I agree. In the "test of time" area of this forum, I go into the basic principles that were at the heart of the original copyright law. Of these, fair dealing is the most important as it is what sparks inspiration, art, and innovation. Restrict fair dealing too much, and our culture and industries will suffer. But it needs to be properly balanced.

Enforcement and damages have always been a problem in copyright. This is not something new. Technology has made copyright infringement easier, but it hasn't fundamentally changed it. There have been forgers for almost as long as people have put any kind of value on art.

Enforcement of copyright at the moment is done by the copyright holders, not by the governement. If you want to photocopy any of my art, no one can really stop you. If you then show these photocopies in public, another breach of current copyright laws, it is I who must complain to see the rules enforced. It's not a great system. In fact, it sucks. But I think asking the government to guard and police other people's property, whether it is physical or intelectual, is asking too much. I don't have cops guarding my car all night to prevent it from being stolen. Why should they be guarding my portfolio instead?

So it may not be a great system, but it is the one we currently have. Everything I've seen proposed so far, I feel is worse.

I think asking the question "Can you prove the person would have paid for it otherwise?" is a red herring. If you steal a car because you refused to pay for it, that's still theft.

Damages are always a difficult issue. If someone rips a CD they don't own for their own use, what are the damages? I'd say, the price of the CD they didn't buy, plus maybe a general punitive damage amount as discouragement for this kind of behaviour. But if someone rips a CD and then distributes copies to their friends, it should be a larger punitive amount (because they engaged in "publication and distribution" as opposed to pure "personal use", plus the price of the number of copies. If someone rips the same CD, and publishes it on the internet for public download, thus effectively destroying the copyright, then the punitive amount should be very high. I think at that point, trying to estimate how many copies have been made is no longer relevent as digital technology allows exact copies to be made.

It's never been in anyone's interests to go after the single person who infringes copyright for their own personal use. Do I think we, as a society, should thus allow this behaviour? No. But I don't see any point in spending a lot of time and money enforcing it either. The damages should not be so high as to make it really worth the copyright holder's effort to enforce.

It is infringement against the principle of "publication and distribution" which makes most copyright holders see red. Making copies for your friends will annoy us. Selling copies to the public will make us quite upset. "Publishing" the work in a public location such as the internet, where the copyright will effectively be destroyed, is the worst possible offense. I think we need this kind of gradiation in the law if we're going to have any kind of guide on damages.

Enforcement and damages have always been a problem in copyright. This is not something new. Technology has made copyright infringement easier, but it hasn't fundamentally changed it. There have been forgers for almost as long as people have put any kind of value on art.

Enforcement of copyright at the moment is done by the copyright holders, not by the governement. If you want to photocopy any of my art, no one can really stop you. If you then show these photocopies in public, another breach of current copyright laws, it is I who must complain to see the rules enforced. It's not a great system. In fact, it sucks. But I think asking the government to guard and police other people's property, whether it is physical or intelectual, is asking too much. I don't have cops guarding my car all night to prevent it from being stolen. Why should they be guarding my portfolio instead?

So it may not be a great system, but it is the one we currently have. Everything I've seen proposed so far, I feel is worse.

I think asking the question "Can you prove the person would have paid for it otherwise?" is a red herring. If you steal a car because you refused to pay for it, that's still theft.

Damages are always a difficult issue. If someone rips a CD they don't own for their own use, what are the damages? I'd say, the price of the CD they didn't buy, plus maybe a general punitive damage amount as discouragement for this kind of behaviour. But if someone rips a CD and then distributes copies to their friends, it should be a larger punitive amount (because they engaged in "publication and distribution" as opposed to pure "personal use", plus the price of the number of copies. If someone rips the same CD, and publishes it on the internet for public download, thus effectively destroying the copyright, then the punitive amount should be very high. I think at that point, trying to estimate how many copies have been made is no longer relevent as digital technology allows exact copies to be made.

It's never been in anyone's interests to go after the single person who infringes copyright for their own personal use. Do I think we, as a society, should thus allow this behaviour? No. But I don't see any point in spending a lot of time and money enforcing it either. The damages should not be so high as to make it really worth the copyright holder's effort to enforce.

It is infringement against the principle of "publication and distribution" which makes most copyright holders see red. Making copies for your friends will annoy us. Selling copies to the public will make us quite upset. "Publishing" the work in a public location such as the internet, where the copyright will effectively be destroyed, is the worst possible offense. I think we need this kind of gradiation in the law if we're going to have any kind of guide on damages.

"I think asking the question "Can you prove the person would have paid for it otherwise?" is a red herring. If you steal a car because you refused to pay for it, that's still theft."

I don't think my question is irrelevant at all. In the example of the car, you're out a car. They have deprived you of use (damages). If someone walked by and made an exact duplicate of that car without causing loss of use or damage to the original - where is the theft? They left your car right there in the driveway.

Unwanted duplication - sure, but as I ask above how do we find valuation where no damage has occurred (other than someone's feelings)?

I agree with you very much with the making the materials public stance where it was otherwise private. That I think we can calculate damages as it was previously not available to the public domain and therefore has greater value. We can base compensation off of costs that were associated with maintaining privacy on that item.

I am actually for full copyright I have just settled my qualms with what is not practical anymore and don't want to see the Canadian government pouring our tax dollars into something that will never work… we have enough of that already.

Whether a person would have paid for it otherwise is an irrelevant question. Obviously the content had value for them or they would not have copied it in the first place. The only question is who gets to decide that value.

In our capitalist system, that value should be set by agreement between seller and buyer, not by buyer fiat. Where there is no agreement, there is no valid sale, and it is therefore illegal and wrong of them to have a copy -- at any price.

We can say its "wrong" as much as we like but that doesn't mean there are damages. For every law and enforcement there must be clearly definable damages for any compensation or penalty to be properly weighted.

The existance of "punitive damages" proves your point incorrect, as these are often applied subjectively based on the perceived severity of the offense, they are not clearly defined in a specific dollar amount until they are pronounced.

This would only be applicable in the most severe cases - I am fine with these. Damages are easier to calculate as a percentage with a massive offense. What that number should be, I don't know.

The last thing we need is to allow a legal business to form involving suing people for the simplest infractions.

Have you seen the price of text books…

When I was in university in the early 90s textbooks were 4-5 hundred dollars a semester…"authors" would release a new book every year that only had a couple exercises changed or some text and remove the old book from circulation. It was common that people said Sc$#@ you for doing that when their was nothing new and posted book change sheets on message boards. People bought second hand books and used the change sheets to fill in the gaps.

The above was an artificial inflated effort to increase text book sales and most people saw through it and were not happy…

Show of hands, if you are between 30-45 and agree with this and tell how you got around the whole changing the text book every year to force students to buy new books instead of used increasing the cost of the whole university life.

Some older books are still under copyright but no longer in print… after searching used bookstores for copies and failing, some students may choose to photocopy the book. This may or may not be fair dealing for research purposes.

Interestingly enough I have such a title out there. 'Spirit of Toronto: 1934-1984'. No longer in print, it is only available via antiquarian booksellers or via libraries. I know it has been listed as course material at the university level, and I also know it has been heavily 'copied' …

(… SoT covers the 'spiritual constellation' of the city of Toronto ranging from AmeriIndian to Zoroastrism. A compendium of essays by 'leaders' of their faiths, it is a useful cross-referencing tool in the name of 'urban multiculturalism', with a preface by former Mayor David Crombie … )

It would be great to do a second edition, but no publisher has expressed interest, and I haven't spent any time trying to 'flog it', regardless that it IS being read/used within the community and remains a handy reference guide to both 'minority' groups and 'officials' within the GTA. The simple truth is the numbers just aren't great enough to warrant the expense of a re-run. it's cheaper for EVERYONE to copy what they need, at this point.

I never did make what I put into that work way back there in 1984.The book was conceived and written in response to the whole city 'going Catholic' for Pope John Paul's visit. I wanted Toronto's 'diversity' see and understood, and even made a point of giving a copy to the Pontiff. That copy is now in the Vatican library. The intial print run of 3000 sold out, But my 'take' was only 7% on the cover price of $19.99. The publsiher pocketed the rest. They went bankrupt somewhere in the early 90's.

The very small residuals I receive today from primarily library use via Access Copyright are kind of like a 'tip' for the job I did back then. That's about it.

I don't think 'my story' is that uncommon. Authors typically make VERY LITTLE. It is the 'publisher' or distributor who has, traditionally, taken the greater chunk. That I receive a 'token' today for 'copied' material seems, in light of the above, FAIR to me …

Thoughts?

I think the situation you describe is probably fairly common. These days I would probably suggest selling a PDF from your website or something like that, but otherwise I think that the money you get from Access Copyright is certainly fair. Licensing schemes are a better response than litigation.

Yes, a PDF via my blog might be a good idea, though my blog doesn't 'focus' on my part written work as such, so it might be a 'lost leader'. Nor is 'formal religion' (the topic of the book) of much interest to me these days. Plus, I'd have to 'transcribe' aka 'type' the original work into digital format. I'd also want to update it to reflect 'changes' in demographics over the past 20 odd years, which means additional field research & expense.

At this point in time, I don't honestly believe the 'financial return' for my time (& labour & capital) is convincing.

In short, I am doing OTHER things now.

FYI, Access Copyright does not supply 'copy' data, they just send a cheque, which, frankly, though 'nice', isn't quite good enough. I have no idea how they 'calculate' my 'earnings'. I only now I"m 'copied' cuz I've seen the book as a requisite on course outlines … ah well, here's hoping someone at AC is listening …

Overall, the options are limited.

'Copyright' has always been more about 'licensing' then it is about an out-and-out 'Sale', (or transfer of Property or IP Rights.)

One way a potential 'licensee' can take on the expense and investment of an 'unknown' is thru the royalty structure. 'Paying royalties' is one of the CHEAPEST ways to bring a novel product to market, (ie. keep overhead and up-front costs down…)

Once sales do occur, the 'original copyright holder' is compensated, usually for a pre-established percentage (that often has little to no bearing on actual market performance…)

Licensing…that means different things to different IP type industries.

For example…If I hire a photg to film my family, I pay him for his expertese in creating the perfect shot…I paid him for a service and I should retain copyright to the picture to do what I want with it unless I release those right to that photog.

If you debate that then say I get hired by a company to build them an application then if I retained the copyright to that app because it was my IP and skills that produced it then I could then turn around and "License" it to their competitor…I doubt that would fly…

Music and movies are a little different and I am starting to see the frustration that this is causing the complete industry around copyrights because one size doesn't fit all…I will have to sleep on it more.

Yes, I too am seeing that some 'clarity' needs to be made between 'content creators' in different 'media' industries. (How I hate that phrase, 'content creators' - it's as if nothing EXISTS except thru thru the portals of the internet!)

I also am increasinly of the opinion that 'software developers & programmers' are a 'breed apart'. They seem to be continuously & collaboratively 'tinkering' with the physical mechanics of the entire 'digital economy'. And, as such, it seems reasonable to suggest that their work should always be classified under 'industrial patent' .. not 'copyright' at all.

The laws governing patent may have to be adapted to suit the 'temper of the times'. I don't know anything about 'patent' law …Except that Nortel was lining up at the U.S. Patent office recently and that R.I.M and other techies are hungry for those IP assets …

Balance? I don't want balance. I want free.

Richard, The thing that you don't realize is people wanting the work of others for free is the problem. These people who make this music and movies put allot of money and time into making these products. They deserve to be payed for their work if they choose to ask for money. Your looking at $100 Million to make a movie these days. If everyone stops paying for those movies you won't get any movies at all let alone free because people will stop making them.

Agree.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I am currently 'holding back' two designs because I no longer TRUST the 'middlemen/distributor chain/copiers' any more then I TRUST the 'fair use' b.s. of the internet.

So, for now, I am just NOT doing it.

Luckily, I've got OTHER monies coming in to support me. Pity though for consumers, cuz the 'FREEbies' are killing it. They're taking all MY FUN out of it. I'm just not willing to be some kind of 'content slave' to greedy self-centered 'dorks'.

To be sure, they'll never know what they're missing anyway, 'cuz they'll be too busy sucking up some other poor saps 'on-line' life-blood FOR FREE …

Yeah, I know where your coming from on that one. I look at the Open Source community online. These people make software they give away for free. The software is actually better then the stuff the commercial software vendors make in every way possible. Yet people would rather pirate commercial software then use that. That is what irks me the most about the current situation. Here are people who offer something that we all can use for free and the jerks who pirate would rather steal the commercial stuff that is inferior. Whats worse is government starts passing laws like the US did with the DMCA that ultimately hurts the Open Source community. If government started using Open Source instead of passing laws that damage its viability then we would save enormous amounts of money on our taxes. They would also be able to provide much more service for less money to the country then they do now. But try telling that to a politician. They will just make some lamo excuse as to why they can't do it and then raise our taxes or increase the deficit to support their bad behavior.

Movies and Music are not the only ones who are feeling the current situation. The software industry is too. But I believe in coming up with intelligent legislation that will serve the stake holders. Forget the pirates because they don't want to pay for anything anyways. The people who are the stake holders are the creators of the work, and the people who ultimately consume that work. For the legislation to be effective it has to serve both those groups the most. Thats why I don't think DRM is all that bad. If we could get DRM in a way that gives the consumer the ability to use the content the way they want to use it then whats wrong with it? For instance if a person has some music on their computer and then be able to copy it to their Ipod then that would be fine. That is very difficult to accomplish however. For DRM to be successful it would need to be a single standard that everyone can use but still offer the flexibility for it to be implemented on all sorts of different devices. Thats a tall order and personally I don't think it can be done in a way that would be satisfactory for the consumer. The only thing the media companies will do in the end is inconvenience their own customers.

As for fair use. Here is what fair use means for me. I run Linux on my computer. I want to be able to play a DVD on my machine and not be subject to the movie companies only endorsing Microsoft Windows which I don't use. I don't care if I have to pay for a special copy of that DVD that runs only on Linux so long as its offered. Thats fair use to me. If I own an IPod then I should be able to buy a copy of music that runs on my Ipod. If I want to create a mashup I want an easy way to be able get the rights to use content. I don't care if I have to pay for a specific license but there should be a way for me to purchase that license so that it can be used in my mashup. Teachers in schools should also have the ability to purchase a site license for their school so that students can use the best material s for learning. As you can tell I don't have a great deal of sympathy for people who want to move content from one device to another. The technical limitations in the digital age do not allow for such flexibility that insures that the author will be compensated for the work if its redistributed. As for tools to circumvent copy protection they can be used for making mashups. So basically what I'm saying here is if people use DRM to protect content then the DRM should be offered in such a way that it can be licensed out to anyone who wants to make new devices or software to read DRM protected material. DRM should not be used to stifle innovation in technology or prevent people from making a new media based product.

Here however is the reality of DRM. You can either make it software based or hardware based. What has traditionally happened with DRM is that one technology vendor holds a monopoly on that DRM technology. They don't release the technology to other platforms so it never takes off or it does so until someone gets fed up with it and cracks it. There are people out there that are very good at reading machine code of a computer program. They can reverse engineer the technology and offer programs to circumvent the DRM code. Hardware is also no solution because hardware can be reverse engineered also. So you will never prevent piracy. The only way to slow it down is to educate people. Appeal to their sense of right and wrong.

As for the comment you made about the middlemen. Those people need to get real. Makers of content are not just going to give away their work to them for nothing. If those people aren't there to make it easier for a musician, movie maker, or software developer to get their product out to market then why do we need them. I'd say to anyone negotiating with a publisher is never sign a deal that says you make a percentage off the net profit always take it off the gross revenues.

As a "pirate" I can tell you that I am still a stakeholder. I am a paying consumer of PC software, game console software, CDs, DVDs, books, and other forms of media that frequently get digitally duplicated.

DRM is nothing I want anything to do with. I refuse to "license" music for the same price as someone else will buy it. When I was a DJ at CHSR-FM in Fredericton, NB, I absolutely *refused* to play artists I previously liked and respected (for example Air) when they came in with DRM-enabled CDs, even though I could play them in the station's CDs. DRM is a slap in the face. It's an insult from the labels. If I pay for something, I pay for something. If you start treating me like a criminal when I pay for something, I'll stop paying for something, and start acting like a criminal.

EMI and Nettwerk were two labels that participated in that experiment. I called Nettwerk, and I told them that if they continued, I would never buy another Nettwerk CD again. I had some 10+ albums from that label alone at the time. Since then Nettwerk (probably not from my call alone :P) has changed its tune and spoken out against DRM, and the abusive behaviour of large parts of the content industries.

The reality is that a large number of people who download music CONTINUE to buy CDs, and they buy more CDs from artists who would never have come to their attention without the curse of the internet pirate.

A UK survey shows that young people have an average of 8000 illegally obtained songs. Want to bet that a number of them are only willing to pay $1 a song on iTunes because they are able to get other stuff for free? Imagine if that was cut off. That exorbitant price might start to rankle.

I don't know. There are worse things out there then DRM. Right now your complaining about the lack of freedom you get with DRM but in reality thats not as bad as it can be. Imagine not having access to the media at all. Instead of being able to load it on your Ipod the only way to listen to that music is through a subscription based service on the Internet. Your complaining about DRM which has its own issues. In reality this is just a compromise that media companies are trying to accomplish to give their customers more freedom by having the content stored on a device. I imagine that if DRM fails that will be the next thing they try and the whole argument of fair use goes out the window. An Ipod won't be an issue then. It will be an obsolete piece of technology. I think the best way is to consider each argument for its own merit before we discount it. We haven't figured out a solution yet to be able to discount it. Its too early.

ps: I've begun switching to OpenSource/etc software. Chrome, Firefox, Pidgin, VLC, Comical, 7zip, OpenOffice. I'm a proponent of Creative Commons. I'm a proponent of Wikimedia and similar projects.

I even paid for mIRC. That one tends to shock people who're aware of the program.

I'm not, on the other hand, willing to pay $500 for a System Recovery program to recover pictures of my cat (they're valuable, but not $500 valuable), or $1 for an mp3 that costs almost nothing to deliver.

The system is not designed for current reality. I don't know the magical way for people to get paid appropriately, (I, for example, would pay retroactively to the software company that helped me recover 40gb from my HDD accident) but criminalising behaviour that the average person tends to engage in is probably not a good idea.

Thank you for your comment.

I've been very vocal about the need to separate copyright from artists/authors who create 'stand alone' objects from those that are 'techno-dependent, like photogs and software developers.

BTW, the likelihood of getting a percentage of 'gross' is slim. That's just not the way it works - UNLESS you are a 'name'/brand artist…

Mostly, the 'artist' is beholden to the 'distributor' to provide sales statements. It is extremely difficult to 'verify' numbers unless you've got a lawyer, to get you legal access to the distributors books, and an accountant, to verify the numbers. As soon as an 'artist' indicates they want that kind of 'control', the middlement walk …

… gee, wonder why …

I don't think that sort of separation is necessary. The software developers and other techno dependent workers need the same kind of protection as say a person who writes a book. But the software developers, musicians creating a CD, and movie companies all have something in common. Their works are easier to plagiarized do to the digital nature of the product and the Internet. Its an ugly situation but there is no real solution for it. Its funny because the computer is the great equalizer between large distributors and the small distributor. It offers that power but it also can threaten the entire industry. Its a double edged sword just like every other technology ever invented.

Personally I think the old guard of media companies need to be eliminated to make room for the new. The large media distributors are just trying to hold back progress right now. A prime example of this is the introduction of the DMCA in the US. A solution will eventually be hammered out but not while the old guard is still trying to use out dated business models to make a profit.

Your idealism is charming, but not very realistic.

Murdoch is just beginning a 'two tiered' pay-for-use service through-out his media empire. Meaning, there wil be the 'for free' stuff to lure 'consumers' in, but when you want the 'REAL Scoop' you're gonna pay for it. There'll be more of that as the majors 'adapt'.

You might find this one interesting. Acumen.org.
It's a BRILLIANT business model, ie. non-profit, off-shore CHARITY, that just happens to have some of the biggest/brightest minds from the investment community 'managing' their 'funds'. Look at the site carefully. Read the backgrounds of the Board of Directors, read the background of the principal players, notice how many lawyers & accountants are New York based…

These people aren't 'Sunday slackers' idly downloading at home complaining about how their components don't talk to each other … These are SERIOUS PLAYERS who are DETERMINED to make the 'digital economy' WORK for them. Watch & Learn.

acumen.org is a domain name squatter website. Are you sure you have the right URL. I googled it and there is one called acumenfund.org is that it? But keep in mind everyone is trying to make the digital economy work for them. Its the nature of the economy.

I don't think I'm being idealistic. If you look at the fortune 500 companies that existed 50 years ago 80% of them are no longer in business. Some of them went out of business and others got bought out by other companies. This is the natural order of things. Business models come and go. But nothing is forever.

When it comes to the digital economy we have to look at what the technology is capable of doing. In the end if you look at the technical ability of the technology it doesn't have the ability to enforce copyright but the copyright laws are still needed.

Ultimately what we need are people in Ottawa and in the provinces that are allot more tech savvy then what we have now. We need people who understand technology to make smart and informed decisions on copyright. These people who are there right now are not aware of the implications of what they are doing. They are the wrong people for the job and I fear that they are crippling the country. But don't think its just the Conservative party. The Liberals and NDP are just as ignorant.

… opps, my error. Your're right, it's acumenfund.org …

And yes, technology changes, and provides us with other gadgets to 'modify' our 'spare' TIME, but I don't see how that ought to afffect Copyright pre se. What you're really talking about is 'patent' and/or 'trademark' 'restrictions'.

I DO think that a distinction ought to be made between those who are techno-dependent and those who are not. Looser time frames from inception to completion for the web community. But it just can't be 'across the boards' for ALL the creative arts - because a) 5/6ths of humanity are NOT 'connected'. and B) equaly - not EVERYTHING designed, produced AND/OR sold NEEDS the net…

Finally, re: your 'anti government' stance - We have to work with what we've got, Conservatives, Liberals, NDP, Bloc, and/or Green - it's immaterial. It's a democracy still. better that then MUCH for what passes as 'political governence' out there … ie. We don't live under a 'dictator/demogogue', like North Korea … yet.

The current feds could be 'gone' in a couple of years, and the laws adapted again. That DOESN'T MEAN we should not exercise our voice and our rights as citizens of humanity. It IS as you noted, 'evolution' …

Count your blessings, and stay 'vocal' … Pro or Con, doesn't matter. State your case, be willing to argue/defend it, and, then LIVE with the consequences, ie. the 'majority' basically 'wins' .. That's how it WORKS in a democracy …

Personally I'd much rather live here, in Canada, then anywhere else in the world … I'll 'fight' for what I believe in, but equally, WILL live with what is considered to be in the best interests of the rest, my fellow Canadians.

Actually, Its not a patent issue. Patents are not appropriate for software just like they are not appropriate for a movie or a song. I know there are many companies trying to make them work in that case but for the most part they shouldn't be allowed to. Patents are actually a threat to the software industry and I'd strongly oppose anyone who would say otherwise. This is one of the reasons why I take such a stance against government. They don't understand the issues with software which happens to be the industry I work in and try to pass things like software patents. This has a huge effect on my ability to make a living when they do that. Far more then the copyright laws do for musicians because patents specifically prohibit me from making a specific type of software no matter how original it is. They specifically effect what I am allowed to write. Notice I said write. You write software you don't build it. It is an art form just like drawing a picture, writing a book, composing a song, or making a movie. To not recognize it for what it is is to deny it the credit it deserves. Imagine what JK Rowlings would do if she had to negotiate with people who had nothing to do with creating Harry Potter because they claim to have come up with a small idea she had put in her books. We wouldn't have the books or the movies today.

The reason why its not appropriate to put patents on a piece of software is for the same reasons you wouldn't patent a book or a movie. Those reasons are due to a matter of scale. A piece of software can contain thousands of ideas. If you start patenting every single one no one would be able to do business in that industry because they are liable to get sued. Its already happening in the US. Why do you think so many US companies have moved their businesses offshore? Its not just cost thats the problem. Its that the US has a huge problem in terms of software patents. It only takes 3 software patents to make a software product nonviable in the market place. Trying to do business in that environment is like playing Russian roulette.

Also one cannot say that a piece of software for instance is necessarily technology dependent. Software can be written to work on many different types of computers. Its just we primarily use one type of computer today. But that may not happen forever. So programmers write programs to be platform independent. Having a law that only protects software for a short period of time isn't fair especially when software often requires much more work then a book does. If anything software should have a much longer period of time then books to be protected. A factor of double if you consider how much work goes into software. Microsoft windows has 20 million lines of computer code associated with it. 10,000 people work on it on a full time basis. Video games can take as much as 250 people to get that game to market. To jeopardize such an industry with software patents is criminal to me.

Fascinating. You've helped a great deal.

You want 'protection' for what YOU supposedly 'do', but not for what you increasingly 'want'.

On the strength of THAT, I do INCREASINGLY believe that 'techno-dependent' software be handled VERY differently then other acts of creation. It should NOT enjoy the same 'sanction' of Copyright, and would be better served under 'patent' and/or 'trademark' law. And ABSOLUTELY the expiration date should be sooner, rather then later. A five year term would be more then adequate.

I'm sure it's our loss. Maybe someone will come along and provide a similar design who actually cares about improving culture for culture's sake and design for design's sake.

Sure, and I bet it will be someone just like you …

Perhaps you'd be so kind as to tell us how you actually intend to make a living at it - it being 'FREE" and all.

How are you going to buy food, put a roof over your head, support a family? Get all those fancy gadgets you so crave? get the wheels you want? Travel? You know basically LIVE. How you gonna PAY for it?

Actually it won't be someone like me. What a strange implication to take from what I said. I also didn't imply that I thought you should do it for free.

Rather, I'm not really sympathetic to someone who hoards their creations in the naive hope there will *ever* again be a time again when digital information will be secure. It won't. Never again.

It makes you look petulant. "The world has changed, and I can't have it my way, so no one can enjoy my talents." Nothing in current (or reasonable suggestions for liberal copyright) would allow an individual or corporation to take your (very recent) designs and then produce a marketable product from them. Yes, the internet would indeed allow one particular person to take your design and make something for themselves, or even as a gift. Boo hoo.

Like I said, I'm sure it's our loss. We've a planet of 6 billion people clamouring to take your place.

My suggestion that it would be someone like you was a 'joke'. (Apparently humor is lost on the zealous…) Cuz OBVIOUSLY it ain't never gonna be someone like you. You're no 'creator'.

But since you are an 'advocate' (and a 'great believer') perhaps, you could detail the means by which an INDEPENDENT 'content provider' aka 'cultural producer' aka 'artist/writer/thinker' will make a LEGAL 'living' from the net … "liberal" copyright protected or not.

I'm sure there are one or two inconsequential people such as my self who'd be most interested in your BIG THOUGHTS on this matter.

Keep it VERY SIMPLE well ya cuz we creatives are, well you know, kinda dumb, petulant & so inflexible = always wanting it 'our way', when, silly gooses, we should just smarten up & 'run with the rats' doing it YOUR way …

You've mistakenly taken yourself as representative of "creatives," and have scared me off with your excessive "scare quotes" and SARCASM CAPS.

… you scare easy for someone so adamant about your p.o.v. …

btw, you didn't answer the question ..

Perhaps you DO at least KNOW a few 'creatives' who are trying to 'adapt' and make a living off the net … why not take another shot at it?

Seriously. We creatives WOULD like to hear your REALISTIC 'ideas' about 'making money' off the FREE net …

Yes technology changes. Before CD's and DVD's we had LP records and VHS Video Tapes. But the CD and DVD came along and completely wiped out those technologies. Now we have technology that is threatening to wipe out CD's and DVD's. Its a testament to how fast this stuff changes. The question is do we protect an old and antiquated standard in the name of some big US corporation being able to make millions off it. Personally I would say no. I would say that those companies need to find a new way of providing content to their customers.

Its unfortunate that the music and movie industry has taken such a combative approach toward the software industry. They keep threatening people with law suits and attacking the rights of people to create products of their own. If they stopped that there could be a good dialog and a solution might be found.

Mr Harper can pass laws all he wants this problem is going to continue.