Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
On Friday, October 24, 2003, at 09:00 AM, Steve Wollkind (by way of Steve Wollkind [EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Friday 24 October 2003 10:14, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Thu, Oct 23, 2003 at 10:43:22PM -0700, Tim May wrote: TM: the last two paragraphs were of course added by me. But the point is still valid, that much of Hollywood's claims about illegal listening are not really any different from reading without buying books and magazines in libraries. The more urgent issue is this crap Not to mention all the CDs and movies available in libraries. What's the difference in borrowing CDs from a library and taking them home and taping or mp3ing them and getting them from the net? There's no differenceboth are illegal. It's just much easier to catch people who leave a trail by downloading files than people who legally check a disc out of a library and then illegally copy it in the privacy of their own home. You are incorrect. Both are illegal is not correct. The Home Recording Act of 1992 explicitly made home use for noncommercial (no renting, no selling, no commercial use in bars or radio stations) fully legal. The text can be Googled and the topic has been covered here many times. In shyster terms, it created a safe harbor for home taping. The HRA even established a blank tape and media tax, which is why many CD-Rs sold say Music on them (ostensibly these are the media for which the blank media tax was paid by someone, with revenues ostensibly given to Hollywood). The DMCA threw a spanner in the works in various ways, partly rewriting the HRA, partly adding new stuff. But the existence of the HRA and the money sent to Hollywood and Nashville through the HRA music taxes make successful prosecution of any home taper nearly impossible. --Tim May
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
Sunder wrote: To add to this: There is no law stating that I cannot take my books and read them backwards, skip every other word, read the odd chapters in reverse and the even chapters forward, or try to decode the book by translating it to another language, ask someone with better eyes than mine to read it to me, or chose to wear green tinted lenses while reading it, read it to kids or the elderly, lend it - or rent it to friends, use it as a paperweight, ^^^ this, I believe, there are laws about. At least here. drop it on the floor, et cetera. I can take it with me to other countries and read it there, as well etc. Once I bought it, it's mine. Again, only within the permitted uses. For example, copying it and selling copies is clearly not permitted. -- http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html http://www.thebunker.net/ There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit. - Robert Woodruff
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
At 03:00 PM 10/24/2003 -0400, Cael Abal wrote: What *is* a library? 1. A library is legal. A library needn't be licensed by any state entity. 2. Thus, I can declare my computer a library. The only requirement is that I own a license to what I lend, and that only 1 user exercise that license at a time. That is what a library is. An interesting idea, Major -- but unfortunately nothing is simple these days. Libraries, I would wager, likely have very specific legal definitions (for tax purposes if for no other reason). Some libraries already offer a service similar to what I suggested so their patrons can read digital copies of works on- or off-line on their PCs. https://194.109.142.142:1984/redirect.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.netlibrary.com%2Fhttp://www.netlibrary.com/ I fail to see the fundamental difference between citizens lending .mp3s and public libraries lending CDs and DVDs, unless one accepts a similar argument that only government recognized and credentialed people will be considered reporters under the law. steve
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
[Chronic readers can skip this..] At 12:08 AM 10/25/03 -0400, BillyGOTO wrote: On Fri, Oct 24, 2003 at 03:11:27PM -0700, Tim May wrote: On Friday, October 24, 2003, at 02:04 PM, BillyGOTO wrote: Not really. Libraries have to pay more than we do for their subscriptions. Be careful using the phrase have to in any discussion of legal issues. Does government force libraries to pay more for some subscriptions? Not to my knowledge. Do some publishers have different rates for individuals versus libraries and other institutions? Yes. Okay, I'll try to be more careful. They are given a choice by the copyright holders to either pay more than we do OR to not get a subscription. Is this not the case? Yes it is the case. But many of us regard State force as a *very* different thing than a property owner's whims. So the State can censor, but an individual merely doesn't want your bumper sticker on his car. Individuals *can't* censor in the 1st amend sense. (Similarly with compelled speech.) The State *must* treat everyone the same, but private entities are not similarly bound. The State must permit citizens to bear arms, but in my saloon you leave them at the door, or don't enter. Simple. Entering my saloon is a private transaction. Books and magazines aren't guarded by cryptogremlins the way digital media could be. The cryptogremlins are embedded, tamperproof, and are given absolute authority over their assigned treasure by the DMCA. 1. Tech point: Any passive media for human consumption can NOT be guarded by gremlins. ADCs handle that. The analog hole. Active content (eg programs) can be though. 2. Many of us do worry about eroding conventional rights by these same gremlins, *when they are supported by wrong law*. E.g., I have a right in the US to lend a book. A digital book could make doing so a pain, but not impossible. And again, I (as reader) have *no* right to compel the publisher to use a large font (if I've got bad eyes) or make it easy to xerox. Or backup or lend or sell. Now, if it is simply some publisher's whim to release content protected by gremlins, that's their decision. *What gets our goat* is when the State uses its force eg to make tinkering with our property illegal. You'll need to understand that difference around here. Many of us (unlike many working for the State) still respect private property, and *mutually consensual* transactions. If you want to publish a book on paper that prevents its xeroxing, that's fine. Might be annoying, but its within your rights. But when the State says that say scanners or image processing or figuring out how the book is bound is illegal (DMCA), well... A gremlin is a nuisance, a gremlin backed by the state.. indicates that someone needs killing, and its not the gremlin. I'm saying that there is an even wider difference between the lending restrictions on the gremlin-guarded digital media versus those on printed media. You usually don't have to talk your way past a robotic Pat Schroeder avatar to read a printed book, as you do with an encrypted scientific journal on DVD. Again, you can publish in fonts that don't photocopy. Its your right. And its my right to try to get around that, to exercise my right eg to fair use. But it is immoral and unconstitutional for the State to interfere with *either* of us -publisher or reader. Because we're both choosing to enter a mutually consensual transaction, the State has no grounds to interfere. That's basically what freedom is about. It doesn't even matter if the transaction is harmful to one or both of us; masochism (pharmaceuticals, N-ary sex between arbitrary conspecifics, etc) should be legal. Life liberty and the pursuit of whatever. Some of these journals have announced that they will be discontinuing their print editions altogether because they are fed up with libraries letting the public look at them. So? And other journals are free to everyone. (Is that unfair competition? No) Its up to the journal, their contributors, their readers. Some of the digital publications you might ask for at a university library are boobytrapped and crisscrossed with razor-sharp bardwire (not a typo). Librarians can't let you see it unless they have a way to bill you. Nice pun. But librarians are merely acting in accordance with contracts they chose to sign. No one put a gun to their heads; only the State does that. | Unlike paper materials, digital information generally is not purchased | by the library; rather it is licensed by the library from information | providers. A license usually takes the form of a written contract or | agreement between the library and the owner of the rights to distribute | digital information. I've bought some helically grooved vinyl disks. This also gives me a license to play their content, or make a Wimshurst generator from them, or go skeet shooting with them. Should the vinyl object warp, I retain that license. Should I download an MP3
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it! [reply to Sunder]
At 07:01 AM 10/25/03 -0400, Sunder wrote: If you bought an audio DVD and your car doesn't have a DVD player, or your only portable stereo system can only play tapes, you're not allowed to legally copy the music off the DVD onto other media to play in other devices. IANAL so I'm not actually sure about duping DVDs to tapes. But you *can*, do it, trivially, regardless of the evil digital gremlins, which makes the point about the Analog Hole. And of course, if you rip to an MP3, that is the last ADC your content need ever see. Game over, Valenti. Get a real job. - all the normalities of the social contract are abandoned in war Jack Valenti MPAA pres, in LATimes on Kerry's war crimes
If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
Hollywood Preaches Anti-Piracy to Schools Thu Oct 23, 3:09 PM ET By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer SAN FRANCISCO - As part of its campaign to thwart online music and movie piracy, Hollywood is now reaching into school classrooms with a program that denounces file-sharing and offers prizes for students and teachers who spread the word about Internet theft. The Motion Picture Association of America paid $100,000 to deliver its anti-piracy message to 900,000 students nationwide in grades 5-9 over the next two years, according to Junior Achievement Inc., which is implementing the program using volunteer teachers from the business sector. What's the Diff?: A Guide to Digital Citizenship launched last week with a lesson plan that aims to keep kids away from Internet services like Kazaa that let users trade digital songs and film clips: If you haven't paid for it, you've stolen it. The program appears to be working, with students in dozens of middle schools announcing that they will not enter their school libraries. Said one student: These libraries let lots of kids read the same books...that's like Kazaa lets lots of people listen to songs! Another one added that they are joining a Christian Coalition program to shut down parties that other students run. They are, like, letting kidz listen to music and stuff, said one banner-toting teenybopper. TM: the last two paragraphs were of course added by me. But the point is still valid, that much of Hollywood's claims about illegal listening are not really any different from reading without buying books and magazines in libraries. The more urgent issue is this crap about corporations buying time in public schools. If I had a kid in a school and it was proposed that Nike, Time-Warner, Coke, or Intel would be buying teaching time, I'd tell them to stop it pretty fucking quick or face the Mother of All Columbines. --Tim May
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Friday 24 October 2003 10:14, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Thu, Oct 23, 2003 at 10:43:22PM -0700, Tim May wrote: TM: the last two paragraphs were of course added by me. But the point is still valid, that much of Hollywood's claims about illegal listening are not really any different from reading without buying books and magazines in libraries. The more urgent issue is this crap Not to mention all the CDs and movies available in libraries. What's the difference in borrowing CDs from a library and taking them home and taping or mp3ing them and getting them from the net? There's no differenceboth are illegal. It's just much easier to catch people who leave a trail by downloading files than people who legally check a disc out of a library and then illegally copy it in the privacy of their own home. Steve - -- Steve Wollkind 810 C San Pedro [EMAIL PROTECTED] College Station, TX 77845 http://njord.org/~steve 979.575.2948 - -- The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. -- Harlan Ellison -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/mUxP0uexoyuzySARArjAAJ93lhUZcDogLhWpH9/TsMdz4x4hDgCfYbom ZFUggCCKfNTZ07FdlXPCwyw= =rddG -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
At 07:43 AM 10/24/03 -0700, Steve Schear wrote: At 06:28 AM 10/24/2003 -0400, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: The problem with the central premise, of course, is that without some Big (Brother) Central Server, there's just no way to track simultaneous usage, so there's no way to assure that the number of users = the number of owners. Wrong. Why not have each individual's PC which offered to lend do the accounting. This means their PC must be on-line whenever someone who didn't pay wants to listen, limiting the number of copies available, but it could be fully decentralized. Yes but it needn't be online constantly. What *is* a library? 1. A library is legal. A library needn't be licensed by any state entity. 2. Thus, I can declare my computer a library. The only requirement is that I own a license to what I lend, and that only 1 user exercise that license at a time. That is what a library is. 3. Among library-users, we contractually require that borrowed materials be not used after the return date. Since bits are bits, borrowing is copying and returning is simply not exercising the bits. When something is being used no one else can use the same. We use our library-patron-contract to implement what meatspace does with objects --usable at one place at one time. 4. We could implement this by merely keeping a flag for each file in our collection denoting that the file is borrowed. We would be obligated not to relend it until after the return date; the library patron would be similarly obligated not to use it afterwards (without checking it out again). 5. We do *not* need to be constantly online for this, any more than a library needs to be open 24 hours a day. We *do* need a shared timebase and good IDs for objects. A legal assault on this mechanism is an assault on bricks and mortar libraries, ie the right to lend a book to an associate. Even if that associate xeroxes the book without our knowing it. Perhaps these features could be added to KaZaa. (Simply: when a file is uploaded from your disk, you move it from shared to not shared directory for a day. You also have some lameass clickthrough library-patron contract.) Gentlemen, start your lawyers. --- Talk softly and carry a big lawyer. ---Hunter S Roosevelt
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
What *is* a library? 1. A library is legal. A library needn't be licensed by any state entity. 2. Thus, I can declare my computer a library. The only requirement is that I own a license to what I lend, and that only 1 user exercise that license at a time. That is what a library is. An interesting idea, Major -- but unfortunately nothing is simple these days. Libraries, I would wager, likely have very specific legal definitions (for tax purposes if for no other reason). Regardless, may I be the first to request a library card? C
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
At 03:00 PM 10/24/2003 -0400, Cael Abal wrote: What *is* a library? 1. A library is legal. A library needn't be licensed by any state entity. 2. Thus, I can declare my computer a library. The only requirement is that I own a license to what I lend, and that only 1 user exercise that license at a time. That is what a library is. An interesting idea, Major -- but unfortunately nothing is simple these days. Libraries, I would wager, likely have very specific legal definitions (for tax purposes if for no other reason). Many private libraries are non-profits or adjuncts of other non-profits (e.g., schools) but there is no reason a library can't operate as a for-profit entity. I think major is right, that at least in the U.S. libraries are otherwise unregulated. steve
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
On Fri, Oct 24, 2003 at 02:14:03PM -0400, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: Major Variola writes: What *is* a library? 1. A library is legal. A library needn't be licensed by any state entity. 2. Thus, I can declare my computer a library. The only requirement is that I own a license to what I lend, and that only 1 user exercise that license at a time. That is what a library is. Well stated. Not really. Libraries have to pay more than we do for their subscriptions.
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
On Friday, October 24, 2003, at 08:14 AM, Harmon Seaver wrote: On Thu, Oct 23, 2003 at 10:43:22PM -0700, Tim May wrote: TM: the last two paragraphs were of course added by me. But the point is still valid, that much of Hollywood's claims about illegal listening are not really any different from reading without buying books and magazines in libraries. The more urgent issue is this crap Not to mention all the CDs and movies available in libraries. What's the difference in borrowing CDs from a library and taking them home and taping or mp3ing them and getting them from the net? None, and in fact I have made my own DAT and CD copies of many hundreds of CDs I borrowed. I also burn an average one DVD per day, of movies and suchlike. about corporations buying time in public schools. If I had a kid in a school and it was proposed that Nike, Time-Warner, Coke, or Intel would be buying teaching time, I'd tell them to stop it pretty fucking quick or face the Mother of All Columbines. Or even worse the practice of Coke, Pepsi, et al paying money to the school for exclusive rights to market their product. Also sort of like what M$ did in schools and colleges -- gave them some free computers on the condition that all competing software be removed from computer labs. Not surprising at all that megacorps now want to buy teaching time in schools. In Japan the megacorp have long run their own schools for workers kids to ensure the loyalty of their future workers. This last point I have no problem with, provided Megacorp pays all the costs for its own schools. In fact, I support bringing back indentured servitude. The problem is when a public school, which taxpayers have been ordered to pay for, becomes the fiefdom of a corporation. If a child is compelled to attend school, as he is, he may not be compelled to watch commercials or listen to corporate pitches. --Tim May Dogs can't conceive of a group of cats without an alpha cat. --David Honig, on the Cypherpunks list, 2001-11
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
On Friday, October 24, 2003, at 02:04 PM, BillyGOTO wrote: On Fri, Oct 24, 2003 at 02:14:03PM -0400, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: Major Variola writes: What *is* a library? 1. A library is legal. A library needn't be licensed by any state entity. 2. Thus, I can declare my computer a library. The only requirement is that I own a license to what I lend, and that only 1 user exercise that license at a time. That is what a library is. Well stated. Not really. Libraries have to pay more than we do for their subscriptions. Be careful using the phrase have to in any discussion of legal issues. Does government force libraries to pay more for some subscriptions? Not to my knowledge. Do some publishers have different rates for individuals versus libraries and other institutions? Yes. Are libraries required by law to reimburse authors and publishers when they allow books and magazines to be looked at by patrons or checked out by them? No laws that I know of. In short, some publishers charge some customers more, and others less. In this sense, an Intel or a Carnegie Public Library has to pay higher rates to these particular publishers, but this is certainly not germane to issues of legality of libraries. --Tim May
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
On Thu, Oct 23, 2003 at 10:43:22PM -0700, Tim May wrote: TM: the last two paragraphs were of course added by me. But the point is still valid, that much of Hollywood's claims about illegal listening are not really any different from reading without buying books and magazines in libraries. The more urgent issue is this crap Not to mention all the CDs and movies available in libraries. What's the difference in borrowing CDs from a library and taking them home and taping or mp3ing them and getting them from the net? about corporations buying time in public schools. If I had a kid in a school and it was proposed that Nike, Time-Warner, Coke, or Intel would be buying teaching time, I'd tell them to stop it pretty fucking quick or face the Mother of All Columbines. Or even worse the practice of Coke, Pepsi, et al paying money to the school for exclusive rights to market their product. Also sort of like what M$ did in schools and colleges -- gave them some free computers on the condition that all competing software be removed from computer labs. Not surprising at all that megacorps now want to buy teaching time in schools. In Japan the megacorp have long run their own schools for workers kids to ensure the loyalty of their future workers. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
Steve Schear writes: Why not have each individual's PC which offered to lend do the accounting. This means their PC must be on-line whenever someone who didn't pay wants to listen, limiting the number of copies available, but it could be fully decentralized. You'd have to piggyback this on some P2P app. Otherwise, the lender would have to run an accessable server. That can be a trick if you're behind a NAT or your ISP takes exception to unsolicited incoming packets. Also, how do you handle check-in, or more importantly, lack of check-in? Timeout? Can you queue checkout requests? Interesting idea, but it sounds kind of cumbersome to roll out. -- Roy M. Silvernail is [EMAIL PROTECTED], and you're not http://www.rant-central.com is the new scytale Never Forget: It's Only 1's and 0's! SpamAssassin-procmail-/dev/null-bliss
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
At 06:28 AM 10/24/2003 -0400, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: Someone else must have thought up this idea, but I don't recall seeing it. Please inform me nicely if you have seen it proposed before. This sounds a lot like the SunnComm DRM system that got so much publicity recently. (the one that relies on Windows' CD Autorun feature) That system allows the user of a protected CD to make expiring copies of some tracks to share. The problem with the central premise, of course, is that without some Big (Brother) Central Server, there's just no way to track simultaneous usage, so there's no way to assure that the number of users = the number of owners. Why not have each individual's PC which offered to lend do the accounting. This means their PC must be on-line whenever someone who didn't pay wants to listen, limiting the number of copies available, but it could be fully decentralized. You can be sure that [MP|RI]AA will accept nothing less than perfect accounting. And if the system relies on my destroying my physical CDs to share the MP3 copies, forget it. This is a possible problem. If the tracks were originally purchased as .mp3 then this might not be a problem. steve
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
On Friday 24 October 2003 02:46, Steve Schear wrote: Why couldn't this be applied on-line to music. Under current fair use provisions readers and listeners who have purchased a work are allowed to lend it out freely. Surely the number of people who want to read or listen to a work are much smaller at any particular moment than the number of people who have ripped/downloaded a work (perhaps only 1 in 100 at most). If some mechanism could be made part of the P2P systems purchasers of the work could 'lend' it to others to read, view or hear when they are not using it. As long as the system gave some assurance to Hollywood that the works were not being enjoyed at any one moment by more people than had paid for the works then the spirit of a lending library would be maintained. Someone else must have thought up this idea, but I don't recall seeing it. Please inform me nicely if you have seen it proposed before. This sounds a lot like the SunnComm DRM system that got so much publicity recently. (the one that relies on Windows' CD Autorun feature) That system allows the user of a protected CD to make expiring copies of some tracks to share. The problem with the central premise, of course, is that without some Big (Brother) Central Server, there's just no way to track simultaneous usage, so there's no way to assure that the number of users = the number of owners. You can be sure that [MP|RI]AA will accept nothing less than perfect accounting. And if the system relies on my destroying my physical CDs to share the MP3 copies, forget it. The MP3s are backups for my CDs, but my CDs are also backups for the MP3 files. I've already re-ripped my whole collection once to change bitrates and unify tag information. When OGG hardware gets more widespread, there's at least one more ripping party in the offing. If that's what it takes to share, then I'll just remain a stingy bastard.
Re: If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!
Major Variola writes: What *is* a library? 1. A library is legal. A library needn't be licensed by any state entity. 2. Thus, I can declare my computer a library. The only requirement is that I own a license to what I lend, and that only 1 user exercise that license at a time. That is what a library is. Well stated. A legal assault on this mechanism is an assault on bricks and mortar libraries, ie the right to lend a book to an associate. Even if that associate xeroxes the book without our knowing it. Perhaps these features could be added to KaZaa. (Simply: when a file is uploaded from your disk, you move it from shared to not shared directory for a day. You also have some lameass clickthrough library-patron contract.) Gentlemen, start your lawyers. Indeed. I'd guess the [MP|RI]AA wouldn't like this at all. But your point is inescapable and I'd /really/ like to watch this court battle. -- Roy M. Silvernail is [EMAIL PROTECTED], and you're not http://www.rant-central.com is the new scytale Never Forget: It's Only 1's and 0's! SpamAssassin-procmail-/dev/null-bliss
