Question to anyone that understands the legal 'play' here: is it the thing to say that it cost them 2,000,000 paying (I assume) streams, which feels ridiculously high? And then it gets bargained down or something?
Because it seems a lot like the "you pirated my album/film instead of buying it" - whereas the reality of it is probably more like a high percentage just wouldn't have bothered - a passing interest/opportunity that piracy facilitated.
Yeah they have to prove the amount of money they think they lost, which is subject to expert argument and some legal constraints. They can ask for whatever, but in theory they only get what they can prove.
Can they actually go after any of these entities? Seems like at this point it's pretty trivial to set up a website which proxies manifest files and injects DRM keys directly...
Good luck, but I'd assume these folks are all in non extradition countries, or have covered their tracks pretty well...
The fight felt like a scam. I wouldn't be surprised if Askren heavily bet against himself after hyping himself and presenting the fight as an easy win.
Askren isn't that type of dude. Not to mention the massive illegality of betting against yourself in a sanctioned boxing match, it would be incredibly dishonest and against his normal personality.
Indeed they do. For example my hard drive belongs to me and yours to you. There is no way I can arrange the pattern of magnetic ones and zeros such that it magically becomes YOUR property in any way that any proponent of traditional property would understand. That is to say imaginary property is a set of restrictions on how I am allowed to use my actual property.
This restriction is supposed to be justified by society benefiting from the useful arts and sciences. I don't see a two-bit fight fitting that bill.
"That is to say imaginary property is a set of restrictions on how I am allowed to use my actual property."
No. You yourself are not re-arranging any bits. Your computer receives bits, then decodes them, and plays them. There is no "re-arrange bits exactly like this album" button.
You wouldn't say that LPs are "placing restrictions on your record player". The artist may no longer have that specific product, but you can't really re-arrange the grooves on a record however you please either.
"This restriction is supposed to be justified by society benefiting from the useful arts and sciences."
I don't disagree that copyright law is poorly implemented. However, I do disagree that society somehow isn't benefiting from artists being paid for the work. It takes a -lot- of man hours to produce music, record it, mix and master it, and distribute it for release. None of that changes just because we distribute the end result electronically now.
If someone takes months and years to come up with an engaging story and universe for a book, they deserve to own that creation and get paid for it. Why would anyone make anything creative in a world where it would be impossible to make a living from that work? Are we to expect artists to have infinite money supply and just produce things for our leisure, for free?
This is just entitlement, with playing games about technicalities of distribution mediums to justify not paying people for their work. No one is forcing people to claim ownership of the things you create; Go ahead and write a book and make it public domain. Produce an album and make it public domain, if you feel that strongly about ownership. You can pay in the time, money, and man-hours of work involved yourself and still keep it free and public domain.
The point is that the user is in fact now able to rearrange the grooves on the record like magic and the artist wants to limit their way to do this if the user rearranges the grooves in a way that match their own work.
No, the user can't do that. They can't do that with records, and they can't do that with bits either.
Users can -download- specific bits and play them via decoding, and that's about it. Nobody can actually re-arrange anything themselves, although one could spend their life trying to manually flip bits to magically recreate it in the same manner. Good luck.
The artist isn't limiting anything other than sharing those pre-made bits without a license/permission. And that is not unreasonable. My stance on this is referring to works of art as merely "bits" for the sake of argument is a bit ridiculous. We don't refer to LPs as "a collection of atoms", etc.
Referring to art or products in general as "just bits" is just being pedantic for the sake of winning an argument.
You don't like fighting! Good for you! (Neither do I.) I'm sure a person like you has much more important things to pay attention to.
So people like you and me don't pay money to watch fighting. So far we agree.
But we differ here: I think it's fine of _other_ people pay money to watch fighting. And I think if someone produces a fighting program, he has the right to try to make some money from it.
People conveniently like to ignore the costs (time, money, social capital, etc) it requires to even put on boxing or fighting events. Or to make music or films.
It is particularly vexing for me to see all of this creative, hard work flippantly thrown aside because people suddenly become philosophers about bits and rearranging them.
If one doesn't like that people charge $$ to watch boxing fights... Then don't watch them! People are not entitled to having things for free because it's "theoretically possible to re-arrange my hard drive's bits in that exact manner".
edit; changed you->one to clarify I was speaking generally and not about the parent commenter specifically
You and I agree. But the "gatekeepers" on Hacker News believe that if something's not "hip" enough for them, it has no value and nobody should be enjoying it.
You are welcome to enjoy it but as copyright represents a substantial decrease in the liberty of society I think a shitty one round fight represents a particularly poor exemplar of why society ought to give up that liberty.
Perhaps I've misunderstood what you're trying to say, but I feel like this sort of begs the question. It seems like you're presenting this as some sort of argument against intellectual property, but to work as an intuition pump, you must already reject intellectual property as a valid concept ("proponent of traditional property"). It's not clear to me that you've actually said anything.
But, since we're here and discussing the concept of ownership of information - would you say that people have a right to secrets? There might be some bits on my hard drive that I don't want anyone else to know, and if they mysteriously turn up on your hard drive despite my careful precautions, surely that is evidence of some sort of malfeasance?
I feel like this is a rhetorical question, but I’m not very confident that they should when it comes to data. It’s definitely less clear cut than physical ownership in my opinion. Abstractly it seems wrong to limit people from certain bit arrangements without paying. The source is limitless.
No one is limiting people from certain bit arrangements. If you, entirely on your own, construct the exact bit arrangement that represents this video stream, you're perfectly within your rights to watch it.
What copyright law prevents is for you to copy the stream of bits from the original source.
But it really isn't limitless, is it? We can abstract it into a 'bit arrangement', but that arrangement didn't emerge from entropy independently - someone invested time, effort, and other scarce resources to arrange those bits in a valuable, non-random configuration.
The person copying clearly values that arrangement, or they wouldn't be copying it.
Perhaps they did invest time, but I’m not convinced that should give them the right to place a restriction on others.
If I have an empty hard drive and copy someone’s mp3 a thousand times on it, without permission, what is really lost? Have I really harmed this person or stolen from them in any meaningful sense? If I then delete the data, is that really justice?
Both directions lead to some laws that seem wrong at face value - illegal primes on one side and “pro” revenge porn on the other. I only argue it’s not as clear cut as physical property, and that we are probably too far on the digital copyright side, rather than the data is free side.
Funny, I kinda disagree for the same reason you state.
A physical object that you "own" was created from something literally no one created. The person you bought that from had no more right to that natural resource than anyone else (except that people with guns say they do). By "owning" that natural resource they had no process in creating they are keeping it from other people that could have made other things out of it.
However, ideas and digital things are not created from a limited, natural resource. Me keeping it from you is not keeping you from making your own idea or abstract thing from the same "stuff".
Agree with the first part somewhat if there's a legal issue with collecting personal data. But for the second part, we're operating under the assumption that "it seems wrong to limit people from certain bit arrangements without paying." This necessarily implies that your personal data doesn't actually have any worth. As such, the collection of it doesn't need to be paid for.
I think there has to be some distinctions for what qualifies as data with monetary worth. I don't know where exactly that line should be drawn, but I think (as you've made clear with the personal data example) that at some point data goes from an arbitrary arrangement of bits to something of value.
I don't understand how things can apparently have no restrictions just because it comes down to "digital bits".
Life and the physical objects within it are "just ~~bits~~ molecules", that we re-arrange in specific ways.
People spend time making things that we like and enjoy. Observing that as "certain bit arrangements" completely downplays the work and ideas that the author(s) put into it. Why does transferring that electronically instead of acoustically/visually/physically mean we throw ownership out the window?
No one is forcing people to pay for musicians' or film makers' "specially arranged bits". People just feel entitled to having things for free, completely ignoring the time, effort, production costs etc that went into producing said things because the end products now are -digital-.
You are just deliberately misunderstanding. You can argue for IP if you please but please don't pretend that IP and property share anything but an analogy. Just because information can be used to describe anything doesn't imply that physical things and ownership tags on patterns of bits that decode to tagged patterns are even remotely the same they are actually in opposition.
Physical things are scarce thus we are face with the inherent choice of deciding whom has the privilege of eating a sandwich or living in a particular house. The method of distributing goods is often capricious, unfair, subject to every existing bias but at least it represents a choice we must make. We can't both eat the whole sandwich.
A pattern of bits isn't a physical thing in the same class at all it is a restriction on which bits 2 parties unrelated in every fashion to the creator may transmit between each other. It's not a sandwich it is a recipe. It is granting a singular owner the privilege over say the concept of ham and cheese on white bread and demanding that people not make each other sandwiches that are identical in construction to the "owner" of that recipe under the theory that this will encourage people to develop more new and exciting sandwich types.
We aren't throwing ownership out the window. In fact traditional ownership never came in the window in the first place its a mile up in orbit. What you are arguing for is an entirely different class of thing in need of its own thought process and justification. If you are going to justify it then it must necessarily be on its own terms with its own implications not by leaning overmuch on traditional property.
Pretending its the same leads to many logically nonsensical things like Sony Bonos widow suggesting that copyright ought to be forever like owning a house so that the numerous and useless great great grandchildren of the creative who have nothing to offer us can tax all of creation to pay for the drugs they will probably end their pointless lives with. All of art is derivative thus endless copyright would cede all of the creative universe to the heirs of the current creative class who weren't burdened by paying tax to their predecessors. Alternatively logically nonsense like eventually all common reasonable arrangements of notes belonging to somebody.
The truth is copyright was invented as a tax on society to gift to the rich and useless and only then adapted as a method to ensure publishers paid writers in an era when printing was expensive. Even now most of the money sticks to business people not creators. We would be well rid of it.
"It is granting a singular owner the privilege over say the concept of ham and cheese on white bread and demanding that people not make each other sandwiches that are identical in construction to the "owner" of that recipe"
Nothing is being constructed by the end user. A music album is a finished product, encoded into bits from an original creation by the author. This is a side-effect of how computers innately function, and doesn't change the fact that authors are -not- selling recipes to build products, they are selling finished products. There is no difference ideologically between selling an LP or a CD or a zipped download; the encoding and distribution mechanisms are different, but the customer still purchased the same thing: a complete product that can be played by equipment that understands how to decode and play it.
If someone singularly came up with a song, then of course they are the singular owner. Making art and music is a complex process, and specifically with music production one ends up with things that have never been constructed in that particular musical and instrumental arrangement, that key, with those musical ideas, those rhythms and note placements, etc. To say that ownership is just impossible ignores essentially -all- of the work that goes into making things like music. It's not like someone just pushes a button and calls it a day...
"Pretending its the same leads to many logically nonsensical things"
No, companies will always make absolutely ridiculous claims for copyright. Whether it's digital or not. This is separate to the idea of ownership of something whether digital or not.
"All of art is derivative thus endless copyright would cede all of the creative universe"
No one is arguing that people can claim copyright ownership on any and all works that may have been inspired from it. This is a strawman argument and also has nothing to do with digital vs physical copyright. It also completely ignores that songs, etc, are much more than mere constructions of notes.
The current implementations of copyright protection are pretty bad.. But that doesn't mean the idea in general is bad. Artists, just like anyone else, need to get paid for their work. You and I do not automatically deserve things just because they are distributed electronically now. Artists still deserve to have ownership of the things they create, even if they distribute them electronically.
No one is forcing anyone to go out and buy music or other art, it is an elective choice because one specifically desires that exact sound, which can be distributed as bits now. However, people aren't going out and "buying bits", they are buying specific products. The fact that things can be represented as bits is entirely irrelevant to both parties aside from not needing to lug around physical items.
You are picking nits. To make each and every sandwich the chef individually acquires the ingredients consuming his resources and time to create each individual creation. Literal millennia of custom says that he has the unique privilege of deciding on the disposition of each creation and the same custom governs his agreement to purchase meat from the butcher and the butchers agreement to purchase animals from the farmer.
He is very clearly selling the finished product of his work and time. The same is true when a musician sells one a cd he is selling the literal finished product of his work when he sells it fixed in a physical form. All the old rules of commerce apply to that good. The same is even true of an mp3. He is selling you the work of his computer to transfer to your computer the bits required to reproduce his sound.
The problem is that ultimately this very traditional payment of goods and services which works so well with sandwiches starts to break down with cds and mp3s because one doesn't need to steal anything at all cut the creator out of the loop. If one likes one can simply make your own sandwich or give a copy of a song to a friend. As soon as you aren't doing business with the author he has no inherent privilege over your interaction. In order to forbid cutting him out of the loop you must grant him new privileges over others property that resemble traditional property not at all.
You can grant him the right to be the only one allowed to put meat between bread, patents, or you can grant him the right to be the only one to produce with their own materials sandwiches identical or nearly enough to his own recipes copyright. These are always restrictions on what other people can do with their own property because computers are already property with all the rights attached as sandwiches.
The framers in fact discussed the purpose of copyright not to secure the owners natural rights alike property but in hopes that it would on net benefit society.
"The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
The fact that it is inherently limited should give you the first clue that its not alike traditional property. If it was alike to a thing owned by you why would you by necessity be dispossessed of it. Originally in 14-28 years.
Jefferson spoke well and early against the very idea.
"Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
It is equally clear that IP isn't alike natural property and that we must necessarily examine the bargain to ensure that it is best from societies perspective. Since copyright is a gift not a natural right we needn't feel bad if for example we restore say its original term. It wouldn't be a taking but rather a restoration of balance in privileges granted.
They can be bought and sold. A company is a government-granted monopoly on the resources of that company, including its contracts with employees and contracts for services. You can buy and sell that company. Originally, all corporations were government-granted charters, and a lot of that notion is retained.
Government manages your monopoly over your real estate -- if somebody tries to use it you're not left to your own devices to defend it.
In a sense all property is a government-granted monopoly, including intangible rights. Intellectual property is a special case and you can argue that it shouldn't be included, but to dismiss government grants in the role of property seems to miss a lot about how the law works.
They aren't analogous to physical property. They can trivially be disposed of without any effect on the functioning of physical property. At best they require their own justification.
Its a government granted resolution to something that absolutely must be resolved one way or the other. We can't both eat the sandwich. IP is a different class of imposition.
It'd be nice if we could have a happy medium it's like we can only live in extremes. On one end, we have the US, the land of patent trolls and divisions of companies suing other divisions of companies for millions and wasting years of time. On the other end, we have China where people just blatantly steal everything. Released a new successful product on Amazon? Get ready to be undercut by 50% or more by some no-name brand out of nowhere!
"ip" = "intellectual property". It's literally in the name.
Property isn't defined by quantity or finiteness. It's anything, real or otherwise, for which ownership consists of a set of rights to control the exploitation (aka "use") of the thing.
The name is in short shit. If I decide to call cars electric horses they still wont require breeding, pastures, or feed and will will need mechanics, gas, and pavement under the wheels.
Because it seems a lot like the "you pirated my album/film instead of buying it" - whereas the reality of it is probably more like a high percentage just wouldn't have bothered - a passing interest/opportunity that piracy facilitated.