11 Feb
2013
11 Feb
'13
3:58 p.m.
On Sunday 10 February 2013 11:29:11 Al Thompson wrote:
On 02/10/2013 10:22 AM, drew Roberts wrote:
See, your first mistake is to describe the person as a property owner without
qualifications.
Second, I do not speak of private, contracted "showings" but rather of
publication.
You are not stealing anything from the creator.
They had that control
before they showed the work to anyone. Once they put it out in the public
realm, they gave up that ability. Copyright law tries to pretend that
they have such control still and provides penalties (and in my mind, way
out of proportion penalties) for excercising what we would otherwise be
free to do in the natural world, but nothing is stolen from anyone in
this situation. Unless perhaps copyright law steals our Freedom?
Is it your contention that a property owner gives up all rights to his
own property once he lets someone else see or hear it??
I think you are missing the point of a copyright.
The point of copyright is to pervert this natural way of things. To give a
government protectecd monopoly where none would normally exist. I get the
point quite clearly.
And in this brave new internet connected world, I get that it cannot hope to
work without gutting freedom of speech and perhaps democracy itself.
The draconian situation we have today is still not good enough to protect the
works of the big copyright holders to their satisfaction. Open your eyes and
look at they laws they are asking for and often getting.
An owner doesn't give
up his rights to his property unless he releases it into the public
domain. Even if he agrees to license it for sale or use, he still
retains his rights to distribution or use. If, for example, someone
wants to license his song to use for a commercial, he can say no. If
someone wants to record a song he has written, the owner can either say
no, or else be compensated by a licensing fee. If a band member writes
a song for his band, he will receive royalties for the use of that song.
I know that is how copyright law sets things up to work. And look how borked
the situation is.
I'm a proponent of releasing music under alternative terms, but that
should be up to the owner, not the consumer. After all, to most
consumers, they would obviously prefer that EVERYTHING be free.
So, you are whistling a new tune in your room with the windows open. Jack is
walking by and hears some of it. It is catchy and he starts to whistle it as
he walks along. John standing at the bus stop a few blocks away hears it as
Jack passes. He too starts whistling the melody. He gets on the bus
whistling. All of the bus riders hear at. When they get off the bus at their
various stops they whistle it. Etc. In the absence of copyright law, do you
really think you have some power or right to prevent this situation? Some
right to be compensated by all of these people whistling without your
permission?
Oh, and by the way, to my ignorant understanding, if you hadn't yet written
down what you were whistling when Jack heard, you don't get to copyright it.
Oops. (I say ignorant as it may only happen if you perform it in public
first. Etc.)
all the best,
drew