U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy

I've stopped watching shows and movies altogether. I simply don't want to deal with this mess.

I just find something else to do. I have couple channels on YouTube I watch without recommendations and a couple of twitch streamers.

Recently, I've started reading.

> You aren't entitled to anything anyone creates.

I don't think that's always true even now, but it certainly shouldn't be. When something becomes of a part of our culture, and our history, it belongs to all of us. No one is entitled to anything someone else creates until it is shared. Once it is, ownership is also somewhat shared.

If someone wants to write a song and have total control over it they just need to keep it to themselves because once I hear it, I naturally have a right to hum that tune to myself for the rest of the day, or to sing it at the top of my lungs. If someone wants total control over a story they write they should keep it to themselves because once I hear or read it, it's my natural right to be allowed to remember it, think about it, talk about it with others, and retell it in my own words. Before copyright this was the norm. Stories and songs were written and sung, others heard them, repeated what they remembered, added in their own changes and continued to share. If someone designed an illustration, or a bridge, or a garment, once others saw it, they could study it and incorporate those designs into their own works freely. Improving and modifying those designs however they liked.

Telling people that they are forbidden from saying, writing, or re-telling certain things to anyone is a massive imposition on our freedoms. We created copyright knowing it would be a special exception to the norm. It gave special rights and privileges to content creators which would allow them to circumvent our rights and limit what we can say or write or share for a limited time, and in exchange for the brief imposition on our freedoms to reward and encourage creators, copyrighted works were supposed to enter the public domain and after that everyone could freely access and use them.

It's wasn't even a terrible idea, but it's been perverted and corrupted into something that does more harm than good to creativity and progress. Now copyright lasts forever, and if somehow after centuries a copyright does manage to lapse, DRM can still keep those works from ever reaching the public. The copyright on most of what we think of as media doesn't even protect creators at this point, just the corporations who purchased the copyrights from the creative minds responsible for the work. Basically, the contract between creators and the public good has been completely broken. Th media industry paid to have and keep the power of law on their side, but in terms of "entitlement" and morality, they lost the high ground ages ago.

The EU changed their copyright directive a few years ago to mandate "best practices" as a condition for online safe harbor; I find that provision to be equivalent to the SMART Act.

As for paying more for less in Germany... the problem is that nobody in the TV industry wants to go to sim-ship[0]. Most countries want to have a local-market/local-language TV broadcast and production industry, which is only viable if you let people portion off rights to their work on a country-by-country basis. The subsidy laws you mentioned are part and parcel of the same thing.

[0] A game development term that is short for "simultaneous ship"; in which you ship all languages in every territory all on the same day.

> If someone wants to write a song and have total control over it they just need to keep it to themselves because once I hear it, I naturally have a right to hum that tune to myself for the rest of the day, or to sing it at the top of my lungs. If someone wants total control over a story they write they should keep it to themselves because once I hear or read it, it's my natural right to be allowed to remember it, think about it, talk about it with others, and retell it in my own words.

This seems like an intentionally obtuse interpretation of what I'm saying. No one is saying you can't hum a song but you certainly aren't entitled to a lossless download of that song.

There are so many local and indie artists who are willing to give you their work for free and would be thrilled to see you copying it to your friends. Those are the people who care about the free flow of information the most. They're also usually the ones who respect the intentions of creators the most. Because if you won't agree to pay money for it and be forbidden from copying, then the smart thing to do isn't to pull out bittorrent. The smart thing to do instead, is pull out your guitar and start recording something better. That's what freedom is. Maybe if everyone wasn't so focused on pirating Goliath, more people would be supporting David.