--- In [email protected], "Lucas Gonze" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Copyright gives you different powers over taking, displaying, and > profiting. It gives you great power over redistribution. In the case > of displaying via an embed it gives you very little power (though over > aspects of the law might help). In the case of profiting it gives you > no power at all. If you want to use copyright to control displaying > or profiting, that's an expansion of copyright.
Isnt that contradicting what you said earlier about copying cds by the truckload being the same as playing a tune in public? An argument could be made that displaying something on the net is the equivalent of public performance of a work. The law can cover these areas already, for example entertainment venues pay an annual licence fee that gives them the right to play msuic to the public in their venues. This is handled by various bodies that work on behalf of compannies & artists, and distribute the royalties that have been got from license fee's. Whilst profit may not be the central benchmark used to judge whether a copyright violation has taken place, it does affect things like how much damages are awarded. Though its often based on the potential financial losses of the copyright holder, rather than how much profit was actually made bby the violator. I do not feel that the issue is as clearcut as you make out. Otherwise I could embed the entire BBC site within a frame on my own site that has banner adverts. And why did google image search change so that you mostly only see small version of the image outside of its original context, and not the fullsize image as used to be the case? I think I understand where you are coming from as it relates to a fear that demanding too-strong rights for copyright holders can have negative effects on all sorts of stuff, but its a balance at the end of the day and wholesale embedding of all someones works within a site, often without proper attribution, is a bridge too far for most. And when it comes down to whether others are profiting from the work, I think thats a lot of what the creative commons 'non-commercial- clause is all about - are you not in favour of that element of creative commons? I think it is good that there are cc licenses that are less strict, that can give people far more rights, but it is up to the creator to give these rights away if they choose, surely, and thats why I like it. I would far prefer to live in a world where the whole concenpt of what is considered 'property' and associated rights and restrictions were completely different, but for me this would need to happen across the board in order to be fair. Its no good expecting the little creator who may not be making a single $ out of their work when they would like to make a few $, to accept the commercial exploitation of their work for profit by an entity that may be in a much better position to profit by virtue of scale etc. I would hope that videobloggers are actually likely to be far more enlightened on these matters than you suggest, and that its the fact that most vloggers havent worked out a way to make any money for themselves that makes other people profiting a bitter pill to swallow right now. Cheers Steve Elbows
