161–170 of 369 posts
A tiny victory. Copyright should not be more than a decade. This intellectual property system is one of the worst things to happen in modern society is what I would have said a few years ago, now I got bigger problems but I'm still mad.
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> The lower court found the Betamax maker liable because the tape recorder was “not suitable for any substantial noninfringing use” and infringement “was either the most conspicuous use or the major use of the Betamax product.” I don't know anyone who sold television recordings, it was always for personal use. How could the lower court get this so wrong? Was this just one uninformed judge? Or was this actually less c…
I had a relative who setup a kinda "blockbuster" type service recording things and offering them out for rental. It really took off for VHS when he got HBO and recorded movies and then rented those. It wasnt a very lucrative hustle but it was an instance of what they didnt want to have happen
I'm trying to understand how a judge would say that the only practical use of backups were copyright infringement, since that is completely contrary to both my experiences and what I believe to be common sense. If the answer to my confusion is that this actually was the major use case and my experiences were rare, then that's fine. Otherwise, I can't help believe this is yet another case in recent history where judges are completely backwards on technological understanding, or maybe even under influence from copyright holders.
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> Disney are able to pay that amount because their IP is still generating massive income. That's entirely irrelevant though. The point of copyright isn't to protect income. The point is to encourage the creation of new works. Disney doesn't need 100+ years of exclusive profits on something to encourage them to create new works. Nobody does. I'd even argue that the more popular a work is the more important it is that…
Another thing that doesn't get brought up enough: Copyright is not really needed to encourage creation. Suppose Copyright as a concept was overturned and no longer existed. Would Disney just say "Well, it was a great run, but we're going to close up shop and no longer create works." Would an independent artist who needs to paint something decide not to just because it couldn't be copyright? "The creation of new works…
Many works require a good deal of investment and time and if people had little to no chance of making money or breaking even on that investment a lot of works wouldn't get made.
Another nice aspect of copyright law is that it establishes where a work originated. Authorship gets lost in a lot of the things we treat as if they don't have copyrights. For example memes, or the way every MP3 of a parody song on P2P platforms ended up listing Weird Al as the artist regardless of his involvement. It also happens in cases where copyright really doesn't exist like with recipes and as a result we don't really know who first came up with many of the foods we love. A very limited copyright term would more firmly establish who we should thank for the things we enjoy.
Just to try and understand the decision, an analogy that’s coming to mind would be like saying a van manufacturer wouldn’t have liability if it’s used in a bank robbery. However if the manufacturer sold it with the intent for the buyer to use it for bank robbery (the manufacturer having the intent in this case, as well as the robber themselves), then they could become partially liable. Have I got that right?
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I think this is a great idea. Free then make it cost more. A lot could enter the public domain, and valuable IP could be kept by companies as long as they’re willing to pay.
I think that's a horrible idea. There's zero benefit to society in letting corporations like Disney that can afford to pay keep works out of the public domain longer than others.
Wouldn't it result in additional tax revenue while preventing Disney's movies from proliferating throughout society unimpeded?
In all honesty, I really think you should think this idea through. Compared to the status quo, where we get zero tax revenue from intellectual property, this system would guarantee an expiration based on commercial viability. It couldn't sustain forever because the scale would always accelerate at a rate faster than any economy could sustain it. But it would have this additional benefit in that the more some intellectual property becomes commercially sustainable, the more revenue society can collect.
How does that even begin to approach horrible when it's magnitudes more equitable than the status quo?
Just to try and understand the decision, an analogy that’s coming to mind would be like saying a van manufacturer wouldn’t have liability if it’s used in a bank robbery. However if the manufacturer sold it with the intent for the buyer to use it for bank robbery (the manufacturer having the intent in this case, as well as the robber themselves), then they could become partially liable. Have I got that right?
I think a better analogy would be crack pipes sold in minimarts in a box that says "for tobacco use only". Crackheads estate sues the pipe mfr says you knew people were using it for crack and are proximately liable for facilitating the drug use.
Hilariously (and appropriately), the decision cites Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. , also known as the "Betamax case." > (a) “The Copyright Act does not expressly render anyone liable for infringement committed by another.” Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 434. > In Sony, copyright owners sued the maker and the retailers of the Betamax video tape recorder. Id…
> The lower court found the Betamax maker liable because the tape recorder was “not suitable for any substantial noninfringing use” and infringement “was either the most conspicuous use or the major use of the Betamax product.” I don't know anyone who sold television recordings, it was always for personal use. How could the lower court get this so wrong? Was this just one uninformed judge? Or was this actually less c…
The Supreme Court ruling for this case found that time-shifting was fair use, but only by a narrow 5-4 margin. Fair use could have gone in a completely different direction over the last 40 years if just one judge had voted differently on Betamax.
This isn't good. They can still sue you, but now they need proof that you as an individual behind that public IP did it. This will only incentivize them to join the push for ID requirements.
They aren't suing some broke 23 year old. What they can collect is less than their lawyer fees. At worst, universities crack down harder on torrents, but that was always an option for labels.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/movie-studios-bit...
Just to try and understand the decision, an analogy that’s coming to mind would be like saying a van manufacturer wouldn’t have liability if it’s used in a bank robbery. However if the manufacturer sold it with the intent for the buyer to use it for bank robbery (the manufacturer having the intent in this case, as well as the robber themselves), then they could become partially liable. Have I got that right?