Alleged Copyright infringement as a business model:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/bittorrent/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...ttorrent-case/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...nuns-brouhaha/
...
But all those factors don't seem to be sufficient to explain why this book has reached the heights that it has, as soon as it has. What seems to set this book apart, hypothesizes The Bay Citizen, is the pirated PDF copy of the book that has gone absolutely viral.
...
http://www.fastcompany.com/1753287/g...-adam-mansbach
Lets break the entire internet to protect us from piracy!The Senators Who Say Merely Linking To Certain Sites Should Be A Felony
from the oh-come-on dept
I wrote earlier about how the new PROTECT IP Act guts parts of the DMCA, but as you dig deeper, it's looking even worse. The original (and now updated) article focused on the use of the term "interactive computer service," which was in a draft copy of the bill. At the last minute, that was changed instead to be "information location tool." While, at first, this may seem to be a narrower definition, there are some serious concerns that this effectively makes it illegal to link to any website that is accused of being "dedicated to infringing purposes." That's because an "information location tool" is defined under current law to be: a "directory, index, reference, pointer, or hypertext link."
It seems copyright infringers will soon share the cells with the drugies...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...1#comments-barTwo months ago, US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel produced her wishlist of changes to US law. One item in particular caught our interest—the suggestion that the online streaming of copyrighted content be bumped up to a full-scale felony. Late last week, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced just such a bill.
God damn slovenians...
I guess I'll have to call my lawyer and ask him if using my Slingbox will land me in jail...
I guess "sharing is caring", is being changed to "sharing is crime".Tennessee passes Web entertainment theft bill
Associated Press
June 1, 2011, 4:06 p.m.
Nashville, Tenn.—
State lawmakers in the capital of country music have passed a groundbreaking measure that would make it a crime to use a friend's log-in — even with permission — to listen to songs or watch movies from services such as Netflix or Rhapsody.
The bill, now awaiting the governor's signature, was pushed by recording industry officials to try to stop the loss of billions of dollars to illegal music sharing. They hope other states will follow.
LA Times
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.htmlThe Right to Read
by Richard Stallman
This article appeared in the February 1997 issue of Communications of the ACM (Volume 40, Number 2).
From The Road To Tycho, a collection of articles about the antecedents of the Lunarian Revolution, published in Luna City in 2096.
For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.
And there wasn't much chance that the SPA—the Software Protection Authority—would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment—for not taking pains to prevent the crime.
Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read his books. She might want the computer only to write her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books might be the only way she could graduate. He understood this situation; he himself had had to borrow to pay for all the research papers he read. (Ten percent of those fees went to the researchers who wrote the papers; since Dan aimed for an academic career, he could hope that his own research papers, if frequently referenced, would bring in enough to repay this loan.)
Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory.
There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.
Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.
Programmers still needed debugging tools, of course, but debugger vendors in 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and bonded programmers. The debugger Dan used in software class was kept behind a special firewall so that it could be used only for class exercises.
It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that.
Dan concluded that he couldn't simply lend Lissa his computer. But he couldn't refuse to help her, because he loved her. Every chance to speak with her filled him with delight. And that she chose him to ask for help, that could mean she loved him too.
Dan resolved the dilemma by doing something even more unthinkable—he lent her the computer, and told her his password. This way, if Lissa read his books, Central Licensing would think he was reading them. It was still a crime, but the SPA would not automatically find out about it. They would only find out if Lissa reported him.
Of course, if the school ever found out that he had given Lissa his own password, it would be curtains for both of them as students, regardless of what she had used it for. School policy was that any interference with their means of monitoring students' computer use was grounds for disciplinary action. It didn't matter whether you did anything harmful—the offense was making it hard for the administrators to check on you. They assumed this meant you were doing something else forbidden, and they did not need to know what it was.
Students were not usually expelled for this—not directly. Instead they were banned from the school computer systems, and would inevitably fail all their classes.
Later, Dan would learn that this kind of university policy started only in the 1980s, when university students in large numbers began using computers. Previously, universities maintained a different approach to student discipline; they punished activities that were harmful, not those that merely raised su ion.
Lissa did not report Dan to the SPA. His decision to help her led to their marriage, and also led them to question what they had been taught about piracy as children. The couple began reading about the history of copyright, about the Soviet Union and its restrictions on copying, and even the original United States Cons ution. They moved to Luna, where they found others who had likewise gravitated away from the long arm of the SPA. When the Tycho Uprising began in 2062, the universal right to read soon became one of its central aims.
On Netflix, etc, is it possible to be logged on with the same username and password on two or more different computers at the same time?
bit of an imaginary stretch, imo.
Well, that is a technically sound solution to the problem. Unfortunately, we're talking lobbyists and politicians here.
I also could see where you make this a misdemeanor, at the most. But over $500 worth (obviously, that's not the price of the subscription, but the alleged stolen property) and the penalty is a felony. smh.
Of course you'd think that.
Then again, it's taken to the extreme as a literary point; at what path does it stop? At what point do people go "That's enough!"
Remember, these are the same citizens who think torture is A-OK, by and large.
In that extreme scenario, the principle changed.Of course you'd think that.
Then again, it's taken to the extreme as a literary point; at what path does it stop? At what point do people go "That's enough!"
Remember, these are the same citizens who think torture is A-OK, by and large.
In the real world, the principle appears to remain constant. It's that the law is trying to keep up with the technology.
tldw
I think you and I differ on what cons utes extremity, and how likely the authorities are to lead towards that outcome.
I guess we do.
I think the idea that the right to read might be a target by 2062 is laughable.
Eh, it's not about the "right to read". It's just that most of our books will probably be digital, which has its pros and cons. For instance, see the few instances when books have been "edited" by Amazon without customer acknowledgement or approval.
As more and more objects go "digital", users give up more and more control over their ownership.
And while you're skeptical of widespread changes such as the one listed in the scenario, do you think anyone 50 years ago thought that our government would have the right to go through their mail looking for keywords that might indicate terrorist activity? (Sure it's email, but just because it's easier to search through doesn't necessarily make the analogy wrong.)
What about all the closed circuit video in some cities? How about facial recognition technology that scans your face as you enter an arena and then matches it up with a criminal database?
Honestly, there's no way to truly predict what the future will be 50 years from now. I'm pretty sure no one would have predicted gene splicing, the prevalence of computers, or any number of other factors.
books getting edited after purchase is a different issue altogether and not one that I found in the story.
I did find "right to read" in the story.
Still laughably extreme, imo.
Mmm....hard to say how seriously people in general took George Orwell.And while you're skeptical of widespread changes such as the one listed in the scenario, do you think anyone 50 years ago thought that our government would have the right to go through their mail looking for keywords that might indicate terrorist activity? (Sure it's email, but just because it's easier to search through doesn't necessarily make the analogy wrong.)
What about all of that?What about all the closed circuit video in some cities? How about facial recognition technology that scans your face as you enter an arena and then matches it up with a criminal database?
Honestly, there's no way to truly predict what the future will be 50 years from now. I'm pretty sure no one would have predicted gene splicing, the prevalence of computers, or any number of other factors.
One of the points of the story is that in the future, only the person that purchases the item will have the right to view or read it.
Regardless of technology, the fear that in 50+ years it will be illegal to borrow a book without publisher permission is extreme, imo.
I think you missed my point. Orwell stands as an example of someone who was able to predict the future, somewhere, regarding government's ability to monitor their citizen's actions.
Well, of course. That's like saying that Jonathan Swift's book, "A Modest Proposal" is extreme, and therefore pointless, which misses the point entirely.
No one honestly believes the "right to read" will be taken away. However, our ability to control what we own (which is the crux of many argument regarding digital media nowadays) is what is up for debate.
Good, we agree. I was beginning to wonder.
Interesting. I didn't realize the ability to control what we own in this manner was up for debate. You have a link?However, our ability to control what we own (which is the crux of many argument regarding digital media nowadays) is what is up for debate.
The very decision on whether or not we are allowed to copy media, and whether or not we are allowed to redistribute, are both questions of the extent of our ownership of an item. For instance, our right to own one copy doesn't extend to the right to physically reproduce said copy and distribute it freely.
In this case, we don't necessarily own the item, we own a license to listen to the music contained on the item. Otherwise, there wouldn't be an issue with copying a CD a few hundred times, since you own the original and burned CDs.
Another instance of how we "own" things is in regards to the book issue mentioned above. If Amazon can edit a book after you've bought it, without your permission, then your ownership of said book is certainly less than the ownership conferred upon buying a hard-copy.
So, given these instances, it's not necessarily a stretch to imagine a future world in which most content was centrally stored, whereby our "right to read" may be limited by controlling agencies (namely, those controlling the access). In this case, right to read isn't an absolute (ie. right to read or not read), but rather a way to think about what rights a consumer may or may not have in a digitally-dominant future.
You've got people who are trying to get playing cloud-storage mp3s defined as "public performance". Given that, what's stopping them from describing cloud-stored literature as "public performance" as well?
You're talking about intellectual property.
When you purchase a CD, you don't purchase the intellectual property, you purchase a copy of it that comes with copyright restrictions.
Most people understand the concept. Aside from messageboard posters that are feeling robbed from not being able to download off of torrent sites any more, there's really not much of a debate about it.
link?Another instance of how we "own" things is in regards to the book issue mentioned above. If Amazon can edit a book after you've bought it, without your permission, then your ownership of said book is certainly less than the ownership conferred upon buying a hard-copy.
I think it's a huge stretch.So, given these instances, it's not necessarily a stretch to imagine a future world in which most content was centrally stored, whereby our "right to read" may be limited by controlling agencies (namely, those controlling the access). In this case, right to read isn't an absolute (ie. right to read or not read), but rather a way to think about what rights a consumer may or may not have in a digitally-dominant future.
who are these people?You've got people who are trying to get playing cloud-storage mp3s defined as "public performance". Given that, what's stopping them from describing cloud-stored literature as "public performance" as well?
Of course, but the physical media it's using is a factor. If it took six months to burn a CD, I don't think the RIAA would care much about pirating.
Coming from the person who tried to argue that it should be considered theft for pages and pages, then backtracked and said that it was just your definition of theft, I'll give that as much merit as I feel it deserves.
To be fair, they didn't edit the book, but deleted illegal copies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...on-kindle-1984
However, publishers of books can edit them after users have them. While I'm still looking for an official link, this post explains the process:
http://207-171-168-158.amazon.com/kd...essageID=75820
So the ability exists. In any way, it's less "yours" than if you had a hard copy, wouldn't you agree?
Wait, you're saying you think it's a "huge stretch" that in 50 years, most of the content that people read/listen to will be stored in a central location? Really?
http://blog.fatdrop.co.uk/who-reigns...cup-for-labels
But I guess this is already decided, and only being argued over by certain posters who want to dload movies for freeAmazon have sidestepped the legal aspect by claiming that their service’s functionality is comparable to that of an external drive – nobody needs a public performance license to save or play back their data on one of those, so why should storage in the cloud be any different?
The legal objection to this might be to argue that since the service is operated by a commercial concern in order to make a profit, streaming from an Amazon locker should be seen as a public performance… but this would probably be stretching the point beyond the sympathies of most music customers. Commentators are hurrying to analyse Amazon’s move: is it designed to support a forthcoming Amazon tablet PC? Is it simply a spoiler move against Google and Apple (…or indeed Ubuntu, who offered one of the first viable cloud music solutions over two years ago with their Ubuntu One tie-in with download store 7Digital)? It’s likely that these questions will be cleared up by the passage of time, but for labels they should be fairly irrelevant… the question that interests us is: will these services help or hinder music sales?
huh? Physical media is irrelevant to intellectual property.
What does 6 months have to do with anything?
6 months or 6 seconds. An illegal copy is illegal, regardless of how little the RIAA cares about it.
There's no backtracking from me. Copyright infringement is by colloquial definition 'theft'.Coming from the person who tried to argue that it should be considered theft for pages and pages, then backtracked and said that it was just your definition of theft, I'll give that as much merit as I feel it deserves.
I figured.To be fair, they didn't edit the book, but deleted illegal copies.
That post explains jack .However, publishers of books can edit them after users have them. While I'm still looking for an official link, this post explains the process:
http://207-171-168-158.amazon.com/kd...essageID=75820
So the ability exists. In any way, it's less "yours" than if you had a hard copy, wouldn't you agree?
Try this link:
http://www.ehow.com/how_6522046_beco...le-author.html
From what I can tell, once you hit that "publish" button, it's a done deal. No editing.
What I would assume the proper way to do it is to take your original content, edit it, and publish it again as a 2nd edition, just like a college text book.
No. The rest of your post regarding limiting the "right to read" is a huge stretch.Wait, you're saying you think it's a "huge stretch" that in 50 years, most of the content that people read/listen to will be stored in a central location? Really?
I asked who are the people debating this. There is no debate here.http://blog.fatdrop.co.uk/who-reigns...cup-for-labels
But I guess this is already decided, and only being argued over by certain posters who want to dload movies for free
It's only one blogger asking if what Amazon is doing with the cloud drive service can be seen as an illegal public performance.
Since Google has fired up their cloud service as well, I give his and your pondering over the issue little merit.
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