Copyright Comes To The Internet
Friday, December 7, 2001 by thecat2000 | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
The treaty will let "composers, artists, writers and others to use the Internet with confidence to create, distribute and control the use of their works within the digital environment."
Those countries that have ratified the agreement will now have to offer artists certain minimum rights.
Source: http://www.nandotimes.com
Reply #3 Friday, December 7, 2001 8:47 PM
It's basically the same 'digital' copyright laws as before but spread across a lot more of the world. Sadly, it also perpetuates the "WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty" which supresses technology and information distribution in favor of profits for a few special interests and manufacturers.
Protecting the intellectual property of artists and developers is one thing. Sabotoging the development of beneficial technological advances is another. Look at who benefits from the SCMS - maybe 5 music publishing conglomerates, look at who looses - the public is denied use of the best magnetic tape recording format ever invented. And it only got a lot worse from there... the last reasonable decision in this matter was by the US Supreme Court in the "First Sale Doctrine" decision which disallowed the ban on video tape recorders for the public. Since then all the decisions have been made behind closed doors by special interest groups bribing congress to mandate the restrictions without a public forum.
Reply #6 Saturday, December 8, 2001 12:04 PM
copyright is broken. currently, if valuable information is under copyright, it's basically lost if the copyright owner has no interest in publishing. got a favorite sci-fi short story, published 50 years ago in a collection? your only hope is to find it in a used bookstore. you can't get it new (in most cases). treatise on land management which might help farmers in some barren area regain use of the land? it was published with a print run of 150 copies 30 years ago, the publisher's long gone, the author's dead... too bad, still can't make copies of it for another few decades.
A logical system which was proposed (and stupidly shot down) would've been a copyright system based on diminishing returns... 1st year, copyright's free; author pays nothing to retain all rights. next year, it's a buck. year after, 2$. year after, 4. year after, 8. It would become more and more expensive over time to retain copyright - thus, ensuring that information would enter the public domain in a timely manner. If it's really juicy stuff which everyone wants, you can probably hold the copyright longer, since you'll be making enough money off of sales to hold the copyright as years go by. would'nt last past, oh, ~40 years... that'd be getting ridiculously expensive.
just a thought, and a pissed off attitude towards copyrights as they currently stand (I bought my damn cd's, ain't got a pirated mp3 on my system - but they still wanna tell me where I can listen to my discs? Fuck 'em.)
Reply #7 Saturday, December 8, 2001 12:18 PM
some are good, finding bugs and security holes, some are bad, breaking (cracking) security on everything form programs to e-books.
and whenever soemone comes up with a new methodology to "protect" soemthing, soem 14 year old "cracks" it within a few hours.
(i remember steven king's little experiment with "Ride the Bullet". It was relaeased in a "secure" format at 12 PM EST...it was available in the newsgroups as a printable PDF by 4.20 that same day).
The truth is, copyright has becoem a commodity of the very rich. If you can afford to persue it, and you have covered yer butt, you can "win".
If you can't afford to persue it, with both money and tiem, you have no rights.
ANd in the end, those who want will get, no matter what.
Reply #9 Saturday, December 8, 2001 2:10 PM
Reply #10 Saturday, December 8, 2001 2:26 PM
I would have hoped that this news would have been more positive in the outcome, but after reading some post's here I can see that it doesn't inspire. Then again I am not suprised.
Still I am hoping for the day when all our work can be protected properly...
CD's.. Yea that sucks too as far as I am concerned. Sorry but I am in the belief that I buy a Cd and I would like to listen to it where 'I' choose not some guy in an office some where who thinks it will help stop pirating. When all the Copy Protection actually does is stop people not only playing CD's on their Pc BUT ! some times on some Music Systems too.
I have read quite a few complaints on that so far. Including claims that the Quality is deminished in some way because of the protection now being used on CD Music.
Reply #11 Saturday, December 8, 2001 2:48 PM

thecat... I wouldn't worry much about CD protection. Someone will crack it sooner rather than later. I won't be kept from playing my CDs on my computer.
Reply #12 Saturday, December 8, 2001 3:44 PM
and youre right, some one will it is enevitableReply #13 Saturday, December 8, 2001 3:51 PM
On the one hand, you want to protect the authors, creators of intellectual property. On the other hand, the increasing decrease in rights of those who "license" (i.e. buy) intellectual property is very troubling.
Reply #14 Saturday, December 8, 2001 5:46 PM
Let me articulate my question more succinctly, can someone who isn't a known kook please explain in laymen terms what these new laws will mean to the average person.
Reply #15 Monday, December 10, 2001 7:24 PM
Reply #17 Tuesday, December 11, 2001 9:16 AM
Shoggot wrote it plainly, I think. It means yo won't be able to listen to MP3s.
In case you don't know what MP3s are, it's an format that allows you to save songs on your computer.
Reply #18 Tuesday, December 11, 2001 9:13 PM
The argument is that the new format of the CD's which are protected in this way will (and) have been alleged to play (or not play very well on certain types of Music Systems. People also believe that the quality is not as good as it was when the protection was not there..
Reply #19 Tuesday, December 11, 2001 9:50 PM
A bit of advice for you, shoggot...
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com
Try getting some facts about what you're saying before you say it.
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Reply #1 Friday, December 7, 2001 8:07 PM