Analysis - Discussion: The intellectual property war

[HEXUS]

The breakdown of traditional copyright boundaries has far-reaching implications, give us your take.

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[Lucio]

I get quite upset by people who insist that they have a "right" to get something for free but at the same time, many of the steps being taken to enforce copyright are ignoring one key fact. They've already been paid in many of the cases and shouldn't have a right to ask for more money once their product has been sold.

For example, radio stations pay music companies for their music, what does it matter if a company is playing the radio to people? Even if a company has setup a store where people can come and pay to listen to the radio in a comfortable environment, the music got paid for. To say that you have a "right" to dictate a product that has already been sold is crazy.

Imagine that Tesco's tried this on their food and tried to sue a resteraunt for buying their tomatoes to go into tomato puree, it makes no sense!

[TheBloodyNine]

Im alittle confused, you are effectivly trying to start a discussion about piracy however you do not allow any disscussion on the boards regarding the actual act of piracy. If there is to be a balanced discussion then both sides need to be addressed by people for and against both.

Im of the opinion that it really dosnt matter what legislation is brought in to protect intelectual proterty if you dont infringe upon it.

[Saracen]

On the contrary, we have never prevented discussion of the notion of piracy. It has happened many times, and as often as not, I take part.

What we don't allow is assisting people to pirate things.

If you want to discuss or debate piracy, go right ahead. But if you want to tell people how to do it, or where to get what you need to do it, we'll delete that kind of material. The reason is that there are a number of areas where that runs into the realm of a criminal act, and as a publisher, Hexus could be held liable for "publishing" such material.

Hexus has no problem at all with discussing issue of piracy, but don't want to end up with criminal convictions because people "publish" things that will aid it.

[Saracen]

I get quite upset by people who insist that they have a "right" to get something for free but at the same time, many of the steps being taken to enforce copyright are ignoring one key fact. They've already been paid in many of the cases and shouldn't have a right to ask for more money once their product has been sold.

For example, radio stations pay music companies for their music, what does it matter if a company is playing the radio to people? Even if a company has setup a store where people can come and pay to listen to the radio in a comfortable environment, the music got paid for. To say that you have a "right" to dictate a product that has already been sold is crazy.

Imagine that Tesco's tried this on their food and tried to sue a resteraunt for buying their tomatoes to go into tomato puree, it makes no sense!

I think you're missing the point. It isn't whether someone has been paid, but what they were paid FOR.

For example - I write an article, and sell it to the Daily Telegraph to publish, and the rights they've bought are "First British Serial Rights". That gives them, basically, "first" rights, but in Britain only. It does not give them the rights to republish, and it does not give them the rights to publish in a journal in the USA,OR France, or Australia, etc. Nor does it give them the right to include the material on a CD database that they sell.

If they wanted the rights to include, for instance, the USA, they'd pay a higher price for those rights. Why? Because, as the creator, I have the right to exploit any rights that I haven't licenced away, including publishing in the USA. And if someone that doesn't have that right published anyway, they preclude me from benefiting from the fruits of my Labours by selling "first" rights to a US publication.

That's the principle being used in the case of radio rights .... though some cases do seem a little extreme.

The same argument could be made about a book. Just because you've bought a copy of, oh I don't know, Harry Potter or the Da Vinci code, doesn't mean you have the right to type the text into your computer and either uploads it to your website or to print and sell copies. You don't even have the right to write tour own Harry Potter story if it uses the Harry Potter characters or world. Why? Because the author (or copyright owner) owns the right to control the exploitation of their creation, and the "creation" is not just the actual stories but the concept and world. If 1000 other people were writing Harry Potter stories, it'd quite possibly kill off much of JKRs potential market for new books.

As I say, when you buy rights, you buy specific rights, and if you wanted other rights, it would very likely cost you more because it affects the way the owner can otherwise use those rights.

[alsenior]

I think what the music industry needs to stop viewing piracy and a problem but as an opportunity. It also need to stop treating all of it's customers as thieves. a number of studies have shown that piracy in alot of cases have increased the sales of records [1] and pirates tend to be bigger music fans . and that people who tend to download in the absence of piracy would not have bought the record in the first place [2]. Rather the music industry needs to change its business model. piracy is here to stay and is not going to go away.


[1] http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-898813.html
[2] http://news.cnet.com/2100-1027_3-5181562.html

I'll write more later but i have to go now

[MSIC]

I have no knowledge of whether or not pirating things increases the sales of the same things, or otherwise. "80% of stats" ...etc
I suspect that for every example of one side of the picture, you can find a case where the opposite is true.

For me there are some far greater underlying principles that are worth examining.

Firstly, is it acceptable to charge for 'an experience' rather than a material product?
I am well aware that in this day and age, a great many 'products' are all about the experience rather than a thing and that many business models exist on this idea, and have done for a long time.
But does that make it right?
Well for me the answer is yes.
If i make, say, a clay pot and paint it, and sell that pot at a market for £5, well that is alright.
But i think if i have an expertise in say, plumming, and someone wants me to go and fix their leaking sinks, i should have the right to charge for my ability to give them something that they dont have themselves (the knowledge / skill to fix the job in this case).

The second thing is regarding a concept (and one that i wonder if it would make a good story or film!).
We know that companies like to let us pay money for a single experience (renting a DVD that you watch before returning, listening to a song on the radio, watching a film at the cinema) and also having a model of paying for ownership / ability to re-watch at our discretion (buying a CD or DVD), and that if possible they'd like us to do both!
If it were technologically feasible (and medically safe), would they develop a third model of allowing people to experience something once and then wiping their memories of it afterwards? The idea of this is to give someone their emotional satisfaction of the product, but allows the companies to be able to re-sell and re-sell, many times over.
For me, this is about intelectual property but moreover about a persons ability or will to recall something in their memory. I've often heard people refering to re-watching a film as refreshing their memory of it, rather than that being a new experience.

If we pay to watch a film at the cinema, and then some weeks later watch a pirated copy, is this an 'aid to the memory' or is it a new experience?
If it is an aid to memory, what about people who have very good memories in the first place and simply recall what they watched - are they breaking intellectual property rights because of good memory?
What about people who have Altzheimers etc - should they be allowed to experience things like the cinema for free, because they won't remember?
And what about if one person watches a film, and then described that film in detail to another person - should the film owners have been consulted first?

[Saracen]

I think the memory/experience thing is something of a hypothetical irrelevance. Companies can't wipe our memories, so it isn't worth arguing about what would happen if they could, and not does copyright law affect either or varying ability to remember a experience, or our ability to describe it.

For that matter, I'm not aware that it's illegal to watch a pirate movie, though depending on circumstances, it might be to own that copy, or to show it to others and it certainly would be to have copied it in the first place.

But, and I didn't have any involvement in writing this article or even know it was being written, as I understand it, it's an attempt to have a serious discussion about the future of copyright (and other IP rights).

And on that point, my view is that there needs to be a balance.

Copyright is NOT just about big companies (like record companies or film studios) protecting their right to 'exploit' consumers. It's also about people like me that relying on copyright protection (often, I might add, protection against me being exploited by those big companies, so it cuts both ways).

Any fair system of IP rights needs to be able to protect rights owners and their ability to use their rights to make a return. If you don't do that, if piracy has free reign, much of the material that might otherwise be created won't be because it won't be worth doing.

On the other hand, technology has evolved so that consumers have technological capabilities that they didn't have when much of IP law was written, and it needs to catch up, both with what we, the consumer, can do and what is reasonable to allow us to do.

After all, when I got my first CD burner, the hardware was £3000, the software to control it was another £1000+, and disks were £15 each. Yes, EACH. That type of cost acted as a fairly natural limit on CD copying, I can tell you.

But now, we can get a DVD burner for about £15, discs are a matter of pence each and we have MP3 players, car systems, and so on, to worry about.

Personally, I feel that when a consumer buys, for example, a music CD, that ought to give them the right to use the music on that CD however they wish, provided that use is personal.

That means, having bought the CD, I ought to be able to :-

• rip it to my MP3 player because I don't want to carry a bunch of CDs around with me.
  
  
• put it on the car player
  
  
• rip it to a media server for use in my home.
  
  
• copy the CD for a backup.

As I see it, all the above uses are reasonable, personal "fair use" issues that I have a reasonable expectation of being able to do when I buy the CD. Right now, in the UK, you don't have the right to do any of the above, even if, from a practical perspective, most people will be doing some of these and a fair few probably all of them.

The law needs to be updated to reflect advances in both technological capability and reasonable consumer expectation and usage. But the rights of the creators and/or copyright owners also need to be guarded.

What we need is a sensible, fair, pragmatic and practical up-to-date law that strikes a fair balance. The problem is, getting agreement on what "fair" means.

[TheBloodyNine]

I think the memory/experience thing is something of a hypothetical irrelevance. Companies can't wipe our memories, so it isn't worth arguing about what would happen if they could, and not does copyright law affect either or varying ability to remember a experience, or our ability to describe it.

For that matter, I'm not aware that it's illegal to watch a pirate movie, though depending on circumstances, it might be to own that copy, or to show it to others and it certainly would be to have copied it in the first place.

But, and I didn't have any involvement in writing this article or even know it was being written, as I understand it, it's an attempt to have a serious discussion about the future of copyright (and other IP rights).

And on that point, my view is that there needs to be a balance.

Copyright is NOT just about big companies (like record companies or film studios) protecting their right to 'exploit' consumers. It's also about people like me that relying on copyright protection (often, I might add, protection against me being exploited by those big companies, so it cuts both ways).

Any fair system of IP rights needs to be able to protect rights owners and their ability to use their rights to make a return. If you don't do that, if piracy has free reign, much of the material that might otherwise be created won't be because it won't be worth doing.

On the other hand, technology has evolved so that consumers have technological capabilities that they didn't have when much of IP law was written, and it needs to catch up, both with what we, the consumer, can do and what is reasonable to allow us to do.

After all, when I got my first CD burner, the hardware was £3000, the software to control it was another £1000+, and disks were £15 each. Yes, EACH. That type of cost acted as a fairly natural limit on CD copying, I can tell you.

But now, we can get a DVD burner for about £15, discs are a matter of pence each and we have MP3 players, car systems, and so on, to worry about.

Personally, I feel that when a consumer buys, for example, a music CD, that ought to give them the right to use the music on that CD however they wish, provided that use is personal.

That means, having bought the CD, I ought to be able to :-

• rip it to my MP3 player because I don't want to carry a bunch of CDs around with me.
  
  
• put it on the car player
  
  
• rip it to a media server for use in my home.
  
  
• copy the CD for a backup.

As I see it, all the above uses are reasonable, personal "fair use" issues that I have a reasonable expectation of being able to do when I buy the CD. Right now, in the UK, you don't have the right to do any of the above, even if, from a practical perspective, most people will be doing some of these and a fair few probably all of them.

The law needs to be updated to reflect advances in both technological capability and reasonable consumer expectation and usage. But the rights of the creators and/or copyright owners also need to be guarded.

What we need is a sensible, fair, pragmatic and practical up-to-date law that strikes a fair balance. The problem is, getting agreement on what "fair" means.

Thats the wonderfully confusing thing about copyright protection in the UK, there is no "fair usage" policy. So the way the music industies want to hammer ISP's that dont help catch pirates shouldnt they also want to punish Apple for selling iPods? After all buy selling iPods Apple are activly incouraging people to infringe on the UK's out dated copy right laws.

Ive said it before I download a lot of music, however I buy just as much, i download stuff I never would have bought in my life and if its good i go and buy it if its not no one has lost out because the record company would never have got my money any way. Perfect example I heard Bloc Party's single the other day quite liked it. went and downloaded more, mainly because a good single dosnt mean a good band, i liked them too, I now own all thier albums bought and paid for with my own money. And no I wouldnt have bought them off the back of one song ive done it before many times and ended up out of pocket.

I know its still illegal but its not unethical, well from my point of view any ways.

[Stravagantismo]

Re "no fair usage policy" in the UK, the following is a useful extract from Out-Law.com on the subject of AP's invocation of the DMCA against the Drudge Retort:

In the UK copyright law has a similar set of exclusions to the US's, which are called fair dealing exceptions. Intellectual property law expert Iain Connor said that the use of the material would be unlikely to be against the law in the UK.

"I don't think it would be an infringement in the UK, because in Section 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 there is a defence of fair dealing in work for the purpose of criticism or review or news reporting," said Connor. "You can use the work of another provided it is accompanied by sufficient acknowledgement, and as long as you're not breaking an exclusive before the person who owns the exclusive has had the opportunity to tell the story, which is not the case here."

"In order for there to be an infringement the person has to take a substantial part of the work, but that is dictated by the quality of what is taken, not the amount," he said. "But once the defence of fair dealing is applicable, it doesn't matter how much is taken."

[TheBloodyNine]

Re "no fair usage policy" in the UK, the following is a useful extract from Out-Law.com on the subject of AP's invocation of the DMCA against the Drudge Retort:

In the UK copyright law has a similar set of exclusions to the US's, which are called fair dealing exceptions. Intellectual property law expert Iain Connor said that the use of the material would be unlikely to be against the law in the UK.

"I don't think it would be an infringement in the UK, because in Section 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 there is a defence of fair dealing in work for the purpose of criticism or review or news reporting," said Connor. "You can use the work of another provided it is accompanied by sufficient acknowledgement, and as long as you're not breaking an exclusive before the person who owns the exclusive has had the opportunity to tell the story, which is not the case here."

"In order for there to be an infringement the person has to take a substantial part of the work, but that is dictated by the quality of what is taken, not the amount," he said. "But once the defence of fair dealing is applicable, it doesn't matter how much is taken."

While the chances of being fined under the current legislation is slim it is still possible.

As taken from http://www.ippr.org.uk/pressreleases/?id=2404

ippr says that the forthcoming review of Intellectual Property, set up by Chancellor Gordon Brown and chaired by Andrew Gowers, should update the 300-year-old copyright laws to take account of the changes in the way people want to listen to music, watch films and read books.

ippr recommends a legal ‘private right to copy’ that would allow people to make copies of CDs, or DVDs for personal us. The report says a new right would legalise the actions of millions of Britons without any significant harm to the copyright holders.

However at this time it has not been acted upon

The information given buy the UK Copyright Service on the matter of acceptable actions is below

Acts that are allowed
Fair dealing is a term used to describe acts which are permitted to a certain degree without infringing the work, these acts are:

Private and research study purposes.
Performance, copies or lending for educational purposes.
Criticism and news reporting.
Incidental inclusion.
Copies and lending by librarians.
Acts for the purposes of royal commissions, statutory enquiries, judicial proceedings and parliamentary purposes.
Recording of broadcasts for the purposes of listening to or viewing at a more convenient time, this is known as time shifting.
Producing a back up copy for personal use of a computer program.
Playing sound recording for a non profit making organisation, club or society.
(Profit making organisations and individuals should obtain a license from the Performing Rights Society.)

The only back ups currently considered acceptable are that of computer software.

[badass]

The thing about copyright is that its purpose was never to protect work or ideas of those that come up with them.
The purpose was simply to benefit society by encouraging the exchange of information, ideas etc. There was a concern that fear of being copied stopped a lot of innovation that would be beneficial to the country as a whole.
People and companies that put time, effort and money into IP deserve to control how it's uses exclusively as a benefit of their investment, however they do not deserve that indefinately. Sometimes the greater good is more important. There is no need for an artist to own copyright on their work for 50 years as reducing it would not stem the flow of this work. In fact even if they only owned it for 10 years, do you think that would have any effect on the availibility? If not, there is no need for the 50 years.
Drug companies get to protect their patents for 12 years, after that anyone can copy them. Why is anything else any different?
Drug companies spend billions developing their IP and they only get it for 12 years. hardly seems fair does it?

[Saracen]

The thing about copyright is that its purpose was never to protect work or ideas of those that come up with them.
The purpose was simply to benefit society by encouraging the exchange of information, ideas etc. There was a concern that fear of being copied stopped a lot of innovation that would be beneficial to the country as a whole.

I don't agree.

It depends rather on how you look at it, but what is pretty much universally regarded (on Earth, anyway ) as the first copyright law was the Statute of Anne in 1709. Its purpose was to break the previous monopoly, enjoyed by printers, handing the rights to exploit work back to it's creators, who previously had been unable even to self-publish due to the that right of monopoly held by printers.

We can argue back and forth if the objective was to give rights to authors, or to protect and encourage public access by giving rights of protection to authors, thereby giving them the incentive to generate work .... or at the very least, to remove or reduce the disincentive caused by giving that right to others.

Whatever the ethical intent (and it's hard to prove either way), copyright law from that date to this, is about giving protection of the work created to those creating it (or in the case of employees, to the employers who are paying for it to be created).

There's always been a fear (and, in my view, quite rightly) that a lack of some form of copyright protection would stifle creativeness, and at the very least to a small extent, I can say for a stone-cold fact that it is the case. Due to being a writer, I hold copyright (to one extent or another) on several thousand works, and without that protection, I could not have made the business I have from it, so would have been doing something else, at least, in part.

And I can't be the only one. I'm not saying there'd be no creativity, because some people would no doubt do it for love of art, or whatever. But most of us aren't dilettantes and have to eat. If I couldn't make a living from writing, I've have to make it from something else, and as a result, much or all of that writing would not have happened.

Copyright law provides a framework of protection, ensuring that I can do what I do, and it ensures it for a LOT of other people, too.

What was the objective of the law that achieves that? Was it to protect my right to be rewarded for my work, or was it to ensure the right of the general public to 'enjoy' the fruits of my labours? Okay, I'm no Shakespeare or Beethoven, but at least some people 'enjoy' my labours, because if they didn't, publishers would be prepared to pay me for that work.

I think that protecting the rights of creators, and seeking to ensure wide publication of materials, are essentially the same thing ... they provide a balance which sets up an environment where both creativity and publication can flourish, because the two are inseparable. But it has to be a balance.

[TheBloodyNine]

The thing about copyright is that its purpose was never to protect work or ideas of those that come up with them.
The purpose was simply to benefit society by encouraging the exchange of information, ideas etc. There was a concern that fear of being copied stopped a lot of innovation that would be beneficial to the country as a whole.
People and companies that put time, effort and money into IP deserve to control how it's uses exclusively as a benefit of their investment, however they do not deserve that indefinately. Sometimes the greater good is more important. There is no need for an artist to own copyright on their work for 50 years as reducing it would not stem the flow of this work. In fact even if they only owned it for 10 years, do you think that would have any effect on the availibility? If not, there is no need for the 50 years.
Drug companies get to protect their patents for 12 years, after that anyone can copy them. Why is anything else any different?
Drug companies spend billions developing their IP and they only get it for 12 years. hardly seems fair does it?

I disagree, the reason why drug companies "only" get 12 years copyright is for the good of everyone, say GSK invented a cure for all cancers, no side effects nothing, they can the sell said cure for as much as they want, and they would. Most people would be unable to afford the drug but as it stands they get 12 years to recoup any R&D costs plus make poo loads of profit then in 12 years every drug company in the world can churn out pills for the masses.

Of cause there is the argument that if the inventing company had 50 year patents that initial costs to the end customer would be lower as they would have longer to recoup costs, but in the case of a cancer cure especially, can you see a global corporation not milking it for as much as they can?