6 ms·

The Mickey Mouse curve is one of the most rotten legal decisions since Napster's ruling that "copying files and sharing them is not equal to copying cassette ta

The Mickey Mouse curve is one of the most rotten legal decisions since Napster's ruling that "copying files and sharing them is not equal to copying cassette tapes and sharing them" in my lifetime.

tptacek 6y ago
At no point in my entire life has modern or popular music been more available than it is now. I haven't "bought an album" in over a decade, because virtually everything is instantly available at no additional charge beyond the one simple service I subscribe to. Short of all recorded content being de facto uncompensated, which is what the logical conclusion of Napster winning would have been, it's hard to see an outcome here that would be better for consumers than the one we have. I suspect we'll be in a similar position with video content in 10 years as well. Already, I think it's easy to make the case that we're better off than we were in the status quo ante of cable bundles and video rentals.
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  As the opportunity to purchase physical or non-streaming versions of content dry up consumers will be forced into subscription services. There won't be a non-recurring-payment option for consumers who don't necessarily want new media. I don't know what the size of that market segment is, but the subscription-based streaming-only future isn't a "win" for them.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - TylerE 6y ago
    Speak for yourself. I could subscribe to 3 or 4 premium streaming services and be spending less than I was on CDs 20 years ago. Don't have to spend hours ripping them all, either.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - listenallyall 6y ago
      ...except unlike those CDs, the moment you unsubscribe, you'll lose access to everything.
      - tptacek 6y ago
        And then you'll sign up for the competing service that has for all intents and purposes the same catalog, and get access to everything once again. If you're, I guess, weird, you can just buy CDs the way we did in 1998. They're all still available! The bands would really like you to buy them! I'm genuinely not sure what the complaint is here. It seems to be that super-cheap, super-convenient music is available in addition to the CDs we were buying instead?
        listenallyall 6y ago
        I think it's weird to be excited about being beholden to some big, faceless company that charges you a monthly fee AND sells personal data about you AND which you know your favorite artists secretly despise. Also kind of weird to be music-less when not connected to the internet or if you don't have a specific app installed. But you do you, man.
        dageshi 6y ago
        The excitement comes from not having to manage "stuff". Don't need to store/manage/catalogue/find anything physical. Don't need to store/manage/backup/catalogue anything digital either, just search for what you want in the app and play. If collecting is part of the fun for you then go for it, but there's a whole lot of people for whom the collecting stuff isn't fun it's just unnecessary work.
        Freak_NL 6y ago
        You know that album you really like? Yeah it's gone now. The estate of $ARTIST doesn't want it available on $SERVICE_A now that $SERVICE_B is offering a better deal. Oh, and $SERVICE_B isn't available in $COUNTRY of course, but someone could buy the rights for it there and publish the music, someday, or never, we don't care. I don't get it either, and yet these services are massively popular to the point of alternatives going away. Meanwhile I have tons of music on my laptop, desktop, and HTPC, and can play it as long as there isn't a power outage. Streaming is great for things I know I want to watch once (e.g. TV series) and don't care if I can't rewatch it tomorrow. For music? Nope.
- coldpie 6y ago
  I'm not so concerned with access to the originals as I am with the restriction of derivative works. Look back through human history and you'll find people retelling and adapting stories and songs freely. With our effectively-infinite copyright length, we've now locked our shared culture behind Disney's lawyers. That sucks.
  - jfengel 6y ago
    I am unclear on how trademark interacts with copyright on this. Unlike copyright, trademarks really were intended to be infinite: they expire only when people stop using them (and paying the relevant fees). So even if Steamboat Willie were to become public domain, would trademark limit the derivative works that could be made? The movie might be public, but the main character isn't. Can you tell me how that would work?
  - hylaride 6y ago
    This so much. When I first learned about how US copyright laws were extended (and then pushed on the rest of the world via trade deals, etc), my respect for IP rules plummeted. In college I had no qualms using Napster, and later bitorrent, etc. Even today, I get frustrated by geo-ip blocking (I'm Canadian) and I have no idea how I'm going to watch the Animaniacs reboot (Hulu isn't available here). Even worse, a lot of content gets licenced to Canadian media companies which then (if I legally want to) force me to watch through terrible apps with terrible commercial interruptions at bad times. The last movie I tried to legally watch via that last method has 20 minutes of commercials for every hour of the film. I pay for Netflix and Apple music because they're affordable and extremely convenient, but get in my way and I'll have no qualms finding a better way.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      That's great and all, but has nothing to do with the fact that the Charlie Brown Halloween Special will be on Apple TV and not network TV. It's always been the case that nerds can watch pretty much whatever they want by ignoring copyright and just downloading stuff. It was that way all the way into the streaming wars. Streaming services aren't spending hundreds of millions of dollars on content catalogs because they're worried that you're going to upend their business with torrent sites.
TylerE 6y ago
> copying files and sharing them is not equal to copying cassette tapes and sharing them It isn't. Cassettes are VERY lossy copies. It's like saving a jpg of a jpg of a jpg of a...

The Mickey Mouse curve is one of the most rotten legal decisions since Napster's ruling that "copying files and sharing them is not equal to copying cassette tapes and sharing them" in my lifetime.

tptacek 6y ago

At no point in my entire life has modern or popular music been more available than it is now. I haven't "bought an album" in over a decade, because virtually everything is instantly available at no additional charge beyond the one simple service I subscribe to. Short of all recorded content being de facto uncompensated, which is what the logical conclusion of Napster winning would have been, it's hard to see an outcome here that would be better for consumers than the one we have. I suspect we'll be in a similar position with video content in 10 years as well. Already, I think it's easy to make the case that we're better off than we were in the status quo ante of cable bundles and video rentals.

EvanAnderson 6y ago
As the opportunity to purchase physical or non-streaming versions of content dry up consumers will be forced into subscription services. There won't be a non-recurring-payment option for consumers who don't necessarily want new media. I don't know what the size of that market segment is, but the subscription-based streaming-only future isn't a "win" for them.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- TylerE 6y ago
  Speak for yourself. I could subscribe to 3 or 4 premium streaming services and be spending less than I was on CDs 20 years ago. Don't have to spend hours ripping them all, either.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - listenallyall 6y ago
    ...except unlike those CDs, the moment you unsubscribe, you'll lose access to everything.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      And then you'll sign up for the competing service that has for all intents and purposes the same catalog, and get access to everything once again. If you're, I guess, weird, you can just buy CDs the way we did in 1998. They're all still available! The bands would really like you to buy them! I'm genuinely not sure what the complaint is here. It seems to be that super-cheap, super-convenient music is available in addition to the CDs we were buying instead?
      - listenallyall 6y ago
        I think it's weird to be excited about being beholden to some big, faceless company that charges you a monthly fee AND sells personal data about you AND which you know your favorite artists secretly despise. Also kind of weird to be music-less when not connected to the internet or if you don't have a specific app installed. But you do you, man.
        dageshi 6y ago
        The excitement comes from not having to manage "stuff". Don't need to store/manage/catalogue/find anything physical. Don't need to store/manage/backup/catalogue anything digital either, just search for what you want in the app and play. If collecting is part of the fun for you then go for it, but there's a whole lot of people for whom the collecting stuff isn't fun it's just unnecessary work.
        Freak_NL 6y ago
        You know that album you really like? Yeah it's gone now. The estate of $ARTIST doesn't want it available on $SERVICE_A now that $SERVICE_B is offering a better deal. Oh, and $SERVICE_B isn't available in $COUNTRY of course, but someone could buy the rights for it there and publish the music, someday, or never, we don't care. I don't get it either, and yet these services are massively popular to the point of alternatives going away. Meanwhile I have tons of music on my laptop, desktop, and HTPC, and can play it as long as there isn't a power outage. Streaming is great for things I know I want to watch once (e.g. TV series) and don't care if I can't rewatch it tomorrow. For music? Nope.
coldpie 6y ago
I'm not so concerned with access to the originals as I am with the restriction of derivative works. Look back through human history and you'll find people retelling and adapting stories and songs freely. With our effectively-infinite copyright length, we've now locked our shared culture behind Disney's lawyers. That sucks.
- jfengel 6y ago
  I am unclear on how trademark interacts with copyright on this. Unlike copyright, trademarks really were intended to be infinite: they expire only when people stop using them (and paying the relevant fees). So even if Steamboat Willie were to become public domain, would trademark limit the derivative works that could be made? The movie might be public, but the main character isn't. Can you tell me how that would work?
- hylaride 6y ago
  This so much. When I first learned about how US copyright laws were extended (and then pushed on the rest of the world via trade deals, etc), my respect for IP rules plummeted. In college I had no qualms using Napster, and later bitorrent, etc. Even today, I get frustrated by geo-ip blocking (I'm Canadian) and I have no idea how I'm going to watch the Animaniacs reboot (Hulu isn't available here). Even worse, a lot of content gets licenced to Canadian media companies which then (if I legally want to) force me to watch through terrible apps with terrible commercial interruptions at bad times. The last movie I tried to legally watch via that last method has 20 minutes of commercials for every hour of the film. I pay for Netflix and Apple music because they're affordable and extremely convenient, but get in my way and I'll have no qualms finding a better way.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    That's great and all, but has nothing to do with the fact that the Charlie Brown Halloween Special will be on Apple TV and not network TV. It's always been the case that nerds can watch pretty much whatever they want by ignoring copyright and just downloading stuff. It was that way all the way into the streaming wars. Streaming services aren't spending hundreds of millions of dollars on content catalogs because they're worried that you're going to upend their business with torrent sites.

TylerE 6y ago

> copying files and sharing them is not equal to copying cassette tapes and sharing them It isn't. Cassettes are VERY lossy copies. It's like saving a jpg of a jpg of a jpg of a...