France on track to legalize P2P downloading

[SteveA]

I find this a disturbing idea. File Sharing is fine... if it's your file of something you made.

If someone ELSE made it, Song/Movie/Game for profit, and you are giving it away... that's just not right.

Of course, for all of you "But it's just a song/Movie/Game" crowd, consider something for a moment, please. Why do people make these things? Mostly for love, but also for money. This is open stealing, and makes creating movies/games/movies less lucrative, thus less worth spending the time, effort and money to create.

After all, why spend millions to make something when instead of getting $$ in return people can jsut download it?


I will laugh though, unlike songs and movies, game companies are getting smart to this and using systems like Steam to prevent pirates from stealing ffrom them. I approve of that.

Thank you for this post. I'm happy that things like this get people thinking. I've been saying all along that there are better ways of assuring content creators or inventors are rewarded for their work. It doesn't take a bajillion lawyers to do either and noone should have to worry about going to jail simply for clicking their mouse in the wrong area of the screen or singing something you heard before.

[SteveA]

I actually am a musician. Do a little research before you make such claims, Vicchio.

Grandpa h.

Interesting.

I'm an engineer and I hate the patent system :)

My cousin is also an electronic/software engineer and this Christmas I saw him and we both started complaining about I.P. laws and rulings.

I think the problem is mostly that many people believe the current patent/I.P. system operates more or less as intended to help reward creators of truely novel things, instead of becoming a method by which things commonly seen as freely available public resources have people trying to claim them as private property. In the case of this P2P issue, since when did government own your computer and your internet connection?

Here's how I see things:

1) When you place information in a public arena without some obvious restrictions on its use, that information is free to be used.
2) When you desire to restrict the use of information you present, the terms must be up front and obvious. (An implicit need to dig through court rulings doesn't fall under this)
3) The terms apply to the people that agree to them.
4) If you want some compensation for information you're offering people, ask for it up front. Don't expect lawyers and police to collect something people might never have been willing to pay for in the first place.

A little creativity in how to deal with protected information could go a long way. We've become a bit handicapped by using the "free" government services in this regard but it's crippling. It's not really free, just as public education isn't free. It's simply subsidized and the costs are a lot higher than most people realize. This issue over P2P file sharing is a perfect example of yet another indirect cost of the current system, not to mention the costs imposed on hardware manufacturers attempting to comply with some of the RIAA demands (I believe much of that was shot down by the Supreme Court though, but don't quote me). Add in all the individual legal battles and the far too common poor rulings made over I.P. cases that can even result in entire companies going bankrupt or pressured into becoming yet another Microshaft subsidiary.

I don't doubt a lot of this stuff will come to a head eventually ... it would be nice to see it happen before I'm 60 though.

[grandpa]

Interesting.

I'm an engineer and I hate the patent system :)

My cousin is also an electronic/software engineer and this Christmas I saw him and we both started complaining about I.P. laws and rulings.

I think the problem is mostly that many people believe the current patent/I.P. system operates more or less as intended to help reward creators of truely novel things, instead of becoming a method by which things commonly seen as freely available public resources have people trying to claim them as private property. In the case of this P2P issue, since when did government own your computer and your internet connection?

Here's how I see things:

1) When you place information in a public arena without some obvious restrictions on its use, that information is free to be used.
2) When you desire to restrict the use of information you present, the terms must be up front and obvious. (An implicit need to dig through court rulings doesn't fall under this)
3) The terms apply to the people that agree to them.
4) If you want some compensation for information you're offering people, ask for it up front. Don't expect lawyers and police to collect something people might never have been willing to pay for in the first place.

A little creativity in how to deal with protected information could go a long way. We've become a bit handicapped by using the "free" government services in this regard but it's crippling. It's not really free, just as public education isn't free. It's simply subsidized and the costs are a lot higher than most people realize. This issue over P2P file sharing is a perfect example of yet another indirect cost of the current system, not to mention the costs imposed on hardware manufacturers attempting to comply with some of the RIAA demands (I believe much of that was shot down by the Supreme Court though, but don't quote me). Add in all the individual legal battles and the far too common poor rulings made over I.P. cases that can even result in entire companies going bankrupt or pressured into becoming yet another Microshaft subsidiary.

I don't doubt a lot of this stuff will come to a head eventually ... it would be nice to see it happen before I'm 60 though.

Quite simply, I don't see why I should claim to own sounds and ideas.
The term "intellectul property" is sort of goofy to me, as I don't see how we can evolve intellectually as a society when every little idea that comes along needs to be paid for.
Now, say somebody "stole" some song I made and claimed they wrote it and everything. It'd be in bad taste, but why the hell should I sue over it?

Grandpa h.

[grandpa]

One more thing: acidplanet.com, where I have 65 songs available to hear, is FREE for musicians. Granted, the site is still financed, but the need for that can also be called into question. And that's what people who strongly endorse capitalism don't want to see--broken links in the chain of "professional," capitalist society. That's why things like the RIAA exist, ultimately--because if the validity of one cost is questioned, they can all be questioned. And that's a pure no no. So they have to artficially create penalties for the unbelievably vile practice of enjoying music.

People don't want to admit it, but sounds don't need a dollar sign attached to them. We don't have to pay for our ears when we're born--at least not yet.

Grandpa h.

[SteveA]

People have a right to benefit from their own labor and property in a free market, which means voluntary exchanges of value.

Theft isn't the same as copying. If your neighbor discovered baking soda sprinkled on their lawn helped it grow and you went out and bought some baking soda and tried the same things on your lawn, you haven't stolen or otherwise diminished the value of your neighbors labor or property.

Free markets are pretty much by definition not a product of government assigned monopolies. The patent and I.P. laws treat markets themselves not as vehicles for free competition but instead actually declare segments of the market as off limits and hand someone a monopoly, often without even much need for that person to even take advantage of this entitlement. I'm certain there are plenty of useful ideas that likely more than one person thought of (or at least the idea would have soon occured to other people), yet we have some incredible abuses of the system now ... my cousin told me that they extended the copyright for songs up to 70 or 90 years now. Property rights and contractual agreements are enough to protect people from having their ideas stolen, and people would figure this out if the rest of it was removed.

There's not even any immediate benefit anyone can claim to the system in helping technology grow. The only direct effects these have is to deter development. It's only imagined that the secondary effects could be beneficial enough to outweigh the immediate negatives.

Even Thomas Jefferson was against the patent system, as had already been abused under the British system, and that's a far cry from I.P. laws. Copyrights don't seem as bad but the real issue I have is not only can copyright claims be abused but how is the average Joe Schmoe even supposed to know what's copyrighted information or not? The fact that there's such an interest in public domain endeavors, and the fact that people now must specifically declare and make it obvious that the information is freely available to be used seems to say that the I.P. system has problems and is eating up new fields possibly faster than they are being created. I won't bother repeating the tons of benefits to removing patents and I.P. though as I've done it too many times already.

One more thing: acidplanet.com, where I have 65 songs available to hear, is FREE for musicians. Granted, the site is still financed, but the need for that can also be called into question. And that's what people who strongly endorse capitalism don't want to see--broken links in the chain of "professional," capitalist society. That's why things like the RIAA exist, ultimately--because if the validity of one cost is questioned, they can all be questioned. And that's a pure no no. So they have to artficially create penalties for the unbelievably vile practice of enjoying music.

People don't want to admit it, but sounds don't need a dollar sign attached to them. We don't have to pay for our ears when we're born--at least not yet.

Grandpa h.

Be careful not to sing any copyrighted song lyrics in public. When you listen to a copyrighted CD, it's for individual use only ... make sure noone else can ear the music, so make sure you listen to it quietly with the doors closed and don't repeat any of what you heard publicly.

For that matter, when you rent a movie, it's for private individual viewing as far as I know. Make sure the windows are closed and send the family out of the house on some errand before you watch it.

Despite the claims some people make, I have no fear that music, television, books, cars, aircraft, houses, or movies etc. would disappear without patents and I.P. laws. The simply fact that people are willing to pay for these things, even when they aren't copyrighted or patented indicates that there'd still be money to make for people who wanted to supply these.

[grandpa]

People have a right to benefit from their own labor and property in a free market, which means voluntary exchanges of value.

Theft isn't the same as copying. If your neighbor discovered baking soda sprinkled on their lawn helped it grow and you went out and bought some baking soda and tried the same things on your lawn, you haven't stolen or otherwise diminished the value of your neighbors labor or property.

Free markets are pretty much by definition not a product of government assigned monopolies. The patent and I.P. laws treat markets themselves not as vehicles for free competition but instead actually declare segments of the market as off limits and hand someone a monopoly, often without even much need for that person to even take advantage of this entitlement. I'm certain there are plenty of useful ideas that likely more than one person thought of (or at least the idea would have soon occured to other people), yet we have some incredible abuses of the system now ... my cousin told me that they extended the copyright for songs up to 70 or 90 years now. Property rights and contractual agreements are enough to protect people from having their ideas stolen, and people would figure this out if the rest of it was removed.

There's not even any immediate benefit anyone can claim to the system in helping technology grow. The only direct effects these have is to deter development. It's only imagined that the secondary effects could be beneficial enough to outweigh the immediate negatives.

Even Thomas Jefferson was against the patent system, as had already been abused under the British system, and that's a far cry from I.P. laws. Copyrights don't seem as bad but the real issue I have is not only can copyright claims be abused but how is the average Joe Schmoe even supposed to know what's copyrighted information or not? The fact that there's such an interest in public domain endeavors, and the fact that people now must specifically declare and make it obvious that the information is freely available to be used seems to say that the I.P. system has problems and is eating up new fields possibly faster than they are being created. I won't bother repeating the tons of benefits to removing patents and I.P. though as I've done it too many times already.

I agree. And how many lawsuits could happen based on similar sounding riffs, you know? I hear all kinds of sound-alike bands and see look-alike paintings that it's basically absurd to think lawsuits should exist. What they want to do is punish people for being innovative while legally preventing people from sounding too similar. It's absurd. Where can music go with so many government/corporate imposed restrictions? Professionalism is weakening music.

Be careful not to sing any copyrighted song lyrics in public. When you listen to a copyrighted CD, it's for individual use only ... make sure noone else can ear the music, so make sure you listen to it quietly with the doors closed and don't repeat any of what you heard publicly.

For that matter, when you rent a movie, it's for private individual viewing as far as I know. Make sure the windows are closed and send the family out of the house on some errand before you watch it.

Despite the claims some people make, I have no fear that music, television, books, cars, aircraft, houses, or movies etc. would disappear without patents and I.P. laws. The simply fact that people are willing to pay for these things, even when they aren't copyrighted or patented indicates that there'd still be money to make for people who wanted to supply these.

Yes, people have a tendency to enjoy songs, music and films regardless of exclusive ownership claims. It's as though the quest for beauty often defies human laws of rigid constraint and anxiety.

Grandpa h.

[SteveA]

If you ever write a song that you enjoy, Grandpa, don't let anyone else hear it or they might head over to a government official and copyright your song and I guess theoretically even deny you from sharing it with other people. It would be up to you to prove it was truly a song you wrote but how could you provide any evidence of this? Now that's truly theft. If someone who heard it, started whistling it, at least you'd still be free to play your own music for others without copyrights ... but under the current system you truly can have your music stolen from you, in that someone can claim it violates their prior claim, irrespective of whether or not you truly came up with it yourself.

The truth is that theft of ideas is impossible without the patent/I.P./copyright systems. Theft of them, as in denying someone the ability to use their own ideas and benefit from them, similar to how physical property is stolen, is only made possibly explicitly by these systems, because they artifically try to make ideas act like scarce resources.

What beneficial service is provided by simply reducing the supply of something to the point where only one person can supply it? Imagine if we applied that to housing. The logic would say that by stopping people from making houses, we can limit the supply, and therefore create greater profits for those making house so they'll be encouraged to make more? But think about this - if this was suppose to create more housing, wouldn't that mean that housing prices would drop even lower? Obivously such an attitude toward housing would simply reduce the supply and number of suppliers, creating little of any benefit to society. If you try to claim that it helps those limited number of suppliers more, that might be correct but this was simply a cash exchange that provided no additional tangible gain in wealth, and truly created an overall harm to society. The mistake is made in believing that one person owns someone else ideas and thoughts.

Imagine a system that not only respected your individual property but your thoughts as well. Now that would be awesome to see. What you do with your own hands and your own mind and materials shouldn't be at the mercy of others to determine. Of course if someone wants to develop something and sell the ideas then they'd need to pay attention to not revealing these to others until they were satisfied. Though I believe many artistic and engineering fields would change. Instead of individuals designing things for a specific employer, you'd more likely see entire industries hire teams of people to develop truely novel technology or create new art etc., instead of having so many people waste time reinventing slightly altered versions of the wheel so as to try to convince someone it's truly a novel invention.

Anyone who thinks about it for a second will realize that inventors/creators/designers/engineers/artists etc. don't need government to determine whether or not their creations are their own. Einstein didn't need anyone to give him monopoly rights on his insights ... he was de facto the only person at the time with these insights and was already free to share his insights with others for whatever compensation he felt was justified. It might seem paradoxical, but as with many government policies it's not, that the specific sector these laws claim to benefit are truly the owns hurt by it most.

Consider that for someone who does little of any work creating novel content these laws have little effect except to control what they have access to (and by definition, these laws restrict supply) ... so obviously the end users aren't in any immediate way assisted by restricting them to having only a single source for some product.

On the other side of the coin, those creating original products are specifically subject to bearing the burden of this system. Not only does a virtually infinite realm of potential thoughts become effectively a privatize minefield without obviously marked property lines but if you don't adequately spend enough (wasted) time documenting your efforts publicly, someone else can simply move in claim your ideas as their property. So though the claims are that these systems benefit creators, it truly specifically restricts and steals the benefit of efforts made in these. A few people may claim they need this service but if they got a little creative they could live without the crutch of these systems and we could send a ton of patent lawyers home to get real jobs.

There's no need to legally force ideas into something resembling scarce physical property. It removes much of the benefit to technology and art. Sure, 50 people can't live in a single home simultaneously and living in someone elses home "robs" them of some of the value but 50 people can simultaneously benefit from finding a way to make a better wheel and even without patents someone who finds a way to improve a wheel is still able to sell this idea to the other 49 people (he simply offers to reveal a way to improve all their wheels, and states some of the benefits, and only reveals the details of how to achieve this benefit after being satisfactorily compensated and if the information truly lives up to the expectations, he's compensated according to the agreement and there are other ways of doing this as well).

That as primarily directed at others. I know I'm preaching to the choir with you on this subject, Grandpa.

[SteveA]

Actually, I've written quite a few songs myself. I play the keyboard and even designed electronic circuits for music at one company.

Here's the underlying gripe I have with all this stuff. I'm pretty damn good at creating new things and coming up with novel ideas but I don't care much able sharing them freely with other people. There are a few people that are really sticklers for getting rich, and that's fine - more power to them, but the way I see it is that it should be up to them to bear the burden of find ways to sell their ideas, not up to all of us to waste time for no compensation from them simply because they want to earn a few bucks and despite the claims of benefits to these systems it stifles the growth of technology from most any angle you look at it. If information is supposedly more freely communicated under the patent system, why does every development house still keep everything under lock and key with shredders etc.? And then consider that the only reason why information would supposedly be more freely communicated under these systems is because you aren't free to use it! And it seems totally bogus that I can spend a couple days working on some new design only to have to spend weeks searching through patents and wondering whether or not it falls under someone elses patent. Now most engineering companies have a small army of patent lawyers deciding whether or not your thoughts are truly your own. I know I've got a bit of an ego but it sure feels insulting that other people try to claim ownership of your own mind and government comes along and backs them. Might as well stick with manual labor.

[Allas]

Well, while file sharing may be illegal and to some extent stealing, i think there is a more fundamental problem here than just people sharing files.
Firstly, lets get real, the industry, both movie and music, have a pricing problem. The products they produce arent priced with a large majority of their clientel in mind. Teens dont have the money to drop on incresingly overpriced CDs and DVDs. And even with the advent of the "per song" systems like IToons, etc. it doesnt solve anything - you need to be 18 to get a credit card.
Anyone still studying will be strapped for cash (generalizing, yes), and with higher educations growing both in cost and length, another large part of the market is suddenly incapacitated. And STILL, why spend money when you can get it for free?

Then there is the matter of convinience. Everyone needs to wake up and face the fact that the most practical methods of file sharing are extremely convinient. In this respect, the market is trying to re-shape its customers - not change its product to suit its customers.

Its all been said before, i know, but i felt the need to simplify stuff.

[Mr.Vicchio]

grandpa H. I have a question for you, just because you feel there is a postive to giving away your music, does that mean all artist must agree with you? If a band or artist is all for freely giving away their music.. hey great. That's YOUR RIGHT. But if another group doesn't want too... hey that's that.

As for Hollywood's pricing problem... that doesn't excuse theft. I think Lexus's are over priced. But if invented a cloning machine that could make a duplicate of anything and started giving away free cars, I think you'd see me in prison, and rightly so.

[ThisNameIsTaken]

Here in the North, file sharing and downloading copyrited material has never been illegal, due to a fee on blank tapes, CD's and HD MP3 players to compensate Candian Artists and producers for revenue lost enacted in 1998. However uploading copyrited material was... until March 2004 when Judge Konrad von Finckenstein threw out a case against alleged file-sharers.

About his ruling from "Judge; File sharing legal in Canada"

In part, he said the recording industry had not presented evidence linking the alleged file swapping to the ISP subscribers that was strong enough to warrant breaking through critical privacy protections.

But he also questioned whether CRIA had a copyright case at all.

With respect to downloading, the judge accepted the Copyright Board's early decision almost without comment. But he went further, citing a recent Supreme Court decision to say that making music available online also appeared to be legal.

In that recent case, the Supreme Court ruled that libraries were not "authorizing" copyright infringement simply by putting photocopy machines near books. The libraries were justified in assuming that their customers were using the copiers in a legal manner, the high court ruled.

Finckenstein said the same rationale should apply to peer-to-peer users.

"The mere fact of placing a copy on a shared directory in a computer where that copy can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution," Finckenstein wrote. "Before it constitutes distribution, there must be a positive act by the owner of the shared directory, such as sending out the copies or advertising that they are available for copying."

Ottawa's Geist said this appeared to make uploading itself legal as well, since a peer-to-peer user--like a library--would be entitled to assume that the person on the other side of the connection was acting legally, since downloading was also legal in Canada.

My personal opinion; I download often sometimes it's copyrighted sometimes not, BUT if it's something i truly enjoy i will purchase it after downloading so the creators know that people like it and are willing to pay for it. I don't feel bad about downloading and rather have used P2P to discover new things that i wouldn't have been willing to pay for not knowing what i would think of it and therefor might never have discovered. I look at it as a tester tool to see if i like the newest movies, music etc. And if i don't like them well the creators get no cash from me (and the file gets deleted) and maybe if others follow suit they'll realize thier product aint worth paying for to some people

More links on Canadian P2P legality;
Blame Canada
Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC)

Some argue that this ruling does not in fact apply to uploading for various reasons, I however have faith that until the law itself changes Judges across Canada will continue to protect us from these lawsuits.

[SteveA]

grandpa H. I have a question for you, just because you feel there is a postive to giving away your music, does that mean all artist must agree with you? If a band or artist is all for freely giving away their music.. hey great. That's YOUR RIGHT. But if another group doesn't want too... hey that's that.

Though I can't truly speak for Grandpa I'm almost certain he has nothing against people selling music if they desire.

As for Hollywood's pricing problem... that doesn't excuse theft. I think Lexus's are over priced. But if invented a cloning machine that could make a duplicate of anything and started giving away free cars, I think you'd see me in prison, and rightly so.

How did you get hold of a new Lexus to copy? Did you break in an steal their designs or did they sell you the blueprints and files etc?

Second of all, I think it makes the mentality of the current system rather obvious when something like being able to mass produce something cheaply is seen as something bad.

If we really got rid of the current systems, to be fair, current patents, copyrights and I.P. should be respected but they should simply stop accepting new ones. Then what will happen is Lexus will sell you their new car design for $100 million and you can freely use your cloning machine to make everyone in the world new cars. Though others will likely try to do the same, but if you can still produce them efficiently, you'll stay in business. If you can't produce them as efficiently as someone else, go refine your process or work for them instead. That way everyone is happy, the markets take advantage of whatever is most efficient and it didn't take a bunch of courts and patent lawyers to make it work and tell people who was allowed to do what. If Lexus wants more compensation for their designs, they can take offers from the public as well before releasing the design for production. And if some kids from college happen to come up with a cheap hybrid design in the meantime and make it freely available you don't have to worry about the technology being bought up but can instead assure that you can use it in your products and maybe not even need the Lexus design. (How much time to car designers waste simply because of a need to differentiate their designs enough to be able to patent them?)