3 ms·

My wife said that in Eastern Europe in the 80s and early 90s it was common to go to a "record shop" and give a certain list of songs that the owner of the shop,

by jansan 2y ago

My wife said that in Eastern Europe in the 80s and early 90s it was common to go to a "record shop" and give a certain list of songs that the owner of the shop, who was just someone with access to some records, a record player and a cassette recorder, would copy to a cassette for a fee. This was the only way to get western music, and there were most certainly no copyright laws at all that would have regulated that. Edit: I asked my wife for details and there was an actual shop offering this service, but they got their cassettes from another guy who was married to a stewardess. She brought CDs back from her trips abroad, and he made a business copying the CDs to cassettes and selling them. Eventually he got in trouble with an organized crime group who had learned that he was making good money and wanted a share of it. This was in the early 90s in Sofia/Bulgaria.

kridsdale1 2y ago
Do any communist nations respect copyright to the life-in-prison-for-violation degree that we in the US do? How much was IP enforcement a driver of the west’s war on socialism and the Cold War? In the 2000s and earlier China sure as heck didn’t care about western IP rights.
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  North Korea didn’t join the 1886 Berne Convention until 2003… so it probably was a free for all until then. I can just imagine some guy in Pyongyang sitting with fully legal copies of every copyrighted work up until 2003.
- miki123211 2y ago
  > Do any communist nations respect copyright to the life-in-prison-for-violation degree that we in the US do? No, for many reasons, the primary one is that "victimless" crime is a lot more common there, and a lot more necessary for survival / decent living conditions. Things like stealing from your employer, slacking off as much as possible, copyright infringement, smuggling prohibited goods, selling alcohol / cigarettes without the required permits, nepotism, bribery etc were a lot more widespread in the communism days. If you were building a house, it wouldn't be too unusual to get your bricks from a friend who worked at a construction site, your furniture from a friend who worked at a furniture factory, and so on. Most people lived like that, and skirting the law in that way wasn't really viewed as immoral by anybody. We had a proverb saying something the lines of "no matter if you're standing around or lying down, you're still getting your salary." This was how most people approached life back then. Re: copyright infringement specifically, most of the IP being copied was from western nations, which we weren't on particularly friendly terms with, so there was very little reason to do anything about it. You'd be helping the enemy economically for no gain for you (as we were incapable of producing any IP that the west wanted). > How much was IP enforcement a driver of the west’s war on socialism and the Cold War? IP enforcement, not much at all, national security and copying technology for military purposes were much larger concerns.
- soperj 2y ago
  100 years ago they sure as heck didn't care about British IP rights in the United States.

by jansan 2y ago

kridsdale1 2y ago

Do any communist nations respect copyright to the life-in-prison-for-violation degree that we in the US do? How much was IP enforcement a driver of the west’s war on socialism and the Cold War? In the 2000s and earlier China sure as heck didn’t care about western IP rights.

MichaelZuo 2y ago
North Korea didn’t join the 1886 Berne Convention until 2003… so it probably was a free for all until then. I can just imagine some guy in Pyongyang sitting with fully legal copies of every copyrighted work up until 2003.
miki123211 2y ago
> Do any communist nations respect copyright to the life-in-prison-for-violation degree that we in the US do? No, for many reasons, the primary one is that "victimless" crime is a lot more common there, and a lot more necessary for survival / decent living conditions. Things like stealing from your employer, slacking off as much as possible, copyright infringement, smuggling prohibited goods, selling alcohol / cigarettes without the required permits, nepotism, bribery etc were a lot more widespread in the communism days. If you were building a house, it wouldn't be too unusual to get your bricks from a friend who worked at a construction site, your furniture from a friend who worked at a furniture factory, and so on. Most people lived like that, and skirting the law in that way wasn't really viewed as immoral by anybody. We had a proverb saying something the lines of "no matter if you're standing around or lying down, you're still getting your salary." This was how most people approached life back then. Re: copyright infringement specifically, most of the IP being copied was from western nations, which we weren't on particularly friendly terms with, so there was very little reason to do anything about it. You'd be helping the enemy economically for no gain for you (as we were incapable of producing any IP that the west wanted). > How much was IP enforcement a driver of the west’s war on socialism and the Cold War? IP enforcement, not much at all, national security and copying technology for military purposes were much larger concerns.
soperj 2y ago
100 years ago they sure as heck didn't care about British IP rights in the United States.