In this musing I look (poorly) at how profit is derived from copyright distribution, I am ignoring most of the set in stone and vague rules and laws as I am trying to get to the core of the matter and not get distracted by superfluous things. --------------------------------------- Distribution methods. Starting with legal distribution you have the publisher selling to the retailer, web store, or end user via their website. You also have licensed deals where revenue is made from advertisement or direct broadcasting over the air or the internet. There are also books and magazines. The next area is the grayer one, used sale while first sale doctrine allows the resale of copyrighted goods without paying the copyright owner. In the modern age why a used copyrighted item should be treated differently than a website that is trying to make a profit off ad revenue and donations? I did not mention direct sell in this area as that’s equitable to bootlegging. Next in the gray area is what I would like to call “distribution without intent” IE via donations and ads you try and keep the site going while freely sharing copyrighted and other goods. The blackest area is where flagrant disregard for copyright comes into play where items are reproduced physically and digitally and sold competing with the legal licensed copyright process. This is where I think it should be treated as a drug crime once you hit a certain monetary amount your property is taken, ect. --------------------------------------- Distribution rights. Now with this in mind let’s not forget that copyright grants the copyright owner exclusive rights to copying, distribution and profit obviously, first sale amends those rights to allow for legal, reasonable slights against the copyright owner. Fair use tries to do this as well but due to the vagueness in it, it’s easily circumvented and nullified lessening the rights of the consumer and public and it also threatens their freedoms via unintended consequences. Now how do we balance the rights of the copyright owner and the public, well first off you slot things into 3 categories licensed, protected, illicit. Licensed and illicit are rather simple you are either making a profit via the copyrighted goods under an agreement with the copyrighted owner or you are a criminal. Protected is basically distribution without attempting to make a profit period. This means one shall not attempt to make money from the process of distributing files or information that gains you copyrighted files from the site or links to and or from the site. Educational sites may be exempt but that needs decent standards to make it so the average joe cannot easily get the exemption. ---------------------------------------------------------- Profit distribution sharing Now let’s make the process of sharing profit easier as so everyone can enjoy the wealth of information and inspiration of the world’s media. First off if a site is found to be making unlicensed profit the copyright owner may request them to join their profit sharing network, basically a page view/click based ad system that is injected into the site and can track bandwidth and files. Now if you have a web advertiser that’s compatible with the profit sharing network they pay copy right owner via that if not the site owner dose. Donations can also be tracked and 15% of it taken for the copyright owner. If they do not request it then the site must drop all ads and donations, a 2nd violation of this means you have to audit your finances and show you are not making money from this site or their files, a 3rd violation it all gets sorted out in court . The site owner can counter a denied request if willing to file as a nonprofit and pay 5 times the page view, click and donation percentage amount (75% on donations). Basically you do monetary damage to the site until they go under, if the site really wants to try and make a profit off copyrighted items. Taxes and levy’s can also be invented to balance things more used sale on the retail level, digital storage devices(flash, harddrives, discs, ect) internet service providers will be hit with a simple 10% tax. The profit sharing network would be regulated under the regulatory board that manages the 10% media tax. ------------------------- In final I really do not mind infinite copyright IE copyright that’s longer than half the average lifespan of the populace as long as the populace has their rights and freedoms intact. But if they continue to focus on copies and distribution it will lead to fascist rules and laws to protect information from the populace…..
ALL copyright should end with the death of the creator.. who else really has any IP claim to the "product" ? .. Like patents it should be properly time limited.. say 25 years or the death of the creator.. forever is too long, and all these pushed extensions recently are just trying to keep that bloody cartoon mouse (who children do not identify with anyway as nothing has been produced with the damn thing in since our parents were children anyway) out of the public domain. As the average lifespan of a human is 75 years having copyright for any longer than that is stupid in the extreme because the only effect is to stifle creativity and innovation by crushing any "derivative" works or any quoting from any work. The way things are going it will soon be illegal to even mention the title of a film in a published review for reasons of "copyright infringement" let alone attempt to describe the plot in any way. Wait for people getting sued for whistling in the street.. it's coming. A full overhaul of the entire system is required.. it's obsolete and being manipulated by big business to kill competition and creativity in ways never intended originally. An offshoot issue is the recent Tiffany vs fleabay case (which Tiffany lost btw) claiming "trade mark infringement" .. sorry to tell you this Tiffany.. I OWN something of yours which I have bought.. I can sell it for any price I choose.. it's my property.. and by describing it as Tiffany (authentic) I am not stealing your name (it's your manufacture and had your name on it somewhere) or attempting to defraud or mislead anybody. You have no rights to try to dictate how I sell my property, or any terms (the truth) I use in my description of my goods for sale. Principle of first ownership.. the very thing the "copyright enforcers" are doing their best to take away from everybody. Read the notice in any paperback book.. "not to be sold, resold, lent or hired in any other cover or sleeve" .. basically.. do what you want with it as long as you don't change it's actual identity.. now where does an "owner" uploaded e-book stand then?.. as I see it as long as the covers are scanned as well no possible crime of any kind can have happened.. the added "electronic retrieval system" rubbish is an afterthought and not enforceable because as the owner of the physical book actually IS the owner they have obviously "authorised" it's duplication... The actual copyright notice says nothing about physical duplication, only concerns over the author and publisher of the work being recognised as such and being unchanged. Good topic Zip.. much appreciated. I love these legal discussions.
The problem is as I see it you,we,us will never get copyright overhauled, never the most you can do is amend it for the times. If fair use was expanded to ensure the free trade of information that dose not seek to gain a profit we the public will be protected from the bottom line dive of big business.
If fair use was expanded to ensure the free trade of information that dose not seek to gain a profit we the public will be protected from the bottom line dive of big business. Yeah, and if all cars ran on water, we could end our foreign oil dependance...but I don't see either scenario playing out. I am waiting for the point when people stop buying media, simply for the fear that the original media itself might be considered an illegal copy as soon as the maker releases a new version of that same media. My idea for media: A person buys a license for a given piece of media, be it an album, a movie, a book, a game, an application, etc...and it comes with a code that is like a digital stock certificate. These certificates can be bought and sold just like stocks, and a company like gamestop can setup a trading center for them, allowing people to sell eachother media licenses for a small portion of the sale price. The license gives rights to that product forever, and in all forms...so if you buy The Beatles's white album on a Vinyl, you can download it on MP3, burn it to a CD, and you can have access to the original release CD tracks as well as the remastered ones. This does not allow a user to get all versions of all of the songs...each performance of a song is considered a different work, and owning all of the studio albums used to makeup a live performance does not mean you own the live performance. The company that sold the stock originally is obligated to maintain fast servers with the product available to all owners, and failure to do so will put the product in the public domain until such time as the servers are setup...this prevents companies from "sitting" on a product that people want, but which they refuse to release. In the event that there is something that is outside of the owner's initial control (such as a bootleg recording of a concert), all rights to said media will belong to the performer(s). They may choose to sell it themselves or to offer it for free, or to do nothing, and allow others to offer it for free. In the event that all artists are dead, but for less than 25 years, then the rights to the performance belong to the surviving family(s). Some considerations are made for software licenses, on the basis that new features were not purchased with the original software. These new features should be available at a discounted rate, and purchasing them should replace the old license with a new one. A license for Nero 9 should work as a license for nero 1-8 if you prefer them to Nero 9. Also, bug fixes should not be charged for...no one should have to upgrade to Nero 9 just to fix a bug from nero 8 (or a bug from nero 4). These considerations apply to all forms of media (for instance, if an album is re-released with extra tracks, then the original license does not cover the new tracks...but the new tracks can be bought on their own, thus retrofitting the old license). Artists will hold the license until 25 years after the death of the last contributing memeber (unless they sell the license before hand, in which case the new owner of the license will hold it untill 25 years after the death of the last contributing member). This is to ensure that the contributing members keep getting money until they die, and their families can then sell the licenses to pay off their debts, funeral costs, lawsuits, etc. Also, it is the owner's right to do anything with said media, so long as they do not sell or give away anything they make from the media, and they do not sell or give away any copies of said media. If someone wants to rewrite software for their own use, they may. They may also modify media and distribute (or even sell) the modifications. They may not distribute any of the original code, unless they sell to people who own the original code license.
Again fair use amends copyright to the point we have freedoms of expression,speech and information. You not going to overhaul copyright itself in anyway shape or from but you can nudge it in a slightly different direction, IE you can not make attempt to make any money from a copyrighted item without a license. Reproductions or new versions are their own copyright not a extension there of. ========================== Oh I expanded on a train of thought in this I have thought about defining profit just not enough to write alot about. In most of my muses it means attempting to make or use money generated from the site(distrobusion) in question (a site or a site linking to the site or file) to sustain a service(shearing copy righted items) without a profit license. Basically you can not attempt to generate anything to share copyrighted items under fair use it must come out of pocket, now you could exempt IRL fund-raising drives and the site selling thier logo on items to pay for the site but the copyrighted good must be hosted out of the owner(s) own pocket they can not use anything associated with the site or sites linking to it. To expand on that ideal lets look at torrents they are somewhat protected right now because they are a file that links tot eh copyrighted item in question in a indirect manner, well in order to fall under fair use as I would like it to be. The torrent that links to the copyright item is the same as the site that indexes the torrent unless that site falls under a search engine exemption or to skip the this part complete if you have the link tot eh torrent file or the torrent on your site its the same as having the copyrighted item on your site thus if you are directly attempting to gain money via having having it or a link to it fair use can not protect you. There are probably 2 exemption status that may need to be put in order one is education and the other web information, web information meaning search and news sites. Just to have it worded as so these 2 classes of sites have a bit more protection than common blogs,posting,distribution. Speaking of blogs and pay sites if one develops a profit shearing view based network it would be rather easy to get your copyright owner hooks into it and enjoy a tiny tiny profit stream based on per clicks, it beats take downs and what not. In the end you make the act of distribution with a altiror(sp) profit motive nearly imposable without a license, and you make attempting to make profit the same as making a profit for the sake of fair use(meaning fir use can not protect you and the copy right owner can upgrade their assault on you) as I think its in fair uses best interest to not impose itself on profit and vice versa. There really needs needs to be regional boards of fair use to look at cases and uphold common sense...but I fear thats impossible for humans to do.... at best we can look at profit motive, because we are driven by profit if the legal copyright process has its profit protected by getting rid of unlicensed profit then the system is balanced enough to allow everyone to have their rights and enjoy the wealth of information we have.
Do you honestly think that you can make minor changes to any of these laws? The only way they are changing is if they get worse for the consumer. The governments of the world are never going to step up and protect the citizens that pay for said governments. The only way we are ever going to fix these laws is the same way we will fix the other awful laws and practices of our corporate-owned governments...and the method I speak of is a very bloody affair.
Do you think you can overhaul it without a revolution? Fair use needs to be made clear. 1a.Expanded fair use overrides the DMCA and any law new or old the circumvents the public's right to make and or operate a legal backup of the media they own. 2b.In order to be protected under the umbrella of expanded fair use, a link or chain of links(more than one link) or a file or a file to a chain of files is the same as the copyrighted item in question and unless exempted under strict educational and or informational guidelines may not be protected if anywhere in the operation of the site any money is gained from a source that is involved in the distribution of unlicensed copyrighted items, the owner(s) or backer(s) to the site shall be held to this same rule. 3c.As sated in 1a no law shall overdrive the public right to modding paraphernalia, software cracks or hacks, mod chips, ripping tools, format shifting tools and other utilities to modify or backup with. Software code, bios's, firmware,ect is however protected under the individual license or patent of the copyright and may not be sold without a license and if disturbed with sold goods it must be handled separately.
