Who is really to blame for piracy?

[Menard]

Dear God, what a bloated big waste of words and electrons.

I would say a bunch of hot air, if people were actually talking.

Does the phrase "too long didn't read" ring any bells, fellahs?

Hi honey; your avatar excites me....mwha

[Zapranoth]

When you write posts that concise, Menard, it makes my knees knock.

[CheezeFlixz]

Menard is Mr. Bombastic

[Andrew]

First off, let's keep the discussion to the topic at hand.  I see no reason for little digs at another poster's perceived shortcomings.  When I see that in a post, it usually makes me wonder why the poster wanted to try to undercut the opposing viewpoint by going after credibility.

I waited to post my thoughts on this, because I needed some time to put them all together and was otherwise occupied.

Copyrights (and patents, if you get down to it) are strange beasts.  The idea was put in place so that an individual who created something could profit from the fruits of their labor - thereby giving them a reason to create/invent more works to enrich society and/or make our lives better.  In the end, society benefits the most when the creation becomes public domain and anybody can use and copy it without restrictions.

My feeling is that copyright has been extended far too long.  Heck, I think it was too long before the Sonny "I hit a tree - please pass my law" Bono Copyright extension was passed.  How did that make society better?  I understand that someone makes a work and should be compensated for it.  I agree that is a good thing.  However, should it take one hundred years before that work becomes the property of humanity as a whole? (Patents have different terms, by the way, I have dropped them and am concentrating on copyrighted works like movies.)

The fact that copyright has been extended too long does not make the piracy of movies or music acceptable in any way.  I have never seen someone who uses a file sharing service that I would call an activist.  They simply pull down the songs because they want them and would prefer not to pay for them.  People who make illegal copies and sell them are a slightly different bunch.  They actually want to profit from someone else's work.

If copyright is unfair then we need to get that word to our elected representatives and tell them to fix it.  If they do not listen, do not vote for them and vote for someone who will.  When was the last time you sent a letter to your representative about an issue that concerned you?  I probably do once or twice a year and I pay attention to what they do or how they vote.

I will keep this brief. 

I believe you should be able to purchase a CD or DVD and make a backup copy of it.  Not one to sell, not one to give away, but you have paid for the work - pretty much the right to play it at your leisure.  It makes sense to me that I should be allowed to put my original away in a safe place and tote the burned copy in my CD wallet.  Also, the cost of music and movies is out of whack.  It is a trickle down effect from how much actors want for salary, how much studios want to make, and so on.  (Professional sports suffer from this too.)  I do not purchase many mainstream movies because of this.  When I do buy mainstream movies, I try to get them secondhand (I mean a previously owned original).  I buy b-movies all the time, especially from smaller distributors like Synapse, ADV, Rhino, etc.

And if Walmart comes into town, drives the mom and pop stores out of business and suddenly there is not a place that will carry or order special items for a specific group/need, it is a bad thing.  Survival of the fittest is not always the best route for society.

[CheezeFlixz]

If copyright is unfair then we need to get that word to our elected representatives and tell them to fix it.  If they do not listen, do not vote for them and vote for someone who will.  When was the last time you sent a letter to your representative about an issue that concerned you?  I probably do once or twice a year and I pay attention to what they do or how they vote.

This is the same group of iggets that passed the DCL (Digital Copyright Law) stating you can not make backup copies of movies you own! Whereas recording a VHS or a cassette is fine for some reason because it's analog and some vague language about quality. I asked my Representative why can't a make a back up copy of a movie my kids will use, because crazy me doesn't want to go out and drop another $20.00 on a copy they scratched on a sandstone coaster? (Actually they take very good care of them, but you get the point.) He spoke for about 20 minutes regarding this question and never answered the question, which I pointed out to him. So finally I said "Well, I guess if the voters your represent had lobbyist we wouldn't have all this special interest laws. It's a damn shame you can't screw the illegals the way you do the tax payer."

As for me I have copying software that pre-dates the law, therefore I'm not technically in violation based on the fact my software was legally registered prior to the DCL passage. However, I can't legally re-install it if I should have HDD failure or SW corruption.

Now heres what's odd, DVD's have put CSS coding in place to prevent copying unless you have a decoder, but most music CD's the very industry that started all this whining about illegal copies does not, go figure. I can do a VHS to VHS dub, CD to CD dub, Cassette to Cassette dub and it's all legal but if I want to do a DVD to DVD dub all the sudden I'm an outlaw.

Facts are 95% +/- (Some cNet study years ago I saw) of the people that obtain and illegal copy of a song, movie etc for free, are not going to go out and pay for it if it wasn't available for free. So what have they lost? I've downloaded songs for free back in the day of Napster and Kazaa and found an artist I'd never hear of otherwise and bought one of there CD's just because I heard a song of theirs I got off the internet, now that Napster and Kazaa are no longer free, I don't use them and I don't discover new artist as I have no new music radio around here and I don't have the stomach for MTV anymore. So I'm not buying new music blindly, I'll stick with what I have.

Representatives are not going to change copyright laws not matter what the consumer and voter says, there is to much special interest money at stake. Just like they won't close the boarder in spite of the fact that over 80% (according to some polls I've seen) of the voters want it done. There is to much political heat and lobbyist money there to keep it from getting done on both sides of the aisle.

Can you say Term Limits? Remember your representative doesn't represent you, they represent the biggest check. How deep is your pocket?

[Menard]

Again, I disagree with you on copyright, Andrew. Of course, everybody is going to look at it from different perspectives.

It is my feeling, though there is a point where, out of legacy, something should pass into the public domain essentially as an inherited part of our culture (talk about run-on sentences), that a creative work is as much a property of the creator of said work as is a business someone has built up. The difference being that the person who built up a business can pass that on to their children, who can pass it to their children, and so on. Why should a novelist or a musician not have the same right to do that as a business owner? Are we putting more value on tangible assets than on creativity?

That being said (of course I have to be agrumentative with myself ) I would personally rather have my writings fall into the public domain after I have expired (most likely at the hands of deranged Zardoz fans).

If Sonny Bono wanted to make certain that his children, grandchildren (good luck with that), and great-grandchildren could reap the rewards of something he handed down to them, good for him.

I agree that there should be a point where writings, songs, etc. become a part of our cultural landscape and history, but not within the life of the person who created it. I don't think 100 years is too long, but 150 may be; that is just my opinion though.