I understand what you are getting rakey at but what we must realize is that the traditional reasons for laws against stealing physical goods do not work the same in a virtual world.

Physical theft causes a real loss. When someone takes something from someone else without permission indefinitely the original owner of that item loses all benefits from that item as it is no longer usable. Their may be damages as well from the thief acquiring the item.

Virtual "theft"/copy creates an exact replica of an item without causing damages to the original item or loss of use to the original owner. Keep in mind the "owner" is not the content creators but the person who bought the original from the store. A physical parallel would be a car - I own the car not General Motors.

Cause and effect are completely different.

Calling the act of creating or making available a virtual item for unauthorized distribution/copy "theft" is not proper and should not be labeled or classified as such since there is no loss or damages to the original owner of the item.

I think the closest thing we can compare these virtual acts to is an unauthorized factory/distributor similar to clothing knock-off's - except their the real deal.

Also keep in mind no amount of digital protection or encryption will stop unauthorized reproductions of virtual goods. In the case of photo, video, and audio - if it can be seen or heard it can be copied. No amount of policing will be able to stop this act unless all civil liberties and privacy are suspended.

The argument above does not apply to virtual goods that have not been released to the public or made for sale. However, a leaked movie for instance should be covered as a form of proprietary infringement and breach of trust - not theft unless the original disc containing the data was removed or otherwise stolen.

You are wrong. It is stealing. If the addional people who downloaded that content were forced to pay for it, that is money in my pocket, and rightfully so. So you think I worked to educate myself in school, and furthermore, study lighting, shadows, practicing hours on end to perfect my craft, create stunning images for you to download for free?

WRONG.

I expect to be reimbursed for my work and years of money spent to the Canadian government in the form of OSAP INTEREST and I expect the Canadian government to protect what is mine and govern commerce accordingly.

If the government is going to allow people to circumvent my commercial interests, then Canada and it's laws will become the laughing stock of the world.

Just because someone didn't steal my original copy (my digital negative) does not mean it is not theft. Anytime you take something that you didn't pay for, **if** the artist did not declare it FREE and PUBLIC DOMAIN, you are stealing.

You claim that making a copy of something is akin to stealing and that in doing so the artists aren't getting paid for they're original work, fair enough. However, does you're argument take into account the tarrifs Canadian citizens currently pay for writeable CD's and DVD's, ostensibly for the express purpose of paying for the ability to copy?

It seems to me that we are already paying for a variety of creative works, and the use of file-sharing and 'illegal' downloading is simply a means to access our paid-for goods without paying twice.

As has always been the case, I feel that we should be allowed to make backup copies of a CD/DVD/game/photo for our PERSONAL, PRIVATE use (and maybe the law could be amended to include listening parties).

But I am not for widespread copying and distribution of CDs/DVDs/games that we buy.

If you truly are using file-sharing legally, then I have no qualms with that but as both we and the feds know, file sharing is being used for far more than this and not everyone thinks like you and I.

I am only out to protect illegal activity. It should not be illegal for you to make a backup copy of a CD/DVD or game that you own, IMO. As long as it is for your use only.

So, based on these statements, I feel that the tariff on (re)writable CDs and DVDs should not be. If copyright is written properly and enforced, this tariff wouldn't be necessarily. This is why I am not for loosening copyright laws with respect to digital works.

"If copyright is written properly and enforced, this tariff wouldn't be necessarily."

I'm curious if you feel the same way about commercial radio? It was decided when radio first came to being that it was administratively expensive to have a DJ get permission every time a needle was put on the record. A compulsory licensing system was set up such that they paid a flat fee regardless of what music they played, and then they submitted playlists for statistical purposes.

If it works for commercial radio where the people involved have the resources to hire lawyers and accountants, why is it not appropriate for private citizens who have far less resources? Sticking with an old-style permission system simply means that less creativity is distributed and accessible to Canadians and copyright holders get less money -- not more.

You also have to determine the costs of enforcement (none comes cheap) compared to the cost/severity of the infraction of the law. I don't just mean costs of police forces, but the extreme harm caused to technology property owners by concepts such as "digital rights management" http://www.flora.ca/documents/digital-ownership.shtml

The phrase "written properly" is key, given this means clarification and simplification. There are many people who incorrectly believe that this "tax" (it isn't a tax, but a levy collected by someone other than the government) legalizes unauthorized filesharing of music and other copyrighted works. This misunderstanding was held by some past Heritage Ministers, and is clearly wrong for anyone who read the federal court and federal court of appeals case that addressed this issue.

Another problem with the levies on media is that you can pretty much copy anything onto anything right now. So are we to apply it to all forms of digital storage? My 70yr old mom wanted me to put a song on one of those electronic picture frames, I was amazed at the storage capacity on those things.

Anyways, there are new emerging services where you can store music online and stream it off the internet through many type of devices. When physical media sales run dry, will the artist associations run to ISPs for their levies?

I was reffering to the LCD picture frames and I mentionned that she was 70 because she slapped when I told her that her CD was DRM locked!

"When physical media sales run dry, will the artist associations run to ISPs for their levies?"

Whether the physical media is in your home, or on some other computer, the physical media has not gone. Just someone else is paying for it, and thus someone else would be paying the levy.

There are many problems with levies, and I agree with the ones you mention. I consider levies for recorded music to be like democracy: not great, but far better than the alternatives.

Collective societies for composers/etc have been asking ISPs for levies for many years now. Do a google search for "Tarrif 22" for some of the history.

Communicating by telecommunications (radio, streaming online, etc) is different than "private copies", and thus what is being requested from ISPs is different than what is being requested for private copies in the home.

I believe the private copy tariff only applies to blank CDs currently, not DVDs. The tariff was never meant to be a final solution but a stop-gap until we got around to the conversation we are currently having. In fact, it's this tariff that has kept us from participating in WIPO. This tariff also does not protect or pay the independent artist. Distribution of money earned from the tariff is based off of SOCAN's radio performance logs. That doesn't pay the indie artist that breaks on the internet or the songwriter who has a killer live track that goes viral on youtube.

The tarrif was pushed through because the record and movie companies couldn't ban VHS or casset tapes and they labeled everyone that bought a VCR or blank cassets pirates where there were so many other uses for those tools. They tried to stiffle invention and when they couldn't they wanted to tax the new format for ever. If it was a stop gap measure they would have pushed for different laws since 1978…since they didn't until the digital age shows that they were happy to tax the whole with or without valid statistics for copyright infringment.

Actually read the SOCAN tarrif for 2010…it is rediculous how much money they collect like 10c per ringtone…wtf, I wonder if they are ever audited and who actually gets the money…regardless, SOCAN covers for COMMERCIAL use, not personal use.

SOCAN covers performance rights. That's the defining line, not personal vs. commercial. SOCAN is also a not for profit whose books are regularly reviewed at a yearly general meeting and open to all SOCAN members. Its operating costs are clearly defined and the pools from which it draws those expenses clearly shown. It's quite possibly the most transparent performing rights society in the world.

"In fact, it's this tariff that has kept us from participating in WIPO"

I'm curious where you got this impression from?

Compulsory licensing regimes (which is all that section 80 represents) are consistent with all 6 WIPO copyright related treaties, including the highly controversial treaties from 1996.

These regimes are not a "stop gap" any more than the way that radio is licensed was a "stop gap". In fact, one of the enhancements to our act in 1998 allowed the ratification of the WIPO Rome convention which (among other things) clarified that performers and makers of sound recordings should be compensated for commercial air play. This is something that our neighbors to the south have yet to move forward on, even though this treaty dates back to 1961. (See the controversy around Internet radio in the USA, and Pandora wanting radio to pay the same as they are being forced to)

The way that the money is distributed by CPCC (Canadian Private Copying collective) is flawed, but that is separate from the utility of that style of regime. They currently use radio airplay and soundscan sales as a statistical proxy for distributing the royalties to composers, performers and makers. This is an inappropriate proxy given the ways in which the major labels have manipulated radio airplay and soundscan, making what is shared via private copying very different.

As we potentially move to a compulsory regime for online music distribution/sharing (as proposed by the songwriters association, and supported by most music performers I know) we will need to fix these statistical methods to ensure that the royalties are distributed more appropriately, and in ways less gamed by the legacy recording industry.

I got that impression from a manager at the CMRRA back when I was taking an online course offered by WIPO and I was curious as to why we weren't fully involved. Granted, not the most reliable of sources, though they do distribute CPCC, he believed that this was the sticking point to us complying with all of WIPO's requirements. However, you are obviously more knowledgeable than I on this point as digital copyright seems to be your forte, so I'll cede that point. "Stop gap" was my phrasing and I agree that it was flawed within the context. If i could rescind I would. Otherwise, I agree with your ascertion that we need to fix our data collection methods to ensure more accurate payment. I'm just not sure how we do that on the internet as both watermarking and fingerprinting require monitoring and I'm not sure even Nielsen BDS can handle the entirety of Canadian internet.

WIPO is a special agency of the United Nations, and Canada is a full member participant. We participate in all the treaties, sign some, and ratify most. I'm not sure how much more involved we could be. Canada was part of the Bern convention (what became WIPO treaty #1) back in 1887 as we were under UK law at that point (First separate Canadian copyright act in 1921 -- which is why WIPO lists us as independently ratifying in 1928), while late comers (laggards) like the United States only ratified in 1989. There is still debate internationally whether the USA adequately complies with Berne.

Here is a chronology of Canadian copyright law in case you are curious: http://www.digital-copyright.ca/chronology

In other words, we do need to be careful where we get our information about Canadian copyright law from. Much of what you hear from various lobby groups is incorrect or misleading.

CMRRA is a special interest group that collects and distributes royalties based on very specific uses of compositions. If we use alternative collective schemes then it may be a different collective (SOCAN vs CMRRA) that collects the relevant fees, cutting CMRRA out of the equation. Even though SOCAN and CMRRA both "represent" composers (one of the 3 copyright holder groups for music -- performers and "makers" are the other two), they do so with respect to different types of activities. If you want to see a mess you can dive into the question of whether P2P sharing of music is a "communication to the public by telecommunications" (which if compulsory licensed would be SOCAN) or a "distirbution of a copy" (which if compulsory licensed would be CMRRA)
http://www.flora.ca/documents/p2p-legal-theories.html

With relation to music I'm concerned about the interests of composers and performers, not any of the collective societies, record labels, or other temporary instruments that are only relevant as far as they help composers and/or performers.

I think we need to get past the idea that we need to "police" or scan the "entirety of Canadian Internet" in order to compensate various creators. Current statistics are nowhere near that accurate even for the things they bother to measure (IE: Commercial radio airplay doesn't bring in all radio stations, and every song played, just extrapolating from key samples). When we get past the idea that we are "policing" music distribution we will find that music fans will no longer want to hide what they are doing. If anything they may be trying to make it look like their favorite artists are being shared *more* often than they really are, rather than less. Even with that gaming, Internet sampling will be far more accurate than what has been done thus far for commercial radio.

I understand those who oppose non-volunteer levies. For music I am a subscriber to eMusic and to be honest don't want any of my music money going to the major labels who are lobbying for DRM and other anti-competitive things that will take money out of my pocket. That said, a compulsory scheme is better than either the status-quo (non-commercial music sharing is illegal and thus discouraged) or some of the proposals (attack property rights of technology owners via DRM). Ideal would be a voluntary system:
http://www.eff.org/wp/better-way-forward-voluntary-collective-licensing-music-file-sharing (Note: This document is in the US context and needs to be "Canadianized", but the general theory is there).

Rakey, I respect that you've gone to school and you deserve to get paid for your work. But copying a file is not stealing. Your customers deserve the respect to share as they wish. It's the customers right of their product. There are many other ways to profit from your creation such as live performances, merchandise, corporate sale and levies. You -must- adapt.

Mr. Snider,

I grant my customers the right to print and display my work. I DO NOT grant them the permission to copy and pass my work out to others whether in print form or in digital form.

I was here before the Internet back when it was a program called Gopher used through Canadian universities. This "Oh, it's on the internet so I can use it as I please," mindset that has been allowed to fester needs to change. Loosening up copyright law isn't the way to do it.

So, it is not me who needs to adapt, it is those with this digital age mindset that you are allowed to take and use any image you see that needs to adapt AND artists need to be able to both pursue and recoup any financials lost as result of this activity.

It is my hope and my mission to see that our copyright laws do not change in this area. My work will never be free unless **I** state so (and as I said before, I have put images in the public domain, from time to time).

Rakey, This is funny…I was running BBS's and other social sites back when gopher, but a number of different search sites were used…that doesn't mean you know about anything it just mean you know about computers.

Long term copyright on a item is dead…deal with it. You are a dino so I won't go into it where you are wrong

I too ran some bulletin board software. In fact, I was the commercial developer of one of the biggest ones used on a particular non-Windows platform.

And I was aware back then of the "warez" sites that were brought to my attention, those that carried my developed software in cracked form, beyond my reach to enforce their downloaders to pay. Piracy killed my business back then.

So, Dino or not.. same problem, but more widely spread and much more en masse.

Rakey I am going to have to call BS on your statement. DRM or copy protecting in the early 80s didn't exist, so you stating that cracked versions of your software were on the internet I doubt. If you meant to say digital versions of your product were on the internet then I would have believed you.

Most software in the 80's was released as shareware or freeware and most BBS software was either general license or shareware (meaning you paid what you could for the product to get some bonus or another) If you were charging any more then $10 for a copy of your BBS application then that is why you went out of business…there were too many competitors out there for you to compete and a lot of them were free…

It looks like you adapted to that reality and took up photography, well film printing (where you held the negatives for reprints) is gone, digital photography now means that for weddings or kids pictures you are paid for a service to take the pictures, regardless of what you believe you are now in the service industry and the client pays for that service and can do whatever they want with their wedding or kids pictures that they paid you to take…sorry time to adapt again.

You may call BS all you want. Our software was demo/register ware. We used a license/key system to enable our software to be used in non-demo form. Our BBS software was not "shareware."

Not to nit-pick but according to your description the software demo was indeed "shareware". You meant it was not "freeware".

Not all shareware is free. It just means anyone can share the application according to the rules of license in hopes more people will purchase a key for the non-demo. It's the earliest ways of social advertising.

The demo may indeed have not been shareware but around the time frames mentioned that was the preferred way to advertise.

Note: I do not call BS. I just wanted to clarify the terms.

Shareware generally does not expire but uses things such as nag screens and other means to stimulate your desire to purchase a full version.

Demoware and licenseware has either limited functionality or a specific expire period.

Sorry to bump terminology heads. ;)

lol - agreed!

Copy protection, just as "successful" as DRM today, existed and was quite popular in the 1980's. The technology wasn't as sophisticated as it is today, and it didn't have the legal backing of any government, but the basic concepts were the same.

In the 80's I did hardware repair on Commodore computers (only fully authorized technician for Eastern Ontario at one point). The copy protection on floppies often involved lazer holes which would cause the floppies to receive errors when reading over that specific location. The software would read multiple times to see if it got the same error, which it would not in the case of the hole.

On the 1541 floppy drives (used by Vic-20, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, etc) these errors would cause the drive to reset itself. This involved banking the read/write head against a bar to reset the alignment. Over time this caused serious damage to the drive, eventually irreparable.

The recommendation from many hardware dealers was for customers to purchase the (primarily video game) software box as a "proof of purchase", and then run the cracked version which would not damage the hardware. Some customers felt that if what they were doing was considered illegal anyway (using the cracked version), then why should they pay money to a company that deliberately created manufacturing defects?

Nearly three decades later, not much has changed. Misinformed Copyright holders continue to create defects in the way they distribute content in an attempt to reduce copyright infringement that can only backfire. Just as in the 1980's there are people who are infringing copyright *because* of this copy protection, and I would estimate far more infringement happens than if the copy protection were not there in the first place.

The copy protection is also ineffective, and for basic scientific reasons will always be ineffective. One technically sophisticated user "cracks" the copy protection/DRM, and then shares it electronically as if the copy protection never existed. Less sophisticated users simply download it the way they always have.

Note: I'm not excusing software copyright infringement (I am likely more strongly opposed than the BSA/CAAST is), just clarifying that "copy control" / DRM is something that we should be creating legal protection against due to the harm it causes (including to the copyright holders who are using it), not legal protection for.

You're giving a license scenario. There are license products out there that allow you to enforce any conditions you may require already. It is also up to the license issuer to investigate adherence violations and sue accordingly as breach of contract. It should not be up to the common tax payer to float your legal fees for your business.

No legislation or law is needed - this is simply a service demand.

What everyone else is talking about here is ownership rights - not license rights.

Why should you have a lifetime monopoly on an idea just because you created it? Should nobody else get to use it?

You don't get lifetime + 50 years for patents, why should it be this long for copyright?

An intellectual work is not one singular item, like a physical box, that you can claim ownership to. Other people may come to the same conclusions and create the same, or very similar, intellectual work on their own. What gives you the right to hold that intellectual work hostage? What gives you the right to prevent everybody from arranging the pixels on their screen the same way? Just because you did it first?

Copyright law is only meant to give you a short protection of your IP to provide you an incentive to publish it. It is not meant to give you some kind of lifetime monopoly.

This is where it becomes a battle between the individual and the public at large.

Copyright is very different from patents. Patents have nothing to do with copyright. Your confused in how these laws work. The major difference between copyright and patents is a matter of scale. Patents are fundamentally a list of parts configured in a specific way. They don't necessarily protect an entire device or work and they literally say that if you make a device with these parts configured in this way then that item is prohibited and the patent owner can sue you.

Copyrighted work on the other hand is a compilation of ideas. A copyrighted work can contain thousands of ideas. The work of compiling that work can be an enormous task and usually deals with things that are mostly artistic in nature. IE a books, movies, music or a software application. The protection of the work is limited to the particular compilation that a person makes. IE people can still take ideas from the copyrighted work but just can't copy the work in its entirety and resell it as their own.

Patents are more broad in their scope. So long as you use a bunch of parts in a specific configuration protected by that patent the device you create is prohibited. This gives patents a much greater impact on society when a patent is taken out. Some copyright-able works in the US such as software have been awarded patents. Patents are a very controversial issue in the software industry. Many programmers believe, and I am one of them, that patents are not appropriate for software. The reason I don't believe in patents is a matter of scope. A software project can contain thousands of ideas. If each of those ideas were patented then the product would quickly become nonviable to produce.

Because of the limited protection that copyright provides it is awarded a greater period of time that the copyright holder is allowed to hold. It is completely fair. As a software developer I wouldn't be in the business if it had a smaller time period for protection.

"I was here before the Internet back when it was a program called Gopher used through Canadian universities. This "Oh, it's on the internet so I can use it as I please," mindset that has been allowed to fester needs to change. Loosening up copyright law isn't the way to do it."

The internet isn't going anywhere, and it cannot be regulated. It's grown too large and complex for that. Maybe it's your mindset that needs to change. This is a new era. Things are bound to move forward, and if you don't adapt to compensate you will be left behind.

Rakey, first thing is that most copyright does not allow for public viewing now…so if you have a bunch of friends over for a public performance of X video then that actually break the law…even though that is crap.

I submit to you that if you release your IP to the internet for advertising purposes or for any reason at all then that becomes the public domain and can be used for personal use…

if you want to limit that then provide thumbnails of your work in low quality and then for clients that pay put watermark or whatever in the file so that you can identify it…then you go after the infringer for comercial use instead of someone that links you image on their website to show how good your stuff it.

First of all, in my humble opinion viewing parties should be allowed as long as those attending do not get a "Free copy" if it is a commercial work. so, I am urging some easing on that part of the law as long as it does not loosen the law in other areas.

Second, if I post my images on a portfolio for potential customers to gauge the quality of my work, that does not give ANYONE the right to take that image and use as they please. It is for my customers to gauge my abilities that I provide those images in my portfolio.

Third, I do have a commercial website and not only are the files watermarked, full copyright information and ownership information exists in the file in the form of EXIF information.

So I HAVE done my part. It is up to those who make copyright standards to protect and uphold my ownership of the work and provide the legal ground needed for me to persue those who take advantage of today's ease of access via internet mechanisms.

I am not advocating censorship, I am only urging the copyright people not to allow people to take what is mine and use it for their own purposes AND to protect the commerciality of my work and my right to make an income from it without others getting my work for free, unless I specifically grant such on an individual or group basis.

What kind of income can an artist receive if one person shares a single purchased file with, for example, hundreds of people? What some people are pushing for is ridiculous. Generally speaking, you are just going to kill the will of those who are not only creative artists but those who are also trying to find or sustain a career in the arts (be it music, photography, or any other generally easily duplicated material) and be financially stable while creating the art that you supposedly love so much. I put many hours into my work, sometimes several hours per image if I am working on a visionary piece. for someone to think they can buy it and pass it on as many times as they wish through whatever means, including peer-peer network sharing such as torrents for example, is ludicrous.

I'm all for the guy who buys my image and shows it to his friend and, instead of giving him a copy of it, refers him to the place where he bought it, so that he can purchase a copy for himself.

I am only against those who are trying to get the copyright people to ease up enough so that they can circumvent my right to pursue those who don't pay for the image for which they should be paying, instead of getting a FREE copy from their friend or relative.

I am not against family members showing other members my work so that I can get referrals for work and I am not against those upstanding Canadians who truly intend to persuade others to purchase the work that they love, in order to keep their favorite artist(s) afloat and continuing the creative process.

Also, there is the stock image trade (that includes "Royalty Free images") which could be even more adversely affected by wrong decisions with respect to copyright laws. If one person buys a stock image and "shares" it with a hundred friends, instead of those 100 friends buying the image for themselves, those are sales lost.

Too loose a copyright law will only facilitate more of this nonsense.

Ok The diarea was not called for..

what I said was for comercial use. If you don't want high grade photos of your works on the internet don't post them. It is not up to ISP's or others to police you IP if you release it to the internet…sorry bud..not smart.

And you have never heard of Genuine Fractals right? Come on now.. We're intelligent men. No matter what size you put up, unless you want it so small that no one can make out what's in the image, others will be able to take for free. Watermarking is a step. Copyright has to go more than a step further.

I am not saying make copyright law stronger. I just hope that is does not become more loose.

I am only interested in protecting my right to make a living from my art and to recoup losses.

Anyways, I think we're both being rather pedantic and somewhat insulting. It's time to stop this and hope that the lawmakers have the foresight through reading our debates, to do the right thing .. so that we can all enjoy the digital age as we choose, without infringing on the rights of others.

I had to look up pedantic in the dictionary…

I am not saying you should not be compensated for your work, but if you think that you can take a local photo and make million dollars anymore that is not the case…first off, if you release it to the public domain, everyone can see what you took the picture of and try and recreate…then how do you know that that picture is yours unless it is from a scene shot…wedding…where most negatives are now owned by the wedding couple…photogs and musicians are paid to do a job…I don't think we will see $10 million dollar salaries for 3-4 hours work anymore…

Sorry, a picture is not worth 10k…unless it is less then 24 hours old.

Well.. I do agree with you about snapshots. However, I am a traveller and spend a lot of money creating and documenting my photography pursuits.

Also, my photos don't sell for $10k (HA! I wish!) but I am finally starting to make somewhat of a decent income (not enough to quit my day job) by selling my stock photography on microstock sites.

I just recently found out that there is a movement where someone pays for the image and then puts it up on "Free microstock" sites for others to download. This is directly circumventing the stock/microstock industry and is a copyright infringement. MY only aim is to hope that copyright law keeps this a legal infringement so that we have legal recourse to pursue these creeps.

I don't expect to get rich and, with the microstock pricing model, people can purchase these images affordably while at the same time allowing me the privilege of eating while I am creating more stock and microstock for my customers.

That's all I am aiming for..

Rakey. I would agree if someone was putting your stuff up on a distribution site and reselling it then that is CR infrigment…for profit…

Paying for an image for redistribution for comercial gain is not cool…

That is one of those things that you have to get someone to chase…unfortunatly once something hits the internet…too many rules and world wide laws apply…

You are assuming that person who copied the material would have paid for it in the first place.

Just because someone made a duplicate of some material for no monetary gain does not mean it is automatically worth something monetarily.

What I am getting at is your logic futile to enforce in a virtual world as there is no real loss/damages that can be calculated or a way to enforce while preserving privacy.

There is nothing stopping you currently from suing. The problem is of course the judge needs to see damages.

We should not make laws or legislation that is going to drag down the courts and police so the plaintiff can simply feel better or force artificial gains where there are no real damages.

We will pay more taxes in enforcement and drag down the economy one defendant at a time more than anything you would have gained through an assumed sale.

People that like copyrighted material and have the means do pay for the product. I have yet to meet someone that doesn't.

"You are assuming that person who copied the material would have paid for it in the first place."

That's backward logic.

If they weren't going to pay for it, they shouldn't be using it.

Incorrect - in fact, it's necessary to view anything via the internet.

If I visit your site there is nothing stopping you from claiming that my IP address downloaded an image and therefore I must pay for it.

Now in court, at no cost to you, I must prove that I did not make a copy. But of course I did to view the image. Now I'm out whatever you decide to value the product, labeled a thief, stuck with a legal bill and the taxpayer paid judge and all to sit there. Even better, I could be labeled a thief because my 6 year old liked the funny cat picture and saved it as a background.

We can't limit the law to exclude infringement of caching services/methods as that would allow me to create a caching device that grabs every image for sale through some service on the internet and sell it with a premium as a proxy to whatever vendor you decided to sell it through.

Add to that any technical exclusion will be obsolete in 10 years and we are back at square one.

The point I am making is it's not enforceable in any real sense. All we will have is a greater legal system with no deterrent and no real damages.

There is already a system in place that allows any creator to sue but they must show damages. This includes for profit business use, advertising, or monetary gain. Currently, it's up to the creator to identify and enforce. That's the way it should be.

Anyone forwarding an email with a cute picture or using a caching device should not qualify as an assumed sale.

I agree there are some abusers and legitimate borderline users but we simply cannot enforce physical principals (copy = theft) on virtual goods - it's just not practical or economical no matter how much we want it to be.

Backwards logic it is not.

When laws assume that anyone who downloads a song would have paid for it, they can extort millions, and overvalue their losses. This simply is not true, and studies have shown this to be true.

Example:
Few can afford to pay for the 500+ Michael Jackson songs after hearing about his death at $1.50 a pop, but many wanted to share in the cultural collective experience and so downloaded a few.

rakey would have us mourn an artist's passing in silence rather then download a song or two to remember the time… I had a few tapes and CD's of MJ I bought over the years. Some were broken, others misplaced.

"Rakey" would have me buy every song again or not participate in the collective cultural expression that occurred,

I wanted to partake in the cultural phenomenon of the Aston Martin Owners Club but unfortunately could not afford an Aston Martin. "Rakey" would have me mourn on the side of the road with my bike. If you can't afford it, you do without. That's capitalism folks.

You are applying a physical parallel that does not work. If you took an Aston Martin the owner is out a car. In the virtual world it doesn't work that way.

Picture this instead: You zap an Aston Martin with a ray gun creating an exact duplicate at a small cost to yourself with no damage or deprivation to the original car. Under those circumstances I doubt you would have been left on the side of the road with your bike.

Now picture a check stop claiming that you owe some creator of the Original Aston Martin because you made a duplicate. However, you would have never paid for it in the first place.

Where are the damages? There was no chance of sale (you could not afford it in the first place) therefore no lost revenue. You never sold duplicates of the car so no type of fraud or lost revenue is going on their either. The original was left in tact without harm or loss of use - no claim there either.

Simple question - where are the damages?

As I've been able to zap this hypothetical car, so can others. Many others. In fact, suddenly everyone owns an Aston Martin. The value of an Aston Martin suddenly becomes worthless, even to those who would buy the original as they too can simply zap one into being. Aston Martin can no longer make cars because no one is buying a duplicate. Rather they create a DB6, one person buys it and everyone else zaps it. So then they create a DBS and the same thing happens.
They are told that the market for Aston Martins has changed and they need a new revenue model since making cars no longer works. So they set about selling T-Shirts which of course doesn't make nearly what selling cars makes and Aston Martin gets shuttered.
Everyone who made Aston Martins now are out of work and the people who designed Aston Martins take up needle point. And me, with my zapped car, can't get another car (unless I want the same model) because no one is making the originals anymore. So the short of it is Aston Martin and I, the consumer, both suffer damages.

And viola… the true value of a virtual item is realized.

Consider that under this scenario it cost Aston Martin nothing to make those replicas. Their prowess, market share, and status have improved over night at no cost to their own.

Also consider there are plenty of distribution models available that make their operations sustainable without forcing profit from every replica. For example, the car stops working after 30 days without renewal. Or, more to the point, a dealership that carries all makes and models for their customers to use at any time for a flat monthly fee.

No new legislation is needed… just a new relevant business model.

"No new legislation is needed… just a new relevant business model. "

And I think that's the key here. The distribution model used for many decades is failing simply because the technology that created the scarcity necessary to justify charging people has disappeared. Much as the printing press pretty much wiped out the professional scribe/copiest or the cannon and black powder rifle wiped out the fletcher's trade, so too has modern digital duplication undermined the media model that dominated since the invention of the phonograph.

We can sit here all day talking about how onerous the penalties for unauthorized duplication and sharing should be, or whether consumers should be allowed to move existing content to new platforms, or whether we should have the RCMP bashing down the doors of anyone caught sharing a song they ripped from a CD, but at the end of the day, I can't help but think that this is akin to King Canute holding back the tide.

As I repeatedly point out, art has existed a significantly longer time than the notion of intellectual property. Maybe it will mean the end of some media industries (though judging by increase in box office ticket sales, the movie industry seems to be doing rather well, even in a harsh economic climate). Maybe there will be no more recording artists who can make a few hit records and live off the proceeds for decades afterwards. Maybe it means more work will have to be done in making physical copies of books, pictures and music more worthwhile to justify charging people. I dunno, but all I can say is that history has a lesson for anyone who thinks simply passing laws somehow is going to magically make the world stand still.

Look up Japan's firearms industry in the 15th and 16th century, when it was one of the world's most advanced producers of firearms, and how, in a vain attempt to preserve the feudal system against the inevitable destruction that firearms represented, firearms were banned. What was the end result? A couple of centuries later, Meiji Japan actually had to bring in foreign experts to recreate its weapons' industry lest it be overtaken by colonial powers.

I'm all for rebuilding the copyright model. I'm just not prepared to watch people lose their means of income in the process while we try to figure out how to make everyone happy. The models for digital distribution so far have not worked. Spiral Frog showed us ad supported doesn't work and iTunes has yet to make up for dying CD sales and is really just built to sell iPods. I understand your argument for evolution, however there must be a way that we can support artists and writers while doing it. Even in a historical argument, artists, the few that there were, required benefactors to continue to create art. We can't just tell them to fend for themselves now. I agree that simply passing laws isn't the answer, but if that isn't, we need a different way to support creativity. Distributing their work wholesale because we can isn't it.

Digital copies (iTunes) are far cheaper than creating, packaging, and shipping a CD. Why should we expect the revenues to be the same or greater?

You are also assuming their bottom lines are not being faulted by other means - like legal fees for legislation that will never be enforceable, alienation, greater competition from independent groups, and degradation in quality of product.

The recording industry has not proven piracy is the cause of their degradation of income. They merely guessed as to what the number should be based on projected statistics that do not prove the sale would have occurred in the first place.

And strangely, all these other causes, having never played a role to this point, suddenly took hold the same year Napster came into the public eye? Seriously?
You know what, I'm not an apologist for 90% of the crap that is on radio and put out by major and indie labels. But that is the crap people have been buying since the 60's (Frankie Avalon anyone?). There's been no degradation, most of it was never good. And the music that continues to be not very good continues to outsell the music that is.

That is not correct. Their sales were in decline several years before Napster and the like surfaced. Before Napster, they tried blaming it on the ease of duplication of the CD media. They couldn't prove that either.

They also tried this on VCR's and audio cassettes. The argument that copying at no monetary gains by the private user is hurting sales is very old. Yet, all media creators survive and maintain riches quite well.

I would argue that I have anecdotal evidence to the contrary in relation to media creators maintaining their riches (and no, I'm not one) but everyone is taking a hit right now so I won't.

But you have to admit that copying at no monetary gain a tape to another tape for a backup or to give to a friend and distributing a work wholesale for free to millions of people are not the same. The industry just didn't know how good they had it when they were dealing with a couple VCR tapes.

I suggest that sales were in decline because the CD was aging by the early 00's and the industry had hung on to it too long, considering that a large part of sales of any new technology is catalogue replacement. However, where in the past CD replaced cassette replaced vinyl, digital has not replaced CD. Year over year Billboard stats show that. They're increasing, but not proportionately like previous media did.

But I think we've flown pretty far from copyright reform, and I think that's my fault. Regardless of what copyright we do or don't change, we're not going to be able to fix the labels. They need to do that themselves or wilt away. I'm concerned about writers (also of which I am not one) getting paid because they seem to be the guys suffering the most.

The reality is that the economic model that a number of media industries have been using since the phonograph is faltering, and will soon die. That means, unfortunately, people will get hurt. I'm sure all the fletchers who watched their livelihoods go down the tubes as blackpowder firearms and cannons became more prevalent felt much like some artists today, but technology will not stop.

If you're income is based on an outmoded model, then I suggest you find a new model. That is the very harsh lesson of history. If, as some artists and media companies claim, digital sharing is going to destroy their industry, then there is not a law on the planet short of banning computers and the Internet which will save those industries.

I couldn't agree more! I find it completely ridiculous that I walk into an HMV and they want to sell me a plastic CD. It doesn't match reality. They are cumbersome, scratch, aren't portable enough, etc - certainly compared to what I get from an MP3 and player. Walk into any Zellers or Canadian Tire and see if you can still find a CD player! They are selling MP3 players almost exclusively.

How can the recording industry complain it is piracy killing their industry while they are still trying to sell a physical product that no one wants. They will argue that they have moved with the times through services like iTunes. But I find this argument to be ridiculous. First of all, the move has been a relative recent one, and certainly doesn't go the required distance. Only a very limited catalog is available through such services. But more importantly, DRM insists on eliminating my fair use. Who in their right mind would give up their rights when a better alternative is available.

The recording industry has to learn that the customer - and society as a whole is always right. Give them what they want and you make money. Currently I feel that the bulk of society does believe in copyright and would be more than willing to pay for a desirable product. I pray the recording industry gets their act together before society has been completely reprogrammed to accept piracy as the acceptable norm and loses all feelings of guilt. If society gives up believing it is an offense, no laws will help you - enforceable laws are really only the manifestation of societal values. If society doesn't believe in a law, it isn't practically enforceable.

I am comfortable declaring that any declines in music sales are the direct result of bad recording industry decisions and not piracy or bad copyright policy. Give the public what they want (MP3s at a fair price that don't compromise consumer rights)- stop waiting for the government to give you a stick with which to beat on your old customers.

But the industry tried 30 days without renewal. They've tried subscriptions. And then they get crucified for using DRM and crippling their product. So how do they win?

Obviously that model doesn't work… try something else.

Why should I be forced as a consumer to buy a product a certain way when I don't want to?

A company cannot claim foul when they make a bad choice and consumers leave the store - nor should they have legal rights to force a sale that would not have happened under the conditions.

There are other models that work quite well. I just gave some simple examples.

I believe everything that the industry tried so far has been with crippling DRM protection…if I bought an album digitally for 10$ say, if I could not use that album how I want then that would not lend me to buy another album from that company.

Now if I bought the album for 10$ and paid a 1$ fee plus shipping for a CD copy of the album or even free plus shipping, then I would buy it…otherwise, I will continue to buy single tracks at 1$ or less (free) based on what I like not just what is available from the stores.

Please note that 10$ is a huge markup on CD's…it should be more of a 2-3$ range if anything.

I agree with you on all counts except the $2-$3 thing. The industry dropped the ball with DRM but have since picked it up. iTunes, Amazon and Walmart are all DRM free and tracks are around .99 (not a fan of variable pricing myself and wish Apple had held on). Personally, I get more enjoyment out of a CD than $2-$3 worth and I think that experience is worth more to me.

Sorry for the rant, but seriously how do they win? Cry me a river! How can they lose? They have never been in any sort of trouble. The copyright overlord industry has never stopped growing like crazy. They have the power to sponsor government representatives in the US and probably other countries, hire statistics companies influence what results on the subject are released; for goodness sake how can they possibly lose with power like that? How can we the citizens of canada even compete against that?

All we have is the collective protest of a number of canadians who found out when they started to try to get their unwanted legistlation put in here and called foul. And a government with enough integrity to at least pause and listen. We barely have a prayer. It is a testament to our country that our protest are allowed to be heard and that we have gotten as far as we have.

I reitterate that I am for copyright reform. But the argument of "Find another business model", which was what I was addressing is what the industry has been trying to do and they were condemned for it. It seems as if no one has an answer to what a good model is, just that they want whatever it is to be free to them. Is the industry bloated? It sure was. I'd question that now, especially in Canada.

The trouble with that is that the new business model doesn't require a middleman. Artists and creators for the most part have direct access to all they need to produce, market, publish and distristribute with relative ease. They are already starting to do it successfully, but the new business model as I see it would be for more and more Artists to take over most of these responsibilities (or hire help directly if they are doing well enough) and therefore also take over the lions share of profits that has traditionally been denied them.

The problem with DRM is that it forces your "device" to obey two masters: The distributor and the end user.

If my "device" is a general-purpose computer, I don't want the distributor tampering with it in a vain attempt to prevent copying.

In this "nightmare" scenario can I "zap" some food to feed all the world's hungry or just fully assembled cars? How about other machinery to drill wells for the poor?

You are bending logic so far backwards you neglected to see that if we could zap property and tangible things there would be no more starvation and it would be like star trek where the is no homelessness either.

Let me guess, you'd be against that out of principal right? Even through we'd have heaven on earth because I would be "stealing" your photo. (Never mind you'd have every tangible thing you ever wanted)

Time to go back to the metaphor bank and find something that doesn't overcome humanities' greatest struggles in one fell swoop to defend your point.

Easy there, I didn't start on the "zapping" metaphor, that was introduced by mskeoch. Go up a couple branchs in the comments. Mine was just a quick shot at a tired "I can't afford it so it wasn't really a sale" argument. mskeoch extended the metaphor and asked where the damage was so I followed the metaphor to the logical conclusion (using a pretty blatant parallel I thought) and described where the actual damage was. If I could pirate food and send it to the third world I would. But that's not what we're discussing so can the red herring and get back on topic.

There is no "zapping" metaphor - the car is the metaphor. This "zapping" of duplication actually exists in the virtual world - we call it "copy".

Again, there are no damages that can be calculated monetarily in your example. Demand credit, sure. Demand a user stop using the item, sure I can go with that. Ask for money where there is no proof of monetary loss… no I can't go with that one.

Just because someone deems something worth something does not mean it has monetary value or there was monetary loss. Sure you claim they "enjoyed" the item and should have to pay but we are talking about an abstract concept that cannot be absolute (laws left open for wide interpretation are dangerous).

Did you "enjoy" watching me juggle some balls on the street? Great - pay up - doesn't matter if you agree that my show was worth the viewing fee I deem its worth or not. Oh, and you didn't agree to pay for the show or even knew there was an viewing fee in the first place… but that doesn't matter.

couldn't agree more…I copyright this text and deem it worth 1 million dollars per view…

Please pay up as it is creative content and if you refrence or republish it then you are breaking copyright law…

Absurd.

You know what? I see your point even if I don't completely agree with it. What I was trying to illustrate with my follow up was how duplication of music trashes the industry. So without copyright as we currently know it, how do we compensate writers for their work? Even an argument of a "true artist" doesn't need to be paid doesn't feed them and I return to us being stuck with hobbyists. Bottom line: I generally just don't want my music to suck and that's what I was trying to get at. I'm willing to pay for that if it means $1 a song. And yes, I want to be able to copy a CD to my iPod to my computer and play it for my friends as long as I'm not making money. I think that's a legitimate use that I expect to be able to do. But I definitely know that I don't have 40 million friends and should be allowed to freely distribute it at the cost of a writer being supported. I also don't want to see some bozo take someone else's song, rerecord it or manipulate it slightly and be able to monetize it where the original owner doesn't see any benefit. To me those are the basics and for the most part everything else is static. Surely there's common ground to be had there.

An interesting debate. However a couple of things to note regarding the zapping of the Aston Martin. The discussion did not draw to its final conclusion. The argument goes that if everyone zaps the Aston Martin, and any new models generated those are in turned zapped, Aston Martin closes shop. With so much zapping going on no one makes new models, and I take it no one eventually makes new cars. The Art dies. That is the conclusion I take from the previous arguments. But that is not the case. First the people at Aston Martin might move to create new and better zappers. Adapt their business plan or die, so to speak. The whole car industry is in turmoil. Some will produce car models for the sake of generating new cars depending on the patronage of a few consumers, some will beg and some will get new jobs. Very dreary indeed. But that is not the end. Eventually people will miss the cars, start going to Car Shows. Pay tickets to see the Cars. Nostalgia is one of the biggest motivations for Art spending. It will not do to simply have a "copy" of an Ashton Martin, only an "original" Ashton Martin will be acceptable. People who copy the cars will begin to be viewed dimly in Society. Some who would copy will start to buy because it is the right thing to do.Eventually honour and respect will win the day because in the end people will want new cars. Ashton Martin will have adapted or died in the turmoil. Others would rise to replace them. A new equilibrium. Sound familiar???

"I expect to be reimbursed for my work and years of money spent "

No artist here folks. Just a corporate troll acting like a "real" person with serious entitlement issues.

And to the think tank that dreamt up "rakey" What photographer expects big cash? Most of us take pictures because we love it and try to get a few paying gigs on the side, and get into wedding photography where it's a a slam dunk who owns what if we really want to make a living. Or become a paparazzi and move to LA.

Artist like the real rakey know that having our low resolution photos shared online creates more buzz about our work. I never share my hi-res pics digitally and neither do any other artist unless we get paid some good cash, and then it's off to the next picture not crying about getting paid until 10 years after our deaths.

"Artist like the real rakey know that having our low resolution photos shared online creates more buzz about our work. I never share my hi-res pics digitally and neither do any other artist unless we get paid some good cash, and then it's off to the next picture not crying about getting paid until 10 years after our deaths."

There is another side to this. If your business model is based upon some real or imagined technological barrier that you perceive as creating a sufficient scarcity to generate demand, and ultimately profit, and that technological barrier disappears, I'm not exactly sure why anyone should be going out of their way to preserve your business model.

There's a reason a lot of the authors in the md and late 19th century used to go on speaking tours. Copyright laws were all over the place at the time and one could not guarantee that in some other jurisdiction one's works wouldn't be reproduced by some publisher or another and you didn't see a penny (remember, once you have a printing press and the knowledge to use it, reproduction is only a matter of the amount of time it took to typeset the manuscript).

A lot of authors, like Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and Charles Dickens, got a good deal of their income from speaking engagements and public readings. What's more, many authors, like Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, were also regular contributors to various periodicals. In fact, a lot of authors worked that way well into the 20th century (look at all the Science Fiction, Western and Detective periodicals that were around from the 1930s and well into the 1970s, some still survive). Those guys got paid a flat fee per word, no matter how many copies got sold.

There are all sorts of business models that have been used over the centuries from medieval troubadours to per-word payment systems. Most content producers throughout history had little expectation of getting residuals or royalties. Shakespeare hardly could control who did a performance of Henry V. His profits came from owning a theater, and being the first out of the gate with new works. His reputation and the reputation of his acting company were what brought in the cash, not some expectation that every time someone somewhere put on a production of Macbeth that he was going to get a cut.

"You are wrong. It is stealing. If the additional people who downloaded that content were forced to pay for it, that is money in my pocket, and rightfully so."

Why is it rightfully so? You are an artist (maybe) and someone paid you at least once??? I will take it as a YES as because if you were not making money you would be without internet to make these stupid comments. You should thank those people. Hopefully they came back for more. Does not matter. Your PRODUCT entered the PUBLIC DOMAIN the minute you sold it and it appeared in some publication. When you take your photos (since i am not sure what kinds of photos you take) and they perhaps have buildings in them, did you compensate the owner's of the building, the designer's of the building. Any people in the background, were they duly compensated every time your photo appears and you are paid. Maybe, maybe not.

"I expect to be reimbursed for my work and years of money spent to the Canadian government in the form of OSAP INTEREST and I expect the Canadian government to protect what is mine and govern commerce accordingly."

WHY?!?!? Again were you paid at least once. Then Canada owes you NOTHING!!!! The World owes you NOTHING!!! If you find you cannot make it in the Art World go work at a 7-Eleven.

I disagree Dude. Copyright ensures that we continue to reward creativity lest we starve our creators. Public Domain is not being used the way you are describing. Public Domain is a term describing something that has existed for 50 years beyond its creator's demise. Entering the "public domain" as you're using it does not exclude it from copyright. People do owe you something because they are benefiting from your creation. If we don't pay our creators, it works against our interests as we end up with hobbyists instead of professionals. God bless blogs but we still need professional reporters as well. And you have to pay someone to commit to something fulltime.

I agree with xcelsior, although I do think 50 years is far too long.

You are excelsior. It's apparent in the way you reply to each other's points and "agree" on everything except the term of copyright.

"Rakey" wants like 15 years on the low end and his alter ego "Excelsior" want 50, so The company that paid the person pretending to be those people is happy with say 30 years.

The reality is that the Candian people want to pay artists a living wage if their art is hugely successful, but don't want to live in a world where every time I click "print' on my printer CSIS and the RCMP get a copy sent to them to make sure I'm not "stealing" some copy written work.

the ability to use things for personal use is too important to our collective experiences, and our society as a whole. I don't want to allow for profit enterprises to use your work. In my home, car, or ipod I should not be monitored by copyright watchdogs every time I click play.

Get a clue. I am not xcelsior. The owners of this site can verify this easily enough if they are recording IP addresses with each saved message.

Conspiracy theories! Awesome! No man, two different people and I only wish I was getting paid for this.

Copyright does not reward the creator. People BUYING the ART does. This distinction is often forgotten in the COPYRIGHT debate. As for my use of the phrase PUBLIC DOMAIN, I am referring the set of all people able to access the material. The real PUBLIC DOMAIN. The legal definition changes from time to time and country to country.

Let me quote you, xcelsior1. "People do owe you something because they are benefiting from your creation."

Sorry but not a hard and fast rule. An artist SHOULD ONLY hope that someone pays. There is nothing except honour and respect that will make anyone pay. You can state we have the Law but all the laws in the world will never be able to prevent this. There will always be those who will pay and those who won't. The Patronage system never went away, just morphed. This is the undeniable reality. Most Corporate Interests know this. That is why most if not all the debate surrounding Copyright lately has been about how to remove/limit consumer rights, in the guise of protecting the creators. In reality a coordinated effort to make those who pay pay more. The undeniable fact is this: copying is copying. Not stealing, not depriving the creator of "rightful" earnings. Just copying. If you want to go to the extreme with it, EVERY time someone copies art, it is a derivative work. Undeniable truth. Whether it is RIGHT or WRONG is a point of view. It is only our honour and respect for the artists that brought about the creation of this thing called Copyright Law that attempts to control what limitations can be placed on derivative works and makes an effort to "compensate" the COPYRIGHT holder which hopefully is original creator. In the end it is honour and respect for the Artists that make people buy that Art.

The end result of this will scare most. The average person in the end buy what they buy with little or no concern about Copyright. REALLY!!!! They mostly assume that the creator is compensated EVERY TIME they buy something. It is the RIGHT thing for most people that the creator is compensated. They BELIEVE IT. In essence there is NO need for COPYRIGHT in their world. SO who is really doing the harm. Guess who, it is the COPYRIGHT holders and the vendors who are depriving the creators, not the general public. If the creator is fortunate or smart enough retain Copyright ownership then maybe he/she is compensated. The last thing these large Interest groups want to do is change the Copyright Law to better compensate the Creators of the World.

So where does this lead us. To an interesting and uncomfortable new reality. Stop the treatment of Digital Art as something separate and distinct. It is the message, not the medium that should be important. Do not allow the erosion of fair use. When a person purchases ART, they purchase it with clear and unrestricted use, including public display and even the copying of it. Enforce the existing laws and update as necessary.

Dude, I wish everyone had respect for art the way that you do. We'd be able to sell an original, single copy of a song for $5,000+ to compensate artists for the work and expenses that goes into a song on the front end just like fine art. And people would pay it because they loved the song. Good writers would prosper, bad writers would find another profession. But with that we'd have a whole lot less music; which isn't necessarily a bad thing, might weed out the candy, but it also changes who gets to hear music as if I, being a greedy person, buy a song and choose not to distribute it, no one hears it and the creator loses all control, like art in a hallway. I can't speak for other mediums but I know that a creator keeps at least 50% of their song (writer's share) in music and can only sell the other 50% (publisher's share). Artists can lose it all in masters. But the music gets out there.
As for the fair use mantra, I agree that fair use is important and should include education and charity. Where I choke is when Girl Talk sells CDs or an artist has no control over how his creation is used.

"People do owe you something because they are benefiting from your creation". Sorry, but this is nonsense.

I benefit from my neighbour who's planted a beautiful garden. I benefit from everyone in my area who has trees. I benefit from people telling me what they thought of the movie they saw last night. I benefit from cars stopping to let me cross the street. I benefit from whoever invented the hamburger, the TV, the telephone, the roof. Do I owe them gratitude because I benefit from what they've done ? Certainly. Do I owe them money ? Absolutely not.

I don't want to live in a "society" where people expect to be paid whenever anyone benefits from something they've done.

Does that mean that the people who write books, create music, etc shouldn't be paid ? Of course not. It does mean, though, that expecting to be paid for every copy of the work they produce is probably unreasonable (especially if it's somebody else who does the work of creating the copy). Economics says that when it costs almost nothing to create one more copy of something, the price you can charge is going to be almost nothing. That's not "good" or "bad", like gravity, it just is, and we have to deal with it.

I'm an artist myself, but in legal terms I've got to tell you you're wrong here. Violation of copyright is not theft, all rhetoric aside.

Theft involves the unlawful acquisition of physical scarce goods, such that someone's taking deprives someone else of that object. In terms of copying, that's simply not the case 'If I light my candle from your wick I do not deprive you of light' - Thomas Jefferson.

The economic argument against digital copying is that any given unauthorized copy represents the loss of a sale. However, there is plenty of evidence that music file sharers treat most downloads like radio. They use it to discover music they've never heard, and delete tracks they don't like. In addition file sharers are much more likely to purchase music CDs than are the general public. The story is similar for films and DVDs. Many people download movies and shows because they're not available when and where they want them. These folks are your future customers. Find a way to give them what they want easily, and they'll pay - just look at iTunes.

I agree. I sell my work globally. I know internet models well. For I am not only a photographer, I also work in the internet security industry and am a former software developer.

This is why I am concerned. I know all these technologies VERY well.

I agree about DRM being a pile of crap. This is where copyright laws should protect us instead of forcing us to rely on half-baked ideas like DRM. We should be allowed to copy, backup and print what is ours.

I do not agree, particularly with respect to commercial art or works, that your purchase of such should be grounds for you to (re)distribute it without any monetary compensation to the author.

Again, I 100% support your and my right to view or listen via any media, player currently in existence or otherwise. you should be able to convert the work to play or be viewed on yet undiscovered media.

I just don't agree with free sharing of the work by giving another individual an exact digital copy of the piece, unless the author has granted you that liberty through his or her written license.

Agree with everything here… almost.

"I just don't agree with free sharing of the work by giving another individual an exact digital copy of the piece, unless the author has granted you that liberty through his or her written license."

Again, you are talking about a license not ownership rights. There is nothing currently stopping you from sticking penalty clauses in the license to your hearts content.

However, if someone copies your photo under general public viewership from a something like a general accessible website what are the damages?

If they sell it: Yes. Monetary damages you can claim under the current system.

If the use it for profit: Yes. They are using your item to promote monetary gains. You can claim this under the current system.

Place it on facebook because they liked it: No. There is no monetary gain nor would they have purchased it. They are not claiming it's theirs nor do they intend to cause harm or degradation to the original. In fact, one could argue that this is of benefit to the original as someone who might purchase it may be inclined to do so from viewing this duplicate.

If you want to change the facebook point to a "Yes" then you must consider the impact if there's a billboard or any other advertisement, art piece, or creative construction in any of your photos. One could then argue that you owe damages because somewhere in one of your photos is a replica of a billboard advertisement which you do not have authority to reproduce.

See, there's the sticking point. In the stock world where I list some of my work for sale, I have to clone out (remove) those hypothetical billboard ads in order to comply with copyright laws.

I also must clone out logos and artistic works that have been copyrighted by others. also, I cannot use faces for which I do not have a model release.

I'm perfectly okay with all of that. I practice what i preach.

Facebook, again, is a different sort of beast.. I'm not exactly sure how to approach that one right now. They may not be selling my work but it is a usage that is covered in the microstock world by royalty-free licensing, which means if you pay for the image, you can use it wherever and however you like, including derivatives.

There are licensing models to cover this. I don't feel that loosening copyright laws in that area is needed since we have the ability to license usage for Facebook.

If the laws change and I must change my marketing/licensing model in order to accomodate the Facebooks of the world then so be it..

"See, there's the sticking point. In the stock world where I list some of my work for sale, I have to clone out (remove) those hypothetical billboard ads in order to comply with copyright laws.

I also must clone out logos and artistic works that have been copyrighted by others. also, I cannot use faces for which I do not have a model release."

There is actually some leeway for "original and unique concepts" but stock sites want to avoid the legal hassle that may occur.

What you are missing here is what if that billboard was in the background of your family vacation photo?

Should the creator of that billboard be able to sue you for damages because you shared copies of that photo with your friends at no monetary gain?

I don't… even if that was all the photo contained.

I agree in principal with what you're saying about unauthorised redistribution, although I think you'd probably agree as a developer (dabbled in development myself for a bit) that this would be a difficult area to police. Watermarking would be better than DRM.

In terms of 'piracy', it's the true 'commmercial' pirates that are the real problem in most cases. A 'bit copy' of a DVD or a CD sold on the black market takes far more out of an artist's pocket than a copy on the internet, because the customer believes they've bought it fair and square.

Not sure what the solution for photography is, but my favourite response seen so far is how some shooters respond to hotlinking. Replace the pic with one of an ugly, nasty dog.

"In terms of 'piracy', it's the true 'commmercial' pirates that are the real problem in most cases. A 'bit copy' of a DVD or a CD sold on the black market takes far more out of an artist's pocket than a copy on the internet, because the customer believes they've bought it fair and square."

There's also the issue of quality. A pirated CD or DVD is usually of far better quality than an MP3 or DivX rip. While there are some lossless compression standards out there, for the most part people are usually much happier to live with a crappy YouTube-grade video than wait many long hours for a BluRay hi-def video to download.

http://www.digital-copyright.ca/Jefferson_debate

It is not stealing -- it may be illegal reduction of property value, but it is not stealing. Language is important as avoiding abusive language allows allies to work together, rather than being divisive.

You have a lot of 'ifs' in your second sentence that disproves the claim that copyright infringement is like "theft". While I am not saying it doesn't ever happen, a vast majority of non-commercial infringement is not a substitute for payment but a substitute for not accessing the work at all.

You also felt prey to what I was saying, which is the mistaken belief that because I disagree with your abuse of language that I somehow think you shouldn't get paid for your work. I believe you should, just as much as I believe your use of the word "theft" is both wrong and harmful to your own interests. This type of language abuse can only make things worse as it is a form of "You are with us, or against us" where far too many (myself included) get pushed by those abusing the language into the "against us" category.

Is downloading 'stealing' if the file you've downloaded carries no copyright information? This might not be the correct thread, but I have to wonder at the practice of going after downloaders or file-sharers who are caught trafficking a copyrighted work, but haven't had the chance to view it and 'note' that it is copyrighted.

I'm thinking specifically about bittorrent, where the act of downloading a file also makes it necessary to upload (which is the point of the protocol and shouldn't be avoided). Rights owners attach themselves to a swarm and start writing down IP addresses to forward threatening letters and lawsuits. However, lots of files are edited before distribution, lacking copyright information and do not warn the filesharer that the specific file is illegal. I've come across lots of old science fiction novels on the internet, and I still don't know if they're allowed to be there or not (outside of researching every author, and I'll admit I haven't). Do I download, or don't I?

Wouldn't a more accurate and fair form of prosecution be to target the people who initially put the files on the internet, instead of the people who find them and share?

You hit the nail on the head Mr. Neo. Since a lot of TV shows (the only thing I download) are given away free on the internet…and I pay for premium service for my HD TV, I feel entitled to download copies of shows from the internet.

The only issue though is that most sites now block Canadian IP addresses so you can't watch them live…so how do I know that a TV show has been released to the internet for viewing and what is not…I say once someone releases something to the internet for free viewing then that is now available for private use download and sharing.

I kind of agree with you here, Cnd.

Most TV shows, even if they aren't on the internet, are broadcast free and clear with advertising attached. 'The Honeymooners' signals are well into deep space right now, past several nearby star systems. If it's free to alien races, why not here?

Scott W - "'The Honeymooners' signals are well into deep space right now, past several nearby star systems. If it's free to alien races, why not here?"

That has to be the funniest statement seen on this board.

No, you are "WRONG". Your assumption is that everyone who made a copy would have paid for it. That could not be further from reality.

If someone appreciates your work enough to save it, and uses it in some personal project or makes a desktop wallpaper out of it (in the case of images) or passes a song around what have you lost? In fact you may have gained exposure. But it isn't really about money is it? It's about control. "Mine! I decide what gets done with it!".

It's not theft. Call it copyright infringement (which it already is) or defying your wishes ("you can't have it because I say so!"), but don't call it theft, for it is a different crime. It hasn't taken away your ability to use or sell your work to others. That claim is highly overrated.

I take a very dim view of commercial infringement though. For example if someone took your images and used them in a book that was published and sold without appropriate arrangements, I'd be beating the war drums alongside you.

The same with the sale of counterfeit copies of people's work.

But if you righteous copyright creeps think you are going to bully citizens into submission, think again. Canada is a nation of free thinkers. You can try to criminalize the enjoyment of art all you want, but you can't deter it and it's not going to increase your profits to fight against casual infringement by your audience. The harder you try to squeeze, the more that will slip right out of your fingers.

"righteous copyright creeps" is enough to stop me from responding further to your immature tripe.

My work, my license, my rules. If you don't like it, go steal someone else's work.

People like you are the reason am here to make sure I have a legal recourse to protect what is mine.

Sorry to the mature adults reading. I will stop responding to this tangent thread.

Well, I'm going to reply anyway and I don't care if you're not going to respond or even read it. Others will.

Hit the nail right on the head with some of my statements, did I? I say what I mean, and I don't put on airs of sophistication or mince words.

That's exactly what they (the lobbyists pushing for draconian changes in this country, organizations like the **AA in America) are… "righteous copyright creeps" who seek to criminalize the behaviour of, or otherwise bring punitive damages against the people they are trying to sell their work to, and it's not going to work in their favour. You'll note the use of the plural form, it wasn't only directed at you.

When you play the maturity card in a discussion thread and use it as an excuse to bow out, you lose. It's an indication that you have nothing further of value to say and no legitimate counter to the arguments.

Read my post again. I'm not actually advocating that you should be ripped off. Read some of the other comments that disagree with your assignment of the word "theft" to the act of casual copyright infringement and grow up yourself.

This, just after you talked about stealing music from the Beatles? I'm confused.

The question is would the people have downloaded it at all if they were forced to pay for it?

I agree it is not theft. Enjoying the labors of another person without compensation or permission is not theft -- it is slavery.

I also agree that no amount of legislation or technological arguments will halt this practice until we, as citizens, deem it reprehensible to allow content creators to work in virtual slavery for our own benefit. The "analog hole", if nothing else, will ensure that.

But this does not mean we should just throw up our hands and declare the problem beyond our capability to handle. But we need to make sure that legislation crafted reflects the realities of today. Copyright holders deserve some assurances that they will be able to profit from their content lest we slip back to the system of patronage, where artists and creators need to be supported by the wealthy because the masses simply do not pay.

What I notice is that there is an equivalency being made by two sides of this debate between a "problem" and specific proposed solutions. If you disagree with one you feel forced to disagree with the other.

I consider myself an author, and it is from this perspective that I disagree with the general direction that some governments (including Canada) have been taking copyright. I do not believe, however, that copyright holders don't deserve to get paid. Disagreeing strongly with some of the proposed solutions is not remotely equivalent to disagreeing that creators should get paid.

Your comparison of copyright infringement to either theft of slavery is part of why there is such a large divide.

http://www.digital-copyright.ca/Jefferson_Debate

The majority of copyright infringement with current law (increased by far too many policy proposals) is non-commercial in nature. This non-commercial infringement is debatable whether it is harmful, and in some cases unauthorised "sharing" ends up benefiting the creator.

I hear the comment about patronage often. I agree it is a "problem", but I suspect we disagree whether it is a change from the major label/studio/etc model which most creators have been under for decades. I find it hard to differentiate between the "star system" and a system where kings decide what art will be funded or not. Neither is really a "market based solution".

Personally I'm fighting for there to be a creator middle class. Where creators can make a living via their creativity, rather than a tiny few being rich and the majority being poor. Copyright laws which further favour the intermediaries that dominated us previously are not going to help the majority of creators. This is, however, what you get when you get distracted with the idea that "masses simply do not pay".

Another thought: Ever thought that there are many cases when people access content without paying because payment wasn't an option? Tieing content down with DRM such that it isn't interoperable with our media players is one example. Having sites like Hulu geo-block is another -- where is this content available legally for Canadians? Sorry --- but it is time for some copyright holders to recognise that some of their problems are of their own making. Only then will they be able to move forward with market-based solutions and actually get paid.

Stronger copyright laws will only cause a greater divide, ensuring that in the longer run fewer creators get paid.

Thanks, that is balanced…

In Canada for almost 30 years we have had the ability to share music with our friends…lots of music in Canada would not be around now if not for the shared tape or CD that we have done legally with our current social tax on blank media…I think keep it as is and let consumers share and show which groups are the best suppoted…AMT40…not the top 4.

I remember recording 45 RPM records onto cassette tape when I was a wee lad, 30 years ago, so that I could listen to The Beatles music that my brother had played and made me fall in love with.

I think we have reached common ground, you and I. What you propose sounds more than fair to me.

Rakey, I would hold out the olive branch, but since I don't have any real say in this I would say that most music that I was introduced besides the Abba LP's my single mom played were from my older brother through his friends cassett deck…MJ I think was the first one that he played and then saved up for the LP (which I still have)…Culture is not about owning the sale of it but how it impacts your live…most groups in the 80s wanted you to share their music so that it increased sales…

I think that in todays age that with internet marketing, the sneaker copy it not much of a threat but can be a great promotional boost.

The Private Copying Regime (section 80 of the Copyright Act) is new as of 1998, our last major change. While we were adding this regime, and clarifying the law to allow us to ratify the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations (A WIPO treaty the USA has yet to ratify), the USA was going backwards with their DMCA.

While I believe the private copying regime has some flaws, I am one of those that believes it should be clarified and expanded. This type of licensing is what most of the composers and performers I have spoken to are interested in. It is really the third copyright holder in music, the "makers" (record labels) which are opposed because these licensing regimes tend to be more fair.

In music the labels really are the source of the problems we see. They are really a specialized banking sector set up to pay the high capital costs of recording and distributing music. Now that these high capital costs no longer exist the record labels need to be "right sized" and ensure that the composers and performers make the bulk of the money in the music industry.

Each copyright sector has their own issues, and one of the flaws of copyright has been this "one size fits all" mentality. What is happening in the music industry is very different than what is happening in photography (by far the vast majority being amateur), and the expectations of copyright should be appropriately different.

I do agree that in some cases, sharing benefits the creator (e.g. the try before buy mentality that some seems to have with music).

However, this really doesn't apply to my industry (the photography industry).

I expect to be paid for my work unless I specifically give it away for free. And I expect that I should have legal grounds with copyright law to back me up.

I also don't advocate that one person downloading my image and sharing should pay millions as has happened with the music industry in some staggeringly ridiculous cases, but I should have some legal recourse to recoup my losses.

So what is the solution? Hmmmm?

I've met with photography groups in the past and came to a similar conclusion as I did with some other groups: that existing copyright is strong enough to protect their interests. What you ask for has existed in Canada for a very long time (photography is part of Berne, which Canada has adhered to since the beginning in 1887).

What is lacking isn't copyright law, but a group within the photography sector to help independent photographers protect their interests. Far too many photography groups spend their time lobbying for unnecessary and often counter-productive changes in copyright law (IE: obscuring the term of copyright, first holder of copyright, etc) rather than working as an industry association to exercise existing law.

I am curious: what legal recourse are you thinking of adding which does not exist already under existing Canadian copyright law? Do you feel that current reforms threaten what you already have, and if so -- in what way?

DIGITAL photography ought not to reside under 'copyright law, but rather be 'protected' for a limited time under some other kind of 'digi-license'.

The illusion of photography today is that a 'print' is the 'photograph'. it isn't. In traditional terms, the NEGATIVE FILM was/is the SOURCE of the contact/pos print. Goof up the neg and you don't have much of an image.

In digital photography, that 'primary source' has been ELIMINATED. All pixels/digital data are now immediately transferred via software to 'modifying' venues, (like Photoshop or Gimp - aslo software). The capacity to digitally alter any shot are multiple & fluid. Copies, all using the same data yet having a variety of different 'looks', are instant & infinite. The data can be altered again and again without 'corrupting' or 'ruining' the original 'raw data'.

The 'ILLUSION of 'SCARCITY' is determined by the photographer thru various means, ie. numbering prints and/or printing on deluxe papers with 'ink', at different sizes etc. The fact remains though that from the INSTANT a digital photoigrapher 'takes a shot', that 'image' becomes DIGITAL DATA. And data, if I'm not mistaken, is not, as such, copyrightable. WHat is is the software used to process that 'raw data'.

Traditional techniques that relied on a FILM NEGATIVE source are different, because, again, the NEGATIVE is not 'digital data', it is stand-alone bit of film. One neg equals one image. (… o sure you CAN muck about with it, but you KNOW what I mean…)

There has to be some kind of RE-DEFINITION for those 'digital arts' that are digitally CO-DEPENDENT - meaning, the processing software is INTEGRAL to the production and 'the product' of 'data'.

Thoughts?

Interesting idea…altho I think I'm having trouble with the distinction you make between digital photographs and other types of digital works:

"The 'ILLUSION of 'SCARCITY' is determined by the photographer thru various means, ie. numbering prints and/or printing on deluxe papers with 'ink', at different sizes etc. The fact remains though that from the INSTANT a digital photoigrapher 'takes a shot', that 'image' becomes DIGITAL DATA. And data, if I'm not mistaken, is not, as such, copyrightable. WHat is is the software used to process that 'raw data'."

Couldn't the very same thing be said of a manuscript written in a word processing program? Or digital artwork created via photoshop? Or an mp3 created via a musical composition program? All of these works are created as digital data, and it is the computer software that interprets this data and converts it into analog form by displaying or playing it for human consumption.

The fact that these particular types of works may require a 'digital intermediary' to translate them for human perception and comprehension certainly doesn't make them any less worthy of protection under current copyright law, and personally I agree with this…to me, a digital work is just as worthy of protection as a hardcover book or a painting on canvas or an LP…

Yes, I agree, the same could be said for anything that uses 'software' as an intermediary to create a 'product'. It is PRECISELY, to my mind, THAT distinction that has to be 're-interpreted' under existing copyright 'Rights'.

A scuptor who carves a statue by hand over several months cannot 'replicate' that statue at the push of a button. Yet, a digital photographer can 'shoot' that statue and immediately has the means to replicate that image ad infinitum. The 'terms' and the conditions of copyright can't possibly be of 'equal' VALUE to or for both.

Another example, I recenlty had 24 feet of 16mm stock from the 1930's (inherited from my grandfather) transferred to DVD. This was done thru a commercial outlet. I paid for the service in advance. What I got was a DVD with a sound track added. The original footage was 'time edited' to the track. It was not what I asked nor paid for - which was a straight frame-by-frame transfer fo the footage. To make matters worse the DVD was bar-coded (!) and had a 'All Rights Reserved' notice imprinted on the disk. So, who OWNS the 'copyright' here? Me or them?

The original FILM stock was transferred to DATA using their software and a music track was ADDED. The 'product' that they 'returned' to me was not a 'copy', it was a modified version of my original material. And yet, it SEEMS they can now claim the 'product' AND the 'data' as their own. If I'm not mistake, under current law they are 'entitled' to do that. Yet, I did not, and have not, 'legally' transferred any Copy-Rights. I paid for them to perform a service for me, and now they have the audacity to claim the end result as theirs. That stinks.

This is the kind of 'problem' that is endemic throughout the entire 'digital industry'. Some kind of 'limit' or 'term' has to be established on the replicating capacity of digital data.

To continue, a painters work in oils is no differnt from a hand-written manuscript. But once 'digitized' thru PHOTOGRAPHY or a WORD PROCESSING software system the nature of that item is different. The 'Original' is just that. The Rest are Digital Copies.

Creators have to be aware that a 'digitally' created work IS different from a stand-alone one-off art item. And, artists & authors who use digital means to replicate their stand-alone works must 'bend' and/or 'adapt' to the distinction, like everyone else.

Digital 'artists' & authors who USE software to do whatever they want, are using the software as a TOOL in their creation. But the fact remains, it is not THE creation. And, to be clear, it is not the 'softwares' creation either.

If you catch my drift.

The line must be drawn somewhere.

As I suggested in my draft submission to this consultation http://www.flora.ca/copyright2009/ , I believe we are making too many distinctions between different types of 'recordings'. Whether sound, video/motion picture or still photography, these are all 'recordings'. These recordings range from the automated (surveillance, etc), the amateur to the professional or artistic.

Current copyright law pretends that these recording activities are all professional or artistic in nature, when that likely represents a small fraction of a percentage in the case of photography (with multimedia recordings catching up).

I still believe that these recordings should be covered by copyright, but where copyright recognises and focuses on the interests of the vast majority rather than the minority of those making recordings.

As one example, the term of copyright should be clarified and simplified to being a fixed amount (maximum 50 years from the date of the recording, or lower) rather than the life of the unknown/unknowable person/entity making the recording plus some amount.

We should also retain existing rules where those who own the equipment for the photograph are presumed to be the copyright holder unless there is a contract that says otherwise. Some of the problems with changing this rule, as proposed in Liberal Bill C-60 and Conservative Bill C-61, were discussed at http://www.flora.ca/documents/puja-picture.html

Note: The medium of the content should not a determination of whether it is covered by copyright. It is not whether something is "data" or not that matters, as all knowledge can be reduced to digital data.

Copyright law may have some bugs in it that make reference to specific technology (like some of the embarrassing references to "videocassette" in the Conservative Bill C-61), but a photograph or a sound recording is still a photograph or sound recording whether it is stored in analog or digital form. Copyright law must be technology neutral.

Here's a problem for you.

Client has 24 feet of original 16mm silent B&W FILM STOCK from the 1930s and wants to transfer it to DVD. They go to Company 'A' to get a transfer. The 'contract' is establsihed and the client pays in full expecting delivery, as quoted, within 10 days. One month later, after numerous excuses & delays, client gets the DVD.

On it are multiple tracks of the ORIGINAL material CUT & EDITED to MUSIC. Nowhere is the 'straight transfer' of the silent B&W stock. Plus, the disk has been 'stamped' with a copyright notice that All Rghts are Reserved, claiming proprietory software for the audio/visual 'album'.

Who is the COPYRIGHT law going to 'protect'?
The owner of the original film stock? or the company who have basically STOLEN the visuals to CREATE an 'Original' proprietory 'music video'?

Remember, the client neither wanted nor paid for 'music' with multiple edits. They just wanted a 'straight transfer'.

- ?

Copyright law CAN NOT be 'technological neutral'.

Another example is the new pop song with Jack and Jill fetching some water…does the person that made that song copyright the lyrics or just the melody…they took a childrens song and put a new melody to it…If I used the same words of the song and put it to a better melody do I get sues? Snapping up folk songs and then copyrighting them should not be allowed.

That's quite a different scenerio then what I posited.

A 'folk song' long in the public domain is no longer protected by copyright.

The film stock is private property.

Copyright must have an expiry date in order to allow culture to grow through "recycling" into the public domain. All creativity builds on the past, and the only way to have a creative future is to limit the control over the past. The vast majority of human creativity has copyright expired and is in the public domain, unregulated by copyright.

In the case of lyrics and underlying music the current Canadian Copyright is life of the composer plus 50 years. After that, anyone is free to do anything they wish with that work.

Note: When you make a derivative of a work in the public domain you are not copyrighting the original, only your modification. The copyright holder of the new work can not restrict anything that someone might want to do with the original public domain work, including making their own derivative.

What you have is a contract dispute, not a copyright dispute. You should investigate taking them to court for violating that contract.

I'm not going to get into the copyright question given you are talking about something from the 1930's where I don't believe (nor wish) copyright to still exist.

If this were something from the 1980's then you would be the copyright holder, not them, and what they did by making an unauthorized derivative of your work would likely be found to be an infringement (IANAL, TINLA).

This is not an example of where copyright being technology neutral would have been a problem, given the copyright is on the work (expression of the idea, etc) and not the medium it was stored on. Nothing in your story is technology specific.

I have heard similar problems to your own over the years from many copyright holders. There are some pretty serious complaints that freelance authors have with print media, as an example. The problem is that if we add in special cases to the Copyright act to handle all of these issues then this document will grow from tens to hundreds of pages long when we need to be reducing and not increasing its complexity.

It's not complex.
It's very simple.

They made an "unauthorized derivative".
That's 'theft'.

I realise you put the word "theft" in quotations, but nature has made copyright infringement nothing like "theft".

http://www.digital-copyright.ca/Jefferson_Debate

You don't do yourself any favours by using that type of language. A good part of my submission http://flora.ca/copyright2009 contained discussion of this inappropriate language and the problems it causes for all those who use it.

It also turns people who might otherwise be allies away from wanting to be associated.

Two issues are present. One is a contract dispute. The company failed to transfer the black and white film to DVD in the manner contracted for. The other has to do with the copyright on the DVD. The copyright law would indeed initially give the copyright to the DVD creator, but resolution of the contract issue should solve part of that.

No. This is an example of where the 'copyright' law has been inaccurately applied. There is NO WAY a DVD 'distributor' should have the 'Right' to 'claim' 'unauthorized derivatives' as their 'own' "creations" by 'hi-jacking' the material of someone else under the somewhat dubious 'claim' that their 'software' is proprietary.

What they've done is just plain old fashioned 'theft'.

Thanks for the Jefferson Debate link. Useful fodder, and I agree with the sentiment.

I'm also right there with you on the creation of an artistic middle class. As an artist, the mainstream 'star system' presents a huge gaping chasm between those few who can make a living (and even with fame many aren't making that much) and the many who can't.

For those of us on the other side of the chasm the internet presents an opportunity to carve out a piece for ourselves, and make even a modest living, and much of that is fuelled by making our work as freely available as possible. Not necessarily all of it, but enough to get noticed.

For the vast majority of artists, the biggest enemy isn't piracy. It's obscurity,

Russel McOrmond, you make some excellent points (some of which you stated more eloquently than I) and it made me feel that I should clarify my own position. I too think that people should get paid for their work and I pay for stuff that I like.

I'm just against the whole punishment thing for people doing what comes naturally… casually copying or sharing. The recording industry's antics in the US certainly have set a lot of people against the music industry, to its detriment.

Thank you, and sorry if my words suggested that you think other than people should get paid for their work.

One minor addition if you don't mind: when it comes to music we need to realise there are three copyright holding groups: composers, performers and "makers" of sound recordings.

In the past the costs of recording and distributing sound was quite high, such that a specialised banking sector (recording labels) formed to pay the high capital costs. Now that those costs are nearly gone and many performers are able to be their own labels, the utility of major labels is gone. These dinosaurs are fighting for their very existance, attacking both the real music industry (composers and performers), music fans, and other sectors (What they call "enablers" such as ISPs, software authors, hardware manufacturers, etc).

We need to stick with our allies and ensure that we don't say "music industry" when we really mean the old-economy recording labels. These are very different things: like the horseshoe and straw-bail companies being a big part of the (horse) transportation industry in the past, but not considered relevant in the present.

Indeed, I agree, and my distinction between the recording industry, and the music industry was deliberate.

The antics of the recording industry (RIAA) in America is unfortunately harming the music industry as a whole.

Believe me, I'm all for the artists who, for the ideal example, post videos on youtube for promotion, and sell their work on their own web sites.

By the way, I found your web site (flora.ca) and I've been reading your views and following links. We agree on a lot of things.

I am also a FLOSS user. I make pretty good use of it too, customizing my environment to best suit my needs. I'm not much of a programmer, but most of these folks write and comment their code so well that it's easy to follow.

Like you, I also refuse to engage in, or deal with software piracy. There is just no excuse in this day and age and it should be a matter of pride if nothing else. I offer free alternatives to commercial software to my customers. The computer shops in town hate me, for more than one reason :-)

My views on software copyright infringement sometimes get me in trouble in forums such as this one (Not all that different than a SlashDot thread it seems… ;-).

I have absolutely no sympathy for those who infringe software copyright as in nearly every case there is a legally free alternative for what they are unlawfully using without paying. I consider those using royalty-based software without paying to be at best lazy and at worst (bleep). I am possibly more strongly opposed to software copyright infringement than the members of the BSA are.

Unfortunately the BSA and the invalidly labeled "Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft" aren't allies in reducing software copyright infringement since their lobbying and statistical methodologies target their legitimate competition (legally free software) far more than they target actual copyright infringers. In fact, representatives from Microsoft (the most vocal/influential BSA/CAAST member) have indicated a number of times that while they prefer people pay for using their software, they would rather people infringe their copyright than switch to the competition.

My experience has been that fellow copyright holders are the worst on this. I had to endure participating in a creators conference a few years ago where a musician spoke at length to an audience about the "(bleep)ing theives" who listen to his music without paying. He then went into great detail about all the software he uses to produce his music, and happily told people that he never paid for any of this royalty-based software (IE: he had infringed the copyright on all of it). I've seen the flip side with royalty-based software authors that actually use the term "software theft" and yet don't think twice about unauthorized sharing of music and movies.

I think much of the anger we see from some creators in this forum should be taken with a grain of salt when it is applies to how they treat other creators in other sectors.

P.S. Isn't language fun. I tend to use the term "sole proprietor software" to refer to the licensing methods used by BSA/CAAST companies like Microsoft, Adobe and Apple. The term "commercial" isn't unique as FLOSS can be as commercial, and the term "proprietary" is confusing given nearly all (except a tiny bit dedicated to the public domain) of this software has copyright holders/proprietors who are simply using alternative licensing and business methods.

I don't consider a restaurant to be non-commercial simply because they don't charge royalties for the use of recipes that go into their commercially provided services.

True, and I never really thought much about my terminology until now. I've been calling it "commercial software" when that's not really fitting all the time.

Redhat Enterprise Linux is commercial, in that they charge money for the support (updates, technical support if you make use of it etc.), yet they meticulously provide SRCRPMs such that others clone the distribution and distribute it themselves under other names. On a serious server, RHEL is actually worth the subscription money because of the automated updating with backported fixes that don't break your configuration or change existing interfaces out from under foot. But that's getting away from the topic.

Non-Free is also confusing, because there's plenty of software that is available free of charge, but it's not Free in the sense of being able to study, modify and distribute.

Yes, and aren't those organizations like the BSA a piece of work? Their role is more anti-competitive bullying than noble copyright protection and enforcement. They in fact USE that as a pretense to harass. By the time they are done with a company, they realize that it's just easier to buy new licenses all around (in some cases even for machines not using the software!) than trying to prove that they aren't infringing. Take the deal offered, and they'll go away.

About Microsoft allowing piracy rather than losing seats to competing software, they turned a blind eye and even facilitated that for years, but I believe that they now have to watch themselves. They need to take steps to prevent it (e.g. "Product Activation" no matter how forgiving their policies are, or how easily circumvented the mechanisms are) or they'll lose the credibility to enforce it.

What they do nowadays is send representatives to schmooze organizations who are considering switching to Free Software with sweet deals and giveaways and bucket loads of FUD to convince them not to. It's true that they'd rather give away licenses than lose to FLOSS solutions.

Perhaps I don't feel quite as strongly about software copyright infringement as you do (to call them "bleep") but what I get is a sense of guilt. I feel it's a slap in the face to all the FLOSS developers who work so hard to produce wonderful software so that nobody has to resort to that. I try not to look down the end of my nose at others for infringing, but I will not participate and I do clearly state that. When someone hands me a pirated copy of MSOffice, I'll offer to install OpenOffice.org "for free" and set the defaults so it saves in usable MSOffice formats for them. If someone hands me a pirated corporate Windows XP disk, I'll offer them a Linux distro (and spend acres of non billed time with them), or offer to get them a legit copy of Windows.

I feel guilty about paying for "sole proprietor software" (I think that term is too much of a mouthful btw, but I don't have a better one… lol) as well to a certain extent.

There's also a dark side to my computing. I love PC gaming and so I need to keep a Windows install around (and I bought a few tools so I could still get work done in that crippled environment while I'm there), and I spend a small fortune on games. This does not encourage support for the models that I believe in. Games themselves are one thing that's worth every penny to me though. Hours of entertainment, for less than the cost of a gluttonous beer night. I started out only buying games that had native Linux ports, but I soon outgrew that selection, and the initiative tapered off. I guess it doesn't make enough money.

Before I go. Bill Gates was an opportunistic weasel who was in the right place at the right time to acquire some things that people needed at the time, and proceeded to build his empire on the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish philosophy and then Microsoft developed other dirty tricks with hardware vendors. They do not impress me.

I'll never understand why people revere Gates and Microsoft as much as they do. The ruse of being charitable doesn't fool me.

Games: I differentiate productivity/communications/infrastructure software software which will eventually be dominated by FLOSS (if governments allow a free market), from video games which are really "interactive motion pictures".

One of the many failures of the copyright revision process has been to try to treat all copyright affected sectors as equivalent. The economic analysis of operating system software is entirely different from recorded music, and yet there is this attempt to regulate these sectors as if the economics were similar. I don't expect either my games or my motion pictures to all be "open source", although I expect my web browser and educational/scientific/medical material to be. I also believe that the "player" software that I run on my computer to access content should be able to be FLOSS. This software should not be able to be dictated by the copyright holders of that content.

You should be familiar with Canadian company TransGaming which is the primary developer of WineX, a platform to run many video games on top of Linux. This to me is the ideal situation: rights of hardware owner protected by FLOSS operating system which is able to run interactive (WineX, ScummVM, etc) and non-interactive (VLC, mplayer, xine, etc) motion pictures.

BSA/CAAST and infringement vs anti-competition: Check out this quote from past Microsoft business group president Jeff Raikes http://www.digital-copyright.ca/search/node/Raikes "If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else".

Commercial FLOSS: It is an ongoing process to educate people about commercial FLOSS. My current contract (A Canadian government department) has RedHat Enterprise Linux as an operating system and Oracle Application Server (OAS). Both of these are commercial supported FLOSS, and they are paying quite large fees to use this software. On the other hand there is major push-back from using (and acquiring proper commercial support) for Open Source Geospacial (OSGeo.org ) software even though some of the top firms worldwide are located here in Ottawa. The problem isn't the business methodologies, but the fact that uninformed decision makers within the government are frightened by the terms "Open Source", thinking that it is synonymous with "do it yourself". The fact that they are already dependent on commercial open source seems to be missed. The current push by key decision makers is to replace existing applications built on top of OSGeo software and migrate to some poorly written "sole proprietor" software. In this case it is a vendor (ESRI) who markets a server version for Linux, but the software is actually a desktop Windows application wrapped with a Windows emulator. Desktop software and server software have very different design criteria, making this software inferior in a server environment by design.

What is the "Copyright" connection here? Some of the same incorrect thinking is going into how the software sector is regulated by copyright. Not only a misunderstanding of the nature of software as articulated in anti-circumvention legislation (and its attack on software authors and hardware owners), but also the presumption of what business methods are employed by a majority of software authors to be compensated for their craft. In software nearly all the studies indicate that first mover advantage, not exclusive rights, is the greatest driver for innovation -- and yet the copyright bureaucrats remain tunnel-vision focused on "expanding" exclusive rights to the detriment of software authors.

we are talking about two different things. Distribution for profit or distribution for advertising.

For example…if you are a wedding photog, then after you release and are paid you for the photos that you made for the couple, they distribute them and copy them so their friends can enjoy them. They paid for your service and are done with you. If 10 years down the road one of those pictures are hightlied in a x75 magazine then you don't get anything…they own the pictures because they paid you for a service.

if you take pictures for yourself or do something for yourself then you are limited with what and how you want to distribute you IP.

Period.

Ok, fine. If it is slavery, I prefer not to be enslaved. Slavery is forced. I prefer to willingly work for monetary compensation.

Copyright law should provide me a legal recourse to pursue those who are trying to digitally enslave me, so that I may collect and retain my monetary compensation.

This in turn encourages me to continue working by allowing me to make an income such that I am able to continue my creative pursuits.

Wow, this entitled "artist" "rakey" drank too much of the pro copyright cool-aid (or he's not a real person at all).

Slavery. Well you lost a lot of us there. No one forces you to take pictures that you supposedly enjoy. No one has a chain on your neck, and sells your family members to others to rape and abuse as they see fit.

Slavery is a sad thing and you are a small person to equate not getting paid for a few photos with the struggles of an entire race of people.

This guy is off his rocker, and all his arguments are about as absurd as equating his "struggle" with the enslavement of millions for centuries.

I completely agree with KLow. Many people commenting on this site seem to be most concerned with their own rights to copy and use, and suggest that since the "company" that owns the copyright can still use and distribute it, that that company's rights have not been affected. I'm not arguing for the record companies or publishers. I'm arguing for the creators. Please, let's not lose sight of the fact that if you digitally reproduce the content of my book, my ability to make money from my book has been greatly affected, especially if the person or company reproducing it has a greater ability to reproduce and market it (which they may well have since their budget does not have to include such pesky things as payments to the creator) than the original publisher.

There are already book packagers in the US legally buying my softcover books and re-packaging them as special library bound editions, selling for a higher price with no further compensation to me. I get the royalty on the smaller amount and they get the total amount on their improved edition. I suppose that seems fair, and yet part of me has trouble accepting that I see no benefit from the work that could not have happened without my content. You cannot sell a library-bound book that contains no info.

Please do not lose sight of the creators in your efforts to curb the massive distributors. We creators are, as a group, pretty much dirt poor.

First of all, thank you for not using the word "theft" or stealing". Secondly, let me say that I have much more sympathy for the creators than the intermediaries. In fact, it makes me very suspicious when I hear a creator arguing for the same things that the intermediaries are asking for, because traditionally what's been good for intermediaries has mostly not been good for creators.

Now. Your "ability to make money from [your] book" would also be "greatly affected" by somebody else creating a competing book. Is that then also wrong ? In fact, I'd argue that it's far more likely to be "greatly" affected if somebody decides to compete with you than if one person makes a copy for their own personal use without paying.

Sorry. The idea that a "lost potential sale" is this incredible harm just doesn't work for me. There are "lost potential sales" for many, many reason, most of which are recognised in a capitalist society as "market forces at work".

It's also worth noting that it's only a very period of history in which "selling copies" has been a viable business model. I suspect that that period will soon be over, because "making copies" no longer entails the significant expense that it used to.