Copywrite laws are they to vague?

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Will:
Well, I had a response written for your post, but I seemed to have hit "Add Reply" about five minutes after the forums went all narcoleptic... so my response essentially went *POOF!*.

Been there - a lot. I've taken to using the clipboard and notepad to save my larger Posts before actually posting them to prevent just that.

Originally posted by Will:

The gist of it: I never said you were confused, I said you were misunderstanding what I posted. Confused would be the recipient having reduced mental faculties (I would consider saying confused in that situation unwarranted and an insult). Misunderstanding is a problem in the act of communication (and has absolutely no malice behind it), something being lost in the translation, so to speak.

You're right; you did say misunderstanding. Sorry about that.

Originally posted by Will:

To attempt to rehash my position on the limits to be put on copyright (not even going to touch trademarks or patents here, that's a completely different 900-pound purple gorilla): Copyright should protect against what is commonly accepted as plagerism, but nothing beyond that. That means that no significant portion of the copyright-protected work can be used by someone else. With the changing-menu-color example, that would violate copyrights because the rest of the game most certainly constitutes "significant". However, if the game was reverse-engineered, and every piece of it was created independantly, taking nothing but inspiration from the original, then that does not violate the copyright.

You are talking about "should not," correct? Such an implementation would pretty much only benefit the big corporations; if a small-time develper produces something, the big corporation could throw a million at it to duplicate it from scratch, then throw a few more million to advertise it, and pretty soon everyone is buying the big corporation's Version, forgetting where it came from, even though it is exactly like the original. A very large portion of the time spent developing a game is put into the design work; having the original as the design would eliminate most of that phase. A perfect clone could be put out, and even take over, in perhaps six months. Then, the creator of the original goes bankrupt, unable to compete with the corporation. The megacorps would love to be able to do that; it would be the perfect tool for driving small competiters out of business; reverse-engeneer everything they put out and distribute it for free. While driving the small competitor out of business, the megacorp can absorb the loss (they absorb the loss from most of the software they put out anyway - a few more aren't going to hurt them). After, the megacorp can mop up the market.

Originally posted by Will:
Another example: say a writer has a terrible case of writers block. The writer comes across a short story done by someone else, and begins writing with the story as a model; the writer doesn't take a single sentance fragment from the original, but does use the same characters (with different names), plot, setting, etc. That, in my view, is more than a bit unoriginal, but should not violate copyright... the writer's story is its own, nothing tangible was taken from the "original". (As a side note, I would personally think it proper to let the "original's" author and any readers know about the source of the story idea, but I don't think that should be mandated by copyright law).

That is different from the case of copying software from scratch; with the case of a story, it is the wording that is important for copyright issues (as that is what the user sees), especially considering that most ideas in print have their roots in other ideas in print. Using not one scrap of the originals wording will invariably produce a vastly different story. With the case of software, it is possible to completely duplicate something without the source code and without duplicating the binary. However, the design (which would be duplicated in your case) isn't dependant on any specific bit of code being done in a particular fashion (barring the standard things to deal with the hardware and OS that virtually every program for a particular hardware/OS combination use, of course).

Originally posted by Will:

Also, there should be leeway given for personal use. There is already some in the current laws, but certain Groups are trying their damnedest to remove all personal copying. I think it's perfectly acceptable to do things like: make a backup copy of a CD, photocopy a poem and stick it on your wall, take a hex editor to SEIV and change menu colors (not to distribute, mind you!), multiple installations of software (several people on this board have more than one installation of SEIV on their computer), copy a DVD onto a VHS cassette so you can watch it with the VCR in the other room, etc. Not only are these legitimate uses in my view, but if copyright holders actually bother trying to collect payment for things so utterly trivial, then they seriously need to be institutionalized.

Most of those actually are legal at this point for private individuals: backups (if not distributed), medium conVersions (this one covers both the poem-on-the-wall and DVD-to-VHS); however, multiple installations and editing the finished product aren't. No-multiple installations can be programmatically enforced reasonably well, and has some reasonable correlation with solid products - if you wanted to use a toaster in five different locations, you would either need to buy more toasters or carry one of them around with you and plug/unplug it every time.

But yes, trying to make those legal ones illegal is quite the power grab.

[Erax]

Blue-sky wishful thinking won't change reality, no matter HOW hard you try to malign the corporate aspect of capitalism.

Pax, I'm going to pull a Pax on you (in a friendly way, no offense intended) :

I can imagine someone in America around, say, 1770, defending King George this way :

Blue-sky wishful thinking won't change reality, no matter HOW hard you try to malign the tyrannical aspect of monarchy.

[Erax]

Posted by Will :

say a writer has a terrible case of writers block. The writer comes across a short story done by someone else, and begins writing with the story as a model; the writer doesn't take a single sentance fragment from the original, but does use the same characters (with different names), plot, setting, etc. That, in my view, is more than a bit unoriginal, but should not violate copyright... the writer's story is its own, nothing tangible was taken from the "original". (As a side note, I would personally think it proper to let the "original's" author and any readers know about the source of the story idea, but I don't think that should be mandated by copyright law).

That is essentially what I did in my story here in the forums in the June 19 post, although with me it wasn't a case of writer's block, I had been meaning to do that scene for about 20 days and had to move the story along until it was possible to insert it. And I mentioned the original work, encouraging people to go out and buy it.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Chief Engineer Erax:
Pax, I'm going to pull a Pax on you (in a friendly way, no offense intended) :

I can imagine someone in America around, say, 1770, defending King George this way :

quote:

---

Blue-sky wishful thinking won't change reality, no matter HOW hard you try to malign the tyrannical aspect of monarchy.

---

But, not ALL monarchs are tyrants (George III was also likely not well, which might explain some of his treatment of the colonies). Monarchs come, and monarchs go ...

[PvK]

Pax, I've been over the same points with you a few times, and the energy required to keep responding exceeds my interest in the conversation at this point, particularly as I have a lot of work to do and one of my main computers had a hard-drive crash yesterday.

I will say though that there is a world of difference between making "a profit" and making "as much profit as possible, no matter what it takes."

Again, yeah it's difficult to change bad laws and institutions, particularly when there are people who decide it's "practical" or to their advantage to defend the status quo even when they know there is a better way. So stop it already!

To answer you're oh-so-polite question about whether I am a communist or a socialist, I wouldn't say so, but I have received that question (usually voiced as an accusation...) from people who well, I'll just say I guess you'd probably get along with better than I would. Is there something that offends or threatens you about discussing better systems of ecomony and law than the current ones? Nor would I call myself a "capitalist" - would you?

PvK

[Pax]

Originally posted by PvK:
To answer you're oh-so-polite question about whether I am a communist or a socialist, I wouldn't say so, but I have received that question (usually voiced as an accusation...) from people who well, I'll just say I guess you'd probably get along with better than I would. Is there something that offends or threatens you about discussing better systems of ecomony and law than the current ones? Nor would I call myself a "capitalist" - would you?

PvK

There's nothing wrong with beign a communist or socialist -- though I tend to think such systems, taken as-is, have their OWN set of inherent flaws.

As for myself -- I consider myself a pragmatist. I know the current system isn't perfect, however, I consider it to be, generally speaking, close to the instinctive ideal of human behavior. And I don't think trashing the whole thing is a workable premise (the soviets found out that total communism just didn't work that well).

I tend to think a hybrid of the various economic models might function best -- a semi-free market socialism, if you will. Socialist models for such things as basic health care, education, mass transit, public utilities like power water and heat, and construction/maintenance of roads, bridges, and other publicly-used structures.

All else ... somewhere between a free market (at the smallfry end of the spectrum) to a planned economy (at the big-fish end of the spectrum). With the whole, preferably, ecologically "friendly".

I support the creation, maintenance, and enforcing of laws which do indeed promote the public weal; OTOH, I also support the concept of minimist government: do the most governing with the least intrusive measures.

IP is one of the things I think should be zealously guarded and protected. Elsewhere in this thread, someone -- I don't know if it was you or someone else -- suggested a return to the older ways, where wealthy families supported artists as a prestige symbol.

Which would only mean that art would, inherently, reflect only the ideals and aims of the rich; that the only artists whoc oudl afford to devote themselves to their work, would be those who were friends with wealthy people ... or were wealthy themselves.

I cannot accept that; art should belong to all of society, in terms of being valued. In order to encourage it's creation, and promote a never-ending effort to better the art produced by each artist ... protected IP and a free market economy for art is important. Artists then can feel safe making art that reflects their own views; if need be, they can also churn out schlock that the wealthier people will pay for, in order to fund their "real" art -- if there's a difference, ofc.

Protecting IP protects art from plagiarist theft; since "art" is defined individually by ech of us -- one man's trash is another's abstract art -- we must protect all IP, without prejudice.

The only real problems I see WRT copyright laws are (a) the ever-extended periods of protected status, and (b) the fact it is a civil, and therefor purely monetary, issue.

As for asking if you were communist or socialist ... your position is very strongly pro-socialist or pro-communist WRT economics; it's the whole "down with the evil corporations, up with the individual people" thing; I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

Lastly -- the question of wether or not discussing "better" economic models offends me: not at all. When someone presents to me a truly better economic model, which will work in the real world, I'll step right up to support them in "spreading the word" ...

That has yet to work, though; socialism and communism trade some old problems, for some new problems -- all you do is shuffle around who gets screwed and who doesn't; who's happy and who isn't; who has opportunity and who doesn't. You don't improve the whole, only those parts with which the proponent (in this case you) most closely identifies.

So of course, corporate bigwigs support capitalism (it lines their pockets and makes their lives better); small folks who've been burned by capitalist corporations support a more socialist economy (it lines THEIR pockets and makes THEIR lives better); and so on.

All of it is about redistribution of wealth, and none of them are lily-white perfect-and-fair systems. None of them.

[Will]

Originally posted by Pax:
*snip*

IP is one of the things I think should be zealously guarded and protected. Elsewhere in this thread, someone -- I don't know if it was you or someone else -- suggested a return to the older ways, where wealthy families supported artists as a prestige symbol.

Which would only mean that art would, inherently, reflect only the ideals and aims of the rich; that the only artists who could afford to devote themselves to their work, would be those who were friends with wealthy people ... or were wealthy themselves.

That would have been me... and I wasn't exactly advocating a complete return to this system (feudalism had its own problems too, and we don't want to go back to that), but more wishing that those with large amounts of money and power would support the arts through "philanthropy"; as it is, most of the wealthiest people spend most of their time trying to make even more money. For a lot, the only real reason they donate to various charities is to get a tax break. So, pretty much, it was wishful thinking; I don't expect it to happen.

And as to the reflections made of art... if that observation were really true, then today, art would only reflect the ideals and aims of the middle- and upper-class. They're the only ones who can actually afford to spend on things of artistic value and still be able to pay for necessities. Yet instead, a lot of the art I've seen reflects the ideals and aims of others -- minorities, blue-collar workers, urban gangs, etc. -- just as much, and you could argue more so than, as it reflects the ideals of those who are paying for it.