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@Alone: Yes, author sells his rights for his idea to an editor, which makes an investment (sometimes taking a risk) over this idea. Then the author/editor use copyright to protect their interest , so that a 3rd party cannot pick the idea without acknowledging the authorship and risk taken by editor...

Maybe it happens sometimes that an author is spoiled of his authorship, you must be carefull when presenting your ideas to some editors (and there are ways to be careful in most countries). But IMO most of the time the copyright is granted to the real author and editor.

@sol: In fashion industry there are of course copyrights, esp. for luxury goods, and a lot of fuss over counterfeit goods!

ps: no, i don't assume that - actually i think we've probably both got reasonable (probably not the same) ideas on this. But quite a lot of people really seem to want that, without understanding (or caring) what the consequences might be. On the other side, you have some of the businesses, which are there to make money and will take the position they think will give them the most money. Let's hope for something in between, however messy it is ;)

The remixing culture - urgh, just keep well clear of that. Unless copyright is completely removed or goes completely the other way, there's *always* going to be some grey area, and this is surely one of them. And where there's a grey area, there will be lawyers smelling an opportunity, and plenty of people will get fucked.

"The remixing culture - urgh, just keep well clear of that."

as an artist and curator i don't want to keep clear of that. i want to be able to create remixing material and to release and promote such kind of material without fear of persecution or having to deal with anti-creative burocracy. i can accept compensation to the original over economic exploration of remixing material, but in the current scenario it's often illegal to even do a remix (without publishing) and that makes zero sense. on the very least it should be freely allowed for anyone to distribute remixes non-commercially, imho atleast, i'm sure others will disagree wanting desperately to control what others do with "their precious", determined to ignore that once something is public others will tamper with it wether you like it or not, can't put the lid back on that one.

I would argue that the remix culture is a fringe borderline thing at best. A great thing, sometimes, but still insignificant in the grand scheme of things and, as you said, people doing it don't care anyway. I'm concerned more about the end of real journalism, the end of being an author as a career choice and the huge struggles some parts of the music industry are going through, since despite how much I love "made in the basement on my own computer"-kind of music, that alone cannot satiate my tastes. Myself, I work in games in which it's possible to make a game that doesn't work without a server, for example, but other creative professions don't have that luxury.

preacher: i understand your point, wanting to protect your income, but what does that "grand scheme of things" you mention encompass exactly? capitalist interests over everything else? technology allows costless copy and distribution. all economic models that rely on restriction of copying are doomed to perish, unless you close everything down. and closing everything down is not usually acceptable (for both consumers and developers alike, some exceptions at hand), at the very least there will always be open alternatives. i also prefer in-depth research journalism and proper documentaries to the myriad of automated trend forwarding of gossip news, but such industries to persist there needs to arise ways to fund them, for example people crowdfunding for it's development before it's done, not after. the same fate that is happening to press will innevitably also arrive to the other medias regardless of a copyright reform. is it a problem for the industry? yes. should people live in fear to protect those industries? no, i don't think so.

now i remember why i didnt go to law school *yawn*!

\o/ i did the questions but the document i got is so awful language and long. i failed some questions horribly off context.

The possibility of making art and other creative things for a living and dedicating your life and career to it even without being born into old money, or having to appeal to the lowest denominator, or having a wealthy patron, like it was back in the Middle Ages. Copyright, while being flawed, gives the creator rights and some ways of making sure that he or she has a financial incentive to keep on creating. And yes, it might be "capitalism", but people do need to eat and support their families. And of course, there are always hobbyists and dilettantes, but when it comes to art and music, few of those can hold a candle to the professional.


This is, of course, indeed very true, and practically no one wants things locked down or benefits from it. However, technology doesn't allow creation without a cost, which leads to the fact that if you want to create something that takes time and effort, you need to fund it somehow. All rock bands can't be Radiohead and it will be a sad day indeed for the culture if every major project needs to be kickstarted and thus made to appeal to a very certain demographic. Perhaps it will somehow be a succesfull way to do things in the future, but it is definitely not a viable model for funding most things now. Tearing down something without nothing to replace i is not a good way to do it.

I do acknowledge that things are wrong with the current copyright and that copyright is probably too strong right now, but I'd be more supportive towards the whole copyright reform thing if there was a truly viable alternative to the current way of doing things and if the most shared stuff on the Net, mostly by these reformists, wouldn't be pirate copies of whatever mainstream stuff is popular right now.

agreed.

i been dabbling with the idea of developing game simulators for alternative society models, but it always ends up appearing like it would turn out more of a critique to the current system rather than a quest for a better model. or a too abstract concept to prototype into something working with a couple weeks work.

it is definitely an area that should be having more research focus imho.

What is the smallest piece of text covered by current copyright law? I heard of 2-line "poems". That's indeed a violation of freedom of speech.

I don't think copyright is broken as a concept - you make something, it's yours and people have to deal with it on your terms. I think that's a pretty basic and self-explanatory model that's ultimately based on human decency.

The problem is with the implementation of the theory, and that's where the aforementioned copyright collection abuse etc comes in - but that doesn't invalidate the model, it's just a faulty implementation. Now, you gotta understand there has to be implementations to this model - if you're a musician, you naturally wanna get residuals from radio plays, club plays, etc., and there has to be a system in place that handles that. It is unfortunate that these systems have been routinely overstepping their boundaries, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater and claim all copyright is evil and must be abolished just because one side does things you don't like and the other side offers you free cookies.

gargaj: there is a multitude of things wrong with that "pretty basic" definition of yours, off the top of my head:
a) it's hard to draw the line in where some work is inspired / copied from others
b) it's hard to determine who actually gets to set the terms when multiple parties are involved (co-authorship, distribution)
c) it perpetuates private ownership of works that are public

i don't claim all copyright is evil (atleast not this morning, i might have done so in the past) but it definitely needs a fix imho. i'm not advocating we should throw it out altogether, maybe that text of yours in particular wasn't directed at me.