Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Oops, you missed some things!

Author:William Crim
Posted:9/2/2000; 7:36:44 PM
Topic:The Lie of "IP"
Msg #:20747 (In response to 20739)
Prev/Next:20746 / 20748

I think I see where we aren't meeting up.

I don't think current IP laws are workable, not because they are artificial monopolies(yadda yadda yadda). I don't like the current laws because they classify people as criminals for doing very simple, very basic things. Like downloading music, movies, or software. These are very easy to do, and very easy to do unintentionally.

Some examples...

Listening to an MP3 radio station is something a reasonable person on the Internet would do, to them it is the same thing as listening to the radio. However in a legal sense, it is copyright infringement through and through, since the MP3s are being downloaded. The MP3 radio station MIGHT be paying royalies, but they probably are actually just a kid in his basement.

The Gameboy emulator for example. You can get a gameboy emulator for a PalmPilot. I can EASILY see a reasonable person downloading it so they can play their games on their Palm Pilot. However, when presented with a list of ROMs to download(since you can't use the cartrige), a reasonable person might not distinguish between "the ROMs I own in another form" and "the ROMs I never owned, but want to try."

"Stealing" in meatspace leaves traces. You were seen in the vicinity. Your finger prints are on the door. The item you stole is missing. etc. However "stealing" in an electronic world is easy(in some cases accidental or unintentional) because it leaves little to no trace, and doesn't affect the original. However both are illegal.

The security aspect of "protecting" IP is a bogus one. In an electronic world only ONE person, ANYWHERE in the world, needs to make music or a movie availible in a non-protected form and distribute it.

I am not hung up on the scarcity issue. It is irrelevant to your argument and mine because you are talking about the production of IP. But the money in IP(as it stands today) is in the distribution of it, not the creation. If the $$$ change hands at the point of creation(or at least before distribution happens) then everything is just dandy.

Laws where 20 million people( and growing rapidly) can break them literally hundreds of times a day with little to no thought or activity, are inherantly bad. Unenforcable laws lead to arbitrary enforcement.

Police: "Joshua, we think your friend killed a man, we will give you a deal if you turn him in!"

Josh: "He wasn't anywhere near the scene Officer! I have nothing to say."

Police: "Likely story. Normally we'd send you on your way, but luckily we used a disk given to us by Time Warner/AOL with some MIT audio software on it. We scanned your hard drive and found 235 MP3s of copyrighted songs, unless you produce all the CDs/tapes/records these came from, you will go to prison for a long time. That is, unless you turn your friend in."

Josh: "Golly I wish I had listened to that guy in the discussion group and fought to overturn these oppressive IP laws that classify us all as criminals!"

:-)

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It might be trivial to design a system to distribute AND charge for IP, but it is even easier to design a system to distribute and NOT charge for IP. Right now, copyright infringement takes some work and knowhow. But in the near future, as more get online, it will become easier.

Right now, on the web, a person can download copyrighted text, images, and sound clips all the time. Hardly ANY of them say "you can download me for free" you just assume it. Why is it such a stretch for people to assume that the video clip and music they downloaded are any different? Limp Bizkit says they don't care if we swap their MP3s, but Metallica says I have to pay. Do you feel that reasonable people have to check the legal history of every graphic on the web? Why is it different for a song? For Playboy's pictures of naked women? For Movies? For text? For software?

--

I perform the same action(downloading), on two seemingly similar objects(files). One file(Paula.mp3) is my cousin singing. The other(PaulaC.mp3) is a Paula Cole song ripped from a CD by a guy in Iowa). By downloading PaulaC.mp3, I perform an illegal act with identical ease as I perform a legal act by downloading Paula.mp3. All unknowingly.

Which solution is more reasonable, train every internet user on identifying copyright material and all the instances of infringement? Or is the solution to not make that action illegal?(By declaring it fair use for instance)



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