Posted on 03/20/2012 6:22:31 AM PDT by Mad Dawgg
Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and other Internet service providers (ISPs) in the United States will soon launch new programs to police their networks in an effort to catch digital pirates and stop illegal file-sharing.
Major ISPs announced last summer that they had agreed to take new measures in an effort to prevent subscribers from illegally downloading copyrighted material, but the specifics surrounding the imminent antipiracy measures were not made available. Now, RIAA chief executive Cary Sherman has said that ISPs are ready to begin their efforts to curtail illegal movie, music and software downloads on July 12.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Classic!
You make some very good points. Certainly - Copyright violation is a crime - but a civil one! Certainly the fairness doctrine squelched free speech (though we had something closer to what we expect of journalists back then too!)
Let me point out some other sides to the issue. The first is that the original term for Copyright was something like 14 years! With the way things are going - those works in the Public Domain will be the last to enter it! The Copyright period keeps getting extended... Micky Mouse is still a copyrighted work! He was created in the 1930s!
Next - a very BAD piece of legislation, the DMCA had at least one redeeming feature. It treated ISPs as “common carriers” like the phone company and relieved them of responsibility for those things carried on their wires. It also gave a “safe haven” to Websites with the Take down notice mechanism. What you see here is ISPs taking on the role of police for copyright holders - exceeding the requirements of the DMCA. You see PRIVATE censorship rising it’s ugly head.
The most likely reason is companies like Comcast are not conglomerations of both media companies and ISPs...so their interests get mixed up.
I too fear the rise of private censorship, though ALSO despising the constant extension of Copyright protection beyond any reasonable period. BOTH need to be brought back under control!
You make some very good points. Certainly - Copyright violation is a crime - but a civil one! Certainly the fairness doctrine squelched free speech (though we had something closer to what we expect of journalists back then too!)
Let me point out some other sides to the issue. The first is that the original term for Copyright was something like 14 years! With the way things are going - those works in the Public Domain will be the last to enter it! The Copyright period keeps getting extended... Micky Mouse is still a copyrighted work! He was created in the 1930s!
Next - a very BAD piece of legislation, the DMCA had at least one redeeming feature. It treated ISPs as “common carriers” like the phone company and relieved them of responsibility for those things carried on their wires. It also gave a “safe haven” to Websites with the Take down notice mechanism. What you see here is ISPs taking on the role of police for copyright holders - exceeding the requirements of the DMCA. You see PRIVATE censorship rising it’s ugly head.
The most likely reason is companies like Comcast are now conglomerations of both media companies and ISPs...so their interests get mixed up.
I too fear the rise of private censorship, though ALSO despising the constant extension of Copyright protection beyond any reasonable period. BOTH need to be brought back under control! This isn’t a case of government censorship but private!
The original copyright was intended to keep one from taking the work of another and selling it for profit or taking the work of another and claiming it as one’s own.
==
The same kind of furor erupted when Xerox made copiers.
Before that, someone invented carbon sheets to make copies of anything one typed.
Bring back copyright to its original 14 + 14 year term and I am 100% with you. The constitution distinguishes between physical property and “intellectual” property for a reason. Everything prior to the mid-80s should now be in the public domain.
EGGSactly Batman!
Few People understand that Copyright Law is a Compromise between the Producers and the Public. The Media Producers are supposed to get a "LIMITED" term to make money off the Media they produce and then that Media reverts to "PUBLIC DOMAIN" where as the people get to use that Media anyway they choose.
Over the years "BIG MEDIA" has continually lobbied Congress until they have got the "LIMITED" term expanded from the original 28 Years to nearly 100 years.
In essence "BIG MEDIA" has stolen 72 years plus worth of Media from the Public!
That was funny.
“**HOWEVER** — and this is a big caveat — it has never been legal for people to print and distribute copyrighted material. The people downloading music and movies for free without consent of the copyright owners are committing crimes. That has been the case for the entire history of American copyright law, dating back two centuries.”
I think it would be helpful if we looked back at the full history of sharing & copyrights to see just how far we’ve fallen.
Copying started in the olden days with books. You’d read a book and make a copy of another if you so desired. It wasn’t very efficient, but there were generally no restrictions against it unless, say, a local ruler didn’t like what the book said.
The printing press was a huge advancement in technology. It made copying much more efficient by introducing an economy of scale via mass production. For the first few hundred years after its introduction, however, many copies were still made by hand. The rich had hand-written copies to show off their status, and poor people who couldn’t afford the literature made copies.
Copyright started in Italy in the 1500s: if you wrote a book, you could ask a prince to give you a monopoly on printing it. They enjoyed doing it to reward people who said nice things about them, or perhaps dedicated something to them. Niccolo Machiavelli dedicated “The Prince” to Lorenzo di Piero de Medici, a member of the ruling Florentine Medici family.
Copyright in England began as a system of censorship against the Church of England. In order to publish a book, you had to ask the state for permission.
After the Glorious Revolution, they replaced this system with a scheme that gave copyright to the author instead of a publisher, and only for 14 years. Copyright was seen as a way to encourage writing by giving authors a way to make more money from publishing. This is where we have our roots.
In short, copying laws in the age of the printing press were intended affected publishers. It didn’t impose any restrictions on what readers could do. It was easy to enforce and, more importantly, it was intended to BENEFIT the public.
Today, copyright has been distorted so much as to become unrecognizable when compared to where we got it from in England. Authors cede their rights to publishers. Copyright lengths have been extended from 14 years to more than a lifetime in some cases, which prevents works from going into the public domain.
Through digital technology, publishers have extended copyright restrictions to areas never intended to be affected when copyright was conceived. These restrictions attack the public’s freedom, and the costs and methods of enforcement are onerous.
Copyright law has been turned on its head. Sharing has been criminalized as taboo. You’ll never catch me advocating illegal activity, but I understand those who choose to exercise civil disobedience on these matters.
heheh the same thing happened when a little known feller named Johannes Gutenberg developed a machine that could print books in day that before that literally took a year or more.
"Private censorship" is owners of network resources stating the terms of the services they're willing to sell - terms a customer can accept, or reject and withhold his patronage. You can't consistently support FR's right to ban liberals, but oppose an ISP's right to ban copyright violation.
Copyright violation is a matter of law. The ISPs (Which BTW are also mostly owned by the very same Copyright holders A.K.A. BIG MEDIA) are now going to penalize anyone THEY say is violating a Copyright.
Further their is usually only one or two ISPs in most areas around our country. The INTERNET is in essence going to be policed by an industry that is dying because their business model does not acknowledge that it is a modern day equivalent of a Buggy Whip Manufacturer.
What BIG MEDIA wants is not "Digital Rights Management" which would allow Media purchasers to have ownership rights of media they buy (as in selling a DVD or CD they no longer want.)
BIG MEDIA wants instead "Digital NO RIGHTS Management" wherein the Media consumer has no rights whatsoever to media they purchase including "FAIR USE" which is granted under copyright law.
Big Media is always getting Youtube and other websites to pull media that is being used in "Parody" which is legal under fair use. Now they can punish anyone who parodies any media without using the courts.
Big Media has waaaaaaay to much power now and we are about to allow them full control of the Internet without an act of congress or the courts.
Intellectual property laws are archaic and serve no useful purpose except to prop up monopolistic practices that are fundamentally corrosive to free markets.
There will be no real information age until IP laws are done away with.
But they can’t stop child porn. Huh.
> We as a conservatives need to stand up in defense of the Constitutional protection of the First Amendment as well as the Constitutional protection of private property rights.
It will get abused.
Case in point. My favorite author, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Copyright law was 50 years past the death of the author. He died in 1952. I should be able to download all his books in 2002. Wrong. They pushed the copyright out to 70 years past death. I’ll have to wait until 2022 to download, unless the publishing companies get a longer extension of time.
Another case in point. Old time Radio broadcasts of “The Shadow” were in public domain until Conde Nast (publishing) took out a trademark for the line spoken at the start of every show. Once they got their trademark, they seized control of the old broadcasts themselves. And you can’t listen to them now.
There will always be someone like MPAA or RIAA who wants a cash cow they didn’t participate in.
And FR bans anyone it says is a liberal. Their equipment, their rules.
You completely missed the point of my post!
1) ISPs have become the copyright police even though the law gives them common carrier status, i.e. they are faultless in the commission of any copyright violation.
2) They maybe should loose the status as “common carriers” because they have entered the realm of copyright enforcement - often because they are now also content providers, i.e. copyright owners.
3) Copyright law itself needs a major overhaul to bring it back to the original intent by the founders! The law is unbalanced in favor of copyright owners right now.
Nothing in the above condones theft.
Yes - but your statement needs to be modified to “for a limited time!” Just as patents had a sunset provision, so did Copyright. After the expiration period - the work became public domain. The original period was 20 years after creation. That now is something like 70 years after the death of the author... The problem is that the “limited time” keeps on getting extended to infinity and beyond!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.