It's now illegal to turn on your computer

[Vaughn Treude]

Craig White wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-12-30 at 22:42 -0700, Joshua Zeidner wrote:
>> On 12/30/07, Kevin Brown <kevin_brown at qwest.net> wrote:
>>>>>> cannot ignore the need for some level of province.  Without fences,
>>>>>> there are no crops.
>>>>> Really? Most of the farms I know of don't have fences. They seem to pull
>>>>> in lots of crops.
>>>>   Really?  I think I'll just go over there and get me some.  Who says
>>>> whats wild and what is the farmers property?
>>> That they don't have fences does not mean that it is open access for
>>> all.  I've lived in communities where fences were against building codes
>>> for a few reasons.  One, they are unsightly and block people's view.
>>> Two, they impeded the wildlife of the area.  Lots of farms (rather than
>>> ranches) don't have them as it makes it easier to get access to the crop
>>> areas with the farming equipment.  Ranches have some fences to contain
>>> the animals so they can be tracked and less likely to be a problem
>>> (cattle in the roads...)
>>
>>   ok... I think you may be missing my point here.  I'm not sure if
>> Hans is trying to drive home some point, or hes trying to look daft by
>> throwing wingnuts around.  The point is, whether you have a physical
>> fence or not, there are boundaries.  One of the most basic, if not the
>> most basic, form of property is land.  Most anthropologists beleive
>> that our concepts of land ownership were introduced with the advent of
>> agriculture.  The basic thing to establish is that, no farmer is going
>> to invest in cultivating crops unless he is offered some kind of
>> assurance that the land he works is his, or his /property/.  Call it a
>> fence, call it a boundary, whatever you want.
>>
>>   now, what we are currently trying to do is to extend our concept of
>> property to the world of ideas.  Its not really a new development, as
>> copyright has been around for a long time, however its introduction
>> does appear to coincide with the beginning of 'modernism'.  However
>> the current crisis is that we are starting to realize that were not
>> dealing with land here, but we are treating it as such.  But, some of
>> the aspects persist... no one is going to cultivate land, or in our
>> case /ideas/, or /software/ or /art/, unless they know it will be
>> their property.  So if we cease to support the notion of ideas as
>> property... will production cease?
> ----
> I have no interest in the borders/fences metaphors myself
> 
> There are legal constructs for the idea of racketeering, extortion, and
> then of course, there is always the notion of what rights/restrictions
> are conveyed upon purchase.
> 
> As for the notion of ideas as property, that of course is what the DMCA
> has always been about and that clearly pits the consumers against the
> producers as their interests clearly conflict. I think that if the
> value / pricing curve were reasonable for consumers, there wouldn't be
> that much of an issue. The fact remains that music CD's are
> comparatively out of scale. It appears that the cause for these out of
> scale prices is an antiquated system of control over production and
> distribution that drives a massive wedge between the artists and the
> consumers.
> 
> Corporate interests are always pitted against those of the public and if
> I recall correctly, the Sherman Anti-Trust act was borne for precisely
> these issues. Unfortunately, 12 years of Republican rule has pushed the
> pendulum way too far to the corporate interests which is why we are
> seeing things like health care costs skyrocket, etc. - not that the
> Democrats have given any indication that this is going to change any
> time soon. I think I stated early on that I didn't necessarily want to
> turn this into a political discussion but you seem insistent on
> parroting the rights of the corporations here.
> 
> Craig
> 

I can't resist joining the fray!

On the one hand, I've personally never produced anything of value that 
wasn't "intellectual" property.  On the other hand, a society that 
actually tried to _enforce_ the copyright laws as they stand would be 
totalitarian indeed.

I imagine some sort of "common sense" compromise will come out of this, 
one that allows the RIAA (and MPAA) to pick our pockets by taxing the 
sales of iPods or computer hard drives or whatever.

It's interesting to note that one of the biggest selling Christmas gifts 
this year has been a turntable with a USB connection for ripping your 
old analog LP's.  I've personally bought a USB audio pod which can 
accomplish the same thing with a connection between my laptop and my 
stereo's microphone output.  Watch carefully to see if the gargoyles at 
the RIAA try to get these devices outlawed.

On the surface, it appears that these industry groups are total idiots, 
to think they can control everything with DRM, and even "close the 
analog hole", without any thought about the impossibility of that task. 
  That would require a wholesale destruction of all old records and 
tapes, and anything that plays them, something akin to Fahrenheit 451. 
But as I said before, they are probably making these outrageous claims 
with the goal of setting up some kind of system where they can profit 
without any effort.  There was a move some years ago to let them tax 
blank audio tapes, though that wouldn't do them much good now.  :-)

An interesting analogy is the way that music industry groups - I think 
they are ASCAP and BMI in these situations - charge stores, bars, 
restaurants and other "public" places a license fee for playing music. 
Overall this is a relatively reasonable system, but they definitely go 
overboard in some situations.  For example, the groups once sued a "bed 
and breakfast" inn because the owners had the radio on in the house.  I 
seem to remember that the B&B owners won that case.  Anyway, it was 
idiotic because the radio station had _already_ payed the royalties for 
broadcasting these songs.

As for not supporting the music nazis, I suggest doing what I do, buying 
used CD's whenever possible.  I'm not aware that the companies get to 
collect royalties a second time, though I could be wrong (and I expect 
them to try at some point.)  This also cuts out the artist as well which 
is regrettable - unless it's some total a-hole like Prince. (You've 
probably heard how he went after that mom on You-tube. And Weird Al once 
said that Prince was the only artist who refused him permission to 
lampoon his songs.  I hate to admit it, but I actually like some of the 
Purple Weirdo's music, the earlier stuff at least.)

Vaughn

P.S. While we're ridiculing people's musical tastes:  I always hated the 
Cars, for some reason I can't quite explain.  Perhaps it's because some 
of their hits are so sing-songy I can't get them out of my head.   :-)


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