Originally posted by: Matthias99
This one we've been through before in other threads. You appear to be ideologically opposed to any sort of DRM, so we're not going to really get anywhere.
I am, for a number of reasons that I have been trying to clearly enumerate.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
The only 'rights' you have are the ones afforded to you by the law.
Some of us believe that we live in a Constitutional Republic, founded under the principles of God-given, inalienable rights. IOW, we have rights, unless we willingly, collectively, as society give up those rights in order to live in an orderly, peaceful, state with others. IOW, it is the restrictions on our rights that are enumerated, and not the other way around.
The POV of fascists is that citizens only have the rights granted to them by the state, because the state owns the citizens. In the US of A, at least in principle, it is the opposite.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
You're right. I don't think that DRM-protected digital content should be afforded protection under copyright law at all. I think that there should be a test, to see if something should be afforded protection - 1) value to the public domain, and 2) likelyhood of falling into the public domain. If there is no value to be added to the public domain, or there is no likelyhood of falling into the public domain, then there shouldn't be any copyright protection afforded by law. The original intent of copyright law, was to enrich the public domain, by providing a certain (primarily financial) motivation to "authors", by granting them certain, specific, LIMITED rights over that content, for a LIMITED period of time.
DRM-based technologies cross that line, IMHO, because what good is a pile of encrypted bits, 75 years or more down the line, when the decryption/unlocking keys and viewing format technologies are long since lost? There is no future enrichment to the public-domain, and if the keys are never archived and then released publically, then the content will arguably never be released (in viewable fashion) to the public domain.
Why would the material not become part of the public domain after copyright has expired on it? If you amended copyright law to actually address these sorts of cases, you could have the laws specify that such material has to be released into the public domain just like anything else.
The material would become "public domain" - but if it is just a pile of randomly-encrypted bits, with no means of reconstructing the actual human-viewable/readable content - what good does it do? What enrichment to the public domain does it have? In that case, the public has clearly been cheated! And yet, the public paid taxes the gov't for copyright enforcement - those content-producers stole from the public!
Originally posted by: Matthias99
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
It's the same dichotomy between patents and trade-secrets. Companies have a choice - release the details of their inventions to the public, eventually to fall into the public domain, and thus also they are granted limited monopoly protections under law for their disclosures for a limited amount of time. Or they can maintain their inventions as a trade secret, and never disclose them publically, but they don't get any (patent) protection under the law.
But there's a
law (well, probably a whole book of them) that defines what a trade secret is. If you want to declare protected content as different legally from unprotected content, that's fine, but the law still needs to be amended to address it!
That much I agree with. If copyright laws should be changed, they should be changed to be more strict about the need for the enrichment of the public domain, as a requirement for extending copyright protection. Many things that now recieve copyright protection by default, would no longer be protected. (Of course, existing copyrighted content would likely be grandfathered in anyways.)
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
You seem to think that copyright law needs to be changed, because of the (arguably, massive) amount of copyright-law violations going on right now. However, those are already against the law - making them "more against the law" isn't going to help anything.
Note that what I was saying in so many words, is that a problem with *enforcement* of existing laws, is not going to be solved by increased *legislation* of new laws.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
I don't want to make them "more against the law" -- I want to make the laws actually clear and understandable. What you can and cannot legally do with IP right now is VERY unclear unless you have a law degree, and even then there are a lot of grey areas. This is not a good situation for anybody.
I disagree. There are several university sites hosting complete copies of the actual US Copyright code, along with helpful annotations. It's quite readable, and relatively straightforward. The only reason that these things seem so "grey", is because court enforcement of the actual laws has been spotty at best - fueled by the widespread corporate usage of intentionally-deceptive EULAs, and the unwillingness of courts to find against those companies.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
What is and what is not against the law is a different question. Personally, I feel that content providers should have the option to put more limits (within reason) on their content, and the consumer should choose whether or not to accept those limits when they purchase the content.
See, that's not the same as dealing with an enforcement problem with the existing laws. You want more control (for the copyright holder), which leads to more enforcement actions - but those are likely to be just as ineffective as the existing ones.
How about presenting those restrictions on the content, up-front, allowing citizens and consumers to make an "informed choice" about the matter, rather than an after-the-fact unlawful attempt to coerce them into those restrictions?
Originally posted by: Matthias99
You honestly think people download movies and music as a form of civil disobedience? This is a question of greed on both sides.
You honestly think that corporations are happy with the existing limited protections of copyright law? Greed on both sides indeed!
When it comes down to it, at the end of the day - the only reason that the (written, public) law has a purpose, is that people willingly abide by it. It is a choice, a tradeoff - if you disobey the law, there are consequences.
It is not a literally absolute prohibition - you cannot lock up every citizen in straightjackets, just to prevent possible violations of the law.
I would say that corporations are abusing the courts and contract law to the very breaking point, and they have been doing so BEFORE the rise of internet technologies and accompanying trivial digital-content copyright law violations.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
The biggest problem with DRM, is that it also (IMHO, irreperably) damages the free market. That's one reason why I cannot believe that any real American could ever be pro-DRM in any way.
This is a basic ideological tenet that I just don't agree with. Well-designed and implemented DRM should prevent you from doing things you are not allowed to do with the content, while still allowing you to do the things you are allowed to do with it.
IOW, lock people up in "digital straightjackets", so that they are literally never allowed to violate the law. The very idea is wholly un-American.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
Determining what you are and are not allowed to do is an issue independent of whether technology enforces these limits or you are left on the honor system.
Is society so far gone (on both sides), that everyone behaves as outlaws (corporations and individuals alike), and the only recourse is the "straight jacket solution"?
Originally posted by: Matthias99
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
There's a reason why the rights of private individual ownership should be protected - just as the legal rights of (legitimate) copyright owners should likewise be protected. It's a balance, and it's already starting to heavily tilt (more like topple over) towards the copyright owners, as they twist and pervert the law around their greedy desires.
They are trying to 'twist and pervent the law' (as you put it) because many people are blatantly ignoring copyright law all over the place.
Again, what about corporations and courts twisting copyright and contract law in a perversion of existing legal principles that have been held to for hundreds of years. To say nothing about how the technology and software industry in particular have flouted their noses at bodies of existing product-liability law. (I personally am FOR product-liability for software, but that's a different discussion altogether.)
Originally posted by: Matthias99
I don't see why copyright owners should have any more rights to control the copies of their products than they already have. Does (insert car company here) have any right to tell you what streets to drive on, or what brand of gas to buy?
I can't make and distribute an unlimited number of copies of my car at essentially zero cost relative to the car's purchase price. That's sort of an important difference.
I guess I don't understand. The law already prohibits anyone but the copyright holder from doing so, unless granted a license by the copyright holder. Note interestingly that I said nothing about replicating the car, but of additional restrictions over the use of the car.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
Content providers need more rights to control their content because IP is implicitly harder to control now than it was in the past.
Again, I ask: better enforcement, or *more* rights of control? Fascists always want more control. I argue that most current corporation copyright owners, especially the music and movie industries, are very fascist in nature. Copyright law was written to be BALANCED. Not to give copyright holders complete control.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
Why would any American welcome a fascist copyright dictatorship to do otherwise?
Ah, yes. Because anybody who thinks DRM is not a tool of the devil is a fascist.
DRM's principles are rather fascist in nature. Lock everyone up in digital straightjackets, so that they can never violate the law... but in the process, it userps many rights and liberties of the people, turning them from free into un-free. How free can you be, to produce, create, sell and re-sell, information, when everyone is wearing "digital straightjackets"? What is everyone that is not part of the "copyright cartel" at that point, supposed to do? Go back to oral traditions? Set the human race back several thousand years, because of the extreme greed of a self-selected minority?
Originally posted by: Matthias99
Copyright law most certainly does not grant an unlimited monopoly, rather, limited rights under the law for a limited time, in exchange for public disclosure.
I guess the basic difference is that I think the 'limits' need to be re-evaluated. The technological environment today is such that the limits allowed under existing copyright law simply do not adequately protect copyright holders from widespread illegal distribution of their content. Telling the content owners 'hey, sucks to be you' is not really an acceptable solution.
I would make the opposite argument, on behalf of the public domain. The tech. environment today, is such that the limits on copyright protection, are not adequately defined enough to protect the public from being scammed. Telling the public "sucks to be you" (left holding a pile of DRM-infested, encrypted binary noise after 75 years) is not really an acceptable solution for society.
Originally posted by: Matthias99
(I would even go so far as to say that the original intent applied to human-readable/human-viewable content only, implicitly, and that software binaries shouldn't even be afforded copyright protection, UNLESS the source code for those binaries was fully disclosed/registered with the Library of Congress - ensuring that the public domain WOULD be enriched, at such point that the copyright on the work ran out. In an ideal world, that's how it would be.)
That would cause... problems with the entire software industry, to say the least. Personally, I would like to be able to continue earning a living as a software engineer. Putting every software company in the world out of business might be 'ideal' to you, but I'm gonna have to disagree on that one.
How would that put any software company out of business? Perhaps I should have clarified, I wasn't intending for the software's source-code to be immediately disclosed to the public - I meant at such point in time that the software would fall into the public domain, then the full source code would be available to the public, for the enrichment of the public domain. Anything less, is cheating the public, IMHO. Actually, I take that back. It should be part of the public record immediately. Why? Books and music are handled the same way. People should be able to learn from copyrighted software works, just as they might read and learn from books, or listen and learn from music. But the protections of the law would still be in-force, preventing wholesale copying, so I don't see a problem with that. It certainly wouldn't put any software companies out of business. Quite the opposite, I think it would enhance the competitiveness of the software industry, and advance software technology as a whole.
I also think that copyright protection on computer software should be lessened to something much shorter than 75 years - probably closer to patent protect, something on the order of 20 years or less.