Article 15.1.3>.
This one does work. It's fun that it uses "benefit from" instead of
"own". Obviously negotiated with the communist block.
--
This is my sig. Isn't it the prettiest little sig you ever saw?
Scott A Crosby
> "Scott A Crosby" <scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote in message
>
> Sure. Last I checked Jews aren't real big on Santa.
>
:)
Withdrawn.
> > I'd say yes, but only a little.. Every time an artist is blocked from
> > using an aspect of culture, harm has occured. An artistic work has not
> > been created. Or, the creation of a new artistic work has been slowed
> > down. ('Wind Done Gone'//'Gone with the Wind')
>
> The creation wasn't slowed down. The publishing was. But the book seems
> to have been pretty minor anyway.
Would you create if it was illegal copy your creation to show others?
How many authors won't reinterpret other works because they won't want
to go through what that author went through?
I've heard that McCafferty's been shutting down Pern MUSHes. How many
Pern-themed roleplay creative works now don't exist?
> > How many Mickey Mouse cartoons have never been created?
>
> How many non-Mickey Mouse cartoons have never been created? Vastly more.
So?
"You can't compromise with book-burners. When someone asks you to
burn 1,000 books, you cannot agree to burn only 500." --Lizard
The easiest book to burn is the one thats never created.
> > Or, to ask a counter-question:
> >
> > '' And freeing Mickey Mouse from copyright would damage society _how_? ''
>
> > But, its not Mickey Mouse... Eldritch wrote, for example that the
> > reason he's against term extensions is because.... 6000 books were
> > written in 1922. Of those, only 100 are in print now, barely a
> > half-dozen make any money. How are we enriched by blocking 5900
> > 80-year-old-and-moldering-away works from being copied?
>
> How many of those 6000 books are being actively cited or mentioned
> today?
Truthfully, I don't know.. I believe from the article I took that from
that about a hundred are in print; someone values those.
However.
How many are even available today. You don't cite what you haven't
read. You can't read what you can't find... And books written 80 years
ago are not going to be that easy to find.
Given that they're 80 years old, any value they have left to their
origional creators is about $.004 on the dollar. (the value of a
dollar now in terms of 'present value' to someone in 1920 who would be
told that they'd get a constant 1920's dollar in 80 years.)
Economically, the works are valueless to their creators after this
time. Any value they had has been collected.[1]
And, if the books aren't cited or mentioned much today, then they must
be, on average, fairly valueless.
So, why leave them under intellectual fiefdom.
I answered your rhetorical question with my honest answer. You never
did answer my question: '' And freeing Mickey Mouse ..... ''
Scott
[1] There's an interesting paper on the economics of copyright. I can
find the reference, but the point is that you can treat it as an
annuity. IE, what is the financial value of an annuity that pays,
1000/year for 80 years. What about one that pays 1000/year for 60
years. ($15218 and $15022, assuming a 7% interest rate)[2] That
difference of $196 is the current value of 20000 dollars in 60 spread
over 20 years. Its under 2% of the actual value. So, any work [3]
MUST have already extracted >98% of its value after 60 years. 82%
after 28 years.[5]
So, we're locking up 6000 books so that the 100 books still in print
can extract that last 2% of potential value.
[2] (1-(1/1.07)^80)/(1-(1/1.07)) and
(1-(1/1.07)^60)/(1-(1/1.07))
The present value of an annuity that pays 1000/year forever is $15286
With a 5% interest rate, $20576 and $19876, or about 3%.
[3] Assuming that the annual income of the work remains the same. A
fairly safe assumption. Although untrue in cases, I don't see why that
can discount this argument.
Now, for almost all creations, the annual income decreases markedly.
For those this'll be an huge overestiate.
[5] The origional term of the copyright. The current value of an
annuity that pays $1000/year for 28 years is $12987
Keep in mind that $1000/year 41 years from now to the end of time is
has a present value of $950. You're smarter to put $1000 in the stock
market and bequeath that to your children.
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
<mart...@utfors.se> wrote:
>The living god Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr>
>came down to Earth to reveal:
>
>>Posting somebody's work for free is taking away one of the basic human
>>rights - "the right to own, trade, and dispose of their property
>>freely, and not be deprived of their means of subsistence".* In other
>>words, the "fighters for the freedom of information" behave just like
>>those they say they fight against.
>
>>* <http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cpr.html#Article 1.2>
>
>I think you misread this article. It talks about "peoples". That seems
>to me to indicate a group, rather than an individual. In other
>articles "human being", "person", "persons" and "alien" are used.
If I remember correctly, the part in the quote marks above was C/P
from the Article 1.2.
Umm, no.
"Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
This covenant details the basic civil and political rights of
individuals and nations."
>> plus the part of
>>the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, "copyright,
>>patent, and trademark protection for intellectual property" at
>><http://www.hrweb.org/legal/escr.html#Article 15.1.3>.
>
>This one does work. It's fun that it uses "benefit from" instead of
>"own". Obviously negotiated with the communist block.
Heh. :-)
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
wrote:
>On Tue, 10 Sep 2002 09:29:57 +0200, Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> writes:
>
>> Go and analyse history.
>
>Got a reference? Please post in the reply to my prior message and
>explain what on earth *this* means.
References? No, no annotated texts or such. But you only have to take
a look into the history of copyright and ... I think it was either
Dickens or Kipling, whose books were copied in the States wihtout him
getting a single penny.
>Statements like 'go and read history' don't progress a conversation or
>a debate. They make one appear kookish and look like an idiot.
Because your post showed you were uninformed about the history. And I
have no patience with people who want to discuss something without
even trying to see as much as possible.
>> >PS: My own viewpoint on creation is that I do it because I want to
>> >enrich the world and the future.. I don't want heriditary intellectual
>> >fiefdoms. Nor do I want to found one.
>>
>> Excuse me, it's bullshit. I might discuss it if you wanted to write a
>> novel set in a copyrighted universe. Then your conclusions might be
>> aplicable. But that's obviously not the intention, neither yours nor
>> the OP's.
>
>Huh? This reads like utter nonsense.
>
>I don't see why my creations (such as this message or the presentation
>I did, or any of the other work I do) have to do with copyrighted
>universes. (or has RASFW/the Internet become a copyrighted universe
>that one can't write within?)
Didn't I say "if you wanted to write a novel set in a copyrighted
universe"? What rasfw, what Internet, what Usenet?
Huh. Okay.
An sfnal universe can be considered an idea. Finished work is not an
idea. Can you get that idea?
Forheavenssake, take a table as an example. Would you take a table
from the carpenter who made it and give it away without giving him
anything in compensation? I suppose you wouldn't. Than what's
different with a novel? It's also a product of somebody's work, just
like the table.
You cannot - neither singular you nor plural you - take the product of
somebody's work without a compensation. Cannot. There's a name for
such people: thieves, robbers, brigands.
For anything else, see Jonathan Hendry's post.
Martin Soederstroem
Earth to reveal:
> This group has more hot buttons than an incendiary accordion.
*Snort* Lovely image, that.
Martin Soederstroem
came down to Earth to reveal:
>On Tue, 10 Sep 2002 19:31:49 +0200, Martin Soederstroem
><mart...@utfors.se> wrote:
>
>>The living god Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr>
>>came down to Earth to reveal:
>>
>>>Posting somebody's work for free is taking away one of the basic human
>>>rights - "the right to own, trade, and dispose of their property
>>>freely, and not be deprived of their means of subsistence".* In other
>>>words, the "fighters for the freedom of information" behave just like
>>>those they say they fight against.
>>
>>>* <http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cpr.html#Article 1.2>
>>
>>I think you misread this article. It talks about "peoples". That seems
>>to me to indicate a group, rather than an individual. In other
>>articles "human being", "person", "persons" and "alien" are used.
>
>If I remember correctly, the part in the quote marks above was C/P
>from the Article 1.2.
>
>Umm, no.
>
>"Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
>
>This covenant details the basic civil and political rights of
>individuals and nations."
Where in the text did you find this last quote?
Jonathan Hendry
> On Tue, 10 Sep 2002 16:10:00 GMT, "Jonathan Hendry" <j_he...@ix.netcom.com>
writes:
>
> > "Scott A Crosby" <scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote in message
> >
> > Sure. Last I checked Jews aren't real big on Santa.
> >
>
> :)
>
> Withdrawn.
>
> > > I'd say yes, but only a little.. Every time an artist is blocked from
> > > using an aspect of culture, harm has occured. An artistic work has not
> > > been created. Or, the creation of a new artistic work has been slowed
> > > down. ('Wind Done Gone'//'Gone with the Wind')
> >
> > The creation wasn't slowed down. The publishing was. But the book seems
> > to have been pretty minor anyway.
>
> Would you create if it was illegal copy your creation to show others?
If the issue was copyright, I'd probably do the extra work required to
make it a more original work, thereby making it legal to show to others.
> How many authors won't reinterpret other works because they won't want
> to go through what that author went through?
They just have to do more work. They have to write AI, instead
of writing Pinnochio with Gepetto and Jiminy Cricket.
Instead of getting hung up on the specifics of a particular work
that they want to 'reinterpret', they need to discern the core
theme of the work that they want to address, and start from
there, leaving the rest behind.
Pinnochio, after all, is just a variation on the theme of the
craftsman's artifice being made real.
If the 'reinterpretation' you want to do is on the level of my childhood
reinterpretations of Star Wars on the couch with Luke attacking
Baron Karza from the Micronauts - well, it better be posed as
a parody, like the Samurai Cat books which were take offs of
copyrighted properties like Cthulu, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars.
But it can be done.
> I've heard that McCafferty's been shutting down Pern MUSHes. How many
> Pern-themed roleplay creative works now don't exist?
>
> > > How many Mickey Mouse cartoons have never been created?
> >
> > How many non-Mickey Mouse cartoons have never been created? Vastly more.
>
> So?
>
> "You can't compromise with book-burners. When someone asks you to
> burn 1,000 books, you cannot agree to burn only 500." --Lizard
>
> The easiest book to burn is the one thats never created.
Think of it as incentive to create works that are actually original, rather
than taking the lazy way out.
> > > Or, to ask a counter-question:
> > >
> > > '' And freeing Mickey Mouse from copyright would damage society _how_? ''
> >
> > > But, its not Mickey Mouse... Eldritch wrote, for example that the
> > > reason he's against term extensions is because.... 6000 books were
> > > written in 1922. Of those, only 100 are in print now, barely a
> > > half-dozen make any money. How are we enriched by blocking 5900
> > > 80-year-old-and-moldering-away works from being copied?
> >
> > How many of those 6000 books are being actively cited or mentioned
> > today?
>
> Truthfully, I don't know.. I believe from the article I took that from
> that about a hundred are in print; someone values those.
>
> However.
>
> How many are even available today. You don't cite what you haven't
> read. You can't read what you can't find... And books written 80 years
> ago are not going to be that easy to find.
Decent libraries, especially college libraries, are likely to have them.
> Given that they're 80 years old, any value they have left to their
> origional creators is about $.004 on the dollar. (the value of a
> dollar now in terms of 'present value' to someone in 1920 who would be
> told that they'd get a constant 1920's dollar in 80 years.)
>
> Economically, the works are valueless to their creators after this
> time. Any value they had has been collected.[1]
If you want them, they have value. And derivative works might
generate income beyond that of the original work, which could
be substantial.
> And, if the books aren't cited or mentioned much today, then they must
> be, on average, fairly valueless.
>
> So, why leave them under intellectual fiefdom.
>
> I answered your rhetorical question with my honest answer. You never
> did answer my question: '' And freeing Mickey Mouse ..... ''
Who would it hurt? Well, the current owners of Mickey Mouse have
spent considerable time and money investing in the brand. That is
what is really of value to anyone who wishes to create a Mickey Mouse
movie, book, or whatever. By riding on Mickey's coattails, the new
work avoids the risk of creating a new character, which would have
to succeed on its own merits. The people who built up Mickey,
and created that value for the author of derivative works, really
ought to be compensated.
> [1] There's an interesting paper on the economics of copyright. I can
> find the reference, but the point is that you can treat it as an
> annuity. IE, what is the financial value of an annuity that pays,
> 1000/year for 80 years. What about one that pays 1000/year for 60
> years. ($15218 and $15022, assuming a 7% interest rate)[2] That
> difference of $196 is the current value of 20000 dollars in 60 spread
> over 20 years. Its under 2% of the actual value. So, any work [3]
> MUST have already extracted >98% of its value after 60 years. 82%
> after 28 years.[5]
But that's not really a valid assumption, because it assumes a steady
decline. Much IP will be like that. But there will, occasionally, be
an old gem rediscovered, and republished or used as the basis
for a derivative book or film.
What if, for instance, someone makes a blockbuster movie based
on Lovecraft's works from the 20's. The income from that movie
could dwarf all the income ever generated from all his works combined.
IP's more like a real estate holding which, someday, might turn out to
be worth millions more than expected if someone come along with
a way to find and extract the massive diamond deposit in it.
> [3] Assuming that the annual income of the work remains the same. A
> fairly safe assumption. Although untrue in cases, I don't see why that
> can discount this argument.
See above. Tastes change. Technologies change. Something that
earned $50 in 1922 could be the basis of a $300 million blockbuster
film today.
Spiderman's been around for decades. The movie did, what, $300 million?
Lord of the Rings is a similar case.
The problem is that, while most IP exhausts its revenue quickly,
you cannot predict which pieces of IP carry the seeds of
a blockbuster. But they're there.
Doug
>
>
> Would losing access to Santa Clause or Uncle Sam be damaging to
> society? Thomas Nast died in 1902. Under current copyright law, they'd
> been under a heriditary fiefdom till 1977. Or, would having
> Shakespeare under copyright damage society? Are you over 35? Can you
> imagine a childhood without Santa?
"Without" is a strong word to use, there. More likely he'd be like
Superman - licensed out the yin-yang. And so what? He'd still be
available on the same range of products he's on now, it's just that
someone'd be making a little sumpin-sumpin on it is all.
> I'd say yes, but only a little.. Every time an artist is blocked from
> using an aspect of culture, harm has occured. An artistic work has not
> been created. Or, the creation of a new artistic work has been slowed
> down. ('Wind Done Gone'//'Gone with the Wind')
And for every one of those cases there are a hundred where the artist
was screwed over because he lost control of his intellectual property
rights.
> How many Mickey Mouse cartoons have never been created?
>
> Or, to ask a counter-question:
>
> '' And freeing Mickey Mouse from copyright would damage society _how_? ''
>
> But, its not Mickey Mouse... Eldritch wrote, for example that the
> reason he's against term extensions is because.... 6000 books were
> written in 1922. Of those, only 100 are in print now, barely a
> half-dozen make any money. How are we enriched by blocking 5900
> 80-year-old-and-moldering-away works from being copied?
So you'd screw over the half-dozen so we can be theoretically enriched
by all the others? I fail to see the sense there. If those books are
worth something ("worth" defined as monetary, spiritual, intellectual,
etc.), then they'll be reissued - the owners of the copyright don't
benefit if they keep those tomes hidden. It's in their best interest
to reissue them. The fact that those books aren't available says
quite a lot about their relative merits.
Doug
Anonymous
"Dennis L. McKiernan" <dl...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Is there a difference between information and entertainment?
At the bit level of 1's and 0's there is none of course. Nor is there any distinction between copyrighted and non-
copyrighted data. And this simple concept is at the very heart of the debate. If there exist laws in Information Theory
which state that : "it is impossible to monitor the content and origin of information in a general purpose network where
all the players have essentially equal powers " then all bets are off and government's ability to control the net is
ultimately doomed. And the chances ARE great that there exists such a theory. Freenet is a living breathing implementation.
Albeit pretty slow at the moment.But if there's anything that's a sure bet it's that computers and comms will increase in
speed and power. When that happens we could well see much of the net migrating to a Freenet model.
So the answer to your question is that when you reach the level of electrons and photons that travel at the speed of light
there is no difference between any forms of information. And government have very little hope of changing the Laws of
Physics. Even Bush Jr. and his Homeland Security Muppets. Lol.
> Many pirates say that information should be free. Yet, many forms of
>entertainment are not free (e.g., computer games, books, films, etc.)
You have to separate the information (i.e. the 1's and 0's) from the physical medium. If there is a way to separate the
information from its carrier such that the information can be broadcast as electromagnetic waves then Yes I think
information should be free when it has been reduced to a raw stream of electromagnetic waves. After all we don't pay for the
radio progs we listen to, nor the TV we watch (unless you cannot get hold of a descrambler -:) )
But if the information is using a physical carrier medium such as paper or DVDs there's obviously going to be a cost because
of the finite supply. It would then (arguably) be immoral to take a book or DVD from a store without paying for it. Most
information libertarians (or "pirates" as you choose to mislabel them) would concede that where information is encoded in a
physical form it cannot be free. Until we invent a matter replicator aka Star Trek. When that happens and you have a matter
replicator in every home is KFC going to raid peoples' homes because they're using its secret recipe ? Is there a single
person who would defend KFC's right to do so ? W
Today we haven't reached this level of tech yet, but we do have information replicators which are every bit as miraculous in
their own way. and which were considered impossible a century or so ago.
When information can potentially be freely available there is no moral justification for attempting to restrict its flow
just as there would be no moral justification for restricting the use (by starving Africans say) of matter replicators to
feed themselves.
> Each of these forms of entertainment employ lots of folks ... they are
>industries unto themselves.
So do farms and the food processing industries. But we wouldn't ban starving people from using food replicators to feed
themselves on the basis that it would lead to the loss of a few jobs.
> Pirates would make these forms of entertainment free.
No they wouldn't. They would only make what could be encoded into bits free. There's an important distinction. There is a
world of difference between being at a Greatful Dead concert and listening to a bootleg MP3. Actually the MP3 in question
would not be bootlegged because they actively encouraged their fans to freely their tours. And it didn't do them ot their
bank balances any harm. Which gives the lie to your argument. And reinforces the differences between raw information (which,
if it can be encoded into bits and bytes, should be free) and the "whole entertainment package".
> If there were no monetary incentives in producing entertainment, the
>book, film, computer game, and so on, industries would dry up.
>Then
>there wouldn't be those high-quality forms of entertainment left. Only
>the amateurs would be cranking out inferior products for free.
Heh, Tolkien was an amateur when he wrote LOTR. He originally wrote it or the Hobbit as a bedtime story for his kid
(Christopher?) IIRC.
>There
>would be no Lord of the Rings movies made (not enough bucks to produce
>such epics), no wide selection of really good novels in whatever genre
>you'd care to name (the pros would shift to different fields, for they
>can't make a living at writing), no really good computer games (it takes
>big bucks to have a stable of software folks who make a living at
>cranking out games for Nintendo and Xbox and Playstation and PCs and
>Macs).
> So, I see the pirates much in the same light as mistletoe, a parasite
>that slowly sucks the lifeblood from the tree host it settles on,
>eventually killing the tree and thereby committing suicide in the
>process, for once the tree dies, so dies the mistletoe.
"Pirates" fill gaps and niches in markets. They don't destroy them. It's no coincidence that piracy is most rampant (in
India, China, Russia, Africa) where there is the greatest discrepancy between the astronomical price of software and
people's ability to pay for it. "Pirates" are not sucking the lifeblood of MS when they sell their stuff in bazaars in
Shanghai or Madras. They are merely providing goods at an affordable price commensurate with the local populations' ability
to pay. Hardly bloodsuckers eh ?
> Yes, information should be free, but information is raw data, and when
>it comes to books, all the raw data is in the dictionary. It is the
>intellect that turns raw data into a useful product ... and it is the
>intellect that creates intellectual property in the form of
>entertainment, and I claim that if entertainers cannot make a good
>living at creating their forms of pleasure for the rest of us, then the
>world will be a much poorer place for it.
Your claim is partly true if its premise obtained. But authors can make a good living if they are successful. Even if
authors were not payed a dime for their work we would still see creative works of the highest order. Albeit at a vastly
reduced rate.
And you exaggerate and distort the scope, aims and philosophy of "pirates" in order to reach your conclusions. There is no
evidence thatbook "Pirates'" harm authors. All the evidence points in the other direction. There is zero evidence for your
claims. Or am I missing the queues of authors with bowls in hand waiting in a long line at the Soup Kitchen. Methinks thou
does paint an ovely dramatic picture.
> I guess this might not matter to the pirates, who, in spite of their
>claims to the contrary, and whether they see it or not, are acting in a
>way to kill the very thing they cherish.
> ---Dennis
An interesting polemic. But I've heard this line of reasoning many times before. Let's explore it. Let's first carefully
examine the meaning of the word "pirate". A pirate as I understand it is someone who makes illicit copies of bookes, tapes
etc. to resell them for MONEY. Information libertarians do the opposite: they give freely and generously of their time,
effort and (often) money in order to make books, music, movies and software FREELY TO ALL. Whether you agree or not with
their philosophy please don't lump the two in the container. It doesn't do you or your argument any favors.
As for your main line of reasoning:
Your argument is true if taken to its logical extreme. In a world where as soon as a book or movie was copied and made
freely available your arguments might hold some water. However, in the real world, you will not note that most "piracy"
occurs to fill gaps in markets:
e.g. There is a "market" of teenagers wanting to experiment with Autocad. But Autocad costs thousands of bucks. Beyond the
reach of most kids. Or you have bought a used comp and want to install Windows XP. But it costs more than the comp you payed
for. Thanks to the MSmonopoly. What do you do ? (you could use Linux, but that's a whole different argument).
In all these cases above there is no real threat to the bottom line of the corps producing their stuff. Indeed MS' dominance
arose to a large degree because its products were "pirated". Kids who mess about with "pirated" copies of Autocad today
will, in a few years, become tomorrow's engineers, graphic designers and purchasing managers. They will buy the product for
the corps they work in. And they will buy what they feel most comfortable and familiar with. So undoubtedly Autocad benefits
here. And there's little downside :it is almost a no brainer that these kids would NOT have had the means or the inclination
to buy a legit copy. And the guy who bought a used comp would probably not have done so had he known that he would be unable
to get the Operating System for free.
Now let's look at the ebook "piracy scene". Here we have people converting physical books to etext formats freely
downloadable by all and sundry. The vast majority of these books are ones which have been available for a number of years
and so have exhausted most of their sales lifecycle. The question that needs to be asked is : Does the ebook scene as
currently constituted suck the lifeblood of authors as you envision in your polemic above ? If so please provide evidence.
I can at least provide evidence in the opposite direction courtesy of Eric Flint who has done an analysis and found that
publishing work online led to an upswing sales. www.baen.com
J K Rowling is probably the most widely pirated author online. But look at her sales ... And as for the girl who chided me
for posting Bujold's books on the tenuous grounds (as if I was taking something from her) that she is a single mother so is
J K Rowling . Neither is hardly starving eh ?
Despite all your protestations and polemic you have not given a single hard fact to prove that authors are losing money
because of the ebooks scene. All you have done is to repeat the same old tired cliches and canards.
The Copyright Funeral Man
Scott A Crosby
> Scott A Crosby wrote:
>
> There is a difference between arguing that copyright currently
> holds for too long a period, and arguing that because technology
> make it easy to violate, it should be done away with entirely.
True.. On the other hand, if something is being done by tens of
millions of people for tenths to hundredths of a penny each, can you
really stop it from being done.
Now, stopping commercial distribution, that can be done... If they do
it commercially, they have a bank account, they can be traced and
siezed. (Or at least as easy as any other illigimate organization
trying to hide illicit profits.)
I think I'd be for that.... Once I got this disgusting taste out of my
mouth.
Scott
Scott A Crosby
> "Scott A Crosby" <scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote in message
> news:oydu1kx...@bert.cs.rice.edu...
> > On Tue, 10 Sep 2002 16:10:00 GMT, "Jonathan Hendry" <j_he...@ix.netcom.com>
> writes:
> >
> > Would you create if it was illegal copy your creation to show others?
>
> If the issue was copyright, I'd probably do the extra work required to
> make it a more original work, thereby making it legal to show to others.
>
> > How many authors won't reinterpret other works because they won't want
> > to go through what that author went through?
>
> They just have to do more work. They have to write AI, instead
> of writing Pinnochio with Gepetto and Jiminy Cricket.
>
FYI. Disney didn't write Pinnochio. They stole the whole idea from the
author: Carlo Lorenzini.[1] Most art is reinterpretation of past
art.. Some is deep and new, but most is very similar.
> Instead of getting hung up on the specifics of a particular work
> that they want to 'reinterpret', they need to discern the core
> theme of the work that they want to address, and start from
> there, leaving the rest behind.
Why? Why is it 'legitimate' to block and prevent people who do want to
do shallow reinterpretations. Yes, they're shallow, but so what.
They're just as legitimate an art form as a deep work.
> If the 'reinterpretation' you want to do is on the level of my childhood
> reinterpretations of Star Wars on the couch with Luke attacking
> Baron Karza from the Micronauts - well, it better be posed as
> a parody, like the Samurai Cat books which were take offs of
> copyrighted properties like Cthulu, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars.
Are the 8 volumes of Man-Kzin War all a bunch of pointless shallow
reinterpretations?
Or, how about your examples you gave:
> Spiderman's been around for decades. The movie did, what, $300 million?
Is it not a cheap knock off? It should have never been created? They
should have done something new?
> Lord of the Rings is a similar case.
Is it not a cheap knock off? It should have never been created? They
should have done something new?
> >
> > "You can't compromise with book-burners. When someone asks you to
> > burn 1,000 books, you cannot agree to burn only 500." --Lizard
> >
> > The easiest book to burn is the one thats never created.
>
> Think of it as incentive to create works that are actually original, rather
> than taking the lazy way out.
>
So, is it OK to burn books made by lazy people?
> > Given that they're 80 years old, any value they have left to their
> > origional creators is about $.004 on the dollar. (the value of a
> > dollar now in terms of 'present value' to someone in 1920 who would be
> > told that they'd get a constant 1920's dollar in 80 years.)
> >
> > Economically, the works are valueless to their creators after this
> > time. Any value they had has been collected.[1]
>
> If you want them, they have value. And derivative works might
> generate income beyond that of the original work, which could
> be substantial.
So? The 'present' value to the author in 1925 of a dollar today is
about .4 pennies.
This is IP speculation. (see below)
> > And, if the books aren't cited or mentioned much today, then they must
> > be, on average, fairly valueless.
> >
> > So, why leave them under intellectual fiefdom.
> >
> > I answered your rhetorical question with my honest answer. You never
> > did answer my question: '' And freeing Mickey Mouse ..... ''
>
> Who would it hurt? Well, the current owners of Mickey Mouse have
> spent considerable time and money investing in the brand. That is
So?
Disney was a fool. Why have they spent the last 40 years investing
money on a brand that would join our public culture in the 1960s.[2]
Except, they figured out a way to both invest and buy an [IMHO
illegal][3] law to protect their fiefdom.. The thrice-damned
term-extension limits.
> what is really of value to anyone who wishes to create a Mickey Mouse
> movie, book, or whatever. By riding on Mickey's coattails, the new
> work avoids the risk of creating a new character, which would have
> to succeed on its own merits. The people who built up Mickey,
> and created that value for the author of derivative works, really
> ought to be compensated.
And they've been greatly compensated over the last 80 years. They got
their paycheck. Now Mickey Mouse belongs as an aspect of our culture,
joining Santa, Pinocchio, Cinderella, or Uncle Sam.
If they want to keep investing money into a non-productive cause,
investment, great.. But don't expect society to renumerate you just
because you were an idiot.
> > [1] There's an interesting paper on the economics of copyright. I can
> > find the reference, but the point is that you can treat it as an
> > annuity. IE, what is the financial value of an annuity that pays,
> > 1000/year for 80 years. What about one that pays 1000/year for 60
> > years. ($15218 and $15022, assuming a 7% interest rate)[2] That
> > difference of $196 is the current value of 20000 dollars in 60 spread
> > over 20 years. Its under 2% of the actual value. So, any work [3]
> > MUST have already extracted >98% of its value after 60 years. 82%
> > after 28 years.[5]
>
> But that's not really a valid assumption, because it assumes a steady
> decline. Much IP will be like that. But there will, occasionally, be
> an old gem rediscovered, and republished or used as the basis
> for a derivative book or film.
Well, given the prior example, less than 1% of the books first
published in the 20's are even in print. So, for at least 99% of the
books, it is valid. For the remainder in print, how many do you
expect will ever make money? 2? 6? Almost a hundred thousand books
from the 20's and early 30's lost from our public culture, so that a
dozen IP speculators might win big if a gem is drawn from them.
Also, the people who created those works 80 years ago must have
thought the incentives were more than enough, so how on earth does one
justify retroactive incentives? Thats like saying, 'To encourage you
to create a new artistic work 60 years ago, here's a bonus.'
> What if, for instance, someone makes a blockbuster movie based
> on Lovecraft's works from the 20's. The income from that movie
> could dwarf all the income ever generated from all his works combined.
> IP's more like a real estate holding which, someday, might turn out to
> be worth millions more than expected if someone come along with
> a way to find and extract the massive diamond deposit in it.
> See above. Tastes change. Technologies change. Something that
> earned $50 in 1922 could be the basis of a $300 million blockbuster
> film today.
> The problem is that, while most IP exhausts its revenue quickly,
> you cannot predict which pieces of IP carry the seeds of
> a blockbuster. But they're there.
All 4 of these are real estate speculation... Buying up fiefdoms of
creative works in the hope that one or a few may win big. Few, very
few, almost none of these fiefdoms will amount to anything. But
speculators want to hold them just in case. To keep hundreds of
thousands of works >60 years old from the public culture.
The purpose of copyright isn't to help intellectual property
speculators. Its to encourage the creation of creative works. How does
speculation lead to more creative works?
Assuming no speculation, a creator gets a MAXIMUM of 94% of the value
of their work within 42 years.. Thats true for everyone. If a creator
isn't willing to accept that on a particular work.. Well, nobody is
forcing them to.
I'm actually half-curious that you didn't mention one very obvious
argument. Its actually pretty logical and somewhat hard to defend
against.
The reason why we need to censor and block the availibility of old
works.. Is because they are cutthroat competitors to modern
works. What if copyright was 42 years (as it was when Disney did their
first classics). That would mean anything pre-1960's would be in the
public domain usable by everyone..
That would mean that, unlike now, modern works would actually have to
be new and inviting to keep people from going back and grabbing and
using the classics of our culture. Perhaps more money would be spent
on new works. The amount of entertainment dollar is roughly fixed. A
dollar spent as a monopoly rent on a 60-80 year old fiefdom can't be
spent on a brand new movie.
Scott
[1] http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/collodi.htm
[2] Amusing question.. How many of the great Disney classics are cheap
knockoffs of late 1800's literature that had joined popular culture in
the public domain... Actually. for how many of the great Disney
classics did they NOT appropriate others ideas with shallow
reinterpretations?
[3] The supreme court is soon to hear a case about CTEA, specifically
the retroactive extension to term limits. I have hope for the
anti-fiefdom croud.
Scott A Crosby
> Scott A Crosby <scr...@cs.rice.edu> wrote in message news:<oydptvo...@bert.cs.rice.edu>...
> >
> >
> > Would losing access to Santa Clause or Uncle Sam be damaging to
> > society? Thomas Nast died in 1902. Under current copyright law, they'd
> > been under a heriditary fiefdom till 1977. Or, would having
> > Shakespeare under copyright damage society? Are you over 35? Can you
> > imagine a childhood without Santa?
>
> "Without" is a strong word to use, there. More likely he'd be like
> Superman - licensed out the yin-yang. And so what? He'd still be
> available on the same range of products he's on now, it's just that
> someone'd be making a little sumpin-sumpin on it is all.
>
At a higher price. As a monopoly rent paid to a non-productive member
of society. Perhaps I should take a line from somebody who knows:
"Here you have these people who never wrote a word in their life or
drew a picture and didn't create anything and contributed nothing of
value. Now, they're trying to hijack Winnie-the-Pooh," said
Petrocelli, Disney's lead attorney. "They're shaking down Disney
through enormous greed, and, hopefully, they won't get away with
it." [1]
> And for every one of those cases there are a hundred where the artist
> was screwed over because he lost control of his intellectual property
> rights.
If a creator signs away his interests, tough... I give him no more
sympathy than I'd give someone tricked by the Nigerian Scam.[2] They
knew exactly what they were getting into.
If they 'lost control' through an approach that did not involve them
signing away their interests, could you give an illustrative example?
(I believe that the US didn't honor international copyrights in the
mid twentieth century.. So, shall we only consider native US authors.)
> >
> > But, its not Mickey Mouse... Eldritch wrote, for example that the
> > reason he's against term extensions is because.... 6000 books were
> > written in 1922. Of those, only 100 are in print now, barely a
> > half-dozen make any money. How are we enriched by blocking 5900
> > 80-year-old-and-moldering-away works from being copied?
>
> So you'd screw over the half-dozen so we can be theoretically enriched
> by all the others? I fail to see the sense there. If those books are
Yes.. Those people are just intellectual property speculators.
And, the damage is NOT theoretical. I've given about 5 examples
through my various postings. Wind Done Gone, MUSHes, fanfic, slash,
takedown orders against fan websites, etc.
> worth something ("worth" defined as monetary, spiritual, intellectual,
> etc.), then they'll be reissued - the owners of the copyright don't
> benefit if they keep those tomes hidden. It's in their best interest
Actually, they do... See my one argument I gave in another reply on
this thread.
> to reissue them. The fact that those books aren't available says
> quite a lot about their relative merits.
What do their 'relative merits' have to do with anything? Thats a
subjective interpretation and morally repugnant. Would you willing to
accept making 'relatively meritless' books unavailable to our culture?
Say, through burning them?
"You can't compromise with book-burners. When someone asks you to
burn 1,000 books, you cannot agree to burn only 500." --Lizard
Scott
[1] http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/2002-03-21/feature.html/print.html
[2] http://www.scambusters.org/NigerianFee.html
''The Nigerian Advance Fee Scam has been around for quite awhile, but
despite many warnings, continues to draw in many victims. In fact,
the Financial Crimes Division of the Secret Service receives
approximately 100 telephone calls from victims/ potential victims
and 300-500 pieces of related correspondence per day about this
scam!
Indications are that the advance fee fraud grosses hundreds of
millions of dollars annually and the losses are continuing to
escalate.
''