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Experts Attack Big Content's EU Copyright Power-Grab
arstechnica.com — Now that the EU plan to retroactively add 45 years of copyright protection to old sound recordings looks set to keep the work of the 50s and 60s locked up for another half century, resistance is solidifying.
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- MariusAgricola, on 07/22/2008, -1/+36This has nothing to do with fairness for the musicians and everything to do with what the record labels feel is fair for them. Consider this: an average musician might be 20-something by the time (if any) he or she makes it big. Assuming the copyright that the record label gets begins its 50 year span the moment the copyright is acquired (musician signs with the label and writes some songs), that puts the expiration for the time when the musician is a 70-something. With the average lifespan of humans living in industrial countries likely to be between 70 and 80, there's a good chance that the musician will no longer even be alive by the time the copyright expires. Oh, but you've forgotten: the record label technically owns the copyright, and it's possible it will be around when the copyright expires. Thus they stand to gain the most from this plan. Anyone who fails to grasp this is either completely daft or complicit in the plot.
- aimhelix, on 07/23/2008, -0/+24If there is one thing we will never run out in this world - its greed.
- reech, on 07/23/2008, -0/+7If you want to help please see: http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/07/22/copyrigh ...
- melonhedd, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3Big Content?
- Cenobite, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3They're like Big Tobacco, only not as smooth and tasty.
- dafragsta, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2I saw that too and thought "Man, people have no creative work ethic these days."
Next it's going to be stories on CNN about the Big Content lobby in Washington.
- peaceninja, on 07/23/2008, -0/+5they can have therr laws but we'll keep me booty! arrrgh! seriously--whats going to happen? either the world becomes a fascist government that will continue to cater to big corporations' wishes and will criminalize and spy on consumers, or the laws that are being set up will crumble on itself when the next generation holds leadership and when consumers' demands are much stronger than corporations' demands.
- Waiting2awake, on 07/23/2008, -0/+5Not going to happen my friend. Here is way - those that are idealists today, will get hurt, stomped and crushed. Some will remain idealists and fight for the cause - most will turn just as their parents turned. The "I'm going to get mine" theory of life.
If there is going to be a fight - it has to happen now.
- Waiting2awake, on 07/23/2008, -0/+5Not going to happen my friend. Here is way - those that are idealists today, will get hurt, stomped and crushed. Some will remain idealists and fight for the cause - most will turn just as their parents turned. The "I'm going to get mine" theory of life.
- bratterscain, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3I'm so envied at those who can digitally distribute their work. The moment I can digitally distribute my physical labor is the moment I sue the ***** out of the artists I catch who distribute copies of my physical labor. It's kind of unfair that physical labor can't be copied, just done once and repeated with no more work then you're set for life if it's good. But maybe digitally duplicating physical acts is where robots will come in. I can't think of any other way, and believe me, I've tried. Or perhaps lasers that print physical objects. I build a car, that car is molecularly digitized and that info to reproduce it is uploaded to my PC. Some big company steals it, and I would have no mercy.
- FractalPhono, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2I have been releasing my original music for over 10 years and have not collected anything for it. ( spare the few times i "bartered" for a pint at a show) that way, those not involved in the creative process (IRS, Record label, iTunes...) have NO say at all, only whoever I will the publishing to.
Fuc* the system so hard it gets a rug-burn
- FractalPhono, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2I have been releasing my original music for over 10 years and have not collected anything for it. ( spare the few times i "bartered" for a pint at a show) that way, those not involved in the creative process (IRS, Record label, iTunes...) have NO say at all, only whoever I will the publishing to.
- Schmich, on 07/23/2008, -5/+3Add 45years to patents instead!! Patents: 20years, Music: 50 soon maybe 95years. Something is very wrong, especially when songs don't require years of expensive testing...
- P522, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2Why in this being dugg down? You are right on! Only don't add years to the patent term. Just shorten the term for copyright.
- widgetmaker, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2Surely a life time of artist + X number of years (but the extension reduced if the artist dies over a certain number of years) would be best, that way the artist gets to benefit. If they die young for whatever reason the record label (who still need a guaranteed return to promote investment, ya know the whole point of copyrights) still gets their return, but if they die in their old age then the extension after death is much reduced to enable it to enter public realm.
Just my £0.02 - ColonelTribune, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3The EU's been busy in the world of copyrights there days: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/sns-ap ...
- Ratteler, on 07/23/2008, -8/+3The only thing the Jews in Hollywood learned from the holocaust.......WAS FASCISM!
http://phueque.net/MPPSAlogo.png
Sieg Heil!
Taxation without REPRESENTATION is TYRANNY! Legislation without REPRESENTATION is TYRANNY! TERRORISM against TYRANNY is Patriotism! Piracy is Patriotism! “rather than submit to shame to die we would prefer...” - The BONNIE BLUE FLAG- jer2eydevil88, on 07/23/2008, -1/+2Antisemitic Troll is Antisemitic
- Ratteler, on 07/23/2008, -1/+1I'm not antisemitic, I'm anti-fascist and trying to remind a certain group who should "Never Forget" how that ***** got started. Because THEY are now doing it.
- BlatheringIdiot, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1"I thought they rounded you up and took you to the Re-Education Camp".
"Don't worry, the Black SUV's will be there shortly..."
- jer2eydevil88, on 07/23/2008, -1/+2Antisemitic Troll is Antisemitic
- Snarfy, on 07/23/2008, -0/+5Elvis is BMG's cash cow. They aren't giving him up.
- PopcornDave, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Perhaps, but at some point everybody is going to wonder who the ***** Elvis was. It may take a few more generations, but look back to the music stars of the 30's and 40's. How many of those would you even recognize? I realize Elvis was a cultural icon, but my guess is that he's fading from memory as the older generations pass on.
- Neo189, on 07/23/2008, -0/+5Copyrights, to me, seem inherently anti free market. I mean, if someone can take a product/idea that was developed by you, and make it cheaper/more popular, why not let them?
- Waiting2awake, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2As Jefferson has said "Nature has made it so. You can't capture an idea and bottle it up."
- duerra, on 07/23/2008, -0/+5IMHO, writing a song or a book or whatever is no different than creating a new invention, and is in fact a form of invention itself - which we offer patents for. After 20 years, it's free for all. There's no reason that non-physical inventions deserve anything more than physical ones. The idea of copyrights was to balance benefit of the rights-holder with the public, and right now that balance is so lopsided that you can't even call it balance at all.
- x00x, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2This is simply a matter that demonstrates the extent in which those who had once yielded absolute power, the dying dinosaurs of an anachronistic era that the music industry has become as they desperately try to hold unto what will soon be lost to them forever, with the imminent demise of their way of life, like a mad man drunk on power trying to grab anything that might extend his hold in the final agonizing throes before ultimate death. This might seem to be a step in the wrong direction but it is actually the rigor mortis of their collective corporate corpse setting in, the manifestation of which only shows that these wholly self-centered, greedy, entities'' days are soon over.
- Jamesx6, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2Copyrights/patents were made to encourage a person to come up with new ideas because the law allowed them to profit off their ideas for a time. Unfortunately for mankind, corporations claim the rights of a person. Corporations can live far longer then a human ever could and seek to profit off ideas they bought as long as they can. What's happening nowadays is an abomination to the original purpose of copyrightspatents. How are people encouraged to make new ideas if they only need one idea and they can live off it for their lifetime? In my opinion copyrights should expire after 5 years so it gives the originator of the idea time to profit off their idea, but it would also encourage great thinkers to keep making ideas. After the 5 years, the idea should be open to the public to take it in new creative directions. I mean.... mankind has thrived off building off other people's ideas and to deny that would be to encourage stagnation of ideas.
- OmegaWolf, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Corporate personhood, first granted to Southern Pacific Railroad in 1886 in their lawsuit versus Santa Clara County, CA. It's only gotten worse since then.
- nydwarf, on 07/23/2008, -1/+1***** they should have the copyright expire after 5 years, if you don't make your money by then, then to hell with you.
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