1. Unless you believe artists should make money solely from performances and not from streamed music which I was sorta onboard with until streaming-music-as-a-service turned into a gigantic industry.
In the US, sound recordings used to be handled under state copyright law. That's a phrase which should give any lawyer younger than 60 an aneurysm, as there is no such thing today - sound recording rights were brought into federal law in the 1970s, and preemption[0][1] means that states can't extend copyright law at all anymore. However, the actual recordings weren't properly grandfathered into federal law until 2018 with the passage of the MMA[2], which includes concepts from the CLASSICS Act[3].
Under the MMA, pre-federal sound recordings get a new copyright term on a sliding scale, with the lowest term length being 3 years for recordings made before 1923. Since the MMA was passed in 2018, those new terms expire... this January.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_preemption
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/301
Assuming there is no current legal rights holder for this recording, I firmly believe that companies that falsely assert their rights should be held criminally liable for theft.
So at present: owner tags some content as owned by them, content is fingerprinted, YouTube does similarity-matching, content that is similar gets flagged for takedown until the uploader intervenes. It's certainly not fair to hold the content owner accountable for false-positives any more than it's fair to hold the uploader.
(Now, in cases where the uploader pushes the "This content is legit" button and the content owner responds with the "no it isn't" button, I'd be very much in favor of incentives changing so an error at that point on the part of the content owner gets them raked over the coals. But there's no real legal mechanism for that to happen right now. Remember, this entire process exists as an alternative to the content owner's legal option: to sue YouTube or to sue individual YouTube users. YouTube doesn't want that).
For example It's a Wonderful Life went into the public domain in 1974 when copyright registration was not renewed. After which it became popular on TV. But it went back under copyright when the USA signed the Berne Convention in 1989. And starting in 1993 Republic Pictures began collecting royalties from TV networks that showed it.
I'm curious, how did re-copyrighting impact the legal status of (possibly hypothetical) works derived from _It's a Wonderful Life_ during its in the public domain?
The system is meant to flag the vast majority of uses of other people's videos but glosses over any questions about whether such use is considered "fair use" per local law or whether the presumed owner of the video actually cares or has granted permission for the use.
It assumes anyone using a video that's not theirs is doing so in violation of copyright, and refuses to allow that video to be posted. It's automatic and often wrong, but Youtube don't care because it's keeping the parties that can have a significant effect on Youtube's business (and bottom line) happy - the large conglomerates, corporations, and industries that profit off of media world wide.
They want any valuable media to be producing income for them forever, with Youtube and other online providers strong armed into policing their unfair system.
Thus, the imbalances in the present copyright system (infinitely extending copyrights providing rent to corporations) is extended into Youtube's de facto monopoly on sharing user videos.
Youtube's automated takedown system steps on ordinary content creators daily, but Youtube (Google) doesn't care, because individual content creators can't cause them as much trouble as corporations.
So, it's working just fine if you keep that in mind.
Youtube and Google are monopolies that need to be broken up.
How did it becoming a huge money maker for people who already have way too much change your views?
There is a better way: setting up your own video hosting platform.
I think it is not that difficult or expensive these days, although I have not done it, to set up your own website which allows you to upload videos for your own purposes.
That's the only business model that makes sense. Once you record a song, it's trivially copied and distributed. The musicians remain scarce: there's only one of them.
This is like saying I shouldn't be able to sell widgets at a profit to cover the cost of construction my production line or for the effort spent to create the design.
Your work is valuable and you should be compensated for it. I just think that should somehow happen before you create the valuable data, not after.
Trying to sell copies of that data in a world where data is trivially copied and distributed worldwide just doesn't sound like a good idea to me. It was a good idea before computers and networks existed.
>> ownership of digital products
>There is no such thing. Data is just bits. Really big numbers. Asserting ownership over numbers is simply delusional.
I'm a musician working on an album at home at the moment. It's a bit odd to hear I'm delusional, or worse, "simply delusional", for thinking that the music I'm making will be in some sense mine! Maybe I should go back to painting, where I'm making an object at least, and maybe not so delusional in the eyes of the GP, not just numbers? Not sure.
p.s. I want to put "my" music on Bandcamp. Jazz and latin stuff mostly. The Australian music licensing org APRA/AMCOS informs me for 3 or more songs, I should pay them a flat fee of $300 per year to cover the licence fees, then more if I sell more than a few hundred. Seems like a lot, to put songs I performed online, but maybe I can just tell them no, that asserting ownership over numbers is simply delusional, there's this guy on Hacker News..
Hmm come to think of it, money in a bank is just numbers..
Scarcity of information is gone because information isn't tied to physical distribution anymore. Tomorrow's bits will be easier to copy than today's. Short of legislating away general purpose computers bits aren't ever going to get harder to copy. Staking your livelihood on a business model where bits get harder to copy is probably a bad business decision.
Will this mean the end of some types of for-profit artistic expressions? Yeah-- probably. If those types of expression are valuable to humanity creators will figure out how to get people to pay for them.
Will this be the end of all for-profit artistic expression? Not likely.
As per-copy-based business models dry up "intellectual property" creators will be forced to move to new business models or find other jobs. After awhile (maybe a generation or two) the new business models will seem as self-evidently "right" as those that came before.
The morality ascribed to old business models probably won't disappear until the people who grew up in earlier times die. (I am reminded of John Philip Sousa railing against sound recordings in a 1906 Congressional hearing). Hopefully the legal copyright regime will evolve as people coming of age under in a world of easy-to-copy bits take the reigns of power.
Alternatively I suppose we could end up in a dystopian "Right to Read"[0] world, with general purpose computers heavily regulated and old business models enforced by jack-booted thugs.
To expand on the morality point here:
In most areas, we recognize that we need to be careful limiting innovation for the sake of existing markets. For example, we're not trying to ban electric vehicles just because it makes it harder for gas companies to make a profit. The existence of DVDs and CDs lessening profits of movie theaters and concert halls is not a good argument to make the technology illegal. We didn't ban typewriters because they put the illuminated manuscript writers out of business. We do regularly get the government to interfere in some cases where a regulation or restriction clearly helps the market, but we try to be kind of careful about how we do it, and we view it through that lens: as an artificial restriction that is justified because of its social benefit.
However, with copyright it's really difficult to make people even understand that the market and human rights are being restricted in the first place -- it has that moral quality for a lot of people. Part of it is the name: "copyright" implies a right, but it is not a natural right. There is no inherent property/personal right to an idea, there's no way to derive a natural property right that is a restriction over what other people are allowed to talk about or build. It is an extremely modern idea to believe that inventing an idea implies that you own the idea itself, or that inventing a story means that the story can't be morally retold without your permission. So copyright isn't a "right" in the traditional sense, it is a government restriction on an innovation (easy copying), that helps prevent that innovation from disrupting the existing market too much or putting people out of business.
That's not to say copyright is bad or that we should just drop it tomorrow, but we should be looking at it through this lens; copyright is a subversion of natural market forces and a restriction on the natural human right to communicate, copy, and build on information they see in the world. Copying is a fundamental part of culture and a fundamental part of what it means to be human.
As such, we should be highly skeptical of copyright expansion, and we should be constantly evaluating whether or not the market really needs copyright restrictions at their current level. We should be actively looking to evolve the market so we can weaken copyright, because copyright is an artificial restriction on natural human activity, and an artificial restriction on the free market itself.
When people talk about expanding copyright, the burden is on them to justify why it's worthwhile to restrict human rights. Just saying that some businesses will fail isn't good enough, copyright is an extreme measure we're collectively embracing so that we can prevent the collapse of the entire creative market. Unless we're talking on that scale, we probably should be weakening copyright over time, even if it means a few businesses fail or have to pivot. In general, it's OK for the market to evolve and for some old profit-generating ventures to become unprofitable. And many will evolve and transform into other markets -- we don't have illuminated manuscripts now, but we do have mass-produced beautifully illustrated books, so in general the printing press seems to have been a pretty good trade and enabled more markets than it destroyed.
All intellectual digital work boils down to discovering a number. A file in a computer. The path to this discovery is valuable labor. The number itself is not.
The only way you can own a number is to keep it to yourself. Like a private key in cryptography. Nobody can guess it. Nobody can discover it.
As soon as you publish it, there's nothing you can do anymore. It can be copied, transferred, modified, stored, used... You're not in control anymore. This will happen regardless of any rights you're entitled to.
It's the 21st century. People look up songs on YouTube. They upload it there if it's missing. There's no way to go back to the old record selling world.
> Maybe I should go back to painting, where I'm making an object at least, and maybe not so delusional in the eyes of the GP, not just numbers?
You're correct. Physical objects are naturally scarce and paintings in particular have properties that make them valuable beyond just the image projected. It's possible to make digital reproductions but those are generally worthless compared to the original work. As they should be.
Composers, designers, programmers, writers... What would be the equivalent for any of these? Working in real time?
The labor of creation is extremely valuable but once created the resulting data will be in infinite supply and this will drive its price down to zero. Therefore creators only have the necessary leverage before the data exists.
So are books. What do we do with writers?
What I know is this copyright business is fundamentally incompatible with the digital age we're living in. It's trivial to copy. Selling copies makes no sense.
To actually enforce copyright in the 21st century, there must be no software freedom. Only well-behaving software that refuses to copy will be allowed to run. I don't think anyone here on HN wants that.
It's an easy choice for me. As it should be for anyone who browses Hacker News. In a copyright world we won't be able to hack anymore.
So let the creators sort their business out. They'll find a way or go bankrupt. We must not keep inching ever closer to the dystopia where the government and monopolist corporations own our computers.
Absolutely no need to make it technically impossible, or even hard. They'll do just fine suing people who infringe, and/or get criminal conviction.
As they have been doing.
They'll be just fine, don't worry about copyright holders.
I'm not. I'm worried about the freedom to program general purpose computers and the freedom to create derivative works. It seems like copyright holders have been consistently using their lobby to make both harder.
Then why do they keep doing it? Get them to stop, please. Make them stop adding DRM to everything. Make them get rid of DMCA anticircumvention laws. Just stop interfering with our computers.
Why keep doing it? Because they made a thing, and they want to make money selling it. Pretty obvious, no?
It's also trivial to stab someone. Not all crimes can or should be prevented by technical means.
In fact most cannot even in principle be prevented. Most of law depends on detection, not prevention.
Now nearly everyone on this planet has a pocket computer capable of creating and transmitting unlimited numbers of any piece of data at practically zero cost. People don't even realize they're doing it, it's so natural. They create truckloads of derivative works of copyrighted material every single day in the form of memes.
Running a red light? And yellow light?
It's easy to litter, and by FAR most people get away with it.
It's easy to infringe copyright, and by FAR most people get away with it.
Yet you feel this is justification to remove copyright laws, but not littering laws.
If nobody will ever get paid for intellectual property again, then it will absolutely affect me. It's the end of a whole category of creation, and a huge net reduction.
That's where the "there must be no software freedom" is exactly what might be mandated. It's trivial to re-purpose Apple CSAM mechanism to do this "detection" and something that might actually happen in the future.
Like I said, you're making no sense at all.
With or without technology (you meant with, right? no that makes no sense either) copyright is clearly enforceable.
We have over 300 years of enforcement on copyright, even when it's trivial to copy.
Technology, or copying, wasn't invented this century, you know. "Piracy has proven that"... we have hundreds of years of easy reproduction pre-copyright too.
> either we abolish copyright, or all computers will eventually be turned into consumer appliances and we'll need programming licenses to write code.
"Either we make murder legal, or nobody may own a knife or other sharp object ever again".
See how it's nonsense?
(I can't reply deeper because HN limitations)
I'd argue the world is different now. We've only had general purpose computers and ubiquitous ultra-cheap networking for the last few decades. Infringing copying on any scale required significant financial investment in the past. I think it's also safe to say there was typically financial incentive behind most mass infringement in the past (i.e. "bootlegging").
I'm not sure that's the case today. I'm guessing most infringement is today is casual-- created by the ease of copying brought on by everybody carrying around mobile computers with those ultra-cheap network connections.
> > either we abolish copyright, or all computers will eventually be turned into consumer appliances and we'll need programming licenses to write code.
> "Either we make murder legal, or nobody may own a knife or other sharp object ever again".
I'm not aware of the "legalize murder to preserve freedom" lobby (though, admittedly, the gun lobby in the United States does kinda fit that bill-- but that's a separate issue). There most certainly is a "regulate general purpose computers" lobby (e.g. "circumvention devices" and the DMCA).
> See how it's nonsense?
Equating copyright law and murder is equally nonsense.
No it didn't. More, yes. But 40 years ago you just needed two VCRs and a blank tape. The only thing preventing mass reproduction was copyright law.
And pre-copyright this is also what happened. Because it was just not that hard. Even 500 years ago.
> I'm guessing most infringement is today is casual-- created by the ease of copying brought on by everybody carrying around mobile computers with those ultra-cheap network connections.
I bet less now than 20 years ago. Today you can buy spotify, apple music, google music, or whatever. You can stream stuff.
Blockbusters didn't die because of piracy, but because of streaming.
> I'm not aware of the "legalize murder to preserve freedom" lobby
It's your argument. If a thing cannot be prevented, then it should be legal. Right?
> Equating copyright law and murder is equally nonsense.
That's wilfully missing the point.
Take shoplifting instead, then.
The actual argument is that society has fundamentally changed after the invention of computers. People copy, transfer and even modify copyrighted works every day without even blinking. It happens on an even larger scale than and at a fraction of the cost of VHS tape copying. Copyright no longer makes sense in the 21st century: it's become natural to infringe.
The fact that copyright no longer guarantees artficial scarcity is just yet another sign that it should probably go away.
There are countries (e.g. Sweden) where it's legal to rip a CD and give a copy to your friends. "Always" has been.
But it's not legal to sell copies. Or to put the music in a "holywood" movie you made and make a profit.
Copyright protects both of these. And if you think holywood movies don't properly license their music then you are mistaken.
Copyright absolutely makes sense.
Could a reform be in order? Well, could you come up with a laws or precedents where me putting a funny meme picture on my facebook wall is legally fine, but holywood taking my art and selling it as part of their product is not?
Because when you say "abolish copyright", that means no more games or movies as we know them today. You may say "good riddance", but you don't have to watch them. You can choose to only listen to music and see movies made under creative commons license. But you'll be pretty alone in that. Your life will look like that of Richard Stallman.
Okay. Selling copies makes no sense anyway. So let people share their files in peace. No profit will be made.
> There are countries (e.g. Sweden) where it's legal to rip a CD and give a copy to your friends. "Always" has been.
My country has similar laws. Does it matter to the monopolists? No. They put DRM in their stuff specifically to stop you from exercising your legal right to copy. I remember one case where one guy backed up a game disc, lost the original and had to sue the company because the game wouldn't accept his copy. Judge made them give him a new disc. Fair use? Doesn't matter to the monopolists either. They'll DMCA content and sue companies out of existence whether they're legally justified or not.
Besides, the copyright monopolists are always trying to destroy these laws. They have considerable lobbying power and the US government imposes american laws on foreign countries via trade agreements.
> Could a reform be in order?
You can certainly make copyright tolerable. Make terms last 5-10 years. More than enough time for creators to make their millions. Anything more than that is rent seeking.
> Because when you say "abolish copyright", that means no more games or movies as we know them today.
Fine. Between computing freedom and the whole copyright industry, I choose computing freedom. Computing is much more important than some entertainment industry and I hate the way its potential is being limited because of these monopolists.
Stallman would probably disagree with me. Free software licenses depend on copyright to work.
This is so naive and ignorant. Some people will maintain the huge libraries of movies. And it won't be free to do so.
They will do this service for pay.
This happens today, with pirate topsites and even closed torrents.
> Make terms last 5-10 years.
I'd say 10-20, but no more than that.
> Between computing freedom and the whole copyright industry, I choose computing freedom.
Good thing we don't have to make that choice.
> See how it's nonsense?
It's not. Computers are increasingly non-free and DRM is a big reason. The copyright holders want guarantees that I can't run unathorized software against their data even though it's my machine.
Combine this with worldwide governamental desire to regulate or ban encryption. It's an existential threat to the computing freedom we all enjoy today.
This applies to every single crime. Try getting the police or courts to do anything about your stolen bike. They won't. You can have the name of the thief, with video of them stealing it, and it won't be worth their time.
Also won't be worth your time and money to sue them civilly.
So theft should be legal?
Not really. Crimes are limited by reality. One criminal can only do so much.
With copyright infringement you have insane situations such as over 80% of a country's population being guilty of it. At this point, is it even a crime? More like a local custom.
> Try getting the police or courts to do anything about your stolen bike. They won't.
Maybe in the US. It's rather common here. I have examples in my family. I see it in the news nearly every week: some drug addict steals a phone, police arrests him and the phone is returned to its owner.
> So theft should be legal?
From what you just told me, it looks like it already is.
Not just the US. In fact I'm not in the US.
>> So theft should be legal.
> From what you just told me, it looks like it already is.
That's not what "legal" means.
Law is paper. What makes it real is police enforcement, prosecution. If this real stuff is not happening, there is no law.
It seems like what would really help would be to make rights public and easily accessible. However, making the rights platform into an NFT platform specifically wouldn't really help.
There is no such thing. Data is just bits. Really big numbers. Asserting ownership over numbers is simply delusional. The second that number is published, it's already over.
Non-fungible tokens do absolutely nothing to change those facts. They just let people delude themselves into believing they actually own stuff. The only thing they own is the token.
I own a house. In what way? The land registry says that I do. If it starts saying something else, then I don't. The police and courts will make it real.
My wallet is only mine because that's what we agree.
The brand Coca Cola is just information. But if you start selling your own under their brand you'll find out just how real intellectual property is.
Everything is society is only real because we make it real. "Ownership" isn't any more or less real of tangible or intangible things.
Data is the opposite of all that. Society is trying to retrofit all of that physical world intuition into the virtual world. It doesn't work. It sorta worked up to the mid 20th century because data was still tied to the physical world. Now that computers exist and are globally networked, there are absolutely no physical barriers holding us back.
> The police and courts will make it real.
Police, courts, entire industries worth trillions of dollars, entire countries have been trying to make it real for what, over 50 years? The US will put your country in a literal naughty list if it doesn't take measures against infringement. Yet it happens every day, all the time. People don't even realize they're infringing copyright when they download a picture and post it somewhere. It's just a natural thing to do.
It's not working. Maybe it's time to understand that the world just isn't the same anymore. Times have changed. It's time to let go of these illusions of ownership and control.
"Ownership" isn't physical.
> It makes intuitive sense to most people.
This is just pleading to the anonymous crowd of an imagined silent majority who agree with you.
Ask a majority if they think it should be legal to open a store selling bootleg copies of Britney Spears CDs, videogames, and whatever else they want to sell.
> Police, courts, entire industries worth trillions of dollars, entire countries have been trying to make it real for what, over 50 years?
So you think it's not real? Go ahead. Try it then. You're saying it's both ethical and de facto legal. Seems like a slam dunk million dollar idea. Good luck.
Land is.
> This is just pleading to the anonymous crowd of an imagined silent majority who agree with you.
What? I'm saying that most people intuitively agree with you when it comes to ownership of physical things. I don't see what the issue is.
> So you think it's not real? Go ahead. Try it then.
Have you ever been to a developing country? There's an entire block filled with stores just like you described less than 15 minutes from me right now.
> Land is.
But ownership isn't. How are you not getting this?
You need to be there and defend your land if you want to keep it. The fact that in civilized society people have transferred this responsibility to governments doesn't make it any less physical.