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Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

nytimes.com

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Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#221

Post by bombcar »

RustyRoss wrote: post #215
rimunroe wrote: post #97

Funnily enough the only time I ever got in trouble for torrenting anything was when Cox was my ISP circa 2009. I'd been torrenting some PSP game and my connection went down. When I called the helpline they explained what happened and said they'd restore access once I confirmed I'd deleted the downloaded file.

Lol. Did they force you to pinky swear that you'd deleted it?

In my experience they're very careful about what you say so that the recording allows them to say you did what was needed.

This is assuming you didn't answer for "your little brother", etc.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#222

Post by drnick1 »

scott_w wrote: post #66

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?

Yes, I think so. Another analogy is firearms. They can be used to commit or facilitate crimes, yet nobody is suing gun manufacturers.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#223

Post by elpool2 »

ryandrake wrote: post #156
elpool2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see how it would ever make sense to hold social media liable for user posted defamation. Look at the recent Afroman defamation lawsuit and consider how YouTube is supposed to know whether that music video was defamatory or not. It took a court 3 years to reach a conclusion but you want YouTube to make that same call instantly, on millions of posts a day. What you’d get is a world where Afroman’s (non defamato…

I think the difference should be whether they are a dumb pipe, or whether they exercise editorial control and/or promote some content over others. If you are truly a dumb pipe, that just transmits whatever the users post, then you shouldn't be liable for what goes over your wires. Like the phone company. As soon as you start acting as an editor: amplifying some content and downplaying (or removing) other content, re-…

That seems unworkable because, well, I just don’t want social media to be dumb pipes. Without sites making editorial decisions every site will be full of porn and animal torture videos. The current status quo seems way better tbh.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#224

Post by autoexec »

awesome_dude wrote: post #177
autoexec wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

With respect - copyright's protection of income is the point That's, by design, the tool used to encourage people to invest their time into producing works. We would not be having this conversation at all if people weren't able to make money of these works - there'd be no point to copyright at all if there wasn't money to be made (by the artists) and the reproduction of their works wasn't restricting their ability to…

> That's, by design, the tool used to encourage people to invest their time into producing works.

The tool used was control over distribution. If income was the point copyright law could just hand tax payer money over to anyone who created something. That'd guarantee income instead of the system we have which allows artists to invest in the creation of a work and still never make a dime on it. Ultimately though, I do see your point and I agree that making it possible to earn enough money to justify the creation, publishing, and distribution of a creative work was a large part of the intention along with the establishment of the public domain.

I probably should have phrased that as "The point of copyright isn't to protect income until the work is no longer highly profitable"

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#225

Post by dylan604 »

tracker1 wrote: post #42
dylan604 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They've definitely lost more than they gained. That's a pretty good sized ego you got yourself there. The number of people that cared about the rootkit in the general populace was insignificant to Sony. Only tech nerds like us even knew about the rootkit or how insane it was to use. Unless you were a huge flagship purchaser of Sony's latest/greatest each year, they don't even notice you when you buy a TV or any oth…

> Lost more than they gained (from me, implied). Maybe, just maybe assume the best in people instead of jumping to the worst interpretations you can.

Not sure how interpreted what I said as anything other than the implied you. No matter how much money you did or no longer do spend with Sony is not anything they'd notice. The caveat being you were a flagship purchaser from them which I doubt was the case.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#226

Post by autoexec »

bahmboo wrote: post #216
pavon wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ninth Circuit court of appeals understood correctly what the primary use of Betamax would be, but they believed that personal home recording was not fair use, and was thus copyright infringement. They interpreted the law as only allowing libraries to record TV or radio broadcasts. 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 gon…

This speaks to first principles. I don't want judges making law - and any good judge doesn't want to make law. Laws are from elected legislatures. Of course this is all wishful thinking.

If a judge had ruled differently in the Betamax case, we'd still have the ability to vote in representatives who'd enact a law that explicitly gave us the right to record for personal use. Judges should only have power to decide what a law means in situations where it's not already clear how or if the law applies.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#228

Post by da_chicken »

xoa wrote: post #31
thot_experiment wrote: post #9

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.

I'm not sure I agree that any single fixed term makes sense. Rather, I think it'd be better if the exponential cost to society (in terms of works that don't happen, and works that don't happen based on those works that didn't happen and so on compounding) was just part of the yearly renewal price. Do maybe everyone gets 7 years flat to start with, then it costs $100*1.3^(year). So after another 25 years it'd be aroun…

No, the problem with this is that a lot of IPs aren't profitable in their initial years, and this pretty strictly encourages property-holding as a business. That's exactly the wrong kind of revenue generation that copyright is supposed to be encouraging. It's empty rent-seeking.

Further, I think that the premise is flawed. Rather than being more protected by being profitable, a work should be less protected the more it has profited the owners. If you can make $50 million profit as an individual from your creative work that took 5 years to produce, then you're done. Dozens of lifetimes of wealth for 5 years of work? No, that's more than enough. You don't deserve more money for that. You have been suitably encouraged. The trouble with that idea is that "creative accounting" is too easy, so that won't really work, either.

I think it should match patent law. 20 years, and that's it. After that, if you want to keep making profit, you need to make something new. Because that's what it's supposed to do: let you make a living if you're able, and encourage you to keep working to create more.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#229

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

davidgtl wrote: post #212
xoa wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I agree that any single fixed term makes sense. Rather, I think it'd be better if the exponential cost to society (in terms of works that don't happen, and works that don't happen based on those works that didn't happen and so on compounding) was just part of the yearly renewal price. Do maybe everyone gets 7 years flat to start with, then it costs $100*1.3^(year). So after another 25 years it'd be aroun…

An adversarial approach would also be interesting: People could open positions of "I would buy a right to use this copyright for $XYZ if it was released today" So the copyright holder would have the option to EITHER cashout at any point (and consider the work/invested effort paid) OR counter-bid the sum of everyone to keep it. Not sure about the implications, but it would encourage the most (economically) productive…

I'm a big proponent of compulsory licensing, which could certainly be limited to renewals so that creative control is still granted for some amount of time.

Re: Supreme Court Sides with Cox in Copyright Fight over Pirated Music

#230

Post by AlBugdy »

jetrink wrote: post #129

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…

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