4 ms·

> But the law wants to insist that you can tell what Colour bits are by looking at the bits--as the article says, that's basically what DRM and other such syste

> But the law wants to insist that you can tell what Colour bits are by looking at the bits--as the article says, that's basically what DRM and other such systems try to do. But it can't be done. Of course you can tell what colour the bits are. If someone uploads a recording of Taylor Swift's Love Story, literally everyone is going to know who owns it. Same is true of lesser known recordings -- someone will be able to show that it is based on something they own, and thus the colour of the bits is revealed. > business model has nothing whatever to do with compensating the actual creators of the works whose copyrights they own. Property isn't determined by who made something, nor should it. Otherwise, you would have no rights to your own home.

pdonis 6y ago
> If someone uploads a recording of Taylor Swift's Love Story, literally everyone is going to know who owns it. First, as a matter of technical fact, you are wrong. You seem to think that whether a particular sequence of bits is or is not "a recording of Taylor Swift's Love Story" is a simple, easily computable function of that sequence of bits. It's not. That's one of the main points of the article. Second, when you speak of ownership, you are simply stating the position large media corporations take without supporting argument. Sorry, not buying it. > Property isn't determined by who made something I didn't say it was. I'm not talking about the concept of "property" in general. I'm talking about a particular case: copyright law. In the US at least, the purpose of such law is explicitly stated in the US Constitution: to give the authors of works exclusive rights to them. You can't transfer authorship the way you can, for example, transfer title to a home; but the legal theory relied on by large media corporations assumes without argument that you can, and equates uploading a copy of a song that has already made millions, and over which rights of authorship are not even being asserted by its actual author, with stealing the bread out of the mouth of the author. That argument violates the US Constitution as well as obvious common sense. The only reason this legal theory got any traction at all was that before the age of computers and the Internet, authors did not have the resources to get their works widely read (or the equivalent for other media) on their own. They needed publishers who were willing to take the business risk of printing a lot of copies of a book (or, once recorded music came along, a record) in the hope of selling them. So authors had a strong incentive not to make an issue of the obvious absurdities in the legal theory that the publishers were relying on to assert copyright. Now, however, there is no reason except inertia for authors, or songwriters, or any other authors of creative works, to use large media corporations to distribute their works. And in fact most such works no longer are distributed via large media corporations; they are posted on the web by the people who create them, and those people have a variety of ways of getting paid for their work without involving large media corporations at all. The corporations don't want people to recognize this because it will just make their business models die that much faster. But there is no reason why the law should be propping up outdated business models.
- tathougies 6y ago
  > is a simple, easily computable function of that sequence of bits. It's not. That's one of the main points of the article. It is... you get a human to listen to it, and they'll know. > equates uploading a copy of a song that has already made millions, and over which rights of authorship are not even being asserted by its actual author, with stealing the bread out of the mouth of the author. That argument violates the US Constitution as well as obvious common sense. The 'right of authorship' was asserted by the author when they gave someone else the right to enforce their copyright in exchange for a fixed sum -- something you call purchasing. > So authors had a strong incentive not to make an issue of the obvious absurdities in the legal theory that the publishers were relying on to assert copyright. There is no absurdity, except that which you construct in order to limit the rights of authors, the very people you are purporting to support.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > you get a human to listen to it If you think this is what "simple, easily computable function means", I have no idea what language you think you are speaking, but it isn't English. > they gave someone else the right to enforce their copyright But how is that even possible given the plain language of the US Constitution that copyright protects the "authors" of works? You can't transfer the fact of being the author. Yes, I know our current legal regime in practice allows this. I'm simply saying that means our current legal regime is broken and needs to be fixed. > that which you construct in order to limit the rights of authors, the very people you are purporting to support By your own account, the author is out of it as soon as they receive the "fixed sum" from the media company. So limiting the nonsense the media company can get away with after that point does not affect the author at all.

pdonis 6y ago

> If someone uploads a recording of Taylor Swift's Love Story, literally everyone is going to know who owns it. First, as a matter of technical fact, you are wrong. You seem to think that whether a particular sequence of bits is or is not "a recording of Taylor Swift's Love Story" is a simple, easily computable function of that sequence of bits. It's not. That's one of the main points of the article. Second, when you speak of ownership, you are simply stating the position large media corporations take without supporting argument. Sorry, not buying it. > Property isn't determined by who made something I didn't say it was. I'm not talking about the concept of "property" in general. I'm talking about a particular case: copyright law. In the US at least, the purpose of such law is explicitly stated in the US Constitution: to give the authors of works exclusive rights to them. You can't transfer authorship the way you can, for example, transfer title to a home; but the legal theory relied on by large media corporations assumes without argument that you can, and equates uploading a copy of a song that has already made millions, and over which rights of authorship are not even being asserted by its actual author, with stealing the bread out of the mouth of the author. That argument violates the US Constitution as well as obvious common sense. The only reason this legal theory got any traction at all was that before the age of computers and the Internet, authors did not have the resources to get their works widely read (or the equivalent for other media) on their own. They needed publishers who were willing to take the business risk of printing a lot of copies of a book (or, once recorded music came along, a record) in the hope of selling them. So authors had a strong incentive not to make an issue of the obvious absurdities in the legal theory that the publishers were relying on to assert copyright. Now, however, there is no reason except inertia for authors, or songwriters, or any other authors of creative works, to use large media corporations to distribute their works. And in fact most such works no longer are distributed via large media corporations; they are posted on the web by the people who create them, and those people have a variety of ways of getting paid for their work without involving large media corporations at all. The corporations don't want people to recognize this because it will just make their business models die that much faster. But there is no reason why the law should be propping up outdated business models.

tathougies 6y ago
> is a simple, easily computable function of that sequence of bits. It's not. That's one of the main points of the article. It is... you get a human to listen to it, and they'll know. > equates uploading a copy of a song that has already made millions, and over which rights of authorship are not even being asserted by its actual author, with stealing the bread out of the mouth of the author. That argument violates the US Constitution as well as obvious common sense. The 'right of authorship' was asserted by the author when they gave someone else the right to enforce their copyright in exchange for a fixed sum -- something you call purchasing. > So authors had a strong incentive not to make an issue of the obvious absurdities in the legal theory that the publishers were relying on to assert copyright. There is no absurdity, except that which you construct in order to limit the rights of authors, the very people you are purporting to support.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > you get a human to listen to it If you think this is what "simple, easily computable function means", I have no idea what language you think you are speaking, but it isn't English. > they gave someone else the right to enforce their copyright But how is that even possible given the plain language of the US Constitution that copyright protects the "authors" of works? You can't transfer the fact of being the author. Yes, I know our current legal regime in practice allows this. I'm simply saying that means our current legal regime is broken and needs to be fixed. > that which you construct in order to limit the rights of authors, the very people you are purporting to support By your own account, the author is out of it as soon as they receive the "fixed sum" from the media company. So limiting the nonsense the media company can get away with after that point does not affect the author at all.