Leaks show U.S. swayed Canada on copyright bill

[ToadBrother]

After market tires? What if the car manufacturer has chosen a weird rim/axle size? IOW, you own the car and are free to change tires but you must follow the dictates of the original seller.

No you don't. You have to follow the laws in the jurisdiction you live in. The most the seller could do is state the warranty is voided.

[bush_cheney2004]

I agree, but not really.

In terms of sound/music, we are at close to perfection at 192kb. The human ear cannot tell the difference between live, and the mp3 file.

Not really....even lossless codecs leave a little behind. MP3's at 192kHz are good and tolerable for portable convenience, but still sound like crap compared to an original. But then we get back to cheap folks trying to cram as much music as they can into limited strorage space and corresponding horrendous sampling rates.

In terms of video, we are close to perfection at 1080i and 60Hz. The human eye cannot tell the difference between live, and the bluray disc.

No, but a good engineer or DoD spook can. Artifacts abound...

BC2004, the digital copy now is close to the original. It is imperceptible to the eye/ear of most people. Depending on your age, you are seeing/hearing something as good as your ears/eyes will ever see. Mona Lisa in the Louvre? At home on the big screen, you are standing in front of it - as if you were there.

I am not most people....and go back to the days of dbx / 3bx encoding / expansion for "true" dynamic range. I was trained by the US Navy to listen with my eyes on sonar kit that still surpasses anything at the consumer or professional level.

"Is it live or is it Memorex" remains as cheesy today as it was 25 years ago. I wish Ella hadn't done those spots.

[August1991]

Within the first 24 to 30 months of the new car being bought?.....Yes !

And you paid for this "ownership right" in the original purchase when you bought the 5 year guarantee.

In the case of iTunes, I usually get a guarantee lasting as long as I own the registered computer/iPod.

[bush_cheney2004]

Macrovision was basically a watermarking technique. You could overcome it by filtering the signal. The techniques being applied against analog signals now are more akin to encryption, so basically, apart from hardware modding, it means you have to use analog equipment with your device that recognizes the protocol. Believe me, the industry very much wants to kill even lower quality analog reproductions.

Macrovision on analog video tapes stopped 95% of pirates, and that was good enough. Tapes were much more expensive to own outright and there was a huge market in pirated porn tapes compared to Bambi.

Oh, and with the effort put into HDMI and other digital interfaces, I doubt you'll see much in the way of analog interfaces on most consumer-grade equipment in a decade or so.

True, but they can't recall the installed base of millions that do have composite or component video outputs. When all else fails, some clowns will just shoot the video live off their monitor...there are many examples on YouTube.

PS. Thinking of Macrovision, I would assume as it is a form of locking, using one of those mail-order filters would probably be breaking the law.

Reproducing such material is breaking the law regardless of Macrovision (in the US). The FBI warning is now legendary for the severity of fine/prison time if convicted.

[TimG]

In the case of iTunes, I usually get a guarantee lasting as long as I own the registered computer/iPod.

You touched on a important issue here. We are moving into a world where access to copyright protected works will be via a password protected account on some website. This gives everyone all of the "format shifting" they could desire. Such systems are already well established for PC based games and music. Books and movies will come in the future.

[ToadBrother]

You touched on a important issue here. We are moving into a world where access to copyright protected works will be via a password protected account on some website. This gives everyone all of the "format shifting" they could desire. Such systems are already well established for PC based games and music. Books and movies will come in the future.

The problem being that someone will inevitably seed it on the torrent network.

[GostHacked]

Anybody can buy a TASCAM or Sony digital recorder and defeat DRM with an analog dub to digital format. It's not rocket science.

This will help, play file, record in Audacity, rip to MP3 .. done. That will save you a few steps.

[TimG]

The problem being that someone will inevitably seed it on the torrent network.

Not if the locally stored files require decryption keys that must be acquired by to logging into the website.

[August1991]

No, but a good engineer or DoD spook can. Artifacts abound...

In video maybe still. But not in audio.

In 2011, audio files are "small" and easy to record/copy. The issue in audio is not the record, but the recording.

[bush_cheney2004]

In video maybe still. But not in audio.

In 2011, audio files are "small" and easy to record/copy. The issue in audio is not the record, but the recording.

Audio is certainly much better, but still lacks several key if subjective qualities regardless of the recording medium, if only because of the way human hearing and sensory perception works. A recording is inherently flawed, but those flaws are magnified by cheap/fast/small solutions. You can't get that phat sound out of an mp3 player.

[August1991]

The problem being that someone will inevitably seed it on the torrent network.

So what?

----

In my view, we should define ownership rights so that they inspire creation.

IMV, the world has too few Leonardos, and too few Mona Lisas.

As John Lennon would say, Imagine a world where ordinary blokes from Liverpool could become rich and famous and live with a Japanese groupie in Manhattan.

We need more Love.

[Tilter]

Let's get one thing straight. The US didn't sway Canada on anything. The US swayed Harper's government, but the US was swayed by the corporate elite. If anyone doesn't think that there's a one world corporatocracy yet, they're out of their damn minds.

Let's see---- the artist spend his/her skill on creating a song, a book, a dvd, a whatever and you seem think he/she is being an ass for not letting everyone in the world copy & use it for free.I'll bet you're

one of Pacific Mall's favorite people & regularly buy the 2.00 DVDs of the new movies that someone has sneaked out of the theatre the first dayu it was shown in Asia. You seem like a cheap bastard that never had a proper last name & figure that, because you weren't copyrighted with a real last name nothing should be.

[ToadBrother]

Let's see---- the artist spend his/her skill on creating a song, a book, a dvd, a whatever and you seem think he/she is being an ass for not letting everyone in the world copy & use it for free.I'll bet you're

one of Pacific Mall's favorite people & regularly buy the 2.00 DVDs of the new movies that someone has sneaked out of the theatre the first dayu it was shown in Asia. You seem like a cheap bastard that never had a proper last name & figure that, because you weren't copyrighted with a real last name nothing should be.

Few enough would debate it, but with the trend towards ever-longer copyrights, we're risking seeing less material enter the public domain, not to mention creating bizarre situations with orphaned works. Copyright was always intended to be of a limited duration, long enough for a creator to profit from his or her creation (and thus encourage creation), but eventually to become freely available.

[bush_cheney2004]

Few enough would debate it, but with the trend towards ever-longer copyrights, we're risking seeing less material enter the public domain, not to mention creating bizarre situations with orphaned works. Copyright was always intended to be of a limited duration, long enough for a creator to profit from his or her creation (and thus encourage creation), but eventually to become freely available.

Not if the copyright is renewed....I see no reason why people have such an expectation for free intellectual property. I guess some people are just poor/cheep!

[August1991]

Let's see---- the artist spend his/her skill on creating a song, a book, a dvd, a whatever and you seem think he/she is being an ass for not letting everyone in the world copy & use it for free.

Artist? Let me repeat that: Artist?

IMV, intellectual property (copyright) should encourage/create originality. That's all.

If you "create" nonsense, you deserve nothing. You have no basis to claim later the creation of another.

---

IMV, copyright law is misplaced. It should be closer to patent law. IOW, we in the western/civilized world should better define "property rights". If you create/find something, what do you own?

If you find something, write a new song - how will your discovery encourage other people to seek too? To me, this is the key question.

Edited October 5, 2011 by August1991

[BubberMiley]

In my view, we should define ownership rights so that they inspire creation.

I hate it when I agree with you because it makes me feel I must not be thinking things through.

[Smallc]

I hate it when I agree with you because it makes me feel I must not be thinking things through.

[August1991]

I hate it when I agree with you because it makes me feel I must not be thinking things through.

It's a "radical idea" that I had a few years ago: In a civilized society, we don't define property to protect the wealthy. We do it to create incentives.

Consider an inheritance, or a trust fund kid. What could be more unfair/unjust? For doing nothing at all, Paris Hilton inherits millions and never has to work ever. Surely, the State should impose an Estate Tax and prevent partially such injustice.

Yet, if the State confiscates an individual's wealth at death, what incentive does anyone have to work, save, have and raise children?

IMV, the same logic applies to artistic creation. We should define ownership just enough (but not more) so that it inspires creation.

Copyright at 50 years seems about right to me. Mickey Mouse should be in the public domain, like Madame Bovary.

=========

BTW, I was not the first to arrive at the "radical idea".

[ToadBrother]

Copyright at 50 years seems about right to me. Mickey Mouse should be in the public domain, like Madame Bovary.

Actually, Mickey Mouse is trademarked, which is of unlimited duration. But I do agree on the point that Disney, as well as the other large media companies, have bent US copyright far from its intentions, and have used that clout with its trading partners.

Of course, copyright has long been a complex international issue. Mark Twain had to go to the UK to try to sort out what was being done with his books across the Atlantic, and JRR Tolkien had to put down finishing his greatest masterpiece to put together a second edition of The Lord of the Rings because Ace Books in the US had been churning out an unauthorized edition without paying him.

The original idea of limited copyright was to give an artists a limited period of absolute control over his work, but also, eventually, to see those works enter the public domain, to recognize that ultimately, culture is greatly benefited by the free/near-free exchange of such works.

Edited October 7, 2011 by ToadBrother

[bush_cheney2004]

...The original idea of limited copyright was to give an artists a limited period of absolute control over his work, but also, eventually, to see those works enter the public domain, to recognize that ultimately, culture is greatly benefited by the free/near-free exchange of such works.

Not in the US, where copyright law has actually extended protections for intellectual property to the life of the author plus 50 years, then 70 years, then even longer (Sonny Bono Act). I am not aware of any successful US legislative effort that would reverse this trend in favor of "culture" being in the public domain sooner. Individual property rights trump any such consideration.

[cybercoma]

The Disney Effect... because they haven't made enough money on Mickey yet.

[bush_cheney2004]

The Disney Effect... because they haven't made enough money on Mickey yet.

Correct, especially if somebody else just wants to make money as well. That's what "fair use" protocols are for, including educational institutions. Intellectual property arbitrarily passing into the public domain is hard to justify given other property rights.

[ToadBrother]

Not in the US, where copyright law has actually extended protections for intellectual property to the life of the author plus 50 years, then 70 years, then even longer (Sonny Bono Act). I am not aware of any successful US legislative effort that would reverse this trend in favor of "culture" being in the public domain sooner. Individual property rights trump any such consideration.

Well, the first half of your statement is factually true. The second half is a philosophical justification.

Unless you think Homer's descendants should file notice that Amazon better stop selling the Illiad. Clearly even the US, at one point, did not think copyright should extend, via mechanisms, for decades past an author's death, and nothing in the constitution forbids Congress to reduce those terms.

So let's not confuse ideological notions and factual statements.

[ToadBrother]

Correct, especially if somebody else just wants to make money as well. That's what "fair use" protocols are for, including educational institutions. Intellectual property arbitrarily passing into the public domain is hard to justify given other property rights.

It is? How odd. So are you arguing that a work should remain the exclusive right of the creator and his heirs in perpetuity? Can you imagine what culture would look like if William Shakespeare or John Locke's descendants could force book stores to burn unauthorized copies?

At any rate, that certainly wasn't the intent even in the United States. What you're invoking is a very modern notion of copyright, and one that most certainly would not have been familiar to the Founding Fathers.

Edited October 7, 2011 by ToadBrother

[bush_cheney2004]

Unless you think Homer's descendants should file notice that Amazon better stop selling the Illiad. Clearly even the US, at one point, did not think copyright should extend, via mechanisms, for decades past an author's death, and nothing in the constitution forbids Congress to reduce those terms.

I think you need to review the actual history of progressively longer duration copyright protections in the US, in response to longer terms for Europe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

So let's not confuse ideological notions and factual statements.

I didn't.